It’s Halloween, which means film critics are dusting off and/or updating their lists of best scary movies. Between jump scares and buckets of blood, it’s an easy assignment. Grab an old favourite ( Rosemary’s Baby , say), add something more recent like 2018’s Hereditary , and top it off with Sinister . The 2012 horror-mystery starring Ethan Hawke was recently dubbed the scariest movie of all time by the U.K. web site broadbandchoices , which hooked viewers up to heart monitors.
But I’d argue that mere fear is a little too easy to quantify, especially if you measure it in beats per minute. Here instead is a Halloween movie playlist designed to unsettle, confound and confuse. Some of the titles will appear on other lists of scary movies. But all will leave you disconcerted and anxious this Halloween. Because clearly we’re not feeling enough of those emotions these days.
12 Monkeys – Terry Gilliam’s 1995 masterpiece images a world stricken by a deadly virus (I know) and the convict sent back in time to help find an early sample that will help create a vaccine. Most time-travel movies make it look so easy; not so here, where the mental strain can lead to madness. (Available on Amazon Prime)
Alien – Forty-one years old and still one of the great sci-fi/horror crossovers, as the crew of a space tug discovers a deadly species on a distant planet. (Crave)
Aniara – Have you seen Avenue 5 , the TV comedy about a cruise ship knocked off course on its way to Mars? Ever wondered what it would look like as an existential Swedish drama? Here’s your chance to find out! (iTunes)
A Ghost Story – Casey Affleck (under a sheet) stars in what is actually a ghost’s story, a tender meditation on loss and forgetting, quietly brilliant and brilliantly quiet. (Prime)
High Life – Robert Pattinson plays a convict (again with the convicts) on a spaceship headed to investigate a black hole. He and his infant daughter are the only surviving crew; we find out why in some deeply disturbing flashbacks involving Juliette Binoche. (Prime)
Level 16 – Canadian writer/director Danishka Esterhazy has called her Handmaid’s Tale inflected dystopian thriller “ Jane Eyre meets Logan’s Run .” Ride this elevator to level 16 or wherever else it chooses to take you, and you won’t be disappointed. (CBC Gem)
The Lighthouse – Pattinson is back, this time as a rookie wickie (lighthouse keeper) alongside old hand Willem Dafoe in this 1890s-set story that plays like a drunken sea shanty. (Prime)
Never Let Me Go – This wistful adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel shows a world where life expectancy has climbed past 100 – but at what cost? Michael Bay explored similar themes – albeit more noisily – in 2005’s The Island . Alex Garland wrote this one; his other scary screenwriting credits include 28 Days Later and Annihilation . (iTunes)
Room 237 – Horror director Rodney Ascher takes a deep dive into Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (one of my favourite scary movies, so consider it part of this list as well) and the out-there theories about its meaning promulgated by obsessive fans. (Hoopla)
Under the Skin – This 2014 alien-invasion thriller got under my skin. Adapting a fascinating novel by Michel Faber, director Jonathan Glazer casts Scarlett Johansson as a friendly, not-quite-right driver plying Scottish motorways for human victims. Eerie and discombobulating. (Prime)
The Witch –The first major role for the bewitchingly weird Anya Taylor-Joy (something about those wide-set eyes) finds her part of a pious family in 1630s New England eking out a hardscrabble existence at the edge of a spooky forest, and dealing with an evil enchantress. (TubiTV)
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory – Stay with me on this one. Some claim (or remember) this 1971 family fantasy as a harmless kids’ movie. Well, re-watch the wonky “ tunnel of terror ” scene, complete with freak-out lighting, images of chickens being decapitated, and Gene Wilder’s delivery of a creepy poem at gradually increasing tempo and volume until he’s screaming. And then try not to have nightmares. (iTunes)
Cats – Any link between the release of this film in late December 2019 and the start of the coronavirus pandemic is just a coincidence, like blaming a black cat for some unrelated unlucky event, right? Right? (Crave)
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