Bela Lugosi
Saturday, December 11th, 2010
My 5 Favorite Feel-Good Fright Flicks For Halloween
Saw 7. Nightmare on Elm Street 9. Friday the 13th 12! Every conceivable variation of vampire. And God at all the stinking zombies. What gives? Is it the death rattle of a mortally sick society? Did the zombies already win?
Without arguing too vehemently the sociocultural value of six movies about evil leprechauns, I do think monsters are our friends. Not the kind you want hovering over the Brie, maybe, or checking on the cat when you leave town for a week, but they have a place in our lives. They teach us things and stop us from doing stupid stuff like entering dark basements in strange houses. They keep us on our toes, if nothing else.
(In college I wrote a B+ paper about Native American cultures that used monsters and “horror” tales to instill proper social roles and behaviors. The Hopi, for example, sent around an Ogre Woman to give young boys snares to catch mice and young girls corn to grind. She returned a week later with other hideous, growling monsters carrying baskets to haul away any child who failed to produce. See. Friends.)
Of course, it’s not all a bowl of boo berries. Monsters can leave scars, irrational fears of showers and beaches and videotapes and European youth hostels. The standing stare always got me. You know: That woman trapped inside an iron maiden in the final scene of The Pit and the Pendulum (1961), her eyes bloody and crazed. Michael Myers staring up at Jamie Lee Curtis from the sheets on the clothesline in the yard. Eva standing in the snowy road in Ghost Story. Those little twin girls staring at Danny in the Shining. The ghost boy in the curtains behind Ted Danson in Three Men and Baby. Not my friends. Not at all.
Anyway … October is Monster Month, and I mostly break out the same five DVDs every year to celebrate. I won’t say they’re the very best Halloween howls or anything (someone obviously made ten Puppet Master movies for a reason), but they’re old haunts I like to visit. All five, too, are what I’d call “feel-good fright flicks.” Not so much Hocus-Pocus-family-friendly feel-good or Love-At-First-Bite-zany feel-good, but just fun-to-watch feel-good: some legitimate chills, but you’re not too jumbled up under the covers afterward.
Young Frankenstein or The Rocky Horror Picture Show or Little Shop of Horrors might jump to mind, but they’re not so frightening, really. Shaun of the Dead, The Return of the Living Dead and The Evil Dead trilogy are scary fun films, but how good can you feel after all that entrails munching and brain splattering. An American Werewolf in London is classic scary and fun … but not the happiest of endings.
With those caveats in place, here are my feel-good fright flick favs, by year.
Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)
Cary Grant wasn’t too thrilled with his performance in this movie. Too over the top, he thought. Brilliant, I think. Mortimer Brewster (Grant) marries the girl next door, literally. As she packs at home for their honeymoon, and the cabbie waits out front, Mortimer gets caught up at his house with the relatives: two kindly homicidal aunts, a not-so-kindly homicidal brother, and a brother who thinks he’s Theodore Roosevelt. As Mortimer explains to his new wife, “Insanity runs in my family, practically gallops!” Peter Lorre is right at home in the nuthouse as the nervous, drunk plastic surgeon, Dr. Einstein. Oh, and the whole happy gathering happens on Halloween.
Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)
If the movie monster gods hadn’t denied us Boris Karloff playing Frankenstein’s Monster (as they did his playing Mortimer’s evil brother in Arsenic and Old Lace) this movie would be near perfect: Universal Pictures’ classic comedy team meets its three most classic Universal monsters. Still, Bud and Lou running afoul of Bela Lugosi’s Dracula and Lon Chaney, Jr.’s Wolf Man is … classic. The fact it all happens in spooky South Florida … Oh Chick! (Lou Costello supposedly hated this film and considered it one of his worst. Et tu, Lou?)
The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966)
Another Universal Pictures classic. Bless them. Sticking a haunted “murder house” in the middle of innocuous small town U.S.A. and putting Don Knotts alone overnight in said house, it’s gold, Jerry. Gold. And I’ll admit that Mr. Chicken is a far braver coward than me. I’m gone as soon as that gramophone starts playing by itself in the basement. Mr. Chicken keeps going and makes it all the way up to the organ loft, the keys of the organ stained with young Mrs. Simmons blood. And they used Bon Ami. That’s one plucky chicken.
The Night Stalker (1972)
Okay. It’s a made for TV movie. From the 70s. But Carl Kolchak is to monster hunting what Susan Boyle is to singing. Toddling out in his trademark straw hat and seersucker suit, we might be inclined to underestimate him. We shouldn’t. And there’s something irresistible about The Christmas Story dad taking on those nasty denizens of the dark. Darren McGavin is the perfect recalcitrant, rock-ribbed reporter out to solve the mystery and get the story no matter what. Over two movies and 20 TV episodes (the series was cancelled after one season), facing everything from werewolves to a headless motorcycle rider, Kolchak establishes himself as one of the beastie battlers’ best.
Sleepy Hollow (1999)
Tim Burton just about owns Halloween, in my mind. Nearly any of his movies will work. He captures the night’s atmosphere and essence like no one else, and putting Washington Irving’s Headless Horseman in his hands is a no-brainer. Instead of the sycophantic, superstitious schoolmaster from Irving’s short story, Johnny Depp’s Ichabod Crane is a rational, progressive constable in 1799 New York City sent upstate to solve three murders. It rattles him to the core when the clearly supernatural fiend raises its ugly … you know. This is the bloodiest of my feel-good flicks. Lots of headlessness and whatnot … and a great homage to those terrible staring eyes in The Pit and the Pendulum. Heady stuff.
Besides the feel-good factor of these films, you may have noticed, too, they all include unlikely or reluctant “heroes” facing their demons: the triumph of courage and an indefatigable spirit over the selfish, self-preserving reflex to run away. It certainly feels good to see such folks prevail. Another potent lesson to the tribe, perhaps, from our friends the monsters.
About the Author
Dave Neal is a senior partner at 4th Street Training, a premiere instructional design group that helps move individuals and organizations to new levels. Learn more at http://www.4thstreettraining.com/
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