Saboteur (1942)

Alfred Hitchcock's action thriller ended with an agonizing, breath-taking, harrowing death sequence - it was a terrifying, suspenseful bit of film-making and quick-cut editing.

After a cross-country chase, suspected saboteur Barry Kane (Robert Cummings) confronted (with a gun) the real fifth columnist and foreign saboteur Frank Fry (Norman Lloyd) on the top of the Statue of Liberty - on its torch held high above the water of New York harbor. Windblown against a cloudy sky, Fry lost his balance and fell over the side of the railing - he bounced once and was left clinging to the space between the immense base of the thumb and the forefinger that composed the concrete hand of the statue.

Fry's Fall From the Statue of Liberty - Clinging For Life

Kane climbed down to rescue the spy - he half-crouched and had one hand wrapped around part of the base of the torch. With his free hand, he could only reach and clutch Fry's coat jacket sleeve near the wrist. As Fry perilously hung there clinging for his life and perspiration beads appeared on his forehead, the sleeve began to tear apart at the seam where the arm joined the shoulder. The saboteur literally dangled by a thread.

As the split widened, Fry's terror-stricken face noticed that his entire coat jacket would soon separate. He cried out: "Quick, the sleeve, the sleeve!" And then his arm slipped suddenly out of the sleeve - in a disorienting, downward view from Kane's perspective, Fry fell away through space and dropped to his death many feet below. His face contorted, his body rotated awkwardly, and his screams became fainter as he approached the ground.

Salem's Lot (1979)

Director Tobe Hooper's horror-mystery-thriller ("The ultimate in terror") was based on Stephen King's classic 1975 vampire novel (his second work), and aired as a two-part CBS-TV-miniseries. It was Hooper's first Hollywood mainstream production after the cult success of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974). This early vampire film was said to have inspired other films, such as Fright Night (1985) and TV's Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997).

The frightening haunted house vampire tale was set in the New England town of Salem's Lot (aka Jerusalem's Lot) in Maine. In the story, writer Ben Mears (David Soul) moved back to the small town where he had grown up. He was writing a new psychological horror story novel about a sinister haunted house, the Marsten mansion, where he had been traumatized 25 years earlier. The site overlooked the town from a nearby hill.

Richard T. Straker (James Mason), the merchant owner of a new antique store, had recently purchased the mansion, claiming it was for his business partner, Mr. Kurt Barlow (Reggie Nalder) - soon revealed as the film's demonic, ancient, Nosferatu-like Master vampire, with a blue face, pointed ears, and bloodshot eyes.

A series of killings occurred - leaving the victims drained of their blood, after the midnight delivery of an otherworldly crate (containing Barlow) to the Marsten house. The police immediately suspected the newest members in town - writer Ben and new store owner Straker. Ben teamed with horror-monster movie and magic fan Mark Petrie (Lance Kerwin) in the belief that vampires had risen from their graves to torment the living.

There were quite a few striking and gripping set-pieces or sequences:

• Ralphie Glick (Ronnie Scribner), a young boy who had recently died, returned as a vampire to "visit" his brother, Danny Glick (Brad Savage). Ralphie hovered and swirled around in a misty cloud just outside his hospital bedroom window, and scratched/tapped on the glass. In a trance-like state (Danny was unaware that he knocked over his IV drip), Danny opened the window and took a step backward - Ralphie floated toward him, before falling slightly downward and biting down on his neck - before a fade to black.

Ralphie at Danny's Hospital Bedroom Window
Danny in Hospital	Ralphie Outside Window
Vampirish Ralphie	Ralphie Biting into Danny's Neck

• gravedigger Mike Ryerson (Geoffrey Lewis) was digging the gravesite for the deceased Danny - an undead vampire boy. He jumped into the grave and became entrapped by Danny's gaze - as the boy was lying in the grave's coffin, looking malevolent with entrancing eyes that were open and glinting. The corpse suddenly sat up and then in a slow-motion shot, the boy bit into Mike's neck - before another fade to black.
• in a similar scene parallel to the earlier one (with Ralphie and Danny), Mark watched in bed as Danny Glick eerily floated up in a cloud of mist - tapping and scratching at his bedroom window and asking to come in: "Open the window, Mark. Please, let me in. It's OK, Mark. I'm your friend. He commands it." As Mark (with tears in his eyes) was about to open the latch, he actually locked it. He turned and noticed a plastic crucifix in his table-model of a graveyard. He held it out in front of him - directed at Danny. As he ordered: "Go away!," Danny flinched at him and resisted, but then drifted away. [Note: The scene was referenced in The Lost Boys (1987).]
• Marjorie Glick (Clarissa Kaye-Mason), the mother of two already-undead boys, rose or sat up from a morgue table and was graphically dispatched with a makeshift crucifix made of two throat depressors taped together, held against her face by Ben.

The Death of the Mansion Owner - Master Vampire Barlow - Ben Pounded a Stake Through Its Heart

• Ben and Mark in the foreboding Marsten house cellar struggled to stake (through the heart) Barlow’s blue-faced body in his coffin as his nearby sleeping brood of vampires (the dead townsfolk) woke up when the sun set. They succeeded and then set the house on fire - to purify it and the entire town.
• in the final scare ending set two years later, Ben was about to be seduced by his romantic love interest, schoolteacher Susan (Bonnie Bedelia) who was in his bed. As he was about to kiss her, she was prepared to bite into his neck, but he thrust a stake into her heart.

Saw (2004)

#3

Saw (2004), a psychological thriller and a prime example of "torture porn," was the directorial debut of filmmaker James Wan. In the endless series of Saw films (seven in all by 2010), sadistic mastermind serial killer and terminally-ill cancer patient Jigsaw (Tobin Bell), known as "The Jigsaw Killer," devised impossible live-or-die situations for victims (who lacked an appreciation for life). In them, individuals had to make outrageous moral choices to survive in the trap-filled environments, while self-inflicting lethal wounds and finding a new "life-purpose."

Two men were kidnapped and imprisoned in a large, sealed, derelict industrial bathroom - chained by their ankles to pipes on opposite sides of the room:

• Adam Faulkner Stanheight (Leigh Whannell), a photographer
• Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes), a surgeon/oncologist

Between them was a dead corpse on the floor, clutching a hand-held tape player, and lying in a pool of blood from a self-inflicted gunshot wound (with a gun in his hand). There were tapes to be played by each man:

• Lawrence Gordon learned from his microcassette recording that he had to kill Adam within 8 hours (by 6 o'clock) or his wife Alison Gordon (Monica Potter) and daughter Diana (Makenzie Vega) would die.
• Adam learned that he had to escape the bathroom - to avoid being killed by Lawrence.

In the room was a bag with two hacksaws - presumably both would use the hacksaws, not to saw through their chains to escape, but to saw off their limbs: ("He wants us to cut through our feet!"). Lawrence had to slaughter Adam within a period of time, or his family would die.

Everything devised was part of a plan by a sick serial killer named Jigsaw. As the deadline approached, hospital orderly Zep Hindle (Michael Emerson), who was monitoring the two men with video surveillance, broke into Lawrence's house and attacked his family. Zep was holding them captive, and was planning to murder them if Lawrence failed to kill Adam by 6 am. (A tape later revealed that Zep was also under the control of the "Jigsaw Killer" in order to save himself from a slow poisoning death and acquire an antidote.)

In desperation by 6 pm (after hearing shots and screaming through the video-hookup - Alison was able to escape, and Zep was forced to flee), Lawrence sawed off his own foot to break free. Then, he shot Adam with the corpse's gun (but it was a non-lethal wound in the shoulder) and then crawled away for help (and presumably bled to death in the room). In flight (after being attacked by Alison, and wounded by a gunshot), Zep entered the bathroom to kill Gordon, but Adam grabbed a toilet tank lid and bashed Zep to death. Adam searched Zep's pockets and located another tape, confirming the reason why Zep was following orders from Jigsaw.

Various Non-Human (and Human) Visages of the Jigsaw Killer ("Live or Die, Make Your Choice")
"I want to play a game"	Bloodied Dead Man on Floor was "Jigsaw Killer" (Tobin Bell)	Flashback: "He's a very interesting person..."
Adam Zapped on the Floor	"Game Over"	Adam Left Screaming on the Floor as the Door Slammed Shut, Sealing His Fate

Then, in the trick ending, the true mastermind behind the entire scheme was the man posing as the bloodied dead body on the floor the entire time. The dead body rose up, removed some of his makeup, and revealed himself as terminally-ill brain cancer patient, John Kramer - the "Jigsaw Killer." The killer revealed that the key to unlock Adam's chain went down the bathtub drain when Adam first woke up and the tub emptied ("The key to that chain is in the bathtub"). (Flashback: "He's a very interesting person. His name is John. He has an inoperable frontal lobe tumor").

To retaliate, Adam tried to shoot Adam with Zep's gun, but was shocked (electrocuted) by the killer's remote (that had now shocked both Adam and Gordon) and he dropped the gun. As the killer left the darkened and sealed bathroom and slammed the door, Adam heard his words: "Most people are so ungrateful to be alive, but not you, not any more...Game over." Adam screamed back - knowing his fate was sealed: "Don't! Don't! No!"

Another earlier victim, a 46 year-old male named Paul Leahy (Mike Butters), had to claw through a cage of razor wire to reach safety within two hours, but he didn't succeed. Detectives David Tapp (Danny Glover), Steven Sing (Ken Leung) and Kerry (Dina Meyer) entered a trap door and descended some stairs as they came upon the crime scene (lit in lime-green). Kerry noted the victim while black and white crime photos were taken of the bloody corpse:

"This one's not fresh anymore. At least three weeks out...Died of massive blood loss. Mostly through the femoral artery. He started at the back of the cage and tunneled his way through that razor-wire so fast, it's amazing he got as far as he did. Cut himself so deep we found traces of stomach acid on the floor."

Kerry also explained how they had found a cassette tape, instructing Paul about the 'Razor Wire Room' (with some flashbacks):

"Hello Paul. You are a perfectly healthy, sane, middle-class male. Yet last month, you ran a straight razor across your wrists. Did you cut yourself because you truly wanted to die, or did you just want some attention? Tonight, you'll show me. The irony is that if you want to die, you just have to stay where you are, but if you want to live, you'll have to cut yourself again. Find the path through the razor-wire to the door - but hurry. At 3:00, that door will lock and then, this room becomes your tomb. How much blood will you shed to stay alive?"

One of the additional wounds found on Paul's body was a piece of flesh carved out in the shape of a jigsaw puzzle piece - hence the name Jigsaw killer, although it was a misnomer: "Technically speaking, he's not really a murderer. He never killed anyone. He finds ways for his victims to kill themselves."

In an earlier flashback, another victim was heroin addict Amanda Young (Shawnee Smith), who was outfitted with a bizarre booby-trapped jaw device (a "reverse beartrap") that would blow her head wide open if she didn't find a key to unlock it. The key was inside the guts of another heavily-sedated, semi-conscious victim - her cellmate, that she was forced to kill. She knifed open the person's abdomen, found the slimy and bloody key, and removed the beartrap just before it activated. She was one of the few survivors of one of Jigsaw's traps.

Saw II (2005)

#16

This second Saw film in 2005 (the first sequel to the 2004 original) was another squirm-inducing movie for audiences who delighted in 'torture-porn.' It featured the same villainous mastermind serial killer dubbed the Jigsaw killer (aka John Kramer (Tobin Bell)). Jigsaw's twisted motive was to inspire others to value and appreciate life.

In this installment, eight victims in a lethal, booby-trapped house faced similar dire circumstances that forced them to use ingenuity and fortitude to survive.

In a horrific 'needle pit' scene, returning victim Amanda Young (Shawnee Smith) - the only known survivor of Jigsaw's malevolent schemes - was thrown into a pit filled with about 80,000 used, dirty hypodermic syringes where a key was hidden. As she dug for the key, she screamed mercilessly as needles and syringes stuck to all parts of her body, and a digital timer engaged in a countdown.

And in the 'razor-box' room scene, Addison Corday (Emmanuelle Vaugier) grabbed at a vial of antidote with her hands inside a glass cage or box above her where the arm-socket openings were one-way, with sharp metal razor blades interlocked together that cut her limbs when she tried to retract them.

Victim Addison Corday (Emmanuelle Vaugier) in a Razor-Box

Scanners (1981)

#14

David Cronenberg's science-fiction horror film was about the incredible and awesome abilities of certain individuals (known as 'scanners') who had remarkable psycho-telekinetic and mind-reading powers. The film became infamous for its early sequence of a brain-bursting, exploding-head.

A private military company known as ConSec, involved in the business of security systems and weapons, was interested in recruiting 'scanners' (those with telepathic and telekinetic powers) to take down a group of renegade scanners led by 'bad' Scanner renegade-rogue villain Darryl Revok (Michael Ironside).

In ConSec headquarters during an ESP conference and marketing event, Revok volunteered to come on-stage with one of ConSec's scanners (Louis Del Grande credited as First Scanner), who was proposing to eventually scan everyone's thoughts in the room. The ConSec scanner prefaced the powerful telepathic demonstration with some caution:

"I would like to scan all of you in this room, one at a time. I must remind you that the scanning experience is usually a painful one, sometimes resulting in nosebleeds, ear-aches, stomach cramps, nausea. Sometimes other symptoms of a similar nature."

The scanner then instructed the volunteer Darryl Revok to display his telekinetic powers: "Now I'd like you to think of something specific. Something that will not breach the security of your organization and that you will not object to having disclosed to this group. Something personal, perhaps." After Revok responded: "All right, yes, I have something," he demonstrated his brain-bursting telekinetic powers.

The Infamous Brain-Bursting Exploding Head Scene: Darryl Revok vs. ConSec Scanner

In a duel with ConSec's scanner, he exploded the head of the man, showering the front of the room with blood, brains, and skull matter, causing pandemonium and chaos in the audience. As Darryl was taken away by security at gunpoint, he asserted: "I didn't do anything." Although taken into custody, Darryl successfully resisted an injection of Ephemerol, and killed numerous security guards with further scanning powers before escaping. The next day, ConSec announced the results of their conference with 'telepathic curiosities' known as scanners: "The result: six corpses and a substantial loss in credibility for our organization."

Later in a second horrific scene - a vicious psychic showdown, Darryl Revok (who was still seeking world domination with a group of rebel scanners) threatened to use his scanner powers on his long-lost scanner brother Cameron Vale (Stephen Lack), who obstinately refused to join his conspiracy to dominate the world with scanners. They engaged in a mind-control battle after Darryl denounced his brother:

"You're not listening to me. You're not cooperating, Cam. You're not cooperating with me at all. I've been counting on you for years, Cameron. Tell me you're not gonna betray me like all the rest. Tell me you're not. (Cameron struck Darryl in the face with a large stone paperweight.) All right. We're gonna do it the scanner way. I'm gonna suck your brain dry! Everything you think you are is gonna become me. You're gonna be with me, Cameron, no matter what. After all, brothers should be close, don't you think?"

Veins in Cameron's arms became to expand dangerously and bleed as a result of Darryl's savage psychic attack, and his swollen face became bloodied as he grabbed at his peeling and corroding face. Before dying from his heart bursting and from internal combustion, Cameron was able to send one final shot toward his screaming brother, whose cheeks and face exhibited pulsating swollen veins while his eyes turned white.

Cam's body spontaneously ignited, and afterwards his incinerated corpse was found on the floor, although it was revealed that he had been able to inhabit Darryl's body and take control of it.

As a result, Darryl now had Cam's blue eyes, and was missing the forehead scar-mark between his eyebrows. Huddled in a corner of the room under a coat, Darryl spoke in Cam's voice to Kim Obrist (Jennifer O'Neill):

"Kim. It's me, Kim. Cameron. I'm here. We've won. We've won."

Scream (1996)

#13

Director Wes Craven's significant, teen-slashing thriller revived the tired-out horror film sub-genre. The self-reverential, tongue-in-cheek horror film opened with a sudden, unexpected, murderous stalking and ultra-sadistic demise of a very familiar movie actress - Drew Barrymore. Viewers asked themselves about the disorienting sequence - was it just a nightmare or part of the film's 'game'?

In the opening 12-minute prologue scene, all-American girl, sweatered Casey Becker (Drew Barrymore in a cameo) was alone preparing Jiffy Pop pop-corn to watch a video at home when she received a number of initially playful phone calls, when he asked: "Do you like scary movies?" She was asked a trivia question: what was her favorite scary movie? She replied Halloween (1978), but then when she was asked if she had a boyfriend, she lied that she didn't.

Then, when she was asked her name, she wanted to know why and received a very chilling reply: "Because I want to know who I'm looking at." Then, he changed what he had first asked when confronted to: "I want to know how I'm talking to."

Shortly afterwards after having up again on the caller, the repeated terrifying calls turned obscene, threatening and ugly on his next call:

"No, you listen, you little bitch! You hang up on me again, I'll gut you like a fish, understand?...Can you handle that - Blondie?"

When she rushed around to lock all the doors, and demanded to know what the caller wanted, the caller simply replied:

"To see what your insides look like."

When the doorbell rang, the startled Casey asked: "Who's there?", she was reminded by the caller:

"You should never say 'Who's there?' Don't you watch scary movies? It's a death wish."

She then threatened that her boyfriend would be arriving soon: "He's big and he plays football, and he'll kick the s--t out of you!" Casey was instructed to turn on the patio lights, where she saw her bruised boyfriend Steve (Kevin Patrick Walls) tied up and gagged with duct tape across his mouth.

In a game of movie trivia, the phone-caller then asked two questions - if she answered correctly, Steve was promised to live:

"Name the killer in Halloween?" (She answered correctly, Michael Myers.)
"Name the killer in Friday the 13th?" (She answered incorrectly. Her answer: "Jason.")

She was corrected with the proper answer: "Mrs. Voorhees," Jason's mother -- the phone caller explained: "Jason didn't show up until the sequel." Casey's boyfriend was killed for her wrong answer. She was asked one further question about where the caller was located: "What door am I at?" (front door and two sets of patio doors); when the killer crashed through the patio doors, Casey fled, grabbed a knife in the kitchen, snuck out the second set of patio doors, and hid.

Outside, Casey was jump-scared and grabbed through a broken window in the patio door by Ghostface (wearing a Halloween costume), who then chased her across the lawn as her parents pulled into the driveway nearby. She was grabbed from behind, choked, and stabbed directly in the upper chest. After falling to the ground, she kicked Ghostface away, who attempted a few more fatal stab wounds as her parents got out of their car, stepped onto the front porch and entered the front door - without ever seeing or hearing her. Ghostface raised his bloody knife a few final times and plunged it deep into Casey.

She was dragged on the lawn and hung from the front yard's tree for her shocked, screaming parents to view. Later, Tatum Riley (Rose McGowan) confirmed what the caller wanted: "Her mom and dad found her hanging from a tree limb, her insides on the outside."

The Searchers (1956)

In the pre-massacre scene of John Ford's classic western, Comanche Chief Scar's (Henry Brandon) shadow slowly moved over and menacingly covered the figure of young, frightened 10 year old Debbie (Lana Wood, younger sister of co-star Natalie Wood), who was crouched by a family grave.

The Sentinel (1977)

#46

Michael Winner's horror film, a Satanic thriller (following the spate of similar films at the time including Rosemary's Baby (1968), The Exorcist (1973), and The Omen (1976), with a dash of Tod Browning's Freaks (1932), was based on the 1974 novel by co-scripter Jeffrey Konvitz.

[Note: Controversially, director Michael Winner tastelessly used real-life deformed or handicapped freaks as Satan's minions - or Hell's inhabitants.]

The basic plot was that a gorgeous NYC fashion supermodel named Alison Parker (Cristina Raines), reluctant to marry, moved into a brand-new brownstone apartment in Brooklyn Heights - the building was soon revealed to be a gateway or portal to hell. Its proprietors were also revealed to be a secret society or group of excommunicated Catholic priests called The Brotherhood of Protectors.

On the top floor (5th) lived mysterious, senile and blind priest Father Francis Matthew Halliran (John Carradine) who always sat by his open window - a gatekeeper (or Sentinel) who guarded the gates so that the demons inside couldn't escape.

The emotionally-disturbed and neurotic model Alison met some of her strange neighbors in the apartment building:

• Charles Chazen (Burgess Meredith) - an eccentric, with a black and white cat named Jezebel and a yellow pet parakeet named Mortimer on his shoulder.
• Gerde Engstrom (Sylvia Miles) and Sandra (Beverly D'Angelo in her screen debut) - two lesbian lovers in the ground-floor apartment; Sandra openly masturbated to orgasm through her red leotard in front of Alison. The two boasted about what they did for a living: "We fondle each other."

Alison began having frightful attacks of insomnia and incidents including noises in the night from neighbors, loud metal-banging sounds, and a swinging chandelier. She had experienced a flashback to a past suicide attempt during her traumatic childhood - cutting her wrists after she accidentally interrupted her elderly father (Fred Stuthman) having sex with two gross and obese women. He slapped her and ripped a crucifix from her neck and smashed it on the floor. She also had bluish-tinged nightmares (of her fellow nude apartment dwellers).

Alison's Flashbacks and Bluish-Tinged Nightmares of Her Neighbors
Her Father Having a Sex Orgy

At lunch, her rental agent Miss Logan (Ava Gardner) tried to reassure her about her new bargain-priced living quarters at $400/month: "Aside from the priest, and now of course, you, nobody has lived in that building for three years." When they returned to the building, in one of the film's creepiest scenes, she was shown that the other apartments were vacant and covered in cobwebs!

In the film's scariest stalking sequence during another sleepless night, Alison feared that she was losing her mind. She went to investigate (with one of her white slip shoulder straps down), armed with a flashlight and butcher knife. Completely spooked at the top of the staircase, she saw Charles' pet cat Jezebel eating the parakeet Mortimer.

Alison's Scary Stalking Sequence by Zombified Father

A door opened to an apartment and a grotesque, deformed creature (with totally white eyes) walked by. She asked: "What do you want from me? Who are you?" She turned on her flashlight aimed toward a dark shadowy area, and the ghastly ghoul - the ghost of her dead father stared back at her. As he approached, she backed up, and her flashlight revealed the two fat naked zombies from her father's sex orgy a few years earlier. She stabbed at her zombie father with her knife, cutting into his arm, stomach, forehead, and nose before he collapsed at her feet.

While briefly hospitalized for the trauma caused, Alison's lawyer boyfriend of two years Michael Lerman (Chris Sarandon) discovered that the names of some of the other tenants were those of notoriously convicted murderers now deceased. Unbeknowst to her, Alison had been chosen as the new replacement Sentinel or 'gatekeeper" - to cleanse herself of her sins (the mortal sin of attempted suicide). The tagline gave away the plot:

"She was young. She was beautiful. She was next!"

In the anti-climactic ending, the frightened female was chased toward the top floor by her zombified neighbors, the cannibalistic lesbian lovers, and her now dead boyfriend Michael (he had been condemned to hell for having his wife murdered!). Charles urged Alison to end her torment by killing herself, and he offered her a knife: "Welcome home. Don't be afraid. We've been waiting for you. You're such a sweet child....You are here to join us...Be one of us."

They entered into Father Halliran's room, where she was cornered, and was compelled to end her life. Ultimately, rather than committing suicide, she replaced Father Halliran as the gate-keeper - she became a reclusive blind nun sitting at the top floor's open window as he had.

The Secret of NIMH (1982)

Animator Don Bluth's directorial debut film, a fantasy-adventure drama, was based upon the 1971 children's novel Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, [the National Institute of Mental Health] by Robert C. O'Brien.

There were many unusually intense moments in this G-rated animated film:

• Tiny and timid little field mouse Mrs. Brisby (voice of Elizabeth Hartman) took a perilous adventure into the world to help save her sickly, pneumonia-sick son Timothy - where she encountered farmer Fitzgibbon's (voice of Tom Hatten) imposing cat named Dragon.
• Mrs. Brisby proceeded to speak to The Great Owl (voice of John Carradine) in his hollow tree abode, who commanded her to enter into his dark, cobweb-filled home: "Come inside or go away." She was startled when she uneasily slipped on bones of his previous mouse victims. She was followed by a menacing deadly spider, who was fortunately squished underfoot by the Owl - when the glowing-eyed creature made his first scary appearance.
• Mrs. Brisby had another frightening encounter with power-hungry Jenner (voice of Paul Shenar), the rat leader of a group of rodents (rats and mice) who had narrowly escaped from the NIMH after being subjected to laboratory experiments.

Mrs. Brisby's Sinking Home

The Amulet-Stone

• After learning that the NIMH was plotting to exterminate the rats and other animals, Mrs. Brisby decided to seek help to move her cement block home. During a thunderstorm, the cinder block house (hoisted by a rope and pulley system) sank into the mud and couldn't be saved, seemingly killing her three young children.
• However, her courageous bravery, coupled with the magical amulet (the "Stone") that she was wearing, saved her children.

The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988)

#29

Director Wes Craven's chilling, and menacing supernatural horror film was inspired by the 1985 semi-autobiographical book by Wade Davis, who recalled his real-life experiences in Haiti regarding live burials and revived zombies. The film's tagline foretold the film's conclusion: "Don't bury me...I'm not dead!" It began with the written prologue:

"In the legends of voodoo, the Serpent is a symbol of Earth. The Rainbow is a symbol of Heaven. Between the two, all creatures must live and die. But because he has a soul, Man can be trapped in a terrible place where death is only the beginning."

The effectively-scary film was rampant with surreal, hallucinatory and horrific nightmare images, including zombies, jaguar spirits, spirit possession, an eyeball and a cheek poked with a needle, a snake coming out of the mouth of a dessicated bride corpse, a scorpion emerging from another dead man's mouth, clawing arms reaching out as the protagonist was pulled into a deep pit in the ground, a blood-filled coffin, a mummified hand emerging from a soup bowl, a person decapitating himself, and outstretched hands attacking in a jail corridor.

Jaguar Spirit	Pulled Into Deep Pit
Attacking Snake from Maw of Corpse Bride	Disembodied Mummified Hand
Lucien Celine Pulling Off His Own Head
Hands Attacking in Corridor	Buried in Hell After Fiery Death

Overwrought Harvard anthropologist/scientist Dennis Alan (Bill Pullman), nicknamed Blanc (for his white skin), was searching for a strange, magical revitalizing powder in Haiti used by voodoo practitioners. He was sent by the pharmaceutical company Biocorp to the island to search for this powerful and potentially-profitable - yet elusive anesthetic powder. He was aided by beautiful and sensuous medic Marielle (Cathy Tyson). Immediately, he was opposed by evil, sadistic, voodoo arch-lord Dargent Peytraud (Zakes Mokae), a villainous individual (a practicing voodoo houngan) who was in control of the secret police (the Ton-tons Macoutes).

Peytraud had the ability to transplant nightmares into Dennis' mind: "The pain I cause you in the room upstairs is nothing to the pain I can cause in your own mind." Dennis, with the hex powder used on him, was menaced by Peytraud with a blowtorch, while strapped in a chair:

"You've got a pretty face. The girls must like it. Do you like it, your pretty white face? I asked you a question."

Then Peytraud leaned forward and told his intentions, to instill fear rather than to inflict injury: "I want to hear you scream." He pounded an iron spike into Dennis' groin area, as the pained victim accommodated him by screaming at the top of his lungs, although Peytraud complained about the effort: "Not good enough!"

After the paralyzing powder (or mystery drug) was blown into his face during a subsequent attack, Dennis' body (with a bloody cross marked on his forehead) contorted, and he fell down, begging: "Don't let them bury me! I'm not dead!" before he went unconscious. After being abducted from a medical facility, Dennis was totally conscious during a live burial conducted by Peytraud. He was able to experience the power first-hand when he was paralyzed and placed in a wooden coffin - buried alive and lying still and emotionless with a tarantula placed inside the box ("to keep you company"). He was unable to move, even when the tarantula in the coffin crawled across his eyeball - visible only by the light of a carved crucifix in the coffin's wooden lid. As dirt was scooped into the grave, he heard from a distance: "When you wake up scream, Doctor Alan. Scream all you want. There is no escape from the grave."

He awoke with a fright in pitch blackness, gasping for air. His screams brought attention, and his coffin was dug up from under the dirt - and he was resurrected.

Buried Alive (With a Tarantula) - and Then Dug Up

Nightclub owner Lucien Celine (Paul Winfield) was killed by Peytraud's use of dark magic - signified by a scorpion crawling out of his mouth. In the exciting conclusion, Alan - with the help of love interest Marielle and his own jaguar spirit, defeated Peytraud and broke all of the urns holding the souls of the people the villainous voodoo arch-lord had killed. Peytraud was burned alive, and then with Dennis' telekinetic powers, Peytraud was tortured in the same chair used for his own scrotum-spiking (the 9-inch spike was levitated and then speared into Peytraud's crotch), and the evil master was consumed by the ground towards Hell.

Session 9 (2001)

In this paranoic thriller from writer/director Brad Anderson - similar to The Shining (1980) and Don't Look Now (1973), an asbestos cleaning crew worked at the condemned and abandoned mental institution. It was the real Danvers Lunatic Asylum, with a dark past, tortured patients, and a psychologically-unsettling feeling of dread within every corridor and room.

The film's scariest and most disquieting moments:

• Ex-law student drop-out and one of the asbestor workers named Mike (Stephen Gevedon) had discovered recorded interviews in a box marked "evidence" in a file room during the cleaning. He progressively listened to nine psychotherapy session audio-tapes (a case history labeled Session 1 to Session 9), more and more chilling as they progressed.
• The recordings were from 1974 of a former, 37 year-old female patient named Mary Hobbes (aka patient 444) suffering from multiple personalities. Her repressed and hidden memories from her troubled past, brought out by hypnosis, revealed that the cause of her insanity was domestic abuse from her father. Her personalities were varied:
  • "Princess" - innocent and talkative
  • "Billy" - a protector who saw everything
  • "Simon" - the most evil of all of her personalities
• It was learned that something evil happened with a knife ("he cut her up real bad") and a China doll one Christmas night in Lowell, Massachusetts - [Note: The 'evil' was later revealed to be an horrific set of murders committed by Mary when she was 14 years old.]
• By film's end with a plot twist (the true mystery), the mystery focused on the hallucinating, possessed and stressed-out foreman/owner Gordon Fleming (Peter Mullan) of the asbestos cleaning crew. He was a struggling new father who seemed to have come under the dark spell of the haunted hospital's cruel past. He was given the contract for the hazardous work, promising to have it completed in a week. At the end of the first work-day, he had not only hurt but murdered his family (his wife Wendy and young child Emma), and was now alone, living in Mary's hospital room (with family pictures on the wall). However, he seemed to talk to his wife on the phone from time to time afterwards, asking for her forgiveness. He had also murdered all of his crew workers, one-by-one ("There was a lot of blood, Doc, so much blood").
• In the film's voice-over, a semi-surprise ending, a recording of Session 9 was heard. The voice of alternate personality "Simon" spoke (a possessed, grief-stricken, deeply-conflicted Gordon). He described the circumstances of the 1951 murders - when 14 year-old Mary had murdered her brother and the rest of her family. In the recording, the psychotherapist asked 'Simon': "And where do you live, Simon?" Simon (with Mary's voice) replied: "I live in the weak and the wounded, Doc."
• Presumably - as a way to protect himself from the horrors of his own crime - he had been possessed by "Simon" and murdered his family, reflecting in parallel fashion what Mary had admitted to the psychotherapist about her own murders.

Se7en (1995)

#26

The premise of director David Fincher's neo-noir crime thriller was that the many sick and gruesome crime-murders committed by maniacal serial killer John Doe (Kevin Spacey), were based upon the famous Seven Deadly Sins (gluttony, greed, sloth, lust, pride, envy, and wrath). The actual murders were off-screen, but described in gruesome detail.

• Gluttony - the obese victim (Bob Mack), lying face-down with his head in a bowl of spaghetti, was forced to feed himself to death, with a bucket of vomit next to him. A blow to his engorged stomach forced him to hemorrhage. His dark and dingy apartment was filled with rotting food, flies, and roaches.
• Greed - the victimized wealthy attorney Eli Gould (Gene Borkan) suffered lethal bloodletting.
• Sloth - the victim Victor (Michael Reid MacKay) (an ex-drug dealer and pedophilic child molester, defended in a case by Eli Gould - see above), was strapped to a bed to suffer a slow death for a year, with minor amounts of IV drugs and medications. His emaciation was chronicled by snapshots taken by the killer -- there was an additional scary moment when the seemingly-dead corpse slightly rose up and coughed.
• Lust - a victimized prostitute/masseuse (Cat Mueller) in a massage parlor was murdered by a severely-distressed and crazed man (Leland Orser) who had been forced to rape and kill her. The traumatized 'John' was ordered at gunpoint by the serial killer to strap on a dildo with a knife blade in place of a phallus.
• Pride - a pretty model (Heidi Schanz) suicidally chose to kill herself in her bedroom with an overdose of sleeping pills (rather than phoning an ambulance for help), because of her mutilated, sliced and disfigured face - her nose had been cut off.

Crime Scenes - Some of the Seven Deadly Sins
Gluttony	Greed	Sloth
Lust	Pride	Envy (confessed by Serial Killer John Doe)

In the unforgettable, nail-biting, concluding climax, John Doe led arrogant, hotshot replacement Detective David Mills (Brad Pitt) and retiring veteran Detective Somerset (Morgan Freeman) to a remote desert area, promising to reveal the last two bodies and give his confession. There, another sick and gruesome crime and souvenir - "her pretty head" in a bloody box was delivered by a van.

It proved to ultimately demonstrate one of the last two of the Seven Deadly Sins (Envy and Wrath). Doe confessed to the sin of Envy, having killed Mills' wife Tracy (Gwyneth Paltrow) and having her severed head (never shown) delivered to their location in a cardboard box:

"I wish I could have lived like you did...I'm trying to tell you how much I admire you and your pretty wife...Tracy...It's disturbing how easily a member of the press can purchase information from the men in your precinct...I visited your home this morning after you'd left. I tried to play husband. I tried to taste the life of a simple man...It didn't work out so I took a souvenir - her pretty head...Because I envy your normal life, it seems that Envy is my sin."

To demonstrate Wrath, anguished and angered Lt. Mills shot Doe repeatedly, emptying his gun, in revenge for his pregnant wife's beheading. His partner Detective Somerset begged him not to: "That's what he wants. He wants you to shoot him." Doe kept pressing:

"Become vengeance, David...Become Wrath...She begged for her life, Detective...She begged for her life and for the life of the baby inside of her...Oh, he didn't know."

Even though Somerset advised: "If you kill him, he will win," Mills executed Doe. As Mills was taken into custody for the shooting and driven away, Somerset offered: "Whatever he needs...I'll be around."

Somerset's voice-over ended the film:

Ernest Hemingway once wrote, 'The world is a fine place and worth fighting for.' I agree with the second part.