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:

Winter’s Bone ☕ d. Debra Granik, 2010

I’m not the first person to make this observation, but it bears repeating – Winter’s Bone does for the Ozarks what The Wire did for Baltimore: illustrate a deep-seated web of corruption and moral ambivalence so pervasive that the usual notions of right, wrong, and legal are subordinated to the oldest law in the universe — survival.  Cowriter/director Debra Granik doesn’t waste time decrying how broken the law enforcement system is; she doesn’t really even waste her breath on condemning the criminals and villains of this backwoods jungle.  Instead, the film is a passive feat of empathy extended toward a single individual who has no chance of escaping this hellish muck.