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:
Another obvious one: William Friedkin’s The Exorcist.
Like Halloween, here is a movie that never winks at its audience, never tries to be cute, clever, or self-referential. It has the courage of its convictions. It takes itself seriously, so we take it seriously.
The Exorcist is something of a slow burn. We start with an unsettling prologue, in which the titular Father Lancaster Merrin (Max von Sydow) uncovers something strange in a tomb in northern Iraq. Then we jump to Georgetown and meet Chris McNeil (Ellen Burtstyn) and her sweet, innocent daughter Regan (Linda Blair)–the very picture of normalcy. Meanwhile, across town, Father Damien Karras (Jason Miller) is struggling with his faith while watching his elderly mother die. Those with short attention spans might complain of being bored at this point, but really, Friedkin and screenwriter William Peter Blatty are setting us up. By making these characters so real, we have no choice but to keep right on believing when the really insane stuff starts happening. And once it gets going, the scares are relentless and lasting.
A “director’s cut” of the film was released in 2000, which I saw in the theater. A gaggle of teenagers were also in attendance. You know the type–the ones who go to horror movies in packs, expecting some cheap scares and a lot of laughs. They were rather obnoxious and loud during the first half of the showing, clearly a little bored, expecting Freddy or Jason, but getting instead mature drama.
Then came That Scene. If you’ve seen the film, you know what I mean–the one with the crucifix. That gaggle of teens shut up in a hurry . . . and stayed that way throughout the rest of the movie. Even now, nearly forty years after its initial release, That Scene has lost none of its power to shock.
(Don’t bother with the director’s cut, by the way. The infamous Spider Walk and the recut Casablanca ending aren’t really worth the price of admission.)
Not many horror films get a lot of Academy Award love, but The Exorcist garnered acting nominations for Burstyn, Miller, and Blair, and won a statuette for the William Peter Blatty screenplay. There is a simple reason: it’s just that good. And you will never look at a crucifix the same way again.
