It's Halloween and time for Tiberius's top ten scariest films of all time. You can disagree, but you will be wrong.


The scariest movies that I know of scared the shit out of me when I was a kid and still do. Many of them creeped me out before I even saw them, movies like, "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", "Halloween" and "Alien". I remember at summer camp the counselors talking about "Chainsaw" and describing Leatherface in great detail. That night they had a "Snipehunt" and I remember thinking about their description of Leatherface, which made me grab on to the belt of one of the counselors for dear life as we ran down a dark trail in the woods. A buddy of mine was so freaked out he started throwing rocks at people, so unsure was he that one of them wasn't part of the Chainsaw clan. Then there are those flicks that I watched, not knowing any better and couldn't get out of my head for the rest of my life. I'll never forget the nightmares I had of Boris Karloff as the monster, chasing me through the back yard of my childhood home. The image of Karloff as the monster still haunts me to this day.

There were plenty of flicks that scared me as a kid but over the years lost their hold on me emotionally, because they sucked, movies like "Food of The Gods", "Prophecy" and "Magic". Then there are those that have become "classics" of the genre, but have always left me cold, like the "Nightmare on Elm Street" series, "The Friday The 13th" series, and the "Hellraiser" series. I never thought they were scary, just stupid and cartoonish. I love Sam Rami's "Evil Dead" series and although they can be scary, I consider them almost spoofs of the genre. The latest attempts at horror, like the "Scream" series, can be entertaining, but again they are basically spoofs. I've been more partial to the small surprises like "Resident Evil" or "Final Destination", B movie flicks, if having no artistic ambition, at least have a little bit of imagination. Rob Zombies "House of A Thousand Corpses" definitely recreated that gross, seventies vibe, but ultimately collapses under its own ambition. The movies that scare me are the ones that fucked me up during the time of adolescence, the time when we're most vulnerable and the bogeyman really might exists.

No. 10
Halloween (1979)
Dir. John Carpenter
Cast. Jamie Lee Curtis
"The night he came home."
This movie still freaks me out, but I have to admit I haven't gotten the urge to watch it in years. But thinking about it is getting me in the mood to watch it again. Cool, creepy score by Carpenter, reminiscent of horror band Goblin and "Tubular Bells" from "The Exorcist". The rest of the series sucks.

No. 9
Jaws(1975)
Dir. Steven Spielberg
Cast. Roy Scheider - Richard Dreyfuss - Robert Shaw
"The terrifying motion picture from the terrifying No. 1 best seller."
Okay, so its more of an adventure film than a Horror film, but so what. It has a great cast and is gripping and suspenseful. We always believe they're in danger, either from the monster shark or from themselves. One of the all time great monster movies.

No. 8
Alien(1979)
Dir. Ridley Scott
Cast. Sigorney Weaver - Tom Skeritt - Yaphet Koto - John Hurt - Ian Holm - Harry Dean Stanton - Veronica Cartwright
"In space no one can hear you scream."
It's Jaws in space! So if it's derivative of "Jaws" why do I put it ahead of "Jaws" on the list? Because I think it has a harder edge to it. Spielberg still had a kind of Disney/family friendly thing going on in "Jaws" at times. The ensemble cast is great.

No. 7
Frankenstein(1931)
Dir. James Whale
Cast. Boris Karloff - Colin Clive
"Warning! The monster is loose!"
Karloff's performance is the thing that transcends the dated production. The monster stands up to any of the super human monsters that we see today, including, Freddy Kruger, Jason, Michael Myers, Pinhead and all the rest of the Frankenstein monster wanna be's.

No. 6
Psycho(1960)
Dir. Alfred Hitchcock
Cast. Anthony Perkins - Janet Leigh
"The Classic Story of a Boy and His Mother."
The father of all slasher films and it still works, mostly because of Perkins performance and the eerie, grim, black and white atmosphere Hitchcock created. The shower seen is still shocking. Didn't see the frame by frame remake out of principle, although I dig Gus Van Sant.

No. 5
Rosemary's Baby (1968)
Dir. Roman Polanski
Cast. Mia Farrow - John Cassavetes
"Pray for Rosemary's Baby"
The unnerving score by Christopher Komeda and Polanski's unsettling imagery backed with the dreaded fear of the coming anti Christ is a recipe for one creepy scene after another and an ending that makes the hair on your neck stand.

No. 4
Night of The Living Dead (1968)
Dir. George Romero
Cast. Duane Jones
"They keep coming back in a bloodthirsty lust for HUMAN FLESH!"
The main zombie in this film disturbs me in the same way Karloff's monster disturbs me and I think its because Romero probably modeled him after Karloff. There is a foreboding sense of dread in Romero's zombie trilogy, in everything from the music, to the acting to the film grain itself. This is the stuff that nightmares are made of with one of the most fucked up movie endings of all time.

No. 3
The Exorcist (1973)
Dir. William Friedkin
Cast. Ellen Burstyn - Linda Blair - Max von Sydow
"Something beyond comprehension is happening to a little girl on this street, in this house."
I'm not a religious man, but one cannot grow up in a country where it says, "In God We Trust" on our money and not have the idea of God and the Devil playing a part in one's conscience. The Exorcist messes with our religious perspective of the world. Linda Blair's performance is incredible. The idea of losing control of ones own child, whether to disease or spirits or fate, and being unable to protect or help them and watching them suffer, is unbearable and horrifying. The music is beautiful and unnerving, the acting and direction are top notch and the special effects are still very effective.

No. 2
Dawn of The Dead (1979)
Dir. George Romero
Cast. Ken Foree - David Emge - Scott H. Reiniger - Gaylen Ross
"When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth!"
Despite the films obvious satirical moments, it has a grotesque and grim atmosphere that is filled with doom and dread. The gruesome special effects by Tom Savini and the surreal musical score by Goblin never let the viewer off the hook for too long.

No. 1
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
Dir. Tobe Hooper
Cast. Marilyn Burns - Gunnar Hansen
"Who will survive and what will be left of them?"
The title says it all. It's relentless and brutal. The feeling that one gets when watching this, is that Tobe Hooper hired a family of real, inbred, cannibalistic, Southern sicko's to be in his movie and just told them to do what comes natural. What makes this the number one scariest film of all time, is that it doesn't deal with the mystical, supernatural, or Sci-fi-fantasy. It may not be a true story as it claims, but it is based on fact. It expresses what we see around us everyday. It simply mirrors what we know human beings are capable of doing to other human beings, in either what we've heard or read about or remember (Nazis - Ed Gein - Viet Nam - Native American genocide) or that we participate in today (the war in Iraq). Leatherface is the bogeyman and we're scared of him because he really exists.

Tiberius gets it on with Preston Sturges for the first time and screams for more.





The first thingI noticed while watching "Sullivans Travels" and "The Palm Beach Story" were the women, their bodies. I don't know if this has anything to do with where I am in my life right now, or maybe it’s a result of not having one, but the women in these films are bouncy. Their body parts bounce a lot and everything is very fleshy. Legs, breasts, ass. I don't think this was by accident and I'm sure I'm not the only person to have noticed Preston Sturges's fascination with women's figures. They are clothed in a certain way and are allowed to express themselves in a way that is very sexy. And it's not just the women. I'm sure that's Joel McCrea's ass we see as he runs after Claudet Colbert with only a blanket around his waste. I'm feeling so deprived even a man's ass is looking good these days. But I digress.

Everything in Sturges's films is provocative, the subject matter, the dialogue and the imagery. It's all presented in a somewhat silly and conventional manner, but that's part of a gimmick, a trick that Sturges uses to get at the shit he wants to get at, all the while seeming safe or harmless. But nothing could be farther from the truth. Sturges's films, the ones I've seen so far are odd, wonderful, experimental, natural, funny and frustrating entertainments. He's been called the father of the screwball comedy, but that doesn't do him justice. Sturges was closer to the sophistication of Charlie Chaplin as a filmmaker and was doing the Woody Allen thing before Allan Konigsberg became Woody Allen. Had anyone used the freeze frame before Sturges in the opening titles of "The Palm Beach Story"?

For all the obvious influence this guy has had on modern filmmakers and screenwriters (seen a Coen Bros. movie lately?) he seems to be somewhat obscure in the new world of DVD. Out of the thirteen films that he directed (according to IMDb) only two are available on DVD, "Sullivans Travels" and "The Lady Eve". Like Orson Wells he is a genius in the world of cinema, world renown and yet at the same time somewhat forgotten. His films deserves better treatment. Come on Criterion! Put out the complete "Preston Sturges DVD set".

Sullivan's Travels (1941)
Dir. Preston Sturges
Cast. Joel McCrea - Veronica Lake
VHS


A big shot Hollywood director (Joel McCrea) wants to make a movie with meaning, a movie about the suffering of the common man of the world called "O' Brother Where Art Thou". He disguises himself as a homeless vagabond and sets on the road to research first hand how the depression has effected the masses. There he meets Veronica Lake an aspiring actress who has all but given up her dream of making it in Hollywood. The two set out on the road together and struggle to come to terms with the sheltered material world they're used to living in, with the deprived masses they are trying to relate to. Sullivan's heart felt but shallow approach to research turns into real struggle for survival when he's mistaken for a murderer and put on a harsh chain gang.

The Palm Beach Story(1942)
Dir. Preston Sturges
Cast. Joel McCrea - Claudette Colbert-
Rudy Valle - Mary Astor
VHS


A struggling engineer (McCrea) and his frustrated wife (Colbert) decide to get a divorce. The quickest way is to go to Palm Beach where divorce laws are loose and fancy free. Colbert takes off but McCrea is still in love and chases after her. This leads to mistaken identity's, adventures on trains, yahts, and high class courtship. McCrea is good and Colbert is great, but its Rudy Vallee as the Rockefeller-esque millionare, J.D. Hackensacker
and Mary Astor as his sister that steal the show. Vallee's performance is hilarious. His natural delivery of Sturges dialogue gets at the heart and soul of the directors comedy. It's not what they say, it's how they say it.

Tiberius sees a mindless, trashy, entertainment at his local theater pub, but can't afford a beer. Not even a Pabst!

Once Upon a Time In Mexico (2003)
Dir. Robert Rodriguez
Cast. Antonio Banderas- Johnny Depp
In Theaters

Antonio Banderas returns as El Mariache, the guitar wielding man of action who gets caught in the cross fire between a CIA agent (Johnny Depp) and a drug lord (Willem DeFoe). I remember when the first " El Mariachi" came out. It was a fun and inventive low budget film. First time director Robert Rodriguez, displayed an enthusiasm and imagination that was fresh and exciting. The original actor (Carlos Gallardo) had an innocence that made you root for him. He was more like Cary Grant in "North By Northwest", a man in the wrong place in the wrong time who discovers he can kick ass when he needs to, as opposed to Banderas's Mariache who is meant to be a superhero like Bruce Lee or something. The sequel to "Mariache", "Desperado" was lame. All of the sudden the independent wonder boy Rodriguez was given a Hollywood budget and he didn’t' know what to do with it. But since he's put the camera back in his own hands, and championing the digital revolution, his movies, if not memorable, seem to have the kind of enthusiasm that was evident in the first "El Mariache".

"Once Upon a Time in Mexico" is stupid and forgettable, yet entertaining. Banderas looks ridiculous in his wig, and doesn't pull off the action thing very well, but Depp is hilarious as the cocky, insulting, CIA agent Sands who suffers the fate of a true Spaghetti Western hero. I saw this flick at The Laurelhust Theater and Pub where they serve beer and I could have chalked up this somewhat favorable review because of being drunk, but Tiberius was too broke to afford a damn beer.