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:
For my last installment (at least for this year), here’s one that made me dread bedtime for weeks afterward: Five Million Years to Earth, from 1967.
That’s the American title, actually. It was originally released as Quatermass and the Pit, the third of the films involving Professor Bernard Quatermass. This time around, Quatermass is called in when construction workers in London unearth an ancient spaceship. Inside, they find dead insectoid Martians. But just because they’re dead doesn’t mean they can’t hurt you. Those accounts of hauntings in the area that go back hundreds of years? Not a coincidence.
Holy Christ, did this terrify me as a youngster. Growing up Catholic, I had a deep-seated fear of Satan. So when a spectral devil’s head (it’s actually a Martian, but the resemblance is unmistakable and deliberate) appears in the night sky over London, causing nearly everyone who sees it to lose their minds and go on killing sprees . . . wow. That image is still burned on my brain. And if the melting faces at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark were a little much for you to handle, then you might want to look away when the spaceship starts glowing.
Like every other film I’ve profiled in this little series, Five Million Years to Earth works because it takes itself seriously. It never goes for camp; it never tries to be funny. (Memo to Hollywood: Are we detecting a pattern here? Just maybe?) And even though it involves Martians, it somehow manages not to seem stale or dated. Compare that to 2000’s Mission to Mars, obsolete when it rolled off the assembly line.
Actually, let’s just forget Mission to Mars ever existed, and cue up Five Million Years to Earth (AKA Quatermass and the Pit) tonight.
I hope you’ve enjoyed these little fright film discussions. Maybe I’ll do some more next October. Happy Halloween, all!
