REBECCA

                                          

A young naive woman meets and falls in love with a wealthy widower, suffering over the thoughts of his dead wife Rebecca. They marry and move into his castle-like mansion where she doesn’t seem to be approved of by the servants. Who were, and still are, just as loyal to the first wife as though she were still alive. The woman feels as though she is not good enough for her husband. She believes he wishes that Rebecca was still alive and that he were married to her instead. This was released in 1940 and it starred Joan Fontaine and Sir Laurence Oliver, also directed by the terrifying Alfred Hitchcock.

      

EMPIRE OF THE SUN

Empire of the Sun is based the on J. G. Ballard’s semi-autobiographical novel depicting the time when he was a young boy living a wealthy English lifestyle in Shanghai during World War II. He was obsessed with planes and dreams of flying. It also shows how he got separated from his parents and how he tries to survive in a Japanese war camp.  Along the way, he befriends a British doctor and a Japanese fighter pilot who shares the same passion for flying. He also befriends  an American named Basie played by John Malcovich. Basie takes the boy (Jim) under his wing and plans to escape the camp.

This film shows how one must have coped with life during that time. Whether it was right after Jim and his family were separated and the boy had to live by himself with no one to take care of him. Then when he arrived at the war camp and how he and others tried to live their lives as if they had never left their original homes. Trying to make the best of things and hoping that things would go back to the way they once were.

This film was released in 1987 and was directed by Steven Spielberg. Also, it introduces the 14 year old British actor Christian Bale, who is very well known for his role as a rich playboy by day and masked crusader by night in the Dark Knight trilogy.

BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING

                                           

 From the 1957 novel “Bunny Lake is Missing” this is the 1965 film about an American mother who had just moved to England with her brother and is now in a panic to find her missing four year old daughter Bunny. Whom, she claims to have dropped off on the first day of school, except there’s no sign of her anywhere. The teachers have no record of her; the children hadn’t seen or heard of her, and when they called for the police they didn’t even have a picture of her to show them.

Now a peculiar thing happens when the police arrive at the mother’s home. They weren’t able to find anything that belonged to the missing child. No toys, no books, and no clothes it didn’t even look like a child was there.

 Bunny’s mother was in a panic because now the police began to wonder if there was even a real missing child, and if there was who took her? Could it have been Wilson the eccentric landlord, whom seemed to have a thing for Bunny’s mother and isn’t too crazy about cops. Or could it have been one of the head mistresses of the school Bunny was supposedly to be at? An elderly retired woman living in a room above the school, who liked the children to come up and see her so she could ask them about their dreams and document them. Maybe it was the school’s cook, who said that she would watch the girl ten minutes before school started. But, then leave because of some criticism on her cooking. What about the brother? He seems to have an unusually close relationship with his sister, and he was the one willing to pay for an abortion to be done for his unmarried pregnant sister.  Or maybe Bunny really doesn’t exist? Bunny could have been imagined by the so called mother, who once (when she was child) had an imaginary friend named Bunny. So many possibilities but only one answer, what do you think happened?

VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED

Village of the Damned, based on the novel (Midwich Cuckoos) written by John Wyndam. It takes place in a British village of Midwich, where a strange blackout occurs. It is strange, because in this blackout everyone (including the animals) in this village passed out and become unconscious. Also, anyone who walked into that area would go unconscious as well. After a view hours everyone in the village began to wake up. They were confused, not sure what was going on or what happened. Some even said  that when they woke up they felt cold, ice cold.

A few months after the blackout, a lot of the town’s women became pregnant. Some young, some middle age, but the strange thing was that some of the women were virgins as well.  They all give birth on the same day, and all the babies have strange features. Thin finger nails, white- blondish hair, and very unusual eyes.

To find out the mystery, watch the movie which is available in two versions: either the original (1960), or the John Carpenter’s version, created in 1995, and remember, “Beware the Children!”

STAND BY ME

Do you remember those summer days of just goofing off with your friends? Going to summer camps, water parks, movies, finding a dead body in the woods?  Wait? Well… Maybe not that, but for one group of friends it did happen. The movie is based on the novel (The Body) written by director Steven King. It’s about four small town boys going on a journey in search for the missing body of a farm boy who was hit by a local train. Now I will say this film does have some bad language, and some squeamish parts in it. But in all honesty this is a great film, and I think everyone should see it at least once. The movie was filmed in 1986 directed by Rob Reiner, starring Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Jerry O’Connel, Corey Feldman, and Kiefer Sutherland.

HALLOWEEN and NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET

                                                

It’s that time of year again, the time for ghost, curses, haunted houses, and best of all: scary movies. Now, what better movie to watch on Hallow’s eve than the terrifying classic, Halloween. Now, what do we really know about this movie?  Other than a psychopath  in a mask trying to kill you, with scary music playing in the background. The movie was released in 1978, introducing the now famous movie actress Jamie Lee Curtis. Now I have mentioned before that Jamie Lee Curtis is the daughter of famous movie actor Tony Curtis, but what I didn’t mention is that she is also the daughter of Janet Leigh. Janet Leigh is known for her unforgettable shower scene, from one of Alfred Hitchcock’s most popular movies Phsyco. So hoping that she inherited her mother’s scream, Jamie got the part. Another thing you might not know about the film is how they got the mask for the scary phsyco killer Michel Myers. The makers of Halloween had received different masks to choose from: a clown mask, a captain James T. Kirk mask, and a Richard Nixon mask. Now from looking back on what the mask looks like, which mask do you think they chose? If you said James T. Kirk, you’re right. The makers didn’t want Michael Myers to have any facial expressions on him, and they thought the Captain Kirk mask showed the least expressions on it so they chose it. They made the eye holes wider on the mask, added some hair plugs, and sprayed the mask white. Now, thanks to that, it is a face we will never forget.

                                      

Speaking of faces we will never forget, what comes to mind when I say… Freddy Krueger? A deformed figure trying to kill you in your dreams? The scariest version of the boogey man you’ll ever encounter? Or as your parents would have put it, just a little nightmare? Well, the creator of this film got the idea from real life reports on people that didn’t want to sleep.  One of the reports was about a teenage boy too scared to fall asleep, because he had these nightmares about a man trying to kill him. His doctors gave him sleeping pills to fall asleep, but one night he actually did die. They didn’t know the cause, but when someone looked under his bed they found all of the boy’s sleeping pills he was supposedly taking.  And just like in Michael Myers, there was still the matter of what this terrifying being of the night should look like. Well one night at a pizza parlor, one of the creators ordered a pepperoni pizza. When he got it he started rearranging the pepperonis, and got the idea for Freddy Krueger’s face.  Also this movie would be the start of one very popular movie actor career. The great Johnny Depp. It was actually one of the producer’s daughter that mentioned he should be in it. Although the producer was a bit skeptical he was no match for his daughter’s per swaying. So lock your doors, board your windows, and say your prayers. Oh, and Hallow’s eve if you dare…

THE TIME MACHINE

Have you ever thought about the future? Not just college intuition, but the future.  Flying cars, moving sidewalks, and robotic butlers. Well, one Victorian inventor thought a lot about it. He believed he was born in a horrible century. He hated the thought of man being so destructive and so corrupt with violence that he decided to find a different time zone to live in. A century with no wars; a place where he could live with civilized humans. So, on that note, he decided to build a time machine. But once he found what he thought was his paradise, it turns out that it’s worse than the time period he actually came from.

The Time Machine was based off of the H.G. Wells’ 1895 novel. For some who may not know: H.G. Wells is also the writer of the original War of the Worlds. The movie stars Rod Taylor, Yvette Mimieux, and Alan Young. If you had a time machine, where would you go?