Is
there anything more cliché’? More hoary and hackneyed? More played out? The
Haunted House “trope” has been beaten to death, thanks to Scooby Doo, ABC After
School Specials, and a ton of pop cultural appropriations. Along with the
ghosts who frequently accompany them, no other supernatural occurrence has been
so abused and ridiculed as the Haunted House.
And
yet, some of the best horror movies ever made are haunted house movies. Some of
the most terrifying films of all are about something being left behind, or
being “not quite right” about the cornerstone of our notions of safety and
security. Houses—our homes—are our defense against the forces of darkness that
stop at our threshold. When our own walls revolt and offer us no protection,
what hope do we have? That’s where the best haunted house movies get us: right
where we live.
I’ve
only got one criteria for haunted house movies: am I scared? Okay, I have two
criteria: is the story around which the haunt revolves believable? That drift
into incredulity has sunk many a promising horror movie, and all the jump
scares in the world won’t save a movie where we get to the end and I yell out,
“THAT was the reason?” or “They were WHAT?” or just “How STUPID!” Good stories
and tight scripts make better horror movies than big budget messes.
5.
The Changeling (1980)
George
C. Scott takes center stage as an author (it’s always authors, isn’t it?) who
buys a house, only to discover some freakiness inside. He starts to investigate
and as he gets more and more of the story, he gets drawn further and further
into the mystery. And what’s with the banging sound on the pipes, anyway?
A
quietly effective horror movie, The Changeling leans heavily on Scott to react
to not very much and thankfully, he carries it off. The mystery is a good one,
and the reveal is not only creepy, but sad as well. In many ways, it’s the
classic ghost story, made bigger and more scary.
4.
Paranormal Activity (2009)
A
new couple, a guy who can’t stop filming his life (and his wife) because we are
in the age of selfie-narcissists, and a couple of questionable artifacts found
in their modern home; what could possibly go wrong? Another “found footage” movie that enjoyed a
brief renaissance for about eighteen months, this little quickie horror film
has spun off into a legitimate franchise with three movies released and a
fourth on the way.
Taking
a couple of pages from the video vérité movement of the 1990s that started with
The Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity manages to do a lot with very
little. The rumored budget for this
minor epic was a mere $15,000. I mean, it’s web cams and surveillance video,
how expensive can it be? This is one of the few times when the lack of
professional equipment actually helps the production, as we can’t always get a
clear picture of what’s going on and that adds to the Bump-in-the-Night factor.
You may not like the other movies in the series, but the first one is certainly
worth a look.
3.
The Haunting (1963)
Hill
House, having claimed the lives of several women, is now playing host to a
parapsychologist and his charges as they investigate these claims of supernatural
activity. One of the women, Elenor, is freaking out almost from the get-go.
She’s obviously disturbed by the death of her mother, and less-obviously
unsettled by the paranormal activity no one else can confirm. Is it all in her
head, or is she being targeted by the spirits in Hill House?
If
you are one of those people who think black and white movies aren’t scary, then
I challenge you to watch this one and then go right to sleep. Based on the book
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, the film sort of finds its own
way with a fearless cast, unafraid to embrace the material and milk it for all
it’s worth. The movie teeters on the edge of melodrama, but skillful editing
and some great camera work manage to allay some of the soap opera hysterics and
allow the viewer to decide for themselves what’s really going on. The Haunting one of the great “something
out of nothing” movies, a film that manages to be scary and suspenseful using
something that Hollywood used to value called acting. Genius.
2.
Poltergeist (1982)
Children
today don’t know what it was like when television officially ended until the
next day. That sudden burst of static, along with the weird digital “snow,” was
a strange kind of phenomenon. It was usually your cue to go to bed, but how
could you possibly be expected to sleep after watching the midnight movie?
Certainly not little Carol Anne, who hears something inside of that particular
frequency that the other members of her family can’t hear, what with the family
dog going nuts and barking at mid-air. The family descends upon the ruckus to
find their little girl sitting in front of the television. “They’re HEEeere,”
she announces. Everything after that is a delicious mix of slice-of-life
suburbia meets sheer terror.
Directed
by Tobe Hooper and produced, co-written (and, depending on who you talk to,
co-directed) by Steven Spielberg, this film continues to be disturbing and
horrifying. There’s certainly an air of prognostication to the plot (corporate
greed is the root of all evil) that makes the movie more contemporary than
other horror movies made around the same time. The shots of the neighborhood,
the kids and certainly the tone of the early parts of the movie feel exactly
like the neighborhoods in E.T. and The Goonies and other fixtures of the
Spielberg suburban landscape. That’s partially what makes the horror so effective. When
the supernatural shenanigans start stacking up and Carol Anne goes missing, the
rest is all chaos and madness and I’m quite certain that the takeaway from the
movie is that nothing matters in the end, least of all the things that own us.
1.
The Shining (1980)
Jack
Nicholson needs his peace and quiet so he can write; we’re told this at the
beginning of The Shining, and we don’t think much about it after that. Mostly
because there’s too much going on with the rest of the family as they adjust to
Jack’s new job as the caretaker of the Overlook Hotel. Between the hedge maze,
the boy’s talking finger, Shelly Duvall’s constant look of google-eyed fear,
and oh yeah, those creepy twin girls, it’s no wonder Jack has to take up the
axe and run through the hotel bellowing.
Stanley
Kubrick’s masterpiece, made all the more creepy by the casting choices and now
the conspiracy theory that surrounds Kubrick and the movie. The Shining bears
only a glancing resemblance to the excellent book by Stephen King, but this is
one of the few times when people don’t complain about it (well, everyone except King himself, that is). The horror and tension
is a slow burn until the final thirty minutes when all hell breaks loose. There
are creeps and jumps for just about every phobia and even a couple of new ones.
If you haven’t seen it, you’re missing one of Kubrick’s best movies and a
milestone of 80’s horror.
For the newcomers: This is part of a larger series of articles. You can find last October's offerings here.
