The War of the Worlds (2005)
Steven Spielberg's breakout movie, Jaws, was an adventure yarn with monster-movie trappings; this umpteenth adaptation of H.G. Wells' unreadable 1898 classic is a horror movie with science fiction trappings. The horror is grounded in a father's desperation to protect his children's lives, and if possible their sanity, as murderous aliens literally erupt from the ground and start smashing human civilization to pieces. By avoiding clichés (no scenes with military men discussing how to stop the invasion, no scientists dropping in to give us the big picture) and focusing on the ground-level perspective, Spielberg gives the story something it's never had before — genuine fear. The casting of Tom Cruise as the father (and the halfway plausible rumor that the origin of the aliens reflects Cruise's belief in Scientology) closed a lot of minds to this film, as did a small, ridiculously moralistic backlash over the fact that some of the imagery reflected 9/11. But Cruise, an underrated actor, performs more than capably, and no other film in recent memory has imagery as beautiful and terrifying as the burning train speeding through town, or the placid stream gradually choked with corpses. Or, for that matter, a suspense scene half as tense as Cruise's struggle with a mad survivor in the cellar of a house being combed over by the aliens. It's true that the story ends abruptly. That's how Wells wrote it: the aliens kick humanity's collective butt until they keel over from the sniffles. And by the time Spielberg is finished putting you through the wringer, you'll never be so grateful to share the world with flu and chicken pox.

The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941)
The Night of the Hunter is far more intense and adventurous, but its blend of tension, whimsy, folklore and spookiness is presaged — gently and charmingly — in this adaptation of Stephen Vincent Benet's story about a down on his luck farmer who sells his soul to the devil for seven years of good luck, then calls on the famed orator Daniel Webster to plead his case when the devil comes to collect. Walter Huston is sheer cackling perfection as the devilish Mr. Scratch — I can't decide if this or his prospector in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is his best performance — and Bernard Herrmann's Oscar-winning score finds him testing out many of the effects he would later use in his music for The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock. My only complaint is that the film waters down Scratch's "I'm as American as you are" speech, which is one of the greatest sucker-punches in literature. Seek out the Criterion DVD version, which is probably the best restoration job we'll ever see on this neglected classic.