Recommended Halloween Viewing
 | Ghostbusters I still remember begging my Mom to let me stay up and watch Ghostbusters one school night before Halloween. The simple genius of the movie is the way it basically turns the Three Stooges into paranormal scientists that chase through the back alleys and boulevards of Manhattan looking for nasty spooks to capture and contain. Who can forget the immortal climax with 50-foot marshmallow man marching down Central Park West? After 20 years, everything from the Murray/Aykroyd/Ramis team-up to the EPA bad guy and the special effects still hold up, not to mention the great 80s soundtrack featuring Mick Smiley, Air Supply, Alessi and, of course, Ray Parker Jr.’s famous theme song. |
 | Leprechaun This is my personal guilty pleasure, a film of sheer ludicrousness that isn’t even remotely scary, but as a horror/comedy it predates Scary Movie by a few years not to mention the fact that it’s purely enjoyable on a camp level. A pre-Friends Jennifer Aniston managed to squeeze this film in between other projects like Camp Cucamonga and the Ferris Bueller TV show where she played Jeanie. Warwick Davis plays the mischievously homicidal imp that kills anyone that touches his pot of gold. Where else are you going to see a car chase involving a leprechaun driving a toy car or hear unintentionally hilarious dialogue like, “It’s not nice to make fun of a leprechaun.” The only question is when are we going to see a Leprechaun vs. Chucky movie? |
 | Dracula (1931) “Children of the Night. What music they make.” For a horror movie top ten list, you can choose any one of a number of halfway decent vampire movies; shoot, you have your pick of halfway decent Dracula movies too. Born and bred in Hungary, actor Bela Lugosi was ideally suited to play the Transylvanian Count, and the part became so iconic that it became not just a standard for vampiric portrayals but typecast Lugosi until the day he died. Wonderfully atmospheric with rich performances from Lugosi and Edward Von Sloan as his nemesis Van Helsing and the eerie effect of having no musical score makes this film from Tod Browning (who also directed Freaks) the quintessential portrayal of Dracula. |
 | Night of the Living Dead (1968) It’s always a toss up between Night and Dawn, but when the chips are down you have to roll with Night because without it, there would have been no Dawn, Day or Land of the Dead. The black-and-white photography, the no-frills production, and the way that George Romero launches you right into the story without any exposition as to why zombies are afoot is simple and ingenious. On a sociological level there is much to discuss with this film, like the fact that an African-American actor carried the hero role at the height of the civil rights movement and whether the zombies are symbolic of the increasing violence in Vietnam or plain-old Cold War politics. The potential to read this kind of deep subtext into a monster movie made Night of the Living Dead one of the first ever subversive horror movies. |
 | Sleepy Hollow To me, this is the pinnacle of what makes Tim Burton Tim Burton—from its atmospheric production design to its gloomy cinematography and its extraordinarily talented cast that includes Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci, Michael Gambon, Miranda Richardson, and Christopher Walken. Window dressing aside though, I think the real appeal of Sleepy Hollow is the combination of the Jane Austin-like cultural setting (formulated in part by Tom Stoppard, the Oscar-nominated writer of Shakespeare in Love) and the prototypical British horror/monster movie. Although these two things are typically as different as night and day, Burton makes it work. A little frightening, a little funny, and nonstop entertaining, Sleepy Hollow is just fun. |
 | Fade to Black (1980) Many cite Scream as the first horror movie to address the notion of killers using the movies as inspiration, but Fade to Black took the idea first and hit it out of the park. The eternally creepy Dennis Christopher plays Eric Binford, whose obsession with the movies eventual leads him to using his favourite characters to act out elaborate killing scenarios for those who cross him. Christopher relishes every scene he’s in as he not only plays the white-bread Eric but also gets to dress up as a Legosi-esque vampire and a James Cagney-like gangster to get revenge on the movie producer that stole his idea. Well acted and well executed, this is a gem worth looking out for. |
 | Evil Dead Much of the praise goes to Evil Dead II and to a lesser extent Army of Darkness, but in my mind nothing outdoes part one of the trilogy that made Sam Raimi "The Man". Let the fans of part two and three have their slapstick and over-the-top gore I say, Raimi’s original beats them all, purely for the creep factor. There are some downright chilling scenes in this as Raimi proves his mantle right off the bat by showing a degree of skill even a lot of seasoned directors never reach. |
 | The Exorcist Rarely is a horror movie this smart while being this frightening. Young Regan (Linda Blair) begins swearing like a trooper, projectile vomiting, and using a crucifix as a phallus; what could possibly be wrong with her? Well as we all know, it turns out that she’s possessed by the Devil and the climax involves two priests walking into Regan’s bedroom to save her soul. Looking at The Exorcist from a modern context, it's hard to understand why some people fled the theatre screaming. As a film, it’s deliberate, methodical, and adult. Most horror movies nowadays are obsessed with creating a startling effect as opposed to just letting it happen, letting the dread wrap around the viewer like a boa constrictor. That’s what sets The Exorcist apart, and that’s what makes it still so effective. |
 | Halloween Naturally, how can any list of must-watch movies for Halloween not include the slasher film of the same name? From the opening chords of John Carpenter’s synth-constructed score to a POV shot of a young Michael Meyers stalking his sister in a clown costume with a kitchen knife, this movie owns you. Halloween is the prototype for all slasher movies that followed, but part of the appeal of the movie is the way it borrows from unconscious fears, the ripped-from-an-urban-legend vibe of the babysitter in peril and the nameless/faceless boogey man. One wonders if Rob Zombie’s reimagining will be able to recapture that visceral feeling. |
 | Silent Night Deadly Night Don’t forget: the stroke of midnight on October 31st means only 54 shopping days before Christmas. So kill two moods with one stone by seeking out this little-known frightener about one boy’s killer Christmas. Billy Chapman had a crappy childhood: he saw his parents murdered by a guy in a Santa suit, and he was emotionally abused by the Mother Superior at the Catholic orphanage he grew up in. His bad fortune is exacerbated when he goes to work in a toy store during the holidays. Does he snap? You better believe it. Actually banned in Finland and protested against by angry parents in the US, this movie has been out of print since its 1985 video release, but a good video store with a decent back catalogue of VHS is bound to have a copy. |
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