LIST OF SCARIEST HALLOWEEN FILMS TO WATCH

SHORT TAKE:

A list, gleaned with the help of some of my friends and family, of filmed entertainments to help heap on the horror at Halloween.

WHO SHOULD WATCH:

Depends on the entertainment and the kid in question, but pretty much everything on this list is for a minimum of mid-teens and up, except for the two I mention at the bottom for the younger set, but EVEN THEN, as always, parents, use discretion – see them first AND WITH your child.

LONG TAKE:

This year I decided to do an informal survey – VERY informal – of my husband, children and a few friends, for what they thought were the scariest movies at the time they saw them. Didn’t matter whether they still thought them scary now or not – just that they remembered the film as being the scariest thing they had ever seen at the time. I asked each to pick two.

Below find the runners up in alphabetical order followed by my personal recommendations at the end.

So – as Richard Dawson used to say during Family Feud: Survey SAYS!!

Alien – this one not only happens to be at the top of the alphabetical list but was chosen by the most people. This 1979 hit is the FIRST in what has since become a major franchise – the spaceship Nostromo, which turned into a haunted house/people trapped in a slasher movie – the original with chest-burst John Hurt and the first time we ever saw the multi-serried teeth, accordian-jawed , acid blood, armored killer. I was so scared during the scene when Harry Dean Stanton gets a “close encounter” with the full grown version that I remember thinking – “This is no longer fun. I am so scared it is painful.” I couldn’t face even the thought of it until Aliens came out 7 years later.

Annabelle – a demon doll, in search of  souls to possess, stalks an innocent unsuspecting family. There are few things more frightening than dolls, created to provide gentle entertainment and comfort to children, portrayed as vessels of demonic evil.

The Blair Witch Project – gotta tell you, this “founder” of the “found footage” movies scared the living daylights out of me. I remember telling my husband as we watched it at home on a TV screen: “Honey, the lights are on, and you’re in the room, and I KNOW this is only a movie but this thing is scaring me spitless!” (Probably the fact I’m afraid of camping at night to begin with contributed mightily to my reaction.) I had to actually look up the actors and assure myself they were cast in movies after this one before I was convinced it was just a hoax.

The Blob – (the original, not the extremely bad 1988 remake) while very dated, is a 1958 classic which still holds up in the gut-wrenching suspense category, in no small part due to the acting talents of Steve McQueen in one of his very first films, and a very simple concept simply, and VERY effectively, expressed. A small — well, blob — lands on Earth via meteorite in a small town. When examined by an unwary but curious passer-by he is slowly and painfully absorbed, but not before the poor Ground Zero victim gets to a doctor who is more quickly overpowered by the now far larger mass. Mindless, voracious, completely silent, and able to creep through screen doors, window cracks, up trees, into gutters, it takes very little special effects to get you picking up your feet and jumping at the slightest touch from something that brushes against you in the dark.

Cloverfield – saw this one in the middle of the night, in a hotel room, after a long drive. Where most monster- disaster movies are shown from the view of the heroes who will eventually overcome the beasts, Cloverfield is seen from the point of view of poor schmucks who, like Rosencrantz and Gildenstern in Hamlet, do not know what is going on or why, but end up suffering the consequences of the catastrophe going on around them. Also the first “found footage” movie since The Blair Witch Project and the first “found footage” sci fi.

The Conjuring – another evil spirit terrorizing a family, this time the manifestation is of a woman named Bathsheba, who committed suicide as part of a Satanic cult ritual. Loosely connected to the above mentioned movie Annabelle, as the demonologists sought for help are the same who fought the demon doll.

The Grudge – a curse in the form of an entity, born of someone who dies in the grip of rage or extreme sorrow, which , by its nature, is repeated in a terrible endless cycle of inescapable grisly deaths.

Hostage – deals with the scariest monster of all – a human. The only one on the list which has no supernatural terrors or science fiction horrors and is therefore the most deeply disturbing, for the simple reason that people like the psychotic kidnapper Mars actually exist.

Jurassic World – dinosaurs escape their confines at a theme park. Imagine, (to loosely paraphrase Ian Malcolm, Jeff Goldblum’s character from the first Jurassic movie), if the critters at a Disney zoo got out to snack on the tourists.

KrampusDrag me to Hell meets Gremlins set during Christmas.

Morgus’ assistant Eric’s signature laugh: Here’s a blast from the past. A local New Orleans TV show featuring a campy mad scientist host for late night horror and B science fiction movies aired on and off from 1959 through 2006 under various monikers, each title having the name “Morgus” somewhere in it. Each half hour Morgus episode was split into roughly 5 minute bits shown with the commercial breaks. During these episodes Morgus tries some crazy experiment – shrinking people, making them invisible, home made nuclear bombs, mind control – which predictably went horribly wrong. By the end of the show Morgus and his mute assistant Chopsley were always unavailable – arrested, running away, blown up, turned to dust, whatever. This left his other assistant Eric – a disembodied skull attached electrically to the top of a TV screen – to bid the audience farewell after the credits rolled on the feature film. The eyeless skull would sign off in closeup every week in an echoy cadaverous voice: “Tune in next week when Morgus the Magnificent takes us into the realm of science. Good night. Pleasant dreams,” then would let go with an ominous evil cackle —- which I never heard because I would cover my ears and run out of the room. Something about that laugh and it wishing me “Pleasant dreams” got to me every time. I mean, I was all of maybe 5 or 6 when I first heard it. I can handle it NOW — really, honest, it’s on Youtube and I don’t run out the room any more – altogether. Maybe just keep my distance a bit, turn down the sound…..For anyone interested in this ultraspoof you can find entire episodes on Youtube HERE.

The Stand – Stephen King’s opus as a mini-series about the end of the world — twice – once by a genetically engineered virus with a 999/1000 kill ratio which leaves the world littered with mountainous piles of dead and decaying bodies, then again when the Devil’s own son sets up a totalitarian regime in Las Vegas to come after the survivors’ souls. While I admit the book was far better, the video was not a bad rendition. When tackling a 1,472  page novel (in its uncut form) and given the limitations of the material allowed on TV in 1994, even 361 minutes was not nearly enough time to do the best work of Stephen King justice. Nonetheless, the very concept will give you significant nightmares. It does not hurt that Gary Sinise and Ed Harris lend their talents to this abridged effort.

The Ring – grisly frightening movie about a cursed DVD which sends a ghoul to crawl right out of the screen to kill you. Talk about too much TV being BAD for you!!

Signs – Joaquin Phoenix and Mel Gibson as brothers trying to defend their children/nephew/niece in a science fiction horror movie about a family trapped on a farm house in the middle of a corn field in a War of the Worlds-type scenario . If you can ignore some of the preposterous plot points, it’s a fun way to get the pants scared off of you. Blends humor and suspense in equal measures and one of Shyamalan’s better works.

MY TOP RECOMMENDATIONS

TO TERRIFY OLDER TEENS AND UP:

Aliens – the sequel to Alien, only this time it’s space marines facing down an entire swarm of Alien critters made from a harvest of unwary human colonists. This well written script expands on the “haunted house” theme in the first venture to provide a thoughtful commentary on two extreme faces of motherhood as Ripley and the Queen Mother of all Aliens face off to defend their own in a show down which will grab you with visceral ferocity.

A Quiet Place – this movie will disturb your dreams forever. The most thoughtful, well written and well acted terrifying movie I have ever seen. Humanity is stalked by critters, from where we know not, faster than a cheetah, which will rip you to literal shreds if they hear you make the slightest sound. We follow a family, one of the lone surviving groups, who have learned the art of silence through their use of sign language with their deaf daughter. The brilliance is not just in the execution (if you’ll excuse the grisly pun) but in the layers of meaning in the story which can be seen as a strictly horror flick, as an analogy for the terrors of raising children in a dangerous world (SEE MY REVIEW HERE) or even, as Bishop Barron noted in his review HERE, a modern myth representing the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation.

FOR THE OLDER CROWD WHO LIKE TO ALTERNATE LAUGHS WITH THEIR SCREAMS:

Shaun of the Dead – Simon Pegg’s parody-homage to zombie movies. Funny for adults, but – word of advice – don’t show it to your kids thinking they will find it as funny as you will. (Kind of why it made the list for some of our now grown surveyors – but that’s OK – that’s what therapy funds are for – oops.)

Zombieland – Parts 1 and 2 which (once Part 2 leaves the theater and gets on DVD) could be shown back to back as one movie. (SEE MY REVIEW HERE) A grotesquely funny flick, which turns the genre on its ear with an ersatz family of survivors in a post-zombie apocalypse, who approach killing the brain hungry undead with the joie de vivre of extreme sports enthusiasts.

FOR KIDS OF ALL AGES:

The Wizard of Oz – the flying monkeys will get you every time. Classic story with a timeless message of a girl who gets what she wants, to run away from her troubles, only to find out that “There’s no place like home.”

Disney’s delightful animated Legend of Sleepy Hollow – (not to be confused with the very weird feature length live action with Johnny Depp) based upon the Washington Irving short story of a gangly school teacher who moves to a new town which hosts a frightening legend in the form of a headless horseman.

So there we have it – from winged monkeys and dinosaurs to demons and a garden variety psychopath, these are movies which scare me and mine and some of our friends, in some cases have done for decades.

So – Tune in again when I will take you to the realm of movie mavin-ness. Good night…Pleasant dreams. Muhohahahahahahaha.

BISHOP BARRON: A QUIET PLACE – MODERN BOOK OF REVELATION

While my review of A Quiet Place focused on the monsters as allegory for all of the evils from which we, as parents, try desperately to protect our children, Bishop Barron, in breathtaking insightfulness recognizes the allegory of Revelation used by the Polish/Irish Catholic raised Krasinski to structure the story.

PLEASE READ BISHOP BARRON'S FAR SUPERIOR REVIEW:

(PLEASE BE ADVISED THAT THERE ARE A LOT OF MAJOR SPOILERS IN BISHOP BARRON'S REVIEW)

BISHOP BARRON'S REVIEW OF A QUIET PLACE

A QUIET PLACE – BLESS YOU FOR THE REMINDER JOHN KRASINSKI

SHORT TAKE:

Brilliant and terrifying sci fi analogy to the terrors every parent faces in trying to protect their children from this dangerous world.

WHO SHOULD GO SEE IT:

Older teens and up ONLY, and then only ones who can manage Alien without having to use a nightlight for a month.

LONG TAKE:

Parent World – where everything can go wrong, go wrong, go wrong… (apologies to Michael Crichton), where a simple accident, a misjudgement or even a well-intentioned but ill advised act of kindness can rain unintended and unanticipated disaster upon your family.

Some movies are quite difficult to watch but they should be seen anyway. Some because they are history and we should be witness to the events even if it can only be done from a vicarious distance, such as Saving Private Ryan or Schindler's List. Some for the sheer artistry of the writer/director like Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. Others, and many of these are based on classic literature, because they teach us lessons – Dracula, Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. And some for the sheer roller coaster thrill of having the pants scared off of us – like Alien.

In a small way John Krasinski's A Quiet Place fits into all of those categories.

A Quiet Place is set. almost theatrically, within the confines of a small farm in an unnamed area, populated by a family of unnamed characters only identified in context by their relations to each other: Mom, Dad, Sister, Older brother, Younger brother. This is deliberate, I understand, in order that the message will apply to any family and every family. The members of this close knit family are survivors of a world wide cataclysm wrought by an invasion of creatures heretofore unknown on this planet. Where they came from – lab experiment gone awry like in Stranger Things, alien invasion, some critter from beneath the earth – is never explained. That too is on purpose, I think. These creatures are lightning fast, have skin of armour, razorsharp stilleto claws and multilayered teeth which would make your average Alien envious. As abandoned blowing newspapers declare they are impervious to bullets or bombs. But they are blind. They have astonishingly acute hearing and will only hunt you if they hear you. And the smallest noise – a cracked twig, a dropped glass, a clink of a belt buckle WILL be lethal, especially if you are out in the woods. So the family moves in total silence – walking on sand paths laid meticulously out, food served on lettuce and eaten with the hands, games of Moonpoly played lying on a floor with puff balls. No animals, little metal, no running machinery. The family communicates with sign language and code lighting strung around the farm.

John Krasinki and Emily Blunt, married to each other and parents to two daughters, usually known for their comedies – respectively entries likeThe Office and The Devil Wears Prada – have created a masterpiece of horror fiction which ranks up there with the classics. Bridging the gap between their comedy days and this have been some significant serious movies, almost as though in preparation for their roles in A Quiet Place, which have allowed them to portray bad-ass characters, such as, respectively 13 Hours and Live, Die, Repeat.  A Quiet Place tells not just a frightening story to scare the kiddies, it tells a story intended to reflect the terror that every parent feels about trying to protect their children from the vastness of horrors, evil, and dangers of this fallen world in which we live. I know this is deliberate because Krasinski has stated as such in interviews – it is a "love letter" to his and Blunt's two (and future) children – to show what lengths good and heroic parents must go to to protect their children.

Other authors have attempted similar stories. Stephen King, for example, wrote Pet Semetery (sic) as a cathartic exercise to help him deal with the possibility of losing a child. But in that story, the parents act selfishly in order to assuage their own guilt and grief, wrecking supernatural havoc in the process. They do not ever seem to think about what would be best for their children, or even each other. But in A Quiet Place, everything these parents do, everything they must suffer together, every choice they make, every precauition they take, every bit of research they do, every exercise they perform is geared to seeking ways to help their children survive in this cruel and lethal world – just as every good parent does even when not faced with superhuman horrors.

Mom and Dad homeschool their children. There is one almost whimsical scene in which Blunt's character as Mom is teaching her oldest son to divide. All communication is done through sign language. Dad wants the boy, rightly frightened to go outside the confines of his familiar home, to go out fishing with him so he can learn to feed himself and his siblings, as the Mom explains when she is aged and pitiful, miming being old and toothless. The underlying bittersweet message is that, as things stand, it is unlikely any of them will live to die of old age. It's a gentle scene but the point is made. Mom and Dad tell their Older Son in as light a way as possible: If and when we must die for you the legacy we leave is to have taught you how to provide and protect yourselves as best we can.

In an act of incredible bravery the Mom gets pregnant and they decide, as a matter of course without question, to bear the child. All provisions and plans are made to perform this extremely dangerous activity – child birth and caring for a newborn – in silence. If you have ever given birth, just imagine trying to do it without making a sound and you will have an appreciation of to what heroic lengths these parents will go to bring forth and protect their children's lives.

The acting is terrific. Almost ALL of the conveyance of emotion and communication are done with body language and expression. While they do have sign language subtitles you really don't need them to get the drift of what they are saying. The fourteen year old daughter (Millicent Simmonds) really is deaf and her performance is stunning. Noah Jupe plays the older brother and Cade Woodward plays the youngest child. All the kids have a natural affinity and chemistry with Blunt and Krasinski – so much so that I had to check to see if any of them really are their kids – they aren't.

This is a brilliant parable embodying in the form of a sci fi the dangers parents MUST try to protect their children from. I could imagine this being the fevered nightmare of a worried new parent – where, no matter how careful you are or what preparations you make, the slightest mistep can bring down calamity and catastrophy. A neighbor who makes an unwise decision, poisons in the medicine cabinet of a friend's house, predatory humans who masquerade as care givers, car accidents, wild animals, burst appendix, an unforeseen accident, a fall down a stairs. Then there is the concern of, even if you do everything right and protect them from all of the external terrors, what can you do to teach them the right things, educate them, guide them to being able to care for themselves spiritually and physically after you are gone. And blessedly there is at least SOME acknowledgment of God. The family joins hands in a palpably sincere and faith filled plea of thanksgiving and bequest for safety – without a word being spoken or even mouthed. 

The aliens represent everything and anything that can endanger your child and how quickly and unexpectedly tragedy can swoop down undeservedly upon them, until the only thing you can do is stand between them and catastrophe to the best of your ability, no matter how hopeless it sometimes seems. And that the only guarantee you can give them is your unconditional love.

This is a brilliantly artful movie Krasinski has written and directed  – gorgeous outdoor scenes which still remind you of the sword of Damocles over their heads by the silence with which they move in it, minimalizing the communication down to only that which is most essential and it works incredibly well to draw you into their family. Krasinski's thoughtful effectiveness in his use of sound and silence is occasionally breathtaking – taking advantage of the deaf daughter's vantage point where she hears nothing, playing counterpoint to the sounds and potential sound around her as she tries to navigate in a tremendously sound lethal world. As though she is blind in a darkened room but does not see the flashes of lights around her which can make her a target for the predators nearby.

Despite some plot holes in the premise, within the Universe Kransinski has created the story is airtight and skillfully crafted to maximum effect. The slightest sound is incredibly significant, a heartbeat has the impact of a drumroll in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, and a single human scream has vastly more effect than even a Godzilla's roar in a "normal" movie. These noises, so casually easy to ignore, take on monumental importance, just as the intimacy of parent to child is magnified here in the visible incarnation of the intense constant danger which surrounds us in the real world. Careless driving drunks, rabid wild animals, cancer, lightning strikes on a sunny day, all coalesce into the nightmare vision of this one hideous monster, who can whisk your child away from you, before you can adequately react to protect them, and even as you look on in horror. It is as suspenseful as Hitchcock, as roller coaster of scares as you might ever want in a movie, and has all the earmarks of a classic – an endorsement of understanding to parents who are already watchful and alert, a slap of cold water reality of the terrible consequences which are possible to parents who may not be so attentive.

If this review alone has put you on edge and if the movie makes you just that much more concerned and wary for your children's safety, and a single child is rescued by a parent prodded even subliminally into a more wary watchfulness, then I think Krasinski has done the job he set out to do and is owed a grateful thank you. A small price to pay for the demonstration of watchful anxiety for his children to us, which mayhap makes us more watchful over our own. Thanks John.