It’s Friday…
Ahem…I mean Frightday…
And I have some recommendations for you to enjoy this weekend…
Okay…This Frightday’s theme is…
It’s Halloween!
Nothing puts me in the mood for my favorite movie-watching holiday season quite like the opening title sequence of John Carpenter’s 1978 immortal classic…
Halloween.
Whenever any film takes place during this particular holiday…
It automatically adds an eerie element…
A spooky vibe that radiates throughout the film…
And subsequently…
Immerses me in that delicious, devilish, delight…
Known as…
The Halloween Spirit.
So, let’s take a chronological look at the scariest, spookiest, and possibly even unknown to you, It’s Halloween! Movies…That will put you in that Halloween mood…In the years following John Carpenter’s Halloween.
The Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981) – This creepy TV movie aired on CBS a week before Halloween in 1981…And it has stayed with me for years…When it was finally released a few years ago, I was able to re-watch it…And…It holds up surprisingly well…Larry Drake (Dr. Giggles) was amazing as Bubba…A kind and gentle, mentally challenged man…Who befriends a young girl…The small-minded townsfolk don’t take too kindly to this friendship, especially the even smaller-minded mailman, played by Charles Durning…When the young girl is attacked by a dog, the mailman and a group of fellow pea-brains…Go looking for Bubba…Laying false blame on him for the young girl’s injuries…Bubba disguises himself as a scarecrow in a field, and when discovered…The innocent man is murdered by the mindless mob…What happens next is a classic case of well orchestrated supernatural revenge…But underneath it all…Is an undying and unlikely friendship between two beautifully innocent people.
Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) – Okay this wrongly maligned film is right behind the 1978 original…In terms of Halloween spirit…Seriously…I start hearing the Silver Shamrock song in my head by the first week of October…As I’ve mentioned before…The fans that decided that Michael Myers should be the next Jason Voorhees and lead the franchise through its many mediocre sequels…Were wrong…Had they not created such a stink…John Carpenter could have continued the franchise in the way he wanted to do it…Each Halloween, he planned on releasing another original Halloween themed film…Imagine if that had happened…How many amazing films that I could have added to this list! So to those out there who still hate this one…I say to you…Thanks a ton, asshats…As much as you think I’m a douche for loving this film…Your short-sighted love of Michael Myers robbed horror fans of the potential for an ass-load of amazing Halloween films…Therefore making you the bigger douche…Or as they commonly say in France, “Na na na na goo goo…Stick your head in doo doo.”
Silver Bullet (1985) – I’ve always had a soft spot for this Stephen King adaptation…Not because it’s one of the best…Guess it just must be the Gary Busey factor…Who knows? But whatever it is…This film makes up for any of its shortcomings with heart, and an incredibly organic performance from the aforementioned Busey…When consulted about scenes of dialogue that Busey did both ways…Ad-libbed and from the script…Stephen King always chose the ad-libbed scenes…It was a brilliant choice that made Busey’s portrayal of Uncle Red both endearing and memorable to the audience…And as the story of young paraplegic, Marty Coslaw vs. the town werewolf moves towards its thrilling climax…The months on the calendar get ripped off one by one…Eventually stopping its forward momentum in the month of October and of course…Halloween.
Night of the Demons (1988) – Within the first few moments of the animated title sequence…If you aren’t completely giddy with the Halloween Spirit…Then there’s something wrong with you…In this fun romp through a typical All Hallows Eve in the 80’s…Social misfit, Angela and her friend Suzanne, played by the always titilatingly trashy Linnea Quigley decide to throw a party at the local mortuary…Before long it’s a bunch of dudes with mini-mullets that would’ve made Eugene Porter proud…And ladies with enough Aqua-Net in their hair to single-handedly cause global warming… Some folks consider this film cheesy…And that’s okay…Not only is cheese really good sometimes…But this time, I say it’s just the right amount of cheese…The naughty and bawdy wild ride is still a ton of fun to go on…It’s a straight-up 80’s party movie…One that screams, “It’s Halloween!”
The Crow (1994) – I had to take a break after the shocking tragedy that took place on the set of this film…It was truly difficult that night at the theater…I kept getting distracted by the symbolism of death being the main theme in a film where the lead actor was killed eight days before filming ended…That actor, Brandon Lee…Turned in a stellar performance as Eric Draven…And that performance…Along with the visually stunning style of director Alex Proyas (Dark City)…Not to mention, the tragedy…Made this film an instant cult classic…This was the most visceral and violent comic book adaptation I had ever seen…The dark and gritty version of Detroit that appeared on-screen, made Gotham City look like a nice neighborhood to live in…After years had passed…I was able to go back and revisit and rekindle my love for this film…A film that takes place on the night before Halloween.
Idle Hands (1999) – In the 90’s…Stoners changed their name…To slackers…The nomenclature didn’t continue into the next decade…Making it exclusively…A 90’s thing…And this film is the quintessential slacker horror movie…It tells the gory and hilarious story of Anton, played by Devon Sawa (Final Destination)…A slacker who realizes after he murders his parents, and his two best friends…That his right hand is possessed…Not interested in the afterlife, Anton’s pals choose the undead route…Pnub, played by Elden Henson (The Mighty Ducks) and Mick, played by Seth Green (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) were hilarious in the roles of the zombie stoners…Um, I mean…The zombie slackers…The film has been panned by critics…But it is one of my favorite 90’s horror movies…And always puts me in the mood for my favorite holiday…Halloween.
Murder Party (2007) – A few months back…I threw up a spotlight and shined it on this film…Calling it a 21st Century Cult Classic…This is the feature film debut of director Jeremy Saulnier…His next two films…Blue Ruin and Green Room…Established him as someone who can create taut, intense thrillers that place the unlikely protagonist in a situation that starts out to be insurmountably horrible…And only get worse as the film progresses…This gory, tongue-in-cheek debut shows where Saulnier cut his teeth on that premise…When we meet this film’s protagonist, he appears to be, a lonely doofus with not much else in his life besides his cat and his love for horror videos…But he longs for more…So the invitation to a “Murder Party” that he picked up off the street seems like a good way to socialize and maybe even make some friends…The narcissistic art school sociopaths who are hosting this Halloween party have other plans for the loveable loser…But as with his other films…Saulnier teaches us that things don’t always work out the way you plan them.
Trick ‘r Treat (2007) – In this Halloween themed horror anthology…We not only get the rare opportunity of individual stories that are all equally disturbing and entertaining…But we also get these stories intertwined in a way that the normal wraparound intro and conclusion model never accomplished…These stories live in the same world with each other…And Sam, the resident host who strings them all together, travels freely from story to story…Bringing immense danger wrapped in a tiny package…Like a fun-sized thermonuclear device…Writer/director Michael Dougherty (Krampus) carefully balanced the horror and the humor in this film…And because of his deft hand, crafted a despicably delicious Halloween party movie.
The Guest (2014) – Adam Wingard is a director that I dig…A lot…First thing I saw was You’re Next…And I was hooked…Since then, I have taken a look back at some of his earlier fils like A Horrible Way to Die…And, Homesick…And of course, I loved his segments in The ABC’s of Death, V/H/S and V/H/S/2…Not to mention his foray into television when he directed the pilot episode of Robert Kirkman‘s new series, Outcast…Enough about his impressive résumé…In this film that feels like it was pulled out of a time capsule from 1986…Dan Stevens (Legion) plays David…A man claiming to be the friend of fellow fallen soldier, Caleb…When he arrives at the home of Caleb’s parents…They are having a difficult time coping with the loss of their son, and wrongly welcome this stranger into their lives…He quickly begins to inject himself into perceived problems each member of the family is having…The results of these interferences will startle the audience…As the film bulldozes its way towards a very Halloween themed climax.
The Video Store Clerk 