Chris Jones Picks 5 Halloween Must-Sees
Chris Jones sure knows his films. We tasked him with coming up with five horror flicks to fill your Halloween with existential dread and some laughs along the way. Enjoy!
The Thing – 1982
Surreal horror classic, the body coming apart in so many inventive ways. The scene with the dogs where we first see how The Thing functions has haunted me for years!
Don’t Look Now – 1973
Lost in grief, Donald Sutherland chases the image of his dead daughter through the streets of Venice. It doesn’t end well. Unsettling, tragic and with a truly shocking ending.
Synecdoche, New York – 2008
Despite being marketed as a comedy, Charlie Kaufman was actually commissioned to make a horror movie – watching Synecdoche, New York with this in mind makes sense of the unrelenting but increasingly absurd bleakness. Multifaceted and constantly shifting in a nightmare logic, but ostensibly the depiction of a person unraveling via the creative process. Or is it all a coma dream…
Invasion of the Body Snatchers – 1978
So many great scenes in this 70s remake of the 50s paranoiac horror sci fi, but the one where they wake up and catch their doubles in the process of forming is deeply unnerving. And there’s a dog with a man’s face at some point.
Murder Party – 2007
Jeremy Saulnier’s low budget debut is perfect for Halloween, it’s dumb and sharp in equal parts, lots of dark laughs and some splatter to top it off. Walking home from what we presume to be his uninspiring office job, a man who lives alone with his cat finds an invitation to a hip Brooklyn Halloween Party – unaware that it is actually a trap to commit murder in the name of art.