Karen's picks:
1. Scream (1996)
A masked killer known as Ghostface terrorizes the small town of Woodsboro, and high school student Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) must try to stay alive as she finds herself the killer’s next target. A simultaneous satire of and homage to the slasher film genre, Scream is clever, gruesome, and darkly humorous and was responsible for reigniting the horror genre in the 90s. In one memorable scene, resident film geek Randy has an outburst (in a video store, no less): “The police are always off track with this shit! If they'd watch Prom Night, they'd save time! There's a formula to it. A very simple formula! EVERYBODY'S A SUSPECT!”, demonstrating both the film’s self-awareness and its whodunit aspect. Scream is one of those movies I can watch over and over again, and after all these years the scares are still fresh, the wit still sharp.
The Shining
3. Misery (1990)
4. Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
5. Shaun of the Dead (2004)
1. Beetlejuice (1988)
2. Let the Right One In (2008)
Oskar (Kare Hedebrant) is a twelve-year old boy regularly bullied by his classmates. He collects newspaper articles about murders; he keeps a hunting knife under his mattress. One night, he meets Eli (Lina Leandersson), a girl who has recently moved in next door. While the two kids slowly become friends, a neighbor man goes missing, and Hakan (Per Ragnar), the old man who lives with Eli, seems to be hiding something. If you want a vampire movie but don’t want to spend your time meaninglessly watching Bella Swan flirting with Edward Cullen, this might be the movie for you. This movie is very dark; it is realistic, cruel, and desperate. Characters are broken, people continue to die, and reality is harsh. I appreciate how ‘straight’ the director conveys the story; while it would be easy to portray a romantic relationship between a human and a vampire as overly dramatic or rosy, this down-to-earth story of love between bullied boy and bloodthirsty young vampire is both warm and frightening, dark yet delicate. This deep movie allows you to think, sympathize and imagine.
3. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
4. Little Shop of Horrors (1986)
5. The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
