It’s October, AKA SPOOKY MONTH! Halloween, Trick or Treating, and even clown attacks (well, in 2016 anyway). While we live in the capitalist world of 2018 where every horror movie is a cash-grab for more green in the bin. In 2018 alone we had the Slender Man, Truth Or Dare, The Nun, Venom (though it’s a comic book film), and The First Purge, and these are just the start of the terrible, jump scare gimmicks these cash grabs have to offer. But no, forget those atrocities, the best horror movies are the classics. The scariest movies to watch on Halloween are The Shining (1980) and the original Halloween (1978).
The Shining is a Stanley Kubrick film starring Jack Nicholson. It was the most hated movie when it released, with critics calling it boring, repetitive, and not very creative (granted this was before film today where everything is a mystery). However, over the years, it has gained a cult following, with famed directors such as Steven Spielberg praising this film for its creativity by Stanley Kubrick, as well as the ecstatic performance by Jack Nicholson (fun fact: he played Joker in the 1989 Batman). The movie takes place at a hotel and is about a psychopath murderer threatening the hotel, along with other supernatural forces. That’s all I can say without diving into spoilers. This movie is a must see. It evokes the haunted house atmosphere that you and even a friend can watch, home alone, in the middle of the dark (for a spooky tone). The Shining is on Netflix and is rated R (because no good horror movie is rated PG-13).
John Carpenter had only one vision for this movie: suspense. The original Halloween, released in 1978 (which is getting a direct sequel which releases in theaters in 2018), was created on a $325,000 budget. In today’s terms, that wouldn’t even cover the poster for a major motion picture. This started the genre of slasher movies as this movie for its time was so brutal regarding the violence with a knife that it almost got an NC-17 rating (AKA only for people 17 and above). The plot for this movie is Michael Myers, a serial killer ever since he was 6, attacks babysitter Laurie Strode. He tortures her by murdering all of her friends, then she’s next. This movie is fantastic because it reinvents the horror genre in that before you only got scared because of haunted houses after this movie released no one even felt safe in their homes. This movie is rated R and you can find it to rent, buy, or watch on TV.
The movies I have talked about today are only the couple out of hundreds and thousands of horror movies (good and bad) that you can watch today. I hope you enjoyed this article and are looking forward to watching these movies. As always, comment below on more movies you want me to review and of course, have a Happy Halloween!