Halloween Horror Countdown #1: The Evil Dead (1981)

Halloween is nigh.  We've talked about a lot of great horror movies this month, and I hope you've had fun along the way. We've come to the end of our list and now there's only one movie left.  It's a film that exemplifies what a horror flick should be.  It was made for practically nothing by a group of buddies who just wanted to make a scary movie, not concocted by an unholy mishmash of focus groups and mad-libs like so many recent flicks..  Shot in an isolated Tennessee cabin using jury-rigged equipment and homemade special effects, this film proved to be a genre masterpiece.  It's not only my top Halloween Horror Movie, but it's one of my favorite scary movies of all time.  Coming in at number one in the Halloween Horror Countdown is The Evil Dead.

When I was a kid, I used to hear my older brothers talk about The Evil Dead with something akin to frightened awe.  When I was old enough to buy these kinds of movies on my own, I picked up a VHS copy of The Evil Dead 2 at a local Target.  Frankly I was a little disappointed at the time with some of that movie's absurd humor, though I eventually grew to appreciate it.  I soon went back to Target and found the original film, also on VHS.  I hadn't seen that many horror films at this point in my life, but the night I watched The Evil Dead in my parents' darkened basement, I knew I was seeing something special.

Evil Dead is not a film that's heavy on set-up.  A group of five friends travel to a cabin in the woods for a vacation.  While fooling around in the basement of the cabin, they find a gnarled old book and a strange skull-hilted dagger.  Investigating further, they listen to an old audiotape that reveals that the book is in fact the Naturan Demanto¹, an ancient Sumerian compendium of demon resurrection spells and other nasty stuff.  The voice on the tape recites some of these spells and all hell breaks loose as demons begin to possess members of the group and even the trees themselves spring to malevolent life.



Okay, maybe that doesn't sound so unique.  So what makes this movie so good? Evil Dead succeeds in spite of its simplistic plot and shoestring budget by playing the horror straight and to the hilt.  Once the movie gets going, it doesn't break up the atmosphere with humor or irony.  The viewer gets precious little room to breathe.  This isn't a film where there's a creepy killer skulking in the shadows, it's a movie about monsters - demonic zombies - trying to rip people apart in a foaming frenzy of violence.  No one is ever killed with a quick knife in the belly.  Every single monster attack quickly turns into a brutal wrestling match, always festooned with veritable buckets of gore.  It's visceral stuff, not entirely dissimilar in tone to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and it works extremely well.

The movie does allow for some creepier moments.  When Linda, the girlfriend of our protagonist Ash, is possessed by one of the demons, she doesn't bother to attack Ash outright.  Instead, it torments him by switching back and forth between Linda's regular appearance and its grotesque demonic visage.  When Ash is attacked by another monster, the possessed cadaver of his own sister Sheryl, Linda doesn't bother to join in - she just sits in the doorway and laughs and laughs and laughs....It's unnerving stuff.  It also goes to show that even though the demons are flesh-tearing murder machines, they're also possessed of a malevolent intelligence.

Evil Dead's does a great job of allowing the setting to play naturally into the pacing of the film.  We learn early in the film, thanks to a surprisingly graphic sequence in which a woman is assaulted by animated trees, that the cabin is the only remotely safe place available to the protagonists.  Unfortunately, one of their number is soon possessed and thus the shelter is compromised.  It forces the characters to face certain death in the woods or take their chances with the monsters already inside the cabin.  There's no real safety, no time to stop and think.  In the few sequences when any of the characters are forced to venture outside of the cabin, it's a pretty harrowing experience.  The audience knows that there are things in the woods, as we've spent much of the film watching the "evil cam" streak through the darkness in first person, shattering windows and knocking down trees.  We have no idea what they look like or what they're capable of, but we know these things are there.  Thus it makes sense for the characters to remain in the cabin to face the demons inside - they aren't stupid horror movie characters, they're just choosing the lesser of two terrible options.

I've avoided mentioning him so far, but Ash is kind of the elephant in the room here.  This character is, of course, the most famous role of Bruce Campbell, b-movie actor extraordinaire.  Most viewers think of Ash as a snarky, sarcastic bad-ass.  That's true of his later incarnations in the sequels, video games, and comics that Evil Dead would eventually spawn, but in the original film nothing could be further from the truth.  Ash is portrayed in this film as the most unlikely hero of all; a lanky, uncoordinated fella' who spends most of the initial demon attack pinned under a bookcase.  He's not a  pre-destined monster fighting machine, he's not the chosen one, he's just a guy. 

If anyone in this movie seems like a likely hero, it's Ash's knife-toting buddy Scott.  Hell, Scott fistfights his own possessed girlfriend, then hacks her carcass apart with an axe.  Pretty awesome, huh?  Unfortunately he also abandons his friends and tries to flee to safety through the woods.  Ash is left to fend for himself until Scott, torn to shreds by his possessed trees, staggers back to the cabin.  The moment when Scott expires, leaving Ash, and the audience, to realize that he's the last one left, is a chillingly despairing scene.  For the rest of the movie he's not so much fighting the monsters as he is just trying to survive until morning.  Alone, desperate, and frankly scared shitless, Ash may be one of the most genuine horror movie protagonists ever.

Evil Dead's special effects have a crude genuineness to them.  Caked on makeup, makeshift prostheses, and more Karo syrup blood than you can imagine all combine to create something more than the sum of its parts.  Everything looks gritty and tangible.  Granted, some of the effects look pretty primitive, such as the sequence in which Ash slices off a demon's head with an shovel, but in this sort of movie it works.  Keep in mind that this movie was made by a relatively small crew that was more or less making up the special effects as they went along.  In that context, it's pretty impressive stuff despite the occasional rough edges.

As you may have guessed, I strongly recommend this movie for anyone with even a passing interest in the horror genre.  It's been imitated, parodied, and has even spawned an upcoming remake, but the original Evil Dead remains a titan among horror films.  I've spent many a Halloween night sitting around with the lights off watching Evil Dead and passing out candy.  In terms of mandatory Halloween viewing, the only film I can imagine ever supplanting this one in my own pantheon is a certain John Carpenter flick...

Well, there you have it.  The Halloween Horror Countdown is complete.  It's been a lot of work, but it's also been a lot of fun.  I hope you've enjoyed spending October here with me.  Thanks for reading and Happy Halloween!

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1.) It's not called the Necronomicon until the sequel, much to the annoyance of those of us who've tried to make "super-cuts" of all three films put together.

Halloween Horror Countdown #2: Trick 'r Treat (2007)

You know what I really, really, like?  Anthology horror movies.  These are films that combine several unrelated vignettes into one full length film, giving you a grab bag of different stories to enjoy.   Creepshow, Tales From the Crypt, and Tales From the Dark Side may be the best known titles in this sub-genre, but there are plenty of these films out there. Films like these understand that sometimes scares are best served short and snappy, and they tend to eschew the plodding padding that some other horror features are packed with in lieu of a plot.  When I was putting this list together there was one anthology flick that absolutely had to be on it.  It's the newest film in the countdown and one that may not have made onto a general roll call of my five favorite horror movies, but since we're focusing on Halloween, this one just  has to get the nod.  Coming in at #2 on my Halloween Horror Countdown is Trick 'r Treat.  I should note that the dating on this one is a bit peculiar.  Trick 'r Treat was finished in 2007 but didn't actually see the light of day in any kind of a broad release until it came out on DVD in 2009.

Trick 'r Treat consists of four stories connected by a wraparound, which is pretty standard fare for this sort of movie.  In The Principal, we meet Steve Wilkins, the local school principal who just happens to enjoy poisoning kids on Halloween and burying them in his backyard.  The School Bus Massacre Revisited finds a group of youths pulling a cruel prank on a disabled girl by luring her to the site of long-ago bus crash, only to find themselves confronted by the undead. In Surprise Party, Anna Paquin plays Laurie, a self-conscious young woman trying to find a date to a Halloween party thrown by her sister.  Instead she finds herself stalked by a serial killer, but the film twists this old trope into a satisfying ending.  Finally we have Sam, in which a mysterious masked creature torments an old curmudgeon who refuses to participate in the Halloween festivities.  The shorts run the gamut of horror genres, from serial killers to zombies and beyond.



Interestingly, all of the stories are meant to be taking place concurrently on the same Halloween night.  The shorts are somewhat interwoven, and sharp-eyed viewers will be able to see bits of each tale going on in the backgrounds of others.  That's nothing huge, but it's a fun touch.  Also present in each story is Sam, a diminutive figure in pajamas and a burlap sack mask.  Although he only really takes part in the last story, he's around in all of them, watching the grotesque events with a strange look of approval.  A bizarre Halloween imp, Sam stalks his victims with sharpened lollipops, razor blade-filled candy bars, and hard candy laced with broken glass.  Apparently based on a long-ago animated short by the film's creator Michael Dougherty, Sam's a fun, creepy little character and a great mascot.

Sam notwithstanding, Principal Wilkins, played by Dylan Baker from the Raimi Spider-Man films, is easily my favorite character in the movie if only because of the dry-matter-of fact way he goes about his business.  The "serial killer next door" motif is kind of old hat these days, but Baker pulls it off well.  He's also our introduction to the "rules" of the movie - By telling  one of his victims about the role of Halloween traditions, such as jack-o-lanterns and handing out treats, in "protecting" people, he's actually setting up for some of Sam's murderous scenes.  Principal Wilkins also shows up in a second story, but in a rather different situation.

Trick 'r Treat, like so many horror anthologies before it, gleefully draws inspiration from the horror comics of the 1950s.  This means that they strive (largely successfully) to balance humor and scares, but they're also all based around twist endings that aren't especially hard to see coming.  At no point will any viewer mistake this movie for brain food, but it's not intended to be.  Trick 'r Treat is all about creepy Halloween fun, and at this it does quite well.  As I mentioned earlier, this movie may not have a had a place in a list of the five best horror films in general, but for Halloween it's required viewing. 

Well, it's just a few days before Halloween and there's only one movie left on my Halloween Horror Countdown. While this list has admittedly been in flux during the entire month, there hasn't been a single iteration of it with the same film in the top slot.  Check back on Tuesday for the conclusion of the Halloween Horror Countdown!

Halloween Horror Countdown #3: Night of the Living Dead (1990)

Imagine, if you will, that you’re a teenage horror fan in the mid-90s.  You’re just now getting into the swing of the genre – you don’t know much about it and most of the movies you’ve seen so far have been by way Monstervision with Joe Bob Briggs.  There’s no internet, at least not that you have access to, and you’re really only introduced to new movies by way of the video store, your buddies, or wandering into them on television.  Try to imagine then, that one night in the middle of week you happen to turn on TNT and a movie is playing that you ever so slowly come to recognize as a color remake of the classic Night of the Living Dead.  You watch it, amazed, and as soon as you beg or buy transportation to the nearest Suncoast (Because, damn it, Suncoast was still the place to buy movies back then.) you buy your own VHS copy and watch it…well…maybe just a few too many times.

            As you may have guessed, that’s a story from my formative days as a horror fan.  It should come as no surprise then that film #3 on my Halloween Horror Countdown is Tom Savini’s remake of Night of the Living Dead.  I’m aware that there’s probably some weird dissonance going on when I call the original Romero Living Dead a classic, then omit it from my Halloween top five in favor of the remake.  The Romero film is a classic – not only did it singlehandedly launch the zombie film as modern audiences know it, but it also pioneered the gritty, gruesome style of shooting horror films that would more fully take hold in the 1970s with films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  That said, this is my list, and the Savini remake undoubtedly had more of an influence on me personally, so here it is.

            Starring Tony Todd and Patricia Tallman, Savini’s vision of Living Dead is to Romero’s film what the Hammer series was to Universal’s horror cycle.  Okay, so maybe that’s stretching things a bit, but what I’m getting at is that it’s a recognizable remake that still has enough original content to stand on its own.  Coming 22 years after the original, Savini’s film benefits from comparatively amazing zombie effects and, frankly, a somewhat better script.  The film’s plot is one we’ve since seen many times: a band of strangers, all of whom are fleeing an inexplicable zombie plague, are trapped together in an isolated farmhouse.  With few resources and far too many zombies closing in than can possibly be repulsed in a fight, they have to set aside their differences and try to escape.  The drama still comes from the breakdown of cooperation amongst strangers in a terrifying situation, but in my opinion the Savini film just handles things better.

Most notably, Patricia Tallman’s Barbara is actually, well, a character this time, whereas Judith O’dea’s Barbara spent the entire 1968 film either catatonic or screaming.  That’s not a jab at O’dea, but I just find Tallman’s portrayal of the character a lot more fun to watch.  Tallman’s Barbara actually manages to find the will to fight back despite all the horror swirling around her, but the character is written well enough not to suddenly metamorphose into a clichéd movie badass. (That was one of my few complaints about the 2005 Dawn of the Dead remake – I don’t think anyone in that movie ever fires a gun and misses.)  Tony Todd is fantastic as Ben as well, a fitting heir to Duane Jones from the original.

The film’s zombie effects are some of the best out there, even compared to more recent movies.  Many of the zombies have a gross, slick look…kind of like an old piece of lunchmeat.  The effects crew was also smart enough not to overdo the blood on the zombies to the point that it obscures the other makeup work.  From the ‘autopsy man’ at the beginning of the film to Sarah Cooper, a young survivor who succumbs to a zombie bite at the climax of the film each zombie has a unique, but always high quality, look.  In addition to being gruesome, in-your-face monsters, they manage to be just plain creepy as well.

The sound design in this movie is great as well, with a fairly austere soundtrack but a lot of great musical strikes throughout.  The operatic “haunted castle” music that pops up out of nowhere when the zombies finally invade the farmhouse near the end of the film always seemed out of place to me, but everything else is great.  As the film progresses, the constant low moans and pounding that invades every scene as the undead hammer away at the farmhouse’s defenses always manage to keep the viewer on edge – you never get to forget the danger lurking all around.

I guess I can’t wrap up this review without a few remarks about the ending.  The original film was famous for its dark climax in which none of the main characters survive.  At the time, that was something that simply didn’t happen in horror movies and I can only imagine how shocked 1960s audiences were.  Savini offers us a slightly more hopeful ending in which Barbara survives.  There’s nothing feel-good about it, though: We’re reminded throughout the film’s climax that nearly everyone could have escaped the farmhouse if only things had worked out slightly differently.  Even worse, Barbara finds that after only a single night of the chaos, the worst of humanity has already been brought to the fore.

Before I wrap up, I suppose I’ll make a few remarks about the recent debacle with the Blu-Ray release of Night of the Living Dead.  I should note that I’m an unrepentant foot-dragger when it comes to upgrading my media formats.  I didn’t buy a DVD player until 2001 and I still don’t have any Blu-Ray devices.  The release of the film that I reviewed is the 1999 double-sided (boo) DVD that contains both the widescreen and TV-cropped versions of the film.  It’s widely available and can be had for something like $6 on the internet. 

On the other hand, the Blu-Ray release, which apparently came out only this month, is some kind of limited edition that is already commanding prices of over $100 in most places.  That’s ridiculous in and of itself, but the Blu-Ray release has also had its color levels tinkered with, resulting a bizarre dark blue tint for the majority of the film.  There are screen caps available over at Dread Central, and it looks amazingly bad – like the clumsy day-for-night shots in old Toho movies.  Seriously, head over there and check it out.  It’s a travesty.

In any event, this Savini’s Night of the Living Dead isn’t an especially original zombie film, but there’s something to be said for a formula being done right.  It’s a tense, creepy zombie film that’s certainly worthy of inclusion in anyone Halloween movie marathon.  I strongly recommend it…but only on DVD.

Well, we’ve crossed the halfway point.  Halloween is less than two weeks away, and there are only two more movies to go in my countdown.  Come back next week to check out my second-favorite Halloween movie.  Our runner-up is the newest film on this list, and while it’s inclusion may some as a surprise to some folks who know me as a staunch defender of the old guard, I have a feeling that this one may one day be considered a Halloween classic.  See you then!

Halloween Horror Countdown #4: Pumpkinhead (1988)

The Halloween Horror Countdown continues with one of my personal favorites, Pumpkinhead.  The directorial debut of legendary special effects virtuoso Stan Winston, Pumpkinhead is a classic supernatural revenge tale showcasing some spectacular creature effects.  Based on a short poem by Ed Justin and starring Lance Henriksen and Mushroom the dog¹, this film differs from other late ‘80s horror fare by eschewing the slasher-in-the-suburbs plot so endemic to the period and taking the action to a rural, backwoods setting. 

Ed Harley, played by a bizarrely ripped Lance Henriksen, is the proprietor of a small rural grocery and lives a peaceful, isolated life with his young Billy.  Everything changes when the boy is accidentally killed; run over with a dirt bike by a group of vacationing teenagers.  Harley, horror-struck and beside himself with grief, can think of nothing but vengeance for his beloved son.  Remembering an episode from his own childhood in which he saw a neighbor killed by Pumpkinhead, a terrifying figure of local legend, Harley seeks out a witch-woman named Haggis to help him summon up the creature.

Meanwhile the teens have fled to their cabin (which, by the way, is also the house featured in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter) to decide what to do.  Joel, who was driving the bike that killed Billy, is so fearful of punishment - he'd been drinking at the time of the accident - that he refuses to let his friends notify the authorities.  In fact, he physically subdues one of his friends and locks him in a closet to keep him from going for help.

Under Haggis' direction, Harley has retrieved a gnarled, malformed carcass from a long-forgotten pumpkin patch.  The witch uses Ed and Billy's blood to resurrect the corpse, which metamorphoses into a terrifying monster- Pumpkinhead.  The demon immediately lopes off into the woods and begins to wreak bloody revenge on the teens.  Harley, who has returned home to bury his son, begins to have seizures and terrifying visions of the monster's attacks and soon learns that there's no such thing as a quick, painless revenge.  Psychically entangled with the demon, Ed realizes that he's made a terrible mistake, and he may have to team up with the same people who killed his son to put an end to the bloodshed.

Let's get one thing out of the way: Pumpkinhead himself is a hell of an effect.  Played by Todd Woodruff, Jr. and brought to life with amazing Stan Winston effects, Pumpkinhead is one of the best creature effects you'll ever see.  He's not just there to hack people apart and provide a few scares though.  An intelligent monster, not just a beast but perhaps an embodiment of the black, cruel desire for vengeance, Pumpkinhead takes spiteful pleasure in torturing his victims.  It's no tool or mere animal, it's sadistic, frightening, smirking thing that enjoys what it does.  It's a great foil for Harley, whose desire for revenge stems from honest heartache for his lost son.

Arguably more of a dark fairy tale than a horror film, Pumpkinhead is a fantastic movie.  Despite all the teenagers in the movie, this film is really the story of a father dealing with the loss of his son.  In his wild grief Harley unleashes something beyond his control and quickly begins to lose himself to it even as his fights against it.  It's a simple morality tale, but it stands out from the other horror movies of the time and holds up quite well to this day.  Well-shot, well-acted, and featuring a sparse but effective musical score, Pumpkinhead may not quite ascend to rank of genre classic, but it's still a hell of a good movie.

October is almost halfway over and we're nearing the mid-point of the countdown, but we still have three great movies to talk about, so be sure to check back next week for another review.  Also be sure to check out Joe's Awesome and Tommy Hates Everything for a review of the new film Dredd.

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1.) Mushroom is perhaps best known for his portrayal of Barney in Gremlins.

Halloween with Joe and Tommy

Yesterday I had the privilege of being a guest on the Halloween episode of Joe's Awesome and Tommy Hates Everything, something I've been looking forward to all year.  Last year for Halloween the JATHE crew had a roundtable discussion of what makes the "perfect" horror movie.  This year the focus of the discussion was narrowed a bit and we talked about our personal top five horror films, horror heroes, and horror villains.

So why am I telling you this when you could just wait a week of two and hear the show yourself when it's posted?  Because you still have a chance to get in on the fun!  E-mail your own top five lists naming your favorite horror flicks, protagonists, and antagonists to Joe and Tommy at JATHEPOD@gmail.com by the 15th of October and you can be a part of the show too.  I managed to convince The Wife to send in a list, so you've got no excuse!

Halloween Horror Countdown #5: The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)

I'm kicking off my Halloween Horror Countdown starts with Curse of Frankenstein, the film that launched the legendary Hammer horror series.  Released in 1957, this wasn’t your grandpa’s Frankenstein flick.  Filmed in full color and chock full of that oh-so-enticing combination of cleavage and bloody on-screen mayhem, Curse of Frankenstein was wildly popular with audiences and marked a sea change in the horror genre, laying the groundwork for the more raw, graphic horror films that would appear in the coming decades.  It also marked of a change from the conventions of prior Frankenstein movies by taking the bold step of, well, actually being about Frankenstein.

If I were to ask you to picture Frankenstein, odds are that you’d envision Boris Karloff in the iconic makeup from the 1931 Universal classic.  That’s a great freakin’ movie…but of course you’d be thinking about the monster, not the actual Dr. Frankenstein played by Colin Clive.  That’s the problem with a lot of Frankenstein films – They’re all about the monster.  Dr. Frankenstein himself may or may not get a lot of screen time, but all too frequently he doesn’t have that much character.  Often he’s just a generic mad scientist whose only purpose is to move the plot along until the monster is ready to come out and stomp around.

Not so with Curse of Frankenstein.  Peter Cushing’s Victor Frankenstein is may be one of the best film anti-heroes ever.  Not a simple mad scientist, Cushing’s Frankenstein is a man of high ideals, a man whose life’s work is driven by the desire to revolutionize surgical procedures and save lives.  Unfortunately he’s also a coldly pragmatic man with a self-serving streak.  His initial successes with the revivification of dead tissue alongside his erstwhile tutor and research partner Paul Krempe spur him on to ever more wildly ambitious experiments…and you know the rest.

Okay, so that’s a pretty generic Frankenstein narrative, but Curse of Frankenstein allows us to spend plenty of time with Dr. Frankenstein both in and out of the laboratory and to really see his personality.  Frankenstein is so blinded by the shining light of the good he might accomplish that he is completely unable to process of the horror of what he’s actually doing.  He’s so bizarrely nonchalant about his gory surgical experiments that it’s creepily funny.  Early in the film he and Paul steal a burly corpse in the hopes of reanimating it, only to find that the head has been mutilated by scavenging birds.  Nonplussed, Frankenstein saws the head off and tosses it into a vat of acid, then without missing a beat asks his friend if he’s ready for lunch.

For 1957, the film is pretty gruesome.  Midway through the film, Frankenstein sets out to find a suitable brain for his creature.  Rather than steal one from the cemetery, he simply invites the elderly Professor Bernstein over for dinner…then hurls him to his death by shoving him headfirst through a second-floor railing.  I bet that scene alone knocked viewers in 1957 on their collective asses.  To put things in context, this was the same year that Old Yeller and Jailhouse Rock came out, and yet here we have an old man getting spiked onto his head on camera.  Not long after, the monster itself takes a bullet to eye complete with a spray of candy-red blood.  Times were definitely changing.

Of course, you can’t talk about a Frankenstein movie without discussing the monster.  The Creature in this film is played by Christopher Lee, soon to be of Horror of Dracula fame.  Wholly unlike the box-headed Creature from the 1931 film, this monster far more zombie-like.  Asymmetrical, covered with livid scars, and sporting one grotesquely milky eye, this monster is completely unsympathetic.  The Creature’s brain, damaged before implantation during an argument between Frankenstein and Paul (and presumably also when the old man fell fifteen feet straight onto his head), has no capacity for reason or emotion – a slave to its base instincts, the Creature responds to any unknown situation with aggression.

Despite its murderous streak, Frankenstein can find no fault in his creation.  When Paul Krempe kills the beast with a well-placed rifle shot, Frankenstein is livid with him for having the nerve to interfere with his work when, after all, the monster was just in the midst of a minor strangle-tantrum.  As soon as his friend leaves town, Frankenstein retrieves the monster’s body, fishes out the bullet, and brings it back to life.  After going through the ravages of 19^th brain surgery and a second resurrection, the Creature is even more grisly looking and wildly inhuman.

I could gush about this movie all night, but the bottom line is that it’s a damn fine Frankenstein flick that’s worth the attention of any true horror fan. If I'm honest, it was hard to choose between this film and the 1931 Frankenstein when I was setting up this list.  I have a soft spot for black and white horror, but ultimately this movie won out based primarily on how entertaining Peter Cushing's performance is in this film.  In addition to being a great movie, Curse of Frankenstein makes the list because of its fantastic ambiance.  The entire Hammer horror series exemplifies the best combination of pulp sensibilities and Gothic scenery.  It’s as though Mary Shelley’s classic (but, let’s not lie to ourselves, dreadfully arduous to read) novel was mixed with a hearty helping of EC horror comics.  This is a movie that’s best watched on a dreary, overcast fall afternoon, preferably in the gloomiest room available.  It’s not especially scary, but it’s incredibly fun and really gets me in the mood for the season.

The Halloween Horror Countdown is just getting started, so be sure to check back all month long for new movies reviews and, if I'm feeling froggy, some more articles related to the season.  See you soon!

Halloween With Skippy

The days are getting shorter, the leaves are changing colors, and the air is getting crisp. It would seem another October is upon us.  And, of course, the gigantic plastic lich already hanging in the corner of my living room is an unmistakable reminder that with October comes Halloween. (The Wife has always been an avid – and early – decorator.) Now I don’t know what Halloween means in your household, but ‘round here that means one thing: horror movies.

Well, okay, it also means candy, but I’m only here to talk about horror movies.

As I’ve mentioned on the blog more than once, my love affair with scary movies began at a fairly young age with the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise.  As I got older this interest expanded to throughout the genre, from the classic Universal films through the width and breadth of slasher flicks and on to foreign fare, such as Italy’s gritty cannibal films to Japan and Thailand’s creepy supernatural tales.  When it comes to horror flicks I’m not so much a gourmet as a gourmand.  Nightmare City and the other red-headed stepchildren of the genre sit on my shelf alongside such legitimately good films as The Exorcist and An American Werewolf in London.  Mine is a big tent, and there’s room for almost everyone inside.

Because of my love for the season and horror flicks in general I wanted to do something special to mark the first October since the blog made the transition to primarily discussing movies.  At one point I had entertained a grand vision of posting an in-depth movie review every single day in October.  Unfortunately, that’s the kind of thing that you really need to get an early start on, and for me that was made entirely impossible by the release of Borderlands 2.

Therefore, instead of posting a review every day, I’m going to be posting a countdown of my top five Halloween flicks.  These aren’t my favorite horror movies per se, but instead they’re the five films that get me into the best Halloween frame of mind, the ones that get me in the mood for the whole season.  There’s one small caveat though: I’ve totally excluded all of the Halloween films from this list.  That’s not a jab against the series – the original is an undisputed classic and several of the others are pretty good – it’s to keep me from getting too lazy in my choices…and because too many of these lists inevitably end with Halloween as number one. 

It wasn't easy to pick just five movies, but I've confined myself to a number of films that I realistically think I'll sit around and write up.  I'll also tell you up front that most of these movies are fairly well-known and one is much more recent than you'd probably expect out of me.  One way or another, I hope to have the first review up by later this week.  

Also, be sure to check out the podcast Joe's Awesome and Tommy Hates Everything, on which I'm occasionally a guest, all October long.  I've spoken to Tommy and he has some pretty cool Halloween stuff planned for the show.  Halloween is big around here.  Stick with us and we'll take good care of you.