Halloween is approaching. It's the time for tricks and treats. Well, because of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, most communities across the country are figuring out creative — and safe — alternatives to the traditional, door-to-door, decidedly anti-social distancing trick-or treating. Watching scary movies is a good way to get into the Halloween spirit (pun intended!).
I
love scary movies. I have loved scary movies since I was a kid when I would park myself in front of the television on a Saturday afternoon for a marathon broadcast of horror films that were made
decades before I was born. Local Philadelphia UHF station Channel 17 showed "Mad Theater" back-to-back with "Horror Theater," both hosted by the pseudo-frightening, always campy "Dr. Shock." The good doctor would entertain his mostly pre-pubescent home audience with magic tricks and hokey skits during breaks in the film. I even got to meet Dr. Shock when he made an appearance at a carnival in my neighborhood. It was a thrill... if I remember correctly. It was on Dr. Shock's show that I had my first exposure to Bela Lugosi's
Dracula, Boris Karloff's
Frankenstein and Lon Chaney Jr.'s
The Wolf Man, along with a creepy parade of monsters and witches and zombies and ghouls and all
kinds of things that go bump in the night. The only problem was.... they didn't
scare me. I was
drawn to these characters. I was
fascinated by them. I
marveled at them. I just wasn't
scared by them... and
that's what I was looking for. And so began my life-long quest for "the big scare"... the movie that would finally give me that scare I craved.
I have seen hundreds of horror movies, from the classics of the 30s to the low-budget thrillers of the 50s and 60s, to the blood-saturated gorefests from Britain's Hammer Studios in the 70s to the cookie-cutter slasher films of the 80s. Recently, I have watched movies that have been recommended by self-proclaimed aficionados... all to great disappointment.
In fairness, I enjoyed the initial entry of a number of horror "franchises." Films like "A Nightmare on Elm Street," "Friday the 13th," "Halloween" and even the venerable "Texas Chainsaw Massacre," in my opinion were all entertaining, but — Jesus! — do we really need eleven sequels that essential tell the exact same story over and over again? I think not.
The current crop of horror movies are either more concerned with giving the viewer a front row seat to an autopsy or offering a flimsy, nonsensical plot as an excuse to splash gratuitous nudity across the screen. I know that I am in the
overwhelming minority, based on the disciple-like attendees I have seen packing the aisles at horror movie conventions. (Yeah, I
used to go to them
when I collected celebrity autographs.)
I watched the Netflix series
Stranger Things based purely on the buzz it received among friends and on the internet. I was not entertained. Yeah, yeah... I got all the references and jokes. I just didn't think they were as clever as the
writers thought they were. I actually watched all three seasons of the series, hoping I would "get into it" as it progressed. I did not. I found myself constantly checking my watch and wondering how much longer it would go on. The acting was good. No complaints there. I felt the story was limp and took too long to tell. And when it was finally told, I didn't care. And I certainly wasn't scared.
Glutton for punishment that I am, I am currently in the throes of the HBO series
Lovecraft Country. I was intrigued by the dichotomy of the subject matter — an examination of the oppression of African-Americans coupled with the supernatural. I am
not a fan of science fiction, comic books, suspension of belief or stories that end with the cop-out of
deus ex machina. I
hate that. It's as though the writers just couldn't be
bothered with thinking up an ending. I have watched
Lovecraft Country and did not enjoy it. Oh, I watched the whole thing — all ten
grueling episodes, just to see how everything wrapped up, but the storytelling is clunky and sprawling and disjointed. And I felt it's beneath the talents of the compelling cast. Yes, I realize that I am probably
not the target audience. I knew that going into it, I already have a disinclination for the genre. But I gave it a shot anyway. I shouldn't have. I want to reiterate that the production and acting of this limited series was terrific, but with the exception of a few scenes, I did not find it scary. Just long-winded.
Yesterday, I watched a movie called
Trick 'r Treat. Again, this film has maintained a cult following and a lot of praise since its awkward release in 2007. It is an anthology story comprised of several stand-alone tales linked by a single character that appears in each one. I have enjoyed this format in films in the past. I found
Creepshow, Twilight Zone: The Movie and even a few of the 70s examples featuring Peter Cushing (like
Dr. Terror's House of Horrors) to be
entertaining. They didn't
scare me, but I
liked them.
Trick 'r Treat was awful. It was doing its very best to
look cool for the
cool kids. It was run-of-the-mill, uninspired, unnecessarily gory and not
nearly as clever as it
thought it was. As far as scary....? Uh.... nope.
Look, monsters aren't scary. Guys with big knives aren't scary. Aliens aren't scary. Ghosts aren't scary. Gallons and gallons of blood and entrails aren't scary. Messy, yes.... but not scary.
Please. I'm not asking for a whole lot. I just want to be scared. I want a movie to scare me. I want to see a movie so goddamn
clever and so goddamn
frightening that I wont forget it for years to come. Honestly, I have seen only
two horror movies that have come very close to legitimately scaring me.
Psycho, the original 1960 Hitchcock tour-de-force and Jonathan Demme's Oscar-winning thriller
The Silence of the Lambs. Both films were beautifully shot and impeccably executed. Both of these films featured a despicable villain that was
not — by outward appearances — a monster. Both films elicited nerve-wracking suspense and both films — thanks to great performances and thoughtful directing — made the viewer root for the bad guy.
That is scary.
Halloween will be here soon. We are all stuck in the house with a lot of free time. What's a guy gotta do to get scared around here?
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