The 10 Most Glamorous Horror Movies of All Time

In the spirit of Halloween, I offer this list from Far Out Magazine.

I’ve never been a huge horror movie fan, so I wasn’t surprised to note that I had already seen only two of the films on the list: Bram Stoker’s Dracula (Francis Ford Coppola, 1992) and The Hunger (Tony Scott, 1983). Those were, in fairness to Lucy Harbron, who compiled the list, both good movies and satisfyingly glamorous. Of the other eight, there were several whose trailers prompted me to add them to my to-watch list (now nearing 50), including Carrie (Brian De Palma, 1976), which, I’m embarrassed/proud to say, I’ve never seen.

Movie: The Conversation 

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola 
Starring Gene Hackman and John Cazale
Released: 1974
Run Time: 113 min. 

I’ve watched this film at least a half-dozen times since it was released in 1974. Watching it again last week did not disappoint my high expectations. On the contrary, it reconfirmed my great admiration for it. If I had a Top Ten Movies of All Time list, The Conversation would be on it – perhaps in the top five.

The Story: A masterpiece of 1970s paranoia, The Conversation features Gene Hackman as a surveillance expert who finds himself helplessly enmeshed in a murder plot when he is hired to record a conversation between two people.

What I Liked About It 

Everything!

* It stars Gene Hackman, one of my favorite actors, who plays the role of Harry Caul, a private, almost paranoid surveillance expert who nearly loses his mind in the course of discovering the details of an otherwise mundane case. Hackman makes his character and the entire movie work.

* It costars John Cazale, who plays Stan, Caul’s assistant. A character that is the perfect foil for Hackman’s character.

* It has an intriguing plot intensified through the brilliant directing of Francis Ford Coppola, one that gripped me from beginning to end.

Interesting 

Coppola said he based Harry Caul on Harry Haller, the protagonist of Hermann Hesse’s novel Steppenwolf, a “total cipher” who lives alone in a boarding house. The character and one of the scenes were also inspired, according to Coppola, by Karl Schanzer, a private investigator and occasional actor who appeared in Coppola’s early films.

Those may have been influences, but what is crazy to me is the biggest and most obvious one – Antonioni’s 1966 classic Blow Up, a psychological thriller about a London photographer who accidentally discovers evidence of a murder in one of his photographs.

And by the way, Blow Up was inspired by Julio Cortazar’s 1959 short story “Las Babas del Diablo.”

Both the movies and the short story were, on one level, about people being fooled by their perceptions – or as Antonioni said, about man’s relationship not with other men but with reality.

In Blow Up, the method of discovery was visual – i.e., photography. In The Conversation, it was aural – i.e., listening devices.

There were other similarities – themes and motifs in the films, including the process of discovery, the immersion in rarefied environments, and even the same dominant color schemes (red, black, white, and gray).

Bottom Line: Whether it was done consciously or not, The Conversation was a masterpiece of creating a beautiful art object by imitating an existing beautiful art object, with one element changed. (My idea of “One Step Removed.”)

Critical Reception 

The Conversation, Coppola, and Hackman won 14 major industry awards and were nominated for 17 more. Wins included two BAFTAs (Best Film Editing, Best Sound Track), the Palme d’Or for Coppola at Cannes, and Best Director for Coppola from the National Society of Film Critics.

My Rating: 5 out of 5

You can watch the trailer here.

 Movie: Send Help 

Directed by Sam Raimi
Starring Rachel McAdams and Dylan O’Brien
Release Date: Jan. 30, 2026 
Run Time: 1 hour, 30 min.

This looks like it’s going to be fun: Sam Raimi + Survivor 

The Story: Two colleagues become stranded on a deserted island, the only survivors of a plane crash. On the island, they must overcome past grievances and work together to survive – but ultimately, it’s a battle of wills and wits to make it out alive.

You can watch the trailer here. 

Miniseries: Black Rabbit

A Netflix miniseries (8 episodes)
Starring Jude Law and Jason Bateman
Released: Sept. 18, 2025
Run Time: approx. 45 to 70 minutes per episode

The Story: Black Rabbit is a drama – part crime, part family, part restaurant drama about a high-end restaurant in New York City. The plot follows the two brothers who started it, exploring “the dark side of the restaurant business when one brother’s troubles lead to a dangerous underworld.”

What I Liked About It 

* It works dramatically on several levels: as a restaurant story, as a family story, as a political/social story.

* The acting is good throughout.

* The editing is very good. It turns what could have been a TMI piece into an addictive script.

You can watch the trailer here.

A Longish YouTube Piece and 20 Short Ones 

* Piers Morgan Confronts Murderer Amber Wright 
Run Time: 45 minutes

This is haunting: A 15-year-old who lured her ex to a grisly murder.

* Shut Down: Dems Panic; Trump Drains the Swamp
Ron Yates is on top of this, as he usually is on economic/political issues.

* Bill Maher on Arab Countries
Just stating the facts. His audience doesn’t get it. Crickets!

* Scary and Difficult to Watch
A parent’s worst nightmare. Chairman Hawley exposes AI chatbots for harming children.

* Lefties Losing It
Rita Panini does what she does best: showing the absurdity of lefties who melt down when they face logic.

* Trump Offers Iran a Way Out
Trump is the best friend of Jews worldwide. Now he moves toward peace and prosperity for the entire Middle East. Will they take it?

* Vaccine Scam
This is what they knew… and did.

* Anthony Aguillar: A Hamas Propogandist
A viral whistleblower told a story about Gaza. It fell apart.

* The Truth About Islam
From the son of the father of Hamas.

* What If They Can’t Change? 
I’m writing a book about why our systems for many kinds of bad actors can’t change? Here is one example.

* I Have a Major Crush on Yuja wang
Here’s why…

* The Truth About Plaque
From JS: “This 21-minute video is worth your time. If you’re open to challenging long-held beliefs, it will clear up major misconceptions around heart disease.”

* Peachtree Jewelry Exchange
This is a guy who has a disarming way of bringing his customers into reality.

* Do You Know Who Victor Borge Was? 
Now you do!

* Who Are the Victims? 
It’s not the Black population. Sometimes leadership means making tough decisions for the public good.

* Cancelling the Ride 
Was he right?

* Confronting a Legal Immigrant
This Iranian man spent three years in a refugee camp in Turkey before immigrating to the US. Here he’s leaving the gym, “minding his own business,” until this happened.

* Poll Damages Democrats as Schumer Shutdown Backfires
A major blow.

* Nosy Karen Neighbors
He’s just trying to help cut the grass, and she says he didn’t do a good job.

* Guy Who Started the Palisades Fire
Finally arrested!

* His Actions Were Unforgivable 
Do you believe that everyone can be rehabilitated? Answer this: Why rehabilitate a monster like this?

Acting Counts: Lackluster… to Not Bad… to Spine-Tingling 

I’ve made three movies. One was so bad I destroyed it after I showed it to my 12-year-old son and his two cousins and they trashed it. The next was almost good because it was written and directed by a cult film maker who was famous for making bad movies. The third actually won some awards, including a “best” at a film festival in Liverpool. It wasn’t good. But I like to think that it wasn’t bad either.

I spent a silly amount of money trying to be a “film maker.” I would have gone broke trying except that K made me agree not to fund another one unless I miraculously made a profit on the other three. (That’s coming along… I’m earning about $120 a month on them. I’ll be in the black in about 3,248 years.)

I did, however, learn some things about making movies, including something that contradicted a prejudice I had adopted from reading a few books on its history. My prejudice (which, by the way, was held by the director of bad movies I mentioned above) came from the auteur school of film criticism, which I believe was born in France. And it was that the quality of a film is 90% the result of the director and that the effect of the acting is itself a product of good direction.

I discovered that was not at all true. I discovered that a good actor can make a bad script work and a bad actor can ruin the best script.

In this video, Tristan Spohn takes a scene from Brokeback Mountain and compares three pairs of actors playing it. First, two people that have had no training in acting. Next, two people that had about two years of training. And finally, the two actors that played the role.

The difference is big. Big as in lackluster… to not bad… to spine-tingling!

Why Did Candace Owens Become an Antisemite? 

This is the first time I’ve been acquainted with Tovia Singer. The guy is very impressive. Click here.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Britain Is Turning into Somalia

In this video, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, author of Infidel, tells the story of her journey from Somalia to the West, exposing the deep cultural divides between Somali clans and Western societies. She talks clearly and courageously about welfare exploitation, the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood, clan loyalty, the impact of migration on Western values, and the growing safety concerns for women in Europe.

Bari Weiss’s Interview with Woody Allen 
One of the Best Celebrity Interviews I’ve Ever Seen 

Woody Allen at the Venice Int’l Film Festival, Sept. 4, 2023

When I say “one of the best I’ve ever seen,” I’m not exaggerating.

I began watching this at about 12:30 a.m. two nights ago, knowing that I had to be up and going at 6:30. Since I’ve always been a fan of Woody Allen and have recently become a fan of Bari Weiss, I thought I’d take a quick look at the first five minutes – just to see if it was good enough to get back to later.

But I couldn’t stop at five minutes. Nor at 10. Nor at minute 20. I continued watching to the end, then I turned off the lights and fell immediately asleep.

I was understandably tired when I woke up, but very happy to have spent the time watching the entire interview. Not just because of the range of interesting topics covered – from what it takes to succeed at any worthy endeavor, to a secret for long-term success in the movie business, to the role of comedy in dealing with the existential pathos of life itself – but also because of the demonstrable degree of intellectual acumen one can still possess at age 89.

The interview is introduced this way on Weiss’s website (The Free Press):

“Woody Allen has done it all. The actor, comedian, and filmmaker has made 50 movies and has been nominated for 24 Academy Awards….

“Now, at the age of 89, Allen has published his first-ever novel. What’s with Baum? is the darkly comedic tale of… a middle-aged Jewish writer with a secret that could unravel his life. In other words, it’s like a Woody Allen movie – just in book form. It also touches on a major theme of our age: the idea that an accusation, once made, is as good as a conviction, [a theme he discusses with Weiss in the interview].”

You can watch the full conversation here.

Caveat: Before you have a knee-jerk reaction to the part of the interview that deals with controversial aspects of Allen’s personal life that were in the scandal sheets for several years in the middle of his career, I’m going to ask you to suspend your current conclusions until you read something I’ll be publishing in the next issue.

The Chilling Implications of Charlie Kirk’s Assassination 
From Victor Hanson, The Daily Signal 
“I don’t think that he will be replaced because I can’t think of a figure, Left or Right, under the age of 35 who combines such talent….”
Click here.

Bill O’Reilly on the Rise of Evil in Today’s World
“Evil is when a person causes pain to another person and enjoys it.”
Click here.

Oh, Mary! 

Oh, Mary! – currently at the Lyceum Theater on Broadway – calls itself a “comedic stage play,” but it is something more and less than that. It’s got a plot that feels more like an SNL sketch than a Broadway comedy. It has bits of dark comedy and burlesque that work because they are not too much. And running through it all is the sort of fun delivered by a good Drag show.

A spoof of the relationship between Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd Lincoln, his wife, the play is set in the days leading up to Lincoln’s assassination. It portrays Lincoln as a closeted homosexual and Mary as a woman driven to drink by her husband and politics, which have kept her from pursuing a career as a cabaret performer.

Audience Reaction: It was pretty much non-stop laughing, ranging from hearty to healthy to uninhibited belly laughs.

Critical Reception: I found nothing but good reviews. Oh, Mary! was a finalist for the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.