Followers of the blog should know that I’m not a great lover of Haunted House, horror movies. I don’t really find them scary. Shutters banging, creaking eaves, noises of either the house settling, or wind blowing through the house never scared me, and up until recently I didn’t find the phenomena worthy of cinematic stories. Fortunately, that has changed.
One of the movies most memorable when I was a kid was The House on Haunted Hill (1959), and when I watched it as an adult, I was not impressed. Lately, I’ve been more and more interested with higher quality scares offered up on even the most formulaic, and perfunctory, post-modern, horror movies. I thought it might be fun to provide a list of the best I’ve come across. If you feel I missed something that you think SHOULD be on this list, by all means add it in the comments section, I will check it out, and comment back.
I know that this is not an exhaustive list, but I’m trying something new for me.
#10
The Haunting (1963) is the oldest movie on my list. We should always respect the earliest movies of a genre because they are the pioneers of the mediated reality they attempt to explore. It is probably the least scariest of the movies on my list because today’s audiences are sophisticated enough to understand dutch angles and shots filmed from low angles to provide creepiness.
The actors Richard Johnson, and Russ Tamblyn are the male leads, but Julie Harris and Claire Bloom are the stars here, with one emotionally vulnerable, and the other with a psychic ability she does not understand. It’s a good movie with most of the violence happening off-camera.
#9
The Amityville Horror has become a franchise, but in 1979, the Lutz family’s horrifying adventure of moving into a haunted house at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville was relatively new. They fled the house 28 days after moving in supposedly due to paranormal phenomena that made the home unwelcoming.
The house had been the site of a mass murder on November 13, 1974, when Ronald DeFeo, Jr. had killed six members of his family. The house had remained vacant 13 months before the Lutzes decided to take a chance on the very favorable price. Margot Kidder and Josh Brolin did a really good job with the acting on this movie. However, it contained limited horrors.
#8
No less a talent than Steven Spielberg working with Tobe Hooper to create the quintessential Haunted House movie of the 1980’s, 1990s, and all the way to 2007, was Poltergeist (1982). There was Craig T. Nelson, JoBeth Williams, and the iconic promo with a little girl, Heather O’Rourke, sitting with her hands on a television screen as she stares into the snow and calls out, “They’re here.”
Despite the petty controversies about creative credit and who did what, the movie was filled with special effects wizardry, enough to be considered relevant and significant by the American Film Institute and ranked #84 on their list — 100 years, 100 thrills: a really great movie in my estimation. To be quite frank, me loving this movie was an outlier for haunted house narratives due to the incredible special effects and the very scary story.
#7
My oldest son, Jordan, is and has always been a huge horror fan. Because his mother is not, everytime he has wanted to watch a horror movie in the theatre, he and I have partnered to watch the movie while my two younger sons would stay with their mother.
At the ripe old age of four, Jordan told me that we were going to watch Jurassic Park, and we went to watch Jurassic Park. He slept with a nightlight on for the rest of that year, but that was how it would be. In 2007, he decided he wanted to go see Paranormal Activity and he managed to convince his brothers to come with us.
Throughout the movie, there were many similar things, tricks, effects that I’ve shared thus far that are common to these movies: slamming doors, mis or displaced items that are suddenly discovered, people harmed by ill-timed falls or obstacles. I was not impressed until near the end when a person is dragged from the bed by a ghost. That single, cinematic moment made me almost poop my pants and rethink my disdain for haunted houses.
#6
That same year, 2007, Jordan and I watched the Orphanage (a foreign film co-produced by Guillermo del Toro who helped increase financing and anticipation). Sure, del Toro’s name added to the attractiveness of the movie, but the reality is that horror fans know that neither a big budget, nor a name actor can create a “hit” movie. Horror movies, and all good movies are all about story, and the Orphanage is all about that.
A woman (Belen Rueda) who had been adopted as a child, returns to the orphanage of her childhood (30 years later) with her husband and son, Simon, with the intent to reopen the orphanage as a facility for disabled children. While the adults are distracted by the arrival of their social worker (Geraldine Chaplin), Simon befriends a boy wearing a mask made of sackcloth named Tomas. It is learned by the watcher that Simon is an HIV positive, adopted child who will be abducted.
This movie was identified as the best horror movie of 2007 and it is very low in blood and gore, and very high in mood and suspense. The Orphanage, reinforced by Paranormal Activity, changed my perception of the Haunted House narrative into a net positive, and I will give several other movies that continue to demonstrate a Renaissance of ghost stories that revolutionized an old subgenre, into a fresh way to provide scares to a new generation.
 I think that’s it for me. I’ll finish my Top Ten in a few days. I’m Louie Matos, the Mustache. As always, I thank you for checking out the post. The Mustache and the Beard are grateful. Stay safe. Take it easy. See you later. And Peace!
The Mustache and The Beard 