My Top Ten Halloween Movies
All Hallows Eve, when the shadows fall longer and we can be our true selves while pretending to be someone (or something-else). The dark becomes a little more seductive while a restless moon whispers long forgotten secrets to those brave enough to listen. No doubt you’ve seen AMC and Peachtree TV running their annual offering of horror movies over and over (and over) the past month, so I thought I’d take this opportunity to list my ten personal favourite Halloween flicks. Make no mistake, these aren’t my ten favourite horror movies of all time, but rather the ones I try to cram in before the trick or treaters hit the streets. It just doesn’t feel like the Devil’s witching hour until I’ve caught these bad boys. Enjoy.
- SINISTER: One of the most recent entries on this list, the 2012 flick starring Ethan Hawke was surprisingly effective. When true crime writer Ellison Oswalt (Hawke) moves into the home of a murdered family to research his new book, he inadvertently becomes the next link in a chain of bloodshed and murder that spans the history of human civilization. What I loved about Sinister was that the protagonist was the victim of his own hubris and arrogance just as much as the murderous supernatural forces that were gathering around him. That and a killer of a primal soundtrack made this a memorable horror movie.
- SHAUN OF THE DEAD: Before this comedic parody of the well-worn zombie movie hit theatres in 2004, no one this side of the Atlantic had any idea who Simon Peg was. For that fact alone this movie deserves celebration, but SoTD manages to offer plenty of patented dry British chuckles at the genre’s expense while still delivering some genuine pathos (the scene where Shaun has to shoot his mother in the head after she turns into a zombie is particularly memorable).
