The best "what if?" nuclear war movie since "The Day After" rocked the ratings for ABC in 1983, A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE is another taut, thrilling film from Kathryn Bigelow (Zero Dark Thirty). If you're old enough to remember how "The Day After" instantly became part of the zeitgeist after airing on network TV (long before streaming and cable offered so many viewing choices) you'll see similarities in the way Bigelow tells her tale of everyday people experiencing a day that changes the world. Bigelow's cast is off the charts, pulling us into her unique story structure in which she reveals the same timeline from three distinctly different viewpoints that constantly overlap. Her first focus is on Olivia Walker (the reliably great Rebecca Ferguson from all the recent Mission Impossible films) a senior defense official who is one of the first to experience a rogue nuclear warhead appearing on the giant screens of the situation room. Is it a nuclear test from South Korea? Is it intended to look like one? Surely the missile will rise high and then fall into the ocean. When it doesn't, flattening its trajectory toward a major metropolitan city in the USA, all hell breaks loose. Her boss, Admiral Mark Miller (Jason Clarke from "Oppenheimer") is the calming voice that "everything is okay people, we're all trained for this, it will turn out to be nothing.". But as more facts come in, events spiral and escalate. We meet an ever widening net of characters up the political ladder all the way to the President of the United States, who is unseen in this chapter, but heard over speakers. Just as the missile is about to hit, Bigelow resets the story, taking us back to the start of the events and and the staff of an Alaska satellite station led by Major Daniel Gonzalez (Anthony Ramos from "In the Heights"). They are our first defense against any encroaching threat. Cabinet meetings are hastily called and General Anthony Brady (the always brilliant Tracy Letts) begins preparing everyone on options for retaliation. It's the same conundrum we've been facing since the Cold War. At what point do you deescalate to avoid world destruction, before it's too late to defend everyone and everything you love? Jared Harris (Allied, Cherbobyl) is great as Secretary of Defense Reid Baker, who seems to be realizing just how complicated and limited his options are, real-time, along with us, the viewer. In the final chapter, Bigelow resets the story to the beginning again, this time finally showing us the President, played by Idris Elba. Elba just played the UK Prime Minister in "Heads of State" earlier this year, I think he's doing a tour of World Leaders. His President is a capable man, astonished by the sudden turn of world events and the nearly impossible choice in front of him. The rest of the cast is studded with great actors, including Gabriel Basso (Hillbilly Elegy) as Jake, the young Deputy National Security Officer thrust into a position of expertise. Greta Lee (Past Lives) is an analysis expert on her day off with her child when the world turns upside down. Only Kaitlyn Dever (Dear Evan Hansen) seems wasted in an underwritten throwaway role as Baker's alienated daughter. Bigelow shows the same immense talent for creating tension that she thrilled with in "The Hurt Locker" and "Zero Dark Thirty". She is the clear leader in the clubhouse in creating superb film recreations of historic modern military operations. By applying those same story telling gifts to a fictional "What If?" scenario, she instantly renders it all too plausible, especially with all the real life global instability in Moscow and North Korea we're experiencing today. Many online have bitched about the ending, which I won't reveal here. From my view, it's perfect. Isn't it up to us? Is there any logical conclusion to be had? I think anyone that listens to the sounds over the end credits will resolve any ambiguity they may be feeling. Fast paced, suspenseful as hell and powerful, A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE ratchets up an A.

22 years after the original, I don't think anyone expected PSYCHO II to be as good as it is. The film opens with Norman Bates at his release hearing. Anthony Perkins is excellent, recreating his classic character down to the smallest tic and every corner of that awkward smile. Norman seems better, but Lila Loomis (again portrayed by a very game Vera Miles) remembers the murder of her sister in the shower ALL too well and is loudly telling anyone that will listen that they are releasing a murderer. Jerry Goldsmith's original music builds tension as Norman returns to the infamous hotel and THAT Victorian house on the hill, both looking exactly the same. Goldsmith has created another in an endless series of great scores, building off the horrors of his music for "Poltergeist" for some genuine jolts. Dennis Franz (NYPD Blue) is at his slimy best as the current Bates hotel manager, Meg Tilly (The Big Chill) is a young woman at the diner where Norman takes a job and Robert Loggia (Big, Scarface) is Norman's doctor, making regular visits to the Bates Motel to check in on him. Norman is barely home when he starts getting ominous notes and calls from his Mother. When she begins making appearances at the window of her room, Norman begins questioning his sanity and the we're never quite sure what's really happening. Writer Tom Holland (Fright Night) does a great job working with the classic characters we all know so well from the original. By positioning Norman in doubt of his own sanity, its a clever spin on what we know about the original film. Director Richard Franklin (Cloak and Dagger) respects the material and creates an interesting little thriller with plenty of tributes to Hitchcock. There is plenty of suspense. Franklin plunges into some very graphic gore in the final 20 minutes that would have made Hitch faint. Vera MIles said in interviews that she never really talked to Anthony Perkins during the shooting of the original film. She said that "Hitchcock was so strict and focused, and everyone was bending over backwards to get this stuff right, so no one really had the time or freedom to socialize." But she said when they were shooting the sequel, both she and Anthony Perkins had loosened up, and they had a few conversations together. "He was delightful," she said. With a clever wrap up that leaves you satisfied and smirking, PSYCHO II was one of the best sequels of the 80's. After it's box office success, Anthony Perkins would return as both star AND Director two years later with "Psycho III". This remains the best of the film sequels and earns an appreciative B+. (Watch closely when Norman and Mary first enter Mother's room and you'll see Hitchcock's famous profile in shadow on the right side of the screen.) Fans of the terrific director Osgood Perkins (The Monkey, Longlegs) should watch for him as young Norman Bates, a role he was uniquely born to play as Anthony Perkins real-life son! Quentin Tarantino has said that this is one of his favorite films and that he prefers it over the original! It always surprises me with how lean and effective it is, when a lesser creative team could have just phoned it in. What a great surprise PSYCHO II is! Perfect Halloween watching awaits..... Check out the EXCELLENT original trailer with the same narrator as the classic "Jaws" trailer.

Back in 1978, John Carpenter hit a horror home run with his low-budget, HUGE box office smash HALLOWEEN . Watching it again this Halloween season, I was amazed just how great this scary little film is! The film opens with a young Michael Myers stabbing his sister to death and standing slack jawed with a knife in his hand and a bloody clown suit on his body. (Those damn clowns...) Flash forward 15 years and psychiatrist Dr Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasance at his odd best) is on his way to make sure that Michael doesn't get out. Unfortunately, our killer manages to escape and heads back to his home town, which is thankfully populated with horny teenagers and an innocent heroine ripe for the hunt. Jamie Lee Curtis made her film debut as young Laurie Strode. She's terrific in the part, showing just as much skill dealing with Michael as her real-life mother Janet Leigh did dealing with Norman Bates many years earlier. It would be easy to dismiss the film as predictable and formulaic now, but its important to remember that Carpenter (The Thing, Prince of Darkness) INVENTED those formulas with THIS film. The long tracking shots. The pulsing electronic score that carries you down every street and into every dark room. The point of view shots from the killer's eyes. Carpenter did it here first and best. I was also surprised by just how little blood and gore there is here. It's suggested, its scary, its suspenseful, but there's very little graphic gore, if any. It's a slow and careful build, with Carpenter manipulating you in your seat with great skill. Did you know that Michael's mask is a face mask of William Shatner? Did you know this film cost only $300,000 and grossed $47 million at the box office!? After you watch "Halloween", check out last year's "It Follows". It captures the same "small town horror" feel and relentless terror thanks to some very clever filmmakers and a great story. Followed by countless sequels, remakes and imitations, there is no matching the original HALLOWEEN. It still scares up an A.

Just in time for Halloween, I wanted to offer up my Top Dozen Horror films of all time, ranked from scary great to the horrifying best. These films span the last 60+ years, but all earned an A+ ranking as terrifying treats that I love to revisit often in search of the new tricks they hold for repeat viewers. I've searched to find alternate posters for each that you wont see on their review within the George At The Movies site. If there have been remakes of the film, I have shown the release date along with the title to avoid any confusion. How many have you seen? What are your favorite scary films that I've missed? I bet a lot of them would be #13 to 20 on mine...... #12. A Quiet Place, Part II WOW. This is the way to do a sequel. John Krasinski returns to the writer/director chair and surpasses the original with the amazing A QUIET PLACE PART II. The film opens on Day One, with a nearly perfect fifteen-minute sequence of small-town life as Lee Abbott (Krasinski) visits the local grocery store for some snacks on the way to his son’s baseball game. The store owner seems a bit distracted by the news of a huge catastrophe somewhere far away. Krasinski sets up the baseball game as an almost lyrical peek into a perfect, quiet life. We again meet his two deaf children Regan (Millicent Simmonds) and Marcus (Noah Jupe) and their interactions are hilarious and supportive. Lee’s wife Evelyn (Emily Blunt) silently encourages Marcus, calming his nerves about the game. “Just Breathe” seems to be her mantra. Neighbor Emmett (Cillian Murphy) brings Lee up to speed on the game as both their boys take turns at bat. And then, something massive comes barreling down through the clouds, flaming like a giant asteroid down toward the Earth. The baseball game immediately breaks up and within moments, the first of the creatures we know from the original arrive, tearing the fabric of the small town apart in a fantastic, suspenseful, action packed opening that leaves you stunned. The story then flashes forward to after the events of the first film. Lee is gone, most of civilization appears to be destroyed and Evelyn, her baby, Regan and Marcus leave their farm in search of food, people…..whatever is left. They meet up with Emmitt, a shell of his former self and living alone deep within a factory. The brilliance of the story is that it doesn’t take the audience for a fool. It knows that we know the creatures hunt based on sound, but very poor eyesight. The film knows that we are dreading a predictable post-apocalyptic story, so it turns our expectations on their heads. I won’t ruin any of their quest by detailing it here. Krasinski does a masterful job of unveiling it scene by scene. The acting is fantastic across the board. Simmonds and Jupe are probably the best young actors working today. There are scenes of incredible physical pain and anguish for Jupe and he delivers them so well, they cut any parent (or grandparent) to the core. Simmonds and Cillian Murphy have some of the film’s best moments as Regan and Emmitt’s trust evolves. Blunt is a kick-ass hero. There are two major parts of the film where multiple seismic events are happening at the same time. Krasinski and his editor Michael P. Shawyer (Black Panther, Creed) cut between them so brilliantly that the suspense is doubled and tripled, leaving you on the edge of your seat. Then damned if they don’t do it to you again. The ending twist leading to Emmitt yelling “Get Inside!!!” is so well executed that I never saw it coming. The structure of the entire film is taut, edge-of-your-seat suspense for its lean 90-minute running time. The special effects work is very good and not overdone, while Marco Beltrami jolts you with a spooky and propulsive music score that gets under your skin. It’s the perfect complement to the moments of absolute silence that pepper the movie. With all its surprises it feels like the best M. Night Shyamalan film he never made. Krasinski continues to surprise as a director. His work here is even more sure handed than in the original. A QUIET PLACE PART II is a rarity, a sequel to a great film that’s even better than the original. Buckle up for one hell of a ride. This one gets an A+. Keep telling yourself, “just breathe…..” #11. Us Two years ago, writer/director Jordan Peele shocked the film world with his genre busting thriller "Get Out". Two years later he proves he's no one-trick pony with his excellent sophomore effort, US. One of the most unsettling movies I've seen in recent memory, US weaves a suspenseful, bloody horror story with perfect splashes of comedy. We first meet young Adelaide Wilson as she wonders away from her argumentative parents at a seaside carnival, stumbling into a trick mirror funhouse and an event that changes her forever. We then move forward to present day, as grown up Adelaide (an incredible Lupita Nyong'o) and her husband Gabe (the perfect comic relief of Winston Duke from "Black Panther") take their two children to their summer vacation house. Their daughter Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph) and son Jason (Evan Alex) are at the age where their parents are never cool and the beach house's lack of wi-fi is their biggest concern. Their vacation goes south when they see a family of four standing in their driveway, holding hands. Clad in red overalls, the family looks impossibly like them. A terrifying home invasion takes place. But what follows from that point will be left unsaid. Peele has a lot more on his mind with US than a simple home invasion thriller. Much more. Events echoing back to 1984 spin in and out of the story, with Peele ratcheting up the suspense and blood as he goes, until you're on the edge of your seat with no idea where you're headed. Like "Get Out" you could spend hours discussing the larger issues that lie beneath the story, from social class and unseen elements of the population to the duplicity of our true selves. Peele lays it all out in front of you like the sharp corners of a roller coaster, pulling you forward, deeper and deeper down his rabbit hole. Only afterward do you have time to ponder the sub-layers of the events. I wasn't anticipating the ending, but it played really well for me, making me want to go back and see it again, knowing what I knew by the time the final haunting shot faded to black. Nyong'o is fantastic. Like Toni Collette in last summer's horror thriller "Hereditary", her performance lifts the entire film into something far beyond horror. The entire scene in which the family sits across from their doppelgangers inside the house is flawless, from Nyong'o's terrifying other voice to the mirrored ticks of each family member's personality. Michael Abels creates almost 90 minutes of music for the film. It's far from traditional and very good, spiking the scares and tightening the suspense at all the right moments. This isn't one of those "look out a cat's going to jump up in the window" kind of horror films. US is built on a foundation of slow building understanding of what is actually going on with and around this family. As each new reveal of awareness is peeled back, the scares get bigger, the violence gets bloodier and you sit further forward on the edge of your seat. Throw in allusions to bible versus, numerology and some very clever camerawork and you've got the #1 horror film opening of all time. It'richly deserved. Peele's the real deal and US becomes an instant horror classic that gets an A+ and another Peele spot in my all-time Top 100. #10. Psycho (1960) One of the most, if not THE MOST influential horror movies of all time, 1960's PSYCHO is one of Hitchcock's all-time greats. Looking for a break from big budget films after "Vertigo" and "North by Northwest", the director wanted to make a small budget, black and white thriller. This lean mystery was born. After 60+ years, spoiler alerts seem unnecessary, but if you've never seen this classic, stop reading, go watch it and come back! Featuring a mid-film twist that M. Night could only dream of, Hitchcock takes everything you've settled into after an hour and turns the story sideways. Hitch also mixes sex, madness and mystery in a blend that was bold and shocking to the audience of the time. The story opens with Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) and her boyfriend Sam (John Gavin) in a lunchtime tryst at a Phoenix hotel. For a 1960 hookup, this was pretty graphic. Joseph Stefano's screenplay (based on Robert Bloch's novel) has some dated lines of dialogue, but his structure is brilliant. We immediately know that Marion is looking for something more. When the perfect opportunity to steal $40,000 lands on her desk, she does so, escaping town and driving all night as Bernard Herrmann's perfect music score cuts through your ears. The scenes with Marion waking up to a policeman knocking on her car window and selling her car to avoid being followed are some of my favorite in the film. Hitch's famous fear of policemen is front and center. Marion's travel east eventually lands her at the worst lodgings in memory, the Bates Motel and it's socially awkward but seemingly kind young manager, Norman Bates. Anthony Perkins IS Norman. Quirky, hesitant and quick to defend his invalid Mother he lives with, Norman is a disturbing blend of boy scout, loyal son and serial killer. Perkins and Leigh are terrific in their scenes together., spinning a long conversation over a sandwich. Marion finds some wisdom in Norman's simple approach to loyalty and temptation, vowing to herself to return to Phoenix and make things right. And then she takes a shower. When this hit theaters in 1960, audiences were screaming in the aisle. Set up a main character and her story arc for an hour and then have an old woman stab her to death in a hotel shower? NO ONE saw that coming. Hitchcock builds almost constant suspense for the rest of the film after Marion's murder. Marion's sister Lila (Vera Miles) goes to meet Sam and ask her where Marion is. Private detective Milton Arbogast (the superb Martin Balsam) is hot on their heels. Arbogast tracks Marion to the Bates Motel and meets Norman. The tension in their scene is so tight you cut it with the same giant knife Mrs. Bates used in the bathroom. Murders are committed and staged creatively. One murder that happens at the top of the stairs seems to have the camera a foot from the victim's face, falling down the stairs with them as one huge line of blood drips down their face. Sheriff Al Chambers (John McIntire from "Elmer Gantry") meets with Sam and Lila, now on the trail of Arbogast and reveals some vital secrets about the Bates Motel. Sam and Lila check in and meet Norman. Hitchcock is relentless, using all the camera angles and editing tricks that made him one of the best filmmakers in history. Check out the documentary 78/52 (also reviewed here on the site) for an in-depth look at the 78 camera set ups and 52 edits that comprise the most famous shower scene in film history. It's just one component of what makes this film a classic. The main titles by Saul Bass would be creative if someone debuted them today. Herrmann's score is flawless, with plucking and screeching strings ratcheting up the horror and suspense. John Williams has named this score the inspiration for his "Jaws" theme. The cast is superb from start to finish, with psychiatrist Dr Richman (Simon Oakland from "The Night Stalker") trying to explain the madness. Just when this talkiest scene in the movie seems to be going way too long, Hitch strolls you into a holding cell, where Mrs. Bates' voice decrees "She wouldn't even hurt a fly...." just as Norman's face seems to become a skull thanks to a couple inserted frames. Hitchcock's bag of tricks has rarely been as effectively used. Hitch famously had cardboard stand-ups in every lobby saying that managers were not allowed to sit anyone in the theater after the main titles. Audiences lined up in droves, driving over $40 million in box office against an $800k budget. 60+ years later, it's considered a modern classic of suspense and horror. Norman: She needs *me*. It's not as if is she were a maniac, a raving thing. She just goes - a little mad sometimes. We all go a little mad sometimes. Haven't you? Marion: Yes. Sometimes just one time can be enough. PSYCHO gets an A+ Followed 23 years later by a surprisingly good and underrated sequel, "Psycho II" and two additional sequels of declining value. Also needlessly remade in a shot-by-shot style by Gus Van Sant in 1998 that served only to remind you how good the original is by comparison. #9. It As a lifetime Stephen King fan, it's always sad to see how poorly many of his novels have translated to the screen. Which makes it all the more enjoyable when you experience a superb adaption like IT. For King "Constant Readers" like me, it's a 2 hour plus brilliant rendering of one of King's best books. Like "Stand by Me", our story revolves around a collection of young people in the fictional town of Derry, where the adult murder rate is high and the missing child statistics are startling. In the film's opening scene, we first meet the sheer evil behind those numbers, Pennywise the Clown. His savage encounter with young Georgie sets the tone for what's ahead, graphic, bloody and scary. The band of bullied kids that comes together to fight the dark forces is comprised of one of the best ensembles of young actors I’ve seen in a very long time. Jaeden Lieberher (Midnight Special) is Bill, whose brother Georgie’s disappearance drives the story. Jeremy Ray Taylor is Ben, the new kid at school with a big heart. Finn Wolfhard (Stranger Things) is Richie (Beep Beep Richie!) who faces terror with plenty of jokes, providing a lot of the terrific humor that translates so well from page to screen. Best of all is young Sophia Lillis as Beverly Marsh, the lone girl in the Loser’s Club. She’s so good that you feel like you’re watching the birth of a major star. Her quietest moments with Bill are just as good as the most terrifying moments of the film. And there are plenty of very scary scenes. This isn’t the cheap thrills of jump scares and loud bangs; these are well-crafted, slow builds that payoff with some chilling moments. The closing frames of the out-of-control slide projector scene are chilling and really horrifying. The entire finale sequence inside the house of Pennywise is really well crafted and will make any King fan smile in perfect execution of some classic scenes. At the center of the film is Bill Skarsgard (Atomic Blonde) as Pennywise. With incredible makeup, a voice that ranges from enticing to horrifying and just the right amount of realistic CGI for the best set of jaws since Aliens, his Pennywise is just plain scary as hell. Pennywise knows what scares you and manifests himself in that form, bringing plenty of chills as we learn what each of these young people are truly scared of and face it up close. The writing is very good, which I’ll credit a great deal to Cary Fukunaga (True Detective) and the brilliance of one of King’s best massive novels. The photography by Chung-hoon Chung (Oldboy) is terrific, painting a disturbing small town in a dingy palette, while Pennywise’s red balloons POP off the screen. This is a very good horror film that I can’t wait to see again. The great news is that PART 2, which will detail these same characters as adults dealing with the return of Pennywise, is heading into production soon, based on the biggest September box office opening in the history of the movies for IT. The novel flashed back and forth from them as kids to adults, but the story structure here works very well, telling just the first half of the story and leaving you hungry for more, while still offering plenty of closure for this chapter. GREAT young cast, plenty of scares and a truly disturbing villain. Like all of Pennywise victims, IT floats to the top of King screen adaptions and gets an A+. #8. The Thing One of my all time fave horror/sci-fi films, 1982's THE THING is a tense, gory and claustrophobic winner. Following "Escape from New York" the previous year, Director John Carpenter and star Kurt Russell teamed up for an eighties take on a 50's classic. Russell is terrific as MacReady, the quiet but tough leader of a group of scientists at a desolate Antarctica research site. Surrounded by blowing snow and ice, MacReady and his team find themselves exposed to an alien organism that is all too eager to replicate them and hide in plain sight. Russell builds on his Snake Plissken portrayal in "Escape" for a more well rounded anti-hero. The physical special effects as our alien changes from dog to human to something MORE are fantastic and very gross in the best possible sci-fi movie fashion. Over 30 years later, this movie will still make you squirm. The small cast is terrific with Wilford Brimley as Blair, Keith David as Childs & Donald Moffat as Garry standing out in their roles. As the shape shifting alien jumps from host to host, no one knows who to trust and even begins to doubt if they themselves have been infected. Carpenter is at the height of his game here and pushes every button without being cliche. The scene where someone's head removes itself from their body, sprouts spider legs and tries to runaway is still a classic! The blood test scene is another winner, mounting tension even when you've seen this movie multiple times. Kudos to Ennio Morricone for his moody, nonstop music score and Bill Lancaster for a smart, lean and tense screenplay. THE THING is a model of horror/sci-fi, visual excess and things that make you JUMP on cue, done with class and style. Just try to not look away. A slimy, screaming, freaky, terrific classic that earns a dripping, oozing A+! #7. An American Werewolf in London Back in 1981, Writer/Director John Landis followed up "Animal House" and "The Blues Brothers" by scaring the hell out of us with AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON. I remember going to see it in theaters thinking it was going to be a horror comedy. Joke was on me. Landis crafts a full on, graphic scary horror film sprinkled with character driven laughs. David (David Naughton, great here, why didn't he become a bigger star?) and his best friend Jack (Griffin Dunne, genuinely funny) are backpacking across Europe When they hit the foggy rural country,locals tell them to stay off the moors and stick to the road. When they fail to follow that advice, they are attacked by a massive and vicious creature. David wakes up in a London hospital to find that Jack is dead and that he's been badly bitten and carved up himself. Luckily, he's got beautiful young nurse Alex (Jenny Agutter from Walkabout, Logan's Run) to tend his wounds. While he insists they were attacked by creature, witnesses and the police insist it was a psychotic madman. When the full moon rises in London, I think we all know which way this goes. Landis is a great director and sets up the near perfect transformation scene, with "Bad Moon Rising" blaring on the soundtrack, Rick Baker's killer physical transformation effects (No CGI here kids) and Naughton's great performance, its one of the best man to wolf scenes in the history of movies and still packs a hell of a punch. As a writer, Landis sets up plenty of clever characters and plot twists, including an ever decaying Jack coming back to visit David and warn him on what's going to happen when the full moon hits. I love the scene after David's first transition when he is after a lone commuter in a London train station. You see almost the entire scene as a side shot of the man running, but at the last moment when he collapses on an escalator, the camera positions to look down from his view to the base of the moving stairs, where you get a great view of a very freaky creature walking right into frame. Visually, it packs a punch because you don't expect to see it. Likewise the carnage of the Piccadilly Square conclusion or the leisurely pace of David and Alex's romance. Look for a great performance by John Woodvine as Dr. Hirsch, the genuinely caring doctor who doesn't think the towns people's account jives with David's wounds. Frank Oz (Yoda) also delivers a funny performance as an American embassy man with a very bad bedside manner. Landis throws it all at you here, horrifying and bloody nightmares, dreams within dreams to keep you off balance, massive gore, nudity, great humor, romance and some serious tragedy, all sprinkled with classic rock and roll to accompany key moments. "Blue Moon" will never seem quite the same.... A huge hit and an all-time fave that holds up really well today. WEREWOLF has some serious bite and gets a perfect A+. David after hearing a loud howl on the moors: "Maybe it's a sheep dog, let's keep going...." Oops. Fasten your backpacks kids, this one's a wild ride. #6. Poltergeist (1982) "They're here........" It was a lot of fun to revisit the original POLTERGEIST last night and remember how groundbreaking the special effects were back in 1982. The Freeling family led by Craig T Nelson and JoBeth Williams as husband and wife, Steve and Diane, have it all. A great home in the suburbs, Steve's job as leading real estate salesman in Cuesta Verde Estates, three great kids. Early on, youngest daughter Carol Anne (Heather O'Rourke) hears the voices of "TV people" when stations go off the air at night (how quaint that now seems) and strange things begin to happen with their furniture. Pretty soon that escalates to some terrifying events and Carol Anne disappears in the unseen grasp of those folks in the TV. There are so many classic fun moments here, including Robbie's least favorite tree outside his bedroom window, his clown doll at the end of the bed and lots and lots of unhappy folks beneath the Freeling's home. There were major controversies at the time, including major pushback on the PG-13 rating. The scene where the paranormal investigator eats some nasty chicken and then begins to pick at his face in the mirror certainly pushed the boundaries at the time. It was also rumored that Steven Spielberg actually directed quite a bit of the film when director Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) ran into trouble and delays on set. Beatrice Straight (Network) is very good as Paranormal scientist Dr. Lesh and her quiet moments with the family are some of the best in the film. Zelda Rubinstein nearly steals the film as diminutive house exorcist Tangina, spouting faves like "Go into the light Children, All are welcome....." and "This House is Clean" which ends up being a bit premature. It's a great thriller and still remains one of the best haunted house flicks of all time. The entire sequence in which Diane "goes into the light" to save Carol Anne is excellent and the new Blu-Ray with True Dolby HD sound mix really spotlights all the sound effects and Jerry Goldsmith's fantastic music score, one of his all time best. Great cast, great frights, classic moments. POLTERGEIST still scares up an A+ decades after its premier. A scary, fun entry in my all-time Top 100 films. #5. The Omen (1976) An all-time favorite, 1976’s THE OMEN mixes a great story with an all-star cast, top production values, some fun & gory moments and a classic horror movie score to scare up great fun. Gregory Peck and Lee Remick star as US Ambassador Robert Thorn and his wife Katherine. As the film opens, Remick is in a Rome hospital having just given birth. The baby did not survive but Father Spiletto proposes that they switch the child with a newborn whose mother was lost giving birth at the same time, 6:00am on June 6th. (666 oooooooohhhh….) As young Damien grows, people around him begin to die in spectacular fashion. This being the 70’s there are some spectacular and gross effects, but they are not the blood and guts gore of the 80’s, providing more jolts and movie fun than stomach churning horror. One scene in which a character falls from the second story, landing face down on a wooden floor is especially well done. As these are all mechanical & camera tricks (pre CGI), it makes the slaying scenes all the more incredible. David Warner is great as a photographer covering Thorn that captures some strange shadows and omens on film that portend the death that soon awaits key folks around the boy. Soon, Peck and Warner are on the trail of discovering more about the night of Damien’s birth. Their scenes in the Italian cemetery and hotel afterward are some of the film’s best moments. Director Richard Donner (Superman, Lethal Weapon, The Goonies) knows how to make a fast moving, fun film and this is one his finest. There is just enough menace to be suspenseful and scary. Donner brings great performances out of his actors. I can’t imaging this film would be half as good without Peck at it’s center. He is a big time movie star and excellent as Thorn. Billie Whitelaw is strange and scary as Damien’s nanny Mrs. Blaylock. She’s hell on wheels and creepy in every scene. The spectacular deaths depicted for key characters drove a lot of chatter and interest in the film and they hold up pretty well nearly 40 years later. Anytime you can stage a beheading, an impalement, a hanging and assorted other mayhem and create a mainstream blockbuster, you’ve done something right. Donner, Peck and the cast do that one better and have put together a horror classic. Jerry Goldsmith won a well-deserved Oscar for his imposing, scary music score that many of us mocked mercilessly to scare our siblings in the seventies. The music is constant in key scenes, sometime quiet, often powerful, but always creepy. Avoid the needless 2006 remake and go for the original. If you haven’t seen THE OMEN in awhile, check it out. It’s a HELL of a lot of suspenseful fun and a horror tale very well told. It gets a 666….oops, I mean an A+. One of my all-time faves, with a solid spot in my Top 100. Followed in 1978 by "Damien Omen II". #4. Hereditary One of the best & most disturbing family drama/horror films I've ever seen, HEREDITARY is well worth seeking out in theaters. We meet Annie as the film opens, preparing for her mother's funeral. Far from the standard eulogy, Annie shares her shock at seeing so many strangers and describes her mother as a secretive, flawed woman. You get the feeling that Mom will NOT be missed. Annie is played by Toni Collette (The Sixth Sense, Little Miss Sunshine) in her best screen performance, seething with pain just below the surface that's begging to be unleashed. When she does, it makes you cower. Annie's husband Steve (Gabriel Byrne) is a soft spoken man, tasked with holding the family together. Their son Peter (perfectly played by Alex Wolff (Jumanji, Patriots Day) is a stoner, existing in the house as quietly as possible. Rounding out the family is their daughter Charlie, hauntingly played by screen newcomer Milly Shapiro, who starred on Broadway as the original "Matilda" in that long running musical. She is a LONG way from Broadway show tunes here. Her Charlie is a quiet, disturbing girl who often expresses herself with a loud "cluck" of her tongue, when she's not cutting the heads of off kamikaze crows. There is something off about the family. Writer/Director Ari Aster masterfully immerses you in their world almost immediately. As the camera weaves through the miniature models that artist Annie is creating for an upcoming gallery show, the mini rooms unveil disturbing glimpses into their normal. When a tragedy strikes the family, Annie begins a tailspin into anger, grief and despair that drives her into some very bad choices. There are seances, terrifying otherworldly encounters and a creeping dread that makes your skin crawl. Annie's unhinged, frank bitterness and depression is thrown totally off the rails by the family tragedy, which I suspected was one thing and shocked when it took another path. With about twenty minutes to go in the film, Aster stages a scene in Peter's bedroom so brilliantly that something horrifying is revealed to you with incredible patience. It's there for you to see, but you won't for the first thirty seconds. When I saw it, it freaked me out in all the right scary movie ways, and STILL haunts me every night I go to sleep since. The music score by Colin Stetson, his first for a feature film, is a terrifying element throughout, making your skin crawl well before anything visually scares you. This isn't a cheap horror film with jump scares that will make you startle and laugh. HEREDITARY is an "Exorcist" like delve into a family facing powers far beyond their understanding. At least in "The Exorcist", Fathers Merrin & Karras arrived at some point to help that family. Part of HEREDITARY's power is that you slowly become aware that no one is coming to help this twisted and tortured bunch. Unfortunately, the final five or six minutes of the film almost destroy all the artistry before them with a too literal explanation of the events. It's disappointing and sad. Like that special edition of "Close Encounters" that ruined the magic by actually taking Roy Neary inside the mothership, we should NEVER have seen what happens after Peter ascends into the treehouse. Alas..... Ignore the final scene and enjoy the horror masterpiece that will wrap its darkness around you for the first 115 minutes of its running time. HEREDITARY is scary as hell and gets an A+. #3. The Shining Rarely has a movie generated so much suspense and dread for the viewer as Stanley Kubrick's 1980 hit, THE SHINING. Jack Nicholson is Jack Torrance, a frustrated writer who takes on a job as winter caretaker for the massive, isolated Overlook Hotel. When the manager (Barry Nelson) advises him as part of his orientation that the last caretaker killed his wife and children, chopping them up with an axe before killing himself, Torrance raises the classic Nicholson brow and says, 'Don't worry, that's not going to happen again." Shelley Duvall oozes awkward and lack of confidence as his wife Wendy and young Danny Lloyd is great as their son Danny, who has quite a gift for "shining" or picking up the vibes of places or people long past. It's not long after they are alone and the snow starts to block them in that the spirits of the Overlook begin to make their presence known. The strong sense of foreboding that Kubrick creates builds throughout the movie, culminating in some now classic movie moments, including the woman in the bathtub in room 237, the twin girls who would like Danny to come play with them "forever and ever" and the last 30 minutes as the madness reaches full crescendo. Nicholson is fantastic here, over the top certainly, but the arc from insecure teacher and frustrated writer to full tilt madness is a lot of fun to watch. As usual, Kubrick chooses some very scary orchestral pieces to accent his action and the music score is one of the scariest parts of the film, from the brilliant opening shots behind the credits to the final jolt of music. One of my favorite horror films. For fun, check out the TV remake from 1997 with Stephen Weber, it's better than you might think and was executive produced by Stephen King, who notably does NOT like Kubrick's vision of his novel. For me, The Shining is a frightening, suspenseful, brilliantly directed winner and gets a blood soaked A+ and a spot in my all-time Top 100. #2. Midnight Mass "What a monstrous idea, Father." WOW. I'm almost speechless after watching Mike Flanagan's brilliant seven-episode series MIDNIGHT MASS. Beautifully written and acted, the episodes are steeped in some of the best dialogue in memory, pulling you into the characters living on a dying, isolated island. These are flawed people finding their way and Flanagan has some true horrors in store for them, but those terrors come gradually. First we have to get to know the citizens of the tiny town on it's last legs. Zach Gilford (Friday Night Lights) is excellent as Riley Flynn, a successful businessman on the mainland whose drunk driving kills a teenage girl. As the series opens, he's bound for prison, where he's haunted every night by his victim, who stands silently before him, the reflection of police car strobes still bouncing off the windshield shards buried in her body. When Riley is released, he returns to the desolate Catholic community of Crockett Island. While his hyper-religious mother Annie (Kristin Lehman) welcomes him with open arms and biblical encouragement, his father Ed (Henry Thomas of "ET) is more cautious, angry at Riley and the embarrassment he's brought the family.. The rest of the townspeople eye him warily too, especially Church Deacon Bev Keane, a pious, self-righteous woman who rules the local church with an iron fist. Samantha Sloyan is off the charts excellent as Bev, creating a character that epitomizes every self-centered, uber religious person who can quote every scripture without understanding any of them. Sloyan almost steals the series, but she's got plenty of competition. When the church's very old monsignor leaves on a trek to the motherland, a young priest, Father Paul, shows up to fill in for him. Father Paul seems to know a lot about every citizen in town and brings kindness and new blood to the community. Hamish Linklater is absolutely brilliant as Father Paul. Riley is extremely reluctant to go to church, having spent most of his prison time diving into every religion on the planet and coming up empty. Father Paul sets up a weekly AA meeting for the two of them to connect. Those meetings are so well written by Flanagan that you can watch the moments of truth and deception unfold "real time" within them. Linklater and Gilford are flawless in these scenes, creating a core of the episodes that feed all the madness around them. Kate Siegel, so great as Theodora in Flanagan's series adaption of "The Haunting of Hill House" equals that performance as Erin Greene, a former actress and mainland escapee who's come back to the island to teach school after the passing of her mother. Erin and Riley have a past and they find solace in each other. Father Paul's sermons bode of a surprise, or tangible evidence of God's power coming to Crockett Island. When the events begin to happen, they are startling, inspiring and sometimes horrifying. I'll describe none of them here. The Newton Brothers (Doctor Sleep) compose a haunting score loaded with traditional hymns that are just slightly askew. Disturbing. Flanagan's hand as Writer/Director is sure through every minute of every hour-long episode, creating deeply woven characters that you'll love or hate. I expected them to square off and generate fireworks. But I genuinely wasn't prepared for the final two episodes as all the elements of the story collide. There were moments here that filled me with more dread than any film in memory. Which made what followed that all the more horrifying. This is the first time in years that I've caught myself holding my breath in a moment of "oh no....oh no....." terror. Flanagan has plenty to say about pretenders who wrap themselves in goodness and prey on the weakest and most desperate among us. But he also carefully unveils moments of true redemption, of good over evil and the core heart in each of us (okay, most of us) triumphing when faced with tragedy. The cast is flawless. Rahul Kohli (Flanagan's "The Haunting of Bly Manor") is heart wrenching as Sheriff Hassan. Committed to the island's citizens in the face of (mostly) unspoken bigotry, he and his son are the only Muslim citizens in the town. The decisions he's forced to make here are terrifying. Rahul Abburi is also very good as his son, Ali. Annabeth Gish (The Haunting of Hill House) is a standout as the town's doctor, Sarah, caring for her Alzheimer's ridden mother Mildred (Alex Essoe). Her medical training hasn't prepared her for what's happening on "The Crock Pot", as the inhabitants refer to the island. And of course there's the town drunk Joe, so perfectly played by Robert Longstreet (Doctor Sleep). Joe is hiding in the bottle and is a pariah in town due to a drunken accidental shooting that's left a teenager paralyzed. Like the rest of Flanagan's characters, Joe could have been Otis on The Andy Griffith Show. Hell, Sheriff Hassan doesn't carry a gun, just like Andy. But there are a lot of layers to Joe. His life changes when that teenager he wounded is part of the first miracle that Father Paul delivers. The road that Joe then takes is fascinating to watch. I loved this series. It's the one I'll now recommend when someone says "What should I watch next?". My bride hates horror movies. Despises them, but this she loved, cheered for and wept over. This isn't a rote horror flick. It's a beautifully written drama about people in need, false prophets, the truly devoted and the truly evil. It's a jarring take on the gullibility of the desperate and those hateful souls dying to take advantage of them. It's about redemption and love, faith and destruction. It's intelligent, philosophical and deeply moving. The last two episodes sustain some of the most terrifying suspense I've ever seen. The last line of dialogue is absolutely brilliant. An all-time favorite that will challenge you, regardless of your religious stance, it may be Mike Flanagan's masterpiece. And that's astonishing in the face of his consistently intelligent horror output of the last decade. Midnight Mass earns a very appreciative, breathless A+. "That's What It Means To Have Faith. That In The Darkness, In The Worst Of It, In The Absence Of Light And Hope, We Sing...." and the scariest, craziest, most nightmare movie of all time for me remains: #1. The Exorcist For most of my lifetime, every scary film has been judged against 1973's THE EXORCIST. After all these years, nothing else compares. The film opens with a long sequence at an archeological dig in Iraq, where Father Merrin (Max Von Sydow) encounters the first findings tied to an ancient demon. As he watches, the unburied artifacts cause disturbing behavior all around him. The sequence concludes in an onslaught of dissonant noises and dust. The next scenes are idyllic pictures of Georgetown, Washington, where famed film actress Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn) and her daughter Regan (Linda Blair) live in a beautiful brownstone on a perfect street. When things begin to go bump in the night in the attic and Regan demonstrates odd behaviors, small at first and then escalating in severity, Chris takes Regan to every doctor and psychiatrist looking for answers. Director William Friedkin is at his best here in his thrilling follow up to his 1971 Best Picture winner "The French Connection". Friedkin escalates the tension throughout, making us suffer through Chris's fears, Regan's medical tests and the rising horror as Regan begins demonstrating some very powerful and very nasty behavior. Chris finds herself turning to her local, rebel priest Father Karras (Jason Miller) for answers. He in turn, brings in Father Merrin to support him in the film's final scenes. This is a film classic. From the time Regan first turns violent through the harrowing final 20 minutes in which Merrin and Karras perform the rites of exorcism over her tortured body, the film twists its suspense tighter. What a cast! Burstyn is 100% believable as a tortured mother running out of answers. Miller is superb as Karras. His recent loss of his mother haunts him and the demon's leverage of that fact (Dimi, why did you abandon me!!??") tear Karras apart. Miller will make you feel it. Lee J. Cobb is pitch perfect as police detective Kinderman, Kitty Wynn is good as Chris's loyal assistant Sharon and Von Sydow is perfection as Father Merrin. The only weak link in the acting department are Linda Blair's scenes in the first half hour of the film. Before she's possessed, her line readings are horrible and you can feel Burstyn and Wynn pulling her along, it's painful. But once the demon takes hold, you have to credit Blair with a strong physical performance and actress Mercedes McCambridge for the voice work she does for the possessed Regan. That husky, life time smoker voice that emerges from Blair "It's a wonderful day for an exorcism" still haunts & deeply disturbs. The makeup by Dick Smith is startling, the Oscar winning sound mix is SO unsettling, I defy you to not get the creeps listening to what in the hell is going on behind Regan's bedroom door as Merrin and Karris first approach it together. The screenplay adaption by William Peter Blatty of his own best selling novel also won an Oscar, deservedly so. The only films that I have ever felt even approached this one for creating terror have been the two "Conjuring" films, but even they don't equal the white knuckle dread that a good, loud presentation of THE EXORCIST generates in a darkened room. A modern classic, it still scares the hell out of me in all the right horror movie ways and gets an A+. Followed by numerous inferior sequels, including the laughable "Exorcist II: The Heretic" in 1977 and fifty years later by the pretty good & scary "Exorcist: Believer" that didn't connect with audiences. The scary great news is that Mike Flanagan, the horror genius behind "The Haunting of Hill House", "Doctor Sleep" and "The Fall of the House of Usher" has taken the reins for a NEW Exorcist film in 2026. He's superb. Fasten your seatbelts and get out your bibles, Flanagan will BRING it.

Three years after Writer/Director David Gordon Green's excellent HALLOWEEN, we got the second installment in his trilogy, HALLOWEEN KILLS. It starts off well, picking up right where the excellent last film left off. Laurie Strode (the always great Jamie Lee Curtis), her daughter Karen (Judy Greer) and granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) had trapped the very elusive Michael Myers in Laurie's elaborately constructed, inescapable basement and then lit the house on fire. But studio sequel demands and those pesky Haddonfield firemen come to the rescue, with Michael escaping to unleash more murderous havoc. There is a palpable, fun horror buff thrill to watching a Halloween film in October. When John Carpenter's legendary music score kicks in and the unstoppable man in the burned William Shatner mask lumbers toward you, it's a nostalgic blast of October thrills. For at least the first half of this second installment in Green's trilogy, the feel of those moments carry you forward. Jamie Lee Curtis is a badass Laurie, she elevates the film, but you start to realize she's not in this one enough after the first half hour. I loved the way the film plays with your memories of the original 1978 film and that very first confrontation between deputies, Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasance) and "The Shape", as Michael was originally known. Horror legend Charles Cyphers (The Fog, Escape from New York) is back as Brackett, the policeman from "Halloween" and "Halloween II", providing a nice continuity & callback to those films. Kyle Richards returns from the original film as Lindsey, as does Nancy Stephens as Marion and Nick Castle, one of the original Michaels! Anthony Michael Hall (National Lampoon's Vacation) appears as the grown up version of Tommy, a young near-victim from the original attacks. He has serious fun in the role. Robert Longstreet, the excellent actor from "Midnight Mass","The Haunting of Hill House" and "Fall of the House of Usher" nearly saves the whole film as Lonnie, a terrified Dad taking the hunt into his own hands. Longstreet is excellent in everything he's in, especially in his projects as part of Mike Flanagan's acting ensemble. But about halfway into the film, Green shifts the tone of the film from an 80's slasher/escape flick to a meditation on evil, the evil in all of us, blah blah, it goes off the rails quickly. He's a creative director and when he gets down to Michael doing what Michael does, the gore is brutal and the pace is relentless. Alongside a new electronic score from Carpenter, there are some fast paced thrills. But as a vigilante mob brews and citizens start chanting about getting Michael, the entire thing slips downward into eye rolling territory. Loved the main titles with 12 pumpkins over that classic main title theme, with the final one representing this as the TWELFTH Halloween film! I also really liked that Green even took time to reference those killer masks in the mostly hated, bonkers sequel "Halloween III: Season of the Witch" that remains a guilty pleasure. That's doing your homework. I didn't care for the bogged down formation of the mob at the nearly 30 chants of "Evil Dies Tonight!". A bit much folks. Just go kill that thing, more action, less talk! The ending drops rapidly toward dumb in order to set up the third film in the trilogy, "HALLOWEEN ENDS" which hit theaters in 2022. There's half a good film here, some great casting and wickedly brutal slayings, but Michael has fallen quite a bit from the standard of Green's first installment. I'll give it a disappointing C. Let's see what happens in the final chapter.......meanwhile, here's the trailer for this one.

Looking for some classic 70's horror for Halloween week? Check out the Hammer Films spirit of 1974's star studded FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE . It's a classic Amicus British horror anthology with four separate tales of terror, tied to an evil antique shop run by Peter Cushing (The Horror of Dracula, Star Wars). The style of the Amicus horror film series, always tied to a central theme, is that each of the four stories is about a half hour in duration, offering old fashioned chills and thrills. The first story, "The Gate Crasher", revolves around David Warner (The Omen, Tron) buying an antique mirror that holds a very nasty and blood thirsty spirit within. After his party turns into a seance, he opens a portal in the mirror to a nasty demon. Demanding more and more blood like Audrey II in "Little Shop of Horrors", the demon dude in the mirror looks better with each victim, while Warner starts to look downright cadaverous. I don't think Warner is getting his deposit back on his flat, with every wall and piece of furniture covered in blood by the end of the tale. Our second episode, "An Act of Kindness" introduces us to a businessman, Mr. Lowe (Ian Bannen) married to a nasty, demeaning shrew named Mabel, who's played to the hilt by Diana Dors (Hannie Caulder, Theatre of Blood). Our business man offers a kindness to a beggar named Underwood on a street outside the shop, played by Donald Pleasance (Halloween, You Only Live Twice, Fantastic Voyage). The man invites Lowe to his flat to repay his kindness, where he meets Underwood's daughter, who is.....well you'll find out. Pleasence's real life daughter plays his daughter in the film and the resemblance is remarkable. I laughed more than once at Dors pulling out all the stops as a wife who's had enough. Their son is also pretty damn funny, snickering at all the barbs the couple throw at each other. The third chapter, "The Elemental" was played up to capitalize on "The Exorcist" craze gripping theaters in 1974. A man finds out that he's got an "elemental" perched on his shoulder. It's a demon that only the daffy Madam Orloff can remove. Margaret Leighton, an Old Vic trained performer who starred in Hitchcock's "Under Capricorn" is having the time of her life as Orloff. The exorcism scenes might have been scary fifty years ago, but they are funnier than hell now. The last chapter, "The Door" features a young couple, William (Ian Ogilvy from "Wuthering Heights") and Rosemary, played by the gorgeous Lesley-Anne Down in one of her first big screen roles. They buy a massive door from Cushing's shop with a scary face on the front while remodeling their London flat. That door, predictably opens into another dimension and a curse from the past. The room is basically a lot of blue light and spider webs, so it's not very scary, but I'd watch Down read the phone book and be quite content, thank you. She is stunning and at the time, was coming off her role on the massive PBS hit series, 'Upstairs, Downstairs". The concept, with Cushing offering up your hearts desire with a nasty twist thrown into every item, surely inspried one of Stephen King's best novels, "Needful Things", the film adaption of which is pretty great and underrated. In all four chapters, the budget is a joke, the blood looks very fake, but the cast is first rate, selling the spirit of the whole damn thing with so much fun, it's impossible to resist. In the same vein as its predecessors from the same studio, like "Asylum" and "The House that Dripped Blood", it conjures up my Saturday afternoons of the distant past watching Hammer horror films for hours as Frankenstein and Dracula popped up in every iteration possible. If you're looking for a bloody fun throwback, FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE , digs up a lot of nostalgic, albeit tiny thrills and enjoyable Halloween horror, scaring up a solid B-.

"I do know who you are...." "Well that makes one of us....." As a casual Springsteen fan at best, I went into SPRINGSTEEN: DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE with middling expectations. I left impressed. Taking a page from Spielberg's "Lincoln", the film focuses on a very specific time in a famous life, the emergence of Springsteen's album, "Nebraska". Anyone coming in hoping for a rousing doc loaded with energetic concert scenes will get their hopes up as the film opens with a great recreation of Bruce and the E Street Band on stage at the end of a tour, slaying "Born To Run"in front of a rowdy crowd. It's electric. Springsteen wasn't even on my personal radar until I attended a three hour concert in Phoenix in the 80's that absolutely blew me away. I left that concert and headed to Tower Records, buying every Springsteen CD I could find and diving in. The energy of those concerts in the 80's was something that had to be experienced. Pounding rock, thousands singing every chorus and Bruce screaming his way through every power riff. But that's not what this film is. We see Bruce at a turning point, resisting the urge to become a mainstream star after his first huge record. He's an album guy. CBS/Columbia Records wants number one singles and to feed their machine and the public's hunger for more. Writer/Director Scott Cooper (Crazy Heart), basing his screenplay on Warren Zanes book of the same name, flashes back and forth to Bruce's childhood. He's constantly protecting his mother Adele (Gaby Hoffman from "Field of Dreams" and "Uncle Buck") from his alcoholic, abusive father Douglas (Stephen Graham, so brilliant as a much different type of Dad in "Adolesence"). Those wounds run deep. The center of the film is Jeremy Allen White (The Iron Claw, The Bear) as Bruce. It's a fantastic performance. White never does an impression, he just becomes The Boss. There are angles in the back seats of cars, on stage and in dark corners where you swear it's Springsteen. The voice is perfect, the attitude even better. Springsteen retreats to a house in the country in Jersey, secluding himself and feeling uninspired on what's next, until he sees a late night broadcast of Terence Malick's 1973 film "Badlands". In it, Martin Sheen plays a killer based on Charles Starkweather. Springsteen sees something in it that touches his own past and he dives in, researching the true story of Starkweather's killing spree. Bruce wants to avoid the studio and build an album that's raw, unpolished. Engineer Mike Batlan (Paul Walter Hauser) arrives with a cheap, 4 track recorder so Bruce can lay down the basic tracks of his songs. What emerges is an album he first calls "Starkweather" but then changes to Nebraska. The rest of the film weaves between Bruce's hesitant attraction to a diner waitress Faye Romano (Odessa Young), flashbacks to the emotional terrors of his childhood Jersey home and his battle with studio execs on a very unconventional album. That battle is made all the more interesting by Jeremy Strong's great performance as Bruce's manager, Jon Landau. Landau is Springsteen's protector, friend and absolute champion. The relationship between them is fascinating and powerful, with White and Strong's performances adding plenty of great moments. David Krumholtz is also very good as Columbia Records chief Al Teller. I've done business in that CBS/Columbia (Sony) office on 6th Avenue in Manhattan and seeing it on film conjured up some great personal memories of working with the record labels. A special shout out to young Matthew Anthony Pellicano Jr, making his film debut as young Bruce in the black and white flashbacks. The kid is amazing and will haunt you. This is a film based on quiet introspection, the creative process and an artist battling his internal demons. There are moments of great sadness, revealing the depth of Springsteen's battle with depression and commitment to his vision. The film also finds a near perfect ending with a scene between Bruce and his Father that cuts deeply. In the wake of some of the best artist documentary style films in memory, Luhrman's "Elvis"and James Mangold's excellent Bob Dylan film "A Complete Unknown", DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE is driven less by live musical performances than emotions and truth telling. Just like that first Springsteen concert I attended, I left the film impressed and wanting to learn more. White is fantastic in a less showy but no less effective performance than Chalamet's Dylan or Austin Butler's Elvis, earning the film a surprising B+.

As a great follow up to Ronnie at Screen Gems in Australia's review of "Rocky Horror" last month, and just in time for Halloween , here's his take on a fascinating BRAND NEW doc on the film, STRANGE JOURNEY: THE STORY OF ROCKY HORROR . https://www.facebook.com/screengemsbyronnie Screen Gems Reflects on Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror (2025) … {Written by Ronnie (Dorian) Clements for Screen Gems} A fan once said, “It’s not a movie, it’s a way of life.” And for so many, that sentiment still rings true! Directed by Linus O’Brien, son of Rocky Horror creator Richard O’Brien, this long-awaited documentary stirred immediate excitement among die-hard fans and it delivers in spades. The fact that the story is told by the creator’s own son lends it an undeniable authenticity, yet Linus maintains a respectful distance from both his father and the legacy itself. The result is a documentary that’s not only superbly structured but also refreshingly objective and emotionally resonant. I have often said that two of the most unforgettable Saturday afternoons of my life were spent watching live matinee performances of The Rocky Horror Show, years apart, yet equally electric. And while the film adaptation, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, may lack the raw immediacy of the stage, it remains endlessly enthralling. Its brilliance lies in its audacity. The score alone is a genre-defying rollercoaster, veering from tender ballads to glam rock anthems, with not a single misfire among them. What makes “Strange Journey” so satisfying is its dual focus: we’re treated to behind-the-scenes insights into both the original stage production and the 1975 film. It’s a double serving and both courses are “delicious”. So what is the origin story of this campy, chaotic, Frankenstein-infused celebration of identity, desire and rebellion? The documentary begins at the roots (literally) with Richard O’Brien re-visiting his childhood home in New Zealand, accompanied by Linus. Richard also returns to the spot where he once worked as a barber, now immortalized by a statue of him as Riff Raff. From there, the narrative shifts to London in the early 60s, where Richard took on menial jobs and honed his acting chops. His talent caught the eye of director Jim Sharman, who was intrigued by Richard’s side project: a musical. That musical, originally titled “They Came From Denton High”, evolved into The Rocky Horror Show, premiering on June 19, 1973 at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs, a modest, 60-seat venue. The rest, as they say, is history. The show’s success led to larger stages and eventually the cult film that would re-define midnight cinema. Linus charts this journey with precision, revealing that the original production was anything but smooth. The original script was skeletal, the process chaotic, and yet (somehow) it all came together. Out of that artistic mayhem emerged a masterpiece! Fans will revel in the treasure trove of interviews and archival gems. A few spoilers ahead : Jim Sharman cast actors based not on their voices, but their “presence”. And Tim Curry’s discovery of the “Frank-N-Furter voice”? A revelation. The documentary also positions Rocky Horror as a precursor to immersive entertainment, an idea that feels both timely and thrilling. And now here’s my one hole in the fishnets, so to speak … The documentary rightly highlights Rocky’s extreme significance to the LGBTQ+ community, its role in coming out, pride and self-acceptance. But I’ve never felt the piece belonged exclusively to any one demographic. From the very first viewing, the sexuality theme, while unmistakable, wasn’t the core for me. At its heart, Rocky Horror is a metaphor: a flamboyant, defiant anthem against conformity. It’s a rallying cry to reject the herd and embrace your truest self. “Don’t Dream It, Be It.” And that’s why Rocky is both infinitely universal and a pure masterpiece! In the end, Linus O’Brien has crafted something truly special: a documentary that’s beautifully paced, richly detailed and emotionally uplifting. Millions of fans will no doubt echo my sentiment: “You’ve done your Dad proud. Respect!” See the Trailer (with an introduction by Richard O’Brien) below.

Back in 1984, horror fans were introduced to Freddy Krueger in Wes Craven's imaginative hit A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET. I have great memories of seeing this in the theater and repeatedly on VHS, which was ALL the rage back in the day. 40+ years later, it's still got plenty of bloody scares, Johnny Depp's first big screen role and one of the worst performances in a major role ever caught on film from Heather Langenkamp. I've heard of wooden performances, but this one's solid steel. There's not a single line of dialogue delivered with human emotion. I guess Craven thought she could scream well, who knows! She beat out over 200 other actresses for the role of Nancy, including Demi Moore, Jennifer Grey and Courtney Cox, who would go on to star in Craven's "Scream". He gets many aspects of this series starter absolutely right, starting with a clever concept. Krueger comes to a bunch of teens in their dreams, peeking around corners in his tattered sweater, straight razors for fingers, spewing one liners galore. The perfectly cast Robert Englund is a hoot. Freddy loves to annoy people and gross them out, alternating between fingernails on a chalkboard (razors on a pipe in his case) and chopping off parts of his body so that green ooze and maggots spill out on the floor. He's not a guy you want to take to dinner. Langenkamp plays (?) Nancy, our central character whose friends are dying gruesome deaths in their sleep. Whatever Freddy does to you in your slumber, happens to your awake body. He slices you in a dream, your side opens up in real life. While this may seem routine now, it was hilariously fresh in 1984. Johnny Depp owns the screen in a barely written role as Nancy's boyfriend Glen. Impossibly young (24 at the time) this was Depp's first big screen role and he oozes movie star charm throughout. He also suffers one of the coolest on screen deaths at Freddy's hands. Craven has said he was going to cast another actor, but his daughter thought Depp was "soooo dreamy" that Craven cast him. Writer/Director Craven loads the film with twisted, funny and bizarre visuals, keeping you in suspense for what's next. He loads the corners with supporting characters that are bizarrely funny. Loved the scene where Freddy seems to be coming through the wall behind Nancy's bed. Damn creepy, low budget perfection and cool. Poor John Saxon (Enter the Dragon) as the town sheriff looks like he didn't know what the hell film he's in, playing it impossibly straight as all the craziness and a hapless deputy rain down trouble and blood spatters. Consider Ronee Blakley, so brilliant and Oscar nominated in Robert Altman's 1975 masterpiece "Nashville" as Country Music star Barbara Jean. After a decade of languishing on 70's TV shows like "Vegas" and "The Love Boat", she ends up here as Nancy's mom, Marge. Maybe she's such a great actress, that watching Langenkamp, she thought no one would believe her as Nancy's Mom unless she was a horrible actress too. It's the only way to explain how bad she is in this movie. It's the mother/daughter duo of community theater performances. Painful. But nobody strolled onto Elm Street for the acting chops. They're here for the gore and Craven delivers it in hilariously exaggerated buckets. All while Charles Bernstein's now classic music theme plays in the background in perfect accompaniment. New Line Cinema was saved from bankruptcy by the box office bonanza that was Freddy Krueger, driving $26 million in 80's box office against a $1.8 million production cost. Craven had spent the 12 years before this film turning out shocking horror films like "The Hills Have Eyes" and "The Last House on the Left", both well known, but creating Freddy took him to the next level. It also spawned an enormous amount of sequels, some very bad and some (I'm thinking about you, "Dream Warriors"!) pretty damn good. As for the original, it was just that in 1984, a new, humor infused, gory thriller with a clever concept that rocked audiences. For that alone, Craven's NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET gets a nostalgic B. But I'm being VERY gracious and in a Halloween mood, since Heather's acting keeps pulling everything toward the basement and grinding Craven's best lines of dialogue to a bloody halt. It's the kind of movie where Sheriff Saxon arrives at the scene of Freddy's latest victim and his deputy says, "You won't need a stretcher up there, you'll need a mop!" and Depp pulls off the line, "Oh, man. Midnight, baseball bats and boogeymen. Beautiful. ". Gold Jerry, Gold!!! Followed by six sequels, two TV series and a remake in 2010.

BLACK PHONE 2 is that rarity, a sequel that's just as bloody good fun as the original. Even better, its been amped up with a snowbound Friday the 13th/Nightmare on Elm Street 70's/80's vibe that haunts. The film assumes (as will I for this review) that you've seen the first film, which surprised me at four years ago with its original vibes and Ethan Hawke's lethal turn as a serial killer. Finn (Mason Thames) is now 17 and suffering from all the PTSD of being held by Hawke's The Grabber. His sister Gwen (Madeline McGraw) is his constant ally, navigating all the terrors of high school when you have a very famous and blood drenched past. Gwen's psychic gifts are really firing up, reminding me of Wes Craven's "Elm Street" since Gwen starts dreaming every time she falls asleep. Like Freddy Krueger's victims, it's not easy to wake her up when she's having a vision. If The Grabber wounds you in your dreams, those wound appear on your flesh in the real world. But unlike 1984 Freddy, those wounds are a LOT more lethal, gory and realistic. The Grabber's got secrets to protect and he'll do so at all costs. Gwen's visions center on Alpine Lake, a snowy winter Christian Camp for kids. Gwen sees children under a huge lake of ice, carving letters on the bottom of the solid ice and silently drifting down out of site. Director Scott Derrickson (Doctor Strange) returns from the first film after initially declining it. He was convinced after talking to author of the original book, Joe Hill, to return and expand the original film's concept. Derrickson does just that, spinning a wild tale that has a lot of different visual styles I loved. Gwen's dreams feel like they take place in a 70's 35mm film print, hissing and popping like a celluloid strip about to spill out of a projector. It gives the scenes a haunted feeling perfectly blended with the washed out colors of a 70's Grindhouse horror film. You know when you are in the dream world, and Derrickson and his returning screenwriter C. Robert Cargill (The Gorge) use that atmosphere in a lot of layers as the film unwinds. Supporting characters contribute heavily, especially Demian Bichir (The Nun) as Mando, the head counselor of Alpine Lake with direct connections to its bloody past. Poor Bichir, between this and his role in Tarantino's "The Hateful Eight" he's spent a lot of screen time in snowbound cabins! Jeremy Davies (Lost, Twister, Saving Private Ryan) returns as Terrence, Finn and Gwen's recovering Dad. Davies is solid and his story arc is not the thing of B-movie slasher flicks. Derrickson treats Hawke's Grabber in this film the way that Spielberg did the shark in "Jaws". You don't see much of him until the back half of the film, other than a quick peek here or there. Hawke is clearly having a blast in the role and as one of my favorite actors, I could have used more of him, but there's no doubt he's back at full power for the exciting finale. The icy pay phone cubical at the camp serves up the most terror in a phone booth since Tippy Hedren suffered all those birds in Hitchcock's classic. If you liked "Black Phone" get ready for a new chapter with its Supernatural meter cranked up to 11. It took me back to Craven's Freddy Krueger so much I had to come home and watch the original 1984 debut of Elm Street. BLACK PHONE 2 doesn't have any desire for the cheap jokes and stupid teens of that Craven classic. It's too busy setting up Finn and Gwen as modern horror heroes against Hawke's twisted madman. There are laughs, but they're mostly in relief of some earth shaking, Exorcist-like possession scenes that had my eyes locked on the big screen. Just like the original, this new chapter gets an appreciative B.

On October 15th, as the weather cools and jack o'lanterns appear, it feels like time to go back and revisit some horror hits from the past! A massive box office hit back in 1979, WHEN A STRANGER CALLS grossed $21 million against a $1 million budget. Most famous for its opening 20 minutes, which audiences of the time found terrifying, it opens with a young Carol Kane (Taxi, Annie Hall) as a babysitter who starts receiving menacing phone calls. The heavy breather will only say, "Have you checked the children?", which of course she doesn't do for quite awhile. After about five calls, I started thinking, "you know, you probably ought to check on those kids...." But this is one of those films where very few people ever do what common sense dictates. Every time that phone rings, it's louder than the last time, pretty effective for building tension. There is no doubt that this opening twenty minutes if the best part of the film. After that sequence, it flashes forward 7 years and turns into a police procedural drama for the next 60 very boring minutes. Charles Durning (Sharkey's Machine, Tootsie) is a private detective on the trail of the dialing murderer when he escapes from the mental institution he's been at for seven years. Durning is a great actor, but he's given very little of substance to do here. Ron O'Neal (Superfly) plays another Detective and he and Durning apparently didn't get along on set, with the consummate professional Durning pissed off that O'Neal was constantly flubbing his lines and didn't appear to be taking the process seriously. Durning showed his frustration by making eye contact with O'Neal and never breaking it. This eventually unnerved O'Neal and stories from the set say he decided to put more effort into his performance. O'Neal is pretty bad, so I can only imagine what his role would have looked like without Durning's peer pressure. The killer is kind of boring, fine actors like Colleen Dewhurst and Rachel Roberts are wasted in poorly written roles and ANY episode of "Law and Order" generates more excitement in any ten minutes than this lumbering dinosaur does in its entire meandering midsection. The film wraps up with a slightly better coda to its opening scene, but it's too little, too late. "Have you checked the children?" Yes, I think they died of boredom. It's amazing this cinematic miss-dial was such a hit. I've been more entertained by robocalls. I'll give it a D. Remade in 2006 in a version I'll never see. Fool me once.......

"It was the October of my 12th year when the seller of lightning rods came along the road toward Green Town, Illinois, sneaking glances over his shoulder. Somewhere not far back was a terrible storm. Even now, on those special autumn days, when the air smells like smoke, and the twilights are orange and ash gray, my mind goes back to Green Town, the place where I grew up. In my memory, I'm back on Main Street again, among the neighbors who gave me my first glimpses into the fearful needs of the human heart ." Like Nick Nolte's opening narration in "The Prince of Tides", Arthur Hill's opening narration is perfection. These are the first moments of the underrated fantasy horror thriller, SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES , 1983's Disney collaboration with writer Ray Bradbury. This is a hidden gem, just released for streaming on Disney+. It struggled at the box office at the time of its release, likely too scary for young kids and a bit too adult for the pre-teens, but has found a great deal of appreciation over the past four decades. Lyrical might be the best word for the film's screenplay, with legendary author Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451) penning his own screenplay adaption. From those opening scenes as two young boys run through the changing leaves of a picturesque town, the tone is set and danger feels right around the corner. Those boys are Will Halloway (Vidal Peterson) and Jim Nightshade (Shawn Carson) two best friends who serve as the center of our story. Will's Father, Charles (the legendary for good reason Jason Robards) is the town librarian. He has adventures of every sort on the pages of his books but seems to live with an under current of fear and regret. Jim's Father is not around. Jim speaks of him traveling the globe, but it's clear the man has been gone for awhile. His mother, Mrs. Nightshade, seems to court gentlemen visitors and live half her life in her own little world. Diane Ladd (Chinatown, Wild At Heart) is great at playing mysteriously sad/odd. All the citizens of Green Town are excited to read flyers about a Carnival coming to their little town, led by the very mysterious Mr. Dark, played to perfection by Jonathan Pryce (Evita, Brazil) in his first big screen role. Pryce is fantastic. If most carnivals and traveling emporiums bring joy and wonder, Dark's Pandemonium seems to offer up a very different selection of treats, most of them promising to grant your biggest wish, or restore something you've lost But nothing is free. When Jim and Will sneak into the carnival and see some things they shouldn't, Mr. Dark begins pursuing them, while preying on the innocence of the town folk. Ray Bradbury's original 1962 novel is one of his best fantasy/horror works, conjuring up a very specific tone of Americana, regret and scares. The film does an amazing job of recreating that tone, throwing you into the story along with boys as they uncover some truly wicked goings on. This was a troubled production, with Bradbury falling out with the director Jack Clayton (The Innocents, 1974's "The Great Gatsby") over their differences around the approach to the material. The film shows signs of rewrites and over $1 million in reshoots. The ending feels so abrupt that it feels like the projectionist forgot a reel. But what remains on screen is still, for the most part, an unappreciated literary adaption. James Horner's music is stellar throughout. He composed this score within a year of his work on "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan", "Krull" and "Brainstorm", one of my all-time favorite Horner works. The man was prolific. It's a great score and damn scary at the right moments. Pam Grier (Jackie Brown, Foxy Brown) is haunting as Mr. Dark's right hand priestess of the dark arts. Pryce is nothing short of brilliant, especially in the library set showdown with the boys and Robards (All the President's Men, Magnolia). Pryce's delivery as he tears pages out of time is as good as it gets. A film career was born. The special effects are pre-CGI and dated, but still charming in their own way. There's a superb alchemy at work here, even with its flaws. Bradbury, Horner and cast combine to recreate the sense of small town wonder and amazement that lived in the pages of Bradbury's novel, bringing some nice chills as the depth of Mr. Dark's intentions are revealed. An underrated gem in the Disney vaults, SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES is an October treat with more than a few tricks up its sleeve. It gets an A-.