Scary Movie Month, Years Five and Six

For newcomers, please read this post for an explanation of Scary Movie Month, which also includes the movies from the first three years. Those interested can find the fourth year's post here.

I'd like to play a little Scary Movie Month catchup today, sharing the last two years of scary movies to get you revved up for this, the spooky seventh annual month of terror.


October 2011:

Godzilla
The original Godzilla turned out to be an unexpected pleasure. I'd never thought of the Godzilla franchise as anything but B movies, but it turns out that the original is as reputable of a franchise kick-off as the best of them. By modern standards it may favor story too much over terror, but it's a good story and a fascinating peek into the post-nuclear Japanese zeitgeist.

The Dead Zone
Christopher Walken stars in this psychological thriller about a school teacher with psychic powers that allow him to foresee the future of the people he touches. It's a solid movie, and the election theme that wraps it up makes it particularly seasonally-appropriate.

Creepshow
From the first few minutes it is clear that this movie is absolutely essential-- four scary Halloween stories told well. What more could you ask for? This is a perfect movie for October.

Fright Night
This is a solid 80's family horror movie. It's fun and charming and interesting. In a way, it's a send-up of classic Halloween season television programming just like Creepshow.

The Return to Oz
This is a remarkably dark Disney fable. It isn't going to give you nightmares quite the way Alice in Wonderland did, but it succeeds in feeling like the cracked, corrupted successor of The Wizard of Oz. The fact that this Dorothy is so much younger makes it more real. I found myself wondering at the fucked-up-ness of the very premise-- that a little girl keeps being transported to this alternate world to solve its problems. This doesn't strike the rich chords that the first movie did, but it's an imaginative, symbolically rich children's coming of age story that will go toe-to-toe with anything this side of Disney's golden age or Miazaki.

The Blair Witch Project
This was not an especially pleasant movie to watch, though that could be said of many excellent horror films. Unfortunately, this is also one of those movies whose influence dwarfed the movie itself. It's a good movie to be sure, but what made it revolutionary is no longer revolutionary and that takes something important away. Yet, it is a good movie and worth watching for the enormous influence it had on American film-- big and small screen both.

The Night of the Hunter
This is one of those movies that doesn't fit into any set of expectations, but which would blow any expectations I could have had. It was made in the 50's and is set during the Great Depression. The story is about a preacher who marries a woman with kids for her money, kills her and hunts the children. The themes of good and evil are black and white, but delivered with delicacy and thought.

Labyrinth
A classic coming-of-age fable, complete with puzzles, faith trials, new friends and being whisked back to real life at the end, this movie is of course enhanced by Jim Henson and David Bowie's presence. Honestly, the only thing I found genuinely exciting was all the goblins in the movie. Too few movies feature goblins.

Dracula
Like most dramatic movies of the era, the original Dracula has the feel of a play-- there is a sense of dramatic staging. The movie is excellent, and I can't find much to say about it that hasn't already been said, including that it suffers slightly when compared against the first two Frankensteins.

October 2012:

Gremlins
Gremlins is a perverse premise for a horror film perversely set amidst the backdrop of a classic down-and-out Christmas tale. They start out so cute! There's some goofy filler sequences with the gremlins trashing a bar, but this is undeniably a classic.

Army of Darkness
It may have been watching this with Sarah, who "gets" camp and B movie appeal, but this final installment was the most fun I had with the Evil Dead trilogy. Bruce Campbell is a pip as always, delivering some profoundly stupid lines with enough earnest enthusiasm to make you double take-- was that actually a cool thing to say? I think I should probably re-watch the first two of the trilogy, as I may appreciate what I didn't the first time in.

The Devil's Backbone
This Guillermo del Toro bears a strong resemblance to his Pan's Labyrinth. It's a ghost story, and an investigation of what a ghost is. Like Labyrinth, it's set during the Spanish Civil War and also strikes the theme of an adolescent-- this time a boy-- first encountering the harsh realities of the adult world. Unlike it, there is none of the fairy tale imagery or tones of familial love. This is a darker, more desolate movie. As with Pan's Labyrinth, it was a movie I more respected than enjoyed.

Hellboy
I chose this partly because Guillermo del Toro directed it, even though it wasn't a perfect fit for Scary Movie Month. The script was pretty terrible-- any "serious" dialogue or monologue was pure nonsense and there's no explanation why they're eventually able to kill the resurrecting hellhound. Ironically, this is the only movie that gave me a nightmare. Karl Ruprecht Kroenen was fantastically creepy in conception (a conception entirely of del Toro's by the way) and the ineffable Jeffrey Tambor's brief presence added a lot.

Something Wicked This Way Comes
This was based on a Ray Bradbury novel, and it bears certain similarities to the one Bradbury novel I've read through-- Dandelion Wine. It's a story set in a small town about strange things happening. It ends up being a reflection on life and on hope's dark side-- how it can eat people from the inside out and the only way to confront this danger is to come to terms with who we are. The movie is just as windswept and wonderful as the October imagery that pervades it.

Re-Animator
I guess I wasn't sure whether to expect more Frankenstein or Night of the Living Dead, but this movie is absolutely original. A med student has developed a "reagent" that can bring the dead back to life-- imperfectly. The only thing more disturbing than the evident agony of the newly-undead is the magnetic temptation to use the reagent. The movie is tempered by plenty of dry, pitch-perfect humor that leavens the mood but only intensifies the philosophical themes lurking beneath.

An American Werewolf in London
In a similar vein of fun, kind of bizarre 80's horror movies to Re-Animator, this one is more explicitly colorful and goofy. The black humor is great, the American-in-England angle is done tastefully and you genuinely care about the characters.

The Bird With the Crystal Plumage
This Dario Argento film is supposedly a quintessential Italian Giallo-- a mix of film noir-style detectives and stalking, bloody horror, with some European sexiness to top it off. The movie was all of those things and gorgeously, flawlessly executed.

Jaws
This classic has been in my scary movie month queue for a while now, and it more than lived up to the hype. The first half of the movie is thoughtful, subtly creative and genuinely scary. Without every coming across as "artsy" or "serious" there are reflections on responsibility, parenthood, and insider/outsider mentalities. The second half is more balls-to-the-walls terror, but the entire movie is remarkably well crafted and executed. I'm sure the shark they used looks ridiculous in person, but the movie's special effects were well-done. This is my pick of the month.