Must-See Horror Films Part 3

The Omen trilogy ("The Omen", "Damien", "The Final Conflict")

"The Omen" has a very prominent place in my life. It is one of the films that terrified me the most, for the longest time. It really bothered me, making me feel like you could trust no one, and you were safe almost nowhere. It also really built my interest in religious history, comparative religion, and the supernatural. In terms of films, this series, and "Rosemary's Baby" set the bar for what horror films could be. They didn't have to look cheap, or star no-name or has-been actors. They didn't have to be hokey or cheesy. And these films are anything but. Each starring major actors such as Gregory Peck, they depict the birth of the Anti-Christ, and his ascent to power in the world of politics. This happens through a global conspiracy of seemingly normal people in key positions - a nurse in a hospital, a nanny, the headmaster of a military school and others, all who take the steps needed to make sure Damian, the Anti-Christ, gets what he needs and where he needs to be, sometimes at the expense of others. They're also aided by Satan himself, who makes freak accidents like lightning strikes or elevator crashes happen, or his minions - animals like dogs or ravens who guard Damian and punish those who would threaten him. Along the way, as an early teen, Damian discovers who he is, and has to make the choice of accepting his destiny and power, or trying to live normally.

"Nosferatu"

This 1970s remake directed by acclaimed director Wernor Herzog and starring Klaus Kinski as the vampire, is still one of the most terrifying and disturbing films I have every seen. Like the original, it takes all the romance out of the vampire legend, for the most part. The vampire can fall in love, but he is far, far, from attractive. He is still a batlike reanimated corpse, trying awkwardly to be human, after centuries of being something else. What I love about the film is that it shows the logical conclusion of what happens when a vampire is in your midst. Over time, there are fewer and fewer people, because he feeds nightly. So every day, there is one less person in town. By the film's end, in the most disturbing scene, he is dancing and running through the town square, free to do as he will, because no one can stop him, almost everyone is dead. The town belongs to the vampire, and his teeming minions, the rats.

"Texas Chain Saw Massacre"

While "Psycho" is often called the original slasher film, this film really set the standard for the rest to come. Teenagers, killers, a relatively high body count, and one girl left. All the things are there, for the first time. What's more, there's nothing silly here. some of the scenes, including the "meat hook" scene depicted on the poster above, were so brutal, so new to the time, that people passed out in the theatre.

"Last House on the Left"

The first film written and directed by horror legend Wes Craven, this isn't the perfect horror film, there are odd bits of humor thrown in that don't sit quite right, but it succeeds in Craven's goal of showing violence realistically. The film is about a girl who is raped and killed on her 17th birthday. The perpetrators unknowingly seek refuge in the home of her parents, who realize who the men are, and claim bloody vengeance. Stark, bloody, brutal, this film set the stage for "Texas Chain Saw Massacre" a few years later.

"Black Christmas"

Influencing the later, legendary film, "Halloween," this film is yet another pioneer in the slasher genre, depicting a group of sorority girls who receive threatening phone calls during the Christmas holiday. Eventually the threats become reality, and the girls are forced to fight for their lives. The subject of two remakes, this original may still be the best.

"The Exorcist"

Again, one of the most frightening and ground-breaking films ever made, this film is the other of the Big Three films with a serious look at the Devil, the other two being "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Omen." Based on the best-selling novel, which in turn was based on a true account of a demonically possessed child, this film stars Linda Blair as Regan, a 13 year old girl displaying odd behaviors that are increasingly disturbing. When science doesn't seem to have the answer, her mother turns to religion, and the rare rite of exorcism. Spawning a number of sequels, with more on the way, as well as countless films inspired by it, this film was the first of its kind.

"Carrie"

Based on Stephen King's debut novel, and directed by Brian DePalma, the film stars Sissy Spacek as Carrie, the most awkward, least popular girl in school. Carrie's highly religious, single mother dominates her life at home, and her days in school are spent just trying to survive while being mocked for being not pretty enough, too poor, or just strange. But no one suspected how strange Carrie really is, as she starts to display the ability to move things with her mind, an ability that comes into play when the popular kids play the ultimate prank on Carrie, and things go terribly, terribly wrong.

"Duel"

The first movie directed by Steven Spielberg, based on a story by horror and sci-fi master Richard Matheson, this film stars Dennis Weaver as a businessman who must drive across the California desert to make an important meeting, but along the way he is being tormented by the driver of a huge diesel truck, belching choking exhaust and threatening to run him off the road. This starts a cat and mouse game, which gets only more tense as his car starts to overheat, with no relief of any kind for miles around. Weaver's performance and Spielberg's direction do an excellent job of illustrating the worry, paranoia, and helplessness of the driver of the car.

'Targets"

(My mistake, the movie actually came out in 1968. Sue me. Watch it anyway.) Produced by Roger Corman and directed by Peter Bogdanovich, who also appears in the film, this is the last dramatic appearance of Boris Karloff, who effectively plays himself, and who fittingly steals every scene he's in. Karloff plays an aging actor famous for horror films who plans to retire. His last public appearance will be at a drive-in theater, where they plan to have a tribute to him and show one of his most famous films. However, a Viet Nam vet is also planning to be there, to continue the killing spree he started earlier in the day by killing his own family. There are many good moments in this film, from the interaction between Karloff and Bogdanovich, to the climax with Karloff as the hero, but my favorite, one of my favorite scenes in any film ever, is when a hungover Karloff sees himself in the mirror and is frightened, because he is such a master of horror he even frightens himself. Gold.

"Halloween"

The original classic, still timelessly frightening today, I don't even know how many times I've seen this film, and I still find good bits in it I've never noticed. It's a true masterpiece. The film tells a simple story of Michael Myers, a boy who kills most of his family for no apparent reason on Halloween. Committed to a psychiatric hospital, he spends years never speaking, becoming to an adult, who escapes, going home to kill again. Donald Pleasance plays Dr. Loomis, Michael's therapist who believes his patient is not insane, but pure evil. Jamie Lee Curtis, in the role that made her famous, stars as a babysitter trying to protect herself and the child in her care from the silent, unstoppable maniac even as those in the neighborhood around her die one by one.

"Jaws"

Another terrifying entry from Steven Spielberg, this is the film that made him a household name, and the film that defined what came to be known as "a summer blockbuster." Featuring excellent acting from Richard Dreyfuss, Roy Scheider, and Robert Shaw, the film is a master class in terror, building suspense over and over again through hints of what you might see, through music and sound and odd camera angles until finally, you see the shark, the source of all the terror, and the carnage really ensues.

"Magic"

Some films play on basic fears and suspicions, and this is one of them. "Magic" is about a ventriloquist who falls in love, and his dummy gets in the way. Is the dummy really alive, or does he just seem to be? It's hard to say, and the dummy is so creepy you can barely watch, but you have to.

"I Spit on Your Grave"

This film took the ultra-violent brutality of "Last House on the Left" and went a step farther. What if the victim, left for dead, survived, and then hunted down her rapists, punishing and slaughtering them without mercy? So grisly it became the stuff of legend.

"Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (Donald Sutherland)

The original version of the film was already a classic, turning worries about the communist scare (is your neighbor a Communist?) into worries that your neighbor might be some kind of alien. This first remake, one of several, is for many, the definitive film, with outstanding special effects and performances from Donald Sutherland, Jeff Goldblum, and others. If "Jaws" made people afraid to swim, this film made people afraid to take a nap, as it depicts pods from outer space landing on Earth and taking root. When people fall asleep, tendrils come out of the plants and attach to the human, creating a complete duplicate of the person as the original dies. The duplicate is identical in every way, but lacks passion, lacks a soul. A group of people (led by Sutherland), note what's happening and try to escape the city where seemingly everyone is becoming a pod person, and as the film goes on, the paranoia and hopelessness reaches a fever pitch.

"The Howling"

If you read my first installment, you read that when Lon Chaney, Jr. portrayed "The Wolf Man" in the classic Universal films, what really made the role unique is that more than the other monsters, who could also be sympathetic at times, you could see that Chaney's character really didn't want to be a werewolf. He was tortured by his existence. Three decades later, "The Howling" depicted werewolves who loved being werewolves. Werewolves who were sexy. Werewolves having sex. But still they were terrifying monsters.

"The Wicker Man "

No, this has nothing to do with Nicolas Cage, California, or bees. None of those things appear in this, the original masterpiece. Edward Woodward plays a devout Christian police detective sent to a remote British town to investigate reports of a missing child. There, he finds the locals are essentially some sort of nature cult, led by Lord Summersisle (Christopher Lee). The people are happy and peaceful enough, but things seem a bit off, and no one will talk about the missing child. As the investigation continues it appears that the village isn't just the kind of nature cult/commune that was becoming known in the 1970s, but more of an obscure Celtic fertility cult, and they were planning a festival with a ritual. The ritual of the Wicker Man.

"Amityville Horror"

If you've been watching the Annabelle films, and the other related films depicting a husband and wife paranormal investigation team, you should see this one, the case that made them famous. Based on the true story of a family that moved to a house in Amityville, New York, the very house where a young man killed his family years before, the film features James Brolin (father of Josh Brolin) and Margot Kidder as the young couple who bought the house, looking for a fresh start for their family. But as they stay, odd things begin to happen, and this handsome husband begins to look more and more like the young man who killed his family. There were many haunted house films before this one, but none as terrifying as this.

"Blacula"

You may have heard of the "Blaxploitation" films of the 1970s. Films such as "Shaft" and "Foxy Brown" where African Americans are the heroes, not just the criminals, but where the criminals and the cops may be equally bad. With "Blacula", classic horror gets the blaxploitation treatment as Count Dracula himself bites an African prince, giving him the mocking name of "Blacula." Blacula survives the years, reviving in modern day Harlem where he encounters pimps, dealers, and women both dangerous and beautiful.

"Night of the Lepus"

That's right. Killer rabbits. You only need to know two things. Killer rabbits, and a rare appearance of DeForest Kelly (Dr. "Bones" McCoy of "Star Trek" fame) in a movie outside of "Star Trek." The film is odd in that the rabbits are undenyingly cute, but also scary. Not quite nightmare-inducing, but unique. If you want rabbit nightmares, watch the animated classic, "Watership Down."

"Deep Red"

In the 60s and 70s, a generation of Italian directors, inspired by classic horror and noir films, but particularly by Alfred Hitchcock, started making films of their own in what became a genre of their own, called giallo. Giallo films combine horror, mystery, sex, and gore in ways that are always stylish, sometimes sleazy, sometimes terrifying. "Deep Red" is a masterpiece of the genre, by one of the fathers of giallo, Dario Argento. The plot in this film is secondary. There is a plot, it doesn't always make sense, but the imagery will haunt you for a long time to come.

"Suspiria"

With "Deep Red," "Suspiria" is part of what became a trilogy centered around the idea of three witch sisters, each connected to a different place in the world. And, like "Deep Red", this film is considered a masterpiece, recently remade, starring Dakota Johnson, with a bit more cohesive plot, this original still has more disturbing visuals and concepts than you can hope to remember, or forget. Concepts such as a room filled with razor wire. Why would there be a room filled with razor wire, that someone could in to? That's hard to say. But it happens, and it will make you cringe.

"Silent Night, Deadly Night"

Another of my favorite horror films of all time, it's also one of my favorite holiday films, because my mind is dark like that. Banned in countries around the world not because it's the most violent film ever, or the first film to have a killer killing people on Christmas (other films like that are in this very article) but because in this film, the killer is dressed like Santa Claus, acting as one of Santa's helpers. Skip the remake, despite Malcolm McDowell being in it. Go with the original

Next: The 1980s