QUICK CUTS: Haunted House Movies
QUICK CUTS: Best Haunted House Movies
With: Michael Arruda, Nick Cato, L.L. Soares and Colleen Wanglund
With the release of INSIDIOUS (2011), a new haunted house movie, we asked our panel of experts, what’s your favorite haunted house movie(s) of all time?
Here’s what they had to say:
NICK CATO:
1) THE HAUNTING (1963)–Arguably the BEST haunted house film of all time
2) THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE (1973)–scared me as a kid and still works today.
3) THE AMITYVILLE HORROR (1979)–both the film and Jay Anson’s novel work well in their own ways. The film has (what I believe to be) one of the creepiest soundtracks ever.
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Colleen Wanglund:
BURNT OFFERINGS (1976) is probably my favorite haunted house movie. It stars Karen Black, Oliver Reed and Bette Davis….what’s not to love? It’s just one of those really creepy movies where you find yourself trying to tell the characters not to do something that you know they’ll do anyway.
JU-ON (2000) written and directed by Takashi Shimizu is a great haunted house movie. Whoever comes into contact with the house (or the ghosts within) end up carrying the curse wherever they go and passes it on to whomever they meet. That’s pretty damn scary. Interestingly, this movie and its sequel were originally only released to DVD. Word of mouth made them huge in Japan.
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L.L. SOARES
I’d have to agree with Nick on this one. My all-time favorite haunted house flick has got to be THE HAUNTING (1963), the classic film based on Shirley Jackson’s THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE, which in turn is easily in my top five of best horror novels of all time.
By the way, THE HAUNTING was directed by Robert Wise, the director who also gave us the original THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL (1951), THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN (1971) and STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE (1979). Strangely enough, he also directed the musicals WEST SIDE STORY (1965) and THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1961), in his long and varied career. I still think THE HAUNTING was his best film.
I’m also a big fan of THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE (1973), based on Richard Matheson’s novel and starring Roddy McDowell.
A couple of films no one mentioned that I also like a lot are:
THE ORPHANGE (2007)– a great Spanish film about a haunted orphanage (naturally), during the Spanish Civil War, directed by Juan Antonio Bayona.
HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY (1981) – Okay, I’m not sure if Dr. Freudstein counts as a ghost or as a member of the walking dead, but he does live in the basement and he does haunt the title house in this cult classic by the great Lucio Fulci.
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Michael Arruda:
THE UNINVITED (1944) – love the atmosphere, eerie, spooky, and a mysterious.
HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (1958) – no one has more fun scaring people in a haunted house than Vincent Price!
Okay, folks, you’ve heard from us. How about you? What are your favorite haunted house movies of all time?
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