For Halloween -- Scariest scenes from Steve Stones

Editor's note: This week, in honor of Halloween, Plan9Crunch bloggers Steve D. Stones and Doug Gibson will share what they both see as the five scariest minutes in film. 
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1). Night of The Living Dead (1968) – After witnessing her brother being attacked by a zombie in a Pennsylvania graveyard, Barbara (Judith O’Dea) runs to a nearby farmhouse to hide. She walks up stairs with a horrified look on her face and a kitchen knife in hand. The shadows of the banister cast across her face as the camera quickly zooms in closely to reveal a rotting corpse lying on the floor at the top of the stairs.

2). Poltergeist (1982). – A paranormal researcher investigating reports of ghosts in the suburban home of a young family goes to the kitchen to find something to eat.  He places a raw piece of meat from the refrigerator on the kitchen counter while eating a chicken leg. The meat suddenly starts to crawl slowly across the counter and the piece of chicken in his mouth spits out maggots. He runs to the bathroom to look at himself in the mirror. While looking in the mirror, he starts to pull the flesh off his face as chunks fall into the sink and blood drips everywhere.

3). The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) – After being terrorized by an inbred family of cannibals, including Leatherface – a chainsaw carrying psycho wearing a human skin mask, Sally (Marilyn Burns) is gagged and bound to a chair made of human arms. The grandpa of the family drinks Sally’s blood and attempts to knock her out with a hammer, but is too weak. This scene is so grueling that the sweat pouring from the faces of the actors involved heightens the uncomfortable, uneasy feeling the viewer experiences while the scene unfolds.  Sally eventually gets free and jumps out the window as Leatherface chases her once again down with a chainsaw – the most famous scene of the film.

4). Nosferatu (1922) – In this German Expressionist masterpiece of the silent era, Hutter – a real estate agent, is trapped inside the castle of Count Orlock. Hutter discovers the crypt where Orlock sleeps at night. Peeking through the crack of a stone coffin lid, Hutter can see the count lying in the coffin. He quickly pushes the stone lid off the coffin as the count stares directly at the camera in a frozen glance. This scene will chill your blood.

5). Jaws (1975) – Police chief Brody (Roy Scheider), a marine biologist (Richard Dreyfuss) and Captain Quint (Robert Shaw) are onboard a boat called the Orca to hunt down a giant shark terrorizing the sunbathers and swimmers of the ocean town of Amity. Brody leans over the boat to throw a “chum line” of fish guts into the water to attract the shark.  A giant shark raises its head from the water as Brody throws the line into the water. He immediately stands upright and walks backward with a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth and quietly says the most famous line in the film to Captain Quint – “You’re gonna need a bigger boat!”

Happy Halloween!

Steve D. Stones

For Halloween -- My five scariest scenes in film

By Doug Gibson

The late-great Alfred Hitchcock was fond of saying, “People pay money to be scared.” In honor of this Halloween season I offer my take on the five scariest scenes in film history. If you want more commentary on scary movies scenes, read my blog colleague Steve D. Stones, art professor at Weber State University, offer his five most chilling scenes here.

Without procrastination, let’s get to scariest movie scene 1: It’s the final 10 minutes of “Suspiria,” a 1977 Italian horror flick directed by Dario Argento. It stars Jessica Harper as a U.S. dance student who discovers her European dance academy is run by a coven of witches. The final ultimate scary scene involves a possessed colleague of young Ms Harper who goes on the attack at the film’s climax. Argento’s skills have deteriorated in recent decades but “Suspiria” remains a contender for the scariest film ever made.

To read the rest of this "scariest movie scenes column, go to the Standard-Examiner newspaper site, where I also published this. You can keep on reading here.

The Vampire is a nice matinee type of Halloween chiller

Review by Doug Gibson

If you can get past the typical white bread, horror comes to Pleasant-town feel of 1957's "The Vampire," it's not a bad little G-rated chiller that probably scared its fair share of children at matinees.

Like, "Earth Versus the Spider," "Return of Dracula," "I Was a Teenage Werewolf," and others, dastardly deeds and horrific images are infecting themselves in suburbia with mostly non-threatening parents, loyal women and kids with straight teeth.

Veteran actor John Beal plays a small-town doctor who comes across an eccentric colleague who dies of a heart attack. This late doctor had been doing experiments into adrenaline, the release of inhibitions and blood depletion. Apparently, it kills every animal except vampire bats. Before this doctor dies, he provides pills he'd been taking.

In a pretty clever twist, the good small town doctor's cute as a button daughter accidentally gives dad one of the experimental pills when he asks her for his migraine pills. Zammo, he's infected and his patients start turning up dead, often with little bite marks on their necks.

I digress to let the reader know that Vampire in the title is kind of tease. Other than the prick marks, this is a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde type of movie, with Beal's character turning into a Mr. Hyde more grotesque than Fredric March's interpretation. Under the influence, he loses all inhibitions and wants to kill.

Beal carries the film with his performance. He's generally crushed by what's happened to him and wants to stop his nocturnal changes ... but not enough to take the sensible step of turning himself in and insisting he be jailed, both to prove his malady and protect others.

His co-stars do a good job in workmanlike roles. Coleen Gray is the loyal nurse saved at the end by the good sheriff, Kenneth Tobey. In small roles are capable vets Herb Vigran as a cop and Hallene Hill as an elderly victim.

The excellent character actor Dabbs Greer has a strong role as an academic friend of Beal's who has been overseeing the research that killed the first doctor. He and Beal are supposed to be friends. I like Greer but he's a little miscast here, seeming more like a small time dentist than a major scientist. He's also vapid as heck, not believing Beal's very credible claims that he turns into a homicidal maniac until it's tool late.

Paul Landres does a capable job directing this lean film with more than a few sanitized shocks. If you haven't seen it you can watch it above. It's a worthy choice for this Halloween season.

The Paul Lynde Halloween Special - 1976

Watch the Paul Lynde Halloween Special at Amazon Prime.

By Steve D. Stones

This fun 1976 TV episode of the Paul Lynde Show is like a pairing of the 80s TV show Solid Gold meets The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). The three musical performances by the rock icons KISS is obviously staged and lip-synced. KISS perform their super hits - Detroit Rock City, Beth and King of The Night Time World, all from their Destroyer album. Florence Henderson gets into the lip-syncing act by singing That Old Black Magic in a black dress.

The funniest skit of the show is Lynde playing a truck driver named "Big Red" the Rhinestone Trucker, which is an obvious parody of Rhinestone Cowboy. Rhinestone Trucker wants to marry a sexy waitress named "Kinky Pinky" at Big-D's diner, played by Roz "Pinky Tuscadero" Kelly.

Comedian Tim Conway creates a love triangle by rushing to the diner in an attempt to marry Kelly on the same night at midnight.  Lynde crashes the wedding by driving his semi-truck into the diner. Lynde eventually gets the girl and gives her a lug-nut wedding ring from his truck tire.

Lynde begins the episode by dressing as Santa Claus and making us believe that it is Christmas instead of Halloween. His housekeeper, Margaret Hamilton, reminds him that it is not Christmas. He then switches to Easter, then Valentine's Day, and finally realizes it is Halloween season. Hamilton repises her wicked witch of the west role from The Wizard of Oz (1939) by dressing in a black witch's costume with green make-up.

The entire episode is filled with pop-culture references. Don't miss the young Donnie and Marie Osmond shoving Lynde into a garbage can in an early musical number in the episode. Betty White also makes an appearance.

This episode of The Paul Lynde Show only aired once on October 29th, 1976, and was thought to have been lost forever. It's fortunate that the episode was found through one of the producers of the TV show and put out on DVD a few years ago. For fans of KISS, this is a must have in their collection. Happy Halloween.