The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966)

As October draws to a close, I've grown a little tired of genuine, often R-rated horrors, so I picked another comedy. I do have another purportedly scary movie on the way, but it's less Halloween-y.

Despite the Mrs. Muir-parodying title, no one is named or nicknamed "Mr. Chicken." Presumably, it refers to protagonist Luther (Don Knotts), whose propensity to getting spooked outdoes Scooby and Shaggy. But between a desire to advance his thus-far dismal career at a small-town Kansas newspaper and a desire to impress Alma (Joan Staley), a boarding house neighbor currently dating snide reporter Ollie (Skip Homeler), he agrees to spend the night at a reputedly haunted mansion around the 20th anniversary of an alleged murder-suicide and report on his experience. Obviously, something happens, but what will others make of Luther's story? In particular, what will the mansion's owner, Nicholas (Philip Ober), who plans to tear it down soon, do about this?

The Lighthouse (2019)

I don't think I'd ever seen a horror movie in a theater before, apart from a Rifftrax edition of Octaman, which made it more of a comedy. I had long assumed that horror, in contrast to comedy, was usually more effective when watched alone. It was high time I tested that theory.

Despite taking some inspiration from the Smalls Lighthouse Tragedy of 1801 in Wales, this story is set somewhere in New England around 1890. A young man who much prefers "Winslow" to "lad" (Robert Pattinson) starts a four-week job assisting old man Wake (Willem Dafoe) in tending a remote isle's lighthouse. Winslow's first sign that he's not going to enjoy it is how ill-kept the place is. His first sign of something strange going on is that Wake insists, against written protocol, that Winslow stay away from the light at the top. Most of the time, the two men have trouble getting along. Their stresses only get worse after bad weather prevents Winslow from leaving on time. At least one of them loses his grip on sanity....

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

The very title told me that I was unlikely to enjoy this movie. Nevertheless, it has strong recommendations from multiple horror-loving sources, and I didn't doubt its influence, predating all other slasher flicks that I know of except Psycho. And hey, if I could tolerate the saw scene in Scarface, I might be fine with this.

Five young adults take a van to rural Texas, because someone's been desecrating graves for macabre art where the grandfather of two of them was buried. The area is so remote that a gas station attendant says there won't be any gas for hours. The gang hangs out at the dead grandfather's old house, and two of them head out for fun. They get more excitement than they bargained for, as do the others when they come looking. You probably don't need a hint, but there is a slaughterhouse nearby....

Hereditary (2018)

Reception of this film varies wildly. Critics tend to laud it as a new classic, most general audiences give it average to moderately high ratings, and CinemaScore makes it out to be a dud. If nothing else, I would see Toni Collette in a horror role for the first time since The Sixth Sense. (She was getting sick of those and doesn't normally like horror, but this script called to her.)

The story begins with the apparently natural death of a reclusive, mysterious old woman who was diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder, but given what else happens, it probably wasn't that. She had had a complicated relationship with her daughter, Annie (Collette), who doesn't know how to feel about her death. Annie's 16-year-old son, Peter (Alex Wolff), is a little more rebellious than most because of past incidents that defy recovery. Her 13-year-old daughter, Charlie (Milly Shapiro), is far stranger and more disturbing, no doubt thanks to far more exposure to Grandma. As the title implies, Grandma's legacy lives on, in a bad way. But genetics has only a little to do with it. Of greater concern are her occult interests...and the locals who share them....

A Quiet Place (2018)

This was one of those times that I felt like I knew enough just from the trailer, with a couple extra details from a review or two. It's certainly simple in concept. I also postponed my viewing in the off chance that I found it too scary for comfort. But one of the few genuinely promising horrors on my queue could not be ignored all month.

The cast is quite small, because few people or animals are left alive by late 2020. For months, a blind but excellently hearing species has been annihilating and, I assume, devouring them. Our focus is on a single family living in a rural area, making trips to an abandoned town as needed. So great is their dread of attracting monsters that they rarely even whisper, opting for sign language and going barefoot everywhere. And lest you think that the plot amounts to a now-typical couple of days in their lives, the mother (Emily Blunt, actual wife of costar and director John Krasinski) is heavily pregnant....

The Ghost Breakers (1940)

Thought I'd add a genuine comedy to my October reviews. No, this is not much of a predecessor to the Ghostbusters movie series or even the Filmation Ghostbusters TV series. Dialog indicates that this kind of "ghost breaker" merely attempts to debunk rumors of hauntings. In any case, this movie is adapted from a play that had already been made into two silents, so there had to be some appeal to the writing.

Lawrence (Bob Hope) has a radio show in which he reports on crimes. One such report gets him enough unwelcome attention to spark a series of antics, ultimately landing him and his valet, Alex (Willie Best), on a ship to Cuba, along with newly met Mary (Paulette Goddard). Mary's going to check out her inheritance of Castillo Maldito on nearby Black Island, said to be a haunted treasure trove. Lawrence decides to accompany her, partly because he finds her lovely and partly because some greedy soul is trying to scare her away from the estate, both with rumors of haunting and with more solid threats.

Scream (1996)

When this came out, I was well aware of it but too young to watch it unaccompanied, and I doubt any adults in my life would have obliged. It wasn't really my genre anyway, or I would have seen it just a few years later. But since it made waves and retains moderately high ratings, it seemed useful for my education if nothing else.

In a small town whose apparent claim to fame has been a brutal murder almost exactly a year ago, more brutal murders suddenly crop up, this time targeting high school students. Sidney, daughter of the previous victim, narrowly escapes an attempt and can report that the killer wears a vaguely Munchian "Ghostface" mask and grim reaper cloak. He clearly knows the targets rather well, so paranoia spreads among ostensible friends.

Thelma (2017)

Having nothing to do with Thelma and Louise, this marks a truer transition to my pre-Halloween viewings than in my previous review. I knew very little going in: only that it was a recent supernatural horror, more popular on Rotten Tomatoes than on IMDb.

Norwegian college frosh Thelma has no friends at first, thanks partly to her overly controlling parents, whose Christian fervor has led her to abstain from alcohol among other things. When she first sits near attractive classmate Anja, Thelma gets the first seizure she can remember -- and subtly strange things happen nearby, such as lamps flickering and two birds smacking the window. A doctor tells her that there's more to her medical history than she ever knew. This is something more mysterious than epilepsy, no doubt triggered by stresses such as feeling what she considers forbidden desires, though she becomes more open to leaving her comfort zone. And whatever lies within her is capable of havoc, especially in her sleep, when the mind is less inhibited by ethics....

Caché (2005)

This may have been the most esteemed movie of the 2000s that I hadn't seen yet. I almost said "popular" instead of "esteemed," but it's mainly popular with the analytic types; its IMDb rating is a respectable yet hardly superb 7.3. With reviewer comparisons to Rear Window, I had to take a look.

An anonymous source sends videotapes of the outside of a home to its occupants, sometimes accompanied by crude drawings of an apparently violent nature. In the eyes of the Parisian police, this is not enough of a threat for them to do anything. Georges thinks of a prime suspect, Majid, but is reluctant to tell wife Anne who and why, much to her impatience. The reason pertains to a very old shame of his.