Halloween fright-night flicks: a (bloody) night to remember

Following “The Great Pumpkin Returns,” a wonderful concert held this past Monday at Saint John’s Abbey, and embracing the spooky spirit of the season, students across both campuses are surely looking forward to letting loose after two challenging months of the fall semester and celebrating, as today is Halloween.

Dressed in appropriately frightening costumes, with bowls of popcorn in hand and blankets at the ready, those who dare to watch the scary, thrilling and macabre this fright-night should have at their disposal a set of films that go beyond the same old jump-scare routine and make one’s blood run cold. “The Record,” as always, is happy to oblige.

This holiday season will see the release of Robert Eggers’ wildly anticipated remake of F.W. Murnau’s haunting gothic tale of obsession, love and the untold horror of vampirism, “Nosferatu.” While audiences must endure the agonizing wait for two more months, the silver screen is already rich with fearful tales of Nosferatu, the vampire Count Dracula.

From the 1922 silent symphony of horror through Bela Lugosi’s hypnotizing performance in Tod Browning’s “Dracula,” Christopher Lee’s portrayal of the titular Count in the British Hammer films, to Nicholas Cage’s take in last year’s “Renfield,” there have been countless retellings and portrayals of Bram Stoker’s famed stories.

For reasons of rights, creative interpretations or adapting from stage versions of the story, the filmic adaptations of “Dracula” for the longest time did not provide an account close to the literary source—until 1992, with Francis Ford Coppola’s “Bram Stoker’s Dracula.”

Going beyond transplanting the 1897 story into what was then the modern cinematic style of the 1990s, Coppola noted that Dracula’s creation coincided with the birth of cinema. Thus, he decided to take a stylistic approach, replicating early 20th-century filmmaking techniques.

The film employs intricate sets, gorgeous costumes that make the screen come alive, and practical special effects and montage to achieve a wildly hypnotic experience that stays true to the techniques of old cinema, including projection devices such as the Linnenbach lantern.

This feverishly haunting spectacle stars the likes of Winona Ryder, Keanu Reeves, Anthony Hopkins as the eccentric Professor Van Helsing and Gary Oldman as the Count. “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” is a wild, frightening and at times hallucinogenic celebration of film, and for all the heart it brings to the vampire’s story, it is sure to be a film you won’t regret watching.

Other considerations for Halloween viewing that extend beyond Universal’s classic monsters, setting aside the author’s affinity for “The Invisible Man,” are tales that delve into the uncanny and terrify in ways more relevant to today’s audience than adaptations of Stoker, Shelley or Wells might.

No Halloween horror overview would be complete without John Carpenter’s “Halloween,” which redefined the genre with its chilling atmosphere and lingering dread, and, for what it’s worth, “Season of the Witch” and the modern remakes are enjoyable too.

“Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (1979) is as much a film about aliens’ intent on usurping humankind as it is about the loss of individuality and the dangers of conformity.

Unease and mistrust permeate the screen, and given the terrifying sense of paranoia it evokes, this may well be one of the scariest films ever made.

To quote Kurt Russell’s R.J. Macready, “nobody trusts anybody” in “The Thing” (1982), which features stunning practical effects and danger lurking around every corner of an isolated U.S. Arctic base, immersing viewers in visceral terror and paranoia while showcasing the depths of human desperation.

Two Robert Eggers features, “The Witch” (2016), starring Anya Taylor-Joy, and “The Lighthouse” (2018), starring Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe, are sure to thrill viewers with chilling period settings and surreal psychological tension.

“The Witch” explores paranoia in Puritan New England, while “The Lighthouse” traps viewers in a story of two lighthouse keepers’ descent into madness on a stormy island. Both films will bring Halloween audiences to the brink of sanity.

To finish off a truly thrilling Halloween viewing marathon, a quick foray into the world of animation is in order.

With director Henry Selick set to adapt Neil Gaiman’s “The Ocean at the End of the Lane,” it seems worthwhile to revisit the brilliant “Coraline,” where a young girl discovers a hidden door to a seemingly perfect parallel world that grows eerier the longer she stays.

The teenage sleuths of Mystery Inc. are also bound to appear on many screens this frightful afternoon, with Velma, Daphne, Fred, Shaggy, and Scooby (no Scrappy this time) set to embark on ghoulish adventures.

As there are over forty films in the series, viewers may need to be selective with how they choose to spend their time.

For a cozy Halloween afternoon, 90s gems “Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island,” where the gang reunites to investigate ghosts on a haunted island in the Louisiana bayou, and “Scooby-Doo! and the Witch’s Ghost,” for Lovecraftian thrills, hexes and magic in ’99 Massachusetts, make excellent choices.

Moving on, this Christmas season will see the return of Feathers McGraw in “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl.”

As audiences wait, viewers may wish to spend an hour this Halloween watching the classic claymation feature “Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit,” as the cheese-loving eccentric Wallace and his dog companion, Gromit, attempt to capture a monster in their local park.

As Halloween night descends, students should be well-prepared to delve into tales that thrill, haunt and entertain with spine-tingling suspense. With these carefully selected films at hand, viewers are set for an unforgettable Halloween marathon that will effectively capture the eerie magic of the season.