More than any other holiday, with the debatable exception of Christmas, the Halloween experience is very much defined by the films we associate with it. The Halloween season lasts for about a week — it’s one of those “it’s that time already?” holidays — but it’s almost required that during that week you watch at least a couple horror movies. After the costumes and the trick-or-treating have gone, it’s the horror films that make Halloween, “Halloween.”
So what are you going to watch this week, when you realize there’s no way The Shining, The Exorcist and, if you’re of my generation, Hocus Pocus are still on the shelf at your local video store? Let me tell you.
The Thing (1982)
John Carpenter’s classic remake of Howard Hawks’s The Thing From Another World is easily the best of the horror auteur’s pre-camp films, and we’re talking about the guy who wrote, directed, and composed the chilling music for the classic Halloween (1978). Redeeming himself for the now dated dud The Fog (1980), Carpenter made a film that, like Halloween, is as terrifying as it is timeless. With incredible foresight, Carpenter rejected any stop-motion effects for his creature film, relying on Rob Bottin’s excellent animatronics and creature design. The result is an 80s sci-fi horror film that, unlike others of its ilk, has only improved with time.
Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Forget the remake with Ving Rhames and fast zombies. This sequel to Night of the Living Dead (1968) may be less intense, but it is creepier, smarter, and yes, funnier. George Romero uses his zombies to make social statements; Night of the Living Dead is as much about racism as it is about the flesh-eating undead and his later Day of the Dead (1985) and Land of the Dead (2005) are about the military and the class struggle, respectively. Here the prominent theme is American consumerism, but if that doesn’t thrill you, there’s plenty of guts and gore. And enjoy fellow horror director Dario Argento’s oddball synth-soundtrack.
Videodrome (1983)
Director David Cronenberg has more straightforward horror movies, such as The Brood (1979) and his remake of The Fly (1986), but this horror offshoot is his most interesting film. TV programmer Max Renn (the ever-sleezy James Woods) discovers a sadistic program called “Videodrome” and becomes obsessed with putting it on his own cable channel. His obsession with the snuff program changes him in unexpected ways, physically and mentally, as he pursues its makers. Fascinating, nightmarish and often inexplicable, Videodrome is appropriately disturbing to make it onto your Halloween viewing schedule.
The Evil Dead Trilogy
Evil Dead (1981), Evil Dead 2 (1987) and Army of Darkness (1992) are the films of a burgeoning director whose major inspirations are comic books and The Three Stooges. Sam Raimi, who would go on to direct the three Spider-Man films, jump-started his career with the low-budget Evil Dead, made when he was only 21. Soon a cult sensation, Raimi soon had enough money for a bigger-budget remake of his own film, Evil Dead 2. The latter would prove to be more popular and accessible than the first, but I have always preferred the original Evil Dead, which is closer to B-horror than it is to slapstick comedy and whose style and camerawork are appreciable all the more because of the extremely low budget. Army of Darkness is probably the most recognized and certainly the funniest of the three, with Bruce Campbell’s peculiar talent for B-acting a highlight.
Audition (Ôdishon, 1999)
I couldn’t very well make it through such a list without mentioning at least one of the recent wave of Japanese horror films. This Takashi Miike-directed film is one of the few which has yet to be remade into an American version, perhaps because, even for an American audience desensitized by the Saw and Hostel franchises, it is just too strange and disturbing. Audition gets off to a decidedly slow start, and in fact if you hadn’t seen the DVD cover, you might assume you were watching a mundane romance film. There is something wrong with our female romantic lead, however, and it only starts with what’s inside that huge bag she’s carrying.
These are, of course, my personal favorites. You very well may want to go see Saw 15 or whichever one is out this year. But if you’re looking for something to pop in the DVD player after you get sick of bobbing for apples, you couldn’t do much better than these few films.