Horror Classic Movie Review: Poltergeist

I remember watching this quite young because it was a popular movie when I was a kid and my whole family watched it, I think. Of course, I identified with the boy in the film and I even had a tree outside my bedroom window.

Click here for a list of all other films reviewed and considered for this October 2012 series of horror reviews

My memories of Poltergeist resonate from my childhood when I was scared almost senseless by the supernatural spirits that haunt the Freeling household in a California suburb. As I watched it again many years later I realized that probably as a child I saw my own family in the Freelings. There’s Diane (JoBeth Williams), who is a housewife raising three kids: the teenaged Dana (Dominique Dunne); middle child Robbie (Oliver Robins) and the five or six year old Carol Anne (Heather O’Rourke). Steven (Craig T. Nelson) is a local realtor and stalwart Dad who wants to protect his family. I must have been about Carol Anne’s age when I first saw the film. I have an older brother and sister just like she does and my parents were also in their mid-30s back then. I even had a large tree growing outside my bedroom window just to cap off the similarities.

Horror Classic Movie Review: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

I'm not entirely sure this film belongs in this October series because it's not a film that was part of my childhood memories of scary movies. I don't think I saw this until I was in college. But the film was always something I was aware of. Everyone knew about Leatherface and how this was supposed to be one of the scariest movies. It actually scare me quite a lot when I did finally see it.

Click here for a list of all other films reviewed and considered for this October 2012 series of horror reviews.

A demented family portrait.

The most terrifying movies I’ve seen all come out of the 1970s, the time of the New Hollywood Golden Age, when studios were willing to back risky projects because audiences were willing to lay down money for challenging subject matter. Sometimes they just wanted visceral thrills. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre certainly provided the latter, although I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s a challenging film or that it has anything of real importance to say. Its sole purpose is to scare the shit out of whoever is daring enough to see it. Tobe Hooper and Kim Henkel’s story is a depiction of a demented hick family in central Texas, where they prey on helpless victims, offering them a sadistic nightmare of torture.