How to Be the Anti-Basic Bish: Halloween Movies You Must Screen
Have your PSLs and your Hocus Pocus watch parties, but before the curtains close on October make some time to stray away from the nicely manicured path and wander down a twisty and neglected road that promises more tricks than treats. If you need a little inspiration beyond the classic catalogue — I shouldn’t have to tell you this is Michael Myers time to shine — consider the following. These films run the gamut from chilling to comedic. There’s something to every taste and few pieces that transcend taste and defy explanation (looking at you, Freddy’s Revenge).
Read on if ye be so bold.
New Releases: Talk to Me & The Exorcist: Believer
Talk to Me came out of the clear blue — well actually out of the minds of noted YouTube directors Danny & Michael Philippou — and blasted onto screens like a breath of fresh air. It’s unexpected, suspenseful and deeply original.
The Exorcist: Believer stands at the exact opposite end of the spectrum, carrying with it the legacy and expectations of following in the footsteps of one of the most iconic horror films ever made. The jury is still out on how well it wears those expectations, as it doesn’t bow until Oct. 6, but David Gordon Green did manage to find room for some new storytelling in his uneven, but fun, Halloween sequel trilogy. Much as Jamie Lee Curtis came back to reprise her iconic role, Ellen Burstyn returns … 50 years after the original rocked moviegoers. So yeah, we’re gonna say this one is worth checking out.
Wow, That is So French: Titane
Julia Ducournau made waves with her first film, Raw, an unrelenting blend of self-discovery and cannibalism. Her second feature, Titane, continues the tradition of genrebending captivation, this time following a young female serial killer who is impregnated by … a car. Don’t ask questions. In fact, watch it knowing nothing else, but watch it.
From the Archives: Peeping Tom
Before there was Psycho, there was Peeping Tom. A cinema-obsessed young man begins murdering women with a camera so he can capture their reactions. Carl Boehm gives a painfully earnest performance as the titular voyeur that tilts the production toward the realm of camp, but the overall effect remains chilling.
In Case You Missed It: The Girl with All the Gifts
For sci-fi fans, The Girl with All the Gifts brings a new twist to dystopian narratives with a touch of zombie flair. The end result is an unlikely road survival movie with fresh thoughts in place of classic tropes.
Off the Rails Retro: A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge
Horror sequels have a reputation for failing their predecessors. A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge doesn’t so much fail the work that launched Freddy as it takes the entire Springwood universe and set it on fire. On the surface, Freddy has possessed a teenage boy living in Nancy’s former bedroom and uses him to do murders. It’s low-budget and poorly executed, but remains a cult classic in the horror world for it’s subversive and not even remotely subtle queer underpinnings. Before you revisit, watch Scream Queens! My Nightmare on Elm Street, a documentary about then-closeted lead actor, Mark Patton’s journey coming to terms with his role in the subversive sequel and the ways in which the work mirrored his personal struggles at the time.
Shit, That’s Spooky: Sinister
How did Scott Derrickson launch from relative obscurity to a big time platform as the writer-director of Doctor Strange? He cooked up a spooky little film called Sinister. Ethan Hawke stars as a desperate true crime writer who buys a home with a dark past in the hope that it will fuel his latest project. His wish does come true, but as tends to be the case with cheap murder houses … say it with me … he gets more than he bargained for.
Classic and Comedic: Arsenic and Old Lace
Stop me if you’ve heard this before: A drama critic decides to marry the girl next door on Halloween, only to discover that his beloved aunts are responsible for a string of murders and the bodies are in the basement. No? You’re overdue for a viewing of Arsenic and Old Lace.
Is It Really That Scary? The Strangers
It was the summer of 2008 and young Brooke Wylie planned a double feature. The Strangers and The Happening. The prevailing thought going into that day was that The Strangers would be just another laughable slasher while M. Night Shayamalan’s mysterious new film would haunt us. Well, whatever the hell went on with those bees in The Happening has not stuck with me, but the abject horror of watching The Strangers for the first time is something I haven’t been able to shake. Though that doesn’t mean I haven’t tried. It’s been a couple years, so it must be time to try again. Join me, won’t you?
It’s an Indie, Darling: It Follows
Movies don’t get more atmospheric than It Follows. Imagine any tale of horror guided by morality. The kids parked in a car murdered by a guy with a hook. The final girl. It all ultimately comes back to chastity. It Follows takes that rule and puts it center stage: A young woman has a strange sexual encounter that leaves her with a creature following her, with one purpose, to kill her. The only way to pass it on? Sleep with someone else and knowingly put them in the same danger.
Campy and Clever as Hell: Ready or Not
Eat the rich has been a prevailing theme in cinemas the past few years — Parasite did it with a lot of polish and empathic storytelling. Ready or Not marries an ordinary girl into a boardgame empire and requires her to abide by a particularly brutal rule on her wedding night. You must play a game. It might be standard fare, old maid or parcheesi, or it might be a deadly game of hide and seek. Two guesses what the outcome is in this case.
There’s Meta and Then There’s This: Cabin In the Woods
Horror movies are all about rules. So much so that there is an entire sub-genre of films that poke fun at those rules. In the grand tradition of Scream, but with much more ambition, The Cabin in the Woods takes aim at everything that horror is, was and aspires to be. Frequently funny, sometimes creepy, this Drew Goddard-Joss Whedon joint has all of the best elements of Buffy and so much more freedom than episodic television. Too bad about ya, Joss, you made some great things in spite of your rotten personality.
Happy Halloween! Remember, everyone is entitled to one good scare.