15 Favorite Horror Movies: The Orphanage (2007)

The Spanish-language El Orfanato was directed by JA Bayona, but it was executive producer Guillermo del Toro's name who sold it to viewers in the United States. It was also helpful that it came out almost exactly a year after the also Spanish-language Pan's Labyrinth. I remember hoping at the time that del Toro would make it an annual habit to curate and present additional Spanish horror films.

I actually like The Orphanage a bit better even than Pan's Labyrinth. The creepy building, the kid in the scarecrow mask, the gripping mystery, and the generally spooky, gothic atmosphere are all my brand of poison. And then there's the powerful conclusion that puts everything together in a gut-wrenching, but satisfying way.

15 Favorite Horror Movies: The Others (2001)

No matter how many times I watch The Others, the revelation of the mystery still punches me hard in the heart. That's because the power of The Others isn't just in it's surprising answers, but the human emotions involved and the way the answers affect the characters. 

A huge part of why it works so well is the excellent performances, especially by Nicole Kidman, Fionnula Flanagan, and the two kids: Alakina Mann and James Bentley. Christopher Eccleston also has a small, important role, but he's not quite as memorable as the main characters.

15 Favorite Horror Movies: Tremors (1990)

I remember watching this low-budget cheesefest shortly after it came out and being blown away by how fun and exciting it is. I never kept up with the sequels, not wanting to taint that original experience. 

I shared it with my son last year and am I ever glad it holds up. The effects have aged, but the cast is still great and the characters are hilarious. Especially the ones played by Kevin Bacon, Fred Ward, Michael Gross, and Reba McEntire.

I'm curious if anyone reading this is a fan of the sequels. Are they worth watching?

Mystery Movie Night | Halloween (1978), Brazil (1985), and Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987)

Erik, Evan, Dave, and I start the holiday season with movies about babysitters, bureaucracy, and Bacon-racing. And some other secret connection that we're going to try to guess.

00:02:09 - Review of Halloween (1978)
00:16:29 - Review of Brazil (1985)
00:29:26 - Review of Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987)
00:52:33 - Guessing the Connection

Download or listen to the episode here.

15 Favorite Horror Movies: The Company of Wolves (1984)

This must have been on the shelves in the video store I worked in as a teenager, because I remember seeing it dozens of times in the '80s. I was so in love with the gothic aesthetic and the fairy tale and the werewolves and just the sheer weirdness of the plot. And maybe a little bit with Sarah Patterson, the actor who plays Red Riding Hood.

It was directed by avant-garde filmmaker Neil Jordan (his second film) and it feels deeply personal. Jordan worked with novelist Angela Carter to adapt her short story by the same name. The structure is cool and strange with Patterson playing a modern girl named Rosaleen who's sleeping and dreaming about her and her family in medieval times. In the dream, her older sister (whom she doesn't get along with in the real world) is killed by wolves, sending the forest village into a panic. David Warner plays her dad, Swedish actor Tusse Silberg plays her mother, and Angela Lansbury is her grandmother who of course lives deep in the woods by herself.

Inspired by the local interest in wolves, Grandmother tells Rosaleen lots of stories about wolves (which always turn out to be werewolves) and these are enacted on screen as well. So there are all of these stories within a dream, turning The Company of Wolves into sort of an anthology film. There's a werewolf transformation in every one and they're all different from each other and original. I don't think I've seen anything like them before or since.

The locations and sets in the film are wonderfully atmospheric and captivating, both the modern day manor and the medieval forest village. And Jordan does a great job depicting the wolves as both frighteningly deadly and alluringly social creatures, usually at the same time. Some films seem like they were made specifically with you in mind. This is one of mine.

15 Favorite Horror Movies: The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977)

This is easily my favorite version of this story, and that includes both the classic 1932 Island of Lost Souls with Bela Lugosi as well as HG Wells' original novel. I saw the '77 version as a kid and there are images and feelings that have stuck with me ever since. The makeup work on the animal men is top notch and the film handles the themes sincerely and provocatively.

Burt Lancaster is a relatable, but unapologetic Moreau. Nigel Davenport strikes a great balance between being resigned to and haunted by the choices he's made. Barbara Carrera is shockingly beautiful as well as fragile (a long way from the role I know her best for in Never Say Never Again). And Michael York is the perfect saboteur of the whole operation: weak in power, but strong in morality.

I wasn't sure I liked the "Oh Crap Did I Just See What I Think I Saw" ending, but I can't think of a better, more effective way of closing the story. I'm gonna roll with it and call it perfect.

15 Favorite Horror Movies: The Innocents (1961)

I wrote in detail about The Innocents a few months ago, so this is a modified version of that earlier review. 

Henry James' The Turn of the Screw has been adapted a lot, but this is the definitive, classic, film version of it. I've watched it three times this year, because like the novel it's based on, it haunts me. I can't stop thinking about it, wondering what and how much it's trying to say and what I need to do with what it doesn't say. 

It's about a governess who moves to a remote mansion in the English countryside to take care of a couple of children, but she starts seeing what she believes are the ghosts of former workers at the estate. Are the ghosts real? Is the governess insane? Even though I came to some answers to those questions where the novel is concerned, those same answers don't necessarily have to apply to director Jack Clayton's adaptation of it.

Clayton's adaptation, based on a script that was touched by a few people, including Truman Capote and Clayton himself, keeps the basic premise and setting of the novel, but also makes some notable changes. It raises the age of the main character (Deborah Kerr), which is significant, and it muddies her mental state by removing scenes from the book and having the governess react differently to some things.

A big example is how it casts ambiguity on the existence of the ghosts by almost always showing the governess' reaction to the ghosts before seeing the ghosts themselves. When we see them, are we only seeing them through her eyes? The film also adds a scene where the governess sees a photo of a deceased groundskeeper before she sees his ghost. How much has her vision of his spirit been influenced by the photograph? She never sees a photo of the former governess, but when she sees that ghost it's always at a distance and with unclear features.

There are a couple of other big changes, but they're spoilery, so I won't go into detail. What's clear though is that Clayton wanted to leave viewers options in interpreting the film. Even the title can be taken a couple of different ways. Does it apply to the entire household (including the governess) or just the kids? If it's just the children, does the title claim that they're truly innocent as the mansion's housekeeper Mrs Grose insists? If that's true, it makes the governess' paranoid treatment of them even more tragic. Or is the title ironic and the children have already been somehow corrupted by the deceased groundskeeper and former governess?

However we interpret it, as pure film-making, The Innocents is superb and deserves its status as a classic. When Truman Capote took a run at the script, he added a lot of symbolism about death and decay: wilting roses everywhere and bugs crawling out of statues' mouths. And Clayton and cinematographer Freddie Francis create a creepy, haunting atmosphere that makes The Innocents as much an icon of gothic cinema as James' story is of gothic literature.

15 Favorite Horror Movies: Psycho (1960)

Psycho is a nearly perfect film. The way it builds tension and mystery and keeps first time viewers guessing not only about the plot, but even about what genre the film is and who the main characters are. It's so bold. 

But it's great for repeat viewing, too. That iconic, creepy house and the almost as creepy motel at its foot. Anthony Perkins' sympathetic (at least at first) portrayal of Norman Bates. The cat and mouse of Lila and Sam's trying to learn what happened to Marion and Norman trying to keep his secrets. And of course the shocking murders and the discovery in the cellar. 

The only thing that drags about it is the psychologist's long info-dump at the end, but by then we're pretty much done anyway and I'm already waiting for that last shot of Norman with his voiceover.

15 Favorite Horror Movies: Gojira (1954)

Some friends of ours knew that my son David is a huge Godzilla fan, but don't know anything about the King of Monsters themselves, so they invited us over for lunch and an introduction. We showed them the original, 1954 Japanese version and in hindsight, I don't know if Gojira is the best way for everyone to meet the world's most famous kaiju. There are some substantial barriers to entry, depending on how you feel about black-and-white film and subtitles. But we couldn't bring ourselves to show them the English version with Raymond Burr.

I don't know if it's accurate to say that our friends "enjoyed" it. The word "interesting" was used and I never take that as high praise. But we spent some time at the end talking about the movie in its historical and cultural context, which is what I love about the film. 

There's some goofy stuff, but there's also truly horrific and powerful imagery. I think the best horror movies are ones that turn some real, cultural fear into a metaphorical monster. That's certainly the case with Gojira, which makes it an impressive insight to Japan's feelings around the bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki less than ten years before. And around atomic energy in general. It's a powerful document and I'm always touched by the film's discussion of science and how it's applied.

15 Favorite Horror Movies: Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)

I was going to try to limit myself to one Universal Monster movie for this list, but when I was looking at '40s horror movies, Universal dominated my favorites the same way they did with the '30s. Just for a different reason.

Universal monster movies in the 1930s were still trying to be genuinely scary and that carried over a bit into the '40s. But by the middle of the decade, they were getting pretty goofy. That's not necessarily a bad thing though. I like both the serious and the silly versions of these characters.

The epitome of the silly side of Universal horror is Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. It's such a funny film, but not at the monsters' expense. It keeps me hooked by treating Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, and the Wolf Man as actual, scary beings and not objects of parody. It even continues Larry Talbot's tragic quest to end his curse in a way that jives with everything that's come before. The humor is all in Abbott and Costello's (especially Costello's) reactions to them, as well as just some very funny jokes ("Hey, you're gonna have to get your dog away from the phone. I can't hear a word you're saying.").

And of course, though the three most popular Universal monsters had already appeared together in House of Frankenstein and House of Dracula, this was the only time that Bela Lugosi got to join in the team-up, finally reprising the role that made him famous. The only way it could have been better would have been if Boris Karloff had played Frankenstein's Monster, but I also like Glenn Strange (who'd been in the two House of movies) quite a bit. No complaints there.

AfterLUNCH | The Expendables of Horror (Undead Edition)

Last October, the Fourth Chair Army Invasion created an Expendables of Horror movie featuring only living actors. This year on AfterLUNCH, Joanna from Bloody Popcorn, Evan Hanson, Rob Graham, and I resurrect our favorite dead actors to create our all-star cast. We pick the actors, discuss the types of roles they'd play, and Evan writes a plot. Listen and imagine The Evil Hunters... IF YOU DARE!

Download or listen to the episode here.