October’s Halloween Movie List

Monday, November 2nd, 2009 by Rachel

I watch scary movies all year long, but October gives me a real excuse to watch these movies with somewhat less picking from others. I think scary movies have a lot more depth than they’re given credit for, and I enjoy them more than any other movie genre, generally speaking.

 

Since Friday the 13th is coming up in a few weeks, I’m sure this isn’t the end of movie season for me, but I wanted to go ahead and keep you posted on the movies that I have been able to watch in the past month. Note too, that we also started watching The Addams Family and Nightmares & Dreamscapes, so I’ll probably write up something on those when I finish them. I’ve still been watching Seinfeld on a nightly basis, and, as promised in the second entry on this site, a list of my favorite Seinfeld episodes is coming soon.

 

Most of these are not “new” movies, but movies in my collection that I just happened to pull out and watch this month. Most of the time I am working on other projects (like student grading or poem writing) during my movie watching, unless it’s a movie I haven’t seen before.

1. Poltergeist: “They’re here….” Could there be a better line to start off my movie season? Poltergeist is one that I love, from skeletons popping out of the ground to a housewife almost flushing a dead canary. Technology is horrifying in this form—as an outlet for the dead to steal life. This movie’s spooky all around in the production sense too, with two actresses (Heather O’Rourke & Dominique Dunne) suffering untimely deaths.

 

2. Amityville Horror: I almost always watch this one in conjunction with Poltergeist in a sort of haunted movie marathon. I love Margot Kidder in anything, let alone as a too hoarse mom trapped in a house with an increasingly haggard James Brolin. Spooky, spooky!

 

3. Rosemary’s Baby: I never saw this before, and my timing was perfect, as Polanski was arrested (finally) the following week. Mia Farrow is beautiful and horrifying as the skeletal baby container walking around in this one. We never find out what the devil really looks like, and I’m not sure I want to know.

 

4. My Bloody Valentine 3D: This came out in theatres when we lived in Flagstaff and our theatre didn’t have 3D capacity. I’m sure that watching it for the first time on a small screen wasn’t ideal, but I could really SEE the 3D. What a perfect pick for a 3D movie remake—yes, a pun was intended there, as a pickaxe has never been so icky! Kerr Smith is manly as always, and I just wish his career didn’t end with Dawson’s Creek.

 

5. Poseidon: Is this REALLY a horror movie? I think so. This disaster film has a huge death count, and it features one of horror’s best actors: Kurt Russell. I love him in The Thing, Escape from NY/LA, and especially Death Proof.

 

6. Halloween 3: Season of the Witch: The movie in which Michael Myers disappears, except for a teeny tiny TV spot…Halloween 3 is underrated and often forgotten, as it does not follow the traditional Halloween timeline. Halloween masks become a dangerous weapon in this spooky attempt for Silver Shamrock to take over the world!

 

7. Halloween 4: Return of Michael Myers: Danielle Harris (wonderful in the Rob Zombie remake) is Laurie Strode’s orphaned daughter, Jamie Lloyd. (Apparently Laurie Strode faked her own death and deserted her child, as we know that Laurie Strode is well and alive in H20! What a deadbeat mom). Michael Myers wants to kill his niece, but the two are more connected than either of them wants to acknowledge.

 

8. Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers: Myers comes back, still trying to kill Jamie, now traumatized and mute after trying to murder her foster mother. You can’t escape bad blood!

 

9. Haunted World of El Superbeasto: Like My Bloody Valentine 3D, we missed the chance to see this in theatres, as it only had a limited release. It’s animated, spooky and kooky, reminding me only of TV shows in Spike’s early career: Stripperella, Gary the Rat, etc. I think that this is a movie I’ll be able to watch over and over and over, with how much detail is crammed into the backgrounds.

 

10. Final Destination: No one can escape the Grim Reaper, and how unfortunate! Kerr Smith plays a HUGE jerk in this one, and I think it’s hilarious.

 

11. Alien: In space, no one can hear you scream! The isolation in this one (and the other two) are much more scary than the alien. There’s no help coming, and you can’t even trust your crewmates. Also, what ever happened to Tom Skerrit’s body? That sort of bothered me. Isn’t is insane that this came out the same year as the original Halloween?

 

12. Aliens: Watching this one, I said about an hour and a half in, “this isn’t better than the first one”…then I saw the ending. I’m not quite sure that I needed/wanted Ripley to become a mother figure, but this sets up a lot of nice things in terms of plot/protection of Newt and Ripley’s character running parallel to the Queen Alien wanting to defend her next. Also, I love Lance Henriksen. He rocks.

 

13. Alien 3: This one’s in a prison…with aliens in addition to the already mean prisoners, my favorites an attempted rapist played by Hot McCallany (from CSI: Miami) and the more helpful Dillon, played by Charles S. Dutton. Lance Henriksen’s comeback made me happy.

 

14. Beetlejuice: I seriously never remember seeing this one before. I don’t know why/how I could’ve missed it/not retained any memory from it, but I gave it another shot. My only real issue with the film is that it’s named for a character who isn’t even in the movie for thirty minutes. Beetlejuice doesn’t really do it for me…neither does Winona Ryder. Geena Davis & Alec Baldwin make the movie, as they try their hardest to stretch their faces out and become super scary.

 

15. Dawn of the Dead: I got the Divimax DVD, as it is supposed to have the best cut of the movie available. While I enjoy this one, the pacing is WAY off, so I almost always skip/ignore the first 20 minutes. Once we’re in the mall, my attention is there 100%. Ken Foree makes the movie, offering to give abortions, shooting those blue zombies in the head, and being the best possible friend as he is forced to shoot his fellow soldier. He’s a survivor.

 

16. 13 Ghosts: This one’s a little cheesy, and I actually only recently found out that this is a remake. I desperately need/want to see the original, as I enjoy this one so much. It’s cheesy, overly gruesome at times. I can’t say that I’ve ever been impressed by Shannon Elizabeth in much of anything. But this is a fun one, as Matthew Lillard is tortured by headaches and the ghosts that he dimwittingly captured.

 

17. Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The scene where Leatherface slams the metal door shut is one of my favorites in all of movie history. This movie is awesome, especially when considering production disasters behind it.

 

18. Rob Zombie’s Halloween: We saw it in theatres. I didn’t like it. I saw it again. I changed my mind. I own three copies of this one, the unrated, the theatrical, and the special 3 disc collection. I’m not sure it’s worth all three, but I really enjoy Zombie in all of his directing glory for this one. He tried his damndest, and if it was up to him, H2 would have never happened.

 

19. Michael Lives: The Making of Halloween: Documentary of the RZ film.

 

20. Scream 2: From the Dewey Music to the Jerry O’Connell singalong to the mystery guest waiting in the wings, this movie stands alone and in some ways is a better movie than the first. Timothy Olyphant is hilarious here, and this is the kind of role that makes me appreciate him both in small parts (Life Less Ordinary) and large ones (Hitman).

 

21. Murder by Numbers: She’s dead…wrapped in plastic…. Enough said.. Yeah I pulled the Twin Peaks card. Let me do it again. Their heads….wrapped in plastic!!!

 

22. Carrie: I loved the book when I was 13, and I love the movie still. A piece of adolescent literature turned into revenge fantasy is both disturbing and hilarious.

 

23. House of 1000 Corpses: We watched this while we carved pumpkins this year. Derrick made a Captain Spaulding that came out great.

 

24. Scream: In the movie that brought the slasher film to a whole new generation, Scream is sexy, savvy, and scary! See #20.

 

25. Slither: With alien zombies running all over the countryside, no one is safe. When a meteorite lands in Wheelsey, chaos ensues, leaving only a high school biology teacher and a small town cop to “slug” it out

 

26. Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2: The greatest sequel of all time. Hands down. If you can’t make a better movie than the first one, why not make the second one as crackheady and whacked out as possible? Dog will hunt!

 

27. Airplane!: Just kidding :)

 

28. Batman: Maybe it’s not QUITE a scary movie, but it’s Tim Burton, and I think it’s creepy. Though Jack Nicholson’s Joker is more comical than Heath Ledger’s, that plastered on acid smile gives me the heeby jeebies.

 

29. Batman Returns: I only got to watch the first hour of this one this year, but come on… Black goo oozing out of the Penguin? CREEPO!

 

30. The Witches: This is a new one for me this year. Witches will try to kidnap you, steal your fingers, turn you into mice then stomp on you… acks! We need to make this a yearly tradition!

Comments:


  1. I loved the Witches as a kid! It’s totally awesome.


  2. How did I miss it until now?

    Seriously though, I don’t know if I’d let my kids watch it. Anjelica Huston is SUPER scary turning into that bald witchy thing


  3. No way, kids love that stuff! I watched it at like 7 or 8 and was fine. Just make them read the book first.

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