Horror Movies Seen As Pithy Life Lessons

• Phantasm: Don't have sex in a cemetery at night.
• The Night of the Living Dead: Frankly, just avoid cemeteries altogether.
• Dracula: Beware of illegal immigrants.
• Frankenstein: Early childhood education is vitally important to the development of a child.
• The Exorcist: Don't become a Roman Catholic priest: Low pay, high mortality rate.
• The Nightmare on Elm Street series: Don't take justice into your own hands, especially if it involves burning an alleged felon to death.
• The Friday the 13th series: Don't have pre-marital sex.
• The Hallowe'en series: Seriously, don't have pre-marital sex.
• Cujo: Have your pet regularly vaccinated for rabies and other diseases.
• The Omen: The Italian health-care system is a mess.
• The Invasion of the Body Snatchers: Home gardening can be a life-changer.
• The Day of the Triffids: Green energy is bad.
• Gremlins: Have your pets spayed or neutered.
• Pet Sematary: If you have young children, don't live close to a road.

The Score (aka Killtown) (1964) by Donald Westlake

The Score (aka Killtown) (1964) by Donald Westlake writing as Richard Stark: A typically terse, concise, matter-of-fact entry in Donald Westlake's series of novels featuring super-thief/burglar Parker. Westlake wrote them as 'Richard Stark' in order to avoid flooding the early 1960's market for Donald Westlake. Lee Marvin, Jason Statham, and Mel Gibson have played the amoral, hyper-efficient Parker in movies, to varying effect (Marvin was clearly the best, in the John-Boorman-directed Point Blank (1967). 

The scheme this time is fascinating and clever, and, as always, complications and double-crosses come into play before the 'caper' is over. Though 'caper' is far too jolly a word for anything in a Parker novel. So call it a heist. Grofield, a slightly more amusing Westlake character, is a member of the team in this one. Highly recommended.