[Five behind-the-sofa movies to watch this Hallowe’en.]
Halloween 1978
18 cert, anchor bay £9.99
The granddaddy of all slasher films, Halloween (which is showing on BBC4 tomorrow at 11.30pm) also remains, by some way, the best. It was made by Kentucky-resident John Carpenter at the height of his powers, after Assault on Precinct 13 and a few years before The Fog and The Thing (all three are also highly recommended). And, although it now looks a little dated in places, Carpenter’s pacing and editing, his teasing use of his own score and the widescreen frame, remain pulse-quickening joys for ever.
The Shining 1980
18 cert, warners £8.99
The grandest horror movie of all time and one of the smartest, too. Much of it has passed into film folklore but, even so, the past 30 years have in no way dimmed its power. Jack Nicholson is hammily uncanny as the hotel winter- caretaker driven to axe-wielding psychosis by the isolation and the murderous ghosts of the past; Kubrick’s direction is masterful; and America’s blood-soaked history has never been addressed so brilliantly on film – for look very carefully, and you’ll see that this is what The Shining is really about.
Scream 1996
18 cert, Disney, £8.99
This was the film that ushered the phrase “Do you like scary movies?” into the vernacular and the slasher movie into the postmodern age. Building explicitly on such prototypical shockers as Halloween (see below), its premise is essentially “killer on campus”, and its great trick is to lay bare the conventions and clichés of the genre while also exploiting them to potent effect. Much of it, especially the opening, is genuinely horrific stuff. But writer Kevin Williamson, director Wes Craven and their talented cast also make it a cathartic and blackly comic experience.
Dark Water 2002
15 cert, Tartan £9.99
The Japanese horror auteur Hideo Nakata is widely reckoned to have hit a high with 1998’s Ring. But there’s a focus to this later film that makes it even more satisfying (and scary). A woman and her six-year-old daughter move into a new flat, in which their fates begin to intertwine with that of a young girl who once went missing. Their dank apartment block proves a playground of clammy delights for Nakata, who here delivers the only scene that has ever made this writer physically back away from his telly in horror.
Triangle 2009
15 cert, icon £9.99
It is best to give as little as possible away about this mind-bending shocker by Bristol-born Christopher Smith, except to say that it has you hanging breathlessly on every scene, trying to work out who or what is out to get Melissa George and friends after they board a mysterious ship that rescues them in a storm. When the pay-off comes, it makes such perfect, chilling sense that you want to re-watch it all to see how the jigsaw fits together.
-By Mark Monahan,29 Oct 2010