With Halloween readily approaching, we anticipate seeking out horror films to compliment those mounds of Twix bars and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Fortunately, the next two weeks bring what look to be three reasonably welcome additions to the genre.

This weekend marks the opening of “The Grudge,” Sam Raimi-produced American remake of Takashi Shimizu’s film, “Ju-On.” In the remake, Sarah Michelle Gellar plays an anti-Buffy (read: victim) character in a world becoming consumed by a mystery virus seemingly borrowed from, most recently, Danny Boyle’s “28 Days Later.”

Also opening this weekend (in N.Y and L.A.) is Brad Anderson’s “The Machinist,” in which Christian Bale plays a man who has not slept in a year and becomes trapped in a Kafkaesque (or, more recently, Cronenbergesque) nightmare.

“Saw,” in which two men wake up in a secluded serial killer’s lair with a dead body between them, opens the following weekend. While “Saw” is the result of two Australian film school grads’ resolution to make a cheap and innovative horror flick, the premise seems to have much in common with Michael Haneke’s 1997 “Funny Games.” Haneke’s film undoubtedly stands out from those I’ve mentioned, as he focuses more on a hyper-Hitchcockian sense of voyeurism combined with his own distorted optimism, rather than sheer fright.

Once Halloween and its crop of films have run their course, I strongly recommend looking into both “Funny Games” and Haneke’s more recent “The Time of the Wolf.” Where “Funny Games” is a rather isolated look at fear, sadism and Hanekean optimism, “The Time of the Wolf” presents a more universal approach to these themes within the context of a post-apocalyptic society.

A brief discussion/promotion of “Time of the Wolf,” before we get to the real “Plan B,” Tim Burton’s “The Nightmare Before Christmas:” We first meet and sympathize with one isolated family in “Wolf.” A search for other survivors soon leads to their participation in a situation that resembles the proverbial “state of nature.” Once they become part of this larger group, we no longer sympathize with our initial protagonists as their fears and difficulties do not seem as unique.

More relevant to the notion of horror, however, is Haneke’s visual means of eliciting discomfort in his audience. Where a ghoul appears out of nowhere in one of this season’s Halloween releases merely to elicit a quick scare, Haneke brilliantly uses darkness (the first portion of the film seems almost entirely devoid of light) to underscore what little hope may remain for his characters in their horrific yet understated environment.

Bridging the gap, or at least fusing somewhat the two extremes—that of pure horror and a cerebral, perhaps even candid approach to fear—is this week’s “Plan B,” Tim Burton’s 1994 holiday classic “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” In the truest sense of the clichÈ, this film is, undoubtedly, fun for all ages. Although it’s midnight screening this Saturday at the Uptown Theater may be past the little ones’ bedtime, college students would do well to forgo their usual Saturday night debauchery in favor of experiencing Tim Burton’s classic vision.

“Nightmare” tells a tale of two cities: Christmas Town, where Santa Clause reigns, and Halloween Town, where Jack Skellington (think Alice Cooper meets Fred Astaire) is Pumpkin King. One day Skellington accidentally stumbles upon Christmas Town, and when he returns home to Halloween Town, Jack hatches a scheme to kidnap Santa and deliver the world’s Christmas presents himself.

Jack fails to realize that while Halloween may indeed celebrate the uncanny, shrunken heads and snakes that devour Christmas trees aren’t exactly ideal Christmas gifts for little kids. Jack’s persistence goes so far that the military is called out to shoot his sleigh from the sky. But, this is, of course, a Disney picture (though they released it under their more adult Touchstone label), and “The Nightmare Before Christmas” is not all guns and ghouls.

“Nightmare” is in fact a musical, and Danny Elfman provides Skellington both his lyrics and his singing voice. Driving back from Minneapolis last week, I quizzed some friends on the lyrics to some of these songs, and their memories of classics like “This is Halloween,” “Oogie Boogie’s Song” and “Making Christmas” have not faded.

Visually the film makes brilliant use of stop-motion animation and richly layered 3D sets, and work on the film took over three years. I remember a childhood visit to Disney World where I saw an exhibit displaying the 160 model heads that were used for Skellington’s character throughout the film; no detail of Burton’s vision is too small.

And if all this isn’t enough to get you to the theater, Jack’s canine companion is named Zero. Why is this significant, you ask? Since we’re going for 1990s nostalgia here, “Zero” was also the name of a hit Smashing Pumpkins song. The Pumpkins initially garnered both critical and popular acclaim with the release of “Siamese Dream,” which came out a mere three months before “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” To complete this rather arbitrary circle of youthful reminiscence, a large number of pumpkins are indeed smashed throughout the course of the film.

And if you can’t make it to the Uptown on Saturday, at least do yourself the favor of renting Burton’s “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure.”



For more information on the Uptown and this screening go to http://www.landmarktheatres.com/market/Minneapolis/UptownTheatre.htm.