Like the author, I agree that Hocus-Pocus is a fun, well-made comedy. But the best Halloween film? Nope. To me, what was the most horrifying? Halloween (1979), of course. By today's standards, it's considered, shall we say, "lame." But take it in its context. When I saw it, everyone in the theater was stunned. No one got up during the credits; one could hear a pin drop. People walked out of the theater clutching each other. Today, we guts flying out of bodies and that's on regular TV. Every generation becomes desensitized. My dad told me, that as a young teenager, he saw the original Frankenstein and people were afraid to walk home. Even though it was a brilliantly made film, even by today's standards, most six-year-olds wouldn't be frightened by it. Put it all in context.
I also have to agree on The Sixth Sense. While it was well produced, directed, written and acted, it failed on the conclusion. I figured out the punch-line five minutes into it. As a matter of fact, I wrote a story in college about a woman who, after driving home one night, finds her family gone and things just not quite right. She spends a night in terror, trapped in her home, feeling she's being watched, lights she's turned on are turned off, doors she's opened are closed, the house starts to transform around her and at the end a stranger approaches her and tells her, despite her protests, that she's dead, a ghost haunting her house, killed in a traffic accident the night she drove home. Her husband and children have long left, moving elsewhere and the current owners decided to end the "paranormal activity" she was conducting. I happen to think The Others with Nicole Kidman, about the haunted being haunted, did it better (even though I also quickly figured out the twist ending).
Gerard
