Suspiria / **** (1977)

The first thing to assault us is the music. A haunting, odd melodic blend of low menacing synths underneath joyful chimes harkens the memory to the days of sinister fairy tales, when beautiful maidens wandered aimlessly through a world quietly plotting to end them. Almost on cue, the chime is followed by the arrival of attractive Suzy Bannion (Jessica Harper), who wanders an airport terminal after a long flight overseas brings her to Italy. Notice the space between her and the glass doors of the exit briefly seems exaggerated, as if they are moving away with each step. When the doors close, the musical chords drop to total silence. She moves in, now faster and with more determination, until they open, allowing the chime to begin again as she finally crosses the threshold into the stormy night. The music overwhelms her, as if it were not music at all, but a sonic enchantment transporting her out of the safety of one world for the uncertainty of the next. For Dario Argento, the enamored filmmaker, this is merely an overture in a decadent urban retelling of Snow White. But for the many admirers (and curious onlookers) of the great “Suspiria,” it is the first of many important moments in the most visually striking horror film they may ever see.

An American Werewolf in London / ***1/2 (1981)

Werewolves were hardly a fresh idea when John Landis helmed his mega-influential “An American Werewolf in London,” but it was one of the only movies of the modern era to do a faithful call-back to George Waggner’s “The Wolf Man,” the first picture to ever show the carnal transformation of a man into a bloodthirsty creature. Like that famed identity from the 30s, the villain in Landis’ outing is not an unknown source: it is the cursed alter ego of the protagonist, who undergoes the painful transformation as a result of a near-fatal encounter in the early scenes. “Beware the moon, lads,” a bar patron at a local pub ominously warns two Americans as they prepare to continue their hike through the Yorkshire countryside. Walking silently among rural shadows, a howl in the distance begins to sound. It moves in – closer and closer, until a violent attack ensues and one of them is killed. Gunshots ring out just as the second is mauled, but he survives. And so begins another glimpse into the world of the mythical lycanthrope, told from the rare perspective of a man who walks around knowing what he carries, but is uncertain about what it might cost him until far too late.

Lessons from Criterion: "Night of the Living Dead" by George A. Romero

What a strange and surreal experience it can be to look upon George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” in the here and now, so long after zombie culture has ingrained itself firmly in our minds and our sense of cynicism has caught up to its underlying influence. All the obligatory questions emerge before a single frame has transpired. What does a dated relic from the era of indie counter-culture have to offer us now? Aren’t we too desensitized to be shocked or dismayed? Does any of the material on screen resonate in any way, especially given how effortlessly its grim sensibilities have been upstaged by dozens of indirect remakes, sequels and modern interpretations through the years? In almost every conversation about the most prolific of horror sub-genres, the popular benchmark is usually spoken of in only passively admiring terms. Many, including self-appointed experts on the pseudo-politics of the walking dead, are inclined to dismiss it on the grounds of its amateur values, downplaying the matter for the favor of the more technically-competent – and challenging – endeavors. Perhaps they are the sorts raised in the shadow of the much more well-regarded “Dawn of the Dead,” which was the first of Romero’s zombie films to add the much-lauded sardonic cultural subtext to the ambitious flesh-ripping violence.

Talk to Me / *** (2023)

A plethora of fatal traumas attach themselves to dimwitted movie characters who dare to commune with the afterlife. Whether the opportunity comes from having paranormal ability, involving the talents of psychics or those ominous Ouija boards, the very act of drifting to the beyond and making contact with the dead has rarely proven lucrative, even for those who might do so for the means of plausible unfinished business. Yet such individuals hopelessly cling to the conceit that their experiences can be different than all which have preceded them, perhaps because the knowledge of existing ordeals and mistakes has compelled extra caution in the matter. Those are the sorts of people you rarely see in sequels to horror films – because unlike flesh-and-blood madmen who can be escaped or fought against, an evil force from the nether-world rarely gives up until they’ve claimed their target as a prize.

Halloween / ***1/2 (1978)

The key distinction between the original “Halloween” and “Psycho,” the movie it is most closely associated with, comes down to a need (or lack thereof) to understand the psychological motives of the villain. When it first caught audiences off guard in the fall of 1978, John Carpenter’s influential slasher was riding a new wave of reality-grounded horror films foreshadowed by the arrival of Norman Bates – ones that involved everyday people quietly evolving into the deviant madmen of old legends and bedtime stories. While it was always a given these individuals would become loathsome homicidal killers, now we were asking ourselves how we could not recognize the signs. Was there something in their genetic makeup that inspired the shift? A situation that destroyed their stability? Or gradual stressors no one else was seeing? Well before the era of criminal profiling made madmen of the flesh relatable, all we could do was study, ponder and then wait for the experts to assess the matter in pointed and revealing monologues. But the arrival of the Michael Meyers persona represented a startling shift away from the gray areas of movie villain psychology. When Dr. Loomis (Donald Sutherland), the man studying Meyers, is asked early on about what caused such a shy and quiet boy to murder his older sister in cold blood, his conclusion contradicts the very teachings of his profession. To him, there is nothing behind Michael’s eyes other than the dead and thoughtless conviction of a monster – a literal personification of evil, long detached from the human he once was.

X / ***1/2 (2022)

It comes to our notice early on in Ti West’s “X” that his probable casualties are far from being conventional pop-up targets. They occupy space in the movie with a sort of cheery displacement, fully cognizant of the danger that comes with their situation without letting their behaviors be entirely dictated by it. The scene: six young Texans with a penchant for southern euphemisms gather in a van, drive out into the country and rent the spare house on the property of an elderly couple – one of whom always seems to answer the door while holding a shotgun. Their objective: to turn this rickety old acquisition into the setting of an amateur porno, populated by aspiring adult film actors who have tagged along for their own slice of fame in the new frontier of home video. The ringleader, Wayne (Martin Henderson), foresees all the obligatory elements of fortune in this undertaking, but what he and the rest of his entourage are not able to successfully predict is that they’ve wandered into yet another backwoods nightmare of violent mayhem. The surprise, this time, is that they don’t go down without at least holding their own intellectually against the morose and cynical hunters they are destined to confront.

When a Stranger Calls / *** (1979)

“When a Stranger Calls” endures primarily for two sequences that bookend a fairly routine middle act. The first, in which a young high school babysitter (Carol Kane) is left alone in a neighbor’s house while a menacing voice hurls ominous warnings over a phone (“I want to feel your blood on me”), is the total summation of a director evoking all the qualities of a thrilling short subject, while the latter manages to play into the same tension as her long ordeal – and the trajectory of the villain – come full circle. But compelled by the success of “Halloween” and the urgings of studio heads who wanted their own slice of the new bloody pie that was teenage slashers, Fred Walton’s material became a full-length feature marred by conflicting values: meandering pacing, unconvincing heroes, implausible setups and a plethora of fairly uninteresting extra characters randomly stuffed in an underwritten screenplay. Yet to watch the film in its entirety is to find an intriguing case study in the differing values of the long and short forms of this medium. Was Walton just too exhausted by wallop of the first and last sequences to really commit himself to something great for a full-length endeavor? The movie is hardly worthless or even insulting – there are, in fact, some passable stuff among all the middle muck – but so brilliant are the opening and closing passages that they deserved more than just an average link in the chain.

Death Proof / *** (2007)

“There are few things as fetching as a bruised ego on a beautiful angel.”

There’s little more that can be said of the Tarantino method that hasn’t already been analyzed by countless critics and film historians, but if one were to attempt and condense all his sensibilities into a single opus, “Death Proof” contains just about every trait worth mentioning. Made on a whim along with Robert Rodriguez’ “Planet Terror” as part of their 2007 Grindhouse throwback, the movie is a shameless clash of underground 1970s sensibilities, married by a plot that plays like a spaghetti western and dialogue that has all the sophisticated awareness of blaxploitation. Sometimes, particularly in the slower moments, we sense a twinkle of glee emulating from the material, as if its director has found content that exists just for his sake as opposed to one that he must mold and refine. If the likes of “Kill Bill” or “Django Unchained” are imprinted with his signature, his lone horror film is more like an old tattoo: as much a part of him as he is a part of the culture of underground B-movie shlock that first gave him his creative wings so long ago.

The Outwaters / * (2022)

Somewhere in the vacant expanse that is the Mojave desert, four friends with unfledged verbal skills will partake in a sad, confusing ambush in the dark that culminates with lots of screaming and blood splatters, all to be barely spied by a camera lens that is always shooting at unflattering angles while a small flashlight ray attempts to zero in on thoroughly uninteresting findings. That is the central engine behind “The Outwaters,” yet another found footage yarn that comes to us with an even loftier promise: all that is about to happen will defy the very basic notions of this subgenre’s primary formula. Defy it does, but to what end? To confuse and sadden the audience? To get them thinking beyond ordinary horror movie trappings? I would have only welcomed that change. Alas, director Robbie Banfitch, obviously new to the fold of this form of storytelling, finds nothing in the dark other than our collective anger at having been left adrift in a confusing and listless story that ends with few certainties and even fewer solutions. There is nothing to think about on screen, no image to anchor curiosity or theme to create a sense of investment. All that might have been eased by the existence of characters who knew how to discuss their plight, but the movie only gives us simpletons who don’t seem to remember basic emotional cues, much less create a running dialogue about what may be lurking in the shadows of the desert.

Mandy / * (2018)

In theory, a movie like “Mandy” would be right up the same alley of brazen gorefests that have been known to captivate my morbid sense of voyeurism. Ripped from the familiar cloth as any number of audacious horror stories set in the lurid world of pulp fiction, the picture makes a bold promise from its very first frame: all that is about to happen will be unlike anything we have witnessed on screen – or, at the bare minimum, fresh enough to draw comparisons to Dario Argento and Mario Bava, the architects of the decadent excess we associate with Giallo. Indeed, countless critics and colleagues have hailed the picture as a triumph of its medium, a surrealistic experience where the framework of the familiar revenge formula is twisted into a fever dream of contemplative symbolism and thematic excess. And who wouldn’t want that, especially nowadays as the genre appears caught somewhere between the extremes of vague nuance and gratuitous overkill?

Terrifier / * (2017)

Marginal movie villains are in copious supply in the films of today, but plausible, convincing ones have become an increasingly rare breed: they now seem to persist more in theory than in practice, where they can be liberated from old formulas and allowed to wreak their sense of chaos in the untamed wilds of a perverse imagination. Once in a great while, one will even find its way in front of a film camera that earns the right to manifest them; if a skilled director or writer has the capacity to evolve their sense of animosity beyond the shackles of the ordinary narrative, we get captivating antagonists like Pennywise, Anton Chigurh and Agent Smith at the center of the chaos. For a brief time during the early minutes of “Terrifier,” we can sense the spark of the latter. Imagine the scene: a mute clown in white and black makeup with bleeding gums and inhuman teeth appears out of the shadows of Halloween night, follows two 20-something women into a late-night pizza parlor and ominously taunts them. Not a word or sound escapes his mouth, although his mannerisms reflect an unhinged insanity brewing beneath the exterior. Later, long after the clown has been tossed out of the establishment for vandalizing the restroom, the girls return to their car and discover their tire has been slashed, setting a chain reaction of events into motion that will end with immeasurable death and blood splattered all over the pavement of a run-down warehouse in the city.

"The Shining" Revisited

What is it about the Overlook Hotel that casts such an ominous cloud? How do the mysterious, inexplicable events surrounding a small and isolated family affect the terror they inflict on one another? These are just two of the broad questions hovering over a long mystery in “The Shining,” a movie of ageless dexterity that also remains one of the more fascinating case studies in academic film analysis. When it arrived in theaters over four decades ago, the conventional wisdom at the time had been swift and dismissive: the exacting hand of one Stanley Kubrick had lost sight of a cogent vision, supplementing the famous source material by Stephen King with so much surrealistic ambiguity and nonsense that he had released a labyrinthian mess instead of a probing psychological essay. But much like his own “A Clockwork Orange” and “2001: A Space Odyssey,” time has offered a generous reassessment, and now the picture is usually seen hovering towards the top of most lists of the greatest horror movies ever made. When I first encountered it at the age of 15, my admiration for its technical skill and tone were undermined by an inability to decipher the clues. What was happening to the Torrance family? Were they being haunted by ghosts, pitted against one another by elaborate mind games? Would they have been seen if the young boy at the center of the action were not clairvoyant? Or were they simply imagined by people whose sanity had been compromised by isolation? Over 20 years and dozens of viewings later, I can finally speak with confidence on some of the great paradoxes the story weaves.

Willy's Wonderland / * (2021)

Consider the fascinating dichotomy of this idea. A series of mysterious fatal accidents have closed the doors of a small-town children’s restaurant featuring those clunky animatronic characters that you usually see in Chuck E. Cheese establishments, and years later the residents of said town still harbor enough resentment against the building that they take to vandalizing the property, sometimes even trying to set fire to it. Within those walls, they say, are the remains of a terrible legacy. Then one day, when a mysterious hot-rod enthusiast crashes his car on a road just outside the city, his lack of money leads to a dubious offer: if he will clean up the interiors of the abandoned facility while locked inside for one whole night, his car will be fixed and ready to drive off by morning. Of course, that means his agreement will lead to the discovery of negative energies permeating throughout the dark halls and musty dining rooms, once the setting of events that imply the creepy-looking animatronics are far more than just stuffing and wires. In some circles this is the same sort of irony that led to our festering fear of clowns, also once seen as an innocent facet of childhood entertainment. And perhaps there is a lot of fun to be had with that setup, especially for those who indulge in the irreverent possibilities of the material. But the new film “Willy’s Wonderland” is an even stranger offense: a vehicle that takes those risks and robs them of all possible tension and enthusiasm. For 89 minutes, we watch on helplessly as eager people show up in front of a camera and slog their way through material that could not be any more listless if it had been written by zombies.

Host / *** (2020)

Any discussion we can have about “Host” ought to begin with the genius of its timing. Made on the cheap, conceptualized in isolation and filmed entirely on web cameras during the recent Covid-19 quarantine, director Rob Savage took an idea previously used in the “Unfriended” series and spun it on its head, using it to an advantage that reflected this strange and frightening time of social distancing. All its stars, situations and setups are executed in a way that involves no one ever being in the same room with one another, although their cellphones and computers are all functional when they are haunted by a malevolent spirit moving between them. How does it come to be, and how do the six key players of the movie summon it on an evening when their remote gathering progresses into a gradual, unrelenting nightmare? That is part of the fun in this well-made little “found footage” picture that shows remarkable skill and modulation given the urgency at which it was formulated and released. Now available as an exclusive on the Shudder streaming service, Savage has breathed refreshing new life into a sub-genre that has long been floundering for new inspirations.

Eaten Alive / *** (1976)

Much of what occurs on-screen in “Eaten Alive” is rooted in the sort of exploitative chutzpah of 70s horror films that frequently inspired those first audiences to recoil in utter disgust. Already familiar with those dubious qualities from his “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” of course, director Tobe Hooper committed to a similar premise that might as well have been transcribed from the diary of those original maniacs: a motel manager with crippling nervous ticks routinely invites strangers into his run-down establishment, terrorizes them and then murders them in cold blood before throwing their bodies – sometimes while still breathing – over the edge of his porch for a nearby crocodile to feast on. Occasionally, those victims will include relatives of prior victims, who go in search of their lost loved ones by retracing their steps right back to the spot of their demise. Yet somehow they resist all initial urges to question the shady nature of the establishment: stained wallpaper, rickety stairs and unstable floor boards all seem to suggest that a place like this would have been long condemned by the health board, much less been allowed to run a continuous operation. How do they allow themselves to dismiss skepticism long enough to accept lodgings? Why do they feel comfortable leaving behind their own belongings while they venture back into the city searching for clues? These are the impulses of men and women who have never even heard of a horror film, much less ever been in a situation where they are asked to exchange platitudes with eccentric recluses who smell of violence and shame.

Unfriended: Dark Web / ***1/2 (2018)

No single idea in the found footage horror subgenre has been as inconclusive as that of the one first observed in “Unfriended.” Consider the concept: for 83 minutes, characters remain static in a world of pixelated webcam images and cluttered desktop screens while a malevolent force somewhere in their chat boxes taunts them. Gradually, they are ambushed by something outside the periphery of the Skype window, until a lone person is left to answer for crimes that all present may have once participated in. Is this an idea full of potential, or one where the gimmick is destined to fade from novelty after the initial experience has worn off? Our fascination was certainly enough to inspire a single sit-through of the first attempt, although that movie sees little in the way of ongoing value; once the ploy is understood, the antics play like a wind-up toy instead of a plausible tool to modulate tension, especially in repeat viewings. Yet here we are again for a sequel, titled “Dark Web,” which utilizes the exact same format and implores the spontaneous hysteria of the same sorts of young actors, who balance their running commentary with all the perfunctory inquiries – like, “what’s that noise?” or “please don’t hurt me!” The irony of most new approaches in horror is how thoroughly familiar all the tricks seem, even as they are repackaged to avoid more obvious giveaways.

The Miranda Murders: Lost Tapes of Leonard Lake and Charles Ng / * (2017)

A movie like this is almost unbearable without a coherent running dialogue. “The Miranda Murders” belongs primarily to that ever-so-volatile subgenre of found footage horror films, but must be prefaced with an even graver emphasis: all the footage functions as a reenactment of an actual killing spree that took place in California during the mid-80s. For those well-versed in serial killer psychology, the names will be familiar: Leonard Lake and Charles Ng were like blood brothers destined for infamy, linked by the nihilistic world view that innocent young women were meant to be abducted and then molded into submissive sex slaves for their own perverse pleasures, often in front of a camcorder. When they acted out or misbehaved, the punishment would be severe – sometimes violent, sometimes intimidating, always ending in their untimely demises. Now comes this strange concoction of a film that attempts to fill a great void: namely, what exactly transpired in those turbulent months between 1983 and 85 when they lured victims to their compound, filmed them in fearful protest and then disposed of their remains throughout the property? Though some of the actual footage of their exploits survives, the gaps were apparently intriguing enough to inspire Matthew Rosvally to interpret the unknown on old-fashioned analogue tape. The result is one of the most poorly realized ideas of recent memory.

Hatchet / *** (2006)

A convoluted legend is never far from the fabric of an original horror film, and Adam Green’s deliriously violent “Hatchet” discovers one of the more interesting of recent memory. Somewhere in the haunted bayous of New Orleans exists the image of a monstrous force, a disfigured man who died long ago in a terrible accident and returns, each night, to stalk the woods in search of his lost father. Unfortunate bystanders who wander nearby are destined to become victims of his murderous rampage, but so rare has their obligatory fate been this ambitiously macabre: in the course of just 85 minutes, the villain is seen prying a skull off someone by the upper jaw, cutting through a man’s spinal column with a machete, beheading countless screaming teenagers and even dismembering one with a belt sander. In the murky depths of Crystal Lake, Jason Vorhees must be sick with envy. But is the terror of one Victor Crowley a cause of some deeply established voodoo curse, or did the poor boy really survive his ordeal in order to carry out his angry mission? That riddle is at the center of an otherwise superfluous mystery, in a movie that has the distinction of being relentlessly delightful while it is inspiring our pained winces.

Hell House, LLC 3: Lake of Fire / **1/2 (2019)

Two-thirds of the newest “Hell House” picture is the work of a man who is intrigued by the undiscovered. After finding comfort in the throes of low-tech visual manipulation and nuanced camerawork to achieve great thrills in the middle of a haunted hotel, he comes to “Lake of Fire” energized by what felt missing: the very need to expand on the possibilities of his great source. A brief confessional on camera emphasizes this urge: a cable show host, Vanessa Shepherd, contemplates the strange nature of Abaddon, New York, and how unsolved supernatural events have apparently extended beyond the hotel itself. Why are they are never covered in the local press? Because, of course, they aren’t as glamorous or sensational. Unfortunately, her reveal is interrupted by a bystander while on location and she is never able to finish the thought. But the seed is firmly planted in the audience, who watches on patiently while a business tycoon invests money and resources into turning the former hotel into a seasonal theater. The goal: to create an interactive Halloween performance of “Faust” inside a building rich in supernatural history. Perhaps “Faust,” about a struggle of a man’s temptations between God and Satan, ought to have been the key warning. Wouldn’t the many deaths and disappearances have been enough to sway away most sensible people from participating here?

"Psycho" Revisited

Abnormal even among the more challenging horror films of today, Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” abandons its central character arc for a much more unexpected second just as the plot begins to wade deeper waters. There is an observation made in the preceding scenes that suggest that possibility – namely, a moment when Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) realizes almost prematurely that she must return home and give up the money she stole from her employer – but our wildest notions of the conflict could scarcely predict the outcome of her abrupt escape down a rainy highway. Most of the familiar rules in horror were far from being accepted as part of the formula handbook, but a constant among the early prototypes was the use of one primary character as a source of study. Yet here she was, a mere 48 minutes into a film, showering at a rundown motel owned by an eccentric loner, and being snuck up on by a shadowy figure destined to stab her to death. If the shock of the incident remains startling for its perfect technical modulation – meticulous edits, a piercing soundtrack, out-of-focus details that obscured the numerous wounds – then its broader effect came entirely down to audacity. No other mainstream film up to that point committed itself to such nerve to shatter the comfortable borders of a story, and to this day it remains peerless among a growing arsenal of broadening genre standards.