Halloween Movies

Lori Byrd has a post up about her favorite Halloween movies and Ace follows up with a post considering the "rules" of vampire movies. He's wrong about the "entering rule", some evil you have to invite into your life. Well, in my family ghost movies are the byword. Chief among them strides Lady in White starring Lukas Haas and Alex Rocco.

Lady in White tells of a 10 year old in the 1950's who sees a ghost and has a brush with a serial killer on Halloween.

Haunted starring Aiden Quinn and Kate Beckinsale is a particular favorite of my mother. More recent entrants, What Lies Beneath and Gothika have problems with basic ghost story rules. The're still enjoyable, but don't touch The Gift for good quality creepy.

Good family friendly fare includes: The Ghost and Mrs Muir, Topper, Haunted Mansion, and Blithe Spirit, particularly the one starring Rex Harrison. Rex Harrison loves to portray a man set on his comfortable rut, it is highly entertaining to see it upset.

What are ghost story rules?

* Ghosts haunt for a reason, mostly to resolve the circumstances around thier death - injustice or to bring emotional closure.

* Ghosts are limited to where they can haunt. (Major problem with Haunted)

* Ghostly manifestations like fire or water must have application to how they perished. So a ghost who was drowned could manifest water all around but is unlikely to manifest fire.

* Ghosts stop haunting when thier issues are resolved or after they have completed thier mission.

* Ghosts sometimes haunt to protect a loved one from a threat.

* Ghosts can not possess only express. (Major problem with Gothika)

Good ghost story books: Daniel Hecht's City of Masks and Land of Echoes. Also Lily's Ghosts by Lara Ruby. The latter is a young adult book, excellent though.

Update: How could I forget The Others and The Frighteners?

Cao has open trackbacks today. Thanks Cao.
So does Mudville.