Scary stuff, kids!

Unearth the unexpected for Halloween home viewing: 10 frightfully classic movies

Don't rent the remake; instead go for the 1942 version of Cat People
In Carnival of Souls, the University of Houston’s very own Sidney Berger,right, gives an iconic performance as a supporting character best described byRoger Ebert as “the definitive study of a nerd in lust.”
The classic 1951 movie, The Thing From Another World
Donald Sutherland in a dramatic scene from the 1973 movie, Don't Look Now

If you’re seeking scary movies for Halloween viewing, don’t be content to round up the usual suspects. Instead, consider these alternatives, easily accessible for rental, purchase on downstreaming at various online and brick-and-mortar outlets:

THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD (1951)

CAST: Kenneth Tobey, James Arness

THE PITCH: At a remote Air Force outpost in the Arctic, a research team discovers a long-frozen spaceship – and, more important, a long-frozen spaceship pilot. After the ice melts, scientists try to reason with the defrosted alien. When that fails, a gung-ho commander (Tobey) switches to Plan B.

THE VERDICT: Forget about the John Carpenter remake and the recent prequel/sequel/whatever. Arguably the scariest monster mash of the Cold war era, this sci-fi shocker is best enjoyed with all the lights turned out. Hey, even the folks in Carpenter’s own Halloween were caught watching it.

CAT PEOPLE (1942)

CAST: Kent Smith, Simone Simon

THE PITCH: A handsome architect (Smith) hastily woos and weds a beautiful artist (Simon), then finds himself frustrated (to put it mildly) when she insists they cannot consummate their union. She claims that, if they enjoy conjugal bliss, she’ll turn into a murderous panther. Trouble is, she’s equally likely to get catty if she suspects her husband is romancing a co-worker.

THE VERDICT: Val Lewton brilliantly exploits the power of suggestion in this wide-awake nightmare of eerie shadows and unseen terrors.

DR. TERROR’S HOUSE OF HORRORS (1965)

CAST: Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing

THE PITCH: A tarot reader (Cushing) predicts some seriously fatal futures for his fellow train travelers: A jazz musician will pay dearly for “sampling” voodoo chants, a newly married professor (an incredibly young Donald Sutherland) will discover his bride is a vampire, an evil art critic (Lee) will be pursued by the severed hand of an artist he drove to suicide…

THE VERDICT: The very best of the Brit horror anthologies produced by Hammer and Amicus studios during the 1960s and ‘70s.

DIABOLIQUE (1955)

CAST: Simone Signoret, Vera Clouzot

THE PITCH: At a boy’s boarding school in a Paris suburb, the sadistic principal (Paul Meurisse) brutalizes his mistress (Signoret) and torments his wife (Clouzot). So they drown him in a bathtub, then dump him into the school’s swimming pool. But when the pool is drained, the body is gone. Uh-oh.

THE VERDICT: Henri-Georges Clouzot's classic thriller has spawned three authorized remakes, and influenced countless other films. But the ingeniously creepy original remains in a class by itself.

CARNIVAL OF SOULS (1962)

CAST: Candace Hilligoss, Sidney Berger

THE PITCH: Low-budget cult fave about a woman (Hilligoss) who seemingly survives a car crash, then endures much dislocating weirdness – and many spooky hints that, hey, maybe she didn’t survive the crash — when she moves to Salt Lake City to work as a music teacher.

THE VERDICT: Herk Harvey’s stripped-to-essentials ghost story offers a nifty final twist that was echoed decades later in The Sixth Sense. The minimalist production values somehow enhance the overall sense of mounting dread. And the University of Houston’s very own Sidney Berger gives an iconic performance as a supporting character best described by Roger Ebert as “the definitive study of a nerd in lust.”

THE WICKER MAN (1973)

CAST: Edward Woodward, Christopher Lee

THE PITCH: While investigating the disappearance of a child on a small island off the Scottish coast, a police detective (Woodward) finds a contemporary cult still sacrifices innocents to ensure bountiful harvests. The situation is even more dire than it sounds, since the detective is – well, let’s just say he could have starred in The 40-Year-Old Virgin.

THE VERDICT: Robin Hardy’s subtly scary occult thriller – incalculably craftier than the misguided remake starring Nicolas Cage — continues to cast a spell on connoisseurs of the cinemafantastique.

HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM (1959)

STARS: Michael Gough, Shirley Ann Field

THE PITCH: Long before he was a faithful manservant to three different Batmen, Gough played a malevolent mystery writer who raises bloody hell with real-life mayhem.

THE VERDICT: Still shocking after all these years, this grisly horror show begins with horrific carnage – think binoculars booby-trapped spring-driven spikes – then turns even nastier.

THE OLD DARK HOUSE (1932)

CAST: Boris Karloff, Ernest Thesiger

THE PITCH: On a dark and stormy night, stranded travelers seek shelter in a decaying mansion way off the beaten track. This, of course, is a big mistake. Karloff plays a mute butler who knows where all the bodies are buried, quite possibly because he buried most of them himself.

THE VERDICT: Call it an early draft for The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and you won’t be far off the mark.

INVADERS FROM MARS (1953)

STARS: Jimmy Hunt, Arthur Franz

THE PITCH: A younger (Hunt) awakens from a bad dream to see a UFO landing near his home. Unfortunately, no one believes his story. Even more unfortunately, many grown-ups – including the boy’s parents – start acting really, really strange after they visit the landing site.

THE VERDICT: You may watch this one with your kids, but don’t be surprised if you, too, wind up having to sleep with a night light in your room.

DON’T LOOK NOW (1973)

STARS: Donald Sutherland, Julie Christie

THE PITCH: A restorer of ancient churches (Sutherland) fails to appreciate his powers of precognition, even after he foresees the death of his young daughter. Which means, alas, he can’t spot portents of another untimely demise.

THE VERDICT: Strictly for grown-ups (and not just because Christie and Sutherland share a notoriously erotic bedroom scene), Nicolas Roeg’s sophisticated stunner is well worth a look.

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Movie Review

Offbeat drama Pillion features command performance by Alexander Skarsgård

Photo courtesy of A24

Alexander Skarsgård and Harry Melling in Pillion.

Describing the new movie Pillion is almost an act of futility. It contains a variety of seemingly disparate parts that coalesce into a whole to make it utterly fascinating. Few other recent films have been able to walk the line between filthy and wholesome in quite the way this one does, and that’s only because few other filmmakers would actually dare to try.

It centers on Colin (Harry Melling), a meek man in his mid-thirties who still lives at home with his parents, Pete (Douglas Hodge) and Peggy (Lesley Sharp), while working a dead-end job giving out parking tickets. While performing in a barbershop quartet at his local pub, Colin catches the eye of biker Ray (Alexander Skarsgård), who summons him for a clandestine hook-up the following day (which just so happens to be Christmas Day).

With barely a word exchanged between them, Ray establishes a dominance over Colin that quickly leads to them starting a relationship in which Colin does anything Ray asks. And that means more than just sex: Colin, whether desperate for any kind of affection or unlocking a side of himself he hadn’t known, readily agrees to cook, clean, shop, and basically do whatever else Ray wants him to do.

Written and directed by first-time feature filmmaker Harry Lighton, the film is astonishing in the way it’s able to mine humor from Colin and Ray’s atypical bond. To call Ray “unfeeling” might not be totally accurate, but the way he treats Colin borders on cruel. However, the way Lighton structures the film, it’s easy to understand why someone like Colin would be willing to go along with the situation. It’s both hilarious and heartbreaking to see Colin debase himself in a variety of ways.

On the flip side is Colin’s heartfelt arc with his parents. It’s established right away that Peggy, who is sick with cancer, is a bit too involved with Colin’s love life, with the opening scene featuring her setting him up on a blind date. But their easy acceptance of his queerness and desire to see him find love is as heartwarming as it gets. The juxtaposition between the wholesomeness of their family and Colin’s new life is also the source of a good amount of comedy.

Lighton does not shy away from the sexual side of Colin and Ray’s relationship, and the scenes he depicts are as graphic as you are likely to see in an R-rated film. Some go up to and a little past what might be expected in a mainstream movie (including the use of a certain fake appendage). Other times they play out in a comical way to illustrate just how far Colin has progressed from the person he was when the film started.

Skarsgård, who stole the show in the Charli XCX movie The Moment, is the attraction in more ways than one in this film. The part calls for someone who’s not only impossibly handsome, but also a person who can stop dissent with just a glance, and he lives up to both qualities equally well. Melling, best known for playing Neville Longbottom in the Harry Potter movies, also embodies his role perfectly. He plays Colin as weak enough to be run roughshod over by Ray, but not so hopeless as to not be worth rooting for.

Pillion (which is the name of the secondary seat on a motorcycle on which Colin rides multiple times in the film) operates at a storytelling level that is difficult to achieve. Many people will not fully understand the film’s central relationship, but the way it is showcased by Lighton makes it compelling, gut-wrenching, and sexy.

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Pillion is now playing in theaters.

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