By Matthew Dillon
As the days get shorter and the nights get colder this October, there is no better activity to get in the spirit of the season than watching a Halloween classic. If you are looking for an alternative to rewatching Hocus Pocus or Halloweentown for the hundredth time, or are looking to be truly scared, look no further. These three horror films will do the trick and will possibly have you sleeping with the lights on well into November.
Hellraiser (1987)
Clive Barker’s Hellraiser was just one of the many post 70s horror films to become an iconic franchise and household name. These multi-media series, including the likes of Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street, eventually became hollow caricatures of their former selves, with its monsters’ and their worlds were reduced to something akin to a pre-internet meme. Despite being one of the more bizarre examples, Hellraiser shared their fate, with its two decades worth of pointless sequels. Thankfully, the original Hellraiser has remained largely intact, where a lot of similar films have not survived the test of time.
The 1987 film follows a family’s interactions with the mystic “Lament Configuration” puzzle box, which leaves them at the mercy of the demonic cenobites and the hedonistic, undead uncle who unleashed them. While most horror films try their best to get under your skin with horrific imagery, Hellraiser is one of the few to really succeed—mostly thanks to its inspired visuals. The titular Pinhead and his lackeys have surprisingly little screen time, but the film ensures that once they do show up, you do not forget them. The film is mired by some goofy special effects, like the clearly hand drawn “energy” sparking off of Pinhead. However, it makes up for that with some truly terrifying practical effects, particularly the scene where a half-formed creature crawls towards its next prey, with everything below the waist uselessly dragging behind it. Hellraiser might not be the most technically impressive horror film ever made, but what it does get right is guaranteed to stick with you for a long time.
Alien (1979)
At this point, science fiction and horror are familiar friends, even if the former tends to be in higher standing than the latter. A massive chunk of the horror genre has some science fiction bent to it, mainly because the final frontier lacks the constraints of its more traditional peers. This relationship admittedly has its problems, as both kinds of stories are very hard to pull off, and mixing them together does not make that any easier. But, once in a while, these films manage to succeed on both fronts. There are few better examples of this than the iconic Alien.
Even after decades of overexposure, Alien (1979) is still one of the greats. It takes a very simplistic premise, seven people trapped on a spaceship with an alien, and creates one of the most iconic and unique entries in both sci-fi and horror. Everything about the film, whether it is the art direction, the pacing, the music, or the alien itself, works amazingly well. Outside of the iconic chest-burster scene, Alien is surprisingly restrained for a horror movie. That, combined with its reliance on mounting tension, is why it is so successful in being scary. Despite everything the franchise has had to endure, Alien remains the best film to come out of horror and sci-fi’s awkward union.
28 Days Later (2002)
The American love affair with the zombie has finally reached its twilight years. After the success of media like “The Walking Dead,” a tidal wave of derivative content flooded across every medium. By now, every one of its tropes has been completely exhausted, leaving the undead so overused they feel more pedestrian than anything else. New entries stray far from the trope’s roots in the legendary Romero films while also failing to provide anything new to the concept. With that in mind, it’s the perfect time to revisit one of the few great zombie movies: 2002’s 28 Days Later.
The film begins with a bike courier awaking from a coma, only to find an apparently abandoned London. It is eventually revealed to him that most of England’s population has been reduced to cannibalistic ghouls by “the rage virus.” 28 Days Later uses a series of cunning technical and narrative techniques to make their zombies one of a kind. A thoughtful storyline has ensured that the film survived a full decade of crude imitators, as has its great scares and great genre subversions. Through a mixture of haunting camera work, strong characterization, insightful social commentary and terrifying moments, 28 Days Later is one of the few modern zombie films worth considering.
