This is it folks. One more day. One more day until the barrier between the spirit world and our world is at it’s thinnest. Another day until ghouls, ghosts, goblins, specters, killers, and anything else evil and vile makes it’s power known. Halloween. My favorite holiday of the year, and I’m assuming yours too, if you’re reading this. 2020 is going to be a very different Halloween for a lot of us. For those going out and acting like nothing is different, shame on you. For the rest of us, who are going to be safe, and keep our distance, there are still plenty of options.
Get those Jack O’Lantern’s out. If you don’t have those, some light-up pumpkins will suffice. Put them on either side of your TV, grab the bowl of candy, keep that mask nearby just in case you get Trick or Treaters, and pop on some classic horror. My go-to on Halloween changes each year, but it always ends with at least a viewing of Halloween. I’ve written a lot about the Halloween series for Fright-A-Thon. For good reason. It’s one of the best and biggest franchises in horror. Everything we have today in regard to scares, owes a bit to John Carpenter’s masterpiece.
So you can feel free to pick from this list, or any other horror films. That’s the beauty of it, it’s up to you. Now this list might make people angry, but remember, at the end of the day, horror is for all. We’re all here to be scared. So enjoy the list, enjoy Halloween, and I hope you’ve enjoyed Fright-A-Thon.
10. Scream
Starting up the list, we’ve got Scream. Wes Craven’s talent was already apparent at this point. So what do you do when you’ve conquered the genre of horror multiple times over? You tear it down. You tear it down to it’s bare parts, show those parts to the entire audience, and basically state “this is dead, we’re not making anymore slasher films”. That’s what Scream does at it’s very core. It peels back the curtain on how to make a slasher film, and tells the audience what they need to do to survive a horror movie.
What it ended up doing was acting as a hard reset for the films after it. Like how grunge killed glam metal in the 90’s, Scream took the excess of horror franchises like A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, and Halloween and laid them bare for the world to see. It was a simple film but one that is skillfully presented. You learn more about making a horror film from watching this, than you do from any other film out there.
As this series went on, it committed some of the grave sins that it presented in this first film. But here’s to hoping that the upcoming Scream 5 can reset the paradigm once again.
9. Child’s Play
This one might be a bit of personal bias. The Thing is my favorite movie ever. I think it’s absolutely perfect. It’s not every day that you can say a movie is flawless. That term might get bandied about a bit too much. But this film, does not have flaws. From the cast, the direction, the writing, the music, the sets, the effects, it has no equal in terms of quality and horror.
Speaking of those effects, Rob Bottin put his heart and soul into the creature effects for the film. All that hard work, and him almost dying from exhaustion, pays off tenfold in this film. It’s a perfect film that shows you how you can make basically what amounts to a stage play into a feature film. It’s a cramped, isolated, dreary movie that gives off those vibes in spades. You won’t be left feeling great after watching this one, but you will be a more enriched horror fan doing so.
You might be disappointed that certain films didn’t make this list, but like the rest of Fright-A-Thon, it was difficult to find space for everything to write about. There are no limits to horror these days. And there’ll be plenty of topics for next year, with Fright-A-Thon 2. So to fans of other films, I’m sorry, but you can let me know all about your favorite horror films in the comments or on Twitter.
For more on horror, Fright-A-Thon, or any other spooky territory, make sure to check back to That Hashtag Show.
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