Halloween 2013 Day 1: Carrie (1976)

In the 1976 film Carrie, we're introduced to our protagonist as a reserved, isolated, mocked, and, most importantly, pure girl. When that purity is put into question, she begins to exhibit supernatural powers, specifically telekinesis, and her mother, abusive from the get go, begins to escalate her physical and emotional attacks on Carrie. As Carrie grows stronger and stronger, her high school peers begin to plot against her while her mother prays for her salvation.

Brian De Palma is a director who understands cinema better than most, and he guides what would be a rather uninspired script to a fantastic film. The editing in this film is superb, making great use of split screen and other, less traditional, tools in the cinematic arsenal. There's much more praise I could lay at the feet of De Palma. The soundtrack comes off as cheesy at times and the film might not have aged as well as some of its campier peers, but Carrie serves as an excellent piece of film.

The Omen (1976)

The Omen is another horror classic.
A couple's child is switched at birth with the antichrist. Its a really good satanic thriller and, much like the Shining, though obviously to a lesser extent, deserves its spot in not only horror and genre canon but american filmic canon itself.

Burnt Offerings (1976)

Okay, so the only reason I watched this was because John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats wrote on his website that his new record conveyed the same feeling as the scene on the train at sunrise at the end of The Warriors and this movie. That scene at the end of The Warriors is one of my favorite scenes in film and that album is the best Mountain Goats album in years so I figured this would be worth a shot.
I sincerely regret watching House of the Devil before this.
This was the movie House of the Devil was trying to be and for every ounce of love i felt towards House of the Devil, it was a full ton of love towards Burnt Offerings.
A family (Oliver Reed, Karen Black, Bette Davis, and the kid from Ben) move into an old, beat-up house for very little rent in exchange for taking care of an old reclusive woman in the attic. As their stay in the house goes on, a lot of accidents start happening, endangering the life of the entire family with the exception of Karen Black's character, who is developing a connection with the old attic woman. In the end, the house itself is using the family's life force in order to regenerate and return to an earlier state.
There is a level of just absolutely crushing fear that exists through out the movie. The idea that "Something is wrong here and we all need to get the hell out" is conveyed so well, I wanted to run away. But at the same time there's the idea of, "Well, maybe one more night," that seeps in when the going is maybe at its worst.
Definitely needing highlighting are the acting chops of Oliver Reed and Karen Black. Reed plays his character so perfectly:  A man with no control over himself or his surroundings, trying to hold on to something, anything, that would make the way he feels make sense. A way to reject the violence and fear he's felt since moving in. For him, those things happen to manifest as the chauffeur from his mother's funeral, smiling crazily at him when he feels the influence of the house, the insanity of his situation, the most. The influence on Nicholson's Jack Torrance is unmistakable.
Karen Black, on the other hand, is absolutely terrifying. As tense as Oliver Reed's character is, and as unsettling as The Chauffeur is, Black's acceptance of the house's evil influence manages to be scary on an extremely personal level. She shifts from the caring mother to the deranged murderer so subtly, the last scene in the film is actually shocking. Even with me telling you exactly what is happening, its still shocking.
This movie manages to so completely inundate the atmosphere with dread, so completely fill you with an almost existential fear, you become accustomed to it. You begin to welcome it. And when you finally embrace it and try to make the best of the horror you've lived for the last two hours, the film pulls out all the stops and leaves you face first in an unforgettable climax. This is a horror film for the ages.

Eraserhead (1976)

Really don't think i have enough graduate degrees in film study/literature to say any more than "this movie is totally amazing."
Also i think this is the oldest film i've done here to date !