by Michael Lyons
It's time to celebrate. Yes, celebrate Halloween, but while you're doing that, you can also celebrate three horror movies marking their 50th anniversary this year.
The year 1976 wasn't just a big year for patriotism, with the Bicentennial the focus, but also a major year for scary films, two of which have become classics of the genre and another that is woefully overlooked.
Let's give these fright films their due:
Carrie
Director Brian De Palma's adaptation of Stephen King’s debut novel has been remade as a film, a stage musical, and now a streaming series, but none compare to the original.
Carrie White (Sissy Spacek in an Oscar-nominated role), a painfully shy high school senior, is bullied by her classmates and dominated at home by her fanatically religious mother, Margaret (Piper Laurie, also Oscar-nominated).
Carrie discovers she has telekinetic powers and keeps them secret. Her classmate Sue Snell (Amy Irving) persuades her boyfriend, popular Tommy Ross (William Katt) to take Carrie to the prom. Margaret forbids Carrie to go, but she defies her mother, attends the dance, and is crowned prom queen.
Another classmate, Chris Hargensen (Nancy Allen), who has been plotting revenge, then dumps a bucket of pig’s blood on her, and Carrie unleashes her powers on the gym and everyone inside.
DePalma employs a number of techniques from split screen to slow motion and long tracking shots that all have their intended, scary effect. There's also John Travolta in one of his first film roles and a jump scare conclusion that, like everything in Carrie, is well-crafted and classic.
The Omen
A chilling, contemporary tale of evil on Earth that centers on American diplomat Robert Thorn (Gregory Peck), who, with his wife Katherine (Lee Remick), adopts a newborn orphan. As the boy grows up, deadly events occur - his nanny hangs herself; a priest warns Robert that Damien is the Antichrist before being impaled by a falling lightning rod; and a photographer, Keith Jennings (David Warner), who has noticed ominous shadows in his photos that predict the deaths, is killed, as well. Robert realizes Damien is the devil incarnate and must act, which leads him down a dark path.
Directed by Richard Donner, who would go on to helm Superman (1978), The Goonies (1985), and Lethal Weapon (1987), and featuring an unnerving, Oscar-winning score by Jerry Goldsmith, The Omen unfolds like a page-turning pulp fiction novel. And, let's not forget that eerie, ending shot.
Burnt Offerings
This is a truly underrated, forgotten horror movie gem.
Co-written and directed by Dan Curtis and adapted from Robert Marasco’s 1973 novel, Burnt Offerings centers on a family, Ben (Oliver Reed) and Marian Rolf (Karen Black), along with their young son Davey (Lee Montgomery) and their Aunt Elizabeth (Bette Davis), who rent a sprawling, run-down Victorian mansion for the summer.
It comes with one condition: the family must care for the owners’ reclusive elderly mother, who stays locked in an upstairs room and is never seen. Soon after moving in, Ben becomes prone to violent outbursts and is haunted by visions of a sinister chauffeur. Marian grows obsessed with the house and its unseen occupant. The family deteriorates, but the mansion’s neglected exterior begins to restore itself, as it feeds on its occupants.
Filled with moments of unease, Burnt Offerings provides a well-crafted take on the classic haunted house tale.
So, this year, as you celebrate Halloween, take time to celebrate 50 years of these masterful horror movies.
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