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Poltergeist

I am squeamish, as I said above. With this in mind, you may genuinely wonder why I’ve put Poltergeist on the list. I’m certainly squeamish enough to find various scenes in this film, directed by Tobe Hooper, worth turning away from. However, so much about the film is seriously creepy, and stays with me that I can’t help but acknowledge its power. The story is, as it goes with most horror movies, simple: an everyday, happy family moves into a new home that happens to be haunted by evil spirits. They must fight the spirits or be destroyed by them. Poltergeist is as well-known for being a great horror movie as it is for the so-called curse surrounding the film and for the argument over who the real director of the film is.

The curse is easy enough to explain; tragic circumstances befell some people working on the film, most notably Heather O’Rourke, the little girl who, in the first film, says the famous line, “They’re here.” I’m not really a believer in any curses, so this one, I just chalk up to bad and truly unfortunate luck. The more interesting debate is over who directed the film. I mentioned Tobe Hooper as the film’s sole, credited director. However, the film’s producer, Steven Spielberg, has often been said to have really directed a lot of the film. There are certainly plenty of Spielbergian touches, but Hooper was a more-than-capable director, having helmed the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Whatever the case is, Poltergeist is an extremely creepy film, with plenty of icky moments even with older special effects. If you want a real, hide-under-the-covers scary movie this Halloween, try this one.

Halloween

If Psycho originated the slasher film, Halloween perfected it down to a science. This 1978 horror movie is well known and widely accepted as one of the greatest horror movies ever, if not the best one. Halloween launched the career of the young actress Jamie Lee Curtis, the daughter of Janet Leigh (herself an iconic scream queen, all the way from the original Psycho), and the film’s director, John Carpenter. Curtis plays Laurie Strode, a young woman beset upon by the mysterious, masked psycho named Michael Myers. Myers wears a white mask of William Shatner in his Star Trek days and has an unquenchable lust for blood. He attacks Strode and the town she lives in on the night of Halloween. Myers is the consummate bogeyman: unable to be killed, unflinching, and emotionlessly scary.

Even in the myriad sequels to this great film, Myers remains scary because he’s unbeatable. In the first film, of course, the fear is most real, because we’re just like Laurie, unsure of why this should be happening and why Myers just won’t leave us alone. The sequels to Halloween have never managed to top the original, nor come even close. Why? Well, there’s always the lack of surprise; in the many follow-ups, we all know that Myers is coming, that he’ll kill plenty of nubile young women, and that no one will really be able to stop him, not even old Dr. Loomis. Where’s the suspense when you know exactly what’s going to happen? Of course, that hasn’t stopped plenty of teenagers to flock to the films, or those of any long-running franchise that plays the exact same notes, without ever changing. The originals are often best, and it goes the same for Halloween.

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