Obligatory Halloween post: My top 10 favorite scary movie moments

Happy Halloween everybody. I would be remiss if I didn't do some kind of scary movie post to commemorate this day. I've already done a post on my favorite horror genre films of all time -- which I would also certainly update to include It Follows now, so I thought I'd try something a little different.

Just off the top of my head I thought I'd countdown the 10 scariest horror movie moments for me. These are all scenes that even though I can safely say I can see coming (because I've seen these movies several times) they still always have an impact on me.

Sometimes a horror movie is more about mood, more than any one scene. But some of the films of the genre also have these images that haunt your dreams and, in some cases, produce nightmares. Here are some of those scenes.

The Conjuring's creepiest basement ever - This 2013 haunted house masterpiece has a lot of horrific set pieces -- the clapping game comes to mind -- but the most sustained series of shocks comes during a sequence where the floor gives way under Vera Farmiga's paranormal investigator and she winds crashing down into a darkly lit basement where she is besieged by some truly aggressive demons. The basement has always been a boon for scary movies -- but this may the best use of one.

Buried alive in The Vanishing - SPOILER ALERT, this Dutch-French film is less of a straight horror film than almost a documentary-style look at a particularly sadistic serial killer. After his girlfriend is abducted and disappears, the hero of this film obsessively tries find out what happened to her and eventually the man who kidnapped her agrees to walk him through the paces. This seriously creepy journey leads to the protagonist waking up in a coffin deep underground, which is one of my biggest fears, if albeit, an irrational one.

The tall man shows up in It Follows - My enthusiasm for this film is pretty boundless, and one of the things I really admire about it is how it doesn't necessarily present its scares in the same typical fashion. In other words, it can be daylight, and "it" will still follow you. The sequence that really got me is a moment where you think you're about to get a dose of relief, when a tall man -- who has hollowed out eyes -- appears and steps into a room. It's all about the timing and camera work in this movie.


The Thing blood test - This John Carpenter classic has some eye-popping visuals and practical special effects that still hold up, but one of the best bits occurs when Kurt Russell's bad ass hero straps down the other men that are stuck in a snowboard science lab to test their blood to make sure they aren't infected with the gnarly virus that turns people into flesh eating monsters. One by one Russell dips a metal needle into a a little dish, and mayhem ensues. Both claustrophobic and tense at the same time. This is how gore can be used effectively.

Sleepaway Camp ending - This 1983 film is not just bizarre, its's laughable at times. But underneath some of the bad acting and cheesy scares, is a pretty disturbing movie. And the last scene, which ends in a chilling freeze fame, is genuinely terrifying. This movie was recommended to me years ago and I became sort of obsessed with it. The sequels are trash, stick with the original, which will have you wanting to re-watch it all over again once the twisting ending is revealed.

Dinner table scene in Texas Chainsaw Massacre - One of my biggest fears is being trapped in a backwoods sort of environment without modern amenities, so this 1974 classic has always been unsettling to me. By the time the heroine of this film is forced to endured a particularly grotesque and creepy dinner party, most of the other protagonists have already been killed and there is a kind of brutal oppressiveness that sets in, which is rare in horror movies. You truly aren't sure if everything is going to be OK. I get a little nauseous just thinking about it.

Halloween

The lights cut out in Silence of the Lambs - Plenty of scary movies have used the clever trope of cutting out the lights amid the action to put the movie theater audience on edge and in the moment (most recently Don't Breathe used this effectively). But the best example in my memory is during the climax of Silence of the Lambs, when Jodie Foster's Clarice Starling is about to rescue Buffalo Bill's would be victim, and he switches off the power. There are an unsettling couple of seconds and then the night vision of the killer comes on and we cringe as he gets ever so much closer to her.

Michael Myers' relentless attack in Halloween - Part of the fun of this 1978 classic is that Michael Myers, the psychotic killer, has an almost supernatural ability to recover from injury and a relentless determination to kill. The most terrifying sequence in the film is during his pursuit of Jamie Lee Curtis' lead character. She hides in a closet and Myers begins to bust through the door. She is totally helpless and has nowhere to go -- that scene always gets me. Especially when you know there are also young kids in the house that she's babysitting.

The head spin in The Exorcist - There are so many great, visceral scares in this movie. It is still one of the most purely shocking movies that I have ever seen. The best moment, and one of the most creative, was the head spinning scene. We have seen the possessed girl movie a million times now, but this one has never been topped, and the sheer perverseness of that shot and how terribly real it appears to be. The brilliance of this movie is its realism and practicality.

The thousand-yard stare in The Shining - I have made no secret about the fact that this is my favorite film of all time -- its secrets and mysteries make it immanently watchable and rewarding in new and different ways every time I see it. It eschews traditional scares for far more dreamlike creepiness, which is far more troubling to me. To me, the most chilling shot in the whole thing is just one long take on Jack Nicholson's unblinking, demented face. It's not just one of my favorite shots of all time -- but it also feels like if there is a devil, this is what he looks like.

'Christine': A different kind of scary movie that haunts the mind

Christine, a dramatic re-telling of the infamous case of former newswoman Chistine Chubbuck, is a different kind of horror film. Not unlike Foxcatcher, it is by turns darkly funny and seriously scary, but the terror takes place in the protagonist's mind, not on screen.

The film presents a profoundly sad story -- about a woman who is sexually repressed, horribly lonely and struggling to find her voice in the male-dominated 1970s world of TV news which, then and now, prizes sensationalism over substance. One wonders what would have become of Chubbuck had she been encouraged and had supportive mentors. But alas, her life took another turn.

At the center of the film is actress Rebecca Hall, who gives a tour de force, transformative performance here. The movie -- which is depressing -- could have veered into oppressively unpleasant territory like the well-made by unenjoyable We Need to Talk About Kevin. But Hall keeps the film teetering between the comic and claustrophobic, with one of the best bits of acting I've seen this year.

Hall has been terrific before, playing incredibly sympathetic leads in films like Vicky Cristina Barcelona and The Gift, but in Christine she gets an array or tics and eccentricities to play that suit her skill set well.

And even if you know how Chubbuck's story ends -- that doesn't detract from the film's tension, which is palpable throughout.

As Chubbuck's stubbornness starts to give way to increasingly erratic behavior it might be hard to watch for some viewers, but I found it fascinating.

Living in New York City, I am always drawn to the people who behave abnormal in plain sight. I want to know their stories, how they unraveled. It can't always be a chemical imbalance, some people are simply driven to a kind of madness.

I believe, or at least the film's take, is that Chubbuck was one of those people, and that choice makes her arc and the film feel that much more tragic.

At one point, at near hysteria, she screams "Why won't anybody just listen to me?" It's a feeling we've all probably had at point or another. And in Chubbuck's case, her feelings are compounded by the career she has chosen for herself, which is highly competitive and high stakes with tremendous exposure.

The film Christine, which is well paced and methodical, wisely does not paint the complexities of Chubbuck's world with too broad a brush, which is a relief since any film set in a 1970s newsroom now runs the risk of feeling like an Anchorman-style spoof.

The movie also doesn't veer into exploitation, which it easily could, considering the subject matter.  It does end however, inevitably, on a bleak, bittersweet note.

But the film didn't leave me cold, in fact, it left me thinking about all the Christines I've encountered in my professional life, people who could be shrill and more than a little awkward at times, but just simply wanted their voice heard and appreciated.

'Never Seen It' - Episode 10: Can 'The Conjuring 2' top the original?

The hit 2013 horror film The Conjuring was like a breath of fresh air when it came out. Devoid of the kind of gore and stupidity that frequently diminishes the genre, that movie restored my faith in what scary movies can do and heralded the beginning of what I consider to be a renaissance for its ilk.

But now that we are in a post-It Follows era, how does the sequel to The Conjuring hold up? Can any horror sequel hold a candle to its original -- or are they all just treading water?

For this -- the tenth episode of my "Never Seen It" podcast, co-starring my wife Elizabeth Rosado -- we review the second installment minutes after watching it for the first time.

Some people have argued it's better than the first one, many -- including most critics -- think it's somewhat worse. Find out what we think by clicking on the YouTube video below:

'Jack Reacher' and other sequels nobody asked for

There is this curious phenomenon these days in Hollywood. We often have legitimate franchises that are pre-established as such -- think Star Wars or Marvel. There are genuinely original hits or sagas that lend themselves naturally to a sequel. And then there are films that were never that popular to begin with, that somehow spawn follow ups.

We've already been treated this year to another Bridget Jones movie. Why? Another Neighbors. Was there more story to tell? And now we're getting a second installment of Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher, which I also don't think anyone was particularly clamoring for.

I actually quite enjoy most Tom Cruise movies, particularly his Mission: Impossible films, which for me are just a notch below the James Bond series in terms of their use of exotic locales and death defying practical stunts. But Jack Reacher always felt like the wrong role for him.

It's the kind of part that screams for a Chris Hemsworth or maybe even Jason Statham (who has his own inexplicable sequel issue of his own), someone who is believable as a physically imposing bad ass. At age 54 and at barely over 5 feet tall, Cruise just doesn't seem credible to me as a punch first, ask questions later kind of guy.

And the original film's decent but not overwhelming roughly $80 million gross at the box office didn't seem to suggest that audiences desperately wanted more. Perhaps Cruise did?

There are sometimes contractual sequels that studios can't quite escape from -- that explains in part why we got a Basic Instinct sequel, that wasn't really necessary to begin with, about 14 years too late. The studio was forced to either make the film and hope it made a profit, or pay off star Sharon Stone for a deal that was struck in the afterglow of the first movie.

I get it, some of these sequels seem like a good idea at the time. I loved Zoolander, and would have loved to see more of Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson's antics. I saw Zoolander 2, in theaters, and was it the abomination many critics thought it was? No. But it also felt totally useless, and not in an amusing way.

And I can't for the life of me understand why anyone thought we needed a Blues Brothers film without John Belushi. That's just blasphemous.

This shouldn't really be a big deal -- after all, Hollywood is a for profit business, so why wouldn't they try to hedge their bets with a 'property' that already has a potentially built-in audience and name recognition. But what's super problematic about movies like this is they suck oxygen and funds away from more original content that might otherwise have broken through.

Take Southside With You for instance. This well-reviewed romantic film about the Obamas' first date deserved to be a hit, albeit a small boutique one. Yet it bombed on its opening weekend, in part because of potential political bias, but also because it was opening opposite a totally pointless reboot of Ben-Hur and something called Mechanic: Resurrection.

And Southside With You is just one of several excellent films this year that never really earned mainstream appreciation because they got swamped by sequel-itis.

I miss the good old days when, if your film got a sequel, you really earned it and it felt like a natural extension of the original's story. Not everything, however, has an arc. And some films are just better left alone as one-offs.

'Moonlight' represents magical time for black cinema

It sort of creeped up on us -- but we have a renaissance for black cinema on our hands.

We've seen a great diversity of styles and representation -- from the hipster doofuses of Dope to Denzel Washington standing tall and heroic in the all-star multicultural line-up of The Magnificent Seven.

And although it may have its faults, the polarizing Birth of a Nation also heralds the previously untold skills of legitimate directing talent, Nate Parker, regardless of what you may think of him.

Then there's Moonlight -- an unabashed masterpiece, a thing of beauty that will rank among my favorite films of this year.

Written and directed by African-American rising star Barry Jenkins, it's a different kind of coming-of-age story, one like I've never seen before -- and one that is a long time coming.

Some will try to box it in as just a lovingly crafted ode to the struggles of growing up gay and black in America, but it is far more complex and nuanced like that. It share some of its DNA with Boyhood, in that it is buoyed by naturalistic acting and humor, but it has a different kind of gravitas and much more visual panache.

It tells the three act story of Chiron -- a painfully shy, bullied boy from a broken home. His story is one that has been painted in broad strokes before. Critics searching for something to nitpick will argue that this is another look at black people pain -- but there is so much more to this film than meets the eye.

Mahershala Ali in Moonlight

Take the Oscar worthy performance of Mahershala Ali as Juan. He is a drug dealer and a fairly ruthless one at that, and yet he never hides the inherent humanity of his character, who emerges an unlikely father figure for our hero.

He has an honest, utterly devastating scene with young Chiron that literally gave me chills.

Another standout performance comes from Trevante Rhodes as adult Chiron. He conveys so much with so little -- his striking physicality a statement in and of itself.

This is a film that makes its presence felt from the very first shot and never lets up. It's got some unbearable tension and powerful emotions, but virtually nothing is overplayed or histrionic.

There is no one way to make a great black film -- as artists like Ryan Coogler, Ava DuVernay and others have demonstrated time and time again. This winter we're going to be treated to Denzel Washington's Fences and we also have Loving and Hidden Figures on the way too.

And on television there are not just great black shows, but great black shows written, conceived by and starring actual black people! Here's looking at you Insecure, Luke Cage and Atlanta.

Someone I interviewed recently lamented the fact that white people love black culture, but they are just often anti-black people. But a number of recent films have been forcing audiences to confront the people first without losing their authenticity in the process.

It's been inspiring to watch, and Moonlight is a movie to cherish.

What 'Air Force One' tells you about a Donald Trump presidency

Harrison Ford in Air Force One

Air Force One is one of those blockbuster movies that feels like a period film even though it wasn't released all that long ago. It's apparently a personal favorite of Republican presidential candidate and conspiracy theorist Donald Trump -- which actually makes a lot of  twisted sense.

A very charitable read is that the movie is kind of like Trump himself -- it can be fun and entertaining -- as long as you don't take it too seriously.

As Harrison Ford was keen to point out to Trump "it was a movie .. it's not like that in real life." But what if it was? If you watch the 1997 thriller -- in which the president's superjet is hijacked by Russian terrorists -- as if it were semi plausible, it's actually quite disturbing and it speaks volumes about Trump's concept of what leadership is.

It's a testament to Ford's starpower that he even pulls this film off. He is totally believable as a president and also a butt-kicking action hero. His signature "get off my plane" one-liner feels like a relic from the '80s, but the vulnerability and earnestness in his performance is pure vintage Ford.

Still, his character behaves in a wildly irresponsible manner from start to finish, and arguably in a way that no reasonable American would want a real life president to behave.

Even if we accept the premise that Ford's character is a combat veteran who has a facility with weapons, we wouldn't want our president deliberately putting his life at risk in a high stakes hostage situation -- ever.

Donald Trump

The film actually presents his character with multiple opportunities to save himself -- which again, in a democracy where the president plays a crucial and decisive role, he or she almost certainly would -- and he opts not to because of the convoluted conceit that he must secure his family's safety first. Certainly, this is a noble idea -- and Ford sells it -- but in reality this kind of behavior would be deemed somewhat unhinged at best.

Air Force One actually does treat that point with a degree of realism. The grounded cabinet -- led by Glenn Close in the role of vice president -- actually weigh stripping the president of his powers because they think he may be mentally incapacitated.

Meanwhile, Ford's gung ho, go-it-alone heroics do wind up resulting in the deaths of more than a few hostages. And while it's not his fault per se, it's hard to believe that he wouldn't be more useful as a negotiator than as a one-man army.

All of this appears to have been lost on Trump, who reportedly enters events to the tune of Jerry Goldsmith's Air Force One theme music (against the wishes of the movie's producers) and has praised the Ford character's behavior because: "He stood up for America."

It's easy to see what attracts Trump to this movie. This is a man who prizes "strength" or the appearance of it over everything else. He is fond of saying "I alone" can fix this corrupt system or provide this infusion of prosperity. And indeed, the movie literally presents the image of a unilateral, muscular presidency.

But in the real world the president himself can't personally beat up the bad guys and then fly the plane home in the end. There are checks and balances. There is a chain of command. And we, generally, want our presidents to behave rationally, not rashly.

In contrast, Hillary Clinton is apparently fond of Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, an ode to the process portion of our politics. She has been pilloried for referencing the film in defense of her private comments regarding calibrating your political statements depending on the audience you're addressing -- but that is a central theme of the film.

Lincoln, not unlike Clinton, was not above some politically shady dealing if he believed the end cause justified the means, and she is a student of that same kind of pragmatic realpolitik.

It's not as sexy and exciting a take on the presidency as you get in Air Force One, but it ultimately is the more effective one when translated into a real world space.

Why I still think 'The Birth of a Nation' deserves to be seen

After considerable hype and controversy, I finally got a chance to see Nate Parker's Nat Turner biopic The Birth of a Nation tonight.

I've written about the film and the debate over past rape allegations against Parker extensively, so it was hard for me to not view it with some baggage, but here are some of my initial thoughts.

While I respect the motivations for someone wanting to boycott this film, I personally don't agree with that position and I'm not sure what good it actually does. That said, important conversations about consent are being had because of the fallout, and that is an unassailably good thing.

I understand why people have problems with some of Parker's past statements and behavior, but I also happen to believe he's made a terrific film and a provocative piece of art that is worth consideration on its own terms.

That being said, in the wake of 12 Years a Slave and Django Unchained, two films that I thought were superior, I worry that audiences may have become numb, if not desensitized to cinematic portrayals of slavery. The violence, the cruelty, is something we're all familiar with and I am not sure that this film tells us something new about the dehumanizing and debilitating nature of America's greatest sin.

Still, Parker delivers a fantastic lead performance -- one which simmers to a boil -- and for a first-time filmmaker he shows an incredible facility with visual storytelling. Even though the film occasionally lapses into some heavy handedness, he can't be faulted for aiming for the epic when it comes to a story like Turner's.

The Birth of a Nation

The second half of the film succeeds better than the first, when the relatively passive Turner emerges as a more defiant hero. It's a bold choice to sidestep the more queasy aspects of the Turner story (his slaughter of women and children, specifically) to elevate his stature to that of a martyr.

There are allusions -- more emotional than literal -- to modern day fury over the victimization and abuse of black bodies. And most fascinatingly, there are some interesting explorations of the interpersonal relationships and self-images of slaves, as well as the impact the institution has on the whites who profit from it.

But the thrust of this film is more in broad strokes -- its depiction of the horrors of slavery is relatively tasteful but appropriately visceral and while the film takes license with history, it doesn't feel inauthentic at all.

I walked away from this movie curious to see Parker's next film -- if he indeed gets the opportunity. The movie's tepid box office performance, critical re-evaluation that has veered negative (I suspect in part because of the backlash against Parker) and the generally toxic atmosphere surrounding the film pretty much guarantee that it won't be a player come awards season.

My hope though, is that when the furor dies down about Parker -- and it will -- that this film, on an incredibly important and worthwhile subject matter, will be rediscovered on its own terms. It's not a perfect film. But a powerful one.