On the 12th Day of Halloween, My Tue Love Gave to Me: A Deep-Cleansing Pea Soup Bath.
Christmas gets a sickening amount of attention don’t you think? There exists a metric ton of traditions, a host of songs, the giving of gifts, and even a song about giving gifts. You all know the song I am referring to, even if you don’t know all the lyrics and only come running in from the other room to sing that obnoxious ‘’five gold rings’’ part. Well I’m sick of Christmas having all the fun and have decided to requisition the 12 Days of Christmas song to serve a more Halloween-y purpose. We’ll investigate some of the requisite horror titles we all dust off around this time of year, and I will complement each blurb with a film-related gift to give to your true love…that is, if you gravely dislike your true love.
The Exorcist is the quintessential demonic possession movie by which all subsequent are judged. This reputation is no fluke, but indeed well earned. Roger Ebert called The Exorcist an “exploitation of the most fearsome resources of the cinema.” I feel I need not waste time summarizing the film as it wouldn’t find comfortable purchase upon this list were it not familiar to an overwhelming majority of you.
What I find so terrifying about The Exorcist has less to do with the graphically frightening images of Ragan’s head spinning or her unsettling yoga practices—made famous by the rerelease—and more to do with the flashes of disturbing imagery throughout the film. These moments are so subtle as to be near subliminal. That devilish face that pops up always seems to greet me in my nightmares.
But yes, the moment when she vomits up a heaping helping of green slime onto the hapless priest is disgustingly seminal. As such, bestow upon your true love a flood of warm, visceral goodness. They will loathe you for it.
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On the 11th Day of Halloween My True Love Gave to Me: A Slightly Used Set of Meathooks.
Even if you haven’t seen it, you know its name well. I’m ashamed to say this is a classic I only just saw for the first time about two years ago, but it was no less effective seeing it as an adult. The grainy, bargain basement, almost documentary feel of the film lends itself nicely to the myth and the frightening tale it is weaving; the authenticity of that tale being inconsequential. This is a landmark film in a number of ways. It not only blurred the division between cult and mainstream audiences, but was one of the most successful independent horror films of all time.
There are two elements of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre that make it so terrifying: its tenacity and sound design. Starting with the latter, it seems counterintuitive to praise a micro-budget production on its sound design, but if there is one thing in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre that serves its iconic status, it’s the fierce roar of the chainsaw. The piercing, metal whine of the blades offers a foreboding precursor to the bloody nightmare to unfold. It ends up being such an effective association that I defy you not to think on this movie anytime a tree is being felled in your vicinity.
As to the tenacity, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is brutal in its pacing. From the time the hitchhiker enters the van, the hapless travelers are locked into this ordeal.
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On the 10th Day of Halloween, My True Love Gave to Me: A Five-Fingered Gardening Utensil
One cannot talk about the great American boogeymen without tipping their dirty fedoras to one Mr. Freddy Krueger. With his razor sharp wit and similarly endowed hand accessory, Freddy added an entirely new meaning to horror films giving you nightmares. Wes Craven took an article he read about Cambodian refugees having nightmares so severe that they literally never woke from them, and created one of the greatest horror films of all time.
What I really love about A Nightmare on Elm Street is its effortless blending of the slasher film and more supernatural horror fare. Where Halloween and Friday the 13th also made cannon out of the wholesale slaughter of teens, A Nightmare on Elm Street added a darker, even more unnatural monster to the proceedings. Freddy’s aims are the same of Jason’s or Michael’s, but his methods are far more sinister and his power less grounded in the simple physics of blades and flesh.
There is also something so unnerving about a killer who stalks you in your dreams. While I have the wherewithal to stay the hell away from haunted houses or cursed woods, I have no choice but to sleep. A Nightmare on Elm Street, as a concept, plays with the idea of safety by jeopardizing victims when they are most vulnerable. When the last glimmer of a haven is so artfully corrupted, it makes it harder to tell ourselves that it’s only a movie.
So give your true love this token that will both maximize their killing efficiency and make trimming the hedges a breeze!
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On the 9th Day of Halloween, My True Love Gave to Me: A Camp Crystal Lake Tee Shirt
High up there on the list of the great ones, Friday the 13th will always have a special place in my heart. Even before the arrival of Jason and the inception of the leviathan-like franchise it became, Friday the 13th proved to be one damned effective, if incredibly basic horror film. That being said, it did help perfect the very young slasher subgenre just as it was getting off the ground.
What always kind of creeped me out about Friday the 13th is the fact that the teenage victim fodder had somewhat altruistic reasons for being at the camp; hoping to renovate it and allow for children to enjoy it again. True, they do engage in all the drinking, drugs, and premarital sex that inevitably seal their fate, but I know I’ll think twice before going into the woods; even if it is to set up for a Boy Scout Jamboree.
Mrs. Voorhees is such an incredible killer. I love her back story because wanting to avenge the untimely death of her son lends a certain amount of sympathy to our matronly mass murderer. It also gives her a legitimate motivation for killing this particular group of teens beyond the fact that they happen to be convenient prey. I also think Betsy Palmer does a wonderful job of “selling the crazy” when she channels her dead son’s voice in what would then get digitized into the film’s signature theme: ki-ki-ki-ma-ma-ma.
So give your true love a Camp Crystal Lake tee shirt to commemorate your summer of archery, crafting, kayaking, and running for your very lives.
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On the 8th Day of Halloween, My True Love Gave to Me: A Bathroom Remodel Replete with Peephole
I don’t think it’s over praise to call Psycho one of the greatest films of all time; the American Film Institute would certainly support such claims. However history may remember this Hitchcock milestone, it is certainly one of my all time favorites. Though some still debate its horror credentials, there is nothing like watching Norman, as his mother, work his murderous magic on Halloween night. That shower scene created the same repulsion to bathing that, years later, Jaws would create towards ocean swimming.
My favorite thing about Psycho is the complete ruse that Hitch pulls on the audience. From frame one, you believe that Janet Leigh is the heroine of the picture and that no matter how hairy the situation in which she finds herself, she has to get away. But then Norman cuts that theory to ribbons in one of cinema’s greatest twists. And while serial killers with bizarre sexual hang-ups and affinities for corpses may seem trite in this day and age, I love that Psycho explored these topics in a film backed by a major studio in 1960. Tell me those folks weren’t shocked!
The Bernard Hermann score, one of his many collaborations with Hitch, is phenomenal. It has the grandeur of a strings section while producing such a dark, brooding melody that, while catchy, is also terribly foreboding.
So give your true love a bathroom remodel. It will show that you are handy and, if they are amenable to the peephole addition, they are definitely a keeper and someone you should bring home to meet mother.
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On the 7th Day of Halloween, My True Love Gave to Me: A Typewriter That Has Seen Better Days
No two ways about it, Steven King is a master of horror. As a prolific author, his macabre novels have incited unhealthy levels of terror in his readers. It is therefore no surprise that so many of those novels and short stories have found their way to the silver screen. But what is so impressive are the names attached to some of those adaptations. King’s work has navigated its way to theaters under the captainship of the likes of Brian De Palma, David Cronenberg, Frank Darabont, John Carpenter, and, as in today’s film, Stanley Kubrick.
What I love about The Shining is just how minimalist it is. It is simply one family alone in an enormous hotel for the winter with only the ghosts of the past to keep them company. Isolation can be a truly frightening prospect and no film explores this more adeptly than The Shining. Jack Nicholson’s performance is stellar as his character, also named Jack, slowly descends into total madness.
The opening to this film is one of the most foreboding introductions to a horror film I have ever seen. The wide, sweeping shots from the helicopter as the Torrance family winds their way to the secluded Overlook Hotel perfectly establish just how cut off they will be from the rest of the world. The ominous blasts from the horns accompanied by ghostly, indistinct voices produce goose bumps before the film even gets going.
So, in honor of Jack’s admittedly repetitive writing style, give your true love his typewriter. But be wary of their work to play ratio.
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On the 6th Day of Halloween, My True Love Gave to Me: The Necronomicon
The Evil Dead is one of my favorite films ever made, and not simply relegated to favorites among the horror genre. It is truly a marvel of independent filmmaking. Sam Raimi’s passion project cost roughly $350,000 to make and left quite an impression both at home and, on a larger scale, in the United Kingdom. You have to tip your hat to a film that was made for laughs and ended up being part of a landmark censorship case in England for which Sam Raimi nearly had to stand trial. If you have the gorgeous new Anchor Bay Blu-ray of this film, I highly recommend the special feature entitled Discovering The Evil Dead which goes into vast detail about the situation.
Few horror films utilizing this amount of gore and death are as fun to watch as The Evil Dead. While the shoestring budget did little to dampen the graphic zombie/monster effects the film never loses its light-hearted feel. Much of the humor in the film comes form the incredible performance of a baby-faced Bruce Campbell. The Evil Dead is of course the film, and subsequent franchise, that made him horror royalty and he earns every ounce of that status with his dopey, everyman charm and comedic reactions.
I also love Sam’s distinctive camera work in The Evil Dead. In lieu of massive financial backing, Raimi had to get creative with his cinematography. I think he knocks it right out of the park and his style is what makes The Evil Dead such an indelible horror classic. I still am not sure how he was able to pull off those long, blazing fast pans through the woods.
So give your true love this human skin-bound, blood-inked novel, but urge her not to read from it until you are safely removed from the house.
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On the 5th Day of Halloween, My True Love Gave to Me: An Enormous Flame-Thrower
The Thing
Although I definitely make it a point to view John Carpenter’s The Thing on October 31st, I must confess there is no point in the year wherein I would turn down another revisiting. I find The Thing to be Carpenter’s most compulsively watchable movie. The Thing is the second film adaptation of John W. Campbell Jr.’s short story Who Goes There and, while I haven’t read the book and can therefore not comment on which adaptation is more faithful, there is little denying that Carpenter’s version is vastly different and far more terrifying than the 1951’s The Thing from Another World.
Much like The Shining, isolation is a major component of the terror in The Thing. These guys, at that research lab in the Antarctic, are completely severed from the rest of the world. When the alien starts wreaking havoc and decimating their numbers, there is literally nowhere to run. I love the way the snowstorms are constantly howling outside even in the quietest of scenes; underscoring the tension and reminding us of the monster lurking inside them. The subzero conditions also present the perfect obstacle that forces them to remain indoors with one another despite the fact that they know one of their ranks is not who they appear to be.
That paranoia is another fundamental element of the film’s effectiveness. The shape-shifting extraterrestrial can perfectly copy the DNA of anyone it touches and therefore even though the person standing next to you may look, sound, and act exactly like the person you’ve known your whole life, there is always the possibility that they are an intergalactic wolf in sheep’s clothing. The scene where they are administering the blood test to determine who the alien might be is one of the most seminal scenes in horrordom.
Bundle that all up with an Ennio Morricone score, great performances, some of the most likable characters in any horror movie ever conceived, and Rob Bottin’s unnaturally awesome effects work and it becomes easy to understand why The Thing is such a classic.
So honor both your true love and the greatness of The Thing by buying them an enormous flamethrower. Give the gift that keeps on giving…third degree burns.
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On the 4th Day of Halloween, My True Love Gave to Me: A Back-Packing Trip across the Scottish Moors
An American Werewolf in London
This is another classic horror film that found its way into my consciousness only embarrassingly recently. As a pint-sized horror geek, my interest was always more focused on the slasher films, and therefore films dealing with more supernatural topics fell by the wayside. That being said, I would argue that I would not have enjoyed An American Werewolf in London as much as I did seeing it for the first time one year ago as I would have had my first viewing been during my formative years.
1981 was the year that changed the concept of the horror comedy forever. Between Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead and John Landis’ An American Werewolf in London, this strange hybrid genre finally got an injection of something lacking since its inception: genuine scares. Sure there is an argument to be made that these aren’t straightforward horror films and therefore need not necessarily be frightening, but I think it does a disservice to half your source material to treat horror as irreverent. Landis understood this and so, while adding in some very witty dialogue and plot devices, he did not skimp of the creepiness and shocking terror.
That transformation scene is one of the most horrifying, most unflinching moments I’ve ever witnessed; equaled in this film only by the Nazi monster dream sequence. Rick Baker’s stellar makeup work is an absolute triumph of the unsettling. I love that the song Blue Moon plays over this painfully uncomfortable scene, but did you know Elmer Bernstein originally wrote an orchestral piece of music for this moment? Search the internet, you’ll find it pretty easily. It’s fantastic!
So take your beloved on a romantic walking tour of one of the eeriest places on Earth; preferably at night. If you hear howling, run like hell.
