Next to Christmas, Halloween is the best holiday for themed movies! The problem is choosing from all the options. I will admit that horror films are not my strength, but there are some foundational classics that every movie fan should see, and you can watch over and over again. So if you’re looking for some spooktacular movies for the week, here are my recommendations, in five classic categories.
Vampire – Let’s start at the very beginning (to borrow from perhaps the least scary movie of all time). Don’t settle for vamps that glitter or pause for pithy dialogue. Go back to the age of the silent film with 1922’s “Nosferatu“. F.W. Murnau’s chilling classic delivers a blood-sucking ghoul that would make most modern vamps poop their pants. Werner Herzog has said this is the greatest German movie of all time. And we very nearly didn’t get to see it. Despite changes to the story (including probably the earliest “vampires die in the sunlight” reference), the estate of Bram Stoker required all prints of this movie to be destroyed when it was found to violate copyright. Some copies survived around the globe and that’s why you can still watch it today. It still brings a level of creepy horror that few modern movies manage.
Zombie – Again, make sure you see the one that changed the subject forever. Prior to George Romero’s 1968 “Night of the Living Dead“, zombie movies were much more about voodoo than shambling hordes of brain-eating undead. Made on a small budget, the movie still holds up pretty well in the realm of the purely creepy.
Monster – Of course, most horror movies could simply be lumped under “monster”, but there’s one classic that stands out from the pack. The mad-scientist-makes-a-monster trope has its standard set by Boris Karloff as “Frankenstein” in the 1931 version. There is an emotional range there in the mute monster that only an actor of his subtlety could portray. And no one has ever topped the movie perfection of the laboratory found here. Mimicked but never bettered.
Devil/Evil – Take a frightening concept (possession by a demon), add one of the great soundtracks in the history of the genre and then let a director who knows his stuff (William Friedkin) take the helm and you get one of the great horror movies of all time, “The Exorcist“, from 1973. Linda Blair did not enjoy the experience overall, she had to have a security team protect her from death threats for six months after the movie debuted. This is the first horror film to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar (it didn’t win). With some great actors surrounding Blair (Ellen Burstyn, Max Von Sydow, and Lee J. Cobb) and you get a movie for the ages. Adjusted for inflation this is still one of Warner Brothers most successful films.
Slasher – Personally my least favorite style of horror film, but you can’t pass it up. And that means you have to acknowledge the seminal work here as well. “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” changed horror movies. The funny part is that there isn’t a whole lot of blood on display here. Tobe Hooper’s 1974 movie about Leatherface was considered so over the top at the time that it initially was given an “X” rating (Hooper had hoped for a “PG”!). It wasn’t released until it had been dropped to an “R”. Another indie project made on a shoestring budget, it has stood the test of time.
Curiously, the three most frightening movies on my personal viewing list aren’t here at all. “Jaws“, “Alien” and “The Silence of the Lambs” scared me more than any other movies I have ever seen.
On the other hand, if you’d like some Halloween with a little scare content plus some laughs, let me recommend the following:
An American Werewolf in London
Beetlejuice
Young Frankenstein
Shawn of the Dead
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
So a little something for your Halloween watching, no matter what your taste!
Would you nominate some other movie? Let me know in the comments!
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