By Ruel S. De Vera, Associate Editor
Sunday Inquirer Magazine

THE tenuous connection between All Souls Day and scary things gets even more muddled every year as the Philippines seems to move closer and closer to a Halloween that is American in almost every single way.

What has always been interesting is how TV revels in this by sending up their “scary” stuff. Remember the “Magandang Gabi, Bayan” Halloween episode? Spooky. The channels would also roll out their menagerie of Filipino horror films, including some very old and some very funny ones.

So let’s ask ourselves what are the ten scariest films we have ever seen. Take note, if I seem to be missing a scary movie on this list, it’s because I probably haven’t seen it. Horror movies seem to be the single most profitable genre now, so everyone is making them one after the other, especially Asian countries. I simply haven’t been able to watch all of them despite my best efforts. Plus, I try to tune out the Hollywood adaptations. You will also notice a preponderance of zombie movies on this list — that’s because I simply can’t stop watching them.

Here they are, in no particular order:

1. “Night of the Living Dead”: I’m talking about the original 1968 version. What George Romero distilled was a new way of projecting fears about the era we lived in. But what has endured is a fear of flesh-eating corpses that shamble around, waiting to turn you into one of them. The 1990 remake may have been in full-color, but the original black-and-white experiment carries an edge and moodiness that defy time and taste.

2. “28 Days Later” and “28 Weeks Later” (Counts as one): Just as Romero defined zombie movies, these two movies redefined them, unleashing two innovations: 1) zombies which run very, very fast and 2) the zombie movie as art. Both British products with quite an artistic pedigree: 2002’s “Days” was directed by Danny Boyle and written by novelist Alex Garland while 2007’s “Weeks” was helmed by Spaniard Juan Carlos Fresnadillo. The movies took advantage of millennial dread and used a virus called Rage; note that the zombies are never referred to as such, they are simply “The Infected.” Between the empty London landscapes and the eerie music by John Murphy, these movies prove that the horrifying can be beautiful.

3. “Dawn of Dead”: This time, I’m referring to the 2004 recreation by Zack Snyder. Back then, Snyder was a hotshot video director, but it was this movie that established him as a kinetic, visual filmmaker who would go on to helm both “300″ and “Watchmen.” Totally owning the idea of the mall as apocalyptic shelter, this movie runs at ten times the speed of the Romero original, pushing the speedy zombie to its maximum, while pushing the envelope with zombies of all shapes and sizes.

4. “Life Force”: This 1985 production is British in feel and spirit — yet it was actually directed by Tobe Hooper, the Texas-born mind behind the original “Texas Chain Saw Massacre.” Sleek if somewhat ludicrous, it brings what can only be described as space vampires into the forefront with a surprisingly good cast (Patrick Stewart before he
was Picard! Peter Firth! Mathilda May!), it mixes a bit of sexiness and a lot of sci-fi into a modern gothic movie.

5. “The Thing”: There is no more grotesque, more paranoid product that John Carpenter’s masterwork. That “thing” (really what other way can it be described) waiting under the arctic ice in this 1982 screamer really carries out its mission in the goriest, grossest way
Possible — taking the whole “it disguises itself as you” aesthetic to new depths. And that last scene — craggy Kurt Russell and granite-hewn Keith David back-to-back, clutching their weapons as the snow comes down, listening to the darkness, clutching their weapons just in case, all the while we’ve hearing Ennio Morricone’s (yes, that Ennio
Morricone) heartbeat of a theme ticking way — is a reminder of how mindbending these movies can be.

6. “The Sixth Sense”: M. Night Shyamalan’s first movie was his best, and the twist awaiting Bruce Willis at the very end, mixed with Haley Joel Osment’s eye-opening performance, make this a solid movie, period. But it is what Shyamalan does with movement — just a little – that makes this a winner. The sudden, furtive movement behind Osment as he’s peeing in the bathroom. The rustling under his bed. The slow rocking of something in the rafters. Scary.

7. “The Others”: Just perhaps the most underrated, underappreciated horror movie imaginable, this 2001 movie from Chilean writer/director Alejandro Amenabar is the exact opposite of “The Sixth Sense.” It is a very still movie—and has a whopper of a twist at the end that rivals that of “Sense.” It uses shadows and stillness instead of light and movement. Nicole Kidman and her kids make this a horror masterpiece that is sad as well as scary — and quite possibly the single movie you should not alone at night.

8. “Shake, Rattle & Roll”: The granddaddy of all Filipino modern horror—and the best of them all. This 1984 trilogy featured the definitive combination of séance voodoo (and a cautionary tale for all Spirit of the Glass sessions) with Emmanuel H. Borlaza’s “Baso,” a
fear-the-aswang chase in Peque Gallaga’s “Manananggal,” and—the most inventive idea of all—haunted appliances in Ishmael Bernal’s “Pridyider.” Janice de Belen’s turn as the victim dared viewers to go and get a cold drink after watching this. The tenth “Shake” comes out this year, but the original is still the mightiest of all.

9. “Jaws”: Any movie that makes you scared of jumping into the swimming pool has to be on this list. This is the movie that made Steven Spielberg big and essentially created the event movie. Yet it is uncanny how a malfunctioning mechanical shark and Spielberg’s decision to shoot around it made for unforgettable seaside violence.

10. “The Exorcist” and “The Omen” (Counts as one thematically): A confession: To this day, I cannot watch the originals from start to end. These devil-oriented movies remain as terrifying today as when they first came out (William Friedkin’s “Exorcist” in 1973 and Richard Donner’s “Omen” in 1976) and the names Regan and Damien became scary forever.

Read about the scariest movies in the October 26 issue of the Sunday Inquirer Magazine.