It’s almost that time of year again where buying candy in bulk and giving it to children won’t get you arrested. Good luck with sifting through the year’s dead celebs for a suitable outfit, or just throwing something together at the last minute before a costume party. That just leaves movies as the last Halloween tradition, so here’s Aaron Yap with ten viewing suggestions that’ll work perfectly this All Hallows’ Eve. Warning – contains some gross stuff, but you’re expecting that, right?
IT’S THE GREAT PUMPKIN, CHARLIE BROWN
Here’s a short and sweet treat that’s ideal to kick off any Halloween viewing marathon. This 25 minute TV short from 1966 finds the Peanuts gang getting into the festive spirit with Charlie Brown trick-or-treatin’ en route to a party and Linus camping out at a pumpkin patch hoping that the legendary “Great Pumpkin” will appear and shower them with gifts. Nothing scary, just a cute, good-natured romp you can watch with the kids before you bring out the Hard-R stuff.
GINGER SNAPS
There still hasn’t been a werewolf movie as smart and fresh as Ginger Snaps since its release nearly 15 years ago. This Canadian horror overcomes its budgetary shortcomings with a tremendous, well-developed script by Karen Walton and stunning performances from Emily Perkins and Katherine Isabelle that capture the anxiety of puberty as hair-raising lycanthropic nightmare. A wickedly funny, outrageously bloody good time.
PIECES
‘80s slashers don’t get any dumber and more over-the-top than this irresistibly inept trash classic from Euro schlock-meister Juan Piquer Simón. There’s a black-gloved killer chopping up students on campus and baffling clueless detectives, an undercover tennis coach, a random kung fu guy, and of course, plenty of gratuitous nudity and bloodshed. It also has one of the greatest double-whammy endings to any film in the history of cinema.
THE BIRDS
Often cited as Hitch’s last great film, this masterwork of avian mayhem lulls the viewer into a false sense of security with an almost-snoozy first half before unleashing a terrifying storm of crows and gulls to peck the crap out of everyone just ‘cos. Hitch operating at the height of his powers – the unnerving lack of score; the uncompromising grisliness of the bird attacks; the bravely apocalyptic imagery; dude was in control.
HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH
Inventive, underrated in-name-only Carpenter-produced sequel throws together chip-controlled halloween masks, expressionless killer robots in suits, a sleepy Irish town and an alcoholic doctor in search of an answer. So, no Michael Myers nor is it particularly gory (that skull crushing scene though), but atmospheric, fantastically offbeat marriage of sci-fi and horror elements, deftly handled by longtime Carpenter collaborator Tommy Lee Wallace.
THE BROOD
Cronenberg’s best, most fully realised ‘70s film, a cathartic, deeply harrowing mind/body horror analog for a messy divorce. Everything about it seethes with barely contained rage, from the screeching dissonance of Howard Shore’s score to Oliver Reed’s intense psycho-plasmic therapy sessions to the ghastly sights of deformed children smashing people’s heads in with mallets and crystal balls. Lest Halloween get too “fun”, pop The Brood in to send you right over the edge.
THE INNKEEPERS
A Halloween movie night wouldn’t be complete without a good haunted house flick, and Ti West’s The Innkeepers is a near-perfect throwback ghost story that’ll spook you while tickling your ribs. It doesn’t so much impress because it does anything original, but because of its elegant classicism; it’s like the perfect remake of Robert Wise’s The Haunting for our generation, dripping with glorious location atmosphere that sneaks up on you with its chilly embrace.
TRICK ‘R TREAT
There are people who will tell you that Michael Dougherty’s Trick ‘r Treat is THE ultimate Halloween movie ever — and I won’t disagree. Though inexplicably shelved for two years, this is a rare horror anthology with no weak filler stories, subversive, exquisitely structured and just so goddamn entertaining you cannot go wrong. Best go in cold.
CAT PEOPLE
Any one of Val Lewton’s RKO films from the ‘40s are worth of a place on this list, but Cat People, the first of several collaborations with director Jacques Tourneur, is a great place to start. This tale of a Serbian immigrant who can’t kiss her husband for fear of turning into a cat is an ethereal, wonderfully macabre, gorgeously photographed doomed romance for viewers who prefer their horror films to unfold in subtle, suggestive, inky shadows rather than full-blown frights. In a class of its own.
LAST HOUSE ON DEAD END STREET
Back in the good ol’ VHS trading days, there was one movie that collectors spoke of as if it were the Holy Grail of underground horror. The only way you could see it was via multi-gen dubs sourced from an Argentinean tape, and when you finally saw it, you felt like you were privy to something that should have never seen the light of day. That movie, my friends, is Last House on Dead End Street.
Though much of its mystique was stripped away during the advent of DVD — it even came out in NZ — it hasn’t lost of any of its power to disturb. The grubby texture, the throbbing-heartbeat, organ-smeared soundtrack, the thoroughly misanthropic tone and unsettling, snuff-like imagery — LHODES feels like a home movie made by a demented sociopath. There will be a time to clear the room at Halloween and this sleazy no-budget shocker will do it.
