The Stepfather (1987) original

I'd been meaning to see this one for a long time, but it's relatively hard to find. This film is amazing for several reasons: 1). It is based on the true story of this man John List, 2). It is one of the best psychological "mind of a killer"/"mind of a crazy person" movies ever made, 3). It is such an atypical "slasher" film I wouldn't even classify it as one, 4). The acting and production crew are amazing considering what a ridiculously low budget this film had, 5). It has two sequels and a remake. Though Terry O'Quinn is not a household name, most people will recognize him as John Lock from the TV series Lost, but 20 years prior Terry gave the performance of a lifetime as The Stepfather. The Stepfather is based on real life murderer John List who killed his family, disappeared only to change his identity and join another family, it is debated by some that List might have done this more than once, just as the character is portrayed in the film. The Stepfather wants the perfect 1950s TV family and will do anything to make his dream come true, but when the realities of 1980s America and family troubles rear their ugly head, it becomes too much for the Stepfather to handle. So rather than try to work out the problems his family has, he'd just assume start all over again and get a new family. This film is so effective because the character is so strong and the whole movie revolves around the character, making it possible for the

audience to at times even be sympathetic towards the psychopathic killer, making the movie much more than your average slasher flick. The plot bears some resemblance to The Shinning, but just superficially, this film is based on a true story, and it does not have Kubrick's trademark lengthy pacing. The film also boasts several great technical aspects, such as wonderful lighting and atmosphere, and overall cinematography (there are some really great camera movements and angles in this one). The director Joseph Reuben did several other films with a great atmosphere to them like Sleeping With The Enemy (1991) Dreamscape (1984, AKA as Inception 20 years before its time), and one of my favorites, The Good Son (1993). The Director of Photography went on to create the great visual look seen in movies like Field of Dreams (1989), Father of The Bride (1991), Pleasantville (1998), The Serpent and The Rainbow (1988), as well as The Good Son and Sleeping With The Enemy. The music of the film is notable for being made by Patrick Moraz, the one time keyboardist for the progressive rock band Yes. This film was not too successful on its initial release in theaters, but it did develop a big cult following and become relatively successful upon its VHS release. The film inspired two sequels and a 2009 remake, showing that the effect the film had both on the industry and on those who've seen it, is a lasting one. Also the movie does a great job of turning harmless "nice family" cliches into great horror lines, like: "You shouldn't drop by without calling first." This one is also on Bravo's list of 100 Scariest Movie Moments, and I give it a 5/5. You can view the trailer below:

John Carpenter's The Thing (1982)

I finally saw John Carpenter's version of The Thing. I was a big fan of the 50s original The Thing From Another World (1951), plus I'm not a big fan of gore and I knew this movie was very bloody and I saw some of the special effects when I was younger, and got freaked out, so that made me hesitant to watch this for a while. But I really enjoyed this version. The story of course is about a team of scientists working in Antarctica when some Norwegians and a stray dog, the one living Norwegian is killed by the scientists who mistakenly think he was shooting at them when he was actually shooting at the dog. The scientists then

 take the dog into their camp and all the trouble begins when they discover "the dog" is actually a shape-shifting alien that can take over anyone's identity, also taking over  their body while doing so. This film has marvelous pacing and only a handful of scenes with the alien so as to create maximum suspense and scares. The film also has a marvelous cast with Kurt Russell as the lead, and Wilford Brimley ( the "diabeetus," guy) Keith David and several other great character actors as well. This movie is known for having some of the greatest special effects of all time, and  more than 30 years after its release I'd say they are still impressive and very unique. The 80s were the perfect time for The Thing to be remade, for one thing they now had much more impressive effects to make the monster scary and show it more often, and also the story's use as an allegory for fear of communism and the Russians was extremely fitting for the 80s as well. The original Thing From Another World has been argued by many to be an allegory for McCarthyism, and when you think about it, it  makes sense; Senator McCarthy was accusing everyone of being communist  even if they just knew people who were communist, they were assumed to

be communist also, just like in The Thing when people are assumed to be the Thing if they were in contact with that person, and citizens were asked to keep an eye on their friends and neighbors just like the characters in both versions of The Thing were. Also the 1980s was when the U.S.'s fear of/rivalry with Russia was at its peak, so the 1980s was a very apt time for a remake of The Thing, the film even ends with an ending that is symbolically a  prediction/warning about communism similar to Dr. Seuss' Butter Battle Book (1984) (I don't want to give away the ending however so if you are unfamiliar with that story you can look it up). All in all I was very impressed with The Thing and I give it a 5/5, You can view the trailer below:

The Legend of Hell House (1973)

I love writer Richard Matheson, he wrote I Am Legend, What Dreams May Come, Duel, 16 of the most famous episodes from the original Twilight Zone, he also wrote the material that became Kolchak: The Night Stalker (the movies and the show). So when I heard about this haunted house story I immediately put to the top of my "must see" list. The story is eerily similar to the movie The Haunting, and its source material The Haunting of Hill House, both stories are about a group of four or five paranormal investigators going to study the activity in the stories' titular houses (their names are only different by one letter). Hell house is characterized in the novel as "the Mount Everest" of haunted houses. The main difference in the two stories is that Legend of Hell House is set in England, and the entire cast is British (even though the novel is originally set on the U.S. east coast just like The Haunting). Both 

the films' source material was released in the same year, 1959. The film is also pretty similar to another British film, The Stone Tape (1972) that was a BBC made for TV movie about a record company based out of an old mansion encountering ghosts and eventually doing experiments on/with the ghosts. Where Hell House really stands out among the rest however is in some of the things it was the first to do in horror movies; All the ghost movies before it focused on subtlety, even though The Haunting still one of the scariest films ever made to this day, with the exception of one character dying at the end of the film, nobody was noticeably attacked on-screen, that's not the case in Hell House. The Haunting's ghosts did bother and mess with and potentially try to hurt its guests, Hell House has a team of investigators go in knowing that a previous attempt to "cleanse" the house had been made, and only one person survived that attempt. Also the house makes no mistake about its intentions to its "guests," it posesses one of the mediums and warns them all very clearly "I will kill you all!" and then attacks the person in charge and very nearly does kill him. This film came out the same year as The Exorcist, but Hell House came out that summer as opposed to the winter when The Exorcist was released, thus making Hell House one of the first times a character was very noticeably demonically possessed on film. The film also marks the first time (as far as I know) that a character has sex with a ghost. The acting is superb with a cast led by Roddy McDowall (Planet of the Apes, Fright Night), and the film is directed by John Hough the same guy who would go on to direct other supernatural classic Sci-fis Escape to Witch Mountain (1975), and Watcher in the Woods (1980), that being said the film has a similar feel and will not be a dissappointment to fans of those films. The film is not as scary as I expected, but in its own innovative way it was pretty badass. I recommend it and give it a 4.5/5, you can view the trailer below:

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) original

Another one that almost single-handedly changed the horror genre. As I mentioned before in my Black Christmas review, 1974 was a big year for horror, Black Christmas redefined the slasher genre making  the birth of movies like Halloween (1978) possible, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre made eventually led to the birth of the extremely gory violent and scary horror movie. Texas Chainsaw along with Black Christmas were the first two horror films to create "the lone girl" formula (where a single female always survives)for horror films to come, Chainsaw was also the first film to feature the killer running full speed after his victims instead of walking at a slow pace, and it was also the first horror film to have the majority of it take place in the daytime. Also though you may walk away from the film thinking you've just seen a bloodbath, there's very little actual gore in the film (a lot of it just appears or was already in the background). For those who do not know about the film, the general plot is that five hippies go out for a drive and get lost/find an old house and go exploring, the five friends then run into a chainsaw wielding maniac named Leatherface and his demented cannibalistic family. The movie is not based on a true story despite what the film and advertising says, but it was inspired by the real life crimes of Ed Gein and Charles Manson. Now if you were to just look at the movie for all those reasons alone the film would be great, but that would be disregarding about 90% of the film's greatness. Arguably the real horror and greatness that came from this movie involved/was due to the horrendous infamous conditions of the film's production. The acting in the film was great and one of the reasons why the film was as successful as it was, but a large percent of the performances, were not acted. A lot of the scenes when you see people getting beat with brooms or other objects, those actors were actually beaten full force. The scene where the actress limps away from Leatherface after jumping out of a one story window? That was real too, in order to get a better shot the film crew made about an eight foot tall ramp for the actress to run and jump off of, through the window, and when she landed she hurt her leg badly, but she decided to continue filming anyway. All the animal bones, bodies, and furniture aroundthe house? Those

were all real too and constructed by the film's art director who went out driving around the highways of Texas scouring for roadkill, and then would bring it back to make all the film's "creations" out of it. The crazy hitch-hiker? In the documentary found on "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre:2-disc Ultimate Collection," titled Flesh Wounds, the actor who plays the Hitch-hiker admits to actually being Schizophrenic. The insane cackling the actress does on the back of the truck at the end? That was real too, she explains that she was having a nervous breakdown at that point in filming due to the fact that she had to re-shoot some of the most difficult scenes to film (including the one where she hurt her leg) because of technical problems. Also in the scene where

 Leatherface hits the guy with a hammer, one of the actors expressed that he was almost struck by the hammer. And the obnoxious Franklin character? He stayed in character even when they weren't filming so as to create real dislike between himself and the other characters. On top of all that the shooting of the film is notorious for the conditions it was filmed under, it was filmed during a record breaking heatwave in Texas history with almost a month of days with the temperature over 100 degrees, plus when filming on the set all the lights added about another 20 degrees of heat, which lead to the animal carcasses rotting and stinking to the point of making several people on the production (including the actor who played Leatherface) vomit multiple times. Most of the Actors and Actresses only had one costume too say during the whole three plus weeks of filming in the severe heat, they couldn't wash their clothes, or even bath so they could retain their character's gritty "look". Also at one point they had more animal carcasses lying around than they knew what to due with, so director Tobe Hooper told the crew to burn them, so the  horrible smell of burning rotting animal flesh was detectable for miles. The most grueling part of the shootthough was agreed upon by everyone involved to be the dinner scene, which was a 27 hour long shoot. The actor who played the hitch-hiker said in Flesh Wounds, that he had personally lead soldiers into combat several times in Vietnam, and that that was not as harrowing of an experience as shooting the dinner scene was.

Also all the blood that was poured in the main actresses hair at the end, permanently stained her hair for life. Also once the film did get successful the actors never got any of the royalties because of the contract they had with the film company that produced the film (which just happened to have ties to the mafia), honestly checkout the documentaries on that 2-disc collection if you're interested in hearing more, they're quite good.But despite all the hardships the film and crew went through, someone could argue the end product was worth it. The director, Makeup artist, and set/art director and cinematographer all went on to successful and award winning careers. The film opens at the beginning by talking about some mutilated bodies that are described as "a grisly display of art," which is exactly how I would describe the film. It is at once extremely disturbing and yet gorgeous. The cinematography, unique camera style, and gorgeous sunsets make the film gorgeous to look at, and the set is so distinct that it is essentially another character in the film. (Fun fact: the set was an actual house, and it is open to the public today as a restaurant in Texas.) And the rest is history, the film became a massive success at Drive-ins and such and spawned several sequels and remakes as well launched the career of Tobe Hooper, one of my all time favorite directors. At this point I think it's pretty obvious what my opinion of the film is, most people will say this is one of the greatest Horror films of all time, if not the greatest, I wouldn't say it's the greatest but I'd say it's probably in the top 5. I give it a 5/5. I've decided not to include the trailer because it shows every single famous/scary scene from the film, so instead here's the segment from Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments where they talk about the film:

The Day of the Locust (1975)

The Day of the Locust is based on the novel of the same name which is on several lists of Greatest novels of the 20th Century. The story is an unromantic look at the often romanticized Golden age of Hollywood in the 1920s and 30s. The movie shows the seedy side of Hollywood and also shows what happens to all those people who went into Hollywood to fulfill  their dreams, only to see Hollywood become their land of broken dreams. Burgess Meredith was nominated for an Oscar as alcoholic former vaudevillian father of Karen Black's character, who never quite made it to the big time. The movie not only shows unfulfilled dreams, but everywhere throughout the film there are signs of the darker side of Hollywood, one of the first scenes of the film shows a tour group at the famous Hollywood sign in Los Angeles, and the tour guide is talking about all the people that have jumped off the letters and committed suicide. Later a set collapses during the shooting of a film showing the more dangerous side of Hollywood, and you get to see the more inhuman side when you find out that even if anybody would have died in the collapse it wouldn't have mattered to the producers of the film. But no matter what the film is showing whether it's a cockfight or an androgynous child mocking the films main characters in song, the cinematography is at once gorgeous, and gritty. Another main element of the story is the film's female lead Karen Black who is pretty much single handedly responsible for the film's at times overwhelming sexuality. Black plays a woman who's fickle character is best described as a combination between Scarlet O'hara, Blanche from Streetcar Named Desire, and Jenny from Forest Gump, so in other words every mans downfall/worst nightmare. She and her carelessness (this is from a man's point of view mind you) with her sexuality is at least partially responsible for ruining most of the film's male's lives, or at least breaking their hearts. If for nothing else her inability to decide what she wants and the consequences that has to the people around her, makes for an interesting psychological study. The film has since become a cult classic for several  reasons: the cast is amazing, Burgess Meredith, Karen Black, Donald Sutherland, Billy Barty, Geraldine

  Page, Jackie Earle Haley as a ten year old in drag, William Atherton, and a cameo by the great B-movie director William Castle; and then the dynamics of the main male characters (I feel a connection with both and I think a lot of people might), and of course the ending. This film has an epic horrific LSD inspired nightmare of an ending that takes the film from a look at the darker side of Hollywood, to an over the top symbolic representation of an inhuman dog-eat-dog world. That attack on that age of Hollywood  may be a bit harsh in my opinion but it's how the author and the director wanted it portrayed. This film is directed by John Schelisinger (Midnight Cowboy, Marathon Man,  Pacific Heights) and the film has a lavish score composed by five time Oscar winning John Barry (the James bond theme). I highly enjoyed it though except for the very ending, and even though it is long it builds and builds and makes the climax worth waiting for. I give it a 5/5 from a technical standpoint, and a 4.5/5 as for my enjoyment of the film. You can watch the trailer below:

Assault on precinct 13 (1976) original

This is John Carpenter (legendary horror director)'s second film, he still hasn't made a horror movie at this point yet. His first film was a Sci-fi comedy (Dark Star [1974]), and this one is an action/crime-thriller. The movie does feel like a horror movie at times though. The film is about a police precinct that is being moved across town in L.A. California. The film takes place on the precinct's last day of operation. A police officer on his first day on the job is assigned to watch over the precinct for its final 24 hours. The trouble begins however when a gang who recently had several of its members killed/arrested by cops from precinct 13, decide to get revenge, and attack the precinct. There are only five people trapped inside left to fend off the seemingly endless hordes of criminals trying to get in and kill them all.  The movie is really similar to Night of the Living Dead (1968). The protagonist in both films is black, there are only four to five people trapped inside trying to fend off seemingly endless hordes of inhuman monsters (the criminals in Precinct are completely dehumanized and never talk while they are attacking, and the audience is completely disconnected from them), and the trapped people in both have an argument about retreating to the basement. The movie also has a stellar 80s-esque score (composed by Carpenter) that helps intensify the mood. I really did enjoy this one, pretty much everyone knows John Carpenter for his horror movies (Halloween, The Thing, etc.) but this was the first of his action movies (Big Trouble in Little China, Escape

 from New York, They Live) and it's good, but what is most striking about it to me is how 

funny it is. People tend to overlook the comedy element of Carpenter's movies but so many of them are so funny, and in my opinion this is his funniest; Here's an example: A secretary in the station is pouring the new police officer a cup of coffee and asks "Black?" meaning "would you like your coffee black?" and the African American officer responds smiling "Have been for over 30 years!" This being an early film of Carpenter's, there are no big name stars (but the little girl from Escape to Witch Mountain [1975] is in it) in it. Apparently this film was remade in 2005 with Ethan Hawke and Laurence Fishburne. This is an all around great thriller, looks great, sounds great, is written great and acted great. The only thing it could have done better to make a full-fledged action flick instead of one with a horror vibe, would have been to develop the enemy's character more, instead of them being faceless and nameless. I give it a 4.5/5. This film is available to stream instantly on Netflix. You can view the trailer below:

The Sentinel (1977)

The Sentinel was dismissed by many when it came out as a kind of knockoff of The Exorcist (1973), or being a kind of combination of similar supernatural horror films like The Omen (1976) or Rosemary's Baby (1968) but I found it a very unique, scary, and interesting story, as well as a well made and possibly influential film. The story centers around a woman who rents out an apartment in New York only to learn her apartment building is the gateway to hell, and the building is owned by secret group of priests who are in charge of guarding it and making sure hell's evil is never unleashed. The film is directed by Michael Winner (of the Death Wish series), and  the screenplay was written by the author of the novel the film was based on, the film also has a fantastic musical score by Gil Melle (The Andromeda Strain, and several famous TV show themes from the 70s & 80s), and one of the most star studded casts that have ever been in a horror movie,

featuring many up and coming stars as well as falling ones: Chris Sarandon, Burgess Meredith, Ava Gardner, Jose Ferrer, Arthur Kennedy, Martin Balsam, John Carradine, Eli Wallach, Christopher Walken, Jeff Goldblum, Tom Berenger, Richard Dreyfuss (as an extra), Sylvia Miles, and Beverly D'angelo. This film's story may strike some of you reading about it as similar to Ghostbusters, and it is, (an apartment building in New York is used to resurrect a demon to end the world) and this movie also has a similar look and feel to Ghostbusters as well, but that only adds to the enjoyment for me because I have always wanted to find a movie with a similar vibe to it. The film is very visually striking; There are Terrifying dream sequences, and some almost iconic shots of John Carradine (his face is on the DVD cover/movie poster), and the apartment building is very old and full of character, and a lot of the rooms in the building are very lavishly furnished, also throw in the fact that the main character is a fashion model and her boyfriend's a rich lawyer, and the film has a lush cosmopolitan vibe. The film's story is very interesting to me and I wish I could say more, but I don't want to give away anything. The film is also pretty scary actually. My only gripe with this one  is that during its climax when the legions of hell awake most of them are physically disfigured. Now I'm not sure what kind of message the film was trying to send with that imagery, but when I see disabled veterans and people suffering with horrible physical deformities, I don't know about you but I don't see those people as the inhabitants of hell, so I'm not sure if that was supposed to relate to an old verse from the bible or something, but I feel most people would see that part as offensive,

  and maybe that is one of the reasons why this film has been pushed into obscurity. The film also has a vibe similar to some of Lucio Fulci's films, and similar to a Mia Farrow movie called The Haunting of Julia (1977 [aka Full Circle]), and The Entity (1983). It is immensely underrated though in my opinion, and if you like supernatural horror flicks I highly recommend it. I give it a 4.75/5 ( I would have given it a 5/5 but it scared me a bit more than I thought it would, in the sense of disturbing me more than I would have liked). The film is featured in all the movie books I have including Rue Morgue Magazine's 200 Alternative Horror Films you Need to See, and it is also featured on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments. You can view the trailer below (there are some spoilers in it though):