For 24 years now my husband and I have held our own Halloween Movie-Thon. Every year we watch one spooky movie or TV show per night for 31 nights of ghosts, goblins, and things that go bump in the night. At first we chose random flicks then as the years stretched on and the decay set in (him, not me!) we got more creative. One year it was all vampires and werewolves, another was all demonic ditties, and another was murdering your spouse cinema. Presented here for your consideration is a condensed version of 13 Days of Murderers, Monsters and Mayhem! No doubt you may have seen some of these but there’s nothing like revisiting old scares and playing that shower scene in Psycho in slo-mo! And if there’s one on this list you haven’t seen, what are you waiting for?
STEPHEN KING MARATHON
Misery 1990 No ghosts, goblins, werewolves, vampires or any other monster. No supernatural happenings. Just a writer and his Number One Fan, Annie Wilkes (played by Kathy Bates who won Best Actress at the Academy Awards for her role). A suspenseful, heart pounding flick about a woman who finds a man in a bad car crash and takes him home to nurse him back to health. She knows the man is Paul Sheldon, creator of her favorite heroine, Misery Chastain. What she doesn’t know–yet–is that Paul has killed off Misery in his latest book which Annie is about to read…
Cujo, Carrie, Pet Sematary, The Dead Zone, Maximum Overdrive, Gerald’s Game, Rose Red are but a few films you could add to a marathon of King flicks.
The Devil Made Them Do It
Before The Exorcist (1973) arrived, Satan hadn’t quite fully made it into mainstream films, much less the terrifying possession of a little girl. Add A List stars Ellen Burstyn, Lee J. Cobb, and Max Von Sydow and you’ve got a Coming Out Party for The Devil. But the. er, seed was planted earlier of things to come with 1967’s Rosemary’s Baby, a film which starts off as a slowly mounting plunge into stark raving paranoia. I mean, that old, nosey woman (Best Supporting Actress Ruth Gordon) next door and her husband…could they really be satanists? And are they planning on letting loose the son of the devil? Nawwww…but the Anti-Christ would fully come into his own in the 1986 movie The Omen. Gregory Peck and Lee Remick star in their first horror film featuring an Oscar winning score that is one of the best ever written for any movie, by the legendary Jerry Goldsmith. There are dozens and dozens of movies you can watch when The Devil makes you do it!
Jason and Freddy! Oh, my!
A Nightmare On Elm Street (1984) and Friday The 13th (1980) have so many damn sequels and reboots you could watch them all the way to Christmas! So pick a couple of Fridays and a couple of Elm Streets then cap it off with Freddy Vs Jason!
Halloween
Halloween (1978) has just as many entries except they keep mucking with the order of the mythology every other film. Halloween begat the whole slasher movie phenomenon. But for the new King of Halloween movies you must watch Trick R Treat! The first film where Halloween itself is the star of the movie. An exquisite piece of film making, this movie didn’t even get a theatrical release! But people found it, slowly but surely, released direct to video. Forget Michael. Halloween has a new representative…Sam! Save this one for Halloween night!
I could list hundreds of movies (believe me, I can) which would add the prerequisite scares for any Halloween enthusiast! And you can too! Just find your faves, decide how many days you want to go and make some pop corn and sit back and be scared again and again and again. And again. And keep telling yourself…It’s Only A Movie. It’s Only A Movie. It’s Only A *erk! argh! cack!*…..
Well, hello there boils and ghouls heh heh heh! It’s your old pal, The Crypt Keeper. That’s quite a monster mush, er, I mean mash of terrorific tidbits he’s pulled out of the vault there. Instead of haunting down these oldies but ghoulies why not fill your nights with a selection of putrid terrorvison scream gems from my collection of Tales From The Crypt? Seven seasons of scintillating sin-fests bound to make your skin crawl! They’re educational, too. Learn how to dismember yo mama, where to bury your ex, and my favorite, 6 recipes for Corpse Soup For The Soul! Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh!