"Her appearance in the original 1982 film must rank as one of the most unexpected casting coups de theatre ever, as no one in those summertime audiences expected a psychic investigator to be diminutive, maternal, with an inimitable voice like a marshmallow dipped in honey - that could jacket itself in stainless steel when the powers of Hell came knocking. In fact, her very presence struck me at first as being dramatically unnecessary; after all, wasn't Oscar winner Beatrice Straight there to serve that role? But with a handful of lines, and in a matter of seconds, Rubinstein became the compassionate heart of the film and the franchise."
Poltergeist clip
Zelda was also an early, open activist in the fight against AIDS/HIV.
Who can forget that line from the early 80s blockbuster horror flick? Directed by Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), this was a supremely creepy film about a normal American family caught up in paranormal circumstances.
Scared the ever-lovin' crap outta me as an 11-year-old! The possessed clown doll was bad enough, but then there were scenes like this:
Based on a novel by Shirley Jackson (which I still want to read), this is one of those old movies I ignored as a kid. What a mistake. It would have scared me silly then.
Even now the film retains the eerie sense of the unknown, of being watched by something so sinister and evil, that one can get goosebumps. Julie Harris is so great as Nell, the lonely woman who thinks she has finally found a place, a home, where she is special. Eeek!
John Carpenter, Debra Hill, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Atkins, Janet Leigh, John Houseman, Hal Holbrook... What an awesome creative pool. The movie? Less than it could have been.
A film about the vengeful ghosts of pirates who were wronged and died at the hands of a greedy few. The film is creepy and eerie and has so much going for it that it has always been hard for me to knock it. But there has always been a bit of confusion or a lack of clarity that just irked me.
M. Night Shyamalan wrote and directed this film, and was lauded as a 'new Hitchcock' at the time. While that proved to be an overstatement, this film still holds up as a great, and sometimes very creepy, ghost movie.
It is funny, the film can be watched for the first time twice. By this, I mean that the first viewing is great, but once you know "the secret" and re-watch the film, you are viewing it all with a new eye. Interesting, at least.
A classic, this film is one I really enjoy. Not scary, it is more of a romantic ghost story. A lonely widow (the beautiful Gene Tierney) with a small daughter moves into a wonderful seaside cottage, which just happens to be haunted by the previous owner, the late Captain Gregg (the great Rex Harrison).
Can the two proceed to co-exist, when one of them no longer exists? I love the mood here, and the scenery. Just wonderful, a great film that spawned a late-60s television series of the same name.
This is Tim Burton's great 80s comedy, a quirky ghost story that is full of weird and wonderful characters.
Michael Keaton is great as the title ghost, but Geena Davis and Alec Baldwin are also great as the confused Maitlands. Winona Ryder is perfect as the morose Lydia. And Catherine O'Hara is just great, as usual.
Say his name three times! "Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice!"
This film is another with a twist, like "The Sixth Sense". Once you know it, the next viewing is a different experience.
This film deals with ghosts in a different way and it is interesting to watch. I feel like I shouldn't say too much, even though the film is 8 years old, there may be some out there who haven't seen it. And I don't want to spoil it.
A great acting turn by Nicole Kidman, it's a film to watch at least twice.
Based on the great short story by Washington Irving, this film is another wonderful collaboration by director Tim Burton and star Johnny Depp.
Creepy and scary, the film is fun in a horrible way, with Depp perfect as the awkwardly uncomfortable Ichabod Crane, Christina Ricci wonderful as Katrina and Christopher Walken creepy as the pre-headless Horseman.
Rent this around Halloween - a great way to get into the spirit of the season!
Ricky Gervais plays a lonely, jerk of a dentist, who goes in for a routine medical procedure winds up with a strange side effect - he can see and hear the dead! And the dead want his help, since they have no power to interact with the living.
The film is simple, but funny and well acted by Gervais, Greg Kinnear and Tea Leoni. Gervais is the stand-out, however, making his character more than just a jerk, he is a real man who has just lost his way in the world. Very good.
Didn't think I would leave this one off the list, did you? Truth is, I almost did. Sheesh, I am getting old!
This film was a big hit when it was released, the pairing of Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg, all in their prime, was box office success.
Swayze plays the title ghost here, an honorable man killed by a thug working for a dishonorable man he thought was a friend. Whoopi plays the fake psychic who suddenly finds her power working for real.
Great scenes, with a good mix of comedy and romance, this film is the one with the much-parodied scene of Moore and Swayze and the pottery wheel. Heh.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hope you enjoyed this ghostly jaunt through Hollywood. Check out what the other Theme Thursday participants are conjuring up this week.
And here is a bonus ghost for you:
Michael Myers playing a little prank. Does he get your ghost? ;)
Okay, so I am one who likes being scared. Love horror movies, love creepy stuff. Like that feeling of eeriness you get from a good scare. So, here are 13 things that creep me out. I am sure there are more, but these are the ones that came to the top of my mind, so they have obviously had a lasting effect. I am not saying these movies or shows are the scariest, most unnerving things out there, but these are just parts that stuck out, to me.
1) The way Michael Myers watches Laurie in HALLOWEEN. There are a bunch of instances in this film: the scene after she drops off the key at his old house and walks away and he steps out onto the sidewalk to watch her; the scene in the school when she sees him outside the window; the scene in her backyard standing amidst the drying laundry. Not to mention when only Laurie spots him near the hedge on their walk home from school. CREEPY!
This is also done to great effect in HALLOWEEN 5: THE REVENGE OF MICHAEL MYERS - there is a scene, where the teens are in the park and talking and in the background you can see Michael, wandering around some trees. He isn't so much as hiding as just staying slightly obscured. Creepy! And the scene where Rachel is showering and what-not, and Michael is in the house, as well. I bet this scene can still scare people who are home... "alone".
2) The scene in JEEPERS CREEPERS where they are driving past the old church and see the Creeper dumping something in the pipe. What creeps me out here is when HE LOOKS BACK AT THEM! Something about evil being there but unaware of your presence is so much better than when evil looks at you and says "Oh, I see you, too..."
3) The same feeling plays into the very creepy X-FILES episode "Home". I think the scene towards the beginning, when Mulder and Scully are examining the ball field and they are told about the Peacock family and they look over to see the three men on their porch, watching the agents themselves. So much about this episode is wrong (in a good way), but the fact that those disturbed, bizarre, homicidal creeps were right there out in the daylight was scary stuff.
4) Clowns, to me, have lost that lovin' feeling. But that damn creepy clown doll from POLTERGEIST? Ugh, who in their right mind would give this to a kid, even before this movie came out? Just so wrong and such a nightmare inducer. I would never have just left it sitting on a shelf to watch me sleep at night. That fucker would have been locked up tight, preferably in another room. In another house.
5) The scene in FRIDAY THE 13TH: PART II where Ginny and Paul are in the cabin and the lights are out. When Ginny says "There's someone in this room!" and Jason is there, quietly waiting in the dark. THIS is why grown people can be afraid of the dark - there might be a once-dead-but-now-alive-with-a-sack-on-his-head-irrational-killer in the corner. Also in this movie, when Ginny is in Jason's shack and she peers out and see Jason running towards her. Holy momma! Where the flip can she go? There are only two rooms, and we KNOW what Ginny finds behind door number two.
(OF COURSE a dude with a sack on his head lives here.)
6) The original THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE is scary stuff, especially when I first saw it as a wee lad. But there is one scene that always freaks me out. When Kirk enters the house and Leatherface just appears and whacks him. Before you know it, the door is shut and Kirk is just GONE. What just happened? The fact that something so unexpected and horrific can occur so damn quickly... Well, it just goes to show you why you should stay the hell OUT of strange farmhouses in the country. The fact that they made an actual toy/collectible of this scene tells me I am not alone in this feeling.
7) It may not hold the same punch these days, when everyone has a cell phone, but the 70s film WHEN A STRANGER CALLS was seriously creepy in it's time. The 'calls coming from inside the house' scare was something babysitters (and loners) feared already and this movie just made them jump up and say "SEE??? I TOLD you it could happen!!!" The very different sequel WHEN A STRANGER CALLS BACK has a semi-creepy scene, when that movie's killer hides himself right in the woman's apartment - by painting himself to match her brick wall and just standing still.
(Carol Kane, your eyes speak volumes. So perfect for horror flicks.)
8) The flying monkeys in THE WIZARD OF OZ. They are creepy in their own right, with their bizarre monkey/human hybrid faces and expressions of perpetual glee - which they shouldn't have. But, what puts them over the top are their little coordinated outfits! Holy buckets! The witch was evil, but this just proves the bitch was bat-shit crazy! She spends her off time making matching outfits for her band of flying monkeys?! Run, Dorothy, run!!!
(WHY would you even own this picture? And the dude got it signed!)
9) The Oompa Loompas from the original WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY. They were like midgets but not, with odd colored skin and green hair and strange white jumpsuits and... they were helpers from hell, is what they were. ONLY Wonka would be okay with living and working with these bizarre and unsettling little men. The Oompa Loompas from the remake were odd, but not stay-the-fuck-away-from-me odd.
10) This albino dude from FOUL PLAY, the 70s movie with Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase.
I don't remember much about the movie, but he scared the CRAP out of me when I was a kid. Anytime I saw this movie in the TV Guide I would look away for something else. I couldn't watch it again cause I knew I would see him. Turns out he was an actor named William Frankfather and he WASN'T really an albino. Don't care, really, as he has haunted my brain for decades now.
11) The old 70s show IN SEARCH OF, with Leonard Nimoy. Hot damn, this show freaked me out. Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, aliens, heck - even Amelia Earhart and her disappearance scared me. But it was all because of the combination of fear and mystery and the unknown they infused into each episode. From the eerie music to Nimoy's normal-yet-scary-uncle narration, I was scared spitless.
(Could have done a show on missing socks - I would have been petrified.)
12) This creepy, creepy, CREEPY picture. It just gives me the willies. I have lost the image twice over the years (probably subconciously deleted it) and had to search the 'net for it, never recalling what to actually use as search terms. "Creepy midget", "Scariest dwarf", "What the fuck?".
I finally remembered something about him being arrested, so I searched for "arrested midget" and wham-o! As soon as I saw it, I jumped and aged another year. Great googly moogly ... I don't know if it is real or not, but frankly it doesn't matter. It freaks the ever-loving-beejebus out of me. I would jump up into Michael Myers arms for safety and tell him to high-tail it to Jason's shack if I was confronted with this alleged "peeping tom". Can you even IMAGINE seeing him looking in your window? I would move to a place with one entrance, no widows. And then blind myself.
