Horror films have been around since the beginning of cinema, but the real development of what they could become started in the 1970’s. The high point of the last century in horror came in 1978 when John Carpenter directed a film that would go on to become one of the biggest and best independent films of all time—Halloween. On first glance, this may just look like another tedious slasher flick, but on closer inspection, one will find that it’s brilliant. Halloween is terrific because of many numerous factors, all of which come together to form a perfect scary movie.

While Halloween was a groundbreaking film, the horror genre had been around for some time. It really took off in the 1930’s, with such classics as Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Bride of Frankenstein. These films were received with unsurpassed terror by audiences at that time; audiences just loved them. They did very well at the box office, and therefore, horror became a phenomenon. The genre began to disappear in the 1940’s and 1950’s, but Alfred Hitchcock gave it a rejuvenating shot with his 1960 masterpiece Psycho (more…)

David Lynch is one of the most talked about filmmakers of his generation. His films include Eraserhead, The Elephant Man, Blue Velvet, Wild at Heart, Lost Highway, and the newly released three-hour epic Inland Empire. His films dare to be more than just movies. They get inside the viewer’s head and become implanted in the memory. They hit the viewer on an emotional level, usually through the use of visual means. They feature career-best performances from exciting actors like Anthony Hopkins, Dennis Hopper, Isabella Rossellini, and Laura Dern. All of his films are truly special and offer unique, dream-like journeys for the viewer. Arguably his most successful film, and the one that really gets inside the viewer’s head, is his 2001 Oscar-nominated masterpiece Mulholland Drive.

Merely mentioning Mulholland Drive brings up many different ideas about what kind of genre it is. Is it a drama? A thriller? A love story perfect for Valentine’s Day? (more…)

This is it. This is the one. The mother of all Christmas movies. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation comes close, It’s a Wonderful Life is absolutely wonderful, and all those claymation movies, like Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, from the 60’s are a lot of fun. Hell, even Chris Columbus’s 1990 Christmas-themed Home Alone has held up really well, too. But the 1966 26-minute animated short based on the Dr. Seuss book is the cream of the crop in my eyes. It does so much in so few minutes. It features timeless animation. It has a really sweet message that never tires. It features one of the most memorable villains in movie histories. The songs are perfect. The narration is terrific. And it gets in and out in under a half-hour. It’s about as close to a perfect film as they come.

There was great controversy in the year 2000 when Ron Howard’s live-action feature-length version of the story was released to theatres (more…)

Twenty minutes. That’s about how long it took me into this film when I saw it years ago that I knew that Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, written and directed by John Hughes, was going to be one of my all-time favorite movies. The best comedies are funny, yes, but also have a lot of heart, and there is no shortage of either in this film. This is not one of the best movies ever made. It’s not even a movie that may be loved by everyone. But it’s a film that has touched me every time I watch it, and most of the credit goes to the strong writing and the superlative performances by Steve Martin and John Candy. Like John Carpenter’s Halloween, this film is seasonal, given that the whole movie revolves around Thanksgiving (a holiday not typically the backdrop in too many films). This Thanksgiving marks the 20th anniversary of Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, and I thought it was time to really give this special film its due (more…)

 A Nightmare on Elm Street may not be the best horror movie of the 80’s, but it’s probably the most fun. This marks the high point of Wes Craven’s career, and it is as scary as it is innovative. The whole movie feels like it shouldn’t really work. Some of the performances are a little creaky and campy, and there are a handful of purely dramatic scenes that feel a tad amateurish. However, Craven truly delivers when it comes to the scares, and he makes good on the promise of the genuinely terrifying premise.  And the villain is one for the ages. 

Released during the early 80’s surge of teenage horror movies, A Nightmare on Elm Street soon became one that stood out from the crowd. While horror has always remained a financially successful genre, it has had its ups and downs in popularity throughout the decades, and there are definite trends that come out of movies that strike gold. For example, when Wes Craven’s Scream opened in 1996 and went on to make over 100 million dollars, we saw a new five-year span of the same kind of horror movie. While 80’s horror was all about blood and guts and boobies, 90’s horror became more about in jokes and loud musical cues. They were fun while they lasted, but movies like (more…)

Stephen King is one of the most skilled and successful horror novelists ever to have lived, but the film adaptations of his books have generally ranged from the mediocre to the really, really bad. Such great books as Firestarter, Needful Things, and The Dark Half have been turned into such disasters that it’s a wonder that King still allows Hollywood to mess with his work. However, for every string of terrible films, there is typically an exception. While there have been some solid films based on King’s horror novels, including Carrie and The Shining, there is one that from beginning to end is a brilliant, well-acted, terrifying masterpiece—that film is Rob Reiner’s Misery.

Paul Sheldon (James Caan) is a popular novelist, famous for a book series about a character named Misery, and he has a near-fatal car accident after driving into a massive blizzard. A nurse named Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates) saves his life and brings him back to her home in a secluded cabin, where she sets him up in a comfortable bed. Paul awakens to find himself seemingly in good hands, but unfortunately for Paul, Annie is his number one fan, as she has the entire Misery series and is looking forward to his newest novel Misery’s Child. Much to Annie’s dismay, the character of Misery is killed off at the end of the book, upsetting her to the point of keeping Paul imprisoned and not letting him go. It’s up to Paul to figure a way out of his own misery, as Annie becomes more and more violent and insane.

Misery is a film that on first glance would seem to be nothing special (more…)

Most movies people will see only once. Good or bad, they’re not enough to get excited about to warrant further viewings. Then there are great movies that people go out of their way to see a second time, maybe a third time. Maybe they’ll buy the DVD. But then there are those movies that seem like miracles to film lovers… movies that never get old. Some get better with each viewing, some remain at about the same enjoyment level. The original Planet of the Apes, written by Michael Wilson and Rod Serling, and directed by Pierre Boulle, is just such a movie.

Planet of the Apes is magical, and not in a genre kind of way. It’s magical because it’s a sci-fi movie, released in the late 60’s, with a totally absurd premise, starring campy Charlton Heston, that works beautifully, on every level, from beginning to end. This movie should’ve come and gone. It should’ve been a fleeting entertainment that everyone forgot about by the time the next decade rolled around. But it hasn’t been forgotten, not in the least. And it lives on today as a staple of classic science fiction.

Before the movie was even made, the filmmakers made some important choices (more…)

Late producer Debra Hill, who passed away a couple years ago at the age of 54, left a legacy of such notable classics as The Fisher King, The Fog, and the original Halloween. The one film, however, that should deservedly appear toward the top of her film credits is a movie that was a box office bomb in late 1985 but has since gained a strong cult status over the last two decades. Clue, written and directed by Jonathan Lynn, and based on the Parker Brothers board game, is one of the most whimsically hilarious and charmingly over-the-top comedies of the 1980’s.

Six strangers who all incidentally work for the government in 1954 New England receive letters that tell them to meet at a mansion one stormy night. Given aliases by the butler Wadsworth (Tim Curry), the six individuals—Mrs. Peacock (Eileen Brennan), Mrs. White (Madeline Kahn), Mr. Green (Michael McKean), Colonel Mustard (Martin Mull), Professor Plum (Christopher Lloyd), and Miss Scarlett (Lesley Ann Warren—spend a night attempting to solve mysteries as more and more people in the mansion start getting killed.

Clue has several delights, but the most surprising one is (more…)