The Four Horsemen of Haunted Houses

I’ve noticed that my home video watching goes in phases.  For instance phases maybe classic comedies (Airplane, Monty Python & The Holy Grail), Espionage (Argo, Zero Dark Thirty, Tinker Tailer Soldier Spy), James Bond (but 007 pretty much gets regular viewing no matter what cycle I happen to be in), Outer Space movies (Prometheus, Close Encounters of the Third Kind), and also but not limited to Universal Monster movies (The Wolfman, Frankenstein) 

Currently I’m in a haunted house phase.  Ti West’s two movies The House of the Devil &  The Innkeepers, the cult classic The Evil Dead, and The Legend of Hell House have been on my mind to watch again.  Haunted house movies are my favorite sub genre in the horror canon.

There are four haunted house movies I call “the Four Horsemen”.  They’re what I consider the Granddaddy of haunted house flicks.  They’re all classic in their own right.

So what are these four movies I’m suddenly raving about?

First up is William Castle’s 1959 House on Haunted Hill starring Vincent Price.  The movie is in beautiful black & white and has some imagery that is second to none.  The image that sticks out in particular is the parade of funeral cars led by a hearse in the beginning of the movie.  A great since of suspense makes this one a movie for the ages.

The second of the four horsemen maybe a little biased because its my favorite haunted house movie and one of my favorite horror films all together.  It’s Robert Wise’s 1963 The Haunting.  Another black and white spookfest this time staring Julie Harris.  The movie opens with the strange history of the house and then welcomes its guests like lambs to the slaughter.  Also after first viewing the movie some years back I didn’t want my hand hanging out of the sheets when I went to sleep.

1979’s The Amityville Horror from director Stuart Rosenberg frightens me almost every time I watch it.  The fact that there is a real life scenario to back it up makes the movie more frightening.  It’s also one of those movies that after viewing I wanted to immediately know more.  This led me to read the book, which was fantastic, and check out the sequels and remake, which were the polar opposite of the book and original classic.

The last of the four horsemen is certainty not the least.  The movie is Stanley Kubrick’s brilliant 1980 release The Shining.  It was one of the first horror movies I ever saw and the image of Jack Nicholson chopping his way through the bathroom door was breath taking.  The almost painfully slow pace of the movie creates a since of isolation that makes the movie a stand out, not only in haunted house movies, but in cinema in general.  The imagery of a single person standing alone in the massive room featured in the hotel are legendary and add to the experience that is The Shining.