Year: 2018

31 Scary Movies: ‘Rosemary’s Baby’

Jeff Mitchell

“Rosemary’s Baby” (1968) – When a movie begins and ends with a soft lullaby, and the film’s title features the word, baby, one might guess “Rosemary’s Baby” is a warm family film about a young couple’s journey into parenthood. Rosemary (Mia Farrow) is a gentle, soft-spoken 20-something from Omaha – and living in New York City with her husband Guy (John Cassavetes) – but director Roman Polanski’s horror masterpiece is anything but a light-hearted affair. This brooding and twisted mystery burns slowly while carefully peeling away the facade along the way.  Curiously,…

31 Scary Movies: ‘Night of the Living Dead’

Jeff Mitchell

“Night of the Living Dead” (1968) – Director George A. Romero certainly had brains in 1968, because his groundbreaking zombie (who were actually called ghouls) movie turned out to be the great-grandparent to about 114,000 imitators over the next 50 years.  His film, of course, features an endless supply of dead people coming to life and who are hungry for the living. For unsuspecting 20-something siblings Johnny (Russell Streiner) and Barbra (Judith O’Dea), their actual destination is intentionally-filled with dead people. A cemetery. They make their annual trek of 200 miles…

31 Scary Movies: ‘Hour of the Wolf’

Jeff Mitchell

“Hour of the Wolf” (1968) – Taking a sharp detour away from blood, guts and gore and toward surreal imagery and artful horror, writer/director Ingmar Bergman’s “Hour of the Wolf” is a bizarre, but mesmerizing film. Although the movie’s title suggests that Bergman’s picture is about a wolf man, no such creature makes an appearance.  Instead, “Hour of the Wolf” is a haunting tale of isolation and madness that is also beautifully filmed, edited and packaged, and it will most likely leave the audience with many questions at the film’s…