As October moves inexorably to its close, my thoughts turn to Halloween and all things scary, not counting Sarah Palin and Wall Street. I'm now an empty-nester, so this year no trick-or-treating or other adolescent shenanigans will deter me from staging my own personal, private horror movie festival.

Many people (in my experience mostly women) profess to be constitutionally incapable of stomaching this genre. Still, when a horror movie really...