Case 39 Review

Halloween is the season for candy, haunted houses, costumes, and of course, scary movies!  I started my scary movie marathon with Case 39, an excellent horror movie staring Renee Zellweger as a social worker fighting to save children from difficult home environments.   I have to say, I'm a little biased because this movie hit very close to home for me.  I spent 2 years working as an  in home therapist for children at risk from being removed from the home by DHR.  I felt the main character's suffering and related to her and the therapist's and psychologists that ran the children's groups profoundly.  It is a hard job and often you lose more than you win in the battles to save children from their environment.

Case 39 gives you a character who is fighting this battle every day and is desperate to win and save the world one child at a time.  She is overworked and under paid and on top of her huge caseload she gets another client, case 39.   The main character relates to this case more than any other and goes above and beyond the call of duty to save a little girl from parents that clearly want to kill her.  When the system fails,  she enlists one of her close friends on the police force to save the girl and they find her parents trying to put the sleeping child into an oven.

Of course, our sweet, tragic girl is not what she seems.   It isn't long after Rene takes the tragic child in before the children on Rene's caseload begin to have horrible things happen to them.  It isn't just the children.  All those around her begin to die or suffer worse fates than death.  Case 39 was a good movie that I wouldn't mind seeing again.  It is definitely a good start to my Halloween horror fest!

My Top Five Scariest Movies

I was watching a movie called House of the Devil last night and it got me to thinking about what makes a movie scary.  This movie wasn't particularly shocking or even good, but it kept me on the edge of my seat.  It made me scared and kept me wondering what would be around the corner.  It was a scary movie.  I believe there is a difference between the best horror movies and the most terrifying horror movies.  The most terrifying movies may not be the best,  but they produce real fear in a way that other movies can't.  I think that as fear differs for each person,  this list differs for each person.  I just read about twenty top 10 scariest movies lists and they were all very different.  This is my list, and as I explore fear this Halloween, I would love to hear how your lists differ from mine and why.

5.  Jeepers Creepers (2001)  The idea of winged, indestructible demon that can not be stopped until its mission is complete is pretty scary to me.  There is no running from this beast and no place safe you can go. 
Once you are marked,  your painful death is inevitable.  Also, the scene with all the people stitched together in the basement of that church was remarkable.

4.  The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)  I saw this movie on television when I was ten or eleven.  I couldn't sleep for a month.  The slow building terror of knowing that those you love aren't who they are and knowing that if you give in to sleep (my favorite pass time) you'll never wake up haunted me for years.

3.  Hellraiser:  I was scared by both the movie and the book, The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker.  The book and the movie is about the evil that lurks in people and the darkness it summons.   The cenobites will always scare me and that thing that comes down the hall with its crazy hands bothers me.

2.  The Thing  (1982):  Isolation and paranoia work together to make the plot of this movie a living nightmare.    Imagine you are trapped in Antarctica with a handful of men and any of them could be monsters waiting to kill you or worse.  This is the plot of The Thing. 

1.  The Exorcist:  This movie has always terrified me and apparently I am not alone, because after looking at 20 scariest movies of all time lists this is the only movie that made every single list.