Category Archives: Fright Club

A celebration of horror movies with updates on our monthly Fright Club film series at the Gateway Film Center.

Fright Club: Parasites in Horror Movies

Fear of infection, of contamination, of losing your personhood, of physical violation—all of it coalesces in often gooey fashion in the parasite movie. Metaphors abound and slugs take center stage as some of the greatest directors of the genre tell the tale of hosts and unwanted guests. Here are our favorites.

Shivers (1975)

In an upscale Montreal high rise, an epidemic is breaking out. A scientist has created an aphrodisiac in the form of a big, nasty slug. That slug, though, spreads wantonness throughout the high rise and threatens to overrun the city with its lusty ways.

Shivers takes a zombie concept and uses it to pervert expectations. (See what we did there?) Cronenberg’s his first feature length horror predicts so many of the films to come. The film obsesses over human sexuality, social mores, the physical form, physical violation and infestation, medical science, conspiracy, and free will.

Splinter (2008)

Road kill, a carjacking, an abandoned gas station, some quills – it doesn’t take much for first time feature filmmaker and longtime visual effects master Toby Wilkins to get under your skin. One cute couple just kind of wants to camp in Oklahoma’s ancient forest (which can never be a good idea, really). Too bad a couple of ne’er-do-wells needs their car. Then a flat (what was that – a porcupine? No!!) sends them to that creepy gas station, and all hell breaks loose.

Contamination gymnastics call to mind the great John Carpenter flick The Thing, but Splinter is its own animal. Characters have depth and arcs, the danger is palpable, the kills pretty amazing, and the overall aesthetic of that old highway gives everything a desperately lonesome quality where you believe anything could happen and no rescue is in sight.

Slither (2006)

Writer/director James Gunn took the best parts of B-movie Night of the Creeps and Cronenberg’s They Came from Within, mashing the pieces into the exquisitely funny, gross and terrifying Slither.

Cutie pie Starla (Elizabeth Banks) is having some marital problems. Her husband Grant (the great Michael Rooker) is at the epicenter of an alien invasion. Smalltown sheriff Bill Pardy (every nerd girl’s imaginary boyfriend Nathan Fillion) tries to set things straight as a giant mucous ball, a balloonlike womb-woman, a squid monster, projectile vomit, zombies, and loads and loads of slugs keep the action really hopping.

Consistently funny, cleverly written, well-paced, tense and scary and gross—Slither has it all. Watch it. Do it!

The Thing (1982)

John Carpenter’s remake of the 1951 SciFi flick The Thing from Another World is both reverent and barrier-breaking, limiting the original’s Cold War paranoia, and concocting a thoroughly spectacular tale of icy isolation, contamination, and mutation.

A beard-tastic cast portrays a team of scientists on expedition in the Arctic who take in a dog. The dog is not a dog, though. Not really. And soon, in an isolated wasteland with barely enough interior room to hold all the facial hair, folks are getting jumpy because there’s no knowing who’s not really himself anymore.

This is an amped up body snatcher movie benefitting from some of Carpenter’s most cinema-fluent and crafty direction: wide shots when we need to see the vastness of the unruly wilds; tight shots to remind us of the close quarters with parasitic death inside.

Alien (1979)

After a vagina-hand-sucker-monster attaches itself to your face, it gestates inside you, then tears through your innards. Then it grows exponentially, hides a second set of teeth, and bleeds acid. How much cooler could this possibly be?

Much ado has been made, rightfully so, of the John Hurt Chest Explosion (we loved their early work, before they went commercial). But Ridley Scott’s lingering camera leaves unsettling impressions in far simpler ways, starting with the shot of all those eggs.

Fright Club: Skeletons in the Closet, 2024 Oscar Nominees

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! We get to celebrate the terrible decisions some of this year’s Oscar nominees have made in their careers. Why? Because we sincerely love them—the movies and their stars. Join us as we comb through this year’s Oscar nominees’ bad horror past.

5. In Dreams (1999): Annette Bening  and Robert Downey Jr.

It’s a twofer! Nominees for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor, Annette Bening and Robert Downey Jr. joined director Neil Jordan (In the Company of Wolves, Interview with a Vampire, Byzantium) for this gender fluid serial killer/fairy tale mash up that just doesn’t work.

With Aidan Quinn, Stephen Rea, Margo Martindale (in a brief, thankless orderly role), it’s a convoluted mess of a movie that tosses together tropes from about six different styles of horror without ever trying to make sense of any of them.

This was Bening’s only real foray into horror, while Downey Jr. starred in Zodiac (great) and Gothica (poor).

4. Godsend (2004): Robert De Niro

Do not be surprised that De Niro starred in a lackluster horror flick in the early 2000s. He starred in several, not to mention the handful of bad actioners, bad thrillers, and bad comedies he peppers into his otherwise impressive filmography.

In this case, De Niro plays a geneticist with an ulterior motive, preying on the grief of a couple (Rebecca Romijn, Greg Kinnear) whose only child (Cameron Bright) has been killed. De Niro brings him back, but when has that ever been a good idea in a horror movie? Derivative and embarrassing, considering the cast.

Robert De Niro has starred in some great horror (Cape Fear, Angel Heart) and some bad horror (Hide and Seek, Frankenstein).

3. Case 39 (2009): Bradley Cooper

Like George Clooney, Bradley Cooper can write, direct, star, earn Oscar nominations, and be counted on to shine bright in a bunch of bad early career horror. In this case, he co-stars with now two-time Oscar winner Renee Zellweger.

It’s a blatant, lifeless The Ring ripoff with bad FX, bad acting and lame plotting. Cooper plays Doug (he’ll be your Doug). It’s a thankless role of boyfriend/buddy/bee sting sufferer.

We’ve talked about other Cooper horror before, but here’s his whole lineup: My Little Eye (pretty bad), Midnight Meat Train (not very good), and 10 Cloverfield Lane (voice acting, a really good movie).

2. The Wolfman (2010): Emily Blunt

We had such hopes for this one when it came out. That cast! Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Hugo Weaving, and 2024 Oscar nominee Emily Blunt.

Good God, was it awful. If you can look past the idea that Hopkins and Del Toro could be father and son, look past the insipid plot, look past Hopkins’s hamminess or del Toro’s disinterest, you cannot look past the heinous FX. But Blunt handles herself really, really well.

This was not the first, nor would it be the last horror film for Blunt: A Quiet Place (very good) A Quiet Place 2 (good) and Wind Chill (pretty good).

1. Frankenstein and Me (1996): Ryan Gosling

This one’s hard to track down, but worth the effort if you enjoy very badly made family-oriented “horror.” It’s a Disney TV movie starring Burt Reynolds (I swear to God). Burt’s married to a woman 1/3 his age (played by Myriam Cyr, who—God love her—is the worst actor on earth). The two have two young sons, who dream of bringing the dead to life.

Oscar winner Louise Fletcher takes abuse in a role that’s wildly beneath her, but there is one bright spot. This is Ryan Gosling’s first film, and he’s a spunky charmer, elevating every scene he’s in.

It wouldn’t be his last horror film, having also starred in Stay (mediocre, but co-starring 2024 Oscar nominee Sterling K. Brown) and Murder by Numbers (mediocre).

Fright Club: Towns that Won’t Let Go

Being trapped in a town–whether by supernatural forces or physical ones–is a nightmare scenario that horror movies use to their advantage. Maybe it’s bloodthirsty kids in a cornfield who keep you. Maybe it’s some kind of unnatural barrier, and every time you leave, you wind up where you started. Either way, spooky times! Here are our five favorite towns that won’t let you leave!

5. Hilsboro: The Brotherhood of Satan (1971)

One of those mid-afternoon TV watches one day home sick from school, this movie scared the shit out of me. Was it the kidnapping and possession of children? The Satanic cult? No–it was the idea that K.T. and Nicky could never leave the town. No matter what direction they drove or how they attempted it, they would never get out of the town.

That idea stuck with me for ages, but in restrospect, the movie has a lot of weird goodness going for it. It seems to have inspired Being John Malcovich to a degree, as well as Cemetery Man. It’s a B-movie, no question, but it is a lot of fun.

4. Camp Arcadia: The Endless (2017)

Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead continue themes developed in the remarkable Resolution (which could also be on the list). And though it’s really a camp they need to leave, the dread the filmmakers develop is identical to that of the town that won’t let go.

As brothers return to the cult they’d escaped years earlier for a friendly visit, you spend every minute hoping, goading, yelling, begging them to fucking just leave! Get out! What are you still doing there?!

The tension is palpable and the fraternal familiarity between Justin and Moorhead is painfully, tenderly authentic. This works to ground the science fiction elements as they develop, creating an unnerving and memorable feature.

3. Hobbs End: In the Mouth of Madness (1994)

John Carpenter combines King with Lovecraft to create an unforgettable journey into madness. Sam Neill is an insurance investigator out to prove that vanished author Sutter Cane is a phony. He just needs to get to Hobb’s End and prove it.

There’s a scene with a bicyclist on a country road that boasts of Carpenter’s genre magic, as madness and mayhem collude to keep Neill where he is, at least until he can serve a greater purpose.

2. Buffalora: Cemetery Man (Dellamorte Dellamore – [of death, of love], 1994)

Inarguably director Michele Soavi’s best work is confined mainly to the cemetery in Buffalora. Released the same year as In the Mouth of Madness, Cemetery Man explores a handful of the same themes. It just does it with more sex.

The film balances humor with horror, sneakily leading to meaner and more chaotic plot turns until there’s no going back.

Rupert Everett is perfection as Dellamorte, the cemetery keeper who has noticed that the dead come back about seven days after they’re interred. Things go from bad to worse to worse still, and finally he loads up his best friend Gnaghi and plans to put Buffalora behind him. Good luck.

1. The Yabba: Wake in Fright (1971)

First time in the Yabba?

Sweaty, drunken, debauched–Ted Kotcheff’s Aussie thriller wrings tension from every scene as John Grant, put-upon school teacher, explores his manliness with the very manliest in town.

A pressure cooker, the film is an absolute education in escalating tension, but it also boasts what may be the greatest performance of Donald Pleasance’s career.

The film is not for the faint of heart, and potential viewers beware: the kangaroo hunt is real.

Fright Club: Best Evening Gowns in Horror

We are thrilled to welcome Melissa LaMartina – actress, producer, director, and alter ego to Aurora Gorealis, macabre mistress of ceremonies for Shocktail Hour! Fashion icon that she is, Melissa recommended the topic Evening Gowns in Horror Movies.

We run through the best dressed, most fashionable to murder or be murdered in horror films. Listen in, won’t you?

5. Jesse (Elle Fanning) – blue dress in The Neon Demon (2016)

Nicolas Winding Refn’s first full-blown horror movie looks glorious from frame one. Elle Fanning and her co-stars carry off dozens of amazing gowns throughout the film, but it’s that shiny blue number Refn pairs with almost giallo-red blood and those lovely gemstones that left us breathless.

4. Elizabeth Medina (Barbara Steele) – red gown in The Pit and the Pendulum (1961)

Roger Corman may have skimped on a lot of things, but his costuming was top notch. And when doesn’t Barbara Steele pull off a look? Her character in The Pit and the Pendulum has something to hide, and the wardrobe changes with her mood. Our favorite mood is this red swashbuckling number, as it to announce that she was done pretending.

3. Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska) – white gown in Crimson Peak (2015)

Guillermo del Toro’s ghost story is his most fashionable film to date. Jessica Chastain’s Lucille Sharpe is defined by the stiffly dated frocks – gorgeous though they are–while Edith (Mia Wasikowska) is a vision of the future in this buttery satin gown.

2. Countess Bathory (Delphine Seyrig) – silver gown in Daughters of Darkness (1971)

Every garment in this film is a stunner, and each gown worn by the divine Delphine Seyrig deserves its own spot on this list. But the silver number is truly to die for. The way the candle light bounces off the sequins gives Seyrig an otherworldly look that matches her magnificent performance.

1. Juliana (Hazel Court) – the red gown in The Masque of the Red Death (1964)

Another Corman classic, The Masque of the Red Death swims in decadence, something captured magnificently by the wardrobe. Everyone looks stunning, but Hazel Court commands attention in two different ensembles. And though the green gown deserves its own spot, it’s the red dress – and how she wears it – that tops our list.

Fright Club: Unexpected Guests in Horror

It’s one of the oldest tropes in horror: an unexpected knock at the door. Maybe the visitors are in danger: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, The Human Centipede, The Old Dark House and countless others. Or, maybe it’s the folks inside who should be afraid: Knock, Knock; Brimstone and Treacle. For our 10th anniversary special, we count down the best “unexpected guest” horror.

5. The Eyes of My Mother (2016)

The Eyes of My Mother will remind you of many other films, and yet there truly is no film quite like this one.

First time feature writer/director Nicolas Pesce, with a hell of an assist from cinematographer Zach Kuperstein, casts an eerie spell of lonesome bucolic horror.

Shot in ideal-for-the-project black and white, an Act 1 event could come from any number of horror films. A mother looks out her window to see her young daughter, playing alone in the front lawn, talking with a stranger. There is something clearly wrong with the stranger, and things take a bad turn. But for Pesce, this simple, well-worn set-up offers endless unexplored possibilities. Because this bad man doesn’t realize that the isolated farm family he’s come to harm is very comfortable with dissection.

4. The Strangers (2008)

“Is Tamara home?”

Writer/director Bryan Bertino creates an awful lot of terror beginning with that line.

A couple heads to an isolated summer home after a wedding. It was meant to be the first stop on their life together, or so we gather, but not all worked out as James (Scott Speedman) had planned. As he and what he’d hoped would be his fiancé, Kristen (Liv Tyler), sit awkwardly and dance around the issue, their very late night is interrupted by a knock and that immediately suspicious question.

Bertino beautifully crafts his first act to ratchet up suspense, with lovely wide shots that allow so much to happen quietly in a frame. This is a home invasion film with an almost unbearable slow burn.

3. Funny Games (1997, 2007)

A family pulls into their vacation lake home, and are quickly bothered by two young men in white gloves. Things, to put it mildly, deteriorate.

Writer/director Michael Haneke begins this nerve wracking exercise by treading tensions created through etiquette, toying with subtle social mores and yet building dread so deftly, so authentically, that you begin to clench your teeth long before the first act of true violence.

But it is the villains who sell the premise. Whether German actors Arno Frisch and Frank Giering or Americans Brady Corbet and Michael Pitt for his 2007 English language remake, the bored sadism that wafts from these kids is seriously unsettling, as, in turn, is the film.

2. The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

I would like, if I may, to take you on a strange journey.

Two young, ordinary, healthy kids left Denton that fateful evening on a night out. It was a night out they were going to remember for a very long time.

Brad Majors (asshole) and Janet Weiss (slut) get themselves in a bit of a pickle on a rainy night and need to seek a telephone at that castle they past a few miles back. I think you know the rest.

1. The Black Cat (1934)

Rocky Horror owes a tremendous debt to Edgar G. Ulmer’s bizarre horror show. The film – clearly precode – boasts torture, tales of cannibalism, and more than the hint of necromancy.

Plus Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff?! What is not to love?

Loosely based on Poe’s The Black Cat – so loose in fact that it bears not a single moment’s resemblance to the short – the film introduces Lugosi’s Dr. Vitus Werdegast. He’s come to seek vengeance on Karloff’s mysterious Hjalmar Poelzig, if only Werdegast can overcome his all-consuming terror of cats!

Fright Club: Best Drunks in Horror Movies

Whether they’re merrymakers (Grabbers), comic relief (Mrs. MacHenry, Black Christmas), tempted heroes (Dan Torrance, Doctor Sleep), or outright villains (Jane, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane), the drunk is a staple of horror. They can generate a laugh to help offset tension, or develop dread along with their temptation. They can add tragedy, comedy, lunacy and even terror. Here are our favorite horror movie alcoholics.

5. John Grant (Gary Bond), Wake in Fright (1971)

An unrelenting work of tension and sweat, Ted Kotcheff’s Outback thriller follows an aggrieved school teacher who stops over for a single night in the Yabba on his way from his consripted teaching post to Sydney for Christmas.

One bad decision later, and he (John Grant) and we are trapped, possibly forever, in drunken, mad, dangerous, almost sadistic debauchery. Donald Pleasence co stars as part of a merry band of utter lunatics whose sold purpose seems to be to trap this man in their depravity with them.

4. Sam (Larry Fessenden), Habit (1995)

Writer/director/star Larry Fessenden explores alcoholism via vampire symbolism in this NY indie. Fessenden plays Sam, a longtime drunk bohemian type in the city. He’s recently lost his father, his longtime girlfriend finally cut bait, and he runs into a woman who is undoubtedly out of his league at a party.

And then he wakes up naked and bleeding in a park.

The whole film works beautifully as an analogy for alcoholism without crumbling under the weight of metaphor. Fessenden crafts a wise, sad vampiric tale here and also shines as its lead.

3. John Marshall (Jim Cummings), The Wolf of Snow Hollow (2020)

Writer/director/star Jim Cummings is officer John Marshall of the Snow Hollow sheriff’s department. John’s father (Robert Forster, in his final role) is the longtime sheriff of the small ski resort town, but Dad’s reached the age and condition where John feels he’s really the one in charge.

John’s also a recovering alcoholic with a hot temper, a bitter ex-wife and a teen daughter who doesn’t like him much. But when a young ski bunny gets slaughtered near the hot tub under a full moon, suddenly John’s got a much bigger, much bloodier problem.

Cumming’s script, like his writing for Thunder Road, is full of life, and has hin again juggling random outbursts of absurd non-sequiturs and hilarious anger with real human issues of struggle and loss. John’s afraid of losing his father, women are being preyed upon, and a drink would sure hit the spot.

2. Wake (Willem Dafoe) & Winslow (Robert Pattinson), The Lighthouse (2019)

Robert Eggars has gone to sea. The Lighthouse strands you, along with two wickies, on the unforgiving island home of one lonely 1890s New England lighthouse.

Salty sea dog Thomas Wake (Willem Dafoe) keeps the light, mind ye. He also handles among the most impressive briny soliloquies delivered on screen in a lifetime. Joining him as second is one Ephraim Winslow (Robert Pattinson)—aimless, prone to self-abuse, disinclined to appreciate a man’s cooking. Both enjoy a bit of drink.

This is thrilling cinema. Let it in, and it will consume you to the point of nearly missing the deft gothic storytelling at work. The film is other-worldly, surreal, meticulous and consistently creepy.

And we’ll tell you what The Lighthouse is not. It is not a film ye will soon forget.

1. Jack Torrence (Jack Nicholson), The Shining (1980)

It’s isolated, it’s haunted, you’re trapped, but somehow nothing feels derivative and you’re never able to predict what happens next. It’s Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece rendition of Stephen King’s The Shining.

Jack Nicholson outdoes himself. His early, veiled contempt blossoms into pure homicidal mania, and there’s something so wonderful about watching Nicholson slowly lose his mind. Between writer’s block, isolation, ghosts, alcohol withdrawal, midlife crisis, and “a momentary loss of muscular coordination,” the playfully sadistic creature lurking inside this husband and father emerges.

Fright Club: True Love in Horror Movies

Love, exciting and new! Or, ancient and blood soaked. We’re not judging. There tends to be something wrong – lonesome, desperate, twisted, star crossed – about true love in horror. Maybe that’s what makes it so much more memorable. Here are our five favorite love stories in horror.

5. Spring (2014)

Evan (a spot-on Lou Taylor Pucci) has hit a rough patch. After nursing his ailing mother for two years, Evan finds himself in a bar fight just hours after her funeral. With grief dogging him and the cops looking to bring him in, he grabs his passport and heads to the first international location available: Italy.

It’s a wise setup, and an earnest Pucci delivers the tender, open performance the film requires. He’s matched by the mysterious Nadia Hilker as Louise, the beautiful stranger who captivates Evan.

At its core, Spring is a love story that animates the fear of commitment in a way few others do. The film’s entire aesthetic animates the idea of the natural world’s overwhelming beauty and danger. It’s a vision that’s equally suited to a sweeping romance or a monster movie, and since you’ll have a hard time determining which of those labels best fits Spring, it’s a good look.

4. Bones and All (2022)

The film follows Maren (an absorbing Taylor Russell, Waves), coming of age on the fringes of Reagan-era America. She meets and slowly falls for another outcast with similar tastes, Lee (Timothée Chalamet), and the two take to the road.

Given what the handsome young lovers have in common, you might expect a sort of meat lovers’ Badlands to follow. But Bones and All is less concerned with the carnage left in a wake than in what’s awakening in these characters themselves. 

Bones and All is a tough one to categorize. I suppose it’s a horror film, a romance, and a road picture – not three labels you often find on the same movie. In Guadagnino’s hands, it’s more than that, though. He embraces the strength of the solid YA theme that you have to be who you are, no matter how ugly the world may tell you that is. You have to be you, bones and all. Finding Maren’s way to that epiphany is heartbreaking and bloody but heroic, too.

3. Border (2018)

Sometimes knowing yourself means embracing the beast within. Sometimes it means making peace with the beast without. For Tina—well, let’s just say Tina’s got a lot going on right now.

Border director/co-writer Ali Abbasi (Holy Spider) has more in mind than your typical Ugly Duckling tale, though. He mines John Ajvide Lindqvist’s (Let the Right One In) short story of outsider love and Nordic folklore for ideas of radicalization, empowerment, gender fluidity and feminine rage.

The result is a film quite unlike anything else, one offering layer upon provocative, messy layer and Abbasi feels no compulsion to tidy up. Instead, he leaves you with a lot to think through thanks to one unyieldingly original film.

2. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014)

Ana Lily Amirpour has made the world’s first Iranian vampire movie, and though she borrows liberally and lovingly from a wide array of inspirations, the film she’s crafted is undeniably, peculiarly her own.

Set in Bad Town, a city depleted of life – tidy yet nearly vacant – Girl (Sheila Vand) haunts the shadowy, lonesome fringes of civilization. One by one we get to know a pimp, a prostitute, an addict, a street urchin, and handsome Arash (Arash Mirandi).

Watching their love story play out in the gorgeously stylized, hypnotic backdrop of Amirpour’s creation is among the most lonesome and lovely ways to enjoy a good bloodletting.

1. Only Lovers Left Alive (2013)

Visionary writer/director Jim Jarmusch enlists Tom Hilddleston and Tilda Swinton as Adam and Eve (perfect!), a vampire couple rekindling their centuries-old romance against the picturesque backdrop of…Detroit.

Not since the David Bowie/Catherine Deneuve pairing in The Hunger has there been such perfectly vampiric casting. Swinton and Hiddleston, already two of the most consistently excellent actors around, deliver cooly detached, underplayed performances, wearing the world- weariness of their characters in uniquely contrasting ways.

Jarmusch, as he often does, creates a setting that is totally engrossing, full of fluid beauty and wicked humor. The film moseys toward its perfect finale, casually waxing Goth philosophic about soul mates and finding your joy.

We found ours.

Fright Club: Nightmares Film Festival New Distribution Panel

In this bonus episode recorded live at Nightmares Film Festival from Gateway Film Center, the fest’s panel on what distribution looks like in 2023 for independent horror filmmakers.

This year Hope got to join a panel with Justin Seaman of Nevermore Production Film (and filmmaker behind The Barn & The Barn 2), Cicely Enriquez of The Owens Group, and Scott Donley of Good Deed/Cranked Up Films. Thanks to everyone who participated!

Fright Club: Hats in Horror

Hats! They tell you a lot about a villain. Norma’s lightning bolt hat in Carrie tells us that she lacks fashion sense. Leprechaun’s golden buckled hat tell us that he’s sassy. Art the Clown’s tiny little hat lets us know that he doesn’t take himself too seriously. The Wicked Witch of the West wore the greatest, most iconic villain hat of all time, but The Wizard of Oz is not horror, so she didn’t make this list.

Who did make our list of best use of hats in a horror movie? Let us share with you.

5. The Grabber, The Black Phone (2021)

Ethan Hawke’s look for Scott Derrickson’s adaptation of the Joe Hill short story is epic. The constantly evolving, endlessly sinister mask is the push over the cliff, but it all starts with that hat. A black top hat not unlike the one that brought Frosty to life, this hat means magic.

He is a part time magician, after all! And in 1973, I guess people did not se magicians or clowns as scary. But they should have.

4. Mr. Dark, Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983)

Another dark top hat, Mr. Dark’s headwear of choice also conjures the image of magic. But somehow, even in Green Town, Illinois, Mr. Dark doesn’t look out of place with so formal a look. Sure, every other Joe wears something less fancy, but on Mr. Dark, the hat seems perfectly in place.

That’s all part of his charm.

3. Alex, A Clockwork Orange (1971)

The bowler – headwear of choice for Alex and his Droogies. You have to look sharp when on the prowl for a bit of the old in and out.

The iconic costuming in Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece adaptation of Anthony Burgress’s novel creates the mood for the piece. Somehow retro and futuristic, elegant and brutal, punk rock and Ludwig Van all come together in this one ensemble: white trousers, white shirt, white cod piece, and suspenders, black boots, one set of black lashes and that spiffy bowler. Welly, welly, welly, welly well.

2. The Babadook, The Babadook (2014)

If it’s in a word, or if it’s in a book
you can’t get rid of the Babadook.
He wears a hat
he’s tall and black
but that’s how they describe him in his book.
A rumbling sound, than three sharp knocks
you better run, or he’ll hold you in his locks.
ba-ba-ba-dook-dook-dook…
Your closet opens
and your honestly hopin’
that he won’t hear a sound
but that’s when you know that he’s around.
The book close
you have an itch under your nose
and that’s just how the story goes.
So close your eyes and count to ten
better hope you don’t wake up again.
‘Cause if it’s in a word, or if it’s in a book
you can’t get rid of the Babadook
…. you’ll see him if you look

1. Rose the Hat, Doctor Sleep (2018)

Possibly the hottest villain since Salma Hayak wrapped a yellow python around her neck, Rose the Hat (Rebecca Ferguson) will swallow your soul.

Ferguson’s performance is eerily, hauntingly believable in Mike Flanagan’s courageous take on Stephen King’s The Shining sequel. Of his many successes with this film, his villain ranks highest. Rose the Hat is savvy, strong, and more than anything, merciless.