Just about any horror movie ever made could arguably be a good movie to watch on Halloween. However, this list is made up of movies that meet two additional criteria. First, they should have an October feel to them. The viewer should be able to feel the air grow colder and smell the smoke of burning leaves. At the very least, part of the movie should be set during autumn.
Second, the movie should somehow reflect the pre-movie pastime of telling ghost stories around a campfire. Plots should be simple and straightforward. Emphasis should be on the creepy, not necessarily the gory. It also wouldn’t hurt for the movie to be okay to watch with the whole family in the room (though I admit two or three movies on the list flunk that standard).
Halloween – Well, duh. Here we have that perpetual childhood favorite, The Boogeyman. Only here he’s real, come back to his old hometown for his favorite night of the year. This picture is actually fairly tame by current standards (though still maybe a bit much for pre-teens). The body count is low. The blood flows, but not by the bucketful. But back in 1978 it helped give birth to generations of slasher movies with supernatural villains. And yes, I’m talking about the John Carpenter original, not the Rob Zombie remake.
Creepshow – In the finest campfire tradition, here we get five short stories instead of one long yarn. Writer Stephen King modeled these stories from the immortal mould (or mold, if you prefer) established by William Gaines’ EC Comics (which also spawned the “Tales from the Crypt” TV series), and director George Romero gives the production a distinct comic book flavor.
Sleepy Hollow – Washington Irving’s classic tale of the Headless Horseman gets a new twist at the hands of master-creep Tim Burton. The original made a nice Disney cartoon (which you might consider adding as a warm-up), but the new take on the familiar story adds some entertaining elements to the mix. With Johnny Depp and Christina Ricci in the lead roles, this one has the cast that will be most familiar to 21st-century audiences.
Something Wicked This Way Comes – Sure, this one’s got some flaws. It’s one of those annoying movies that looks as if it was directed by a committee that never could quite manage to agree on what it was supposed to be. The result is stiff in spots and jumpy in others. But author Ray Bradbury’s “October People” are the heart of Halloween, the dark forces that roam the countryside as the evenings grow longer. Here they’re at their worst, masquerading as something innocent: a harmless carnival for children. Jonathan Pryce does an especially good job as Mr. Dark, the story’s arch-villain.
Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors – No Halloween would be complete without at least one dreary old British horror picture, and this is one of the best. It’s another anthology, serving up a spooky story salad with something for everyone: a werewolf, a killer plant, a vampire, voodoo, and a disembodied hand out for revenge. The movie was directed by Freddie Francis and stars Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, all three staples of the low-budget English horror sub-genre.
The Fog – Ah, if only the good people of Antonio Bay hadn’t cheated those cranky lepers out of their money, they wouldn’t have to bar their doors and windows against a little night mist. I don’t want to overload you with Carpenter movies, but the list needed a good ghost story. And this one does the trick. What the production lacks in bloody violence and special effects it more than makes up for with a solid script and decent acting. Here’s another good example of an original that holds its own against a flashy, tech-intensive remake.
The Evil Dead – Send the kids off to bed before screening these last two. Here’s the no-budget masterpiece that gave Sam “Spider-man” Raimi his start. Though the production values are about as low as you can get, this picture has chills you can’t buy with the world’s biggest expense account. The plot – college students on a weekend trip to the back woods accidentally evoke bloodthirsty demons – takes me straight back to the sort of stories my friends and I would make up during sleep-overs when we were kids.
The Exorcist – Though this one’s famous for the big, dramatic stuff, I like the small touches. The Iraq sequence in the beginning is way creepier (and scarier, if you think about it) than all the soup-puking demon junk that happens later in the picture. This is the least light-hearted production of the lot, its seriousness a grim reminder that lurking in the background of Halloween is something more sinister than donning a costume and bobbing for apples.
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