If you have no plans this long weekend or this coming weekend, we suggest you prolong the Halloween season. And what better way to really feel the terrifying spirit than by curling up in bed (alone or with a special someone) and watching a movie in the dark?
The movie industry has created some cinematic gems that are sure to creep even those with the strongest resolve.
Below are the 10 movies you should watch this Halloween season… if you dare:
1. The Craft (1996)
If you live for witches, The Craft is the way to go. Though not exactly scary, it’s an entertaining watch about a group of high school misfits whose lives get turned for the better after turning to witchcraft. Like everything else, they get way over their heads and they pay the consequences.
2. The Babadook (2014)
The Babadook is not your usual horror movie. This film focuses more on the atmosphere rather than predictable jump scares or gore. The story follows a mom struggling to take care of her misfit child. He begins to experience hallucinations of the Babadook, triggered by a scary book they found. The son grows more unpredictable and she is forced to medicate him, until she realizes that her son may not be imagining things.
3. Night of The Living Dead (1968)
This film may be kitschy to some, but the way zombies were depicted here became the benchmark of zombies today. In Night of the Living Dead, a farmhouse is terrorized by zombies and those left inside must fight way their way out. It was initially considered too gory, but was later selected for preservation in the National Film Registry for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”
4. Halloween (1978)
The film begins one Halloween night in the ’60s when a young boy murders his sister and is committed. After some time, he returns to his hometown to kill again, dressed in his iconic white mask. Critics credit Halloween to be the first of slasher flicks since Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, so we have director John Carpenter to thank for the rich horror movie genre we enjoy today.
5. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
Like many horror movies, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre follows a group of kids traveling when they stop over a house, not knowing that the owners are a family of cannibals. They then meet one of horror’s most famous antagonists: Leatherface, a man who wears the skins of his victims while chasing new ones with a chainsaw.
6. El Orfanato (2007)
El Orfanato (The Orphanage) centers on an orphanage where a girl grew up. As an adult, she returns to rebuild the orphanage with her family. The longer they stay, her son becomes more erratic and displays unusual behavior. Repressed memories flood the mother’s mind, and she realizes that the house is not as innocent as it looks.
7. The Blair Witch Project (1999)
The Blair Witch Project popularized the found-footage format, which drove the world crazy at a time when there was no internet. People really believed that three students hiked to explore the legend of the Blair Witch, and that the footage ends after the mysterious final scenes.
You never really know what happened in the film, but that’s what makes it extra scary.
8. The Shining (1980)
The Shining is a masterpiece of slow cinema. The pace is quiet, but it gradually builds up to a horrific second half. Despite its leisurely pace, this story about a recovering alcoholic whose sanity disintegrates while he is locked in a hotel with his family is considered as one of the greatest horror movies ever made. Of course, what can you expect when you put together the minds of Stanley Kubrick and Stephen King?
9. Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
Not exactly horrifying, but a cinematic gem. This Roman Polanski-directed film is about Rosemary, a woman who develops a mysterious pregnancy after moving into a New York apartment and meeting some very strange neighbors. She suspects that she is being bewitched, but the truth is definitely scarier than that. Like The Shining, Rosemary’s Baby is considered one of the greatest horror movies ever made
10. Ring (1998)
Of course, this list wouldn’t be complete if we didn’t put an Asian film, right? If we have to pick one, we’ll go with Ring, the Japanese horror movie about a viral video (when viral wasn’t even a thing yet) that kills those who watch it. The character Sadako has become a cultural phenomenon, and this writer was afraid to sleep alone in his room for a week.
Do you have other recommendations? Share it below!
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