It’s my favorite time of year once again, and I thought I’d celebrate by sharing some of my favorite scary movies. These are the ones that got under my skin and haunted my dreams. You’ll recognize some of them; some of them might be more obscure. But if you’re looking to be genuinely creeped out this Halloween, permit me to suggest the following:
Werewolves got a serious makeover in 1981 with the release of two films: An American Werewolf in London and the vastly superior The Howling, directed by Joe Dante.
A few years prior to being Elliott’s mom in E.T., Dee Wallace played a television reporter who is attacked by a serial killer and then, while recovering from that trauma, sent to a secluded colony in the woods, where she is attacked by werewolves.
The Universal classic The Wolf Man, starring Lon Chaney, Jr., had pretty much defined the werewolf look in the movies. But I never found old Wolfie very frightening, to be honest. In fact, he was kind of . . . cuddly. He certainly never looked anything like a wolf. Then came the slavering, snarling beasts of The Howling. Those things were scary. The only thing remotely human about them was the fact that they walked upright. You saw one of them coming, you ran.
An American Werewolf in London was the bigger hit, of course, but suffers in comparison to The Howling. Both films featured harrowing and heretofore unprecedented transformation sequences. Both had touches of sly humor. But where American Werewolf contented itself to be merely clever, The Howling–literally and figuratively–went for the throat. One shouldn’t be surprised to see that John Sayles had a hand in the terrific script.
The film does make a crucial misstep at the end, throwing in a “cute” werewolf of the Chaney variety, but we can forgive that. What you won’t forget is the utterly helpless feeling of being alone in the woods, chased by monsters who want nothing more than to rip you limb from limb. Even the most passionate dog lover in the world might look askance at precious Fido after this one.
