Favorite Halloween movies

Is it THAT time already?

Well, Psycho has been on, but the Gus Van Sant remake...

Just saw a trailer for the new The Thing which comes off solely as a tech upgrade.

They've been runnning the American Horror Story TV commercials during the MLB Playoffs with music from the exorcist, Halloween, ect. so that's become intreresting...

Wiki excerpt:

Critical reception

American Horror Story has received positive reviews from critics. The first season scored 63 out of 100 on Metacritic based on 12 reviews.[18]

Ken Tucker from Entertainment Weekly awarded the series a B+, stating "AHS is pretty much all scare, all the time: a whole lotta screams, sex, jolts, mashed faces, psychotic behavior, and dead babies."[19] Chuck Barney of the San Jose Mercury News said "Most TV shows, after all, quickly fade from memory. This one will haunt your dreams."[20] Hank Stuever from The Washington Post said in his review that "Overdoing things is one of Murphy's trademark flaws, but this show has a captivating style and giddy gross-outs."[21] IGN TV's Matt Fowler said that the pilot episode was a lot of "style-over-substance" but also that it was "totally watchable" and a "haunting, subversive television experiment" that gleefully combined elements of The Shining, Amityville Horror and many other iconic films. [22]

Not all reviews were favorable. Alan Sepinwall of HitFix gave the series a D-, saying, "It is so far over the top that the top is a microscopic speck in its rearview mirror, and so full of strange sounds, sights and characters that you likely won't forget it - even though many of you will wish you could."

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Not to mention the new season of Walking Dead...

ones I watch every year:

The Haunting (original)
The Omen (original)
Psycho
American Werewolf
Fright Night


And this year, since ive been working on a local tv horror host show, I have to see Teenagers from Outer Space, The Horror Express (Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, and Telly Savalas?), and Bucket of Blood many times up to Halloween.

KOTCS, 24 hour marathon

Pale Horse said:

KOTCS, 24 hour marathon

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The horror...the horror...

Pale Horse said:

KOTCS, 24 hour marathon

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Hahahaha! I guess you plan on traumatizing yourself.

The original '78 Carpenter "Halloween" must be out on blu-ray right?
I'm gonna pick it up today.

Disney's The Haunted Mansion

The Nightmare Before Christmas (Tim Burton)

Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland

Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow

Danny Phantom Fright Night

The Dark Crystal

I think I will finally have to watch The Human Centipede.

If I do, has anyone seen the sequel?

Shold I watch them back to back or front to back, together?

Rocket Surgeon said:

I think I will finally have to watch The Human Centipede.

If I do, has anyone seen the sequel?

Shold I watch them back to back or front to back, together?

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If you get a choice, go to the front! (The food tastes better)

Since Halloween is approaching, I wanted to add to my last list:

- The Crow (1994): Superb dark, gothic fantasy/drama, which does take place around Halloween. RIP Brandon Lee.

- Let's scare Jessica to Death (197?): Disturbing '70's horror flick about a woman who moves with her husband & friend to an isolated rural area, where creepy things start happening; the focus here was more about creating an unsettling mood than anything else, and from that stand-point it worked great.

- The Sentinel (197?): Another great '70's horror movie.

- Burnt Offerings (197?): Great flick about a family that moves into a house for the summer - it seems perfect at first.....this film kind of reminded me of "The Amityville Horror", but with some different twists.

If we're going for scary movies, then the most unsettling for me are the zombie flicks - especially Romero's.

When it's a matter of one bite and you become one of them, it ramps up the tension.

For pure atmosphere and storytelling, I like Carpenter's The Fog.

Kevin said:

1. Halloween (1-3)
2. Nightmare on Elm Street (1-7)
3. Universal Monsters Films (Dracula, Frankenstein, Mummy, Wolf Man, Creature)
4. Pumpkinhead
5. Children of the Corn
6. Prince of Darkness
7. The Thing (Carpenter)
8. The Shining
9. Friday the 13th (1-4)
10. Re-Animator
11. Demons
12. The Blob (remake)
13. American Werewolf in London
14. Bram Stoker?s Dracula
15. The Wizard of Gore

I feel that the 1980?s were a renaissance for horror films, hence most of my favorites come from that decade.

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I have to add Don Coscarelli's Phantasm to my list, as well as Night of the Creeps

phantom train said:

Burnt Offerings (197?): Great flick about a family that moves into a house for the summer - it seems perfect at first.....this film kind of reminded me of "The Amityville Horror", but with some different twists.

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Nice pick, Phantom Train. It's from 1976 but I first saw on TV in late 1977 and it scared the hell out of me as a kid! Funny that you say it reminded you of "The Amityville Horror" because it was the other way around for me. I saw "Burnt Offerings" a year before reading the Amityville book (and 2 years before the film version came out in '79).

Anyway, "Burnt Offerings" is worth checking out. With the great, Oliver Reed, Bette Davis, Burgess Meredith and the lovely, Karen Black, it won't be a waste of time!

Kevin said:

The Blob (remake)

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Have you (or anyone else) ever seen "Beware the Blob" from 1972? (It's also known as "Son of the Blob".) The last half of the film is a 'must-see' for any Blob fans.

Stoo said:

Have you (or anyone else) ever seen "Beware the Blob" from 1972? (It's also known as "Son of the Blob".) The last half of the film is a 'must-see' for any Blob fans.

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I have indeed, in fact I just saw it for the first time a few weeks ago, it is available on Instant Play on Netflix. I did enjoy it, but I still prefer the 1988 version.

I use to watch the 'Magical World of Disney" Halloween specials when I was a kid. Halloween wasn't really big down here. Ever since the recession, the retail industry have been trying to push Halloween.

Anyhow, I admit I do get a bit into the spirit of it for fun. I'm more of a schlocky horror fan, monsters and that sort of thing. Never really been into the slasher genre. In terms of films definitely:

Hocus Pocus
Haunted Mansion
Psycho (original)
Nightmare Before Christmas
Casper
The Addams Family (kind of surprised this hasn't rated a mention yet)
Creature from the Black Lagoon
Dracula: Dead and Loving It
Young Frankenstein
Alien versus Predator
Predators
The Blob (original)
Zombieland
The Mummy movies (both originals and re-makes)
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (surely this deserves partial Halloween status with hearts being pulled out, hell-like sets and zombie like hypnosis)
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
Them!
Nosferatu (original)

and yes.... Young Indy-Masks of Evil.

And if I ever find DVDs of these: Eerie Indiana and Who's Afraid of the Dark?

I regularly watch horror movies, so there is no particular one that screams "Halloween!" to me. But shout out to the dude who mentioned Burnt Offerings. Fantastic movie, could not recommend more.

Violet said:

Alien versus Predator

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My opinion of you, Violet, just went up yet another notch.

That movie gets too little respect, in my opinion. This was a grudge match I was waiting to see since 1990, and to top it off, it happens in a lonely, frozen location.

Isolated and trapped between creatures from nightmare, AvP is perfect Halloween fare. (The perfect accompaniment to Carpenter's The Thing).

I started a marathon at midnight of Sept 30, er I guess that would be early Oct 1. So far I watched 24 different movies and Halloween specials. I'm finally making my way thru my Universal Studios Monster Legacy Collections. So far I've watched all of The Invisible Man and its sequels, and The Wolf Man and its sequels. Watched all the Harry Potter movies too, within that first week, including seeing Deathly Hallows Part 2 for a 2nd time at the theater. Still got lots to watch, however, next week I won't watch much as I have family visiting.

So far I've watched:

1. Scarecrow of Romney Marsh Parts I, II, & III
2. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
3. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
4. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
5. Zombieland
6. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
7. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
8. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
9. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
10. The Invisible Man (1933)
11. The Invisible Man Returns (1940)
12. The Invisible Woman (1940)
13. Invisible Agent (1942)
14. The Invisible Man's Revenge (1944)
15. An American Werewolf in London
16. The Evil Dead
17. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
18. Garfield's Thanksgiving/Garfield's Halloween Adventure
19. 28 Days Later
20. 28 Weeks Later
21. Werewolf of London (1935)
22. She-Wolf of London (1946)
23. The Wolf Man (1941)
24. Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man (1943)

Great list - kudos especially to 28 days later & 28 weeks later. I saw both of these films in the theatre and thought they were great, especially the first one; great zombie horror flicks with a different vibe from the "Dead" films - the idea that these people were still "alive" but infected was horrific, and their speed was fairly innovative for zombies in films at the time this was released (2003). The scene in the beginning with the guy waking up in the hospital bed to find London deserted was a great, creepy beginning (and was also "borrowed" by other films/TV shows, notably an episode of Smallville S9).

Alien vs. Predator was indeed an excellent film; I also had been waiting for something like this since Predator 2 was released back in '90 and we saw the Alien skeletons on the Predator ship (which led to the various AvP Dark Horse comics mini-series in the '90's).

The original The Fog is also excellent - great early John Carpenter. The 2005 re-make is also worth seeing, and very creepy as well.

And, I wanted to recommend the great '80's horror anthology TV show Tales from the Darkside; this was ran for four seasons back in the day, and featured many scary (and also cheesy) episodes that were very well-done. I think the show has been re-run on TV, and also all four seasons are available on DVD.

Watched a couple more last night:

24. The Wolfman - Unrated Director's Cut (2010)
25. Frankenstein (1931)

The Unrated Director's Cut of last year's The Wolfman remake is pretty darn good. And I actually liked the changes from the original.

And what can I say about Boris Karloff's Frankenstein - a classic! I'm just watching my way thru the Frankenstein Legacy Collection. Will probably watch Bride, Son, and maybe Ghost tonight.

Just watched Devil again...and gave it some real attention.

Some decent tension and weaving of a story, but no real "scares."

Saw a bit of Rob Zombie's Halloween II the other night and from what I watched it just comes off as brutality and hazy fantasy.

Have to check it out again, maybe pay more attention.