Top Ten Halloween Horrors

A moderately spooky evening to you all. What with one of my favourite faux-holidays of the year coming up, and the inevitable (and greatly anticipated) influx of horror films due to be shown on TV, I thought I'd share with you my favourite movies to watch around Halloween time. Yep, be they new, old, inbetweeny, I love a good horror film. In fact, I love a bad horror film, I mean, who doesn't get entertainment out of predicting when a drug taking teen is about to be picked off by the giant ghoul with the kitchen knife/machete/chainsaw/tomato? So here it is, my top ten favourite Halloween Horrors.

10. Let The Right One In

When this first came out, I must admit, I thought it was just another foreign language film doomed to be fawned over by the pretentious section of cinema goers. I'm glad I was wrong. Let The Right One In is a brilliant and refreshing new take on the vampire genre in a time where we have to suffer through vampires being the new fad, a great big thank you to that sparkly prat and his hairy werewolfy chum. None of that here. Nope, here we have a constantly eerie, and yet weirdly charming tale of a young boy who is bullied, and who stumbles upon an odd little girl who doesn't quite seem right. If nothing else, this piece of Swedish magnificence forces you to think about the what-ifs of vampire life...or undeath...or....something like that.

9. The Mist

Just one of many Stephen King novels to have been thrown at the big screen, and one which certainly works better than a bulk of the ones the author didn't want adapted, The Mist is probably one of the most disturbing films you're likely to see. Simple enough prospect; in true King style, everything is pretty much hunky-dory in Smalltown America, but things are bubbling under...and a portal to another dimension is accidentally opened by we silly humans. Now what you get is enormous bugs, and unseen horrors lurking in the eponymous mist that engulfs the town, but it is the social politics ripping through the survivors which is more disturbing. Extremist religious nutjobs and the suspicious hillbillies threaten our heroes throughout. Don't watch if you don't like really deep, really...really emotionally scarring endings, because that's certainly what you get here. Oh, and it's done by serial King adaptor Frank Darabont, who also did The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile and current TV greatness, The Walking Dead, so you know it's good.

8. Dawn Of The Dead

If you haven't seen this, there is something wrong with you, there really is. George A. Romero's Dawn Of The Dead is, in my opinion the seminal zombie movie. The tale of survivors of the ongoing zombie apocalypse taking refuge in a shopping mall has become so ingrained into the minds of film fans that the majority of us can't help but form zombie contingency survival plans for pretty much every building we enter...especially shopping centres now. Rammed with cheeky humour (everyone in a shopping mall is a zombie...hur hur) and genuine scares throughout, the film even had time to produce a classic quote of movie history: When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth.

7. 28 Days Later

Fairly quickly after George A. Romero's first few Dead offerings, the zombie genre died a death, and didn't crawl back out of the grave, clawing for our brains until 2002, when Danny Boyle gave us 28 Days Later. Basically, this story took our ideas of "what if zombies actually happened" and showed us just that. It's a modern zombie film, with all the daftness and camp taken out, meaning that it's really quite brutal. Anyone who has seen it will remember the truly mesmerising scene of our hero, seemingly the sole survivor of a virus ravaged London walking through the notable streets of the capital, totally alone, not a soul in sight. 28 Days Later makes zombies seem possible, and for that reason alone...it'll scare you out of most of your pants.

6. Shaun Of The Dead

The third and final zombie flick of the bunch, and it's definitely a goodun. Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg's Shaun Of The Dead is both an absolutely hilarious comedy film and a genuinely chilling horror movie. Inspired by an episode of the equally brilliant Spaced, this is a film that lets a close group of zombie fans deliver countless tributes to their favourites of the genre, either by making you laugh or recoil in horror. Whether it's simply "You've got red on you" or the lovingly stolen "We're coming to get you Barbara!", Shaun Of The Dead knows what it's doing, and it'll confuse you...you want to laugh at it all the way through, but you can't help be scared by it.

5. The Innocents

Time for an oldie, but make no mistakes about it, it may have just reached a half century, but The Innocents is one of the most haunting (literally) films you're ever likely to see. Based on stage adaptation of Henry James' The Turn Of The Screw, this is the tale of a governess who takes charge of the two children left in a stately home by their nonchalant uncle, but things seem to be awry from the very off. The housemaid seems to believe in pretending to get rid of a problem...and the previous two members of staff, having mysteriously died  seem to have a presence in the home. Are they really there...are they trying to possess the children? Who is that singing in the garden...who keeps appearing at the window...and who stands over the lake? Seriously, the lake and window scene actually scare the living bajeebuz out of me to this day. Oh, and if that's not enough, part of the soundtrack is used in the cursed videotape seen in The Ring, so yeah, it's pretty damn scary.

4. The Grudge

It was absolutely trashed by the critics, but seemingly loved by a large group of fans, it is, in my opinion, the king of the J-horror (...though really it's K-Horror) movement which swept Western audiences in the early 2000s, it's the pants wetting The Grudge. A remake of the South Korean Ju-on: The Grudge. The story ropes you in, simply because you realise that no matter what you do, this curse is going to claim you. The feeling of helplessness really makes you squirm for the victims, not to mention the fact that tiny, blue-tinted Asian boys who meow are apparently UNBELIEVABLY CREEPY. And then you have the lovely Kayako, the lady of the haunted house, who is quite probably one of the most terrifying creations of cinema history. The bone creaking, throat rattling spindly onryu ghost reminds you of The Ring...but she doesn't just come out of the television...just you try hiding from her...I don't recommend under the duvet.

3. The Shining

Again, if you haven't seen this film, there's something wrong with you, The Shining has become a classic of cinema itself, nevermind horror. Stanley Kubrick's take on Stephen King's masterpiece is the example of tension and suspense...plus a masterclass in psychotic breakdowns from Jack Nicholson. This story has made us creeped out by hotels, which takes some doing. Any number of scenes can be chosen to scare you, whether it's the waterfall of blood, the exchange with Lloyd the barman or those exceptionally shudder-inducing twins, the film may not be as ground-breaking in scares as it was upon first release, but I dare any first time viewers to not freak out a little when watching Mr Torrance snap. After all, all work and no play...

2. The Thing

The 1980s brought us many things, and unfortunately, many of them we can't forgive...mullets, lycra and Madonna, for a start. But the 80s did give us something we should forever be grateful for: movie special effects. The Thing is a classic example of why you don't need CGI to impress or terrify, when a much more gruesome effect can be achieved by the prop department. The story of an ice base team set upon by an alien which can take the shape of seemingly any living thing. The paranoia and claustrophobia alone are enough to put the shivers in you, but then there's the Thing itself, which we never see in a natural form, only in the disgustingly mutated shape of the crew and even their huskies. The infamous "head spider" scene has got to be one of the most memorable of any film, and I'll be amazed if you get the same stomach-churning, flesh tearing effect from a computer that you get here. Truly disgusting, but absolutely brilliant.

1. Halloween

Okay, I know it looks like a massive cliche to pick this as my favourite Halloween Horror, but all gimmickyness aside, Halloween deserves the top spot. For a start, it jump-started the slasher genre, which hadn't really been done properly since Psycho, eighteen years earlier. But secondly, and most importantly, it was one of the first films to successfully merge the supernatural and the truly normal. What could be more scary than a perfectly ordinary, sleepy suburb, in the middle of celebrating the spooky holiday in the true American style, whilst unwittingly being invaded by the seemingly indestructible, unstoppable and damn right evil serial killer, Michael Myers. Society tends to be fascinated by serial killers, we tend to assign a supernatural element to them, so therefore it seems only natural that Michael Myers actually becomes the supernatural whilst on his rampage. Officially credited as "The Shape", Myers moves almost entirely silently, and simply stands in view of his victims, whether that be in plain sight in the street, or partially obscured by their laundry (probably the scariest image in most horror films I've seen), he simultaneously sneaks up on his targets, and announces himself without hiding. Yep, Halloween embodies the spirit of the holiday, no matter how old we get, we're always guilty of thinking that the boogeyman is waiting for us somewhere, and who says that it's not Myers who makes us want to sprint up the stairs like little girls when we turn off the light at night?


Thank you for reading, and let me know which films tickle your Halloween-y fancy, as I know I missed out some great ones.

Happy Halloween to you all.