Scary Scary Movies

[Shanel Arrendell]

Thebest horror movies of all time trickle down a terrifying legacy of influence and inspiration to genre films being made and released today. Modern horror is peppered with familiar narrative themes, visual flourishes, enduring monsters, and character quirks that we can trace back to the best that have ever done it.

Longlegs, which is currently smashing the box office with its dread-inducing serial killer nightmare, is said by its director to be heavily influenced by The Silence of the Lambs, while eagle-eyed horror fans may also see similarities with occult films like Hereditary and The Omen. A Quiet Place: Day One, the latest installment in the ongoing franchise about blind extraterrestrial creatures with an acute sense of hearing, is indebted to classic sci-fi and apocalyptic movies like Alien and 28 Days Later.

The movie: Who'd have thought an old Star Trek mask could be so terrifying? Director John Carpenter created a modern classic when he gave his villain a blank William Shatner mask to wear while he stalks babysitters around the fictional town of Haddonfield, Illinois. The movie created another icon, too, in Jamie-Leigh Curtis, who'd become both a scream queen in her own right, and the template for all final girls to follow. Who cares if the first scene makes no sense? This is a movie that starts with a child-murdering his sister while wearing a clown mask and if that's not scary, you need your horror fan status revoked immediately.

Why it's scary: Pretty much the original stalk-and-slash, Halloween set standards that have rarely been matched. Carpenter composes his shots to keep you constantly guessing, blending both claustrophobia and fearful exposure, often at the same time, to create a deeply uneasy sense of vulnerability wherever you are and whatever is happening. Also, that soundtrack. Composed by Carpenter himself. There is a reason that pounding doom-synth is still the soundtrack for oppressive horror. As a great follow up too, get the 2018 sequel into your eyes. The new Halloween removes all those messy other sequels and does a perfect job of showing the real trauma of growing up as a victim of The Shape himself.

The movie: Mid-20's photographer Chris is driving out to rural New York to meet his girlfriend's parents for the first time, but he's a little nervous. "Do they know I'm Black?" he tentatively asks Rose, but she's having none of it: "My Dad would have voted for Obama a third time if he could have!". Phew! What could possibly go wrong? Everything. Everything can go wrong, Chris. Turn back now. This isn't just going to be slightly socially awkward.

Why it's scary: Bubbling with resonant social commentary, layered with hard-hitting goosebumps, and sprinkled with uncompromising humor, Get Out is a modern horror masterpiece in every sense of the word. Not content with scaring you just for its 90-minute run-time, director Jordan Peele wants to draw your attention to the real frightening truths rooted deep in the identity politics of contemporary America, and his grand reveal is more horrific than any jump scare could ever hope to be.

The movie: Arguably one of the greatest science fiction movies ever made also just happens to be one of the greatest horror movies too. It doesn't seem fair, does it? The original Alien from Ridley Scott sends the crew of the Nostromo to investigate a distress call from an abandoned alien spaceship as innocently as any gang of hormonal teenagers headed off to a remote cabin in the woods. And, just like those teenagers, not many of them are going to survive to tell the tale. Sigourney Weaver makes for the ultimate Final Girl here.

Why it's scary: There's nowhere more horribly isolated than a spaceship light years away from home and Giger's alien is as terrifying a monster as you could wish for. The dread goes much deeper than teeth and claws though. This creature represents a multilayered, bottomless pit of psychosexual horror, its very form praying on a raft of primal terrors. Plus, the visual ambiguity of Scott's direction during the final act is an absolute masterclass in 'What's that in the shadows?' tension. Ignore the recent xenomorph-packed movies, turn off the lights and watch this and Aliens to reignite your passion for the true horror of Scott's vision.

People associate a lot of things with October: Playoff baseball, crisp fall weather, pumpkin spice-flavored everything, and of course, scary movies. For the past several years I have made a point of watching a marathon of horror films in the days before Halloween. At a certain point though, you get sick of watching the same old slasher movies your friends would brag about seeing in elementary school.

Watch and Talk is a column about movies. It seeks to not only review movies, but to simply talk about them. Watch and Talk looks at the various cultural impacts and aspects that movies can have.

The one question I get asked more than any other also happens to be one of the most complex questions out there: what actually makes something scary? Whether it be a book or a movie or something else altogether, what does it? What gets the blood pumping?

Stuart Thaman is the international best-selling author of a handful of different series. He writes epic fantasy, LitRPG, horror, a little sci-fi, and more. Check out www.stuartthamanbooks.com for more!

Now that Halloween season is fast approaching, everyone is watching horror movies in preparation for the holiday. There are many reasons people watch these movies. It could be the premise of the movies, the iconic killers, or the fact that these movies fit the season, but the main one is that people find them scary.

The horror industry now features more women as agents in their stories, rather than exclusively victims without any real contribution than disturbing screams in the face of death. For example, Hereditary takes advantage of the women in the cast and positions them as the arbiters of their own horror, with the grandmother, the mother Annie, and the daughter Charlie being integral to the terror that unfolds. Ari Aster even subverts the typical power dynamic with this film, as the men involved are merely reactors to the events, whereas that role was typically reserved for women previously.A film such as Hereditary, lacking in jump scares but still dealing with paranormal activity, as well as being seeped in motherhood and justified desperation, is a quintessential contemporary example of horror no longer being classically scary, but still disturbing viewers deeply. It is the human reactions to the horrible things that occur that are so compelling, to the extent that possessions or supernatural events become ancillary to the entire film. Other films, too, feature women in the forefront in a refreshing way, such as The Witch or The Babadook. These are not a few films which are making the exception, but a general trend towards a richer genre as a whole.Now What?All of this is not to say that there are not films which succeed today that could not stand against films of the 1970s/1980s in terms of being truly scary. Films of the early 2000s and more recent films alike, such as Saw, Happy Death Day, The Conjuring, Insidious, Us, and Paranormal Activity, operate under similar rules of the alternate horror universes of old, and they generally have at least a cult following which they resonate with. There is still room for jump scares and excessive gore in the horror film genre, but the most successful horror films transcend the genre and display a more interdisciplinary approach in how they haunt screens.

If you are a parent, your child has probably pressed you on gaining access to things on the screen that "push the limits." With three boys (ages 8, 12, and 16), my wife and I have been in the thick of this for quite some time!

I try to stay up to speed on the latest research findings on the effects of screens on kids/teens. Even within the research, there is still debate on these issues. There are many variables involved when it comes to the effects of screens, so it's complicated! My short answer to this question is that scary movies/shows are not truly harmful to kids, but read on for the longer answer plus some tips.

I blogged about this, but we can reflect on our own screen experiences as kids/teens in which we "pushed the limits" (or blew past them) to inform our parenting. Were we harmed in any substantial, lasting way by the types (and amounts) of screen time we had as kids? Probably not.

Still, as parents, we want our kids to be happy and healthy. Because we share this goal, we naturally have concerns about the effects of scary movies/shows (and video games!) on our kids. This is especially true given how rapidly technologies have evolved. Our kids can access content and play video games that we couldn't even dream of when we were young.

First, regarding the effects of these scary movies and video games, let's agree that we are NOT talking about the most extreme scenarios. That is, we are not talking about 4-year-olds watching slasher movies for 12 hours per day or playing M-rated survival/horror games on VR headsets for hours on end. We are talking about more typical viewing and gaming experiences that are within the broad range of "normal."

Being a parent is often difficult. Our kids often want to push boundaries and limits with regard to our comfort zones. But that is part of what kids are supposed to do developmentally! When it comes to parenting, to quote Voltaire, "The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good." Just aim for "good enough" parenting.

When it comes to the effects of scary movies and games on our kids, we should not be in a state of fear over them. Even if we allow our kids to watch/play something that's too scary or intense, we are talking mild, transient harm, not major Harm. Trust your parenting and strive for "good enough!"

Well it's not on streaming yet I don't think since I just saw it in the cinema but 'The Black Phone' is terrifying. Really really scary, and has a gripping plot and really great female lead too.

On Netflix, I'd suggest 'Run' (about a girl who uses a wheelchair who discovers a dark secret). Not really super scary but tense and lots of jump scenes.

'Creep' (the one set on the London tube, not the more recent one) is terrifying.

'Hush' is on Netflix and is scary.

'Happy Death Day' is a horror comedy that's more comedy than horror but a very good movie.

This might be useful? www.buzzfeed.com/jeremyhayes/best-horror-movies-netflix

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