Since Star Wars premiered the Wednesday before Memorial Day in 1977, in hopes of not being swallowed by mega-star Burt Reynolds’s Smokey and the Bandit over the holiday weekend, Hollywood had been holding out their event movies for roughly between the pre-Memorial Day Wednesday spot and the last-gasp-before-school-starts Labor Day weekend. That was pretty much the unwritten rule for years until box office tracking became more precise. If you were a major star, you had two choices: open your big, dumb action movie during summer or open your big, dumb comedy during Christmas, which started the day before Thanksgiving. Academy Award hopefuls, in particular, coveted the Christmas day slot. Occasionally there was some crossover but one thing was certain: the rest of the year was for losers.

That’s not to say an off-season film couldn’t be a surprise hit. Lethal Weapon came out in March of 1987 and launched a summer franchise. But March was not where studios placed their big name pictures.

This thinking has begun to drift a bit, and part of the blame may be placed at the feet of the movie franchise that started it all. The hotly anticipated The Phantom Menace bucked Star Wars tradition and opened over a week before the Memorial Day weekend, and on a Thursday at that. Since then, studios started experimenting with more non-traditional openings for their big-name projects. When Spider-Man debuted in 2002, it did so as early in May as possible. Later, studios would begin launching big budget action and sci-fi movies like 300 and Clash of the Titans in March, and even Daredevil had its premiere in February.

But that was not the norm for the action stars of the 80s. It was during this time that big guns like Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis and Tom Cruise ruled the box office. While Stallone and Willis have had somewhat unstable careers, Stallone has always brought with him a big star pedigree, and you can bet that he’ll open a Rocky or Rambo movie in the summer. At least until 2008′s Rambo was dumped in the disreputable post-Christmas wasteland of January. The message was clear: Rambo is over the hill and can’t open in the now brutally competitive holiday lineup.

Willis, for his part, has been all over the calendar with his film openings but that’s because he doesn’t pin himself down to any particular genre. His career has come back so many times that it hardly matters what time of year audiences pay to see him. The same can’t be said of his signature film series Die Hard. All four films in that series opened in the summer. It’s a powerhouse franchise. So what does it say that the next episode, A Good Day to Die Hard, has been demoted to Valentine’s Day, two weeks after Stallone’s own Bullet to the Head?

Cruise and Schwarzenegger, in particular, have been associated with big holiday openings for the bulk of their careers. Since Raw Deal in 1986, only Schwarzenegger’s Collateral debuted outside of the holidays. Yet The Last Stand, in theatres today, seems appropriately titled since it opens in the disfavored January block (along with Gangster Squad, another winter throwaway).

Cruise’s track record is perhaps the best of the lot. He’s opened every single film during summer or Christmas since Cocktail in 1988. It seems, however, that the beleaguered star has lost a bit of lustre. The latest Mission: Impossible, though well-received and the biggest hit in that series since part II, got kicked out of its May spot to land in December. Still, it managed to hang on to the holidays. Even 2012 saw his Jack Reacher given a respectable December slot. But look at his next film, Oblivion, opening this April, a spot usually reserved for early-early-early summer wannabes like Fast Five.

So what does this all mean? Have classic action stars simply grown too old for younger audiences? Or is the movie star truly dead as some claim? But then perhaps they died decades ago and we’ve only been carrying their corpses, unwilling to let them go. Looking at the biggest hits of the last few years, it does indeed seem that concept is king. While Cruise and Schwarzenegger could still open the occasional Mission: Impossible or Terminator sequel, fantasy movies like The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, and merchandise movies like Pirates of the Caribbean and Transformers, as well as comic book movies more concerned with character actors than movies stars took over.

The Expendables showed there was still life in some of the old guard, but its sequel had a tepid reception, effectively raining out the welcome home party. With Oblivion shut out of the summer lineup, we may finally be seeing the final nail slowly pushed into the movie star coffin.

At least until Mission: Impossible 5.

Gangster Squad‘s likely contribution to film history will be to further the ongoing debate over film or digital as the preferred medium for movies. Director Ruben Fleischer, who to this point has contented himself with comedy, wants his dramatic debut to be The Untouchables meets L.A. Confidential, with Sean Penn chewing so much scenery it’s a wonder there was any money at all for production design. It’s a standout performance but only in the sense that it’s so ludicrous and overplayed that it obliterates the scenes in which he appears. For the rest of the picture, Fleischer seems content to leave his talented group of actors stranded in a crop of verbal corn, mining old clichés for the tiniest nugget of distinctiveness and leaving them — and the audience — wanting.

Warner Bros. seem content to let the movie die from the outset considering the hardware Fleischer was given to photograph it. With all the hubbub surrounding the 48fps technology that debuted with Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit, a real atrocity was being committed with low-quality HD cameras that make even the smallest movement look like paint streaks across the screen. By the finale, the filmmakers seemed to have surrendered completely and filmed it with the nearest telenovela cameras.

If he wants to work digitally, Fleischer should give David Fincher a call next time.

See instead: L.A. Confidential (1997): A smart, complex, and intense 50s noir that makes the audience work hard for its reward, but it’s a reward that pays back handsomely. Aggressively electric performances by Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce will keep you riveted.

This year I was forced to face my curmudgeonliness head-on as at least two films I ranted horribly against turned out to be among the best of the lot, and a new technology that I resisted offered merit I could scarcely have guessed at.

You can also listen to the Rainestorm 2012 Top Ten podcast with my good friend and fellow film enthusiast, Dante Moran:

You can download the audio file here.

So much for prologue. On with the countdown.

10. Rise of the Guardians

This little delight usurped the spot I had reserved for Silver Linings Playbook and deservedly so. Tragically overlooked during the holidays and criminally ignored by the Oscars®, this delightful film traces the character trajectory of Jack Frost as he is enlisted to join popular childhood myths in their defense against the pernicious Pitch Black. It’s a clever premise that manages to stay a step ahead of the audience when most children’s animation is content to give the game away right at the outset. While Pixar somnambulated through their rather inconsequential Brave, Dreamworks was quietly outpacing them. So quietly, in fact, that no one noticed. More’s the pity.

9. The Cabin in the Woods

Another notch in the belt of Hollywood’s current golden boy, Joss Whedon. He and fellow writer Drew Goddard responded to the horror film draught left by cheap spoofs, high-profile remakes, found footage and the unfortunate and aptly-named torture porn with a twist that explodes the horror genre in its entirety. Here we learn not only the origin of literally every horror film and horror story imaginable, but we get to see why they play such a pivotal role in every culture. Written with Whedon’s usual sometime wit and Goddard’s capable directing, The Cabin in the Woods is the anti-horror movie, an antidote to the high ratio of dreck that has sadly thinned the genre’s blood.

8. 21 Jump Street

Though I didn’t see them all, 2012 wasn’t the greatest year for comedies. The mighty Judd Apatow stumbled horribly with his bloated and shambolic This is 40. Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones, though they gave it their all, couldn’t salvage Hope Springs. “Independent” films such as The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, with titles the length of paragraphs, exemplified the mundanity that defined last year’s humor. 21 Jump Street was a refreshing surprise that demonstrated Channing Tatum could be deliberately funny, and Jonah Hill still had some comedic chops left in him. A self-aware script that turned expectation on its head, charitable cameos, and a quite funny performance by Ice Cube as the exasperated police captain put this over the top as the best comedy of the year. I never thought I would derive such joy from watching the former rapper eat a sandwich.

7. Samsara

It’s easy to conclude from cinematographer-cum-director Ron Fricke’s new non-narrative documentary, Samsara, that humanity is a degenerate wretch. The beauty of nature that usually opens his films is inevitably countered by trash-scrounging indigents, gun-wielding militaries, dancing convicts, the sex trade, and the cold, cruel efficiency of automated animal farming. Fricke covers a lot of the same ground as his previous film, Baraka. So much so that this could almost be considered a remake. Some of the shots are identical and one could be forgiven for thinking them recycled. Fricke takes his time to draw the audience in, not revealing his true purpose until well into the proceedings before you realize you’ve been hooked. Where on Baraka he wielded a mallet, here he swings a sledgehammer. The results are nothing short of potent.

6. The Grey

Many viewers were put off, even downright angered, by this film’s abrupt ending. That ending is The Grey‘s greatest strength and to have done it any other way would only have blunted the movie’s impact. Liam Neeson leads a cast that delivers stronger performances than ought be expected by what was marketed as a genre action film. That may have been the film’s undoing. It is a stark and sober study (existential was the word most often associated with it) of a group of men fighting for their lives against not just a savage wolf pack but the ravages of nature itself.

5. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

One of two films I swore I wouldn’t wast my time watching and was so glad when I relented. Though Peter Jackson’s latest obsession with Middle-Earth is hampered by his insecure need to wrap it in his previous Lord of the Rings trilogy, by the time he lets go of the immediate past and allows himself to venture forward (or in this case, further back), the film is a joyous romp that highlights even more of New Zealand’s gorgeous landscape. Anchored by a gleeful performance from Martin Freeman as reluctant adventurer Bilbo Baggins, and aided by Richard Armitrage’s strong turn as dwarf leader Thorin Oakenshield, the first part of this journey is a non-stop joyride enhanced by Andy Serkis’s absolutely astonishing return in the role of Gollum.

On a side note, I caught this again in the controversial 48 frames-per-second high frame rate. While it is very off-putting, and one’s awareness of the difference never completely vanishes, the format offers some benefits that are difficult to ignore.

4. The Raid: Redemption

Seasoned and weathered muscle-man Sylvester Stallone may have given the CGI-bloated action genre a much-needed punch in the jaw with The Expendables two years ago, but the agonizing follow-up showed that series is already more obsolete than the aging stars at its center. Enter British filmmaker Gareth Evans, who had to go all the way to Indonesia in order to make the most mind-boggling and exhausting action picture since the original Die Hard. Better watch it with an empty bladder because once the action starts, it doesn’t let up over the movie’s bone-crushing 101 minutes. Much must be said for the cinematography. Though The Raid utilizes an abundance of hand-held, it is used judiciously and never shot so tightly that you lose sight of the action. The inventive photography follows tumbling bodies across tables, through holes in the wall and in the floor and under and through and over every conceivable angle, always anchored to a focal point that forestalls the nausea-inducing convulsions prevalent in most action pictures. Forget Bond, Bourne, and Ethan Hunt. If Gareth Evans is the future of action filmmaking then what a glorious future it is.

3. Lincoln

What is it with American movie advertising? 2012 famously saw the head-scratching John Carter crushed by its mind-bogglingly inept marketing and cryptic title change. Rise of the Guardians suffered from a lack of presence and an equally perplexing title. In the US, trailers for Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln led audiences to believe it was a sappy, sentimental tribute to the end of slavery. Only the international trailer revealed what it really was, a biting political drama that examined the efforts of everyone involved in the passage of perhaps the greatest civil rights legislation in the country’s history. The sharp script by Spielberg’s Munich collaborator Tony Kushner plays like a 19th century version of The West Wing, with back-room political dealings and enough congressional animosity to make today’s bureaucratic bitterness look downright civil by comparison.

2. Django Unchained

It’s no secret that I detest Quentin Tarantino. In an industry rampant with insufferable male egos, his trumps them all, and only because kids with zero appreciation for nuance and an over-appreciation for stylized dialogue fawn all over themselves in proclamation of his genius. The fact is, he hasn’t done a good film since Jackie Brown underperformed, apparently freaked him out, and sent him into a nearly bottomless death spiral with an endless stream of self-indulgent self-adulation, culminating in the abysmal Inglourious Basterds. Imagine my utter amazement at what a tight, mature, and dare I say, restrained film is Django Unchained. The frustrating thing about Tarantino has always been the talent that he consistently hides under an insecure sneer of facetiousness. Perhaps inspired by Basterds‘ warm reception, he finally let himself relax and gave his actors room to breathe rather than handing them blocks of dialogue with which to bludgeon audiences into appreciative submission. The uniquely thoughtful script is full of surprises and pulls the rug out from under the audience in a credible way for a change. If this is the Tarantino of the future, I welcome him.

1. Argo

Many detractors of this film credit it as expertly crafted but lacking in transcendence. In a time when craft is horribly undervalued, the fact that a director can come along and show some expertise is nothing short of awe-inspiring. It’s always tricky to deliver a thriller when the conclusion is foregone. Ben Affleck has bounced back from an acting career that had become a joke and transformed himself into one of today’s finest directors, and Argo is his best film to date. Too often is it forgotten that directing is more than just where to put the camera, although even that seems to be a skill long forgotten today. Of utmost importance is the ability to draw exceptional performances out of the cast, and Affleck manages to do just that. He has a great eye for pacing, as well, and in Argo he also displays a sense of humor that seemed to be missing from his previous films. With an excellent script from Chris Terrio, even the most minor characters reveal unexpected actions and are given their fair due in the film’s coda. This is craftsmanship of the highest order.

Disagree? That’s fine by me. Share your thoughts below.

007 takes sexual advantage of a sex slave,
a sleazy move even for him.

It’s disheartening to know within the first five minutes of a movie that it’s going to be a mundane experience. The opening sequence of a James Bond flick is often a good indicator of how the rest of the film will follow. Casino Royale gave us a calm and smoldering secret agent at the genesis of his career intercut with a violent and ferocious bathroom brawl. Quantum of Solace rattled the audience with jarring shaky-cam and vigorous editing. Skyfall opens with a languid car chase that immediately threatens to induce audience narcolepsy. Meet James Bland.

At some point, producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson must realize that prestige directors with Academy Award pedigree are not necessarily the best candidates to helm the longest running action movie series in film history. They may be able to handle drama but they’re adrift when it comes to staging action sequences.

Certainly James Bond can do with some backstory and unresolved angst, but director Sam Mendes thinks he’s making Oscar bait, which would be fine if he had the script to back it. Instead we’re given a rudimentary revenge story with glaring lapses in logic that goes on at least four scenes longer than it should, most of them involving Bond’s boss.

If there’s a drawback to casting Judi Dench as M, it’s that she’s such a commanding presence the filmmakers keep wanting to put her front and center, necessitating whole subplots to accommodate her. Unfortunately, here the character is portrayed as completely inept at her job and can’t even exercise enough common sense to save her own skin. For the head of British Intelligence, she shows an astonishing lack of it.

The performances all around are stilted. They feel like blocking rehearsals. Javier Bardem’s entrance, in particular, is less like a menacing monologue than it is an actor attempting to hit his mark on the proper line, and while his villainous Silva certainly enlivens things whenever he’s onscreen, it’s not enough to give the film a pulse. Daniel Craig, who so superbly established his character in the previous two films, looks as though he’s already had enough and is ready to move on.

As expected, the bright spot of the film is its gorgeous cinematography. Roger Deakins is often cited as the primary draw to Skyfall, and deservedly so. It’s a beautiful series of postcards, but sadly insufficient to salvage the whole.

See instead: Casino Royale (2006): Craig is positively magnetic in his first outing as Bond when director Martin Campbell swoops in to save the series for the second time. Will someone just pay him what he wants to keep directing these films, please?

Disagree? That’s fine by me. Share your thoughts below.

Hugo Weaving as Old Georgie,
the most interesting character in Cloud Atlas.

Despite the hyperbolical entreaties from some, failure to see Cloud Atlas will not hasten the inevitable decay and demise of cinema. While the latest film from The Matrix directors the Wachowskis and Run Lola Run director Tom Twyker is ambitious, to be sure, ambition does not in itself equal success.

Cloud Atlas isn’t so much a movie as it is six movies told simultaneously, none of which have enough of a connection to one another as to warrant intercutting. The closest thing each of these stories have in common is that the same actors are used in each one, many of them playing different genders and/or different races. This is more disorienting than illuminating. Each time the movie cuts to a different story, it becomes a sort of actors’ game of Where’s Waldo? This is further complicated by the fact that not every actor is present in every story and some are merely in the background, making their presence superfluous. The patient viewer asking, “So how does her presence here correlate to her presence there?” will find only frustration, not illumination.

The terrible makeup effects actually hinder rather than help clarify things. At best it makes the actor unrecognizable, (which then prompts the question, why is the actor even there?) at worst, freakish. While some may find the interchanging of races offensive, it is merely distracting and does nothing more than draw unwanted attention to itself. It takes more than slapping latex on someone’s eyes to transform him or her into another race.

Further hindering matters is the slang spoken unintelligibly by Tom Hanks, Susan Sarandon and Halle Berry in the future-most storyline. It’s not the slang itself that is the problem, but the mumbly delivery that makes it incoherent. This is one area, at least, where Joss Whedon succeeded in Serenity, ensuring that the slang made sense and was spoken with clarity.

Even if you want to excuse these problems as being in service to the story as a whole, none of the six separate plot lines come together in any meaningful way. As separate films they are moderately entertaining. As one they are a sort of Frankenstein construction. The only thing they have to say is that all humans are connected somehow throughout history. It says this often lest you forget why this experiment is taking place.

Like the Wachowskis own Matrix sequels, Cloud Atlas is a film that thinks it’s more penetrative than it is. However, it ends up as a slog that offers viewers no reward for their time and attention.

See instead: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008). It may lack the science fiction element but that’s only 33% of Cloud Atlas anyway. David Fincher deftly weaves an elegant tapestry that is beautiful and poetic. It is undercut by a wrap-around story that disrupts its rhythm but still delivers a film of scope and ambition that doesn’t overreach.

Disagree? That’s fine by me. Share your thoughts below.

Oct. 1 Wrong Turn
Oct. 2 ParaNorman
Oct. 3 Paranormal Activity 3
Oct. 4 Serial Thriller: Scream
Oct. 5 Serial Thriller: Scream 2
Oct. 6 Serial Thriller: Scream 3
Oct. 7 Serial Thriller: Scream 4
Oct. 8 What Lies Beneath
Oct. 9 Splinter
Oct. 10 Ghostbusters
Oct. 11 Triangle
Oct. 12 Score Card: Dracula
Oct. 13 A Nightmare on Elm Street
Oct. 14 Coraline
Oct. 15 The Ring
Oct. 16 Serial Thriller: Frankenstein
Oct. 17 Serial Thriller: The Bride of Frankenstein
Oct. 18 Serial Thriller: Son of Frankenstein
Oct. 19 Serial Thriller: The Wolf Man
Oct. 20 Serial Thriller: The Ghost of Frankenstein
Oct. 21 Serial Thriller: Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man
Oct. 22 Serial Thriller: House of Frankenstein
Oct. 23 Serial Thriller: House of Dracula
Oct. 24 Special Screaming: Halloween
Oct. 25 Score Card: Session 9
Oct. 26 The Cabin in the Woods
Oct. 27 Rear Window
Oct. 28 Serial Thriller: Horror of Dracula
Oct. 29 Serial Thriller: Dracula – Prince of Darkness
Oct. 30 Serial Thriller: The Brides of Dracula
Oct. 31 Score Card: Halloween
 

Autumn has fallen and it’s time once more to celebrate the primal, compulsive instinct of fear. Rainestorm finishes its horror trilogy and goes to the well one last time to highlight 31 days of spooky scares that season the eerie atmosphere of Halloween.

Writer/Director/Composer/Icon John Carpenter

And speaking of that very holiday, I find it difficult not to give the number one spot over to that classic slasher film that birthed the infamous killer known as Michael Myers, and tonight is no exception. The rightly-celebrated Halloween theme is as iconic as Bernard Hermann’s Psycho or John Williams’s Jaws.

If Alfred Hitchcock can credit Hermann for 33% of the frightening effect of Psycho, Carpenter can credit himself for saving his movie with a terrifying score. Even divorced from the film, those quick, high piano notes overlayed with long, low tones (and that ever present staccato chirp underscoring the whole thing), instill a feeling of dread and foreboding.

Carpenter credits composers Hermann and Ennio Morricone (who would later score Carpenter’s The Thing) as his primary influences for Halloween, as they restricted their scores to a particular instrument.

John Carpenter, being a keyboard player, composed the score himself out of sheer necessity. By his own admission, it is a very basic composition utilizing very few instruments, mostly a synthesizer. It’s so basic, in fact, that there are YouTube videos devoted to teaching it.

As Carpenter notes, much of Halloween just isn’t scary without the music. Indeed, if you compare scenes with and without the score, the latter choice is quite bland and ineffective.

It isn’t just the main theme doing the heavy lifting, however. Some of the more laconic tracks, especially Laurie’s Theme, magnificently foreshadow what is to come.

There are two places where Laurie’s Theme is used most effectively: when chaste babysitter Laurie Strode walks home from school at the beginning of the film and when she makes that final, dreadful journey across the street to check on her misbehaving friends. These are two of the best scenes in the film and they would be lifeless and quite boring without that score to carry a sense of apprehension out to the audience.

The appropriately titled, The Shape Lurks, used whenever Michael Myers was chasing down Laurie Strode with that agonizingly slow pace, is the simplest theme of all, a series of one and two bass notes undercut with a high rhythmic chime that amps up the viewer’s anxiety.

All in all, John Carpenter’s Halloween represents a rare confluence of elements and events that form not just one of the most frightening films in motion picture history, but a score that stands apart as its own piece of work and ranks among the very best horror scores of all time.

Autumn has fallen and it’s time once more to celebrate the primal, compulsive instinct of fear. Rainestorm finishes its horror trilogy and goes to the well one last time to highlight 31 days of spooky scares that season the eerie atmosphere of Halloween.

Hex cast: 1960

“When I have vanquished the vampires, I shall then dispatch your home planet of Alderaan.”

The charm: Hammer Studios didn’t always produce the best scripts for their classic horror series, but when it came to timeless icons Dracula and Frankenstein, they perfectly captured the spooky, haunting atmosphere. In this follow-up to their adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel, the thunder claps, the wind howls, the townsfolk fret and the beautiful young sex-kitten is… well, young and sexy. Christopher Lee sat this one out but Peter Cushing dutifully returns as supernatural vampire hunter, Professor Van Helsing. I can’t help but be impressed with the dead-serious gravitas he brings to the role. The film looks gorgeous and, though the ending is as ridiculous as any modern blockbuster, there’s nary a dull moment.

Focal point: Van Helsing beats Rambo to the punch by a quarter century when he cauterizes his wounds with a branding iron.

Entrancing trivia: The ending was to have originally had the vampires destroyed by a swarm of bats. This ending proved too expensive to stage and shoot. The concept of this ending was recycled three years later for the climax of Hammer’s The Kiss of the Vampire.

Speak the words: “I see you are passing judgment on me, my child. Sleep before you pronounce sentence.”

Companion spell: Horror of Dracula (1958). Hammer Studios’ first foray into the vampire legend after their highly successful horror launch, The Curse of Frankenstein, both of which established Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee as icons of horror.

The curse: With the fall of the Hays Code and the advent of the more graphic 1970s, after this the Hammer vampire films began to lose their charm.

Autumn has fallen and it’s time once more to celebrate the primal, compulsive instinct of fear. Rainestorm finishes its horror trilogy and goes to the well one last time to highlight 31 days of spooky scares that season the eerie atmosphere of Halloween.

“Does that recipe call for half a cup or a quarter cup of blood?”

The charm: Christopher Lee returns as the undead count, despite having been turned to ashes in the previous episode. And you thought it was only modern movie monsters like Jason that were hard to kill. Peter Cushing is absent in this follow-up, leaving Andrew Keir as the reproachful Father Sandor to take up arms against the fiendish foe. The movie builds atmosphere and tension quite well. It’s forty-five minutes before the count makes his first appearance. The early scenes in Dracula’s castle, wherein four English tourists find themselves as guests, are reminiscent of William Castle’s House on Haunted Hill, all dark shadows and gothic hallways. Dracula is a mute this time around, uttering nary a word as he goes about his evil deeds. Prince of Darkness is a worthy heir to the Hammer original.

Focal point: Dracula’s resurrection is a beautifully grisly sequence.

Entrancing trivia: Much has been made of the fact that Dracula does not speak in this film, although popular legend has it that Christopher Lee found the dialog so atrocious that he refused to speak the lines.

Speak the words: “My master died without issue, sir… in the accepted sense of the term.”

Companion spell: The Kiss of the Vampire (1963). Another Hammer production but not part of the actual Dracula series. Both it and Prince of Darkness share a common first act, and Clifford Evans’s Professor Zimmer is virtually the same character as Andrew Keir’s Father Sandor.

Cursed by: The convenient expansion of vampire lore that allows Dracula to be vanquished by running water (I guess he never washed his hands).

Autumn has fallen and it’s time once more to celebrate the primal, compulsive instinct of fear. Rainestorm finishes its horror trilogy and goes to the well one last time to highlight 31 days of spooky scares that season the eerie atmosphere of Halloween.

Hex cast: 1958

“Dammit! Who put Kool-aid in my blood supply!”

The charm: Though it followed in the footsteps of the trailblazing The Curse of Frankenstein, this second film in Hammer Studios long-lived love affair with horror virtually invented traditional gothic atmosphere with its quiet, windswept countryside, cozy village inn and brooding, spooky castle. Christopher Lee puts on a tall, dignified air until his dark side comes out, at which point his towering height and unsettling snarl become truly menacing. Peter Cushing is a far more serious Van Helsing than Edward Van Sloan in the Universal original, but he’s also more scientific about his process.

What really set Hammer apart was the blood. Hammer was the first studio to graphically portray blood onscreen, dripping copiously from Dracula’s lips and staining his fangs, scarring and enthralling a new generation of film-goers, as well as influencing the more graphic horror films that would follow.

Focal point: Lucy’s resurrection from the dead and her confrontation with her beloved Arthur and Dr. Van Helsing.

Entrancing trivia: Apart from assorted snarls and hisses, Count Dracula never actually speaks to anyone other than Jonathan Harker throughout the entire film.

Speak the words: “I cannot impress upon you strongly enough how important it is that you obey my instructions. Do exactly as I say and we may be able to save her.”

Companion spell: The Curse of Frankenstein (1957). This is the movie that launched Hammer Studios as a legendary purveyor of gothic horror in the late 50s and early 60s. Along with Horror of Dracula, it cemented stars Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee as horror icons.

The curse: Apparently no one at the time bothered to look at the color of actual blood.