Smartypants Spookfest

 
For your Halloween viewing consideration, that is in case you decide to stick around at home instead of traipsing around in a ridiculous costume (you know you are too old for that shit):

Spook Your Intellect:
• The Innocents (Jack Clayton, 1961) Fabulous adaptation of A Turn of The Screw, by Henry James. With Deborah Kerr as a governess that is going Britishly bonkers. The original "I see dead people".
• Don't Look Now (Nicholas Roeg, 1973) or, Dread in Venice. Donald Sutherland, Julie Christie, Venice and menace. What more could one want?
• Repulsion (Roman Polanski, 1965) Catherine Deneuve loses it and there is an uncooked rabbit in the fridge. Yum.
• The Tenant (Roman Polanski, 1976). Hell is the neighbors. And your own mind. 
• The Shout (Jerzy Skolimowski, 1978) with Alan Bates (need I say more?) Brownie points if you understand what's going on, but a classic of 70's atmosphere.
• Nosferatu (F.W Murnau, 1922; Werner Herzog, 1979). Max Schreck or Klaus Kinski?
Do them both!
• Dead Ringers (David Cronenberg, 1988). A blood-curling performance by Jeremy Irons as gynecologist twins. Your pap smears will never be the same.
• Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson, 2008). Let the right movie in. The original, not the remake. 
• Pretty much anything by David Lynch, the master of nightmarish kitsch.  Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive are my favorites, but Eraserhead could also do the trick.

Classics:
• Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1962). The one and only. You'll never trust a shower curtain ever again. (And Frenzy, and Rebecca, and The Birds, The Lodger... )
• The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980).
• Rosemary's Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968). This should be the It's A Wonderful Life of Halloween.
• Dead of Night (Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden, Robert Hamer, 1945) Four elegant, creepy stories, the best one being Michael Redgrave, ventriloquist and his evil dummy. Chucky is small potatoes.
• Carnival of Souls (Herk Harvey, 1962). Super duper creepy B-movie.
• The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973) Garish and effective.
• Carrie (Brian de Palma, 1976). Nothing is scarier than adolescence. Do a double bill with Catherine Hardwicke's Thirteen. You see someone with acne and you will run for your life.

STSOOM (Scared The Shit Out Of Me): 
• The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1970)  Horribly horrible.
• Ringu (Hideo Nakata, 1998)
• The Sixth Sense (M. Night Shyamalan, 1999). It did, so sue me.
• The Orphanage (Juan Antonio Bayona, 2007).
• Paranormal Activity (Oren Peli, 2007). What can I say? I'm easy.

Got a beef with this list? Drop us a line in the comments.