13 Nights of Shocktober: The Last House on the Left

by A.J.

This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. There are a lot of horror movies out there, but as a genre, horror is still looked down upon by some mainstream critics and moviegoers. It doesn’t help that, admittedly, there are so few quality horror movies made but, like comedy, it’s a very difficult and subjective genre. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some recommendations for scary movies to help you celebrate Shocktober.

Night 4: Wes Craven Memorial Night, “All that blood and violence. I thought you were supposed to be the love generation.” 

The Last House on the Left 

Like many movie lovers, I was deeply saddened by the recent passing of Wes Craven, one of the true masters of horror. He had a long and impressive career, and while he had mediocre films and misses, when his films hit they hit hard. The Last House on the Left is Wes Craven’s first film, made in 1972, but it comes across as having been made by a skilled and seasoned filmmaker. The movie has the look of a low budget exploitation movie, but there are no cheap thrills to be found here. This is an intense, visceral thriller about the cruelty and violence of which human beings are capable. The horror in The Last House on the Left has nothing to do with the supernatural, it comes from the uncomfortable realism of the horrible, violent acts we see.

The first time I saw this movie was purely by chance. I was in college and my roommate and I were sent out by our friends to Blockbuster to pick some horror movies for the group to watch. It was Halloween night, so the horror section was well picked over. My roommate picked up the case for The Last House on the Left; neither of us had heard of it before, but it was directed by Wes Craven and the box had a quote from Roger Ebert: “sheer and unexpected terror.” I can’t remember the other movie we rented or if we even watched it. All I remember is how we all squirmed and turned our faces and swore at the TV. I remember one girl got up and left the room. I remember becoming mildly obsessed with the movie and reading as much as I could find on the film. I’ve only seen it one time since then and that was a week ago to prepare for this blog.

The Last House on the Left says it is inspired by true events, but it is actually a loose remake of Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring. The plot follows two young girls from the country that go into the city for a concert, but are kidnapped by a gang of ruthlessly cruel criminals. The girls are sadistically tortured, raped, and murdered. Then, by sheer coincidence, the criminals seek shelter for the night with the parents of one of the girls. When the parents find out, they unleash their own brand of revenge. The Last House on the Left was meant to be an exploitation film, loaded with violence and sex to sell tickets. It was produced by Sean S.Cunningham, who would go on to direct Friday the 13^th in 1980, a movie primarily concerned with kills and special effects. There’s certainly nothing wrong with slasher films like Friday the 13^th and its many sequels that revel in gory moments and nudity, as long as they still entertain and commit to their lack of substance. The Last House on the Left certainly has all the elements of a sleazy, low budget exploitation film, but in going from script to screen it became something substantial and frightening.

The Last House on the Left has a grainy, unglamorous look and a cast of unfamiliar faces that give it a feeling of realism that becomes uncomfortable as the film unfolds. This is a violent film and though the gore we see is nothing when compared to modern horror films, it is far more effective, awful, and terrifying. When one of the girls is being stabbed we don’t see the knife stabbing her, instead there are sharp, quick musical cues which somehow make the stabbing worse. One of the criminals is aware that what they are doing to these girls is absolutely wrong, but he’s helpless to stop the others. Afterwards, there is a scene where a quiet moment passes among the criminals as they seem to realize the deep cruelty of what they’ve done. It was a scene that Craven says audiences hated because it humanized the killers. I think that humanization, slight as it is, is important because it forces the audience to accept that human beings, not monsters or devils, did these horrible things.

Watching The Last House on the Left is a tough experience. There are other horror movies with more blood, more gore, and more death that are easier to watch. The Last House on the Left, unlike slasher movies, takes no joy in the death scenes. Even when the parents exact their revenge, it’s not as victorious a moment as audiences would expect. Craven does not shy away from showing us what we already know but don’t consciously think about: it is a horrible, terrible thing to kill another human being. Craven has said in interviews that he is fascinated by what can come out of ourselves. He says that the Vietnam War was a big influence on The Last House on the Left. During that time it became normal to see dead bodies and lists of dead American soldiers on TV, and to see photos of, or hear about, atrocities committed by Americans. It’s never good when any of that becomes normal.

Just after Wes Craven passed, NPR’s Fresh Air re-aired a series of interviews in which Terry Gross asks him about The Last House on the Left. I always enjoy watching or hearing interviews with Wes Craven because he comes off as such genial, normal, and even shy person that knows a great deal about films and filmmaking. He tells a story of when he was a young boy and had a bow and arrow. He would go hunting for rats and usually never found any, until he did and shot one with his arrow. The arrow hit but did not kill the rat. It let out a horrible scream and bled and thrashed. It fought so hard for its life but it was wounded mortally, and the young Craven was forced to put it out of its misery. If that rat fought so hard for its life, Craven thought, then surely it deserved to live and if rats deserve to live unharmed then so do people. The Last House on the Left is so intense and disturbing because it has a message, and it is a simple one that Craven does not hit us over the head with or bury in symbolism. He lays it out plainly resting just below those moving images: human life is precious and we should all act accordingly, otherwise violence begets more violence and there is no victory for anyone in that. 

13 Nights of Shocktober: Shivers

by A.J.  

This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. There are a lot of horror movies out there, but as a genre, horror is still looked down upon by some mainstream critics and moviegoers. It doesn’t help that, admittedly, there are so few quality horror movies made but, like comedy, it’s a very difficult and subjective genre. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some recommendations for scary movies to help you celebrate Shocktober.

Night 3: Dial C for Cronenberg, “Biology is destiny.” –David Cronenberg

Shivers

Whether he is working with a big budget or a small one, master filmmaker David Cronenberg uses ideas to disturb his audience and make them squirm. No matter how graphic or gross the special effects are, they always emphasize an idea or serve as a metaphor. A special effect is never just an empty thrill in a Cronenberg film. This is true even in 1975 Cronenberg’s debut feature, Shivers, in which the budget is low and effects are sparse and even tame when compared to his later films like The Brood and The Fly.  

Shivers takes place in an ultra-modern, nearly self-sufficient, luxury high rise apartment building called Starliner Tower on an island in a lake just outside of Montreal. In the opening scene we see an older man struggling with a teenage girl in a school uniform. He cuts her open on a table then kills himself. Very little is shown, but the sound effects we hear more than make up the lack of blood and guts. We find out later that the man was a scientist who created a parasite that would make people think less and be more sexual with the ultimate goal of turning the world into "one beautiful mindless orgy.” He changed his mind and was trying to kill the parasite he infected her with, but the parasite worked too well, and by that time she had already spread it to a few different men in the building. The scientist’s idea seems outlandish until I remember that the era of Vietnam War protest signs reading “Make Love Not War” had only recently ended. 

With a premise like that, you might expect Shivers to be an exploitation film and though there is a fair amount of nudity, this film does not have a lascivious gaze. Shivers unnerves its audience so well because it does not take a stance on whether spreading the parasite is good or bad. Cronenberg has said in interviews that the parasite is a metaphor for any idea that takes hold. A dramatic and severe change is spreading through the high rise building and Cronenberg is ambivalent about that change, but he is aware and direct about his ambivalence. He does his best to show that “…things might be dangerous and wonderful at the same time, that things might be disgusting and beautiful at the same time.” He says that the movie takes the viewpoint of “straight society” but “emotionally and viscerally” the audience was with the infected people. 

Shivers is an interesting take on the on the zombie film, which had only recently been reinvented by George Romero in 1968 with Night of the Living Dead. “Straight society” is represented by Dr. Saint Luc (played by Paul Hampton) who works in the building’s medical clinic with his girlfriend, Nurse Forsythe. They respond to reports of tenants acting strangely, and attacking other tenants. Some of the infected people act crazed and bizarre like the bellhop who obscenely eats a slice of pie at a mother and daughter in an elevator. Others act only slightly odd and suspicious like the woman who consoles her upset friend by seducing her. The number of infected grows and Dr. Saint Luc is soon being pursued by a horde. It seems as though everyone has gone mad and he is the last sane person. When he runs down a hallway, every apartment he looks into has something strange happening. It reminded me of the scene in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining where Shelley Duval runs though the Overlook Hotel and finds something horrifying at every turn. The final scene finds Dr. Saint Luc at the Starliner’s indoor pool seeing an infected Nurse Forsythe rise up out of the glowing waters. It is a haunting image that is equal parts alluring and frightening.

Shivers is a low budget horror film that makes the best of what is available. Cronenberg shows great skill at making a believable self-contained world in Starliner Tower. The special effects are simple but effective. The parasites themselves, little slug-like creatures, are not shown very often. The cast is solid though there is some overacting from the minor characters but that hardly harms the movie.

The original title of Shivers was The Parasite Murders. In the U.S. it was released as They Came From Within, which is a title that Cronenberg actually liked and felt fit the theme of the movie. Change and revolution have seemingly external beginnings, but the ultimate change in person from one way of thinking to another happens within. As an idea spreads and other people embrace it, the world may seem like it is turning upside down, until you come around to embrace the same idea. Sometimes the change is for the better, sometimes it is not. Sometimes change just needs to happen. 

My favorite scene of Shivers happens after Nurse Forsythe has been infected with the parasite. She tells Dr. Saint Luc about a dream she had days before that had been troubling her. What follows is a beautiful, haunting, exciting, and frightening speech excellently written by Cronenberg and wonderfully delivered by actress Lynn Lowry. It is also a sort of thesis statement for just about the entirety of David Cronenberg’s body of work. She says that in her dream she was trying to make love to a man, but he was old and dying and repulsive: “But then he tells me that everything is erotic, that everything is sexual… He tells me that even old flesh is erotic flesh. That disease is the love of two alien kinds of creatures for each other. That even dying is an act of eroticism. That talking is sexual. That breathing is sexual. That even to physically exist is sexual. And I believe him, and we make love beautifully.” 

13 Nights of Shocktober: The Last Man on Earth

by A.J.

This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. There are a lot of horror movies out there, but as a genre, horror is still looked down upon by some mainstream critics and moviegoers. It doesn’t help that, admittedly, there are so few quality horror movies made but, like comedy, it’s a very difficult and subjective genre. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some recommendations for scary movies to help you celebrate Shocktober.

Night 2: Vincent Price Night, “You’re freaks! I’m a man! The last man..."

The Last Man on Earth

The Last Man on Earth is the first and best adaptation of Richard Matheson’s novel I Am Legend. Matheson himself was not happy with how the ending of the film turned out and had his name taken off the screenplay, which he wrote, but this version is still far, far better than the later adaptations. The other two adaptations are the dreadful The Omega Man from 1971 starring Charlton Heston and the so-so zombie-monster version from 2007 starring Will Smith, titled after the novel. The 1964 version stars horror movie icon Vincent Price as the titular last man on Earth. This film succeeds unlike the other two versions because it has an emotional level that the others did not, and it has the right kind of actor to elicit audience emotions in Price. He conveys excellently the devastating loneliness of being the last man on Earth. He is overjoyed when he finds a dog, the first living thing he’s seen in three years. “We’re going to have lots of happy times together,” he says to dog. It’s a heartbreaking scene because Price makes you feel how desperately in he is need of companionship. Their happy days are short lived. My heart broke again when Price finally sees another person, a woman, and she runs from him and he chases after her shouting "Wait!."

This film begins with beautiful but eerie black and white scenes of a dead world: buildings are abandoned, streets are lined with corpses, and a community church sign reads “The End Has Come.” The setting is a small city, not a metropolis as in most later post-apocalyptic movies, and though this is because of the film’s small budget, it is an advantage. The abandoned, empty average town is a frightening and foreboding place. Though the town is not entirely empty and Price is not entirely alone since those that did not die in the plague turned into vampires. These vampires are slow, lumbering, and not-too-bright but are relentless, numerous, and can use weapons like clubs. They can also speak in low moans. If these vampires act like latter day zombies it is because George Romero credits this film with inspiring Night of the Living Dead. 

Dr. Robert Morgan (Price) spends his days searching through the city methodically and killing as many vampires as he can find. He spends his nights locked up in his house with the record player turned up loud to drown out the sound of the horde outside calling his name. He plays home movies on a projector and is happy for a moment, then grows incredibly sad. There’s a lengthy flashback to happier times, when the end was only beginning. We see Morgan with his wife and daughter. We also see him working with his friend and fellow scientist, Ben, who is now an undead creature outside his home. The debate they have about the slow spreading threat to the world sounds uncomfortably familiar to the modern climate change “debate.” Ben, from the younger generation, is worried about the growing plague in Europe. Morgan, from the older generation, is skeptical and thinks the reports are exaggerated to sell newspapers. The line “Is everyone gonna die before we find an answer?” gave me chills. Morgan and Ben begin working on an antidote, but the end comes too soon.  

What I love about this film are the details that fill out Morgan’s dead and lonely world. We hear his thoughts as voice over narration. He reminds himself to get more gas for his car and to get more garlic from the grocery store. I asked myself why he only takes some garlic from the store instead of taking it all with him. I quickly answered myself: he just needs somewhere to go, something, anything, to do to pass the time. At the beginning of the film we see that it is 1968 and Morgan has been drawing calendars on a wall in his house. We see him make stakes to kill the vampires and we see him load the bodies into the trunk of his car and drive them to a pit. Despite all of that, however, this is not a slow movie. It builds atmosphere. Vincent Price has made several campy films but this one is sincere and spooky. Price has more than enough talent and screen presence to carry every scene in the movie and make it interesting, even if he’s only going through a bin of garlic. The Last Man on Earth maintains its eerie mood and steady pace only to build to a thrilling final act. 

Jurassic World: review

by A.J. 

Jurassic World mini-review, in which I am forced to paraphrase Roger Ebert’s review of North.

I hated this movie. I hated, hated, hated, hated this movie. I hated every audience insulting minute of this movie. I hated every joyless excitement free moment of this film from the very first shot to the very last shot. I hated the ultra-fake looking baby dinosaur claw that burst out of an egg within the first 90 seconds of the movie as if to tell me right away, “yes, we had 150 million dollars and no, we didn’t care about anything, especially how the dinosaurs look.” If they had blown that huge budget on getting B.D. Wong to reprise his minor role from Jurassic Park I’d be fine with that, but I don’t think that’s where the money went. I hated how this movie just lifted scenes from other movies instead of doing anything approaching mild originality. I hated the dinosaur they flat out made up for this movie, because the executives running park thought “real live dinosaurs, who cares? We’ll create bigger, scarier dinosaurs with superpowers and grasping hands. Yeah, that’s a great idea.” I hated how boring their made up super dinosaur looked. I couldn't tell it apart from other regular dinosaurs. By the way, when you make up a dinosaur, it’s called a dragon.

I hated the hipster character with glasses, a stupid mustache and half beard, and t shirt of Jurassic Park who goes on about how great the first park was (you know, the park that was never open to the public?) that was meant to placate me and insult me at the same time. I hated that all the women in this movie either cried or were eaten. I hated the unnecessarily mean death given to one female extra who took a moment to show concern for the boys we’re supposed to care about and was carried off by a flying dinosaur and eaten by different dinosaur. Wasn’t that cool? No, no it wasn’t Jurassic World. I hated how dull and bland the main characters were. I hated the stupid, idiotic plot about turning raptors into military weapons. I hated that people sat down, thought these things up (remembered other movies they saw), wrote it down, and someone said sure, this’ll work. I hate any mind that thought this could pass for entertainment. I hated whatever is in me that won’t let me just turn off a movie after I start it.

I haven’t hated a movie this much in an incredibly long time. This movie replaces M. Night Shyamalan’s The Visit for the worst movie I’ve seen this year. This movie made me wish I’d spent the night watching Jaws the Revenge and Birdemic. The only time you should ever watch Jurassic World is in the company of Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo.  

13 Nights of Shocktober: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

by A.J.

This is my favorite time of year, second only to Christmas. Autumn has arrived, the weather is cooling down, and October becomes the month long celebration of scary movies called Shocktober. There are a lot of horror movies out there, but as a genre, horror is still looked down upon by some mainstream critics and moviegoers. It doesn’t help that, admittedly, there are so few quality horror movies made but, like comedy, it’s a very difficult and subjective genre. So, in the days leading up Halloween I’ll be posting some recommendations for scary movies to help you celebrate Shocktober.

Night 1: Silent Night, "Spirits surround us on every side..." 

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

I always like to include a silent film in my Shocktober viewing since they can be as spooky and scary as modern horror films. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is maybe the most visually interesting movie I’ve ever seen and is certainly one of the eeriest films I’ve seen. The first time I saw this movie was in a film history class in college. I found it strange and creepy then and I still do now. It influenced the look and style of later horror and fantasy films both in Germany and abroad throughout the rest of the silent era and into the early sound era though no film would quite match its extreme visual distortions. Those films would of course influence later horror films and so forth until the present.

Directed by Robert Wiene in 1920, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is the prime example of German Expressionism in film, a visual style in which characters and settings are distorted and out of joint. The film is set in a town on a pointy hill covered with sharp angular houses; it is obviously a painting on a backdrop, and we are meant to know so. Doors are triangular and slanted, windows resemble rhombuses, zigzag lines are meant to represent grass, and chimneys are tilted. There is not a single aspect of any set that is not distorted in some way. 

The movie begins with an old man and young man sitting on a bench outdoors. The old man tells the young man that the world is full of spirits. The young man, Francis, then tells him his own story of how he came to lose his fiancé. The mysterious and sinister looking Dr. Caligari (who with his top hat, cane, and stout figure resembles the Batman villain, the Penguin) applies for a permit to showcase his somnambulist, Cesare, who has been asleep all 23 years that he has been alive. Caligari awakens Cesare from a coffin (or cabinet) before a crowd touting that Cesare, who wears all black and has a very pale face, knows the answer to any question. A friend of Francis's asks when he will die. The somnambulist replies…before the next morning. The prediction comes true; the friend is murdered. Caligari has total control over the somnambulist and uses him to carry out murder and other sinister acts. When Cesare abducts Francis’s fiancé from her bed I was reminded of the scene in King Kong where Kong picks Fay Wray out of her room and carries her away. As Francis follows Caligari to learn more about the sinister doctor the plot thickens, and even twists, and the film only gets stranger.

The horror in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari comes from its distorted depiction of reality. It puts you in an uneasy mood right from the start and you feel as though you are in a surreal nightmare. As the film goes on you realize that there is no explanation for the bizarre shapes of things man-made and nature-made; this is simply the shape of the world. That daytime scenes are in a hazy yellow-orange filter and nights in an eerie blue just adds to the curious, but creepy, atmosphere of the film. This is a genuinely spooky, but not-too-scary movie that is also an important part of film history and an excellent film to watch this Shocktober. 

Classic Movie Picks: October 2015

by Lani

Each month, I scour the Turner Classic Movies schedule for upcoming films that I can't miss. The highlights are posted here for your reading and viewing pleasure! (All listed times are Eastern Standard, check your local listings or TCM.com for actual air times in your area. Each day's schedule begins at 6:00 a.m.; if a film airs between midnight and 6 a.m. it is listed on the previous day's programming schedule.)

Spotlight on Women Filmmakers
This month TCM kicks off a three-year initiative to shine a spotlight on women in film while raising awareness of the lack of gender equality in the industry. October's festival focuses on directors from the early days of cinema through to the current generation of trailblazing women. 47 women directors will be profiled over 9 nights. There is a lot to choose from, so check out the full schedule online. Here are some of the films I'm looking forward to from the series: 

10/6, 8 PM - Dance, Girl, Dance (1940) dir. Dorothy Arzner
10/13, 8 PM - Crossing Delancey (1988) dir. Joan Micklin Silver
10/13, 11:45 PM - A Dry White Season (1989) dir. Euzhan Palcy
10/15, 11:30 PM - The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter (1980) dir. Connie Field
10/22, 9:45 PM - Daughters of the Dust (1991) dir. Julie Dash
10/22, 1:30 AM - Middle of Nowhere (2012) dir. Ava Duvernay
10/27, 11:15 PM - Salaam Bombay! (1988) dir. Mira Nair
10/29, 10 PM - Walking and Talking (1996) dir. Nicole Holofcener


Decline of Western Civilization Parts I, II, and III
10/15, 2:45 AM - Part I (1981)
10/16, 2:30 AM - Part II, The Metal Years (1988)
10/24, 2:45 AM - Part III (1998)
This documentary trilogy directed by Penelope Spheeris chronicles music subcultures of Los Angeles in the 1980s and 90s. Part I, which looks at L.A.'s thriving punk scene circa 1980, airs on October 15 as part of a night devoted to women documentarians. Part II takes up seven years later as the punk scene is being overshadowed by glam metal and Part III looks at a group of homeless young gutter-punks. This year, for the first time, all three films were released as a DVD set; however, you can see them for free this month on TCM - set your DVR!


10/9 - Roving Hands
8 PM - Mad Love (1935)
9:30 PM - The Beast with Five Fingers (1946)
11:15 PM - Hands of a Stranger (1967)
Mad Love and Hands of a Stranger were inspired by the same source material, the 1920 novel Les Mains d'Orlac. In fact, the novel has spawned at least five film adaptations including 1991's Body Parts which until now I knew only as a movie whose VHS cover I would try to avoid looking at when browsing my local video store. This category of VHS tapes included other 80s-90s horror films like Nightmare on Elm Street, Child's Play, and Monkey Shines -- and I haven't watched any of these films to this day. However, the films in tonight's line-up have just the level of horror that I can handle.
In Mad Love, Peter Lorre plays a mad doctor who gives a pianist a hand transplant. The hands happen to be from an executed murderer and they exert an evil influence over their new body. Hands of a Stranger, reverses the sympathies of the story, with the doctor having noble intentions and the pianist as the crazed maniac. Beast with Five Fingers has Lorre again, this time being stalked by the severed hands of his former employer, an ex-concert pianist. (Note: beware concert pianists who've undergone any type of hand surgery!) 

Bonus Pick: 10/31, 3 PM - The Tingler (1959)
This is one of my favorite low-budget horror films from a king of the genre, producer/director William Castle. The premise, which revolves around a lobster-esque monster which feeds on fear, is ridiculous enough to remove any terror. However, there are some moments of real tension and star Vincent Price is excellent, as usual. 

10/18: Silent Lost and Found
8 PM - The Grim Game (1919)
9:30 PM - Sherlock Holmes (1916)
11:45 PM - The Grim Game (1919)
1:15 AM - The Round-Up (1920)
2:30 AM - The Life of the Party (1920)
Tonight's line-up features four silent films once thought to be lost. The Grim Game stars escape artist and illusionist Harry Houdini as a wrongly imprisoned man who must escape (surprise!) in order to save his fiancee. The two showings tonight feature alternate scores; at 8 PM, you'll hear music by Brane Zivkovic and the later version will have music by Steve Sterner. The other films tonight include a Sherlock Holmes story and two features from 1920 starring Fatty Arbuckle. Should be a treat for silent film enthusiasts.


10/28: Semi-Spooky Selections from the Disney Vault
8 PM - The Three Little Pigs (1933)
8:15 PM - The Big Bad Wolf (1934)
8:30 PM - Three Little Wolves (1936)
Three Silly Symphonies shorts featuring the Three Little Pigs and their wolfish nemesis.

8:45 PM - The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)
Animated adventures of characters from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and The Wind and the Willows, featuring the voices of Bing Crosby and Basil Rathbone. 

10 PM - The Old Mill (1937)
Oscar-winning animated short about a community of animals inhabiting an abandoned mill threatened by a severe storm.

10:15 PM - The Plausible Impossible (1956)
Episode of the Disneyland TV show in which Walt Disney explains how animation can make the impossible "real."

11:15 PM - Escape to Witch Mountain (1975)
5 AM - Return From Witch Mountain (1978)
Popular live-action film about supernatural siblings on the run from an unscrupulous millionaire (Ray Milland) and the sequel in which the kids must escape the clutches of  maniacs out to rule the world (Christopher Lee & Bette Davis).

1 AM - Lonesome Ghosts (1937)
Mickey Mouse short which proves that Mickey was ghost hunting before it was cool.

1:15 AM - Frankenweenie (1984)
An early short film by Tim Burton about a boy scientist who brings his dog back to life.

2 AM - Mr. Boogedy (1986)
3 AM - The Ghosts of Buxley Hall (1980)
Two made-for-TV movies about hauntings at a family home and military academy, respectively.