Nerd Date: Choosing the Right Horror Movie For Your Halloween Nerd Date

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A blogumn by Clark Perry

You might think horror movies aren’t suitable for dates, especially if you’re just getting to know somebody. After all, you want yourself and your companion to feel comfortable, safe, and socially engaged at all times. Nothing can throw you off your game like the unexpected sight of an exploding head or endless scenes of grisly torture.

Way back in the day, a friend took a first date to what he thought was just another stupid 80s horror movie. Lots of horror films back then were lame, ineffective scarefests that gave you both a chance to sit back and laugh at moronic characters and bright fake blood. My friend figured this one, with a cheesy title like The Evil Dead, would be silly enough that they could both laugh at it and emerge in good spirits.

Half an hour in, both of them were pressed back in their seats as Sam Raimi’s directorial debut scared the sweet Alabama bejeezus outta them. They emerged trembling from the movie theater and could barely talk afterwards. I think that was their first and last date.

Face it: you just can’t be smooth and charming with someone who’s shellshocked. Believe me, I’ve tried. And national polls show that I’m about as smooth and charming as they come.

But if you choose wisely, you can find scary Halloween fare that not only lets you share sensational seasonal shivers with that special someone, but also puts you in the mood to bond nicely in other, far more intimate ways.

Stephenie Meyer’s best-selling Twilight series of novels hits the screen later this year. I haven’t read any of them and probably won’t because the universe, seeking balance, always demands that a few brave souls withstand certain cultural juggernauts (never read or watched or a Harry Potter, either). But even I know enough to glean that the big draw for Twilight fans is not so much the vampirism as the Romeo-and-Juliet-style love story at the heart of it all.

Doomed romance is something that horror movies do quite well. Look at all the incarnations of King Kong or The Phantom of the Opera and you’ll find core narratives of kindred spirits who strive to conquer the insurmountable forces between them. Even a modern visceral classic like David Cronenberg’s 1986 remake of The Fly has, at its gooey and gloppy heart, a tragic tale of lovers who connect and then are tragically separated by the very forces that brought them together.

So we’ve established that Twilight isn’t doing anything new. Neither is the Swedish movie Let the Right One In, about an introverted young schoolboy who falls in love with a strange, sickly girl who — surprise — happens to be a vampire. But it puts enough dark wit into this tried-and-true formula that what emerges from the darkness is a shocking but heartfelt love story. A perfect date movie.

Adapted from John Ajvide Lindqvist’s best-selling novel, Let the Right One In is filled with plenty of scary silences, the kind that have you reaching for the hand of your date. The bleak Swedish winter landscape is one of hard-packed snow, lit eerily by streetlights even in the murky daytime.

The ultimate question in any boy-meets-girl story is: will the boy get the girl? Our hero, Oskar, isn’t even thinking about girls when we meet him. As portrayed by the ghostlike Kare Hedebrant, he’s a pale weakling who suffers bullies daily and spends weekends shuffling between divorced parents. One night while fantasizing about being tough (in a sly nod to Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver), Oskar is startled by the birdlike Eli (pronounced Ellie), who is seen perching barefoot and sleeveless on an ice-covered jungle gym.

Eli is new in town and attended to by Hakan (Per Ragnar), a fatherly Renfield character who dutifully shuttles her from one town to the next and, in the dead of night, drugs and kills innocent victims to provide Eli with blood. It soon becomes apparent that the sad-faced Hakan fell in love with Eli when he was a boy and has lived a live of growing sadness as he has aged and she has not. He watches as she plays with Oskar and later asks her not to befriend him. Is he jealous or does he want to keep the boy from the sad fate that could await him as her new companion?

Our vampiress is outwardly 12 years old, but inside she could be tens or hundreds or even thousands of years older. The film teases and startles us in key scenes by briefly replacing actress Lena Leandersson with that of an older, wiser, but sadder actress. It’s a clever transformation that forces the viewer to add layers to this lonely but predatory character.

There is a love story here. There’s also an unnerving tension and atmosphere, something that director Tomas Alfredson creates with quiet flair. And the climax at a brightly-lit swimming pool is worth the price of admission alone. It’s a scene that ends abruptly, shockingly, and with such gallows humor that your gasp will probably be followed by dark laughter.

Let the Right One In is playing widely in major markets. I’d say it’s the perfect date movie for Halloween.

If you’d rather opt for renting something to watch in the comfort of your own home — and if your date has a very strong stomach — I recommend The Signal, a 2007 horror film with another doomed love story at its core.

The titular signal emanates suddenly from cell phones and radios and TV sets late one night. The citizens of a city called Terminus suddenly start exhibiting symptoms of severe psychosis. Murder is rampant, society falls apart, and through it all a young man searches for his lover. Early in the movie, he’s given her a mix CD filled with love songs, and when she realizes a human apocalypse is at hand, she responds by clamping on her headphones and setting out with his soundtrack to guide her.

Told in a three-chapter fashion (each lensed by a different director), The Signal is a no-budget wonder whose sharp script is filled with compelling characters, witty dialogue, and a premise that is intriguing and open to interpretation. Is the signal a terrorist attack? An alien transmission? A metaphor for how Fox News kills your brain cells?

It’s Halloween, people. And there’s no better time to sit in the dark and shiver with someone you really like.

TRAILER: LET THE RIGHT ONE IN

TRAILER: THE SIGNAL