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There's no better excuse for holding on to your date than a good scary movie. As Halloween approaches, we present you with a list of the 20 best horror movies from the present and distant past. And while we're on the subject, do you believe that a chilling horror movie is a good way to share an evening with a relatively new person?
All work and no play make Jack a bloodthirsty boy. On the wagon after his alcoholism created family troubles, aspiring novelist Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) accepts a position as off-season custodian at an elegant but eerie hotel so he can write undisturbed. No sooner have Jack, his wife (Shelley Duvall) and their son, Danny, settled in than the ominous hotel starts to wield its sinister power over father and son.
If this horror classic doesn't terrify you, maybe you need a shrink. Movie actress Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn) realizes an evil spirit might be possessing her daughter (Linda Blair). Against formidable odds, two priests (Max von Sydow and Jason Miller) try to exorcise the demon. A superb meditation about the nature of evil, "The Exorcist" was created with adults in mind and isn't appropriate for youngsters.
Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow), the young wife of a struggling actor (John Cassavetes), is thrilled to find out she's pregnant. But the larger her belly grows, the more certain she becomes that her unborn child is in danger. Perhaps there's something sinister behind the odd enthusiasm her eccentric neighbors (Sidney Blackmer and Ruth Gordon, in an Oscar-winning performance) have for her welfare. Or perhaps it's all in her mind.
When an insatiable great white shark terrorizes the townspeople of Amity Island, a police chief (Roy Scheider), a grizzled shark hunter (Robert Shaw) and an oceanographer (Richard Dreyfuss) seek to destroy it. Director Steven Spielberg kicked off the summer blockbuster boom with this white-knuckle adaptation of the Peter Benchley novel. John Williams's ominous musical score has become legendary.
The first flick in the trilogy from director John Carpenter, "Halloween" almost single-handedly started the 1980s slasher genre. Escaped lunatic Michael Myers (no, not the "Austin Powers" actor) goes on a murderous babysitter-slaying rampage on Halloween. Only babysitter Jamie Lee Curtis (the quintessential scream queen) and psychiatrist Donald Pleasence can stop him.
A high-voltage spectacle boasting impressive (for the time) special effects, "Poltergeist" is a must-see horror classic. Life is very pleasant for the close-knit Freeling family until a host of otherworldy forces invade their peaceful suburban home. Before long, the house is transformed into a swirling supernatural sideshow - all centered around their angelic young daughter, Carol Anne (Heather O'Rourke).
An American Werewolf in London
A wolf whose bite is definitely worse than his bark chomps a young backpacker taking a shortcut across the British moors one night. Before long, the traveler gets long in the tooth! But this howler has a different twist: a sharp sense of humor blacker than the Arctic sky during the winter solstice. John Landis wrote the screenplay and directed.
Stranded in a cabin in the woods, Ash (Bruce Campbell) and his girlfriend accidentally invoke a spell that causes the Evil Dead to rise and kill! As a lone man pitted against hordes of walking corpses, can Ash survive until the safety of sunrise? Sam Raimi's whip-crack direction and Campbell's comedic skills induce hair-raising fear and gales of laughter.
In "Frankenstein," a mad scientist (Colin Clive) creates a monster (the inimitable Boris Karloff) but errs by giving him a criminal brain. In "Bride of Frankenstein," the superior and very witty sequel, the monster (Karloff) gets his own made-to-order (almost!) bride (Elsa Lanchester). Both classic Universal films were directed by legendary horrormeister James Whale, who set the bar very high for others to follow.
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