The Hills Have Eyes is writer/director Wes Craven’s second horror film, preceded by The Last House on the Left. Again, he establishes an outsider versus insider mentality, expanding his focus from two young women going to a rock concert to an entire extended family traveling cross country to California. The approach to the stories is the same: after a horrific act of violence, the survivors attempt to fight back against their unhinged assailants in an unforgiving environment.
The big question that always surrounds Poltergeist is essentially an authorship debate. Tobe Hooper, a horror director best known at that point for incredibly violent B-movies like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Eaten Alive, was chosen to direct Poltergeist by producer/screenwriter Steven Spielberg. Spielberg already had a reputation for directing blockbuster pictures that could be enjoyed by a wide audience, like Raiders of the Lost Ark, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Jaws.
Season 2 of Masters of Horror was all about going there. Blame the censorship at the end of season 1 with the refusal to air Imprint. Or it could be that directors realized how much they could actually get away with and just ran with it. Right to Die is a horror film inspired by the debate over right-to-die legislation in the United States and it’s brutal. Read the full review over at The Avocado.
For younger horror fans, the choices are few and far between. Halloween specials are abundant, but actual stories about learning to confront and overcome fear are still not the most common. By all means, share the joy of some truly wonderful animated films like The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, Coraline, and Paranorman. I want to go a little deeper than that with this list.
Here are five of my favorite horror films that can be enjoyed by the entire family in a safe way for the little ones in your life.
Wendy is a new park ranger. She doesn’t have all the training and clearances yet, but she wants to prove her worth. After arriving late to her shift, she agrees to trade jobs with her friend Maya. It doesn’t take Wendy long to get off path, lose her map, lose her way, and stumble across a dead body. She calls in for help and is told, because she lost her way, that a rescue and recovery mission cannot happen until the next morning. Wendy is going to learn on the job with an overnight camping trip spent guarding the corpse of another adventurer who wandered off the path.
