Panic Rooms

Five claustrophic horror films for Halloween viewing.

Boris Karloff in "The Old Dark House"

It’s Halloween tomorrow; it was a full moon two nights ago – time for a scary movie to freak you and the kids out. Certain classics suggest themselves: With a 50th anniversary this year, a pallid new sequel in theaters, and the recent passing of director William Friedkin, “The Exorcist” (1973) is being newly commemorated. Turner Classics has been showing the legendary Universal monster movies all week, with James Whale’s “Frankenstein” (1931) and his daft masterpiece “Bride of Frankenstein” (1935) to be aired Halloween day at 3:45 and 5 p.m. respectively (followed by 1941’s “The Wolfman” for all you lycanthrophiles). You can surf waves of horror on demand across decades of cinema, from silent shriekers to post-war sci-fi to ‘80s gore to the smart, subversive New Horror films of the 21st century, more often than not directed by a woman.

Allow me to suggest a quintet of horror movies centered around a single theme: No Way Out. Being trapped in a place that’s dark and spooky is burned right into the double helix of the genre, keyed to memories of being left alone at night as children, when we knew the Thing in the Closet was going to have us for dinner. Some of the films below fuse their chills with comedy and others with touches of the surreal, while two just pare everything down to the elementals: People trying to get out while something inhuman tries to get them.

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“Barbarian” (2022, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐, streaming on Hulu and Max, for rent on Apple TV, YouTube, and elsewhere) – The stealth horror hit of last year, it preys on the simplest of modern fears: What if that cozy AirBnB you rented had a secret basement level with a tunnel running into the darkness and something obscene wriggling away at the end? Zach Cregger’s film has as many left turns as that underground warren.

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“Green Room” (2015, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 1/2, streaming on Max and Kanopy, for rent on Amazon, Apple TV, YouTube, and elsewhere) – After witnessing a murder while playing a skinhead club out in the woods, a group of likable losers in a punk band hole up in the title location while waves of white supremacists come at them. A white-knuckle siege film starring the late Anton Yelchin as the hero and – surprise – Sir Patrick Stewart as the villain.

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“Hausu/House” (1977, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐, streaming on Max, Criterion Channel, and Watch TCM, for rent on Amazon and Apple TV) – As close as the genre has ever come to pure, uncut Dada. You haven’t plumbed the depths of wiggy 1970s Japanese cinema until you’ve marveled at this incomprehensible horror comedy about schoolgirls in a haunted house. Tough to choose a scene: The giggly severed head that bites the characters on the butt? The piano that eats people? The watermelon with eyeballs for seeds?

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“The Old Dark House” (1932, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 1/2, streaming on Criterion Channel, Kanopy, and MUBI, for rent on Amazon, Apple TV, YouTube, and elsewhere) – Between “Frankenstein” installments, James Whale made this wonderfully campy chiller that nails down and sends up every “Travelers Stranded in a Storm” haunted house urban legend. With a riotous Ernest Thesiger, Boris Karloff inventing the Addams Family’s Lurch, and Gloria Stuart, the old lady from “Titanic” when she was a silly young thing, it’s a creepy-crawly hoot. Have a po-tay-to.

“Vacancy” (2007, ⭐ ⭐ ⭐, for rent on Amazon, Apple TV, YouTube, and elsewhere) – A fine, forgotten little chiller that scrapes this subgenre down to its bones. A bickering married couple (Kate Beckinsale and Luke Wilson) check into a motel. Their room has a VCR with a tape already in it; the tape shows a horrific scene of murder so realistic it could be a snuff film. On closer inspection, it is a snuff film. And it was filmed right where they're standing. Better not ring for room service.

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Comments? Terrifying films you’d recommend? Please don’t hesitate to weigh in.

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