That time of the year is once again upon us. The leaves are blowing in the wind, the air is chilly and the jack-o’-lanterns are scaring away ghouls on front porches. Of course, I’m referring to one of the most beloved holidays, Halloween.
Halloween is a wonderful time of the year to dress up as someone or something else and scare the living daylights out of the unsuspected, even if it’s just for one night. Children will gladly go from house to house begging for candy, and college-aged kiddos will enjoy costume parties and tend to be a little crazy.
I love the holiday for many reasons, from the costumes and candies to the season and atmosphere that it brings. Most of all, I love scary things. Among those scary things are horror movies. It seems like every year a movie studio has come out with what they hope will be the next big horror film. Some of them are good and some of them fail completely.
Right now I’d like to go back to a time where horror was at its peak and still continued to resonate in our nightmares. Ā You should, if you have not already, watch the films I’m about to mentionĀ on or around Halloween night. Fill yourself with terror and good chills to keep you looking over your shoulder throughout the night.
The first film on my list is one that really perfected the slasher genre. I’m talking about the original Halloween (1978).
Halloween is one of the best horror films to this day. It tells the story of a young girl, Laurie Stroud, who is thrust into a cat-and-mouse chase with her psychotic older brother, Michael Myers. The film was written and directed by horror icon John Carpenter, who will make another appearance on this list. This film stands as one of the scariest movies to date because it deals with a very scary idea, a typical teenage girl in a babysitting Ā job who starts getting stalked by a murderous psychopath.
Continuing the tour of horror classics, The Exorcist (1973) set the bar pretty high early on.
The Exorcist, to this day, still gives me the willies when I watch it. In this original demonic possession film, a young girl is possessed by the devil and two priests come to the aid of the innocent child. It had visual effects that were brilliant for the time it was made and stands as one of the scariest possession films of all time. In an age where a new possession comes out every three months, that’s saying something.
Next there’s one of my favorites, A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984).
If you know me, you know I love this series. Freddy Krueger has continued to haunt my dreams, no pun intended, since I was a child. This film is written and directed by Wes Craven; it tells the story of a small community that starts seeing bizarre deaths of many teenagers. It’s not long until our protagonist, Nancy Thompson, figures out these deaths are all linked by the same cause, a former child killer Freddy Krueger. He was hunted down by the parents of the town and burned alive. Now, much like the old story of the Pied Piper, he has returned to take his vengeance on the children of Elm Street by killing them when they are most vulnerable, in their dreams.
The next chiller on the classic horror list isĀ Friday the 13th (1980).
Friday the 13th is where, I like to believe, a lot of horror movie cliches come from. The teenagers are alone in the woods, partying, having intimate encounters and drinking, which leads to their death. This film and its predecessors tell the story of a young mentally challenged boy who was bullied at Camp Crystal Lake and was neglected by fellow campers and counselors. This eventually lead to his death; he drowned in the lake. In the first film, his mother goes on a rampage killing of those counselors, and eventually he returns to continue his mother’s work.
The next classic horror film is one of my favorites, The Shining (198o).
This film is based off the book by Stephen King and is directed by Stanley Kubrick. It is about a family who moves into the beautiful Overlook Hotel to watch over it in the coming winter months. Everything is going wonderfully until the father becomes insane, seeing the ghosts of the haunted hotel and attempting to kill his family. This film is creepy and takes the idea of ”cabin fever” to a whole new level.
The last film I will mention is, probably, my ultimate horror film,Ā The Evil Dead (1979).
The Evil Dead is one of the scariest films I’ve ever seen and has since become quite an obsession of mine. This movie, directed and written by Sam Raimi, tells the story of five college friends who travel to the hills of Tennessee to spend the week in a cabin. There, they find a book and tape recorder that tells about the evils that lay deep and dormant in the woods where they are staying. The book “Naturon Demonto,” a Sumerian variation of the Book of the Dead, awakens that evil and one by one they are picked off, becoming possessed by the evil spirits known as “Deadites.”
These are just a few of the films that I recommend you watch this Halloween; I could keep going, but for time and space I won’t. These films are sure to make your skin crawl and sink the fangs of horror deep into your brain.
