THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE — SHOCKTOBER!

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Arriving in 1973, the same year that "The Exorcist" was released, "The Legend Of Hell House" is a barn-burning horror movie.

Many of the plot and design elements used in this influential genre film went on to be quoted, if not expanded on, by budding young horror directors in love with its artfulness.

The "Hell House" production designers went all out in creating a rich Gothic environment for our four intrepid ghost hunters to converge in the week before Christmas.

Physicist Dr. Lionel Barrett is hired to investigate ghost behavior at Belasco House, the "Mount Everest of haunted houses."

The home's millionaire owner was a sadist engaged in all sort of off-the-rails debauchery.

"Drug addiction, alcoholism, sadism, bestiality, mutilation, murder, vampirism, necrophilia, cannibalism, not to mention a gamut of sexual goodies. Shall I go on?"

The lost soul's of Emeric Belasco's sex-crime victims now want their own sexy-time payback.

The good doctor brings along his wife Ann (Gayle Hunnicutt), and physical mediums Ben Fischer (Roddy McDowall), and Florence Tanner (Pamela Franklin).

Erotic dreams turn into hot reality as the week twists with demonic possession, and more effed up stuff than you can laugh your ass off at.

There's a black cat that does a lot more than just cross paths.

Dark, twisted, and embellished with dated "modern" touches that make it all worthwhile, "The Legend of Hell House" is a minor masterpiece.

Roddy McDowall's not-camp-enough performance redeems him if only somewhat, when McDowall goes full Nic Cage for his big finale monologue.

If only Anthony Perkins had played the role. If only.

"The Legend of Hell House" is a hoot and a half.

A devious electronic music score by Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson adds to the movie's creepy atmosphere.

Rated R. 90 mins.

HOW TO GET AHEAD IN ADVERTISING — SHOCKTOBER!

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Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does. This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel. Punk heart still beating.

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Richard E. Grant's supreme tool box of comic skills brings his follow-up to "Withnail and I" to an explosive boil.

The film's hot comic condition equals the gargantuan actual boil that grows into a talking head on the neck of Grant's British ad exec character Dennis Bagley.

Director/screenwriter Bruce Robinson's second collaboration with Richard E. Grant builds on their impressive working relationship to push the film into heretofore unknown comic boundaries.

Dennis Begley is on a hard deadline to create an ad campaign for a pimple cream. His supportive wife Julia (Rachel Ward), is use to nursing Dennis through such episodes of writer's block, but this one marks an especially dark transition.

"How To Get Ahead In Advertising" is foremost a prescient satire predicting with uncanny accuracy, our modern cataclysmic social dilemma relating to such things as guns, cell phones, cars, and social media.

Nothing is true when everything is a lie.

Times have changed, nothing is permitted now.

Outrageous laughs spring from this classic movie.

Slapstick, sight gags, rapid-fire dialogue, and ingenious comic sequences allow Richard E. Grant to levitate his performance like some otherworldly creature.

No amount of description can sufficiently prepare you for this movie. It's one of those where the less you know going in, the better time you'll have watching it for the first time.

Is "How To Get Ahead In Advertising" a one-of-a-kind satirical masterpiece?

Yes, yes it is.

Rated R. 90 mins.

EYES OF LAURA MARS — SHOCKTOBER!

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Director Ivan Kershner (graduate of the Roger Corman school of stay-within-the-budget filmmaking), turns John Carpenter's script into a big budget Hollywood serial-killer thriller with style to spare.

Sure, "Eyes of Laura Mars" is a contrived knock-off of Italy's Giallo film genre, but there are so many cinematic gems on display that you can't help but get sucked in.

Photographer Helmut Newton (the father of modern photography) adds a layer of self-mocking, if overtly kinky, sexual surrealism to the narrative.

Laura Mars (Faye Dunaway), is an edgy NYC fashion photographer making her mark. Recently, Laura has been having killer's-eye premonitions of the serial murders of her models.

Raoul Julia gives the murder mystery a kick as Laura's troubled ex-husband Michael.

But it's Tommy Lee Jones who rules the roost opposite one of Hollywood's most glamorous legends. Before Meryl Streep, there was Faye Dunaway.

Unlike most films of the Giallo genre, "Eyes of Laura" is minimalist in its use of gore. The movie also doesn't dare go so far with Dutch angles, and electropop music.

Still a couple of super-cool Disco hits put the film's early '80s NYC locations in their proper timeline.

"Shake, shake, shake, shake your booty."

"Eyes of Laura Mars" is a classic Hollywood movie, and a great guilty pleasure.

This movie could just be your cinematic happy place.

Rated R. 104 mins.