This week I marched off with high expectations to see the gothic mystery movie Crimson Peak, made by Spanish arthouse director Guillermo del Toro (maker of the gorgeous political fantasy Pan’s Labyrinth), starring the gifted actress Jessica Chastain (Coriolanus). And ten minutes in, I realized with genuine horror: This is Scooby Doo, played straight.

The movie’s plot is a simple one, and could best be summed up in the form of an advice column:

Dear Abby,

I am a beautiful heiress. I have frustrated literary aspirations to write gothic horror novels. A young gentleman from England who calls himself a “baronet” has just read two pages of my first novel, and told me that I am brilliant. He is penniless, and came from England to Buffalo, New York, to seek my father’s investment in his home-made mining apparatus. The Baronet is traveling with his beautiful sister, to whom he is extremely close. Now my father has died suddenly, under mysterious circumstances, and the Baronet has asked me to marry him, and go live with him and his sister in their enormous, decaying house, isolated in the English countryside. He says that we must leave immediately. Oh yes, and I also see ghosts — principally the ghost of my dead mother, who appears to me as a ghastly skeleton, warning me about some place of which I’ve never heard called “Crimson Peak.” Should I accept the Baronet’s proposal?

Sincerely,

Edith Cushing

Dear Edith,

Yes, you should. There is no reason at all to think that the Baronet is a treasure hunter who will poison you because he is secretly in love with his sister, and has murdered a whole string of previous wealthy wives. Pay no attention to those warnings from the ghost. You are perfectly safe. And too dumb to live. Please remember me in your will.

Sincerely,

Abby

Apart from the buckets of blood, high-tech yet laughably phony talking skeletons, close up face-stabbings, and lurid, despicable characters, Crimson Peak doesn’t have much to recommend it. On the other hand, the film will in 20 years be condemned as hate speech, after the Supreme Court legalizes brother/sister marriage in 50 states. So give the filmmakers credit for defending traditional values against the incest lobby.

Five Halloween Classics

There are much better choices for Halloween viewing this year, as we take part in an ancient Western custom of celebrating the uncanny. Done right, a Halloween celebration can avoid any hint of concessions to the occult, and instead serve as a wholesome reminder of our mortality — and the immortality that we are promised. In the light of the Resurrection, we can laugh at our ancient enemy: “O death where is thy sting? O grave where is thy victory?”

So in that spirit, let me recommend some “classic” horror-themed films that don’t muddle good with evil, or encourage unhealthy obsession with preternatural powers. Instead, they help us to face our unacknowledged fears, to purge them through healthy catharsis, and perhaps even to remember the final victory we claim under the Cross.

For the whole family:

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)

This Tim Burton animation is a perfect film for kids over eight or so, and adults of any age. It pokes fun at the commercialization of holidays, and despite a truly grotesque sense of the goofy, it clearly hews to rock-solid conceptions of good and evil. Those principles play out in the lives of winning characters, who belt out memorable songs. And anyone who has ever owned a beagle will recognize the antics of the ghost dog who steals the job of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. An absolute must-see.

For 16 and over:

The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005)

Okay, this one is genuinely scary. Based loosely on a real case that took place in Germany, it tells the story of a young woman who died in the course of an exorcism, and the priest who is charged with her murder. Made by a graduate of Evangelical arts-powerhouse Biola University, it stars award-winning actors Laura Linney and Tom Wilkinson, whose wrenching performances drive the film. In this courtroom drama, the criminal case becomes a kind of show-trial of Christian faith against the hubris of secular scientism. And the conclusion offers a profound meditation on the role of suffering in our salvation.

Warlock (1989)

Starring two terrific British actors, Julian Sands and Richard E. Grant, this film is refreshing in part because it shows a preacher as the enemy of the Devil — albeit a witch-hunter from Puritan Massachusetts (Grant). He is pulled through time to 1980s Los Angeles in pursuit of a deadly warlock (Sands), who seeks to complete a book of satanic spells with enormous destructive power. The film takes the conflict of good and evil with absolute deadly seriousness, and shows the connection of modern, New Age mysticism with genuine black magic. Leave aside a little goofball dualism (required to make the plot make sense), and you’ve got a gripping, old-fashioned thriller whose moral compass points to true north. Such a movie probably couldn’t be made in Hollywood now — unless it cast the warlock as the hero and the pastor as the villain.

The Addiction (1995)

Okay, this won’t be for everyone, and it’s definitely for adults. But I cannot resist a movie about a grad student (Lili Taylor) who turns into a vampire and starts to prey on her dissertation committee. She only finds some relief from her addiction to human blood when she confesses her sins to a priest. Better still, her mentor in the vampire life is the deathless Christopher Walken, who spouts literary theory intertwined with philosophy and theology. … Yes, The Addiction is a pretentious allegory that takes itself way too seriously. But it’s a must-see for anyone who has ever slogged through grad school, or serious sin, and procrastinated on penitence. Its message: Don’t wait too long … or else. The film is out of print on DVD, but you can watch the whole thing on Youtube.

The Wicker Man (1973)

No, don’t see the 2006 train-wreck remake, unless you’re fond of watching Nicholas Cage punch women in the face. Instead see the original, which pictures a peaceful English island where a New Age, wiccan paganism has erupted and swept out every trace of Christianity. A woman goes missing on the island, and a policeman is sent to investigate — a devout, bible-quoting Calvinist — who finds himself drawn at first to the “innocent,” natural ways of these windblown, half-naked English hippies. But soon enough he begins to glimpse the darkness that underlies paganism, which takes the brutality of fallen nature as its only moral compass, and he is faced with a choice that puts his life and his soul in peril.