The month of October – where we in Alberta begin the gloomy wait for the first cold snap (which might last five months) – has over the past few years transitioned into an entire month of horror. And I don’t mean the beginning of the Danielle Smith era (which might last seven months).
Thanks to the transition of Halloween (whatever happened to spelling it Hallowe’en?) from a one-day event to a full-blown, multi-billion dollar industry, the month of October has become a 31-day festival of horror movies. TV’s all-movie channels soak their schedules with blood. Hollywood Suite offers 100 horror movies this month (Shocktober!, they call it), and even venerable, sophisticated Turner Classic Movies, my indispensable movie station, sprinkles its schedule with horror films both high brow (the very creepy Eyes Without A Face) and high camp (Plan 9 from Outer Space).
As a lifelong horror movie fan, October’s orgy of horror films should be right up my dark, forbidding alley. One of my prized book possessions is A Pictorial History of Horror Movies, which I got for Christmas in 1973. I’ve read parts of this book a dozen times. As a kid, I scoured the TV listings, looking for vintage horror films from Universal (Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolf Man), that starred original horror stars Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney Jr. I would even sit through a silent horror film. (Check out Nosferatu, still chilling 100 years after its release.)
Vintage horror is, of course, no longer scary; heck, it wasn’t even scary when I watched them as a kid. But as a cinephile (a pretentious term for movie fan), I always appreciated them for providing a window into the past, and for their artistry. Today’s horror? Not so much. The brief period of what was called ‘torture porn’, which depicted degrading acts too disgusting for me to even mention here (look into The Human Centipede; on the other hand, don’t), turned me off the genre. From what I’ve seen of most non-torture horror films today, the scares are mostly relegated to ‘jump scares’, basically someone jumping out from the shadows and saying ‘boo’.
But there are many genuinely scary films that I have enjoyed over the years. In keeping with the spirit(s) of the month, here are four of mine.
Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) remains a chilling masterpiece. When I first saw it as a kid, I vowed never to take a shower, which was easy because my childhood home didn’t have a shower. Repeated showings of the shower scene have certainly dulled its edge, but its still great. And what a score by Bernard Herrman, possibly the greatest in the history of movies.
I have a fond memory of viewing The Haunting (1963) with my family in our darkened den, watching through my fingers. It’s a straight up haunted house movie without monsters (and one great scare). But what great, creepy atmosphere. Directed by, oddly enough, the man who would later direct The Sound of Music.
Growing up, I saw two of the all-time greats on the big screen before their impact was dulled by over exposure.
Halloween (1978), with its instantly iconic score almost as famous as Psycho‘s, nearly paralyzed me. (I haven’t seen any of the sequels. Why bother?)
Nothing, however, compared to The Exorcist (1973). I was aware of its scariness, so I saw it at a matinee so I could go out into the daylight. It didn’t help. I had many a sleepless night in my suddenly spooky bedroom. I haven’t watched it since. This movie honestly got me thinking if it was possible to be posessed by the devil. Now, of course, we know it is possible. How else do you explain Vladimir Putin?
Anyway, enjoy a few horror movies this month. Heaven knows there is no shortgage of them on the air, or streaming.
After this, it’s time for something much, much worse …
The Attack of the Christmas Movies!
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
In This Corner 
“The Haunting” still tops my list. Check out “The Other” from the novel by Thomas Tryon (the same guy who was Disney’s Texas John Slaughter). “The Others” is also pretty good as is the made-for-TV “Don’t Go to Sleep”.
Thanks for the ideas. I’ll keep them in mind. I was reminded just now of another very spooky film called The Innocents. Not so much of a horror, but very scary.
In “The Innocents” it was the reaction of the Deborah Kerr character on her realization of what was happening that provided the greatest sense of horror. It made it uncomfortably believable. I forgot about that one. I just thought of “Don’t Look Now” and “Angel Heart”.