Robert Emmett Murphy, Jr.

  The Changeling (1980)   When I was but a wee lad, Horror immensely popular, but outside the movie industry no one seemed to know how to market it. Supernatural fiction in bookstores was shelved in the Mystery section. As I was a fan of Stephen King, the absurdity of this was obvious. Of his first four novels, “Carrie” (1974), “’Salem's Lot” (1975), “The Shining” (1977) and the “The Stand” (1978), though contained crimes a plenty, only “’Salem’s Lot” bore much structural similarity to what we would normally define as a Mystery. Of the others, both “Carrie” and “The Shining” bore comparison with a number of classic Thrillers (especially Noirs) that explored essentially decent Protagonists decend into Criminality, but those have always been a challenging, rare-ish breed of book. Today, if a non-Supernatural Thiller explored the same themes a King, it would be a toss-up if the label would be “Mystery” or “Horror.” That was King’s first history-making achievement -- he didn’t...

  Deliverance (1972)   The title has proven obscure to many, so let me begin with that: It alludes to a biblical reference that the water will act to cleanse the sins of the world.   James Dickey’s “Deliverance” (1970) has remained one of the most respected American works of literature published since WWII. An Adventure story that echoed the works of Joesph Conrad, it told its simple, but potent, tale with exceptionally deft awareness of how to make unfolding circumstance follow a seemingly naturalistic cause-and-effect, instead of what it really was, a deliberately contrived plot. This gave Dickey room to weave together the rhythms of the lives of the Protagonists, Suburban males lost in a hostile Wilderness; the rhythms of that Wilderness which was larger, which had a history longer and deeper, than the perceptions of the interlopers could contemplate. It does not only demonstrate, but dissects the Violence that erupted when the men and the Wilderness came into ...

  Freaks (1932)   Todd Browning was one of the most important of all American Filmmakers, and specifically one of the greatest Horror Film Directors who ever lived. His career crossed from the silent to the sound, and that curtain is sometimes unbreachable for fans, so many of his most notable works, like his collaborations with Actor Lon Chaney, Sr, are honored but sadly unwatched (worse still, many his films are lost, but that’s another story). Chaney died so early in the sound era, his best work with Browning and others have mostly slipped into obscurity as well.   Only seven of his sixty-two Directorial credits were “Talkies.” unfortunately, Chaney was involved in none of these, as he died in 1930, but two of these Talkies are still widely watched: His landmark version of “Dracula” (1931), which I must say, though it is a heresy, underwhelms me. Then there’s this one, arguably his greatest achievement, but it also, sadly, the one that destroyed his career. He ...