Category: The Curse of 31 Nights, 31 Frights
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Score Card: Dracula (1979)
The orchestrations of prior horror films, most notably the Hammer Studios films, were frenetic and uptempo, something more suited to an action movie today. Williams mostly avoided this zealous use of horns and frantic strings, preferring instead the sweeping romanticism that has since become a hallmark of the Dracula story. Read more
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Triangle
There seems to be an ongoing trend of single-word movie titles happening here. Today’s highlight is an interesting little mind-bender in the vein of Memento (another one!) as the main character tries to piece together what appear to be events of her future. Read more
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Ghostbusters
A little levity never hurt anyone. A lot of levity, however, can make you die laughing. I’m not sure anyone watching this movie in its initial release would have predicted its longevity. Born of the improvisational era of the early 1980s, an era that includes Meatballs, Caddyshack and Stripes, Ghostbusters took the loose format of… Read more
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Splinter
A quasi-zombie movie mixed with hints of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, From Dusk Til Dawn, Assault on Precinct 13, and just a soupçon of The Evil Dead. Imagine, if you will, a parasite that resembles splintered wood, killing its host but reanimating it until all of it is consumed. Read more
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What Lies Beneath
Oh, sweet movie title, what a charming little double entendre are you. Robert Zemeckis nakedly apes Alfred Hitchcock in this mystery/ghost story… and the result is one of the best films of the former director’s career. Most of the credit must go to Hitchcock himself for establishing the style of slow-building tension that rightly earned… Read more
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Serial Thriller: Scream 4
The Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull of Scream movies. The one that really shouldn’t have been made. It’s a pity because the story is ripe for parody after eleven years of audiences being fed warmed-up leftovers as fresh meat. It’s a remake that skewers remakes, which isn’t as ironic as the… Read more
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Serial Thriller: Scream 3
Unfairly derided by critics, this film may lack the suspense of the first film, but with its tongue delicately planted in its cheek, it manages to poke fun not only at horror films but at the process of turning a real-life tragedy into tawdry terror. The series is completely through the looking glass now, told… Read more
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Serial Thriller: Scream 2
As clever as its predecessor, with an opening sequence every bit as horrifying. The self-aware references to sequels carry the film throughout and the scares are genuinely frightening and, in the case of the prologue, downright disturbing. Read more
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Serial Thriller: Scream
Following on the heels of his very-meta New Nightmare, horror veteran Wes Craven serves up a reflexive revival of the diluted and nigh-dead slasher subgenre. With Scream, he reinvigorated the conventions of horror even as he simultaneously skewered and savored them. Read more
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Paranormal Activity 3
An unheard-of instance of a horror series actually getting progressively better with each episode. Perhaps that’s because this trilogy is told in reverse. This latest installment was astonishingly effective, helped in no small part by some genuine and genuinely funny humor. Read more