Welcome to the lockdown, dear friends. No need to panic, we’ll get through this, just gotta play by the rules for a while. Hey and think of it this way: you’ve finally got time to watch all those classic films that you never had time to before because of pesky old work. Having said that, these are delicate times in which we find ourselves and certain movies are only going to stoke the flames of panic and paranoia. Here are a selection of movies which you absolutely, definitely, no doubt about it, don’t even consider possibly even maybe perhaps thinking about it, should one hundred percent avoid for reasons of inappropriateness.

Or don’t, whatever. It’s up to you.

Shaun of the Dead (2004)

Yes, mate. What an absolute cracker this one is. The first of the Cornetto Trilogy and probably the best too, although they’re all brilliant. Also the film that launched Simon Pegg and Nick Frost into the big time after Spaced (great show, give it a geeze while you’re trapped indoors). Pegg and Frost play a couple layabouts who are maybe a little too old to be as unambitious as they are... but they soon learn to thrive as the zombie apocalypse falls upon London. It’s hilarious, it’s touching, it’s both faithful to the genre and also sends it up... absolute cracker. And honestly there’s nothing quite as riveting as Edgar Wright’s choppy action cuts. The in-film advice to pop down to the Winchester, grab a couple pints, and wait for this whole thing to blow over might not be practically possible for us right now but it still hits emotionally. Cornetto?

What Makes It So Inappropriate? So a mass illness sweeps the world, that alone is a bit of a red flag. Then that illness starts turning everybody into zombies and leads to an extreme death count and general chaos. Definitely not the kind of content that oughta be encouraged right now.

The Shining (1980)

The greatest horror film of all time? It’s up there for sure. You’ve got a prime Jack Nicholson acting for the auteur vision of Stanley Kubrick for a film based on a novel by Steven King, it doesn’t get much better than that and the result is a stunningly chilly and resonant couple hours. The imagery is legendary, from the blood in the elevators to the hedge maze (an invention of Kubrick’s) to the Red Rum thingy to the axe-wielding madman... it’s an incredible film and if you haven’t seen it already then you’re doing yourself a disservice. It’s pretty freaky but in an atmospheric way, not a jumpy way if you’re worried about that sort of thing. Apparently there was tension between King and Kubrick too, King never liked the way Kubrick took certain liberties with his vision... and don’t miss the doco Room 237 from a couple years ago, all about various conspiracy theories that grew out of The Shining. Oh yeah and the dude in the bear suit. And that final shot, with the Al Bowley tune on the soundtrack. The whole damn movie is iconic.

What Makes It So Inappropriate? Well it’s set in a massive hotel which has been closed for the winter, with the three main characters the only ones inhabiting this enormous structure where the recovering alcoholic father slowly, and then very quickly, descends into cabin fever-inspired madness. Isolation leading to murderous insanity really ain’t the cure for a month of lockdown.

The Lighthouse (2019)

A new release right here and one that’s almost impossible to do justice to in a short summary. The concept is this: Robert Pattinson is a wickie who shows up to work a couple weeks at an isolated New England lighthouse at the turn of the 20th century where his partner in lighthouseship is a grizzled Willem Defoe, the lighthouse keeper himself. It’s all shot in black and white with a claustrophobically shrunken aspect ratio and the cinematography is remarkable and the film itself is absolutely bonkers. Defoe talks like the old ship captain from The Simpsons. Pattinson has this weird Boston thing going on. Naturally the two personalities clash immensely as the stormy tides lead to cabin fever and secrets held between the two grow and grow into paranoia and there’s a mermaid and there’s kerosene-drinking and there are lobster dinners and there are biblical curses and honestly you just have to see it to understand what an incredible and terrifying piece of cinema this bad boy is. Directed by Robert Eggers who did The Witch a couple years ago, which is also great.

What Makes It So Inappropriate? Yeah mate that’d be the ill-matched self-isolation bubble that these two hearty nautical battlers find themselves in, which quickly leads to complete loss of attachment to time and reality.

Rear Window (1954)

This is one of those movies which were sorta spoiled for me by having already seen The Simpsons’ version of it. Not as bad as the spoilers they served up for Citizen Kane, to be fair. The Rear Window episode is the one where Bart breaks his leg and starts spying on his neighbours with a telescope to stave off the boredom. Then he witnesses a horrible crime and can’t get over there to do anything about it himself. Jimmy Stewart is the invalid in the Alfred Hitchcock film Rear Window, with Grace Kelly playing his girlfriend whom he enticed into his suspicions. It’s typical Hitchcock that he can make such a compelling movie when it’s set almost entirely in a pair of city apartments and this one’s right up there with his best. Great lead performances too, plus the tension of the film still holds up after all these years.

What Makes It So Inappropriate? A fella stuck in his apartment, physically unable to leave, and he starts snooping around on his fellow humans. Clearly the peeping tom thing ain’t recommended. Neither is the suspicion and judgement of neighbours at a time when we’ve all gotta stick together. Plus in The Simpsons’ episode Bart spends his isolation working on a devastatingly awful Dickensian play which itself is a fair warning to be careful about the creative pursuits you put out into the world at the end of the lockdown.

Nosferatu: Prince of Darkness (1979)

Best vampire movie ever made, there I said it. Werner Herzog at his most elegant, Klaus Kinski in the lead role at his most horrific. The dynamic duo themselves. Nosferatu is a pretty faithful retelling of the Dracula story but where it shines is in that lead performance from Kinski, a man who plays the vampire not as sexy and debonair but as tortured and agonised. To him eternity is rightfully an unending nightmare and his taste for blood, the elixir of life, is an ugly addiction. It’s an incredible film which festers and spreads like a disease, the vampire’s arrival in the city literally heralds a plague from all the rats that follow him. Also check out Herzog and Kinski in Aguirre: Wrath of God when you’re done with this one.

What Makes It So Inappropriate? The vampire stuff isn’t so bad, although Nosferatu clearly struggles with his own isolation (we’ve got a month, he’s had a thousand years... not so bad in that context), but the plague stuff which devastates the city is not really what anyone needs to see right now.

Home Alone (1990)

Sure, why not. A bit of levity for the season, although while Kevin McCallister handles being a child alone in a large house, abandoned by the loved ones who were supposed to protect him, and under assault by a gang of determined criminals with zany hijinks and cheeky wisecracks... the prospect of your safe space living quarters being attacked is much more terrifying in real life. Even in the movie, to be honest. There’s a surprisingly excessive amount of violence here. We’re talking Loony Tunes levels of violence. You’d imagine poor Kevin’s therapy bills won’t be easy to pay for later in life. That’s something I wonder about horror movies sometimes, you know. Like sure she got away in the end but the trauma of seeing all her friends massacred by a chainsaw-wielding psycho with a scalped human face for a mask probably isn’t going to be conducive with healthy decision making down the line. The iconic Macaulay Culkin performance though, that’s something.

What Makes It So Inappropriate? Young kid, forced to self-isolate for reasons he can’t control, pitted against Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern in a violent battle of wits. Plus I’d imagine the thing about being separated from family in a time of crisis could be a trigger point for many. And the terrible, terrible parenting.

The Thing (1982)

Right, so Kurt Russell leads a bunch of American scientists in Antarctica where an alien organism invades the crew and learns to imitate other lifeforms... leading to all sorts of terror as nobody knows who they can trust other than themselves. Is each person who they appear to be or are they the alien in disguise? What’s more is that they’re cut off from all other civilization in the freezing continent, adding to the intensity. It’s a deeply enclosed film which is chilling both literally and metaphorically. I’m a big fan of Halloween and They Live so not sure I’d call this John Carpenter’s best work but there are many who claim it is.

What Makes It So Inappropriate? You’re stuck in a place you can’t leave and something threatening infiltrates your small band of allies. Quarantine is better without visions of mutilated bodies and especially without hints of the negativity and suspicion that can spread like wildfire in an isolated environment.

Alien (1979)

Dude, come on, we had to have one set in space. Alien is an incredible film, set in the future on a spaceship where the crew accidentally pick up this parasitic lifeform and it starts tearing through their ranks. The cast is superb, from Sigourney Weaver in a star making role to memorable supporting roles for the likes of Harry Dean Stanton and John Hurt, though it’s director Ridley Scott’s poise and control that sticks with you most. The way he plays up the isolation both within the ship and beyond the ship, that terrible emptiness outside contrasted with the predatory beast that stalks the inside, both as frightening and inescapable as each other. Alien sparked a bunch of sequels too, one of them (1986’s Aliens) is even really good. Plays well as a double bill with The Thing which touches on many similar themes.

What Makes It So Inappropriate? In many ways a stalking unseen beast that hunts from the shadows is an unnecessarily horrific allegory for the invisible (to the human eye) spread of pestilent disease and God knows we’ve got enough of that to worry about now as it is, especially when it attacks us in quarantine.

The Seventh Seal (1957)

The great Max von Sydow departed this mortal coil just a few weeks ago. So much has happened in the time since, so much that can be reflected in his legendary career’s most legendary moment as the lead in Ingmar Bergmann’s stunning The Seventh Seal. Von Sydow plays a medieval knight returning from war to find his native land of Sweden has been ravaged by the plague. On his travels he encounters Death who has come to claim him and the knight challenges Death to a game of chess, believing he can forestall his demise. Of course nobody can escape Death and you get the feeling that the knight always knew this despite his desperate plan, and this deeply philosophical work of genius is bound to stir up some panic-ridden anxieties. But then there’s also the knight’s desire to do one last meaningful deed before he dies and in the people he meets along the way, from travelling actors to peasants, perhaps he glimpses at the true and humbling meaning of life as he travels that one way path towards an inevitable conclusion. It’s a remarkable work. Plus, like, you’ve gotta watch it so you get all the references to it ever since – most notably Death and the board games in Bill & Ted.

What Makes It So Inappropriate? The depictions of a plague-ridden Scandinavia are deliberately awful in their honesty, to the point where you almost feel like you’ll catch something through the screen, but more awful is the way that society seems to hang by the tiniest thread separating it from chaos in such a time. It’s a film about death and dying and religious pilgrimage and it’s not necessarily going to give you the happy feelgood answers you may prefer.

Snowpiercer (2013)

Everyone loves a bit of Bong Joon-ho after his recent masterpiece Parasite cleaned up at the Oscars and luckily for you there just so happens to be a whole catalogue of his movies out there to allow you to hit that Bong in your quarantine weeks. Watch Parasite first because it’s incredible and deals with class inequity in a truly unique and thought-provoking way... but Snowpiercer is a nice one to follow up with. Most of it’s in English too so no need for subtitles (if you’re a person that can’t read subtitles though, shame on you ya dirty philistine). The conceit is this: In a botched attempt to artificially halt global warming, the entire world has been thrown into a new ice age and the people that are left in this dystopian future are living in a train that runs on a perpetual motion engine, zooming across the world because if it stops, they all die. But the train has evolved into a blatantly segregated order of rich people at the front in utter luxury to poor folks at the back in sheer poverty. Chris Evans leads a revolt and there you go. There’s also a delightfully wild performance from Tilda Swinton while the late great John Hurt has a role. Plus, yes, for you fellow Parasite lovers there’s a key role for Song Kang-ho as well. Based on a French graphic novel, it’s a really clever action sci-fi flick that unfolds at a pace as rapid as the train itself is moving and leaves you with plenty to think about afterwards.

What Makes It So Inappropriate? The whole thing is built around a society that has collapsed after a devastating tweak of nature, leading to mass corruption and exploitation and given that it’s all set on a train as well it can be pretty claustrophobic too, particularly down the poor people’s end. If you’ve been to the supermarket lately then you’ll recognise the scrapping for essentials... plus the literal ‘if you go outside, you die’ theme is way too on the nose.

12 Monkeys (1995)

Gotta get some Terry Gilliam in any homemade film festival. 12 Monkeys is a crazy one and possibly Gilliam’s peak as a filmmaker... although Brazil (1985) might want a word about that. The concept is that Bruce Willis is from the distant future where a deadly virus has wiped out most of the earth’s population and the remaining humans are forced to live underground to survive. He’s sent back in time to save the species... and it all gets weirder from there. There’s also a great performance in there from Brad Pitt. We’re talking dystopian science-fiction here which isn’t everybody’s cup of tea and Terry Gilliam himself, stemming from his delightful Monty Python days, revels in breaking rules and keeping it surreal so don’t expect easy answers. Just go along with the rollicking ride... or don’t because it’s entirely inappropriate at this particular time.

What Makes It So Inappropriate? Erm, probably the bit about the deadly virus that wipes out the majority of humankind, yeah that’s gotta be it. There’s also some good stuff about the madness of society, not in the least that Bruce Willis is out there telling people what’s gonna happen and nobody believes him.

Rebecca (1940)

Another Hitchcock film? Yeah might as well. Rebecca is based on a Daphne du Maurier book – read all the DDM books you can during lockdown, she was one of one, that lady – telling the tale of a young woman who is swept up in a holiday romance with a rich widower, they marry and she moves into his country mansion only to find the haunting presence of his first wife tearing her idyllic new life to pieces. As far as haunted house novels go, Shirley Jackson’s twin masterpieces of The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle are right up there too, and THOHH has a few excellent adaptations - there was a telly show recently by Mike Flanagan (who most recently did the Shining sequel Doctor Sleep which is pretty good and there’s a second series of Hill House based on Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw). The Haunting from 1963 is a legendary haunted house film too but I haven’t seen it whereas I have seen Rebecca and I’ve read the book and they’re both excellent. Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine are superb in the lead roles, while mysteries were always safe in the hands of Sir Alfred – who was a master of enclosed settings. And as with all great haunted house stories, the real star of the show is the house itself, a character in its own right. Ooh and Ben Wheatley’s done a remake of Rebecca which is coming out later this year... hopefully.

What Makes It So Inappropriate? There’s nothing more isolating than being stuck in a place you don’t belong, where you’re being actively made to feel unwelcome even though you cannot leave. Pretty much a nightmare scenario during lockdown, nobody wants to be trapped in a haunted house for the next month.

A Quiet Place (2018)

Most great horror films are about one thing but are meant as metaphors for another. In A Quiet Place, Emily Blunt and John Krasinski are parents trying to look after their family in a post-alien invasion world where the invaders are blind but have ultrasensitive hearing. If you make a noise, they kill ya. It’s a really well written horror film with plenty going on and while it can’t have been intended this way, at least not on a specific level, it’s not too hard to view the silent quarantine as a parallel to our own physical quarantine. What’s more is that they’ve made a sequel to this bad boy, not sure why but they did, and it was supposed to be released already but they delayed it coz of how nobody’s allowed to go to the movies right now. You see, it hits on multiple levels.

What Makes It So Inappropriate? Sorta just described it already, it’s all about the sacrifices we have to make in dangerous times to protect ourselves and the ones we love.

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