It’s Friday the 13th today, which makes me want to do a post somehow connected to disaster, mayhem, superstition and scary events!  Trouble is, I don’t read horror, and I don’t watch it in movies either.  Silence of the Lambs is at the top of my list of Academy Award Best Picture winners to NOT see.  But there are three directors who deal in shadows that I do quite enjoy.

First, Alfred Hitchcock, the master of suspense.  And that’s the key–I like his suspense movies, where nothing really horrible is happening but the suggestion that it could works you up to a fever of anticipation.  His (possibly) two most famous movies I don’t actually like very much: in Psycho and The Birds, horrible things really do happen, making them horror, not suspense.  I prefer Rebecca, with the terrifyingly creepy Mrs. Danvers; and Suspicion, where Hitchcock plays it all so deftly that Cary Grant, carrying a glass of milk, becomes the most sinister thing imaginable (and really, what could seem more harmless than romantic lead and ever-charming Cary Grant, with milk?)

Second, Rod Serling, best known as the creator of The Twilight Zone.  He wasn’t actually a director,  but he did seem to have creative control.  He’s an inspiration as someone who told stories about strange creatures and other-worldly technology, ghosts and telekinesis, and made them about something.  The Twilight Zone had episodes that are funny, terrifying, clever, tragic and very often deeply philosophical and biting commentaries on society and humanity.

Third, Tim Burton, rounding out the group as a modern director.  I tend to meet Tim Burton where he intersects with Johnny Depp, but along the way I’ve seen a lot of his movies.  Some are fantastically bizarre and funny, like Alice in Wonderland and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; others are genuinely scary, like Sleepy Hollow; some are touching, like Edward Scissorhands (just not literally!)  The Nightmare Before Christmas and Corpse-Bride are funny and mildly creepy at the same time.  Oddly enough, one of my favorites is Sweeney Todd, about the demon barber from Fleet Street.  He slits people’s throats, and then his partner in crime bakes them into meat pies.  Highly disturbing, yet there are also wildly funny parts, soaring songs, deep tragedy, and (you have been warned) a vast amount of blood.  It’s a cathartic experience–by the end of the movie, you’ve felt everything there is to feel.

So if you feel like something a little bit shadowy and more or less creepy for Friday the 13th, pick your poison…but don’t walk under any ladders!