The Book of Lists by Amy Wallace Del Howison & Scott Bradley

Author:Amy Wallace, Del Howison & Scott Bradley [Amy Wallace, Del Howison & Bradley, Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

the power of that smile.

(Note: Spielberg tried to use the same Scatman modalities in

“Kick the Can,” his installment in Twilight Zone: The Movie.

200 THE BOOK OF LIS TS

But one film’s radiance is another film’s treacle; the smile is still

undeniable, but it plays more flim than flam.)

3. Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992): If you were to ask me what the

greatest horror film ever made was, I would probably say Twin

Peaks. The only thing is that it’s about thirty-some hours long;

most of it ran episodically, on TV, in hour-long increments; and

almost nobody called it horror.

But, of course, that’s just crazy, because I’ve never seen any-

thing down-to-the-soul scarier. Between the inimitable “Bob,”

Leland Palmer, Leo, Windom Earle, and the Black Lodge itself,

there’s hardly a devastating note left unhit in the entire horror

lexicon.

And so it comes down to the closing moments of Twin Peaks:

Fire Walk With Me—David Lynch’s posthumous theatrical pre-

quel/final entry in the series—to nail the face of God forever and

completely.

In the Black Lodge. With Agent Cooper and Laura Palmer,

smiling at each other. While an angel hovers overhead.

Letting us know that—on a certain level of Heaven—every-

thing is already all right.

And that Hell, however dark and deep, is not the end.

4. Hardware (1990): There’s no better place to hit the high notes of

transcendence than in an actual death scene: when a character

literally parts the veil between this world and the next one, then

walks us through the changes.

And this has never been done more expertly than writer/direc-

tor Richard Stanley does it with the death of Mo (Dylan McDer-

mott) in Hardware: a psychedelic segue so intimate and willful

that you’d be proud to die that way, too.

Far too few other filmmakers—Douglas Trumball with Louise

Fletcher in Brainstorm, Ralph Bakshi with the pool-shooting

HORROR 201

crow in Fritz the Cat—have bothered to convey such intimacy

with this penultimate moment.

But since Mr. Stanley brought both brilliance and a badass

killer robot to the proceedings, he definitely takes the cake.

Horror filmmakers, please take note.

5. Jacob’s Ladder (1990): This is, to my mind, the inarguable high

point of transcendent horror cinema.

Who would have thought that Adrian Lyne—the director of

Flashdance, 9½ Weeks, and Fatal Attraction— would parlay the

Hollywood leverage he bought with those successes into such an

unadulterated masterpiece?

And who would ever have thought that the face of God would

be conveyed, so thoroughly and convincingly, by Danny Aiello

and Macaulay Culkin?

But there it is.

When they smile—or dispense their wisdom—they do every-

thing that the horror genre could ever hope to do, in terms of

radiant gnosis.

Dispensing truth that the soul cannot ignore.

Transcending genre.

And achieving true greatness, in the process.

Honorable Mentions

28

Days

Later (2002): The scene with the horses, flat out. Brendan

Gleeson blowing the kiss is the icing on God’s cake.

The

Exorcist (1973): As much Christian iconography as there is

throughout the film, it’s the scene at the end—when the post-

possession Linda Blair hugs the priest—that says it all for me.

202 THE BOOK OF LIS TS

Rosemary’s

Baby (1968): It’s all about the look on Mia Farrow’s

face when she comforts her little monster. Talk about transcen-

dence. . . .

May (2002): The very last shot of the film—the comforting

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