#1: Poltergeist (1982)

"They're here."

Babyboomer couple Steve and Diane Freeling (Craig T. Nelson and JoBeth Williams) seem to be living the American Dream: they have a nice suburban home, have three children and a dog, and are about to put in a brand new pool in their backyard. But five-year-old Carol Anne (Heather O'Rourke), the Freeling's youngest child, has begun to act strangely- she talks to the television when it is displaying static, and after a mysterious earthquake that only the Freelings can feel she makes the odd announcement: "They're here."

Soon thereafter it becomes clear that there is something very odd going on in the Freeling's house: Spoons bend, glasses break, and chairs stack themselves neatly on the dining room table. At first Steve and Diane are merely puzzled by the strange phenomenon- but then Carol Anne disappears during a violent thunderstorm, and the Freelings begin to hear her voice talking to them from their television . . .

When I was compiling this list it didn't take me long to put Poltergeist at number one. Produced and partially story boarded by Stephen Spielburg and directed by Tobe Hooper (who's other notable work was 1974's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), the film is a unique mix of the these two director's sensibilities. There's a real feeling of wonder that pervades the piece, buoyed by the excellent score by Jerry Goldsmith, that can quickly degenerate into grotesque horror when necessary.

Poltergeist also obviously had a huge budget: I honestly can't think of a horror film that has as many unique set pieces as this, and all well before the advent of CGI. Most likely due to Spielburg, the movie has the feel of a wild theme park attraction (especially its explosive climax), making it a great companion piece to a popcorn film like Jaws. But for all of its crowd pleasing aspects, there's a far more interesting layer of complexity that makes it more than just a simple haunted house film.

First of all, I think its fairly interesting to note that the film plays heavily upon one of the subconscious fears of the baby-boomer generation: notably, will they make suitable parents? There are a lot of not-so-subtle elements to suggest this: the Freelings smoke pot while their kids are asleep, Diane switches the television from static to a violent war film to entertain Carol-Anne, and its implied that their teenage daughter, Dana (Dominque Dunne), is sexually promiscuous- and given that Diane is 32, Dana can't be that old, and yet has apparently spent a night at a nearby motel . . . I also find it hilarious that she has a hickey on her neck during the climax of the film. The fact that Carol-Anne is snatched from the Freelings while they are- understandably- otherwise occupied, mirrors the real fear of many parents of the era: child kidnappers. (I was born in 1978, so I actually was Carol-Anne's age when this came out, and I definitely remember the constant admonitions to never talk to strangers.) This makes the movie a trial by fire for the Freelings to prove their worth as parents, something which they do with flying colors.

The other element of the film that I find fascinating is that the title of the film itself is a ruse (lots of spoilers ahead.) This is not a film about a Poltergeist, it's a haunting brought on by incredibly pissed off spirits- and in this way I think the film is a very clever condemnation of the American Dream itself- the Freelings comfortable life is built entirely upon a graveyard- both literally and figuratively. In this way, it shares a lot of elements with the Shining, whose haunted hotel is filled with imagery of the Native American cultures that were destroyed to make way for Manifest Destiny, and I love the way the truth is visually hinted at throughout the film: the dog attempting to dig up the buried canary, the gaping pool, and the old jewelry that falls through the portal in the living room to name just a few.

Finally, I suppose I should talk briefly about the "Poltergeist Curse," a rumor that came about due to the fact that both Dominque Dunne and Heather O'Rourke died young- Dunne at 22, strangled to death by her jealous boyfriend, and O'Rourke of septic shock at 12. The "curse" supposedly also claimed the lives of some of the actors that worked on the sequels of Poltergeist, but seeing as these were men at least fifty years old, I think we can rule out the supernatural.

Anyhow, I hope you enjoyed this trip with me down memory lane! Perhaps someday down the road I'll post my top ten "feel good" films just to balance this one out . . . but don't hold your breath.

We now return you to your regular programming.

#2: The Exorcist (1973)

"Your mother's in here, Karras. Would you like to leave a message? I'll see that she gets it . . . "

In an archeological dig near the ancient city of Nineveh (the demolished capitol of Assyria by the way, Monty Python and the Holy Grail fans), the elderly Father Lankester Merrin (Max von Sydow) comes across an odd find: a christian medallion depicting Mary and the baby Jesus (odd considering the pre-christian location) and a greenish stone amulet bearing the bestial head of Pazuzu, a Mesopotamian demon. Apparently taking this as a sign that something evil has been unearthed, and the power of the church is required to fight it, he takes leave of the dig and plans a trip back to the United States.

Meanwhile, the successful actress Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn) is in the process of filming in and around Georgetown University when she begins to worry about the strange behavior of her twelve-year-old daughter, Regan (Linda Blair), who complains that she can't sleep at night due to her bed shaking. Taking her to doctor after doctor to determine what is the matter with her, Regan's condition worsens considerably, and she begins to use foul language and lash out violently at others. Then there's the matter of the things science can't seem to explain: strange noises in the attic, considerable poltergeist activity, and the horrible sense that there actually is someone- or something- inside of Regan.

Scientific explanations seemingly exhausted, Chris MacNeil turns to Father Damien Karras, a young priest and psychiatrist working at Georgetown University. She believes only an exorcism will save her daughter, but Karras- his own faith shaken by the terminal illness of his mother- may not be the right man for the job . . .

The Exorcist, based on the novel by the same name by William Peter Blatty, is an exquisite film. It's expertly written, paced, and filmed, and manages to continuously up the ante- hard to do when you have an antagonist as outrageous as the demon possessing Regan MacNeil, but for all of its over-the-top moments director William Friedkin really knows when to reign back and let the mood do the work for him. Some of my favorite scares are the brief flashes you get of "Captain Howdy", Regan's no-so-nice imaginary friend, or the shadowy projections of Pazuzu staring at us from the bedroom walls . . . though I still jump every time Chris decides to investigate the attic (Would anyone in their right mind do this? Even if you think it's rats? I mean, listen to them lady!)

Speaking of Pazuzu, I think it's really interesting that most people assume that this is a film about the roman-catholic church versus the devil, especially given the fact that the film itself seems to grimly suggest the absence of both powers. Ironically, the actual Pazuzu (an Assyrian and Babylonian pseudo-deity) protected children- although mostly from his own wife, the monstrous Lamashtu, a child-killer who was very similar to the Mesopotamian demoness Lilith, except that she didn't have a gynocentric music festival named after her.

There's some great, great performances in this film- especially from Linda Blair- but if you take the time to watch some of the "making of" documentaries about The Exorcist you might start to wonder if the real villain of this film is actually its sadistic director, William Friedkin. Besides subtly changing the ending of the novel in such a way that makes you wonder if the demon got what it wanted all along, there's the endless stories of his apparent abuse of the actors: instigating back injuries suffered by Blair and Burstyn and using their actual pained screams in the audio track, filming Regan's bedchamber inside of a freezer, firing guns off to get startled reaction shots from actors, and (my favorite) striking the actor playing Father Dyer (the Reverend William O'Malley) across the face in order to shake him up for an important scene. I've heard of method actors . . . but method directors?

Now that's really scary.

Check back tomorrow for #1!

#3: Ju-On (2002)

"I told her . . . I told her . . . I told Kazumi . . . I told her again and again . . . I told her again and again . . . again and again, I told her . . . just the way you said to . . . please stop tormenting me . . . "

Ju-On (roughly translatable as "the grudge"), is the Japanese concept that when someone dies in a state of extreme sorrow or rage, the emotion itself remains behind, infecting the place where they died with a powerful curse that eventually kills everything that it comes into contact with, growing stronger as more and more victims are consumed by it . . . and that's about all I'm going to tell you about the plot of this film. It's probably the most frightening film I was willing to put on this list, and its best that you see it for yourself.

Of course, it is possible you've already seen the American remake of this film, 2004's The Grudge, starring Sarah Michelle Gellar. I admit, I saw this one first as well, and while I thought it had its moments, I wasn't terribly impressed with it. But even if you've seen The Grudge, I highly recommend checking out the Japanese original. After all, I went into this film already knowing just about every major plot point, and it still scared the shit out of me . . . even the goddamn dvd menu gives me the creeps.

What sets this film apart from most modern horror films is the fact that (spoilers ahead!) there is literally no way to escape its titular curse once you've been exposed to it- it may take years but, eventually, it will get you. I think this is exemplified in the film's piece de resistance: the sequence involving Hitomi, who is working late at the office when things start getting weird. This part of the film completely strips away the audience's hopes that there might be some place of safety from the curse, culminating in a rather cruel invasion of the one place most people cower for safety: their own beds. It's always great fun to watch people who haven't seen this part squirm when they realize the blanket they're cowering under might not be as safe as they'd think.

Did I mention that the ghosts in this film are absolutely terrifying? From the little boy / cat composite to the dead wife with her horrible, throaty death rattle, these are things you definitely don't want to wake up in the middle of the night hearing (or seeing), and to have to continuously encounter them in environments most of us are familiar with (a suburban home, an apartment, an office building) really digs under your skin. I can't tell you how glad I am that my attic is both finished and not accessible by a hatch in my closet.

So glad.

Check back later for #2 . . .

#4: The Shining (1980)

"Hello Danny. Come and play with us. Come and play with us, Danny. Forever . . . and ever . . . and ever . . . "

Struggling author and recovering alcoholic Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) has recently accepted the position of winter caretaker at the mountain resort Overlook Hotel, despite learning that the previous caretaker went mad and killed his wife and two daughters with an axe before committing suicide via shotgun. Joining him will be his wife (Shelley Duvall as Wendy) and son, Danny (Danny Lloyd), an odd youngster who often speaks through his imaginary friend, Tony.

Arriving at the Overlook the family is introduced to the hotel's chef, Dick Hallorann (Scatman Crothers), who surprises Danny by speaking to him telepathically. When alone with the boy he explains that some people possess what he calls "shining," and Danny is one of them. He also warns Danny that the Overlook itself has gained a shining of its own, a sort of accumulated sentience made up of all of the memories created there . . . not all of which are good.

Soon Jack, Wendy, and Danny are cut off from the outside world by the harsh weather and face a long winter alone . . . with the hotel.

The Shining, based on the 1977 novel of the same name by Stephen King, is a haunted house story, and bears a lot of resemblance to the plot of The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (later turned into the 1963 film The Haunting by Robert Wise, check it out!) But what a haunted house! An entire hotel, built on an indian burial ground, with a history of murders, suicides, gangland slayings, and stocked with a ghostly bartender, a surreal 1920's new year's eve party, rivers of blood gushing out of elevator shafts, corpses in bathtubs, and, of course, a creepy pair of twins. Yeesh! How the heck did Danny ever get to sleep at night?

Psychic kids have become such a standard feature of horror films that their presence hardly needs to be explained anymore. Consider, for instance, the Ring, which had not one but two psychic children, both of which possessing considerable powers whose origins are completely unexplored. Often these supernatural children are, in fact, the antagonists of horror films, such as the omnipotent Anthony Fremont from The Twilight Zone or the blonde-haired tykes in 1960's Village of the Damned . . . but sometimes these extrasensory children serve as helpful guides, or as amateur therapists for the dead, such as in The Sixth Sense and Stir of Echoes (isn't it odd that the other psychic in this film is also an african american? I would call foul on Stir of Echoes, but it's based on a novel that came out in 1958, so it's possible that it's Stephen King who's the thief here.)

Here, Danny serves as the film's MacGuffin ("a plot element that catches the viewers' attention or drives the plot of a work of fiction"), a powerful psychic that Wendy wants to protect and that the hotel wants to absorb (via murder) in order to become more powerful. Because the hotel itself can't deal physical harm, it exerts all of its influence on the already unstable Jack Torrence, who is clearly not the kind of guy you want to get locked up with for five months, ghosts or no ghosts. Nicholson, famous for playing completely unrestrained characters, seems born for the part. You also have to give a lot of credit to Shelley Duvall for not getting lost amidst the proceedings . . . whatever happened to her? Besides being in Popeye I mean . . .

The sense of isolation is, of course, one of the film's great strengths, but, unlike John Carpenter's The Thing, director Stanley Kubrick was given an entire hotel to play with, with seemingly endless maze-like corridors and false turns (mirrored, of course, by the hedge maze that features prominently in the film's finale.) The next time you watch it, try to make sense of the layout of the place- the hotel's rooms often have windows that can't possibly be present, or are much larger than they could possibly be given the exterior shots.

It's also interesting to note that Stephen King didn't care for this film, which greatly deviates from the ending of the novel. I can understand his feelings, but comparing the two, the Shining is the far better piece of art. I'd frankly be honored to have something I created turned into a film this hauntingly beautiful- but perhaps I'll someday regret these words.

Check back tomorrow for #3!

#5: Jaws (1975)

"And, you know, the thing about a shark, he's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes- like a doll's eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be living . . . until he bites ya, and those black eyes roll over white and then, ah, then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin' . . . "

After the mangled remains of Chrissie Watkins are discovered washed up on the beach of the summer resort town of Amity Island, apparently having been attacked by an extremely large shark, police chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) attempts to close the beaches- only to be overruled by the town's mayor (Murray Hamilton), who is concerned that an unsubstantiated report of a shark attack might hurt the town's summer tourist revenue. Soon thereafter a young boy is literally devoured in front of a beach full of witnesses.

In response to this marine biologist Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) arrives in Amity, and correctly identifies the culprit as a great white shark, a super predator that can grow to an alarming size- but even this won't move the mayor to close the beaches, and the murders continue despite the best efforts of the coast guard and an armada of shark hunters.

There's only one man who might be able to catch the great white: the irascible professional shark hunter Quint (Robert Shaw). Brody and Hooper insist on accompanying him on the hunt, even though Hooper and Quint don't get along, and Brody is terrified of water . . .

Jaws is an all around good time- it's just a great film. So great, in fact, that I always list it as one of my top ten films. Why then isn't it my number one horror film? Basically, it's because it hardly feels like a horror film to me anymore. Sure, it's a movie about a man-eating shark, but it's also a classic adventure story in vein of Moby Dick (And given the ending, I kind of have to assume that Melville's novel greatly influenced the author of the novel Jaws: Peter Benchley.) In a way, I think of Jaws as being two films: the first one a suspense filled murder mystery in which we slowly learn more about the mostly unseen killer, and the second a buddy flick about three men overcoming their differences to achieve their goal.

It's interesting to note that this film has two antagonists, the first being the actual shark, who is more a force of nature than anything else, and second being the townspeople of Amity- personified by the mayor- who are willing to let four people die before admitting that the beaches aren't safe. It's a clear condemnation of greed that I can't help but find somewhat ironic given that this film essentially spawned (see what I did there?) the concept of the summer blockbuster, making it the great-grand daddy of films like Armageddon or 2012- films which, in my opinion, are made purely out of a desire for money, rather than the desire to tell a good story.

But Jaws is definitely more than a money-maker- it's a genuinely compelling piece of art, with realistic characters, excellent dialogue, and outstanding performances, especially from its three leads, each of whom is incredibly likable in their own way. Their characters are so good, in fact, that I often forget that they're played by actors, a phenomenon that I find rather rare in our current era.

Similarly rare today is the film's incredibly restrained use of the shark itself- we hardly ever see it until the end of the film. It's interesting to note that this was not entirely intentional, as the mechanical shark puppet that they used during filming was constantly breaking down. The brilliant result of this technical catastrophe is that Jaws relies more on the build up of suspense than flashy effects or gore to scare us and, as I've said before, often it's what we can't see that frightens us the most.

Check back tomorrow for #4!