Inbe’s Top Ten Favorite Halloween Movies

I absolutely love Halloween! I’m making my glorious return to Salem, MA this year after many years of dressing up and going to clubs, just to see a bunch of Divine wannabe transvestites dance around and walk through poorly maintained spider webs all night. Last year I had this contrasting black and white checkered clown get-up with makeup, bloody fangs and some short stilts (for half the night anyway), it was my best costume to date but only about a hundred people really got to see it. Ending two years ago, I went to Salem dressed in various theme outfits with friends (the Ghostbusters surprisingly getting the best reactions by far) for at least five years in a row. This was so much fun, and I’m returning for the Halloween weekend…YAY!! Yahoo for Halloween!!! With that said, my usual horror movie marathon is beginning this weekend…So, my top ten horror films list changes every so often and this year is no exception. In addition to selections from the top ten I’ll be screening some “obscure” and/or “early influence” selections. This year I’ve chose the Mexican classic Alucarda, which is really just 70 minutes of screaming naked girls covered in blood (and therefore awesome) and the silent classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, which I have not seen in about five years, so I’m really looking forward to it. The best is I have several friends who will endure the first one with me and likely lose their patience with the second. My updated top ten list goes as such and each will be viewed between tonight and Halloween (I always fail in doing this and end up watching the best ones in November anyway). I watched Psycho last night so that’s done.

10. A Nightmare on Elm Street: Kicking things off is the original Freddy movie. It’s obviously a highly influential picture and pretty much a landmark in the horror genre. It’s also pretty scary. Yeah, Freddy is mostly iconic now and sort of taken as comical but when I first saw this movie he was just a bizarre killer from people’s dreams who mocked his victims and could do pretty much anything he wanted with them. I actually saw this movie when I was much older then when I saw the rest of the movies on this list. I watched it and took it’s time period into account while also acknowledging its mix of both clichés and originality. But when Freddy first starts throwing that dude around from the “Dreamworld” and we see the guy getting tossed around the bedroom by some invisible force that is cackling at him, you kind of get creeped out…but when all of sudden unseen blades rip through his stomach and blood spews out, you realize this film doesn’t pull punches. Then of course there’s Tina running around in her body-bag…that’s some pretty creepy stuff too.

9. The Omen: I wrote a lot about the Omen on DTM’s “HCRealm Members Rate the Movies” thread, so I won’t spend too much time. Great soundtrack and that scene with the babysitter hanging herself had me waking up with my head under the covers many nights as a child.

8. Dawn of the Dead: Certainly not the so-so remake. This film didn’t so much scare me as a child, it kind of scarred me as a child. It’s feeling of doom and isolation is unmatched. Our protagonists have a hopeless fate right from the get-go. Extraordinarily violent…especially in the scenes when the bikers get eaten by the zombies. I remember that this movie was on IFC one night and I had my ex-girlfriend over, who hated violence. Just out of sheer instinct I switched to the movie knowing it was on and it being one of my favorite films. It was right at that scene when that little girl zombie is on the floor of the mall spinning that biker’s severed arm in a half-dried pool of blood, while other zombies chow down on unidentified human parts. Perfect, she didn’t yelp, she didn’t scream, she didn’t even slap me…she actually cried. Part of me felt bad and it really was an accident…another part of me praised how demented this film was, like what I’m doing now. Its violence is so extreme it sort of puts Romero’s films into another category. Any social commentaries that people remark about in his films is mostly pretentious rubbish…Romero is no genius, he’s just a maniac.

7. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Toby Hooper’s loosely based ode to Ed Gein. This film is total madness and still stands the test of time. With the exception of the actors looking really old and acting really bad, this movie feels like a documentary and that’s Hooper taking advantage of the budget he was working with…a device that would be extremely influential. This film has to be among the most ripped-off movies in the horror genre…what’s amazing is it maintains being original and effective to this day. The build-up to when one of our nameless victims finally takes a stroll into Leatherface’s home, and ultimately to the front door of his butchery, ends with one of the greatest and most perfectly set-up murder sequences ever. Leatherface is revealed in a nonchalant way, he quickly opens this huge metal door, looks down at his prey like it was an animal that escaped, and smacks him right on the head with a sledge hammer. The victim falls to the ground with his entire body shaking and he pulls his prey into the room and slams the door…as the door slams shut the music coincides nicely and we are simply left to wonder what the hell is happening in that room. Later on we see just how mad things are in that house. Perfect horror.

6. Audition: Like many great horror films, Audition will gain notoriety with time. The Japanese are making great horror films right now, this is Takashi Miike’s best film and it is a horror movie for sure. Though knowing that is sort of a spoiler in and of itself. When I first saw Audition I had no idea what kind of movie it was. The first hour or so it seems like some kind of romantic comedy. Sort of quirky, fun and it makes you care about the poor sap protagonist. Needless to say the film takes a very dark turn in the last half hour or so…and the last ten minutes are very difficult to endure. I’ve shown this movie to a lot people who don’t even like horror and this film really stays with them. If you like some movies on this list, or horror in general, I strongly suggest you seek this one out. It’s a very special film.

5. Susperia: It’s a wonder to me that Dario Argento never became a household name in the States. He’s got a killer eye for the camera, produces good horror films and directed one of the genre’s true gems in Susperia. Argento is just as important as Wes Craven or John Carpenter in my opinion. Anyway, Susperia takes place at a dance school in Italy. An American dancer comes here and basically finds it to be a pretty scary place. Not too much in way of plot or acting, but that simply isn’t what Argento sets out to do in his films. He’s all about making you bite your nails and getting some unbelievable shots with that camera. Great pacing with suspense and if you have a big screen or plasma TV, you’ll really respect how perfect the movie is shot for it’s time. The colors are used impeccably and the last ten minutes of this film are truly among the scariest ever.

4. Halloween: The classic, the template, the original slasher and by still far and away the best one. Carpenter makes his films feel so real and he leaves just enough mystery here that the suspense is effective throughout, while the story is still a bit disturbing. Combine that with that theme song, and Halloween will give you nightmares. Again, take away the icon of Michael Myers and look at what’s happening. Halloween is still a very frightening movie…my niece actually threw away my Michael Myers mask and it’s gone. She wanted to be sure I could never wear it again.

3. The Shining: Yes, it’s different from the book. Yes, Jack is over the top. Yes, Kubrick directs his actors’ dialogue in such a way that may lull some of you out there to sleep. What about those two little frickin’ girls!? The ones that got hacked up in that hallway by their dad!? What about that naked zombie chick in that bath!? Why on earth did Jack right that stuff over and over again like that!? And what the hell was that dude with that costume on doing to that other dude in that bedroom!? This movie may scare me more now as an adult than ever. The part that always gets me is that naked chick part. If you’re a guy, you totally get played like Jack does. I mean yeah, he’s nuts, but still. Hot naked ghost chick in front of you and you might think “sure, why not?” then all of a sudden she turns into some shrieking naked old zombie lady. It’s like throwing ice on your pants.

2. Psycho: I just watched this last night with my wife. She liked it, which is strange because she doesn’t really respect older movies. This is the kind of movie that really needs no introduction…horror in general wouldn’t exist as it does today without it. Actually, horror sucks now for the most part but you get the point. I really sort of saw this as the earliest film I’d put on this list because of how it changed horror, otherwise Frankenstein wouldn’t been in my top ten. Psycho is scary, smart, well-performed, well-directed and it influenced everything that would be labeled horror or suspense that followed it.

1. The Exorcist: I think I’ve ranted about this movie before…about how I never saw a bit of it after Reagan utters “the sow is mine!” and I turned it off in absolute psychotic fear, until I was well into my teens. It’s not just a scary movie…it is far and away the most vile and evil film ever created this well. The Exorcist is well directed and the screenplay is exceptional. These are elements that people all too often forget in horror movies. Sure, you might get enjoyment out of some splatter pictures or some horror/skin flicks or the CGi versions of “Ants” and “Worms” that fill up your Saturday night sci-fi channel slots, but what makes a movie truly frightening is that it convinces you that it might be real. This movie got me thinking about whether or not God is real as much as my CCD classes. That’s because it really scares me. I’m thoroughly intrigued every time I see it and it always leaves me with an uneasy feeling when it’s over. It’s got some very good characters in it as well and some great dialogue. It’s a rare site to see, but Horror is executed so much more effectively if it compels you.

Well, that's that...I had a lot fun writing this. This is just one man's opinion so don't take it too seriously. Happy Halloween!