Oct 22 2008
The Halloween Marathon, Part One
With the coming of one of the most popular holidays, many people in today’s polite society (who are not particularly horror fans, or are just getting into the genre) often wonder what movies are perfect for viewing on Halloween.
Being a horror movie collector (who is now entering his 20th year in collecting) and a viewer with a wide range of tastes, this dark webmaster can easily get irked when someone with very little exposure to the horror/science fiction genre names Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th (you know, the one where Jason, the axe murderer goes around in a hockey mask), and The Exorcist as movies that are the best movies for the darkest night of the year. To be fair, those movies have their own merits, and quite possibly hold a rank among the best horror films of all time. However, they are the tip of the iceberg, the “surface” of horror films (much like the “Iron Man” of the Black Sabbath catalogue) that is rarely broken by the masses.
The following is a list of films that may or may not be too popular, but do have a wonderful atmosphere when it comes to Halloween viewing. Viewers will find old castles with long, dark corridors that need to be lit with torches, evil histories and a few familiar names…..
Web of the Spider stars the immortal Klaus Kinski (Nosferatu: Phantom Der Nacht, 1979) as Edgar Allen Poe, arranging a wager between Alan Foster (played by Anthony Franciosa), a reporter, and Lord Blackwood. Mr. Foster must spend the night alone in Blackwood Castle. He must emerge from the estate at dawn in order to win the wager. However, Mr. Foster finds that he is not alone…..
Christopher Lee is back as the sinister Count Regula in Castle of the Walking Dead (aka The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism). The evil Count was sentenced and quartered for the murder of 12 maidens. Decades later, he has been resurrected by his servant in order to claim his 13th victim and complete a religious rite that will give him everlasting life. However, he is met with resistance by a band of people who are intended to be his final victims.
Boris Karloff (Frankenstein, 1931) and Jack Nicholson (The Shining, 1980) are the dramatic force behind The Terror, a film about an old castle, an aging baron, the resurrection of the dead, and witchcraft. Nicholson is a lost French soldier in the early 1800s who stumbles across a mysterious woman, an old witch, and the reclusive Baron Von Leppe (Karloff). Both the witch and Von Leppe deny the existence of Helene, the mysterious woman, but the French soldier is insistent on finding her. The deeper he digs into the past of the Baron and the harder he searches for Helene, the more entangled he gets in a web of horror and deceit.
These three films make for a great marathon with appropriate set/location lighting, sound effects, lots of fog and some familiar character actors. Stay tuned for the rest of the list of atmospheric haunts that may be just what you’re looking for to make your Halloween viewing a little different this year…..
