Films to get you in the mood for the total eclipse

Little Shop of Horrors

The Total Solar Eclipse will be Monday (Aug. 21, 2017), darkening the skies from Oregon to South Carolina. And if you aren't lucky enough to be in the path of totality, you can still spot the eclipse in partial form throughout the United States.

But don't wait until Monday to get in the mood. Here's a fun list of movies to watch that include a total eclipse.

1. Little Shop of Horrors. This 1986 musical horror comedy directed by Frank Oz (think Miss Piggy) is a film adaptation of the off-Broadway musical comedy by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman (think Disney) based on the low-budget 1960 film of the same name, directed by Roger Corman (think "The Pope of Pop Cinema"). The 1986 film stars Rick Moranis as a nerdy shopkeeper who discovers an unusual plant during a total eclipse and begins raising the plant that ends up feasting on human blood. Other stars include Ellen Greene, Steve Martin, Christopher Guest and Bill Murray. Here's the fun scene in which the eclipse appears.

2. Delores Claiborne. This 1995 thriller based on a Stephen King novel stars Kathy Bates as a wife who's abused by husband David Strathairn. The film revolves around her daughter, who reluctantly returns to a New England island to clear Delores (Bates) from the charges of killing her employer. But then there's that time when Delores really did something bad during a solar eclipse. Left: That's Kathy Bates watching her drunk husband attempt to watch the eclipse. If you want to see the part with the eclipse, click here. But be warned, it spoils the film.

3. Ladyhawke. Matthew Broderick stars as Philippe Gaston, known as "The Mouse," who meets Captain Etienne of Navarre who has been separated from his love, Isabeau, played by Michelle Pfeiffer. They have been cursed and Navarre takes the form of a wolf by night and Isabeau a hawk by day so that they can never be together except for a brief moment at dusk and dawn. Only during an eclipse will spell be broken. See the trailer here.

4. Apocalypto. This pre-Columbian film set in the Yucatan and Guatemala around 1511 is directed and produced by Mel Gibson and told entirely through the Yucatec Maya language. The main character is captured and brought to a high Mayan city to be sacrificed but a solar eclipse and the superstitions surrounding it save him. See that scene here.

5. Pitch Black. I have not seen this film but had to include it after hearing the premise on NPR. Here's the description from IMDb: "A commercial transport ship and its crew are marooned on a planet full of bloodthirsty creatures that only come out to feast at night. But then, they learn that a month-long eclipse is about to occur." Leave the lights on for this one. Here's a scene that will give you the creeps.

Want more? The NPR podcast I mentioned deals with hot eclipses that are used in movies to denote plot changes. Hear "In Movies, a Solar Eclipses Means Change is Coming," here.

Cheré Coen is a food and travel writer who loves the weird and unusual, including in films.