Halloween Screams

This is both a spooky ghost story and a great old-fashioned movie romance. A brother and sister move into an abandoned house by the sea. The woman (Russell), who spent her childhood in the house disapproves of the new tenants. Soon, the house itself seems to mirror her agitation. The brother and the woman fall in love and try to unravel the mystery of the house and the spirits that haunt it. There are some good jolts that even today retain their power.

Night of the Hunter (1955)
Director: Charles Laughton
Cast: Richard Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish

A misogynist, murderous preacher (Mitchum), in jail for his latest offense hears his cellmate talk about a stash of money in his sleep. The cellmate is executed and the preacher tracks down the man's children, whom he suspects to know the location of the cash. Very quickly, the children learn that this evil "preacher" will do anything to find the money. The scenes of the children's escapse from him are eerie, dreamy and full of tension. They are taken in by a tough widow named Rachel (Gish) who already has a group of orphans in her care. The preacher makes the mistake of thinking he can intimidate Rachel. In her best late performance, Gish is the rare horror heroine who never screams and stubbornly refuses to be victimized.

The Haunting (1963)
Director: Robert Wise
Cast: Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson, Russ Tamblyn

The original version of this movie is worlds away from the disastrous nineties remake. A doctor who is researching the existence of otherworldly spirits recruits a group of people with various helpful abilities to hole up in a big creepy house with him. Though most of the guests are skeptical when they arrive, they soon realize that there are strange and restless forces running wild in the corridors. The most interesting relationship in the movie is between Eleanor (Harris), an insecure woman who is trying to escape her unhappy life and Theodora (Bloom) a confident beatnik from Greenwich Village. The women are almost entirely opposite in every way, but once fear starts to creep over them, the differences start to disappear. The audience can share their fear completely because we know as little as they do about what mysterious force is rattling the doors in the middle of

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