The Night of the Hunter (1955)

My Absolute Favorite Film has a new calling card. “The Night of the Hunter” is a stark black-and-white Southern gothic horror about a serial killer preacher (Robert Mitchum) who sets his demonic eyes on a widow (Shelley Winters) and her children (Billy Chapin and Sally Jane Bruce) as he seeks stolen money. Mitchum’s Rev. Harry Powell is film’s greatest villain, a singer of hymns who talks to God, assured his evil deeds are natural. “There’s plenty of killings in your book.” The genius realization: Charles Laughton directs this masterpiece for the child in us all, especially those of us who when young were suspicious of all those churchy smiles. “Hunter” is a child’s worst nightmare: Rooms boast crazed geometric shapes, wild animals loom gigantic, mother dies, rivers flow backward, and streetlamps throw evil shadows on walls. Mitchum’s preacher -- one hand tattooed LOVE, the other marked HATE -- turns faith into a war on every innocent soul. If the final closing words of reassurance from Lilian Gish’s kindly matriarch go on too long, it is not for the benefit of the terrified, surviving children on screen, but us in the audience. An absolute perfect marvel for soul, heart, and mind. A+

The Conjuring (2013)

Shot with a marvelous 1970s vibe down to the opening credit crawl, “The Conjuring” takes the old “based on a true story” tag used by so lame horror movies and makes it something to scream about again. CGI? None that I saw. Plot: The Perrons (Ron Livingston and Lili Taylor are the parents) move into a massive farm house. An old, hidden basement is found. Clocks stop. The dog dies. One girl sleep walks. Another is pulled from bed. Handclaps are heard. The instances then turn shocking until mother calls in Christian paranormal investigators (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga). The woman can “see” ghosts, and the house is full of them. I’ll stop. Watch. Director James Wan works his film effortlessly, opening on a seemingly unrelated tale of doll. Are they unrelated? Music, editing, the giving of information, all are top notch, and climax is relentlessly tense. I have finally seen a film that can stand near “Exorcist.” I can’t get past one line where Farmiga says the ghost had not yet been violent. Did the actress misspeak? (Ignore that.) This is a nightmare inducer, the kind I’d sneak watch as a teen, sound low. I loved those moments. A- 

The Purge (2013)

“The Purge” is horror with a nasty serving of satire that slashes at the Tea Party elites who think wealth makes them holier than anyone below them, and yet angry at anyone who dares have a bigger house or a nicer car. I dug it. Ethan Hawke plays a self-satisfied hawker of home security devices in year 2022 of a post right-wing-revolution “New” America. Money is God. Guns are the Holy Son. The NRA might be running the show. One day each year, true “patriots” –- the haves -– are allowed (encouraged) to rape and murder at will, with the bottom of the economic chain the true target. But, Hawke’s quirky liberal teen son (Max Burkholder) opens the family fortress to a hunted veteran and soon preppy masked hunters come house crashing. (The sociopathic leader is unfailingly polite and dressed in a blazer with a haircut that screams edgy Young Republican. I knew assholes like him in college.) Writer/director James DeMonaco might not have a great film, but it’s daring, even if the end has too many pointers and Lena Headey’s wife remains flat. (I had hopes the “good” son might turn a shocking path, but did not happen.) B

The Phantom of the Opera (1925)

I love silent movies: The boiling down of storytelling to mere visuals that must make one *think* sound: Conversation, screams, the crash of a chandelier. Brilliance under pressure. “The Phantom of the Opera” -– from the 1908 book and featuring Lon Chaney in the title role –- is near perfect. Either born with grisly disfigurements or badly burned after birth, the Phantom is a once-famous composer now forgotten, living below the Paris Opera House obsessing over bit signer Christine (Mary Philbin). He worships her. He sneaks into her room. He sends a chandelier crashing on the audience after the house runners refuse to punt their star for his goddess. This Phantom is no romantic, but a sick perv with a hideous face -– dig that makeup, a flayed skull with no lips -– hidden behind a mask that looks like that of a kindly friar. The best scenes have the Phantom crashing a costume ball dressed in a red, promising death to all, then standing on a roof like a demon, lurking, planning. The black/white cinematography goes green/red with inserts of blue and the unnerving color shock is like a blood shot from hell. A century old, this still terrorizes. A

Seconds (1966)

John Frankenheimer serves another perfect thriller with “Seconds” after “Manchurian Candidate” and “Train.” This is a “Twilight Zone”-like sci-fi-horror about that foolish notion we all wonder: What if I zagged left not right? Moved there not here? You get it. What if’s never end. This is the hell-pit answer. John Randolph is banker Arthur -– bored empty nester pissed at the capitalist lie he swallowed from birth –- who finds himself with a crazy proposition: He can fake his death and get a new identity in the form of Rock Hudson. Newly renamed, Antiochus joins a hippie commune. Sex. Freedom. Is liberalism as much a mirage as white-shirt conservatism? Beautifully played with a barrage of warped lenses – the cinematography is by James Wong Howe of “Sweet Smell of Success” fame -- this movie is a true deep shocker that left me breathless long after the credits. As a man with a new body and voice who cannot shake old gestures and hesitations, Randolph and Hudson pop brilliant, actors who could have shared a Best Actor Oscar. Frankenheimer is my favorite director and this is another hit in a series of paranoid-heavy movies that crack men’s psyches open, baring dark truths. A+

Apartment 3013 (2013)

“Apartment 3013” is a horror flick with one worthy scene. It comes in the middle with a sick thud, and it is a welcome jolt. I won’t spill details. It’s the only highlight of a remake of a Japanese horror with every genre cliché. We open as 24-year-old Janet (Julianne Michelle) bolts home to move into her own sweet flat at $700 per month. Uh-oh. By her first night the gal is so scared -– ghosts, noises, perv super -– she screams exposition such as “I’m so scared!” This comes before a cop grimly tells Janet’s sister (Mischa Barton), “Apartments don’t kill people, people kill people.” Not mentioned: “The only way to kill a bad apartment with a ghost is a good apartment with a ghost.” This film is that awful. The bad actors try. But “3013” looks ugly and is boring. Continuity/editing errors abound. Hammer to skull: Faded star Rebecca De Mornay plays the alcoholic mom, a washed-up rocker who dresses like a demented Stevie Nicks, swinging her martini glass around like a community theater actress trying too hard. Tone it down, sweetie. D

Maximum Overdrive (1986)

Hated upon release, I long held a soft-spot for the gonzo B-Grade horror flick “Maximum Overdrive,” written and directed by Stephen King (his only directed film). And it’s partially inspired by “Overdrive” magazine, a truck-centered pub I worked at for five years. I first saw this film at, what, 13? Maybe. Those Green Goblin eyes sold me back then. I digress. Apologies. The story: An alien comet passes near Earth, turning machines into live creatures with a thirst for human blood. At a redneck Wilmington, N.C., truck stop, it’s the big rigs that go mad and kill. Among the heroes: Emilio Esteves as an ex-con turned grill boy, and Pat Hingle as his NRA-loving prick boss. The Green Goblin eyes belong to a tractor trailer with the face of the Spider-Man villain on its cab. None of it makes sense, the blood is comically thick, and the jokes are corny, but this is a drive-in lark fueled by King’s then cocaine appetite. Yes, diesel fuels the trucks, but coke fuels the master. And likely much of the cast. Watch it as a comedy and AC/DC jam. B+

The Secret Village (2013)

Two low-budget films: “Monsters” –- made by “Godzilla” director Gareth Edwards -– and “Blair Witch Project”— the found-footage creep-out that launched a genre. Tightly edited. Tense scenes made sharp with glimpses of the unearthly. Finales that leave emotions raw. Similarly budgeted horror-thriller “The Secret Village” has … none of that, not an ounce of ballast to carry its Midnight Movie plot. Here, a young journalist (Ali Faulkner) arrives in a New England town to investigate numerous deaths reaching back to the Salem Witch Trials. Townsfolk are hostel: Leave or die. She is stalked. All along, something is off deep inside her. Sounds intriguing? No. Director Swamy Kandan has made a film so direly boring and incomprehensibly edited, I was left admiring home architecture and the bed comforters. Kandan has other film credits. Guessing on his go-to scare tactic, they must all feature chubby old men in robes. F

Event Horizon (1997)

I saw “Event Horizon” back in 1997 and thought it an ugly, silly mess with good actors – Sam Neill and Laurence Fishburne star – mucking about in a spaceship so familiar one keeps waiting for John Hurt to lose his lunch. (Hurt does not appear.) The plot: Neill is a scientist leading the salvage of the spacecraft Event Horizon that went missing seven years prior with no clear explanation. The ship appears as if every ’80s slasher villain has run through it: Blood smears and grisly bodies abound, floating in micro-gravity. Why? How? I won’t spoil it. Naturally, though, the crew ditch the buddy system and split up because in 2047 no one has seen “Alien.” Made by Paul Anderson (not Thomas, but W.S.), “Event” smacks of a film that’s dead certain that pouring on guts, gore, eyeballs, and blood all means horror and scares, not aware that the opposite is true. The paces Neill is put through makeup-wise brings my truest pity. The scenes with men holding on by fingers to bending, twisting iron brought my continuous, unpitying laughter. Time has not been kind at all. D

Sisters (1973)

During the finale of Brian De Palma’s “Sisters,” a bloody schizoid mind fuck love letter to Hitchcock, my jaw hung open. This riffs on Siamese sisters -- one alive, the other not quite, and both played by Margot Kidder –- and doesn’t just drive off the cliff. It launches off the road at rocket speed and explodes in a splatter of gore and brain pulp. We follow, as with any good Hitchcock film, a guy (Lisle Wilson) and a gal (Kidder) attracted to each other after a bizarre appearance on a TV game show that has unsuspecting men watching woman strip bare, with the latter in on the gag. The couple’s date goes bad fast: Her ex-husband (William Finley) prowls crazy and stalks the couple to her apartment, where things get icky and –- no spoiler –- bloody. De Palma then switches gears to a writer (Jennifer Salt) who sees the crazy deeds, before slamming back into drive, then reverse, then circles, burning out the engine for a finale that hit me far different than any plot synopsis I read. I loved every whacked red-soaked second. I still don’t know how to grasp it all, but obsess nonetheless. That’s addictive filmmaking. A 

House of Wax (1953) and House on Haunted Hill (1959)

Vincent Price, with his abyss of a voice and those dead-stare eyes that play like daggers, remains the King of Horror Movies in my book. He has no successor. Two of his earliest flicks are “House of Wax” and “House on Haunted Hill,” with Price as an oddball NYC artist driven to sinister deeds after his wax museum is torched and he builds anew with a shocking sicko canvas, and then as a rich mystery host to a party at a haunted California mansion that promises $10,000 to any guest who survives a creepy lock-in. “Wax” -– itself a remake remade many times -– is classic with its ghoulish madman taking bodies, alive and not, and how the camera just sits on wax faces as they melt in fire. The then-new 3-D gimmicks may once have dazzled but now only seem silly, but never mind that. Imagine 1950s kids screaming horror at this nasty fun tale. “House” is too wink-wink meta, from its dumb opening to the nudge-nudge fourth-wall-busting asides. Sure it has several scares, and Price struts around deflating every other man within range, but even for corn, it’s all quite lame and forgetful. Not “Wax.” Wax: A- House: B-

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

George Romero’s low-budget, non-Hollywood horror classic “Night of the Living Dead” is as shocking and brilliant and subversive as near any film ever made. It’s no midnight fright flick test-marketed to hit Farmville, USA, and score big bucks and TV play. This is why American Cinema rules, and why the best of the lot are almost always outside the kingdom’s gates. These creators who have no master also have no notes to follow, or stocks to please. 

Yes, Romero has made the modern Bible version of the zombie film, the capstone by which all others build upon, emulate, and fall short. The plot is basic –- even for its time -- following a small group of people trapped in a farm house as zombies (referred to as “ghouls”) attack from outside, first a handful, then a dozen, then a horde. Among the heroes are a woman (Judith O’Dea) who just watched her brother fall to an attack and will soon see him again, and a man named Ben (Duane Jones) who happens to be passing through town. 

Ben is African American, and a professor. Think about that. In 1968. Such an idea must have smoked Hollywood’s mind then, and owners of cinemas, too. No way “Dead” played south of the Mason-Dixie line. Not during American then. Hell, not now in some parts. Not when Ben is giving orders and slugging anyone who dare crosses him. 

So, take “Night” as allegory of a sick nation being turned upright, shocked out of its “Keep America White” brain dead coast of hate. Or take it as a freakishly brilliant “man’s got to do what a man’s got to do …” heroics of any horror story, brilliantly told. I fell the first way. You chose your path. 

Too, Romero lays out his graphic violence in stark back-and-white imagery that still sends a shudder. So many film rules die here, because Romero could kill them. Dig that little girl. Dig the first attack in a cemetery as a lone figure drifts in and out of the frame, barely in focus, like a dream. 

This is a ticking time bomb of survival, and when the sun rises and light blows out every shadow, Romero drops the hammer. See, I had not seen this movie until just now. (Go on, mock. I deserve it.) I watched stunned, convinced halfway through I found a new Top 10 Favorite, and dead certain at the very end. Genius. A+

A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001)

Steven Spielberg’s “A.I.: Artificial Intelligence” is a train wreck masterpiece I love all the more because it derails, because the guy who some critics continuously dismiss aims for the sun and misses, but comes oh so close. And leaves us stunned, too. Spielberg could coast on every film he makes. In “A.I..,” he spins wild chances and smashes down a scene midway through so devastating, it leaves one reeling flat, near in tears. 

Inspired by “Pinocchio” and a screenplay by Stanley Kubrick –- a master of cold dread –- Spielberg’s tale follows a humanoid boy (Haley Joel Osment) adopted by a couple (Sam Robards and Frances O’Connor) whose own son lies in a coma. Young, perfect David is a little boy balm until the “real” son Martin (Jake Thomas) reawakens. 

David is programmed to be loved. Martin wants to mommy to himself. Two events paint David as a family danger, and so mommy –- here’s the killer scene -– abandons David in a forest; she weeps, David begs, and Spielberg lays bare every child’s worst nightmare: Your parents do not truly love you, you are a fake. 

From there, the film flies high and nose dives hard as David falls into a nightmare world that involves grisly robot gladiator arenas, needless voice cameos (Chris Rock? Robin Williams?), and a search for the Blue Fairy to make David a “real” boy, just like … Martin? 

I won’t spoil more. Much of it works and a good bit does not as Spielberg takes on The End of the World, but really is pulling out the end of childhood innocence, that blind-faith moment when children firmly believe mommy and daddy are good, and will always be there, keeping you -- all that matters in the world –- safe. Which is more tragic?  

Osment is so amazing. I still bristle he did not get a Best Actor nomination. Unnaturally warm and bright, unblinking, desperate to please, and able to regurgitate a call, he is flawless, yet unmistakably eerie. Early in, tricked by Martin into cutting their mother’s hair, David pleads, “I just wanted mommy to love me. More.” That quick pause, before the word “more,” is true horror for the youngest of us, scarier than any death in “Jaws.” 

Speaking of that classic Spielberg film, John Williams provides the score here and it’s truly one of his best, and with certain beats recalling the wonder of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” A-

The People Under the Stairs (1991)

Wes Craven sure as hell is a master of horror, but he’s also a master of comedy, the latter trait knife sharp in “The People Under the Stairs,” a gore-filled laugh-riot that has a racist, NRA-card-packing psychotic redneck yuppie-wannabe cannibal brother and sister turned married couple (whew!) as the landlords of the L.A. “ghetto,” ruling over low-income African-Americans, stashing money and gold in their lunatic mansion. That’s right, the goofiest rich white stereotype, played over the top by Everett McGill and Wendy Robie -– they also played husband and wife on “Twin Peaks” -– who turn up the crazy to 1,011. Also stashed in that creepy-ass house: A Horde of teenagers, including a girl named Alice (A.J. Langer), all held hostage by the kooky couple, each child disposed of if they dare hear, see, or speak evil. Our hero is a black teen (Brandon Adams) who longs to be a doctor, to save his dying momma, and yet faces a life of crime. Craven dumps clichés faster than body parts, but it’s all for sick-twisted satirical laughs, and darn if they don’t work. B

The Blob (1958)

Steve McQueen is the world’s oldest teenager in “The Blob,” the corny, campy horror classic that opens with the funniest, catchiest theme song that I can recall. “Beware of The Blob, it creeps/ And leaps and glides and slides/ Across the floor/ Right through the door.” It’s a laugh riot. The movie is too, right from the start with McQueen playing 17 (!) calling a first-date gal named Jane (Aneta Corsaut) as “Jenny,” and getting away with it because he’s Steve Freakin’ McQueen. Anyway, meteor hits, a blob pops out, eats an old guy’s arm, and it’s on  -- laughs, goofy special effects, and punk teen kids saving the world when the cops won’t listen. Classic scene: The cinema! What’s hard as hell to take is the sexism: Every woman and girl is a helpless twit prone to hysterics and less brave than the 7-year-old brat in PJs prone to carrying around his teddy. Actually that’s the gist of the film: Those nightmare fantasies kids have about monsters coming true and no adult will believe them real. So honk the horns, and hold those ladies’ hands tight. B

The Possession (2012)

A girl on the cusp on puberty is possessed by a demonic spirit and spills familial terror as her soul goes dark and her body gyrates in inhuman forms. Familiar? “The Possession” is another spawn of diminishing returns and scene-for-scene re-dos from “Exorcist,” the demon queen of spiritual horror. Here, the girl (Natasha Calis) happens upon an antique wooden box with Hebrew engravings at a yard sale. It calls to her, quite literally. Daddy (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) quickly obliges daughter’s purchase as he wants to soothe her woes as he and mom (Kyra Sedgwick) sign divorce papers. (If the real horror on screen is divorce then it is badly, badly handled.) Emily is taken hold by the box and starts to splinter, distant, silent, and prone to stabbing dad with a fork. All this leads to a finale involving exorcism and a man of God, here a rabbi rather than a priest. (Jewish reggae star Matisyahu plays the role, oddly tone deaf.) Every scene here was done better in 1973, save one: Morgan as the desperate father begs a room full of religious elders for help. One old crow coldly replies, “It is up to God.” That’s chilling. The rest… C+

6 Souls (2013)

You cannot go wrong with Julianne Moore. Even in lesser films -- “Lost World: Jurassic Park” -- she gives her all. So goes “6 Souls,” a possession horror film once titled “Shelter” with a belated release behind it. Moore is Cara, a psychiatrist reeling from the mugging death of her husband who sees herself as a doctor of science and woman of God, conflicted between pure logical analysis and God’s will. After Cara dismisses multiple personality disorders, it comes to no shock that she meets a patient (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) who is many sided -- a gruff Yankee, a paraplegic Appalachian, and so on. The trick: All of his personalities stem from dead people. Interesting so far. But hold on. Cara’s psychiatrist father (Jeffrey Dunn) is so keen on a one-upper, he pushes daughter into dire situations, a move that almost stops the film cold. Is he nuts? More questions abound, such as –- avoiding a spoiler -– really, only six souls? And, how come white people get to just walk around anywhere, in strange homes? And not get shot? The climax is a letdown with a foot chase through woods, an idea not scary since, well, the Jurassic age. B-

Mama (2013)

Even good-enough horror output from Guillermo del Toro is better than 95 percent of the junk that fills cinemas, and so it is with “Mama.” Here, del Toro is producer, leaving the directing to newcomer Andrés Muschietti, who with sister Barabara on screenplay duties, takes on a Hollywood staple: Children held under the sway of a dark power. The plot follows two girls  (Megan Charpentier and Isabelle Nélisse) left abandoned in the Virginia woods by their mass-murderer father who at the moment he is about to slay his daughters is himself killed by a floating dark form. That’s Mama. Flash forward five years as the girls -– living like animals -– are found and placed into the care of their uncle (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau on double duty) and his girlfriend (Jessica Chastain), who has no interest in family, or responsibility. Creepy, well-played and earned scares ensue. When Nelisse crawls on stairs and becomes dangerously unhinged, it’s no exaggeration to bring up “Exorcist.” Too bad this relies on sketchy coincidences, dodgy CGI for the Mama, and illogical crutches such as men searching dark woods alone at night. (Don’t these people watch movies?) Short of great, it’s worth a watch, with your (?) mother. B

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)

Pissing at a massive plot hole in a “reboot” of the Grimm Brothers fairy tale that takes two kiddies who kill a witch inside a candy house, and ages them into black leather, machine-gun-toting adult brother and sister bounty hunters of Medieval Times is … well, futile. But in “Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters,” we are asked to swallow a cauldron of brain sludge reeking of inanity. Mainly: Is it likely two adult siblings  cannot recognize their hometown, and for the villagers not to recognize their own two legendary celebrity offspring named Hansel and Gretel now grownup as two celebrity witch-killing adults named Hansel and Gretel? Um, no. The actors seen unsure. Jeremy Renner (bored mode) and Gemma Arterton (just rollin’ with it) are the titular characters in what may have been at one point a sick LOL incest-heavy live-action “Road Runner” gore-fest spoof, but the studio blinked. At 1 hour 20 minutes, it shows near-fatal edit flaws and can’t dodge a scene where Hansel can’t dodge a boulder that bounces when he hits it. I have no clue what writer/director Tommy Wirkoloa (“Dead Snow”) is aiming for, but this is one sticky mess. C-

The Fourth Kind (2009)

Alien-abduction thriller/faux documentary flick “The Fourth Kind” plays on conspiracy paranoia for horror scares and mocking hilarity, dishing out a triple-dog daring opener as actress Milla Jovovich – swirling camera and crazy lights galore -– looks dead at the camera and announces she is actress Milla Jovovich, and this is a movie. She plays “real-life” young widow and psychiatrist Abigail Tyler, who has a series of patients haunted by creepy owls. Except the owls –- “Twin Peaks” reference! –- are not what they seem. Director Olatunde Osunsanm -– who also plays himself –- rides his clever gimmick hard, showing the “real” Tyler as played by Charlotte Milchard and videotape footage “she” filmed during patient interviews, cutting it with the actors re-creating the events with Hollywood gusto. It’s all outlandish, but isn’t every UFO kidnap story? And Osansanm knows it. Alas, he derails the film with a blowhard sheriff (Will Patton spit-spewing) threatening arrest and charges against our heroine with no reason whatsoever, and even in a film built on illogic, it suffocates the “is this real?” joke pitch to death, so not even Alex Jones would buy in. Shame, too. What comes before is out of this world. B-