"I got the ways and means to New Orleans. I'm going down by the river where it's warm and green. I'm gonna have a drink, and walk around. I got a lot to think about, oh yeah..."
--Concrete Blonde (Bloodletting/The Vampire Song)
My sister said it best earlier today: growing up in the Oliver household meant growing up with Halloween as a national holiday, on par with Thanksgiving or the fourth of July. I read her facebook posts today and I started thinking.
....and remembering the long hours sitting on the closed seat of the toilet while layers of white face paint and fake blood was applied to my face, the house on the corner where a vampire greeted me at the door and left me fleeing back to the sidewalk with a stream of urine running down my leg, the hours of marathons of Halloween and all its sequels, the days leading up to the big candy giveaway, and the great parties we hosted every year in honor of my dad's birthday: Halloween.
Things changed a bit after the spring of 2000. I was forced to grow up in more ways than one, and I guess I left behind some of the childish idealisms that holidays such as these held. Some of the magic and mystique of picking out costumes and buying bags of treats and carving pumpkins passed a bit, but the spirit that surrounds this time of year is still there. I hope I never lose any of that immature spunk that accompanies my steps and thoughts for this time of year. And I hope that Halloween will continue to symbolize a little piece of childhood make believe that will never really entirely disappear for good.
In honor of the great and secret holiday, I'm starting to post clips on Facebook from several films that I think best represent the genre of the horror film. I've seen multiple lists and critical ideas of what they think are the all-time scariest films ever made; however, I've decided to compile my own list of the all-time top ten best (and why).
Rather than putting the entire list up in one post, maybe I can make a commitment to update my blog every day for the rest of the week to slowly reveal to you, my reading public, just what scares me and makes me tick. Some of the films on my list are exactly what one would expect to find on any other top ten list. However, I believe there are a couple of surprises.
10. The Exorcist (1973, Directed by William Friedkin) - I remember my Mass Communications professor during my freshman year at LSUS bringing this one up. She said that it had been released in a serial format in Cosmo or some other magazine, and that she waited for every upcoming issue to finish reading this story. There's a lot of backstory with this particular film. The book was a huge hit, it was supposedly based on a real incident involving Jesuit priests in St. Louis, and the producers of the film went to great lengths to incorporate imagery from every facet of real life that scared people: hospitals and medical procedures, spiders, the Bible, the devil, Iraq.... I would definitely have to say that I saw the movie when I was WAAAAYY too young to watch it (I remember sneaking it in with my brother and Uncle Timmy), but I don't know what appropriate age could ever possibly be assigned to being mature enough to watch it. That being said, I have to note that I spent the next several weeks laying awake, thinking that my bed was shaking, and feeling terrified that I was going to be possessed.
Additional recommendations: Scott Derrickson's The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Richard Donner's The Omen, and Paul Wendkos's The Mephisto Waltz
9. Suspiria (1977, Directed by Dario Argento) - Argento is a master of the giallos, an Italian cinematic art form that, if done right, can be very effective. There are all sorts of elements that should be present: the black-gloved killer (check), beautiful girls being relentlessly stalked only to meet extremely grothesque yet somehow very alluring ends (check), extended chase scenes (check), something of a mystery to the real identity of the killer (check), a main character suddenly thrust into the mystery after seeing something that they have no idea to be significant (check), and the main character suddenly recalling a very important clue that will unlock the answers (check: in Suspiria-- "....the secret... I saw behind the door.... three irises.... turn the blue one!!!"). This was one of the few giallos that also had elements of a supernatural storyline, and for that reason, it is Argento's haunting, colorful masterpiece that one has to see to believe. The music arranged by the Goblins is memorable, the sets are a story in themselves, the blood is so incredibly red, and there is no doubt that the things that we see falling from the ceiling as the boarding school girls begin getting ready for dinner will have anyone watching squirming in their seats. This was the first of three films that Argento calls his trilogy of the "three mothers". The eighties followed with Inferno, then the new milleneum finally gave us Mother of Tears. Although both films have merit, neither will ever compare with the cinematic horror permanently etched into the brains of cinephiles with Suspiria. The only downside, for me, is my wonder why Argento insists on such deplorable dubbing for his films. Doesn't matter, he's still a genius.
Additional recommendations: Mario Bava's Twitch of the Death Nerve, Argento's Deep Red, and Argento's Tenebrae.
Stay tuned. I'll post numbers 8 and 7 tomorrow...
You are my first(ish). I decided to actually start using Blogger, an as such it would be nice to start networking a bit. I just got accepted to a nursing program, and have just gone thorugh much of what you are currently lammenting. Anyway, figured I'd say hi and see what happened.
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