Movies to watch during halloween season. At first I was going to do a top 10 of halloween movies, but I’m not sure if all of these were necessarily “halloween” releases, a couple of which spring to mind. But they are worth a watch during the season of movie marathons.
10 – Nightmare on Elm Street / Friday the 13th / Carrie (1984 / 1980 / 1976) – I was reluctant to put these in, as they were a bit on the novelty side at times and sequels of each were a bit too many. But they exemplify 80’s horror movies. To this day they get remade over and over again, in fact a remake of Carrie has just been released this month. Ignore those and see the originals.
9 – Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) – Lofi horror movie before it was a genre. Sure all the remakes and recent films have more gore and blood, but a lot of it was influenced by this one.
8 – Nosferatu the Vampire (1979) – Werner Herzog’s version has a haunting score and a memorable performance by Klaus Kinski. I know the original was a pioneer in film-making but this one does not feel dated at all.
7 – The Thing (1982) – Another remake that tops the original and in fact that could be a list of its own, with Texas Chainsaw, Frankenstein and many others. This one was so good that they thought they’d remake it a third time in fact.
6 – American werewolf in London (1981) – Best wolf related movie and great use of effects without any CGI. Dark humor and gory scenes that started many of the 80’s horror trends.
5 – The Fly (1986) – I know we’re going remake heavy here but Jeff Goldblum vomiting flesh burning ooze on a man’s hand David Cronenberg-style is classic.
4 – Carnival of Souls (1962) – Produced and directed by Herk Harvey for an estimated $33,000, it literally features a carnival, whats more scary than that?
3 – The Exorcist (1973) – It sent my head spinning, literally, one of the movies I remember watching when I was a kid, and thats probabaly not a good thing.
2 – The Shining (1980) – I’ve seen this a bunch of times, I guess it messed with me. Now it just amazes me. Not really a halloween movie perhaps – in fact I don’t know the time of year it was releases, but when scary winters come into play, The Shining is an absolute classic.
1 – Halloween (1978) – Of course, the original one an not the sequels (though the Rob Zombie one was actually suprisingly decent too), is a classic that still sends chills to this day.
As for the rest of the team here, Justin’s pick for a Halloween movie worth checking out is – Let the Right One In / Let me in (2008) “Låt den rätte komma in” (original title) – A unique art house take on the vampire genre via Sweden. Once again American studios felt compelled to make a dumber and tasteless remake.
And overall, bonus points for Thriller (full length music video which was revolutionary and traumatised a friend of mine) and any David Lynch movie (even the non-horror ones). Plus Psycho (1960) which is another example of how one can categorise horror or halloween. Let us know if we missed any others or if any suggestions.
Also, there was this movie I saw on TV in the 80’s where someone was buried alive and that was a big part of the plot. It was more a psych thriller than a bloody gory flick, but I’ve been trying to find out this film for ages. It freaked me out as a kid. Anyone know what it was?
Happy Halloween!