Stir of Echoes

Kevin Bacon and a ghost in plastic

Writer/director David Koepp paid the ultimate tribute to an author he reveres, the oft-adapted Richard Matheson, with a top-notch screen version of his 1958 novel, A Stir of Echoes.

What Lies Beneath

A woman’s experience of empty-nest syndrome manifests as a supernatural return of the repressed in Robert Zemeckis’s cathartic ghost story, an exercise in classical Hitchcockian tension and plotting that transcends pastiche.

The Changeling

For all the freaky poltergeist activity and vivid visions of murder to come, The Changeling (1980) dispatches its most abysmal horrors in its opening minutes, when its protagonist witnesses the deaths of his wife and child under the wheels of a truck, in the sort of scene that inevitably impacts older viewers more profoundly than younger ones.

Discomfort Zone

The Harbinger, the latest of Andy Mitton’s exquisitely heady—and horrifying—otherworldly explorations, is the only quarantine film we need.

The Innocents

Jack Clayton’s masterpiece of narrative ambiguity The Innocents begins with a time-honored tableau: Deborah Kerr, hands clasped devoutly, imploring a higher power to make her useful to her young wards (“more than anything, I love children”).

Free Spirits

From a pool of strong contenders, Poltergeist emerged as the defining film of an 80s childhood.