As we reach the end of fall, a specter of fear overwhelms the campus of Washington University. No, it’s not your Chem midterm, and it’s not the fact that your roommate’s Bauhaus dress shows enough body hair to make a werewolf cringe; it’s Hollywood’s constant insistence on releasing bad horror flicks at the end of October. In the past, some of the scariest stories ever presented on celluloid have been put out to the public in the fall months, and this year is no exception. (After all, how scary must a Ben Affleck Christmas movie be in order to be released in October?) But in case the latest offerings don’t exactly get that cute girl from your floor to scream and leap in your arms, try some of these rental picks.

Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
Directed by: Roman Polanski
Starring: Mia Farrow, Ruth Gordon, John Cassavetes

Ah, Roman, why do you have to be fleeing from arrest? In one of his first big films, Polanski shows the world how sinister the folks who live next door can be, and gives the best reason ever for the use of birth control. Rosemary Woodhouse (Farrow) and her husband Guy (Cassavetes) are newlyweds who are just moving into a New York apartment. Instead of finding an angry landlord, though, they find neighbors who are, well…witches. After a rape scene by Satan himself and two hours of the best histrionics since Ophelia, the viewer finally finds out the true identity of Rosemary’s Baby.

The Omen (1976)
Directed by: Richard Donner
Starring: Gregory Peck, Lee Remick

You know how you always thought those kids you babysat for were the spawn of Satan? Well, this one really is! While living abroad, Ambassador Robert Thorn (Peck) starts to notice strange, random deaths that just happen to involve his son, Damien, and he begins a hunt to uncover the evil lurking within his child. You can’t really blame him though. After all, you’d be a little worried too if the kid knocked someone over a railing with his tricycle in the same week that your friendly neighborhood photographer got decapitated by a sheet of glass. “The Omen” works because it brings out those feelings in all of us that something evil could be lurking in that which seems the most innocent. Peck is the star here, putting on another great performance in the twilight of his career. And Harvey Stephens is just a freaky little kid. It was followed by a couple of sub-par sequels, but none had the same amount of anti-Christ terror as the original.

Halloween (1978)
Directed by: John Carpenter
Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasance

As the granddaddy of every screaming nightmare that you did last summer on Friday the 13th, “Halloween” brought the word “slasher” to the film vocabulary and originated most of the clich‚s that are still prevalent on screen today. The film follows the quest of Dr. Sam Loomis to catch escaped mental patient Michael Myers, who is randomly wandering around his old hometown with a big ol’ knife randomly chopping up sexually active teens (a moral of the horror genre-sex is bad). Only Laurie Strode (Curtis) is safe in her virginity…but is she? Using pioneering film techniques, particularly with changing points-of-view, Carpenter made a film that will generally and honestly freak you out. Especially if you’re nine and your Mom says it’d be fun to watch.

Thanks Mom, I’ll bill you for the therapy.

 Print This Post

This entry was posted on Friday, October 29th, 2004 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Cadenza. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.