There’s something about slipping on a mask that changes a person, something in the blood, something that reacts to a race memory of ritual, to a time when we were all more personally connected to this world. That’s why so many of us love Halloween, a Pagan custom (Kirk Cameron be damned – both on this specific point and generally speaking) that we have pulled along with us into the modern world. And that’s the extent of my bloviating on the subject today, All Hallows Eve, which I’m reserving for a celebration of mask-wearing and people-scaring in movies horror (and otherwise). Trick-or-treat, boils and ghouls. Now get your masks on!
Alice Sweet Alice (aka Communion, 1976)
Paranoiac (1963)
The Woman Who Came Back (1945)
The Mask (1961)
The Wicker Man (1973)
You’re Next (2011)
The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)
The Mephisto Waltz (1971)
The Shining (1980)
Stagefright (aka Deliria, 1987
Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961)
The Unborn (2009)
The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927)
The Phantom of the Opera (1925)
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
The Tingler (1959)
Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969)
Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1971)
New Year’s Evil (1980)
The Killing (1956)
Strange Behavior (aka Dead Kids, 1981)
The Phantom of the Opera (1962)
Les yeux sans visage (Eyes Without a Face, 1960)
Holy Motors (2012)
Straight into Darkness (2004)
Halloween (1978)
Mr. Sardonicus (1961)
Sei donne per l’assassino (Blood and Black Lace, 1964)
Perché quelle strane gocce di sangue sul corpo di Jennifer/What Are Those Strange Drops of Blood on Jennifer’s Body (The Case of the Bloody Iris, 1976)
The Bat Whispers (1930)
Circus of Fear (aka Psycho-Circus, 1966)
The Black Panther (1977)
The Oblong Box (1969)
I corpi presentano tracce de violencia carnale/The Bodies Show Traces of Carnal Violence (Torso, 1973)
The Toolbox Murders (1978)
La casa della paura (The Girl in Room 2A, 1974)
Dirty Harry (1971)
Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981)
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh (1963)
Planeta ciega/Blind Planet (aka The People Who Own the Dark, 1976)
Kill List (2011)
Nightbreed (1990)
Friday the 13th, Part 2 (1981)
The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976)
The Strangers (2008)
El orfanato (The Orphanage, 2007)
The Evil of Frankenstein (1964)
The Face Behind the Mask (1941)
Tourist Trap (1979)
La maschera del demonio (Black Sunday, 1960)
Demoni (Demons, 1985)
Onibaba (1964)
La main du diable (Carnival of Sinners, 1943)
Miss Muerte, aka The Diabolical Dr. Z (1966)
Night of the Demon (aka Curse of the Demon, 1957)
Night Creatures (1962)
The Crimson Ghost (1946)
Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)
Im Banne des Unheimlichen (The Hand of Power, 1968)
Kiss of the Vampire (1963)
Race with the Devil (1975)
The Plague of the Zombies (1966)
The Funhouse (1981)
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988)
The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1970)
HAPPY HALLOWEEN 2014! BE SAFE! STAY SCARY!