recap: all of my favorite halloween movie picks

Don't forget to say your "white rabbits x3" for good luck this month, and honor your saints today if that is your thing. Here is the list of all my favorite Halloween flicks this year, last month. Just because Halloween is over, that doesn't mean you can't watch a scary movie. They're always in season.

Castle of Blood, The Return of Dracula, Poltergeist, Trilogy of Terror, Rosemary’s Baby, The Innocents, The Stepford Wives, Eye of the Devil, What We Do in the Shadows, The Legacy, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 73-70’s T.V. Movies, Mad Monster Party?, The Omen, Village of the Damned, The Bone Collector, Beetlejuice, City of the Dead/Horror Hotel, Little Shop of Horrors, Horrors of the Black Museum, The Man Who Fell to Earth, The Birds, Bunny Lake is Missing, Spirits of the Dead, The Company of Wolves, The Shining, Wolf, Suspiria, Eyes Without A Face, Only Lovers Left Alive.

favorite movie #90 - halloween edition: eyes without a face

Favorite movies that have had an impact on me - #90 - Eyes Without A Face (1960) - A truly unique movie that finds its horror in the possible, the familial. The evil scientist (Pierre Brasseur) is a guilt-wracked doting father who wants to restore his daughter to her former beauty after his reckless driving resulted in her disfigurement. The "Igor" (Alida Valli) is a faithful, grateful patient who will do anything for the doctor who helped restore her own scarred face. The monster (Édith Scob) is an innocent girl, whose burned and scarred face is destroying her — from within and without. Director Georges Franju doesn't avoid showing the horrors, in gory detail, of the face transplant operation. There are times the viewer will want to look away. It is an uncomfortable, haunting film to watch. But it is also unforgettable — especially the many shots of Scob's eyes, behind her mournful mask.

favorite movie #89 - halloween edition: suspiria

Favorite movies that have had an impact on me - #89 - Suspiria (1977) - Dario Argento's Suspiria may be a giallo film, but its primary color palette is red, red, red. The horror thriller features Jessica Harper as Suzy, a young American ballerina who attends a dance academy in Germany. That is just the framework for hue-saturated set pieces which feature veteran Hollywood star Joan Bennet, Alida Valli and one ingenious, gruesome, and gory death after another. The film is ostensibly about witchcraft and devil worship, but it plays more like a nightmarish fairy tale. The young, mostly female victims are drenched in either blood-red lights or the real thing. It's hard not to think of the "horrors" of coming of age and a woman's intimate relationship with blood. Whatever Suspiria is about, it is so arresting to watch it could have been interesting even if it had been a silent movie. The moment Suzy walks through the sliding doors at the airport and into the stormy night, her adventure, and ours, begins.

Suzy (Jessica Walter( is not in Kansas anymore

Suzy's roommate Olga (Barbara Magnolfi)

Suzy's friend Sara (Stefania Casini) tries to warn her that the school is a strange place

Young and handsome Udo Kier, post-Warhol 

favorite movie #88 - halloween edition: wolf

Favorite movies that have had an impact on me - #88 - Wolf (1994) - I've written about this film before, one of my favorite Jack Nicholson and werewolf movies:

I recently caught another film that Nicholson did with Pfieffer, Wolf (1994), and really liked it. Directed by Mike Nichols, it is a dark urban fairy tale and love story. Wolf at first seems a pretty standard werewolf update, and in some ways it is. Rick Baker (An American Werewolf in London) does the make-up effects, but this is not a movie that cares about showcasing the special effects of the werewolf transformation. It is about the after-effects of the transformation and its effects on the hero. 

Nicholson plays Will Randall, a New York editor-in-chief at a publishing house, who one night, while in Vermont, gets bitten by a wolf. Will soon starts to develop some enhanced abilities — smell, hearing, perception. And he sparks the interest of Laura Alden (Pfeiffer), a poor little rich girl with a huge chip on her shoulder — who also happens to be his boss's daughter. Will sums up Laura's privileged, bratty attitude when they first meet in some dialogue that was tailor-made for Nicholson to recite. Can you even imagine any other actor being able to not only say these lines convincingly, but intrigue a woman like Michelle Pfeiffer while saying them? 

"You know, I think I understand what you're like now. You're very beautiful and you think men are only interested in you because you're beautiful, but you want them to be interested in you because you're you. The problem is, aside from all that beauty, you're not very interesting. You're rude, you're hostile, you're sullen, you're withdrawn. I know you want someone to look past all that at the real person underneath, but the only reason anyone would bother to look past all that is because you're beautful. Ironic, isn't it? In an odd way you're your own problem."

You can read the entire review here.

favorite movie #87 - halloween edition: the shining

Favorite movies that have had an impact on me - #87 - The Shining (1980) - I didn't actually like this film much when it first came out, but it has really grown on me. Jack Nicholson's performance as Jack Torrance has become iconic. As much as I like Stephen King's original novel, this adaptation by Stanley Kubrick stands on its own as a brilliant, separate artwork. So many wonderful, symmetrical shots. Redrum!!!

Related:

the shining

room 237 — wheels within wheels

doctor sleep and the lure of the sequel

stephen king's on the night shift again

favorite movie #86 - halloween edition: the company of wolves

Favorite movies that have had an impact on me - #86 - The Company of Wolves (1984) - Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber is one of my favorite books. It is a collection of short stories based on fairy tales, with a feminist twist. Carter teamed up with director Neil Jordan and adapted one of the tales for the screenplay of The Company of Wolves, an updated version of Little Red Riding Hood. The protagonist, Rosaleen (Sarah Patterson) is told a variety of wolf-related tales by her granny (Angela Lansbury), who warns her never to trust a man whose eyebrows meet ...

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tell a fairy tale day