Horror Movies, pt 1

October is scary movie month at our house.  It has been since Aileen hit about 13 years old, and we like being scared.  Over time we've gotten a pretty decent collection of what I see as classic horror movies.  Recently a friend asked me if we had a method to watching them - chronology, based on true story, zombie, etc.  It made me think about the types of movies we have and why.  So here's a first attempt at making sense of them.

The Classics:

Damien - The original demon child

When we started watching movies, part of what I was doing was helping build Ali's cultural literacy.  (Like the summer I made her watch all the John Hughes movies, but with more death).  I think we started with the original Psycho,  followed by The Omen with Gregory Peck and Lee Remick.  Like The Exorcist, which we've seen but don't own, these have cultural references everyone should know.  They're also pretty darn scary in their own ways.  George C. Scott in The Changeling continues the trend with a classic ghost story, complete with priests and gravedigging.

What is this Thing?

My two favs from this group are probably John Carpenter's classic frozen thriller The Thing.  Kurt Russel,  cold and darkness, monsters that eat sled dogs.  I love this movie.  Like my next pick, it's been remade but nothing matches the original.  was one of the first "based on a true story" films that scared the hell out of me.  It's when I learned that, if the house is sending you the "get out" message - get the hell out.

Rounding out this category of classic horror movies I own would be The Fog with Adrienne Barbeau (another John Carpenter thriller) which is old school "there's evil in the fog" in the best way. I always like this one, maybe from growing up in an fishing town on the coast.  A double feature of The Howling and The Howling II show that werewolves inhabit cool people in California.  Werewolves are scary, especially when they're chasing you in the dark, or they are actually your sister.  And last, but not least, Invasion of the Body Snatchers which first made me realize that the people you know may not actually be the people you know.  It's got a great cast - even Leonard Nimoy as the creepy doctor. And when I need a new classic, I've got the box set of 15 horror movies in black and white - Christopher Lee, Vincent Price in the original House on Haunted Hill, and Dementia 13.  Old school horror is scary; it relies on what you don't see to keep you awake at night with the lights on. 

The Classics, With a Twist:

Some of the best "horror" movies are those that are kinda wacky, a little silly, and just off beat enough to make the scare seem fresh.  My current classic with a twist collection has 3 titles:

1. The Rocky Horror Picture Show.  'Nuff said.
2. Saturday the 14th.   The say Friday the 13th is bad, but Saturday the 14th is even worse.  With Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss, this film not only spoofs the classic horror films but brings its own creepiness to the screen.  I must say that it's not quite as good now as I remembered it when I was 16, but its a worthwhile watch.
3. Killer Klowns from Outer Space.  Creepy alien clowns kidnap local townspeople and wrap them in cocoons that look like cotton candy.  The best of 1988, in my humble opinion. (although titles like The Last Emperor, Moonstruck and Fatal Attraction got all the attention.)  I've recently learned there's a sequel to this one, but just don't think I could handle what it might entail.
4. And lastly, the ever inviting Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.  Great soundtrack. Giant fruit. What else is there to say?

So there's my first attempt at starting to categorize the movies.  We watched them in no particular order, although there was a method to the madness of which movies we added.  As with any study, one has to start with the classics before finding the variations on the theme.