Retro Halloween movie rec: "Coma"

• "Oh, you don't have anything we want," he said without hesitating a whit.

State of play: The imagery of nude bodies suspended by wires in an immense warehouse both titillated and horrified me as a kid. "Coma" delivered.

• I recently watched it for the first time since my first viewing on its release in the theater — that was 1978. TCM showed it as a double header of Michael Crichton medical dramas. Expectations were low.

But it held up across nearly 50 years. The plot of someone deliberately putting patients in a coma so their organs could be stolen and sold on the black market for profit is perhaps more terrifying today than it was then.

• The movie's pace was a step in the right direction, a beat or two quicker than many of the 1970s "thrillers."
• Maybe I was at the right impressionable age, seeing some plots and movie devices for the first time. It's hard to say.

The bottom line: If you're looking for something with an odd twist and some massive overacting this spooky season, try "Coma."

Past Halloween movie musings from Worth:

• Five awful movies for your Halloween (dis)pleasure
• Halloween movies for background noise
• Six flix picks for October: Decades o' thrillers