“Eyes Without Face” (1960)
Georges Franju’s eerily sublime horror marries French proclivities for the fantastique to the realm of poetic realism —the film terrified audiences in the early ’60s in the most unique of ways. So unique that the public and critics loathed it, leaving the film ripe for rediscovery some years after. The mad plastic surgeon’s (Pierre Brasseur) inhumane practices on murdered victims —all done in the name of returning his disfigured daughter (Edith Scob) back to her naturally beautiful state— is a gothic fairy tale rendered in lyrical, beauteous black-and-white by legendary German DP Eugene Schufftan. From the opening car sequence with Alida Valli, in which the lighting works wonders to instill instant apprehension, to the foggy grays pierced by menacing shadows in the lush exteriors, Schufftan takes all of the experience he’d accumulated from his work with the likes of Fritz Lang (“Metropolis”) and Abel Gance (“Napoleon”) and employs it here as a veil, covering a terrifying narrative with gorgeous photography —not unlike the film’s ghostly pristine mask.
“The Orphanage” (2007)
Juan Antonio Bayona astounded audiences with this finely crafted Spanish horror film starring an impeccable Belen Rueda. The film’s exotic locale, with its dramatic seaside vista and its Gothic interiors, are beautifully captured by Oscar Faura’s camera, strongly recalling the antiquated imagery of the film’s number one supporter Guillermo del Toro (whose ‘Devil’s Backbone‘ could easily have figured here). For its carefully stylized camera movements that jolt the viewer in and out of suspense, to the postcard-worthy wide shots of the mansion that harbors a dark past and the glimpses of the tragic Sackboy that paralyze us with fright, “The Orphanage” rightly won a number of awards for its crisp cinematography. The emotional core of the film, which centers around Laura (Rueda) and her desire to turn her ex-orphanage into a facility for disabled children, keeps us grounded all the way to the film’s bittersweet end, yet Faura’s hybrid of conventional and contemporary techniques elevates the experience to a level of gorgeous that no one expected from a first-time feature filmmaker. At the risk of offending del Toro (and with due respect to Alejandro Amenabar, whose “The Others” is also a stunning visual achievement), we dare say that ‘The Orphanage’ is the greatest looking Gothic horror this century has produced yet.
“The Innocents” (1961)
Scary British films from the ’50s and ’60s had a melodramatic, campy flair, their popularity turning the main production house Hammer into an adjective to describe kitsch horror. But director Jack Clayton made a point of staying away from Hammer-ish tendencies with his supernatural Gothic horror “The Innocents.” He achieves that most impressively through Freddie Francis’ sumptuously eerie and visually delectable black and white cinematography. The title of the film refers to two young children, Miles (Martin Stephens) and Flora (Pamela Franklin), whom their new governess (Deborah Kerr) fears are possessed by the ghosts of their depraved late caretakers. But the main star of the show is Bly, the magnificent manor in the bucolic English countryside where most of the action takes place. Employing techniques of deep focus and low lighting, Francis elevated ‘The Innocents’ to an artistic level no British horror film was able to quite grasp at the time. Kerr walking around the mansion, with nothing but a candelabra to light her way as ghostly whispers from the past cascade and echo around her in the sublime darkness, is one of horror’s most hauntingly beautiful sequences. Watch cinematographer John Bailey analyze the scene when Miss Giddens first walks into Bly to get a sense of how intelligence matches beauty in the film’s compositions.
“Suspiria” (1977)
Even if the plot’s a little hard to digest, “Suspiria” is a visual feast and arguably the greatest work to splutter out of Giallo master Dario Argento’s cauldron. Luciano Tovoli and Giuseppe Bassan do tremendous work with the cinematography and production design here, dazzling with an array of saturated colors and expressive sets. And Argento doesn’t waste any time to showcase them either, smearing the German airport where we first meet would-be ballerina Suzy (Jessica Harper) in starkly absurd crimson. Once we get to the ballet school, with its geometrical interior designs recalling ‘Caligari,’ it’s like fireworks violently shooting into your eyes with its ornamental mise-en-scene and its rainbow lights. All of this is paralleled with and almost propelled by truly horrific scenes of murdered ballerinas and Suzy’s gradual discovery of the supernatural wickedness that bubbles beneath the surface of the school. A standout shot is lit all in green with the camera ending up behind a bulb on the ceiling and twisting our POV of Suzy’s friend Sara (Stefania Casini) as her panic increases —it’s a common element in “Suspiria,” turning a scene into a nightmare right before our eyes. It’s Tovoli and Bassan hypnotizing us with their magical flourishes; that’s why, no matter how repulsive some of it is, we just can’t look away.
“Under the Skin” (2013)
That this unclassifiable Jonathan Glazer rubik’s cube of a motion picture slithered its extra-terrestrial way into our final 15 should come as no surprise to Playlist regulars. We love everything about “Under the Skin,” from its cosmic scale to Scarlett Johansson’s tour-de-force performance as the mysterious entity that scrunches unsuspecting men into algae. In making a film that has such an impenetrable density to the narrative and views this planet through an uncompromisingly alien perspective, Glazer needed imagery to match his vision, and his cinematographer Daniel Landin did not disappoint in the slightest. Barring perhaps Mica Levi’s electroacoustic score, the photography in this sci fi/horror —whether it’s through tracking shots with a disturbing purpose like the powerful crying baby scene on the beach, or the mind-bending sequences of men walking into the black glop— builds a kind of chimeric atmosphere that’s wholly its own. In an interview, Landin recalls the “minimal touch” used with the lighting, trying to get “the real environment to dominate.” All the more reason to praise the film’s alluring look: Glazer and Landin found a way to make the human experience feel completely alien by hardly using any fancy cinematographic techniques at all.
This is a list than could go on forever, but we’ve got to pull the plug at some point. Shout-outs to some classics that almost made it include: “Cat People,” “The Haunting,” “Rosemary’s Baby,” “The Living Skeleton,” Herzog’s “Nosferatu the Vampyr” and Murnau’s original “Nosferatu.”
Of the more contemporary batch, we seriously considered showcasing: “Altered States,” “The Hunger,” “Beyond the Black Rainbow,” “The Devil’s Backbone,” “The Cell,” “Mulholland Drive,” “It Follows,” “The Others” and “Black Swan.”
What are the horror movies that have most dazzled your eyes? You know where to leave your thoughts.