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Ahh October, that wonderful month where the
horror fan gets to engage his favorite pastime
without fear of reprisal. I love October (hell,
even September, we start celebrating Halloween
early at my house) because it allows me to
decorate my house, eat candy, enjoy the crisp
fall air and the beautiful fall leaves, and
watch as many horror movies as my little black
heart desires. They're everywhere around
Halloween, in every store and on every TV
station and I can't get enough. If you long for
the days you spent cuddled under a blanket as a
kid, watching the screen in terror and jumping
at every noise in the house around you, I have
some suggestions for horror movies that will put
you right back in that Halloween mood again. You
can watch one a day for the month of October, or
call in sick for a few days and cram them al in
at once. Either way, these movies are must-sees
for every horror junkie. Some are lesser-known
and some are established horror classics, but
all of them, in one way or another, take me back
to my horror roots, and for that, I can't
recommend them enough. So pop some popcorn, grab
a blanket, dim the lights, and dig in. There's
something on this list for everyone.
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31. "Halloween"
This is
perhaps the most self-explanatory
movie on this list. The movie is a
classic, and so much has been said
about it over the years that it's
easy to lose sight of what it is: a
creepy and effective slasher movie
that takes our favorite holiday and
injects it with some real horror.
You all know the story. A little
boy kills his sister on Halloween
and is locked up. He escapes years
later and returns to his hometown.
On Halloween night, a babysitter is
watching two children while
unbeknownst to her, all of her
friends are being slaughtered next
door. Soon she goes to investigate
the house and comes face to face
with the embodiment of her worst
fears.
Think
about it. There's nothing scarier
than the idea of being in charge of
someone else's kids and having to
protect them from real evil. |
It's scary enough
sitting for kids at night without the added
bonus of having your worst fears come true as
something evil kills your friends and you find
out that it wants you next. This movie doesn't
really need gore or flashy special effects, it
has ideas and atmosphere and music that's so
scary on its own that it gives me chills just
thinking about it. This movie works because
it's simply scary, and it's the perfect end to a
celebration of everything we love about our
favorite spooky, scary season.
30. "30
Days of Night"
I have seen a lot of
Vampire movies in my life, and most of them suck
worse than the creatures that populate their
stories. As much as I love modern day romances
where women fall in love with Vampires (ok, I
usually hate those, but there's been one
particular TV show with a young girl in love
with a vampire that captivated my interest) I
have to admit...when I was a little kid,
perusing the pages of horror magazines and
seeing the pictures of Dracula, I wanted the
movies to scare me and get under my skin like
those pictures did. I wanted the creatures
onscreen to roam my dreams like Dracula did
after I read the infamous Bram Stoker classic.
But they never did...vampires in movies are
notorious for being cool or sarcastic, but not
for being scary. With this movie though, all
that changed. The vampires in this film are
terrifying in every way. I see their faces and
hear their inhuman shrieks and chills run down
my spine.
I didn't think it
was possible for a vampire movie to scare me
again until I watched this movie in theaters.
It's set in an Alaskan town where once a year,
the sun sets for an entire month, leaving the
whole town plunged into blackness for thirty
days. Without the sunlight to kill them, the
vampires are set free to roam and kill as they
please, and they decimate the town, leaving only
a small band of survivors, led by a local
sheriff. This movie pits humans against a big
evil force that's actually scary, and it works.
As much as I love the movie "Scream," it ushered
in a period of time when it was cool to present
evil as something fun and funny. This movie
changes all that. It held me captive in the
theater and had the same effect in my living
room when I bought the DVD, and after listing 29
other horror flicks, I can't imagine what better
way to wind down this list than give you a
recommendation for a movie that returns you to
the days when evil was something to fear.
29. "Les Diaboliques"
An obscure
black and white foreign film? What
is it doing on this list? Simple,
this story of revenge is nasty and
creepy and it's so good that it has
inspired other films, novels, and a
crappy remake. At first this seems
like a straightforward movie about
some despicable people. A woman
wants to murder her husband for his
money and she and her friend hatch a
plan to do just that. Fans of the
Tales from the Crypt comics know it
usually doesn't end well for people
who do things like this, and these
women are no exception. It's
ghoulish enough that these women
want to team up and murder this guy
for his money, but soon afterward,
events get even more macabre as
strangely supernatural things begin
happening. What is going on? Has
the man's vengeful spirit returned
to torment the wife who betrayed
him? All will be answered in a
heart-stopping climax that actually
made me scream. If you dare to view
this film, you'll see why. |
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28.
"Happy Birthday to Me"
This is one of those
little known slasher movies that I happened
across at a secondhand video store with its
shabby cardboard cover advertising "some of the
most original death scenes ever captured on
film." This I had to see, so I brought it
home. Not only are the deaths here original,
but there's something gloriously subversive
about watching a movie just to see what cool way
the killer is going to dispatch of people next.
The movie centers around a young woman whose
friends are dying mysterious deaths. She's
mostly alone in her big mansion, since we don't
really see her parents, and she's afraid the
killer will strike her next. What's more,
there's something wrong with her mind...she's
having blackouts and flashbacks and she doesn't
know what's going on. Her psychologist isn't
much help, and so the audience is left to
wonder: Is she the one doing these terrible
murders? With her birthday coming up soon, she
has to find out what's going on before her
friends are too dead to attend the party. With
a possibly crazy person as a protagonist, the
movie is disorienting in a good way, and it's
well worth checking out both for the inventive
deaths and the chance to see Melissa Sue
Anderson from Little House on the Prairie acting
like a deranged killer.
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27. "Carnival of
Souls"
In the
beginning of this grainy black and
white film, a woman is in a car
accident where her car crashes off a
bridge and is submerged in water.
Later, we see her fighting her way
out of the water and struggling up
the river bank, but despite being
alive, she isn't happy, See, she
came back from the brink of death,
but she didn't come alone.
something came with her. Something
is watching her every day, creeping
into her thoughts and dreams,
legions of pale white faces with
unsettling grins seem to follow her
everywhere she goes, and they scare
the living shit out of her and out
of us. I get goosebumps just
thinking about some of those creepy,
blank faces. The woman flees her
town and tries to make a new start
somewhere else, but the beings have
followed her. Who are they? What
do they want? This is a
disorienting trip through one
woman's nightmare, and like a
nightmare, it can be a tad
befuddling, but the grainy picture
quality, rather than detracting from
the overall quality of the film,
adds a gray air of dread to the
events that unfold here. I hadn't
heard much about this movie before I
saw it, but after I saw it I knew I
had to buy it. There's nothing
quite like this movie; no movie that
came before or has come since has
quite captured the feeling of the
land of the living mixing with the
land of the dead like this. It's
something you have to see for
yourself. Prepare to be spooked. |
26.
"Scream"
Hush, you discerning
horror fans who are booing this choice. Before
"Scream" became some kind of movement and
ushered in a slew of self-aware horror movies
that were too sexy for themselves, it was a cool
little slasher in its own right and every time I
watch it now, it takes me right back to that
feeling of sitting on the edge of my seat,
waiting to see what would happen next. It's a
painfully obvious mystery to me these days and I
don't know how I didn't figure it out back when
I first watched it, but from that bone chilling
opening phone call to the over-the-top silliness
of the conclusion, I still love what I see
here. Not only is it set around my favorite
holiday, but it features a killer in a cool mask
picking off victims, something I never tire of
watching. This movie has perhaps the best
opening sequence of any slasher movie, with a
playful phone call suddenly turning sinister and
then deadly, and though the too-hip dialogue is
now dated, it takes me back to the 90s in a good
way. If nothing else, this movie serves as a
time capsule for 90s slashers as much as those
80s slashers do for their decade. Hang me if
you want, but I still have a blast with this
movie, and for that reason alone, it retains its
position among my Halloween favorites.
25. "Session 9"
Ok, you've
caught me. My secondary goal is to
make you so freaked out by hospitals
that you'll never go to one again.
How am I doing so far? This 2000
movie stars a bunch of middle-aged
men trying to renovate an abandoned
mental hospital in a short amount of
time in order to earn a big bonus.
The men have their own problems
coming into the project (some are
having marital problems, one has a
crippling fear of the dark, most
have severe financial difficulties)
and these are exacerbated by the
creepy, isolated location which soon
starts to mess with their heads.
It's unclear at first whether
strange things are really happening,
whether it's all in their heads, or
whether the truth is a mixture of
the two, but as they slowly start to
fall apart, it's heartbreaking. |
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One of the
workers finds recordings a doctor made of his
sessions with a patient (sessions one through
nine) and these add an air of creepiness as well
as giving us a timeline for the events of the
film (we know that whatever happens is going to
happen by the time the guy listens to the tape
labeled "Session 9"). Yes there are some plot
holes and these guys spend far too much time
sitting around doing nothing (and listening to
tapes) than working, especially for people who
are supposedly under a strict deadline, but the
movie is chilling enough to make me forgive
these minor quibbles. As an added bonus, you'll
get to see actor David Caruso do some actual
acting instead of the scenery chewing he so
often engages in these days.
24.
"Boogeyman 2" (2008)
So why am I putting an
in-name-only direct to DVD sequel on this list?
Because it has nothing to do with the unscary
2005 flick "Boogeyman," and because it has a lot
going for it if you can look past its dubious
lineage. It's set in an isolated mental
hospital with a group of young twenty somethings
who have various mental problems and have agreed
to meet for a group therapy session to try and
gain some insight into their conditions. One
girl joins the group after her brother leaves.
He assures her that the group sessions helped
him, so she's willing to try and overcome her "boogephobia"
(fear of the boogeyman - gotta love that)
brought on by thinking she saw the boogeyman
kill her father years before. The strict head
psychologist, played by the ever-creepy Tobin
Bell (way to go guys, get Jigsaw to head shrink
these poor kids) adds an air of oppressiveness
to the movie, and with the freaky empty hospital
as a perfect location, the gory and inventive
kills, and the good acting by the leads, this
movie was fun and scary and definitely worth
checking out.
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23. "The Thing"
With all
the blather about remakes recently,
it's good to revisit this film,
which not only succeeded but blew
past the original to become one of
the best and most well respected
horror films of all time. Horror
fans disagree on almost everything,
but you'll be hard pressed to find
one who doesn't like this film. Set
in the Antarctic, a group of
scientists find a stray dog that
ends up being more than it seems
Soon they are confronted with a
shape-shifting alien force that can
assume human form as it seeks to
take over their bodies, one by one.
The creature effects in this movie
are spectacularly disgusting, and
the actors are pitch perfect. This
is one horror flick with serious
acting chops. The deserted, snowy
setting gives me chills just
thinking about it, and the thought
that any one of your friends might
not be who you think they are is
freaky and effective. This is one
movie which lives up to its hype.
Don't miss it. |
22.
"The Lost Boys"
I love this movie.
I've loved it since I was too young to
understand it, and I can watch it over and over
again to this day and not grow tired of it.
Yes, it's dated and it has a decidedly 80s
cheesy vibe, but I don't care. I dig it. The
movie is about two teenage sons who travel with
their mother to stay with their eccentric
grandfather in California after she divorces
their father. The boys have to adjust to their
surroundings, which include a new boyfriend for
their mother, a new girlfriend for the eldest
son, and a passel of hungry vampires causing a
ruckus and killing people all over town. The
youngest son enlists the help of some quirky
friends he finds in a comic book shop, and
together, the three of them try to stop the
bloodthirsty vampires before they destroy the
entire town.
Fun and
excitement ensues. Kiefer Sutherland shines
here as the head vampire, David, who is cool and
detached and nonchalant about what he has to do
to survive (drink the blood of the innocent).
The rest of the vampire gang follow him around
and obey his every order. There is some cool,
stylized gore but the real selling point is the
final battle between the humans and the
vampires, where they practically destroy the
grandfather's house (that was really my favorite
part when I was a kid-demolishing my house and
killing a bunch of vamps never looked so fun).
This entire movie is cool and fun and gory from
start to finish, and it embodies everything this
list is about: having fun with horror movies.
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