Last year for Halloween I wrote about five movies
that scare me a lot. This year, I want to write about five more, but I am
shying away from Freddy and Jason and Michael and Leatherface. Instead I
am focusing on movies that aren't as well known and maybe even not horror at
all but all had images that make me scared in the middle of the night. Not all of them are super scary, as a
horror movie wimp, I shy away from anything too extreme, but I think any of
these would make an excellent Halloween night choice! Four out of five of them are available on Netflix Instant!
1. Kill List (Ben Wheatley, 2011): I
have written about this movie before on this very blog and nearly two years after seeing it, the
imagery of this movie still terrifies me. The film follows incompetent
hit man and father who is just trying to take care of his family. And it
ends…well that’s the thing, Kill List has the most shocking, bizarre and
unsettling ending of any movie I've seen. The story starts out quite
mundane almost in a typical way, in the realist style, kitchen sink look, with Jay
(Neil Maskell) and his mate Gal (Michael Smiley) taking on the fateful, final
job before getting out of this killing business for good. Jay may or may not have committed some
kind of atrocity while serving in the army and that may or may not be why he is
picked for this job, to kill three people. Wheatley builds the tension exquisitely
as the hits start to go wrong, and get weird and the viewer never really knows
exactly what happening. There are demonic symbols and foreboding figures
and a atmospheric and eerie play fight with his son, which feels like
foreshadowing but you can’t pinpoint how. Once the first man on the kill list
thanks Jay before he shoots him, you know things are going to get worse.
As Jay and Gal try to explicate themselves from this job, the sense that
something terrible is going to happen only builds. And boy does something
terrible happen. Once the hit men encounter the druid / occult / satanic
group that hired them, well I will leave it at that. A slow burn that
explodes.
2. Entrance (Patrick Horvath and Dallas Hallam, 2011): I think the theme of this
top five actually could have been slow burning horror because Entrance is
another perfect example of a sense of dread building and building and finally
exploding in one virtuoso ending. Whereas Wheately is more Kubrick, Horvath and Hallam are more Dardenne brothers, following our protagonist, Suziey (I almost
want to refuse to spell it that obnoxious way), over her shoulder observing her
everyday, very boring life. Suziey has moved to L.A. and made a few
friends but mostly she is lonely and isolated. She spends her days
walking (which in L.A. is strange in itself) and is threatened by men following
her around, or are they? Her
paranoia seems misplaced but as a woman I can definitely relate to that
fear. We see a car slow down next
to her on an empty road, she hears footsteps behind her, is it harmless or a
threat? After her beloved dog goes
missing and she begins to feel more and more anxiety in the city, she decides
to move home to the Midwest. Throughout the film, there is a sustained
eeriness and tension, a threat that Suziey and the viewer can’t quite put her
finger on. At her going away
party, the power goes out briefly and s*&t gets real we see what has been
going on the whole time. Again, I will refrain from spoiling but the last
twenty or so minutes of the film are a single, fluid take and manages to be
terrifying and emotional and the last shot is strangely beautiful. 
3. Witchfinder General (Michael Reeves, 1968): I am going to say
that Witchfinder General is kind of silly, it’s a Hammer horror film for god
sakes. A small budget, medieval
setting, lusty wenches and Vincent Price?
A combination for a good time maybe but a truly scary film, probably not.
But again, the ending has really stuck with me for the last few years and
the general tone of the movie. Vincent Price is the "witchfinder",
Michael Hopkins, who goes from village to village torturing and killing women
who have confessed to be witches and exploiting the fears of the townspeople. Price, casts an intimidating but
slightly silly form, but still, a megalomaniac. But as the film goes on,
the viewer can see how serious he takes the slightly silly material and the
movie takes a dark turn. Hopkins and his henchman capture and torture a
local priest. His young and
beautiful niece offers herself to Hopkins in order to save her uncle. Instead she is brutally raped by the
Igor like henchmen and Hopkins rejects her and executes her uncle. After
the execution of the priest, the young girls soldier fiancé vows revenge and
goes after Hopkins. The inevitable showdown at the end of the movie is
almost as f*#&ed up as the aforementioned Kill List, a haunting vision of
murder and madness.
4. The House of the Devil: (Ti West, 2009):
Ti West uses the hallmarks of 1980’s horror films to, you guessed it, build
exquisite and nail biting tension in this satanic take on the babysitter alone
in the house film. Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) is
completely broke and in order to pay for her schooling she takes a job
“babysitting” a bed ridden woman in a extremely isolated and extremely creepy
house. Greta Gerwig, my current
favorite indie darling, appears as the nosey and skeptical best friend and Tom
Noonan is effectively unsettling as the man who hires Samantha. Donahue is pretty forgettable as Samantha, I mean if you have Gerwig, use her, but the atmosphere distracts enough from her uninspired performance. The standout sequence is when Samantha
dances around the house listening to her walk-man, not quite realizing what is
behind every door she nearly opens (you will never think of the song that plays, "One Thing Leads to Another" the same way!).
West effectively conjures up the fear of isolation and strangers
perfectly and leaves you creeped out at the very last scene (obviously I have a thing for last scenes, in horror movies, I think a shock ending is the way to leave a lasting impression, especially for me, since I have my hands over my eyes half the time anyway!). A perfect amalgam of haunted house and
slasher movies with a bit of Rosemary’s Baby thrown in for good measure, House
of the Devil is definitely not a movie I will be revisiting any time soon and
on this list, that’s the highest compliment I can pay a film. 
5. You’re Next (Adam Wingard, 2013): You’re Next is a clever and nasty
little movie, house invasion story that doesn’t shy away from gore and bloody
and creative ways to kill people.
The story begins on an ominous and tongue in cheek note with a man and
his much younger, much nuder girlfriend post coitus. As she mopes around (shirtless, of course, this is a nod to
slasher films) he showers. We can
guess what happens next. As he
emerges from the shower he finds You’re Next written in blood. This isn’t a particularly scary movie
but the you’re next motif was certainly the most effective scare of the
movie. And it comes back, just let
me tell you. We then move onto the neighbors, a beautiful country mansion. The family is arriving to celebrate the parent's anniversary, four children and their significant others. Tensions are palpable between the siblings, their spouses and the parents, everyone is whinging and . At first I thought the movie was too mean spirited with the
viewer hoping to see the unsympathetic characters killed. But quickly Erin (Sharni Vinson), girlfriend of Crispian, slightly chubby college professor, emerges as the prototypical final girl and we have someone to root for and
hopefully save the incompetent family. I also got a kick out of seeing Joe Swanberg, indie director in the flesh; he is appropriately smarmy as the eldest brother. There is a twist that I saw coming from a mile away and I didn’t like
the egregious and mean spirited last shot but overall You’re Next is a fun
dissection of the horror genre that follows the formula but also keeps it
fresh.
House of the Devil, You're Next, Kill List, and Witchfinder General are all available on Netflix Instant if you are looking for a last minute scary choice. Happy Halloween!
Julie
