Horror is not only about things that creak in the night, or about other such stuff that is tried to scare you. The concept of a crazed human being, who otherwise looks perfectly normal, and who kills and terrorises others, can be very scary. Especially, when this is done by someone who takes their time over this, willing to wait for a certain period of time before carrying out their mission. No matter that it takes time, the mission is uppermost in the mind of this individual, and he or she does not care about the feelings of others, or that if necessary, other human beings can be killed.
The Night of the Hunter is a movie acknowledged to be a ‘film noir’ movie, although there are people who absolutely love the movie, and there are others who cannot understand why the movie is so liked; after all, the characters are not really daily life, the story may not be so plausible, and the acting is considered by some to be over-done.

When the movie was released, it was not met with rapture by critics, but over a period of 4 decades, the movie has been shown on Television multiple times, and has acquired a cult following (to the extent that the movie is now believed to be a top 100 movie; it is also regularly listed among the most scary movies of all time). The movie was directed by a one-time director, Charles Laughton, who was much more famous as a Academy Award winning actor, and screen-writer. The movie stars Robert Mitchum in the main role as the demented killer.
Night of the Hunter was based on a book of the same name by author David Grubb, and both were based on the real life story of Harry Powers (executed in 1932 for being the main accused in the murder of 2 women and 3 children). The story was powerful, but the style of the movie – it combines religious overdone, a Brothers Grimm type fairy tale in the middle, and a stalker who is most ruthless.
The movie is about the self-styled preacher, Harry Powell (Mitchum) who is sharing a prison cell with a man Ben Harper (Peter Graves) who is sentenced to hang for his part in a robbery in which killings happened. He alone knows where the money is hidden, and only tells his children (John (Billy Chapin) and Pearl (Sally Jane Bruce)) where the money is located. He does not tell anyone else, not even his wife. Powell tries to get Harper to tell him where the money is located, but no dice; however he does get an elusive clue from Harper in the manner of a quote uttered in sleep “And a child shall lead them”. This is enough to convince Powell that the children know where the money is located.
Once he is out, there is a single minded quest to get the money, and to be near the children, he manages to get Harper’s widow Willa to marry him. However, even on questioning, the children do not trust him and do not tell him anything. Willa eventually finds out, and Powell then kills her. After Willa, Powell uses threat and manages to get them to tell him the location, but then escape with the money on a boat ride (a most fantastic ride) and find sanctuary with Rachel Cooper (Lilian Gish). Powell searches for them, and finds Rachel, but she manages to hold him off, and then the police arrive.

This is an epic novel published in 1949 by George Orwell (real name, Eric Arthur Blair). The book is seen as a landmark work, used extensively for teaching, and also as an example of a Government and society heading on the totalitarian path. The book has had a tremendous effect on the mass culture dealing with the rights of individuals versus the tyranny of a Government that believes in keeping an eye on all its citizens, governing their thoughts and actions. The novel led to the popularity of many terms such as ‘Big Brother’, and ‘Orwellian’. It depicted the horror of a society where the Government controlled all aspects of life, and knew everything about every citizen. Soon after, a state came into being where this concept was very close to being achieved. It was in East Germany, a state that had an extensive network of internal spies, and for whom it was claimed that fully a third of the population informed on other people.

The year is 1984, the place is called “chief city of Airstrip One”, a part of the large region known as ‘Oceania’ (the place where the protagonist works is actually London, but a London that has been wracked by civil war after World War 2 and was eventually made a part of Oceania). Oceania is one of the 3 totalitarian states, the other 2 being that which was formed by the USSR, and the third from East Asia. Oceania is a territory or a country that runs through terror and a deep desire to control every citizen. Photos of the leader called ‘Big Brother’ are everwhere with the caption ‘BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU’. Every place has a two-way television (the telescreen) in order to make suer that nothing is secret, and there can be no voices raised against the state (people believed to be working against the state are first re-educated so that they start to love the Big Brother, and then they are executed). In addition, society is divided into 3 separate classes: (i) the Inner Party, (ii) the Outer Party, and (iii) the Proles (upper, middle and lower classes, respectively).
The members of the Inner Party and Outer Party were subjected to a thorough control (with the Proles being deemed to be the worker class, with not much worry being given to whether they needed to be indoctrinated). In the midst of all this, you had the protagonist, Winston Smith. Winston works in the aptly named Ministry of Truth where his job is to modify all records such that the Government is always shown to be true (and this includes removing people from photos once a person is deemed to be a unperson). Winston had lost his parents in the civil war, and the English Socialism Movement (“Ingsoc”) had raised him up. However, he was beginning to have his doubts about the system (even while knowing that if these thoughts ever got out, he would be re-educated and then executed).
He meets Julie, a mechanic in the Ministry of Truth. He feels in her a partner in his feelings, and they start having a secret affair (hopefully away from the watchings of the Ministry, which would have believed this affair to be a betrayal and akin to treason). However, they are soon caught, and sent off to re-education in the dreaded Ministry of Love. There, Winston is subject to monologues from O’Brien, a functionary of the Ministry. There you come face to face with the true horror – the Party has only one aim; it has to keep itself in power, and the only way it can do that is by breaking the traditional friend and family bonds a person has. The person can only have a bond with the party and with Big Brother.
In the despairing end, both Winston and Julia are re-educated. You get to feel the absolute sense of despair when you read about when they meet again, with no feelings for each other (not even anger at each other’s betrayal). They are well and truly successful citizens of Oceania now.

Psycho (released in 1960) was arguably Alfred Hitchcock’s most famous movie, and acknowledged as one of the best movies of all times. The movie set new standards in the field of horror movies, something that slasher movies later have found it difficult to emulate. This was also a movie that Alfred Hitchcock wanted to use to establish his reputation, especially when ‘Vertigo’ had failed 2 years earlier (neither the critics nor the audience gave it much of a reception); and the story of a murderer (a novel by Peter Bloch) was something that appealed to him. He had not made such a movie in the past, although he had made his name in suspense, and the making of a movie of the genre of a psychotic murderer would be a different movie.

To that extent, the story of Psycho was something that Hitchcock guarded to a very high degree. Even the film rights to the novel were bought under a different name so that viewers would not guess the twists in the story. This quest for secrecy manifested itself in several different ways. Hitchcock forbade most promotion on the usual media – television, radio, and print interviews so that there was no fear of revealing the truth. In addition, critics were not allowed the usual private screenings, but had to see the movie with the general public, so that the plot remained secret (even though preventing the critics from their screenings might cause reviews to be not so positive).
The movie also struggled on a different front. The studio for which Hitchcock was supposed to make another movie, Paramount, was not happy with the script or with the thought of Hitchcock making this movie. They did not believe that the script was suitable for a movie, and in fact, such a movie was essentially a pet peeve for Hitchcock. Accordingly, his usual budget was denied, causing Hitchcock to raise money on his own and cut costs. He hired his regular staff, managed to get the lead star Janet Leigh for much less than her regular fee; the overall budget was less than a million dollars.
The movie was reviewed poorly by critics, but turned out to be a major commercial success, earning some $32 million overall. Since the movie was produced by Hitchcock’s company, his share of the profits was much greater than one would have expected otherwise. The success of the movie led critics to change their views, do a re-review, and the movie earned a total of 4 Oscar nominations.
The movie is a gripping psycho drama, with a shower murder scene that is one of the most famous scenes ever; this scene has been copied and parodied many times. There has been countless research done over the decades to evaluate as to why the scene has had such an impact to users; as an aside, it has been popular lore that the scene impacted the actress Janet Leigh so much that she found it difficult to take a shower after that.
The movie is set in a out-of-the-way motel called Bates motel. It is run by the young man called Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) who lives with his ailing mother. And who arrives to this motel ? The lady on the run, Marion Crane (Janet Leigh). She is in love with Sam Loomis (John Gavin), but both of them do not have much money. They are in dire need of money since Sam is in debt and also has alimony payments to an wx-wife that are ongoing. Marion steals $40,000 from the office in Phoenix, Arizona that she works in (she is asked to deposit the money in the bank, but she runs off with the money), and wants to drive to the town in California where Sam works.
She is suspicious, wondering about whether the police is after her; in this state, she even changes her car to try to throw pursuers off her track. In this state, she finds a motel on the way, and is persuaded to stay there. She finds Norman Bates a bit strange, but nothing prepares her for her end. When she is showering in her motel room, an apparently elderly woman attacks her and is stabbed to death (with a powerful musical score playing in the background).
Norman finds the corpse of Marion, and in order to protect his mother, he dumps Marion and all her belongings (including the car) into a nearby swamp. However, it is not the end; a private detective Milton Arbogast (Martin Balsam) is hired to find Norman. He manages to find the Bates motel, and starts to question Norman who gets all nervous. He meets the same end as Marion, being slashed to death by Norman’s mother after being pushed down the stairs. When Milton does not report back, Marion’s mother Lila and Sam get concerned and contact the sheriff. When the sheriff is told about Norman’s mother, he is surprised since Norman’s mother had died 10 years back.
Sam and Lila investigate further, and slip into the motel. They find a slip of paper talking about the money that Marion was carrying ($40,000), and so decide to confront Norman’s mother. Lila is tasked with talking to the mother, while Sam would divert Norman. However, Norman soon has a fight with Sam and knocks him out; Lila is shocked when she discovers the preserved body of Norman’s mother; and the secret is out – Norman is wearing his mother’s clothes when he comes with a knife to kill Lila. Sam arrives just in time and knocks Norman out.
In the end, a psychiatrist explains the truth; Norman and his mother lived together with no one else. So when Norman’s mother took a lover, Norman killed them both, and then tried to erase the guilt by preserving her body, and acting as her (in a classic case of split personality). In this reverse state, the split personality is jealous of any woman to whom Norman comes in touch with, and kills such a women. His psychosis prevents him from realizing the enormity of his crimes. Norman lands up in a cell, his mind dominated by his mother. In this alter ego, she believes that she is harmless and Normal is responsible for her current state.

Predator was the first movie of Arnold Schwarzenegger that I watched, and it was a fairly impressive movie from an action perspective. The movie was made in 1987, and starred an extremely impressive creature, whom one is sure could scare the daylights out anybody stuck in a jungle.
The movie story is deceptively simple. There are a group of commandos on a rescue mission, but not told the real story. In a jungle, they start to sense something wrong, and find the bodies of the earlier team. What they eventually find is the Predator, a creature who hunts humans using some special weapons, beyond human-vision perception, and a stealth that is incredible (invisible is a good way to fight). He starts picking off the commandos one by one, killing them in different ways, until it’s only Arnie.
The finale is about how Arnie manages to extricate himself from the clutches of the Predator, and flees from there.
The movie is a taut piece of work. The way that the sequence in the jungle leads to the point where they suddenly see the Predator (and then don’t), the terrific scene where they try to bait the Predator ending in an incredible scene where the whole group fires a massive burst into the jungle, the fear on the girl’s face, and the scene at the end where you know that the Predator, even when dying, is upto no good. This is all edge of the seat action, and the movie is a must see.