COLUMN: Movies to watch this Halloween
Ever since I was banned from trick-or-treating, I don’t leave the house on Halloween. I don’t do USU’s annual Howl, because (a) I’m not a bubbly, hormone-charged freshman, and (b) I can’t dance worth jack. Haunted houses cause me to have sweaty pits and bouts with a spastic bladder, and corn mazes are no fun, either. Who wants to tramp around in somebody’s field for three hours knowing that Malachi from Children of the Corn is somewhere nearby? Not me. It ranks up there with de-worming cattle. With that said, you’ll know where I’ll be on Halloween. Right in front of the boob tube, popcorn in hand, bag of chocolate in the other, and a scary flick in the DVD player. Listed below are the best and worst you can rent on Halloween.
THE BEST
The Silence of the Lambs Thomas Harris’ creepy novel gave way to this 1992 thriller starring Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins. It won a host of Academy Awards in 1992, including best picture, director, actor, actress and screenplay. Not only is this movie incredibly frightening, but it is also intelligent. Besides, who can ever forget Hopkins, speaking in that creepy drawl, “A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.”
Psycho This 1960 Alfred Hitchcock film is still, in our day of technology and slasher flicks, an incredibly terrifying movie. The movie cost only $800,000 to make, but grossed nearly $40 million. Hitchcock bought the rights to Robert Bloch’s novel for $9,000 and tried to keep the ending a secret by buying as many copies of the book as he could grab. Gus Van Sant (Good Will Hunting) remade the movie in 1998 with Vince Vaughn (Swingers) and Anne Heche (Six Days Seven Nights). The original is better than the redo.
The Sixth Sense M. Night Shyamalan proved his directing and storytelling brilliance with this original 1999 suspenseful story about a young boy who can see dead people. Shyamalan leads the audience with sporadic, foreboding scenes and carefully placed clues. The film displays tremendous performances by Haley Joel Osment (Cole Sear) and Bruce Willis (Dr. Malcolm Crowe). I still can’t watch this by myself.
Poltergeist What can I say about this 1982 horror classic? Everybody knows the tagline, “They’re here.” Produced and written by Steven Spielberg, and directed by Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), this film will cause you to look under the bed for menacing toy clowns, and you’ll never leave your television on static ever again. Trust me. Like The Sixth Sense, this flick still makes me hide in a corner, suck my thumb and rock back and forth in the fetal position.
Alien Ridley Scott (Gladiator) directed this 1979 science-fiction/horror classic. While it may not be as adrenaline-charged as James Cameron’s second installment, it has all the elements to make you squirm. Nothing is worse than slow, sinister music coupled with an unsuspecting human in a dark corridor, who doesn’t know the menacing alien is hiding in the shadows. Plus, we get to see Sigourney Weaver in her underwear. Cool.
Honorable Mention: The Fog, The Shining, Halloween, The Amityville Horror and Jaws.
THE WORST
Scream This was the MTV generation’s stab (no pun intended) at the slasher movie. While the film has its select nibbles of eeriness and fright, it mostly is annoying and silly. It also has that moron David Arquette as one of the lead characters, and, if you have seen those equally dim-witted AT&T commercials with Arquette, you’ll know that it’s hard to watch him speak without feeling the urge to dry heave.
A Nightmare on Elm Street The man in the green and red-striped sweater is no longer scary. He once was, for about 15 minutes, but after the multitude of sequels, his reputation is about as prominent as that of Chucky, the star of Child’s Play. Rent this if you want to laugh on Halloween.
The Blair Witch Project Littered with f-words, this grainy independent horror film from Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez is hard to sit through and really be scared. Sure, like most crappy horror flicks it has moments of chilling ecstasy, but more often than not, the viewer is stuck with a boring drought of dialogue and silence. Nevertheless, if your television diet includes Survivor and Real World, this may be your movie.
Dawn of the Dead George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead is fairly tense. This cheap sequel is nothing but blood and guts. The movie turns especially nauseous when a biker gang raids a shopping mall infested with cannibalistic zombies. One biker gets a screwdriver in the ear and another has his torso ripped apart and his intestines tossed around like spaghetti. If you’ve ever picked up Fangora magazine and thought “Neato,” this movie is calling your name.
Hellraiser Clive Barker pens what some would call literary horror. He directs what some label cinematic dog-doo. Hellraiser, the film that introduces the well-know character Pinhead, has spawned five sequels, all equally lame in substance and fright. Pinhead and the rest of his friends from hell are scary only once, and after their debut they become uncompromisingly dorky and comical.
Dishonorable Mention: Phantasm, Friday the 13th, Creepshow, The Omen and The Haunting.
Andy Morgan is a graduate student studying communications. Comments can be sent to lordofthejazz@hotmail.com.