Five Movies: Inaugural Edition

The Cap'n realizes he's sounded a bit grouchy in the last few days, which is not what the Cap'n wants readers to think he is all the kind: cantankerous, grouchy, and ill at ease with the current state of movies.

It is true that movies the new Friday the 13th, Watchmen, and Saw V are not my thing. But that doesn't mean many of you might not enjoy them, so I'll lay off for at least one day and try to share with you five movies that I think you might enjoy. Five movies that maybe weren't on your radar, or maybe that you'd never considered seeing before. If I'm recommending them, I think they're worth your time, and unless you see the word "Ironic" in the subject, it's not because they're actually terrible.

Since we're only a week away from Halloween, it's only fair to start with five horror movies. Horror is a vast genre that covers all kinds of films, and everybody's had the chance to see something others haven't, so it seems fair to share the wealth every now and then. I hope to turn you on to at least one movie, even the most die hard aficionado.

5. The Hitcher (1986) - Forget what you've seen on dvd shelves everywhere: this is The Hitcher to watch! No one this side of Gary Busey can play unhinged like Rutger Hauer, and this is the man at his maddest. Even if you saw the remake, do yourself a favor and watch Hauer terrorize C. Thomas Howell and Jennifer Jason Leigh on the open highway. I promise you the ending to this one is better!

4. Prince of Darkness - The often forgotten chapter of John Carpenter's "End of the World" trilogy (along with The Thing and In the Mouth of Madness), Prince of Darkness has the bad luck of falling between Big Trouble in Little China and They Live, two cult favorites. That's too bad, because Prince of Darkness is every bit as good as those two, and scarier than either. To explain the story, about something sinister buried beneath a church, would undersell the movie. It's not the plot synopsis so much as the way Carpenter unfolds the story, alternating between a straight-forward narrative and cryptic flash forwards in the form of video from an unspecified time. If you rent this, don't watch the trailer; it gives away part of the ending!

3. Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed - I frequently recommend Ginger Snaps to people, but rarely do I take the opportunity to recommend its sequel, which is in many ways as good if not better. What Unleashed does that is so rare in a sequel is to take the premise of the original, twist it, and come up with a novel alternate narrative. Instead of lycanthropy as a metaphor for puberty, now it becomes a metaphor for addiction, as Bridget tries to suppress the urge to transform (like her sister). The ending, quite out of left field, is akin to something like Neil Jordan's The Company of Wolves, and sets up the fairytale bookend that is the third film.

2. Tombs of the Blind Dead - If you think Dario Argento has the market cornered on dreamlike atmospheres and nightmarish imagery, you might want to check out Amando de Ossorio's Spanish entry into Gothic Horror. Made six years before Suspiria, Tombs of the Blind Dead (La Noche del terror ciego) delivers the Knights Templar as monsters, decaying and blind. Every time the Knights appear, the film takes on a hallucinatory quality, and coupled with the ambiguity what they want or why they exist, the film is perfect for the middle of the night when your mind begins to drift.

1. The Black Cat (1934) - Of all the team-ups between Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, this is my favorite. Neither of them play conventional monsters, but are more horrifying as victimizer and victim of war set on destroying the other. In the middle is a couple who had the dumb luck to share a train car with Dr. Vitus Vedergast (Lugosi). When the young bride is injured, they are forced to join Vedergast in the home of Hjalmar Poelzig (Karloff), an architect, war hero, and something much more to Vedergast. To say much more would be spoiling the ending, which was so harsh by 1930s standards no uncut version of the film is known to exist. If you're a fan of either legend, you owe it to yourself to see The Black Cat.

In the future I hope to bring you more of Five Movies, as well as future installments of Four Reasons, and maybe even Three Guilty Pleasures (I just made that up, but it sounds like fun). If this was helpful to you, or you have some suggestions for horror movies (or any other) unseen, feel free to share it with the others.

Yours,

The Cap'n