Scary Ghost Pics

First (Official) Images Debut From Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance

, Which opens Feb. 17, 2012, picks up several years after the events of the first film, with the tormented Blaze in self-imposed exile until he’s approached by Moreau to protect a mother and her young son from Roarke/Blackout (Johnny Whitworth), who possesses detailed knowledge of Ghost Rider. (Don’t miss Comic Book Resources’ exclusive interview with Whitworth from Comic-Con International.

Really Scary Ghosts Pictures | Movies, DVD's, Videos

! Every conceivable variation of vampire. And God at all the stinking zombies. What gives? Is it the death rattle of a mortally sick society? Did the zombies already win?

Without arguing too vehemently the sociocultural value of six movies about evil leprechauns, I do think monsters are our friends. Not the kind you want hovering over the Brie, maybe, or checking on the cat when you leave town for a week, but they have a place in our lives. They teach us things and stop us from doing stupid stuff like entering dark basements in strange houses. They keep us on our toes, if nothing else.

(In college I wrote a B+ paper about Native American cultures that used monsters and “horror” tales to instill proper social roles and behaviors. The Hopi, for example, sent around an Ogre Woman to give young boys snares to catch mice and young girls corn to grind. She returned a week later with other hideous, growling monsters carrying baskets to haul away any child who failed to produce. See. Friends.)

Of course, it’s not all a bowl of boo berries. Monsters can leave scars, irrational fears of showers and beaches and videotapes and European youth hostels. The standing stare always got me. You know: That woman trapped inside an iron maiden in the final scene of The Pit and the Pendulum is classic scary and fun … but not the happiest of endings.

With those caveats in place, here are my feel-good fright flick favs, by year.

Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)

Cary Grant wasn’t too thrilled with his performance in this movie. Too over the top, he thought. Brilliant, I think. Mortimer Brewster (Grant) marries the girl next door, literally. As she packs at home for their honeymoon, and the cabbie waits out front, Mortimer gets caught up at his house with the relatives: two kindly homicidal aunts, a not-so-kindly homicidal brother, and a brother who thinks he’s Theodore Roosevelt. As Mortimer explains to his new wife, “Insanity runs in my family, practically gallops!” Peter Lorre is right at home in the nuthouse as the nervous, drunk plastic surgeon, Dr. Einstein. Oh, and the whole happy gathering happens on Halloween.

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)

If the movie monster gods hadn’t denied us Boris Karloff playing Frankenstein’s Monster (as they did his playing Mortimer’s evil brother in Arsenic and Old Lace ) this movie would be near perfect: Universal Pictures’ classic comedy team meets its three most classic Universal monsters. Still, Bud and Lou running afoul of Bela Lugosi’s Dracula and Lon Chaney, Jr.’s Wolf Man is … classic. The fact it all happens in spooky South Florida … Oh Chick! (Lou Costello supposedly hated this film and considered it one of his worst. Et tu, Lou?