My Top Ten Favorite Halloween Movies

This is the first Halloween the SO and I will spend in our new home. Usually we celebrate over at my sister’s admiring the costumes of the nieces and nephews, filching candy from their plastic pumpkins (so restrained, so refined–in my day we went out with pillow cases and returned, perspiring and exhausted, dragging those bulging bags spilling over behind us!) and watching a carefully curated spooky film. But this year the SO wants to stay home and see what transpires.

Will trick-or-treaters came tap-tap-tapping on our door? Will this neighborhood turn out to be a ghost town? Will that weird noise in the chimney manifest itself into something besides doves building a nest? Who knows. The SO plans to carve a jack-o-lantern and I plan to order pizza. We’ll curate our own creepy cinema for a change.

I like spooky movies. I’m not much for blood and guts and I don’t enjoy having nightmares, but I do like to be briefly and efficiently scared for a few hours. I prefer ghost stories to vampires or werewolves or space aliens, and I like logic in my ghost stories. Also, unsurprisingly, I prefer a strong mystery element, but I get that when we’re dealing with the supernatural everything doesn’t have to make sense.

Here are some of my favorites, both old and new — and in no particular order:

1 – The Innocents (1961) – Classic and atmospheric black and white ghost story based on the Henry James novella The Turn of the Screw. If you think a sunny afternoon in an English garden isn’t a good setting for spooky, watch this film.

2 – The Final Girls (2015) – Mildly gory comic spoof of the classic horror slasher film Friday the 13^th. Quite funny and unexpectedly touching. I laughed and I cried. Well, sniffled. And I’m not even kidding.

3 – The Haunting (1963) – Another black and white classic from the Brits. This one is based on Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House. Like The Innocents there’s a lot of Victorian repression at the heart of all that the psychological horror. Notable for the sexy, smart lesbian character Theo who doesn’t die horribly for her sins. In fact, she doesn’t die at all.

4 – The Blair Witch Project (1999) – It’s been spoofed so many times it’s hard to view with a straight face, but this “found footage” horror film still has some very effective moments–proving that what you don’t see can be a lot scarier than what you do see.

5 – Carnival of Souls (1962) – Low budget cult classic. There are no real jump-out-of-your-seat moments in this, but it’s troubling, disturbing…it has a genuinely nightmarish quality to it and it stays with you. And you always thought the scariest thing about Utah was Mormans!

6 – The Ghost Breakers (1940) – Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard. Need I say more? Perfect if you just want a couple of eerie moments versus being left looking over your shoulder every time a floorboard squeaks. The dialog is still snappy, still funny. I saw it on late night TV when I was about ten. It was the first time I’d ever heard of zombies.

6 – The Wizard of Oz (1939) – When I was growing up this film was part of the Halloween tradition after we returned, exhausted and trembling, from a night of trick-or-treating. We watched it on TV, so yes, nearly prehistoric times. I’m embarrassed to admit that I was scared to death of The Wicked Witch of the West until I was, er, in high school. Well! All that popping up, green-faced and glaring, when you least expected it!

7 – The Ring (2002) – First scary movie the SO and I ever saw together and we both admitted that it freaked us out. We watched it in the theater before it had been spoofed and clipped a zillion times, which helped. Plus, I remember they had the air conditioning cranked, which probably contributed to the shiver factor.

8 – The Uninvited (1944) – Absolutely perfect old-fashioned ghost story. A few chuckles, a few shivers, a bit of sweet romance–plus there’s a very decent murder mystery at the heart of it. If you don’t mind vintage spooky, this is the film for you.

9 – The Changeling (1980) – It’s from the eighties so the ending is a mess, but at heart this is another murder mystery with some genuinely scary moments.

10 – Ghostbusters (1984) – Even now I laugh at some of the Murray’s lines and who doesn’t love Sigourney Weaver? I think the first time I saw this one I had a couple of scalp-prickling moments but mostly what I love is the mix of cynical and goofy.

So what about you? What are you doing for Halloween? Do you have a favorite Halloween movie?