By Jessica Carver
IV Leader Columnist, Oct. 25, 2007
It is the season of trick or treating, costumes, tons of candy, and most importantly, the classic horror movies.
With over 2,000 horror movies in existence, it can be hard to pick which ones to watch, and differentiate between the classics, the cult films and the waste of times. When asked what her favorite Halloween movies were, Stephanie Trevino said, “I love zombies! ‘13 Ghosts;’ ‘The Lost Boys,’ because it is about vampires; anything by Ann Rice; ‘Queen of the Damned’ was amazing; the ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ series, even though it has cheesy graphics. The dialogue is a funny cheesy.”
When asked what his favorite Halloween movies were, Aaron Durdan said, “’Nightmare Before Christmas,’ because it has good set design, story board and creative characters and ‘Hocus Pocus,’ because we have watched it every Halloween for as long as I can remember.”
When asked what her favorite Halloween movies were, Courtney Haage said, “Zombie movies. I love George A Romero’s films; ‘Night of the Living Dead,’ ‘Dawn of the Dead,’ and ‘Day of the Dead,’ along with the remakes. Also, I would not classify this as horror, but I really liked ‘Tremors,’ too.”
In my opinion, there are three film series that define the Halloween season. They are the “Halloween” series, with Michael Myers; the “A Nightmare on Elm Street” series, with Freddy Krueger; and the “Friday the 13th” series, with Jason Vorhees. They are not necessarily what I would call the all time greatest horror films, but they are definitely films that invoke the feeling of the Halloween season.
Another good choice for Halloween time movies is anything by Wes Craven. He is responsible for such films as “The Last House on the Left,” the “A Nightmare on Elm Street” series, the “Scream” series and “The Hills Have Eyes” series.
If you are in search of the ultimate horror movie, you need to look back to 1973 at William Friedkin’s film “The Exorcist.” Regan Teresa MacNeil has become one of the scariest figures in all of cinema with her 360 degree head rotation, regurgitation of green pea soup, scandalous act with a cross and the spider walk down the stairs. One of the most shocking films of all time, and it did not have any gratuitous sex or murder and did not pray on cheap tricks. This is a film that truly scares you and makes it hard to sleep at night.
Though if classic is not your style and you are looking for more gore than any person should be able to handle, check out “Hostel,” which has a good plot and is well executed, along with essentially everyone in the film.