Fri, Nov 27 2009
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Published October 29, 2009 05:46 pm - Go ahead. Judge us for our unabashed, unashamed love for horror movies. Here’s a few of our favorite movies that still make us switch on the lights. Horror movies still provide plenty of scares for Halloween By Joe Hadsall
jhadsall@joplinglobe.com Go ahead. Judge us for our unabashed, unashamed love for horror movies. No other genre creates such compelling storylines and evoke emotional expressions. The characters from slashers, thrillers and monster movies etch themselves deeply into our memory — much more than some dumb ol’ chick flick. Seriously: Ask people to name the movies featuring the characters Vivian Ward, Frances Houseman or Molly Jensen. They’ll be stumped, and won’t tell you the correct answers of “Pretty Woman,” “Dirty Dancing” or “Ghost.” But everyone can identify Michael Myers, Carol Anne Freeling and Norman Bates. Here’s a few of our favorite horror movies that still make us switch on the lights. “Poltergeist” (PG, 1982): Though he has a reputation for moving, Oscar-winning stories, let’s not forget that producer Steven Spielberg has a history of scaring the pants off people. Though “Jaws” gets an honorable mention, “Poltergeist” is a chilling tale of a normal, everyday family that deals with a horrible paranormal entity. When youngest daughter Carol Anne is abducted by a vicious ghost, the Freling family gets help from a pint-sized psychic and team of paranormal investigators. But the poltergeist taking residence in the house has no intentions of giving up its captive. It’s a visual masterpiece with effects that still chill, 27 years later. But the suspense and horror — from Carol Anne’s conversation with the “TV people” to a brother’s battle with a stuffed clown — is heart-stopping. “The Ring” (PG-13, 2002): Hard to believe that the guy responsible for “Pirates of the Caribbean” made such a terrifying mystery. But Gore Verbinski took a Japanese film and remade it as a compelling, intense thriller with a not-so-pleasant surprise at the end. As a favor for a relative, a journalist investigates the death of a teenager and is led to a mysterious videotape, which kills the viewer seven days after it’s watched. When the journalist experiences visions and hallucinations, she buys into the power of the tape and pursues the mystery of who created it. It’s hard to label a horror movie (especially one that features a tape filled with the disturbing images of a psychotic, little girl) as subtle, but the Hitchcockian pursuit is paid off with one of cinema’s greatest freak-out moments. “The Descent” (R, 2005): Four women exploring a cave are terrorized by savage creatures dwelling in its darkened depths. Nothing groundbreaking with that set-up. But what sets Neil Marshall’s film apart from the rest of the horror pack is that the director manages to create a sense of claustrophobia and desperation so thick and relentless that the creatures could almost be done away with altogether. The dark, dank tunnels that must be navigated through as the women lose their way in the cave are the film’s real star. 
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