My Top 5 Non-Horror Horror Movies
By Luke Lucas
Horror-JFK-Courtesy of Warner Bros.
1. JFK
JFK is the scariest non-horror horror movie of them all to me.
The movie, directed by Oliver Stone, was released just in time for Christmas in 1991 and has an impressive 3 hour and 26 minute run time.
There’s a massive conspiracy at the center of the film. But, with all due respect, I don’t care. More than any other movie, JFK makes me look over my shoulder trying to figure out where that sound in my head came from.
I often wonder if the actors knew what movie they were making. Stone and his Oscar winning editors Joe Hutshing and Pietro Scalia really went to work on this one. John Williams’ score is heavily modulated at points. It gets sped up, stopped, restarted, and echoed. Establishing shots are often passed over for smash cuts. And those come at you so fast with so little context that they feel more like subliminal cuts. The camera goes on strange angles that feature actors running towards the lens. It reminds me a lot of the old Adam West Batman sitcom from the mid 1960’s.
The part of the movie that scares me the most involves defrocked priest, David Ferrie (Joe Pesci) He wears a tired wig and thick, painted on eyebrows, which makes him look like an old school Captain Spaulding from the Devil’s Rejects. Ferrie’s appearance is creepy as is his demeanor. But it is, for the most part, sympathetic. He’s shell shocked and hysterical most of the time. When Ferrie is finally chased down and captured, I could almost make out a small smile on his face. All of the horrors he was going through would soon be over for good.
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