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.

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.

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.

Taxi Driver / **** (1976)

Like the most notable of cynical movie narrators, Travis Bickle arrives in “Taxi Driver” less an observer and more a force of nature nearing the breaking point of his stability. What separates him from a breed of other loners eager to critique the system is how far he is willing to go in dismantling it. This is not a man who gazes directly at the cultural construct of 1970s New York with pragmatism, and when he becomes driven to shake up its foundation, each choice plays like a step further away from a tangible moral center. In many instances that can be amusing to watch, at least when the results are uncomfortable rather than dangerous. Consider his interaction with women: early on he attempts to earn the interest of Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), a political volunteer for an aspiring presidential candidate. At first she is just as amused by his blunt worldview as we are, until their first date ends up in a seedy theater showing porno. Now contrast that to how he approaches Iris (Jodie Foster), a 12-year-old prostitute whose eyes seem to plead for him to save her – admirable, perhaps, if you were to just passively observe the behavior. But while his is a pattern that is the staple of many movie characters whose madness walks in the guise of noble intentions, rarely are they this frontal, or so pointed in arriving at the core of the crumbling psyche.

"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.

The Wraith / **1/2 (1986)

In the annals of absurd action films that dominated the public’s awareness during the 80s, “The Wraith” may hold special distinction as the silliest of them all. How else would one describe the very idea of this film? Could it be done with a straight face, or some semblance of seriousness? Here is a premise that seems as if it were pulled right out of farce: a gang of car thieves murder a man, and then said victim is reincarnated from above so that he can exact his revenge by, well, racing them all to their deaths inside a mysterious black car. But wait, it gets better: when he is not inside said vehicle, he appears as an enigmatic drifter played by Charlie Sheen, who comes into town and interacts will all the same people who were once part of his previous life, including those who killed him. How do they not recognize him? Because, rather conveniently, his face has been changed. Furthermore, none of those observers suspect who he really is, although chance encounters eventually create enough of a sense of déjà vu to inspire all the obligatory inquiries (“have we met before?”). If you’re still paying attention, congratulate yourself: you may have actually thought more thoroughly about this setup than Mike Marvin, whose screenplay might as well have been assembled out of remnants of shorthand notes from an etch-a-sketch.

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.

Summer of 84 / *** (2018)

Any teenage boy who owns a pair of binoculars is destined to see himself as a private investigator. He uses them like an infallible window into the unknown, a dagger that pierces a hole through comfortable exteriors to study the inner workings of people with seedy private lives. Hitchcock used this ideology to fuel the voyeuristic tendencies of his hero in “Rear Window,” and now young Davey Armstrong adopts it while he spies shamelessly on his neighbors during the warm nights in “Summer of 84.” His first glimpse is innocent: harboring a crush on the girl next door, the lenses provide him a bird’s eye view of her upstairs bedroom, usually while she is in various stages of undress. Later, after news breaks that the disappearance of a dozen young boys in the county is linked to a single culprit, they become the instrument that will guide his quest against the cop across the street, whom he suspects may be the serial killer in question. The key difference, perhaps, is that voyeurs are content to watch without involvement., whereas Davey turns his endeavor into a quest that includes stalking the outer perimeter of a man’s house, going through the trashcans and even digging up a backyard in search of corpses.

Parasite / **** (2019)

The vicious cycle coalescing beneath class systems is a detail that draws much ire out of Bong Joon-ho, whose films all suggest a world where life and routine is usually mandated by where you fall in the system privilege. Not content to simply show sides of the structure clashing, he abandons them into a philosophical clarity that sees rot and cynicism as shared values; just as the wealthy are set in the method of clinging to their narrow vision, so do the impoverished embrace the seedy underbelly to propel their obligatory agendas. Both, perhaps, are what contribute to the ambiguous implication supplied by the title of “Parasite,” where a filmmaker never quite indicts a single target. Yet the argument inspires all the expected questions without direct answers. Are the characters in a wealthy family the victims of what will eventually transpire, or are they inconsolable leeches of an imbalanced society? Are we expected to see the poverty-stricken Kim family as sponges for all the trouble they are dealt, or as survivors adapting rapidly to the unpredictable whims of the hierarchy? The challenge offered in this audacious and engrossing little film barely reflects its deeper nature, which plays less like a standard narrative and more like a living organism adapting scene after scene to a volatile habitat of strange and mystifying nightmares.

"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.

The Lighthouse / ***1/2 (2019)

On the edge of a rock hugging the violent sea, a weathered lighthouse affirms the mission of two men stalled on a mental tightrope. They plod day and night through a routine that always leads to one outcome: ensuring the illuminating glow of the tower never dims, even as the most turbulent storms loom relentlessly overhead. But a day comes when the winds shift, casting doubt on their own perseverance; a nor’easter draws down like a force of punishment, until their demeanors – one sardonic, the other silent and morose – collide on each other with disturbing gravitas. On the other side of the struggle is only more of the same: a cycle without relief or certainty, unless the primary conviction is to stilt the moods of those eager viewers watching below the projector’s light. Their feelings, I reckon, might parallel what some of the early audiences thought upon first seeing “The Shining,” also about people who were driven mad by isolation. Did the slow plod through a tonal labyrinth, too, undermine their defenses enough to amplify the horror of the climax? Were they submissive to the visual attack, and did it negate any questions of logic they might have had? Robert Egger’s eerie, hypnotic new film mirrors many of those possibilities and finds something rather interesting buried beneath: an imagination that escalates its visions into the fantastical and absurd.

Joker / *1/2 (2019)

Long before mental health awareness pigeonholed the Joker personality as a damaged loser prodding psychological wounds, Bob Kane’s villain existed somewhere between the cynical and the sardonic, like an instrument of showy destruction joyously sticking a thorn into the sides of his opposition. If the early comic book readers never quite saw him as a great monster, it’s because the material was emboldened by the irony of the façade; the clown makeup and the ridiculous cackle were behaviors of cartoon personalities rather than straight madmen. But now we have crossed into the space where graphic yarns have lost that distinction and have become living embodiments of the terror within. With that the villains of Gotham City have gone through a considerable transformation, starting with the Tim Burton “Batman” films, where criminal minds were founded by childhood trauma rather than a simple need to be devious. Christopher Nolan’s adaptations took this prospect even further; gone were the absurdist production designs, and in their place were tangible forces of darkness that seemed as if they were walking past us on any ordinary city street. The most profound modern realization of the Joker belonged to “The Dark Knight,” where Heath Ledger took the idea beyond the source’s own possibility and showed us a broken personality whose chaotic tendencies were like a roadmap leading back to a mind wrought with personal hell. Alas, now we must contend with Todd Phillips’s miserable “Joker,” about a man who knows no humor, slogs through a world riddled in corruption and limitation, and finds escape in unleashing the sort of gratuity and destruction usually reserved for cynical horror films.

The Condemned / zero stars (2007)

Ten convicts. One game. Nine must die. The victor walks free. This isn’t an inherently flawed plot description if viewed through the lens of a well-intentioned eye, but the offense that is “The Condemned” exploits it for nothing more than lurid, gut-crushing violence – and in the process becomes one of the most deplorable moviegoing experiences of my life. The very idea of describing these scenes fills me with a dread I rarely recognize – you know, the sort that comes rising from the pit of your stomach when you’re in the throes of danger, or about to witness something causing agony or pain to another? If that’s just a taste of what is possible, then imagine what the poor suckers involved in the movie were thinking. Did they connect with this idea in any substantial way beyond their monetary greed? Was it sold to them as a sincere attempt at understanding our perverse voyeurism? Or were they all part of an elaborate joke being played on the victims known as the audience? I mourned their innocence just as much as they must have wept over the decimation of their careers. Towards the end, a single character stares angrily in the direction of the source of chaos, and he asks scornfully, “are you really trying to save them?” “No,” she retorts, “I was trying to save you.” How strangely comical it must have been for anyone to utter those words in the same room as a director and writer who ought to have seen them as self-reflective.

Tenderness of the Wolves / **1/2 (1973)

You can deduce a lot about a madman by the way he is perceived by others. The conventional anecdotes are the staple of many retellings of their crimes. They were loners. They didn’t talk to anyone. Some thought of them as socially awkward. They never stood out, always seeming to disappear among the faces in crowds. And then there are the sorts whose sins come as a total surprise to onlookers who otherwise thought highly of the culprits. “No one expected a sweet man like him to murder those boys,” a resident in Houston, Texas once said of Dean Corll. “I considered him a friend, and I’m stunned by this all,” another spoke of John Wayne Gacy, shortly after his house was ransacked and 29 bodies were pulled from the crawlspace beneath. The more lurid and disturbing maniacs cast a long shadow of doubt amongst their peers, who would never assume something so heinous behind a set of charismatic eyes. That also means their crime sprees tend to be long and drawn out, no doubt since they provide few (if any) warnings signs. Yet as I watched “Tenderness of the Wolves,” a dramatic reenactment of the many crimes of Fritz Haarmann, I was struck by the almost cheerful ambivalence of his friends, lovers and onlookers as he routinely got away with the vicious killings of teenage runaways. Consider a scene, for example, when the notorious “Werewolf of Hannover” drops a slab of meat on the counter of a lady’s establishment, and she expresses glee at his arrival. He apparently doubles as a butcher, in addition to being a police informant. Others, however, find the texture of his delivery odd and off-putting (no one questions where it comes from, of course). But the restraint of curiosity belongs to a single pitch: what purpose is there to suspect a man so charismatic of engaging in anything so heinous? This is a movie that theorizes people are more content to look the other way on what is obvious than to deal with it directly.

Christine / *** (1983)

John Carpenter’s “Christine” is a well-made attempt to bring sincerity to absurdity, without calling much attention to the disconnects of logic that would otherwise collapse the story. Imagine how frustrating that must have been for a man that was otherwise absorbed by more palpable realities. After “Halloween” established him as a filmmaker obsessed with the possible and “Escape from New York” moved him towards a more prophetic sense of storytelling, along came a ridiculous screen treatment involving a killer car and his nutjob owner who mow down the town’s teenage bullies. Who would have guessed – indeed, predicted – that any filmmaker might develop the self-awareness to know exactly where to take this story without tipping the audience off or sabotaging their interest? “It was just a paycheck when I took it on,” Carpenter once said in a book-length interview about his career. That was a payday well-earned, and now long after the horror movie market has been saturated by sub-par adaptations of most of Stephen King’s famous stories, his end result is widely seen as one of the more effective screen treatments of the era, however corny or preposterous it may remain on paper.

Under the Silver Lake / * (2019)

Early on in “Under the Silver Lake,” Andrew Garfield offers the first of what turns out to be countless stares of confusion, as he gets caught up in a mystery that lacks all obvious conclusions. It turns out his gaze will reflect the inevitable response of the audience observing him. That is not to say they will share the same intrigue or dedication to the cause, mind you, but instead will discover themselves trapped in an agonizing web of deceit that tests the very patience of their commitment. For what, you may be curious? Consider this scenario. Garfield plays a Los Angeles 20-something, wandering from one sensory experience to the next, who befriends a beautiful blonde woman living nearby. Then she mysteriously disappears – along with all her belongings – the morning after they share some innocent flirtation. Possessed by a suspicion that she vanished as a result of foul play, his journey to find her takes him into a maze of controversies, conspiracies, false leads, lurid fantasy, violence, death, long-winded monologues, inconclusive solutions, absurd puzzles, hidden messages, and virtually every possible detective device every utilized in a movie. That it is all made with a remarkably sense of craftsmanship only adds to the offense; this is an endeavor so overwrought, so obsessed with tossing the proverbial rug of chance out the window, that it never deserves the aesthetic of the man orchestrating it.

Us / *** (2019)

For well over three-fourths of its tenure, Jordan Peele’s “Us” moves to a rhythm that casts doubt on the momentum of its characters. Questions emerge through a rolodex of possible outcomes for nearly every intricate twist: are these people living in the hell that they have been ensnared by, or is it all part of a psychotic state forced upon them by something too baffling to deal with directly? Answers eventually become critical, as they must, but not before the very nature of individuals is tested in what seems like rip in the continuum; they move through a nightmare that tests them beyond the rules of their existence, as if their very existence has been an elaborate façade cloaking a collapsed reality. There’s a great deal of possibility in that prospect, especially for Peele, whose own “Get Out” also visualized a subterranean dimension while underlining powerful social commentary. But here the fun ends just as abruptly as it begins, in a final explanation so painfully broad that it inspires confusion more than closure. There is no question in anyone’s mind that Peele is slowly emerging as one of the most exciting provocateurs of modern horror films, but is a picture like this not more rewarding when the riddle doesn’t inspire our collective scorn?

The Head Hunter / *** (2019)

“The Head Hunter” is a creature feature in which the most fearsome beast is man himself, set adrift in a moral wasteland, where civilized behaviors are seized by carnal urges running wild in a horrific wilderness. The first scene establishes his routine while simultaneously pointing to the undercurrent of his vengeful demeanor; as he wanders past the frame to slaughter an unseen villain (we only hear the impact of the sword and the cry of a creature), a small voice calls him back towards his prior location. It is his young daughter, concealed in a tent, needing to know her protector is nearby. They exchange smiles and she returns to sleep, but the morose voiceover indicates this is a memory from the past; one of the beasts has apparently killed her, and now his life has become a long hunt for the animal responsible for her demise. In the meantime, the main wall of his cabin becomes a monument to all the heads he has collected – some frightening, others bizarre, few of them based in any tangible reality. The first reaction is one of befuddlement: what possible villain could be more dangerous, especially when his domicile already looks like a scrapbook of the most diabolical movie monsters you have never seen?