The Halloween roundup

Image’s Arts & Faith community released a top 25 list for horror movies just in time for Halloween. As seems to be the case with virtually every solid list made by anyone, there are a few films I haven’t seen. For the Arts & Faith list, my sins of omission include Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, I Walked with a Zombie, and Curse of the Demon. Overall, there aren’t any real surprises or obscurities on the list; I’m a bit disappointed in the high ranking of Let the Right One In and its American counterpart, if only because I’m tired of the fanboy slobbering. Thankfully, Jeffrey Overstreet’s synopsis for the two films is devoid of fanboy slobbering. His apologia for the list is especially worth reading; it’s probably the best, most concise explanation I’ve yet read for the importance of horror cinema to the Christian viewer. His brief discussion of Ridley Scott’s seminal Alien cuts right to the heart of the film’s continuing power:

Don’t eat me, I’m only the cameraman!

My review of The Last Exorcism has been posted at Playtime.  This is the fourth in a series of articles I’ve written on what I call the “docu-horror” subgenre that can be traced most directly back to 1999’s The Blair Witch Project, although I suppose there are precedents even earlier in cinema with which I’m unfamiliar.  I’ve never seen Cannibal Holocaust or any of Mondo’s Faces of Death films; nor have they intrigued me enough (from what little information I have gathered) to do further reading.  I’d be interested to learn more if anyone has knowledge related to this subgenre they’d like to share.