Idle Hands (1999)

In the movie industry, timing is everything. In case of Idle Hands, its release date couldn’t have come a more inopportune time, April 30, 1999 – ten days after the Columbine shootings.   The movie opened to poor reviews (16% rating on Rotten Tomatoes) and an even worse box office ($4 million gross against a $25 million dollar budget).  It was nearly impossible for many critics to separate the ending of this movie from the tragedy that occurred in Colorado.  Duane Dudek of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel wasn’t alone when he wrote, “This film smacks of poor judgment and bad taste, particularly in wake of the Littleton, Colo., killings.”   However, it would be disingenuous to blame Idle Hands' piss poor box office entirely on the critics, after all, Stephen Sommer’s The Mummy was released the following weekend; Star Wars, Episode I – The Phantom Menace hit theatres shortly afterwards, May 19,1999. The reality is that Idle Hands simply didn’t stand a chance against these two juggernauts and it quickly died at the box office.
Yet, there were a few brave souls that actually stood up for the movie, even if they didn’t particularly like it.  Roger Ebert, in his two and a half star review, wrote:
After the Colorado tragedy, some commentators have wondered if movies like this aren’t partly responsible. I don’t think we have to worry about Idle Hands. Kids understand this kind of macabre comedy – which is in the ancient horror spoof tradition- and they don’t take it seriously; any viewer capable of being influenced by such silly gags would have to be deeply disturbed already.

Right on, Mr. Ebert! While it’s true that many horror fans might see Idle Hands for the gore, the fact is that we are always on the side of the main characters – most critics overlooked this fact. Not to mention, it’s kind of hard to root for an evil hand.  It’s not surprising that Idle Hands has often been compared to Sam Raimi’s masterpiece, Evil Dead II, given that their premises are fairly identical – the protagonist’s (Ash in Evil Dead II, Anton in Idle Hands) right hand gets possessed by a demon and gets loped it– however, this subgenre of horror goes back to the early days of cinema, most notably Robert Florey’s underrated The Beast With Five Fingers (1946). Director Rodman Flender was an apprentice to Roger Corman and the legendary director’s influence shows in this the movie - Idle Hands has a similar structure to two of Corman’s earlier movies, Bucket of Blood and The Little Shop of Horrors. The three movies feature a similar, down on his luck, protagonist – Walter, a social inept busboy, in Bucket of Blood, Seymour, a clumsy stock boy in The Little Shop of Horrors, and Anton, a slacker stoner in Idle Hands. They all harbor a crush on an attractive brunette – Carla in Bucket of Blood, Audrey in The Little Shop of Horrors, and Molly in Idle Hands. However, Bucket of Blood and The Little Shop of Horrors are truly cynical movies and it’s clear that Corman views his characters in a contemptuous manner; both Walter and Seymour are given the deaths they truly deserve.  Idle Hands, despite its heavy gore and high body count, is a rather sweet natured movie and Flender has genuine affection for his characters.  For instance, it is revealed early on that one of Molly’s hobbies is writing song lyrics in a notebook that Anton happens to pick up after she has dropped it. It is this hobby that initially attracts Anton to Molly (well, and the fact that she looks like Jessica Alba).  He tells his friends Pnub and Mick, “Her songs are badass, man. She’s like a poet or something.” Now, in a lesser movie Molly’s song writing would be played for laughs – there would be a close up of Molly as she reads her (terrible) lyrics out loud, while  Anton, in a reverse shot, would be biting down on his lip, trying awfully hard to contain his laughter.  Here, Anton, finally having worked up the nerve to talk to Molly, enthusiastically starts singing Molly’s lyrics back to her, which gets her to laugh.

Devon Sawa is extremely effective in the role of Anton.  Anton spends his entire day getting high and burying himself in his headphones that he is completely oblivious to the serial killer plaguing his small town (a mailman, a bar maid, and two twin brothers have been murdered). When Pnub asks Anton if he ever watches the news, Anton responds, “I hate that fucking show!” He also fails to notice that his house is covered in blood stains – his parents were murdered the previous night.   Therefore, imagine Anton’s surprise when he learns that his right hand is responsible for all these deaths.  Anton doesn’t have any real ambitions in life, his dream life would be “to lie around in bed all day and watch TV, while some hot broad brings me food.”  Anton maybe a slacker, but he does have a conscience.  After Mick has unwitting released the severed hand from the microwave Anton nuked it in, he is determined to stop it – especially learning that its main target is Molly, who is at the Halloween Dance.   Mick tries to convince him that it is no longer his responsible and that he needs some “Anton time.”  This leads to the funniest exchange in the entire movie:

Anton: No,no, no, you know what? Not this time. Okay, I’m through with that, I mean, all I do is sit around all day, veg out, I watch TV, I smoke pot…….
Mick:  No, no! No Kevin Costner speech, let’s just go.

Sawa is very good at physical comedy - my favorite bit is when Anton and his possessed hand fight over the TV remote; Anton wants to watch cartoons, but The Hand keeps turning it to horror movies.

Pnub and Mick are just as lazy as Anton  - they’re main ambition is to watch TV, eat junk food, and get high.  This ambition (or lack of) stays with them even after they return from the dead –instead of going to heaven (which they describe as “uncool” and “too far away”), they decide to remain on earth and continue their slacker existence.  Mick criticizes Anton for not having any real goals in life, but he’s isn’t exactly one to talk.  Seth Green and Elden Henson real shine in these two roles, largely because of how understated much of their delivery is.  These two characters could have easily been insufferable, but in the hands of two pros like Green and Hensen they are agreeable. The two of them are even given  a character arc - they go from being Anton's useless best friends to being his guardian angels.

Jessica Alba possibly has the toughest job in the entire movie, because Molly is the least interesting character in the entire movie - when compared to the rest of the cast.  Molly is your quintessential “girl next door” type, which means the filmmakers are more interesting in showcasing her attractiveness than giving her a genuine personality;  Molly, despite crawling through a ventilation shaft and being tied to a roof of a car, still looks like she could grace the cover of a men’s magazine.  Alba is definitely well cast in the role and is actually pretty funny at times.  My favorite Molly moment comes when Anton, after The Hand has murdered Pnub and Mick, looks for his cat in the shrubbery outside Molly’s house after The Hand has thrown it there.  The Hand rings Molly’s doorbell, much to Anton’s embarrassment, and she answers the door.  Anton looks like complete crap – his clothes are torn and covered in blood – and Molly asks Anton what he is doing there.  Anton replies that he’s looking for his cat and then adds that they got into a fight.  Molly notice Anton’s messy appearance and, without a hint of irony, says, “You got your ass kicked!”  Later on, Anton and Molly are making out on her bed, but The Hand keeps trying to strangle her, so Anton ties it to her bedpost. Molly pauses for a second, laughs, and then tells Anton that he is kinky.  How can I forget her dance scene? I’m sure there are many men who would find it sexy, but I always found it funny – Molly sways her body back and forth, while waving her arms over her head in a totally arrhythmic manner.  This is one, of a few, Jessica Alba performances that I actually like – there’s no slumming on her part; she is extremely likable as Molly.

Vivica A. Fox is a hoot as Debi, a druid priestess who drives across country in an RV, hunting down the evil that possesses Anton’s Hand (“There is evil out there and I’m going to kick its ass”).   I also like Jack Noseworthy as Anton’s metal head, and lecherous, next door neighbor, Randy.  Anton assumes that Randy is an expert on Satanism because he listens to heavy metal music.  Randy tells Anton that “Idle hands are the devil’s playground” and advises him to take up a hobby that will help occupy his time – Anton, unwisely, chooses knitting.

Rodman Flender keeps things going at an efficient pace and even adds style to the proceedings. Flender often uses match on action editing and graphic matches to link scenes together; when Debi is driving her RV, the camera tilts down to a close up of one its tires, then it cuts to the close of a shopping cart wheel - the camera tilts up to reveal that Anton is pushing the cart. Later on, there is a long shot of The (now severed) Hand crawling down the road which then slowly dissolves to a long shot of a bowling lane where Randy is hanging out with his friends.  He also begins the movie with an extremely ambitious crane shot: the camera starts on a close up of a Jack O Lantern, glides through Anton’s front lawn (littered with tacky lawn ornaments), gives us a glance of the living room window (covered in Halloween decorations), and finally settles on the bedroom window of Anton’s parents, located on the second floor.  The movie then dissolves into a close up of Anton’s mother reading the newspaper in bed. It not only does a nice job of establishing the time of the year (Halloween), but gives the audience a nice sense of the foreboding - we know something bad is going to happen to Anton's parents.

Idle Hands is the kind of movie that the phrase “acquired taste” was invented for. If your idea of good time at the movie is My Big Fat Greek Wedding, or Frozen, then I humbly suggest you keep away from Idle Hands. If you have a sick sense of humor, like me, then you will probably enjoy it! It’s definitely worth checking out and is not nearly the disaster that most critics made it out to be.

Credits

Cast:  Devon Sawa (Anton), Seth Green (Mick), Elden Henson (Pnub), Jessica Alba (Molly), Vivica  A. Fox (Debi LeCure), Jack Noseworthy (Randy), Katie Wright (Tanya), Sean Whalen (McMay), Christopher Hart (The Hand), Nicholas Sadler (Ruck), Fred Willard (Dad Tobias), Connie Ray (Mom Tobias), Timothy Stack (Principal Tidwell), Steve Van Wormer (Curtis), Kelly Monaco (Tiffany).
Director: Rodman Flender
Screenplay: Terri Hughes, Ron Milbauer.
Running Time: 92 min.

The Mummy (1999)

How does Stephen Sommers manage to get quality actors to star in his movies? This is a question that has often puzzled me. Sommers is, at best, a poor man's Steven Spielberg. It is clear he has spent a lot of his time studying Spielberg's movies, but has learned very little from them. The Mummy is one of those rare films where an excellent cast is able to salvage a ridiculous screenplay and make it immensely entertaining. In fact, the cast is so good that they often make  Sommers look like a competent director. It's no coincidence that the The Mummy is the best (and only good) movie Sommers ever made.

The Mummy is a remake of the 1932 classic starring the great Boris Karloff, but whereas that film was a tragic, supernatural romance, Sommers' version is an adventure film in the vein of Indiana Jones. There is tons of action, but very little scares.  In fact, the weakest aspect of the film is the mummy itself, as played by Arnold Vosloo. Vosloo actually has a pretty good screen presence, but he isn't really given much to do until the last half hour of the film. Unfortunately for a significant portion of the film, the mummy is brought to life with extremely unconvincing CGI. A lot of time was spent on designing the look of the mummy, but in the end it looks more like an Altered Beast  reject than an actual movie villain.

There are a couple of odd decisions that Sommers makes in his screenplay, like how Imhotep's resurrection could, in essence, bring about the end of the world. In the 1999 film, Imhotep's resurrection brings about plagues on the Egyptian people, escalating in them being covered with boils and turned into mindless zombies controlled by Imhotep. You can argue that it ups the stakes, but it's rather silly plot device that the characters essentially shrug off.  In fact, The Mummy's biggest asset, its quirky sense of humor, is often its biggest drawback as well; it's hard to develop any sense of urgency when your  lead characters are constantly cracking jokes and remain in high spirits the entire time. I was also never able to buy that Imhotep would mistake Evelyn for a reincarnation of Anck-Su-Namun, largely for the fact that the two look nothing alike. It also doesn't help that in the sequel, The Mummy Returns, Sommers completely negates this plot point by having Meela, the real reincarnation of Anck-Su-Namum, showing up and, even more inexplicably, revealing that Evelyn is actually the reincarnation of Seti's daughter. 

The 1932 film, as well as the 1959 Hammer remake, were much more limited in their scope; neither Imhotep (Boris Karloff) nor Kharis (Christopher Lee in the remake) wanted to bring about the end of the world, they were motivated by love and loyalty; Imhotep wants to be reunited with his long lost love Ankh-es-en-Amon while Kharis seeks to punish those they have defiled the tomb of princess Ananka.  Kharis is aided in his revenge by the fez wearing Mehemmet Bey, a member of a religious sect that has made it their mission to protect the tomb of Ananka. It's interesting to note that the 1959 film is more of a reworking of Universal Mummy films from the 40s (The Mummy's Hand, The Mummy's Tomb, The Mummy's Ghost, and The Mummy's Curse) than the Karloff original. In each successive film, the mummy of Kharis (played by Tom Tyler in the first film, Lon Chaney, Jr. in the sequels) sets about murdering those responsible for opening the tomb of Ananka and is abetted by a fez wearing cultist; his journeys take him from the sands of Egypt to the swamps of Louisiana. 

In fact, Sommers' movie owes a greater debt to the The Mummy's Hand than it does to the Karloff original.  The Mummy's Hand begins on a flashback set in Ancient Egypt and shows how Kharis attempted to resurrect his beloved Ananka, only to be punished for his efforts. Sommers begins his movie in a similar fashion; Imhotep is having an affair with Anck-Su-Namun, the mistress of Pharaoh Seti I. It comes to an abrupt end when Seti wises up to their love and is then stabbed to death by both of them. Imhotep flees, while Anck-Su-Namun commits suicide. Imhotep's attempt to resurrect her are interrupted by Seti's guards and he is buried alive with fleshing eating scarabs. 

The original 1932  movie begins with an archaeological expedition, lead by Sir Joseph Whemple, discovering Imhotep's mummy. While Sir Joseph and his friend, Dr. Muller, are outside having a discussion, Whemple's impatient assistant reads from the Scroll of Thoth and revives Imhotep; this encounter with the living mummy drives him insane and it is later revealed  that he died laughing in an asylum. It's a nice bit of understated direction by Karl Freund; Imhotep is never actually shown rising from his sarcophagus, instead his resurrection is hinted at by a small glint in his eyes and slight movement of his right arm. This is in direct contrast to the fire and brimstone that signals Imhotep's revival in the 1999 remake. 

In The Mummy's Hand there's a secret cult trying to protect the secret of Ananka's tomb, one of their members happens to be Professor Andoheb, curator of the Cairo Museum. When an expedition led by archaeologist Steve Banning sets out to find Ananka's tomb, Andoheb, by burning tana leaves, resurrects Kharis and orders him to kill members of the party. Sommers does a slight variation of the plot in his remake; the Madjei are a religious order devoted to keeping the location of Hamunaptra (where Imhotep attempted to resurrect Anck-Su-Namum) secret; one of them happens to be Dr. Terrance Bey, curator of the Cairo Museum. The Medjai, however, are actually good guys and their leader, Ardeth Bay, aids Rick and Evelyn in defeating Imhotep. In the Karloff version, Imhotep (in the guise of Ardeth Bay) actually helps Frank Whemple (Sir Joseph's son) find the tomb of Ankh-es-en-Amon. The idea of a mummy exacting his revenge on those that defiled his beloved princess' tomb is taken from The Mummy's Hand. In the 1932 movie, Imhotep only kills those who stand in the way of him being reunited with Ankh-es-en-Amon; he is a much more sympathetic character than Kharis in the four Universal films (and Hammer remake) and Imhotep in the remake. In his remake, Stephen Sommers essentially took the character of Imhotep and injected him with steroids; he is extremely buffed and dispatches of his victims by sucking the life force from their bodies. He can also change shapes (he turns into sand a couple of times) and control the elements of nature. 

The strongest similarity between The Mummy's Hand and 1999 remake is that they both are laden with comedy relief.  In the former,  it comes in the forms of Banning's assistant Babe Jenson and The Great Solvani, a magician who happens to be touring Egypt and agrees to fund their expedition. In the latter, it comes in the forms of the backstabbing Beni and Jonathan, Evelyn's never do well older brother.  Banning strikes up a romance with Solvani's daughter, Marta, while in the remake, Rick O' Connell, strikes up a romance with Evelyn. The romantic subplot is the one area that Sommers vastly improves on; in the original the romantic lead was the rather dull actor David Manners (who also co-starred in Dracula and The Black Cat) . Imhotep is a much more interesting character than Frank Whemple, therefore we find it frustrating that Helen (the reincarnation of Ankh-es-en-Amon) would fall for such a bore; he's a bigger stiff than Imhotep in mummy form. The romance in The Mummy's Hand feels rather forced; Marta goes from disliking Steve to falling in love with him in a span of five minutes. The romance between Rick and Evelyn, on the other hand, feels natural to the story line and is extremely believable due to the chemistry of the actors - it is easily the best part of the movie. 

I rather like The Mummy, despite Sommers' hackneyed screenplay and unimaginative direction. Whatever limitations Sommers has as a filmmaker, he some how managed to hit the jack pot with the actors he assembled for this film; Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weisz, and John Hannah could have easily phoned in their performances and collected paycheck, but they manage to bring such warmth to their roles that we (or at least I) don't really mind that Imhotep is nowhere to be seen in the first hour (except in the prologue).  In fact, had Sommers dropped the whole Mummy angle and just focused on the misadventures of these three characters, it would probably be one of my all time favorite films. Oh well, at least it makes for an entertaining two hours.  Brendan Fraser is probably one of the most frustrating actors in movie history; he is a talented actor and can often wow you with an amazing dramatic performance (he managed to hold his own opposite Ian McKellan in Gods and Monsters) only to follow it up with a vehicle that is not worthy of his talents (Monkeybone, Dudley Do Right, etc.) It's quite a shame. Rachel Weisz is equally lovable as the slightly clumsy, but brilliant Evelyn. After Evelyn has accidentally resurrected Imhotep, she accepts full blame and makes it her goal to right her wrong. Too often summer blockbuster movies will gloss over the fact that the lead character is often to blame for everything that has gone wrong, The Mummy, on the other hand, doesn't take the easy out and holds its characters responsible. John Hannah steals the film with his comic portrayal as Jonathan, who also happens to be an exceptional pickpocket. Jonathan is probably the most interesting character in the film, he's a complete scoundrel and has never done an honest day's work in his entire life, but we suspect that underneath that somewhat slimy exterior there is a decent guy waiting to emerge. That's why the ending is extremely satisfying, because instead of giving Jonathan a "heroic" death, Sommers allows for him to survive at the end. 



Credits
Cast: Brendan Fraser (Rick O' Connell), Rachel Weisz (Evy Carnahan), John Hannah (Jonathan Carnahan), Kevin J. O' Conner (Beni), Arnold Vosloo (Imhotep), Oded Fehr (Ardeth Bey), Jonathan Hyde (Dr. Allen Chamberlain), Erick Avari (Dr. Terrence Bey), Patricia Velasquez (Anck Su Namun), Stephen Dunham (Mr. Henderson), Corey Johnston (Mr. Daniels), Tuc Watkins (Mr. Burns), Bernard Fox (Winston Havlock).

Director: Stephen Sommers.
Screenplay: Stephen Sommers.  Stephen Sommers, Lloyd Fonvielle, Kevin Jarre. (screen story)
Running Time: 125 min.

My Top 25 Horror/Monster Film, Part II (20-11)

20. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)

Dir: Tobe Hooper
Running Time: 84 min.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is one of the most unnerving films ever made; it is completely unrelenting in its horror and never allows the audience a moment to breathe. You never feel comfortable around the main characters, because they are often at each other’s throats.  Franklin, despite being in a wheel chair, is completely unsympathetic and is often a huge burden on Sally and her friends.  Despite it’s rather gruesome title, the film is fairly tame in its use of gore; most of the horror is implied, rather than shown in full detail. The 2003 remake with Jessica Biel tried to replicate the look of the original film, but failed in that in tried too hard in making Leatherface a sympathetic character by giving him a painful back story. In the original, it is implied that the family turned to cannibalism largely due to economic factors (the closing down of the slaughter house, the scarcity of gas). It was a nice, subtle touch that was completely lacking from the remake, which went for the whole, “Leatherface was picked on when he was a kid, which is why he hacks up people.” 

 

19. Horror of Dracula (1958)

Dir. Terence Fisher
Running Time: 80 min.
Horror of Dracula is far and away my favorite Dracula film, largely because it moves at a very swift pace. The 1931 Dracula starring Bela Lugosi has a great opening in Transylvania, but comes to a complete halt once it switches locations to London.  The actors just stand around, read their lines, and wait for their cue to exit the scene; it’s like watching a stage play.  Christopher Lee as Dracula is a commanding presence, while Peter Cushing is wonderful as Van Helsing. Cushing’s no nonsense approach to the role really sells the threat of Dracula, while Lee is menacing regardless of what he is doing, be it baring his fangs at his potential victims or just walking into the frame.

18. Black Christmas (1974) 

Dir: Bob Clark
Running Time: 98 min.
Black Christmas has one of the most interesting gimmicks in history; a horror film in which you never actually see the killer. It’s this very ambiguity that makes it such a creepy film, the audience is never given a back story on who the killer is and why he is stalking a house of sorority girls, so they have to rely on their imaginations to fill in the blanks. However, despite never seeing the killer, the audience is still never given a chance to fully relax, because they are forced to listen to the killer; he calls up the sorority and makes obscene phone calls; after he kills a victim he laughs for what seems to be an eternity.  The film was remade in 2006 and (as is the case for most horror remakes) the body count increased while the very little was left to the imagination; in this case the killer was given an elaborate back story and looked like a cast off from The Hills Have Eyes.

17. Poltergeist (1982)

Dir: Tobe Hooper
Running Time: 112 min.
Poltergeist has two scenes that still creep me out:
1)  The opening shot, which begins on a close up a television signing off and then follows the family dogs as it walks room to room. Nothing happens onscreen, but it is completely unnerving, mainly due to the fact that it shot from the point of view of a child. This scene establishes that the family is being watched by an unseen force and that it’s only a matter of time before it reveals itself to the Freelings.

2) The attack on Robbie by the freaky clown doll. This scene is set up beautifully; first there is a shot of the clown doll sitting on a chair facing Robbie while he’s in bed. Then it cuts to Robbie as he hides his head beneath his blanket. Then he pulls down the blanket to see if the clown is still there, only to find to his horror that it has disappeared. He then checks to see if it is hiding under the bed and when he gets back up, the clown doll is standing right behind him and proceeds to attack him. I've seen this scene numerous times and it gets me every time.

16. House of Wax (1953)

Dir: Andre de Toth
Running Time: 88 min.
House of Wax is a remake of the 1933 Warner Brothers film Mystery of the Wax Museum and is a vast improvement. The original film is laden with comedy relief; the main protagonist is a wisecracking blonde reporter (Glenda Farrell) who is trying to solve the mystery of all the disappearing corpses from the city morgue and her research leads her to a Wax Museum in New York, where her roommate is the mad sculptor’s next target.  The remake does away with this character and focuses more on the mad sculptor’s (Vincent Price) attempt to recreate his old Wax Museum (that was burned down by his greedy partner, hoping to cash in on the insurance) in London by using the cadavers of murder victims. It’s biggest claim to fame is that it was shot in 3-D and, having seen it in 3-D, it’s one of the few films that actually works, largely because the director Andre de Toth fully embraces the gimmick, whether it’s relevant to the story or not. The most famous 3-D scene is the paddle ball man, who for no reason other than to show off the effect, continuously hits rubber balls at the screen, while telling the audience all about the wonders of the wax museum. It’s hokey, but it is a lot of fun and Vincent Price is in top form as the mad sculptor Jarrod.

15. Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Dir: George A. Romero
Running Time: 96 min.
Night of the Living Dead is almost relentless in its horror, because you never get the feeling that the characters are safe from the terror lurking outside. They don’t board themselves inside a house, because they are trying to find a solution, but rather out of a fear.  Even when the zombies are off screen, you get the feeling that it’s all going to come crashing down sooner rather than later. This is largely due to the fact that when the characters aren’t fighting the zombies they are at odds with one another. Harry Cooper thinks its best that they all go into the cellar and try to wait out the night, while Ben (the character the audience roots for) is adamant they remain in the living room, where they at least have a fighting chance if the zombies should break in. However, the irony of the film is that Ben survives the night by locking himself in the cellar, after the shit has hit the fan.  It’s a film that plays with the audience’s expectations, where we think one thing is going to happen, only to get blindsided by something else; the two romantic leads are killed in explosions and their remains gets gobbled up by the zombies, Helen is viciously murdered by her daughter, and Ben shoots an unarmed Harry.  It’s a disturbing film and is hard to shake off after having seen it. 

14. The Mummy (1959)

Dir: Terence Fisher
Running Time: 88 min.
Christopher Lee is my favorite Mummy actor of all time, with apologies to the great Boris Karloff. What I like about Lee’s mummy is that he is nothing but sheer, brute strength...a force of a nature to be reckoned with.  Boris Karloff’s Mummy (Ardeth Bay) used black magic to strike terror into the hearts of his enemies, but was physically weak. When Universal revived the series in the 1940s, starting with The Mummy’s Hand, the character of Kharis plodded through the scenery and never seemed a believable threat, despite the look of horror on the actor’s faces. The problem was that Kharis only had one good leg and one good arm; his victims could have easily gotten out of harm’s way had they just walked at a brisk pace, instead of just gawking at him like complete morons. Lee’s Mummy is a sight to behold; he smashes through doors, bends prison bars, and in one case gets impaled by a poker and still keeps on coming.   

13. Halloween (1978)

Dir: John Carpenter
Running Time: 90 min.
The creepiest aspect of Halloween is the idea that a seemingly normal kid for a normal family could just one day flip out and murder his teenage sister. The film never explains why this happened, but the implication is terrifying. The horrible Rob Zombie remake tries to fill in the blanks by giving Michael Myers an over the top back story; he comes from a dysfunctional family, his mother is a stripper and his dad is an abusive redneck that is stuck in a wheel chair. It’s a pretty needless opening and really doesn't give you much insight into the character of Michael Myers.  The original film left things to the imagination, while Zombie’s version does a full assault on the viewer’s senses, there’s nothing ambiguous about his film. There’s really nothing more I can say about Carpenter’s film that hasn't been said before, so I will use the awful pun from the 2003 making of documentary, it’s a “cut above the rest.”

12. Carnival of Souls (1962)

Dir: Herk Harvey
Running Time: 84 min.
Carnival of Souls was the only full length commercial film Herk Harvey ever did and it’s a good one.  An emotionally aloof woman finds herself drawn to a crumbling lake side a pavilion, while being stalked by a pale faced man. The film is amazingly effective in its simplicity; in one scene the heroine finds herself wandering the streets of Salt Lake City while citizen’s fail to acknowledge her existence, she literally becomes a lost soul.  In another jarring sequence, the heroine is driving at night, only to find a face staring at her through the passenger window. It’s these little moments that make the film so eerie. If they film were remade now a days, they would probably be CG ghoulies run amok, mutilating the people closest to the heroine as she decides what her next course of action  should be.

11. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1932)

Dir: Rouben Mamoulian
Running Time: 96 min.
There have been many adaptations of the Robert Louis Stevenson novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but Rouben Mamoulian’s is by far the best. This is largely due to Mamoulian’s imaginative direction; the first transformation is done in a long continuous take, the camera never leaves Jekyll as he slowly begins to change. This simple effect baffled film historians for years, it was until the 1990s (and after Mamoulian’s death) that it was figured out how it was done, let’s just say it involved lighting and filters. Fredric March is terrific as the suffering Dr. Jekyll and the feral Mr.Hyde.  As the film progresses Mr. Hyde becomes increasingly more and more terrifying, at first his antics are slightly comical as he is more a prankster than a monster, but with each successive transformation he turns a tad bit darker until he’s a fully fledged homicidal maniac.