Halloween is the time to gather around the table with family, eat some turkey, dye some Easter eggs, sing a few Christmas carols, and watch really corny horror movies on Turner Classic Movies. Here are my TCM picks for Halloween '15.
Two On A Guillotine (1965). Friday, Oct 2.
First of all, kudos to this awesome title, which sounds like a screwball buddy movie that takes place during the reign of Louis XIV. Not to worry, this is one of those "Okay, so I'll stay in the haunted mansion, how bad can it be?"-type movies that's about the daughter of a deranged magician who accidently lopped off the head of his beloved enabler of a wife 20 years prior. Upon his death, the magician bequeaths his vast riches to his daughter with the caveat that she must promise to spend one week in his creepy house. The fact that Two on a Guillotine stars Cesar Romero, Connie Stevens, and the recently deceased Dean Jones is the real draw here.
House of Dark Shadows (1970). Friday, Oct 2.
The cast list and plot are both byzantine, as if someone was trying to cram a year's worth of a daily serial into one movie — ya think? — but if you happen to be a Dark Shadows cultist, this is a really great opportunity to see something that isn't available online for free anywhere. As for the plot, Barnabas Collins doesn't want to be a vampire anymore because he sees a hot chick who's not having it. And who says men can't change?
Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970). Saturday, Oct. 3.
This is the absolute best sequel to the 1968 original, complete with creepy bald mutants who live in subway tunnels and communicate telepathically, nuclear warheads, and a starring role for Dr. Zaius. At the time, the nuclear war plot was a stand-in for Cold War tensions. It's not a stretch to see this film as a polemic against climate change today. "The Forbidden Zone was once a paradise," says Dr. Zaius. "Your breed made a desert of it, ages ago." Way to go, damn dirty homo sapiens.
La Commare Secca, a.k.a. The Grim Reaper (1962). Sunday, Oct 11.
To quote Tim Gunn, Bernardo Bertolucci's directorial debut at the wee age of 21 is pretty obviously "student work," although it nonetheless manages to be atmospherically eerie and well-done. The mysterious plot appears to riff on Kurosawa's Rashomon, with every character telling a different version of how a prostitute ended up dead. But "dead" and "prostitute" are enough for me to watch a movie.
Escape to Witch Mountain (1975). Wednesday, Oct 28.
Before she was the chief fuck-up on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Kim Richards was an apple-cheeked Disney kid, and this film is what she's best known for. The plot is a convoluted mess about Earth, other planets, and a brother and a sister who can communicate telepathically. Whether or not they descend from mutants who live in abandoned subways is never addressed. The film co-stars Donald Pleasence, who made Michael Myers his white whale for four Halloween sequels, although he'd already starred in many horror films prior to that.
Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972). Friday, Oct. 30.
Let's let this Hammer film's plot speak for itself: Jessica Van Helsing is a swingin' hippie who decides with her friends that it would be groovy to do a blood ritual and conjure up some black magic. Heavy. But this is especially dumb because her last name is Van Helsing, man, and the dead — as opposed to undead — Dracula gets the bat-signal that's she's having a hullabaloo and returns from the post-post-grave to feast on her friends. And Christopher Lee is the Count! Outta sight.
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