HALLOWEEN ILLS

Just terrific.

MOVIE MOMENTS: HALLOWEEN: H20 (1998)

"What is your favorite life-affirming moment in horror?"

As I’ve written before, one of the most anticipated cinematic moments of my then-young life was the 1998 release of Halloween: H20. The studio-prestige approach to a slasher series that had by then descended to dubious levels and flirted with going direct to video, along with the involvement of Jamie Lee Curtis, was a major reason to celebrate the real return of Michael Myers. Though easily the best sequel at that time, these days, in the face of changing sensibilities and especially 2018’s far superior rebootquel, Halloween: H20 feels more like a mostly positive mixed bag. Regardless of its flaws, however, it easily contains one of the best sequences from the entire series.

After surviving several encounters with her long-lost brother, who finally found her hiding place after twenty years, Laurie Strode has a clear path to escape in front of her – there are no barriers, no hurdles to overcome. She’s no longer trapped in a closet or pounding on doors that will never open. She’s got an idling SUV, an open security gate, and her son, John (Josh Hartnett), is begging her to get back in the car and go. But for half her life, Laurie’s been running from her past and hiding behind a pseudonym as the headmistress of a private school in the shadowy hills of Northern California. Her life is in near-ruins; she’s an alcoholic who wakes up screaming in the morning and has an army of prescription drugs waiting in her medicine cabinet to help get her through. And she’s tired of this version of her life – enough that she’s going to make the conscious choice to stop running. In Halloween and Halloween II, every blow that Laurie lands against her attacker is reactionary and based on in-the-moment survival. This version of Laurie, however, goes on the offensive and willfully takes on the role as predator instead of prey. After sending John away, Laurie shuts the gate, smashes its controls, grabs a fire axe, and enters the game, bellowing her brother’s name as the camera takes a God’s eye view of the abandoned school grounds and composer John Ottman’s orchestral rendition of the Halloween theme floods the screen. In a concept further explored in 2018’s Halloween, this is the scene where Laurie refuses to be the victim any longer, and if there were such a thing as immovable fate, as Samuels once wrote, then she’s going to do the impossible and deny that fate as the victim…even if she dies trying.

 [Reprinted/excerpted from Daily Grindhouse.]

TRICK (2019)

At one point, before David Gordon Green and Danny McBride helped to restore some class to the Halloween franchise with 2018’s successful rebootquel, Dimension Films had been trying to get a sequel off the ground for years—at first trying to continue Rob Zombie’s completely awful saga before going back to the original series and trying their hand at what was going to be called Halloween Returns, a direct sequel to 1981’s Halloween 2. Obviously, this didn’t happen, but a whole lot of folks were taking meetings with Dimension Films to pitch their approach. Among these filmmakers was frequent collaborators Patrick Lussier and Todd Farmer, who had directed and written, respectively, 2009’s My Bloody Valentine and 2011’s Drive Angry. Their version, pitched as Halloween 3D, would’ve followed the exploits of Zombie’s version of Laurie Strode, played by Scout Taylor Compton, as she was confined to a psychiatric hospital following the events of whatever the hell was happening in 2009’s Halloween 2. The duo seemed like such a sure thing that they had confidently told another frequent collaborator, Tom Atkins, that he would have the role of Laurie’s doctor. As we all know, this didn’t come to pass, and I have to wonder how much of their original concept for Halloween 3D was rewritten to become this year’s Halloween-set slasher, Trick. It does, after all, feature a maniac (Thom Niemann) in a Halloween costume going crazy one Halloween night and slaughtering several teenagers, only to be sent away to a hospital for the criminally insane before escaping again on—you guessed it, Halloween—to pick up where he left off. 

It also features Tom Atkins.

Naturally, we can only speculate on this. Perhaps Trick was built from the ground up to serve as a standalone movie without relying on the scraps of a previous script. Either way you look at it, Trick is a very okay movie, presenting a story that’s reasonably engaging although not altogether original. A killer’s on the loose on Halloween night and there’s a cop on his trail (“You’re the new Loomis”), played by Omar Epps, who also appeared in Lussier’s Dracula 2000  Despite Detective Mike Denver’s best efforts, the titular killer slices and dices his way through all kinds of people, from the teens who helped subdue him at the Halloween party where Patrick “Trick” Weaver went crazy all those years ago (I think because he almost had to kiss another dude) to even a member or two of Denver’s police team. And if you’re already thinking that only one plucky final-girl heroine (Kristina Reyes) can stop him, then hey—something tells me you’ve seen a slasher movie before. Maybe even Halloween!

As a slice of pure escapism, and as a throwback slasher flick that has some imaginative and gory kills to satiate your bloodlust, you can do worse than Trick. For someone like me who considers Halloween to be his favorite day of the year, I tend to be very forgiving when it comes to Halloween-set flicks that offer a palpable October/autumn environment and finds a way to tie its central conflict to Halloween in at least some minor way. I mention this because if this had been the same exact movie, but was called Kringle Kills and took place on Christmas , I’d be far less kind to it...but since the killer calls himself “Trick” and wears a jack-o-lantern mask and the last act takes place in a Halloween haunt walk-through...well, I'm a sucker and I fall for that kinda stuff. 

For most of its running time, Trick is competently made and hits all the beats you’d expect, but once the “twist” is revealed—followed by another “twist” at the very end that you can definitely see coming—your palms will end up pressed against your face not just at the pure silliness, but at the way the twist actually manages to ruin the killer’s mystique, rendering him less intimidating.  

Still, I won’t kick Trick off my yearly Halloween shelf, and it certainly has more of a chance of getting annual October play than Rob Zombie’s garbage or Halloween: Resurrection, but it’s definitely the weakest collaboration yet from Lussier and Farmer. The ending of Trick is a clear set-up for a sequel, and should that ever come to pass, here's hoping they have a firmer grasp on their concept now that the cat is out of the bag. Here’s hoping their next effort retains the uniqueness and their adherence to old school slasher formulas as essayed in their previous flicks. 

MICHAEL VS. JASON

Couldn't find who made this, but to the unknown artist: good job.

FOUR FROM HITCHCOCK

Throughout his career, Alfred Hitchcock directed 55 feature films, along with numerous shorts and documentaries. That’s not a bad haul, nor a bad legacy to leave behind to the world. Having said that, even the most ardent film fan couldn’t possibly name you half of his films in total. In fact, if you look at his filmography starting from the beginning, it would take you seventeen films before arriving at 1935’s The 39 Steps, really the first film, chronologically, that still enjoys discussion to this day. I’m not picking on Hitchcock, though – this is more just a reminder of the reality. Not a single director has a flawless track record when it comes to output (and if the names Christopher Nolan or Quentin Tarantino just flashed in your mind as a challenge to that, I’m laughing at you). But by now, Hitchcock has reached legendary status, and not just from the strong crop of films he left behind: there’s his larger than life persona as a morbid spokesman for his work; there’s his reputation for being a hard-nosed director unwilling to compromise his vision; and there’s also his penchant for victimizing his cast for reasons both professional and personal. 

Because of his infamy, he’s achieved mythic status, and as such, we assume everything he touched shocked audiences, changed cinema, and left an indelible mark. Not quite. If you asked that same film fan from before to name ten Hitchcock films, undoubtedly these four titles would be among them: Rear Window, Vertigo, Psycho, and The Birds. They are sacrosanct, legendary, backbones of their respective genres, and sterling examples of a director fully in control of his talents and resources. 

Photographer L.B. “Jeff” Jefferies (James Stewart) is in the midst of recuperating from a broken ankle and is confined to a wheelchair in his apartment. Sheer boredom leads him to watching his neighbors across his apartment complex’s shared courtyard, keeping up to date on the various comings, goings, and personal dramas unfolding in everyone’s tiny homes. It’s through this passive observing that L.B. begins to suspect that one particular neighbor across the way may have murdered his wife. With the assistance of his “girlfriend” Lisa (Grace Kelly), who L.B. uses as a mobile quasi-avatar, they investigate to see if L.B. really does live across the courtyard from a murderer.

Like the other films in this set, Rear Window would inadvertently create an oft visited trope in genre cinema going forward, either through presentation or in conception – in this case, the idea of the voyeur, and of large open windows serving as movie screens that depict the actions of those inside their own bubble, generally unaware of their being watched…or sometimes being complicit in their “performances.” John Carpenter would riff on this concept with a clever reversal in his 1980 television movie Someone’sWatching Me! with Lauren Hutton and soon to be wife/ex-wife Adrienne Barbeau. Australian filmmaker Richard Franklin, who would eventually helm the extremely undervalued Psycho II, would make a road-set homage with Road Games with Stacy Keach alongside a post-Halloween Jamie Lee Curtis (daughter of Psycho’s Janet Leigh). Finally, following his accident that left him paralyzed and wheelchair-bound, Christopher Reeve would produce and star in a Rear Window remake in the late ‘90s for ABC, with Daryl Hannah taking on the Grace Kelly role of the adventurous troublemaker. It was…fine. Also like the other films in this set, Rear Window is one of many Hitchcock films that sees a pretty blonde girl (Hitch’s fave) really going above and beyond to make an impotent or uninterested man commit to her beyond mere petty flirtations and casual trysts. With L.B. prone and imprisoned in his wheelchair, he’s powerless to stop Lisa as she decides to take full control of the situation and break into the suspected murderer’s apartment in order to validate L.B.’s beliefs – and this after the film opens with Lisa basically nagging L.B. to marry her, which he declines with reasoning that makes the very concept sound entirely objectionable despite the fact that he’s twenty years older, has the physique of a snapped rubber band, and he’d be incredibly lucky to have her.

A near-death experience leaves former police detective John Ferguson (a returning Stewart) with acrophobia, a debilitating fear of heights, and very retired. An old acquittance, Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore), hires him out of the blue to follow his wife, Madeleine (Kim Novak), who believes that she’s the reincarnation of another deceased woman named Carlotta. Being we’re in Hitchcock territory, after Ferguson begins his reconnaissance, it doesn’t take long for him to discover, whether or not Elster’s beliefs have any merit, that he’s definitely not on a routine job. And he couldn’t possibly have anticipated how obsessed with Madeleine he would become.

At 130 minutes, Vertigo is one of Hitchcock’s longer features, and most of that running time is filled with heavy exposition and twisting/turning developments that, at times, feel almost more appropriate for a James Bond caper mixed with brooding noir. Hitchcock once again reigns over his use of cinematography to deeply unsettle his audience, using camera tricks and extreme points of view to take away our balance and feeling of stability. The opening scene has Stewart’s Ferguson hanging for dear life from the top of a very tall building as the gutter he’s grasping slowly tears off the wall, and as a nearby officer reaches down to help him, the poor schlub slips and plummets to his death – in just one sequence, both Ferguson and the audience confront the ultimate fear: not just impending death, but our front-row view of our only salvation being whisked away.

Poor Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) steals a bunch of cash in hopes of buying the domestic freedom of her secret beau, Sam (John Gavin), and blows town. After stopping at a desolate roadside motel, she leaves the worst Yelp review in Bates Motel history, causing perfectionist Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) to respond in…let’s call it an exaggerated manner.

Look, no one needs the plot breakdown of Psycho; considering it’s widely considered Hitchcock’s crowning achievement as a director (these things are subject to opinion, of course, but…it is), Psycho is a masterclass in filmmaking in just about every way – from expert casting (Martin Balsam!) to maximizing low budget filmmaking (the crew was almost entirely comprised of Alfred Hitchcock Presents personnel) to wrenching tension out of every scene through the use of slow-moving cinematography and off-putting angles. Psycho should be taught in film classes exclusively for its use of the camera. There’s the slow opening push into Marion and Sam’s hotel room window (which, while possibly borrowed from 1955’s Dementia aka Daughter of Horror, is still expertly crafted), and obviously there’s also that whole shower-scene thing, but my favorite shot comes as the camera slowly pushes in on Norman standing by the side of the swamp and listening in the dark as Sam calls out for him back at the motel. It’s chilling and perfectly engineered. Honestly, I could go on and on about the 1960 classic that inspired four sequels, a (failed) television show, a remake, another successful television show, the next generation of filmmakers (Brian De Palma, John Carpenter, Richard Franklin, Brad Anderson), and a perpetual mark on the genre, not to mention the permanent ruination of the sense of security one feels while taking a shower in a motel room…but we all know this already. Adapted from the novel of the same name by Robert Bloch, Hitchcock and screenwriter Joseph Stefano improve the well written source material in every way. Stefano’s screenplay changes Norman Bates from a monstrous killer to a sympathetic figure, and Hitchcock had the forward-thinking idea of casting someone with charming, boy-next-door features instead of someone who more closely matched the unsightly, stocky, balding, and frustrated virgin present in the novel. Even the shower scene is a complete rebuilding, in which Marion Crane’s demise is limited to a few sentences: “Mary started to scream, and then the curtains parted further and a hand appeared, holding a butcher's knife. It was the knife that, a moment later, cut off her scream. And her head.”

Loosely based on the 1952 short story by Daphne Du Maurier, Hitchcock’s adaption depicts a world being overtaken by angry hordes of birds, atypically flocking together in every species to wage an unexplained revenge against mankind – presumably for being the earth-raping assholes we always are. One of many folks caught in the swarm are Melanie (Tippi Hedren), who’s attempting to charm her way into the life of Mitch (Rod Taylor), who lives in an isolated coastal home. The attacks from the bloodthirsty birds increasingly mount until they find themselves trapped in Rod’s house and fending off the birds that manage to find their way in. Who will survive, and what will be pecked from them?

Truth be told, and in spite of its (deserved) reputation, The Birds is a mixed bag. As a youngin’ obsessed with JAWS and all the animals-run-amok films that it introduced me to, I used to consider The Birds my favorite Hitchcock film, but later viewings re-introduced me to a kind of silly film that’s actually at its best when the birds aren’t on screen (school playground scene notwithstanding, because that’s the kind of thing Hitchcock did so well). However, once the opticals of marauding flocks are overlain into the sky and birds both real and dummy are being thrown into Tippi Hedren’s face, it all seems pretty nonsensical. It’s also hard to mentally dismiss how much Hitchcock mistreated Hedren on set, which was the stuff of Hollywood legend for years before HBO’s The Girl made it mainstream knowledge in the earliest beginnings of the #MeToo movement.

Alfred Hitchcock is part of cinema history, taught in universities and film schools, still the subject of modern documentaries like the Psycho-deconstructing 78/52, and conjured in the modern descriptor “Hitchcockian.” The four films above are the top reasons why. Even if Hitchcock had directed four or four hundred films throughout his life, the merits alone of Rear Window, Vertigo, Psycho, and The Birds would’ve been more than enough to secure his legacy. 

HOUSE (1985) AND HOUSE 2: THE SECOND STORY (1987)

Director and Producer Sean S. Cunningham has never really played coy about his earliest beginnings in film. Following upon the success of The Bad News Bears, he and screenwriter Arch McCoy saw fit to rip it off with Here Come the Tigers, another foul-mouthed comedy about an unruly little league baseball team. And following the success of John Carpenter’s Halloween, Cunningham called up his screenwriter Victor Miller and said, “Halloween is making a lot of money – let’s rip it off” (actual quote), and Friday the 13th was born.

With his producing role on the first of what would become a four-film series, it’s hard not to look at House as an attempt to recreate the do-it-yourself monster approach consisting of equal parts horror and comedy that Sam Raimi took with the first two Evil Dead films. Built upon a foundation of sincerity, but chock full of schlocky and fantastical creature designs, both the Evil Deads (well, more so the latter) and House want to horrify and disgust but also titillate and muse its audiences in equal measure. House star William Katt describes House as the perfect gateway horror film for the young – something that boats horrific imagery, but nothing so deadly serious that they would be left traumatized. And he’s right. That’s the level of horror the unsuspecting can expect from the first of four House films.

Unlike Here Come the Tigers and Friday the 13th, House manages to establish its own identity thanks to its off-kilter tone; though it borrows its concept about a guy who ends up battling demons/monsters/somethings in an isolated environment, it’s willing to be more playful with its horrific imagery, in gross contrast to the very bloody and at times mean-spirited set pieces that littered the Evil Dead series (including the very stupid Army of Darkness). And it definitely gets points for highlighting a post-war condition that hadn’t yet gone by its official title: post-traumatic stress disorder. Despite the very playful nature with which House is presented, its lead character, Roger Cobb (played by Katt), is carrying around a lot of spiritual demons. Not only did his time in Vietnam see a fellow soldier (Richard Moll) killed in action, but he’s also dealing with the disappearance of his young son and the subsequent toll it took on his marriage. His effort to stay in his late aunt’s palatial Victorian house to work on his new book – a non-fiction look back on his time in the war – awakens either the ghastly creatures that live behind its doors, or which live inside his mind.

Directed by horror veteran Steve Miner (the first two Friday the 13th sequels; Halloween: H20; the atrocious Day of the Dead remake), House is a mixed bag of humor that doesn’t quite work and horror that’s intent on being more foamy and cartoonish than outright terror. For some folks this is enough, as House definitely has its fans, but for others weaned on Ash Williams cutting off heads of the possessed in similarly amusing situations, it just ain’t enough. House boasts some of the same ingenuity and unorthodox creature designs, but very little of the darker gore gags. The practical creature effects and creations are definitely creative and impressive considering House’s modest budget, but moments like these are unfortunately too few and far between. Although, credit definitely goes to the zombified soldier which stalks Roger during the third act, as it’s a legitimately excellent creation, right down to his articulated facial features. House perhaps could have used more of this and less of the behemoth woman demon with pearls — aka, more of an emphasis on actual terror.

Following the surprise success of House, distributor New World Pictures was quick to green light House 2: The Second Story, which boasts perhaps the greatest title of all time. Unfortunately that’s about all it boasts, as House 2 is borderline unwatchable, dialing down whatever horror was present in the first film and amping up the humor, turning it into something more akin to the first Troll. 

This time around, the action is set in a house that looks like something from an unused Indiana Jones set, complete with spooky basement that houses a literal crystal skull (holy shit). This skull resurrects a ghost cowboy, or something, who is the most depressed ghost I have ever seen in film, and I think he coughs dust or something. Bill Maher shows up playing a gigantic asshole, which Bill Maher manages to do quite handsomely (and this is coming from someone who legit loves Bill Maher). Keeping the Friday the 13th connection going (with returning producer Sean Cunningham), Lar Park Lincoln (Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood) plays a kind of unlikable lead opposite far more likable Arye Gross (Minority Report), who together engage in a plot that can’t even be broken down because it makes very little sense.

To be followed by two sequels.

The House films are friggin’ weird, but there’s no denying that’s part of their appeal. The first two films — though their levels of quality can be debated — remain the two most beloved and will make you feel right at home haw haw sorry!

ESCAPE FROM L.A. (1996)

Escape from L.A. is the punchline in John Carpenter’s career, and there’s all sorts of reasons for this, which we'll get into in a second. It's not just the only sequel he’s ever directed, but it's a sequel to one of his most celebrated (and you know how sequels go...). Escape from New York, made in 1981 during the beginning of Carpenter’s directorial career, was a scrappy, low-budget, grindhouse-lite action/sc-fi romp that seemed like the first time Carpenter made a film that showed his true voice and passion as a filmmaker. Sure, by then, Halloween had come along and, after a few false negative first impressions, finally caught on with audiences and critics, making his career one to follow. That Carpenter hasn’t made a film that feels like Halloween since then shows that his worldview was a bit more audacious. His interest in earlier western filmmakers like Howard Hawks and John Ford, and those particular films which saw a small motley band of gunfighters working together in isolated environments to fend off siege-like attacks from a larger, deadlier threat has been a major part in a dozen of his films. In a way, Escape from New York is his thesis statement as a director, as it contains all his technical hallmarks, boasts all the different storytelling facets through which he would express himself during his entire career, and finally, stars his longtime actor collaborator, Kurt Russell.

While Escape from L.A. is almost the antithesis to Carpenter as a director, which sees him applying a big studio, bullshit approach to the same story he was able to tell with better results at a tenth of the budget, it’s right on par with his tendency as a storyteller to skewer certain societal aspects, whether it be religion (Prince of Darkness), pop culture (In the Mouth of Madness), or the unholy alliance between politics and the media (They Live). Though Escape from L.A. isn’t interested in tackling such heavy topics, it’s still successful in its goal, which is to skewer the superficiality of Hollywood and the culture of the greater Los Angeles area while telling the kind of story that Carpenter likes to tell: a band of gunfighters up against impossible odds. Whether or not you consider Escape from L.A. a failure (most people do), there’s a certain romanticism of the film that can’t be denied...but that’s only if you take the film as just one small part in a long career of its three main collaborators: co-writer/director Carpenter, co-writer/co-producer/actor Russell, and co-writer/co-producer Debra Hill. All three (mostly) reprise their roles and responsibilities from Escape from New York, only now they’re doing it after having found success in the studio system, alongside its many pitfalls and trappings that can ruin the enthusiasm and idealism of young, budding filmmakers. Following his pre-classic release of The Thing, Carpenter learned the hard way how quickly a career trajectory can change once studios begin to view you as a wild card director who may not deliver a film to an audience that’s ready for it. Escape from New York was the result of three collaborators making a movie with the enthusiasm and idealism of uncorrupted filmmakers. Escape from L.A. was the same story retold with an organically accumulated hostility toward the very industry that took this thing they once loved and made it harder and harder for them to do it. Once Snake “agrees” to his latest search-and-rescue mission and is sent via underwater into the prison known as Los Angeles, one of the first images the audience sees is the appearance of a battered sign for Universal Studios and a great white shark trying to take a bite out of Plissken’s sub. It’s hard not to read between the lines at what Carpenter and co. are saying: ever since JAWS brought about the advent of the big summer tentpole movie, working in the studio system has never been the same.

Of course, if you’re examining Escape from L.A. as nothing more than a standalone movie without reference or knowledge of the people who made it, their relationships to each other, or their various endured hardships over the years, then yes, it’s a cartoonish, underwhelming, at times incoherent title that struggles to maintain that line between high-stakes sadistic action and audience-pleasing studio product. The visual effects are bad, the basketball sequence is worse (in spite of Russell’s purportedly genuine full-court basket shot), and most of the characters seem to be taking over for their counterparts from Escape from New York. (Steve Buscemi succeeds Ernest Borgnine while Valeria Golino succeeds Adrienne Barbeau and Season Hubley.) It should come as no surprise that Kurt Russell’s as good as ever as the eye-patched antihero Snake Plissken, and his Clint Eastwood sneer hasn’t diminished in any way in the fifteen years between entries. The problem is the hero can’t be nearly as interesting if he’s not up against a viable foe, and unfortunately, Cuervo Jones (George Corraface) is the least interesting villain in Carpenter’s body of work, even when recognizing that very few of his villains were human. There’s nothing wrong with the actor’s performance; it’s just that the character is a pale shade of Isaac Hayes’ Duke from Escape from New York, who didn’t need large, explosive scenes to embody his tough-guy swagger. 

If Carpenter has ever been good at one thing, like the best science fiction writers, it’s been foretelling the future of society. They Live presented a future where people were mindlessly controlled by the media while living in squalor, accepting that it was all part of the plan. With Cliff Robertson’s unnamed role of The President, Escape from L.A. easily foretold the arrival of Donald Trump in the highest office. While Carpenter’s version of the President was of a religious fundamentalist building walls to keep out a certain element, Trump is doing nearly the same, only his own narcissism won’t allow him to recognize a force out in the universe that’s greater than himself. That both the fictional and real president each have a daughter to whom the underrepresented populace of the United States were looking for some kind of hope, it’s sadly ironic that only the fictional one had the wherewithal to stand up to her fascist father and reject his fundamentalist leadership. And, that Robertson very subtly quotes infamous nazi leader Joseph Goebbels in the film’s final moments is a stark reminder to the current reality we’re all being forced to share in which the real so-called president goes on national television and defends...nazis.

As time goes on, and Carpenter teases us with film projects that are probably never going to become reality, his fans are forced to accept that he’s more content to be a producer and a rock star these days, and that’s fine. His body of work speaks volumes and he’s already inspired the next generation of filmmakers who aren’t ashamed to admit it. While I’d love to see him and Kurt Russell collaborate on the long-mooted Escape from Earth (seems like a good way to work climate change into the mix, since Planet Earth is pretty well fucked anyway), both of them have already gone on record as saying they’re simply too old to entertain such a notion. Though it’s natural to take a filmmaker’s body of work and war its films against each other, I’ll always be grateful for every film bearing the name of John Carpenter, Director—even the so-called duds like this one.

[Reprinted from Daily Grindhouse.]

FULL MOON HIGH (1981)

New York filmmaker Larry Cohen was a friend to the genre for a long time, having written not just one but two trilogies (Maniac Cop; It’s Alive!) and wacky, idiosyncratic satires like The Stuff — and this after having contributed one of the all time best blaxploitation titles: Black Caesar. Anyone familiar with the director’s background knows he was incapable of writing a straight horror experience — and that’s not a slight. There’s always a slight wink beneath his work, whether obvious or not so obvious. Such wackadoo concepts like killer frozen yogurt or a dragon nesting on a New York skyscraper kind of call for it.

And then there’s Full Moon High, a mid-career effort that falls much more squarely into broad humor territory, but still while riding a “horror” concept. (I should really mention that this teen-centered comedy about a high school jock becoming a werewolf predates Teen Wolf by a full four years.) Full Moon High is the kind of exhausting comedy where almost every line of dialogue is meant to garner at least a smirk, and star wolf boy Adam Arkin (who would achieve more recognition in his adulthood for his role on Chicago Hope, but whose work in Halloween: H20 as "the boyfriend" has been criminally overlooked) rattles them off one by one with detectable disdain.

Full Moon High is also the kind of comedy where the humor isn’t terribly subtle, and very broad archetypes are played out with the kind of cringe-inducing manner that comes from gags that were allowed to be funny thirty years ago, but which now would be filed under offensive. (The very broadly gay son of Tony Walker’s high school sweetheart is so on the nose that it nearly qualifies as hate speak.) There’s also an overblown “fear” of communism and Russian culture that is either purposely or satirically curated; either way, the most current Presidential election notwithstanding, it’s not an aspect that has aged well.

I generally don't like horror comedies or spoofs when they're this comedic or spoofy, but Full Moon High isn’t a trainwreck and fans of broader humor will probably find something to enjoy with it.

INCONSIDERATE LOOMIS

HALLOWEEN SAFETY TIP

Always check your candy.

20 ALTERNATIVE FILMS FOR HALLOWEEN NIGHT

Every year, sites like this one like to run their own take on the ultimate and comprehensive list of seasonally-appropriate flicks to watch on Halloween. And as an absolute Halloween devotee, I read every single one of these lists hoping to catch at least one new title to add to my ever-growing Halloween movie collection.

It’s very rare when that happens.

If you’re someone like me who’s a little tired of the norm, and of reading through lists that have John Carpenter’s Halloween as the inevitable number one, here’s a list of obscure, unknown, or less obvious choices to watch on Halloween night after the sun has set and the trick-or-treaters have disappeared (hopefully the non-lame ones who knocked on doors instead of peering into car trunks).

Halloween means something a little different to everyone, and everyone has their own little traditions of what they like to do, eat/drink, read, listen to, and watch during those last couple October weeks. Having said that, some of my own personal recommendations might not make a whole lot of Halloween sense, so be forewarned about the list to follow, which represents a culmination of years spent writing, reviewing, and blogging Halloween. There’s old stuff, new stuff, and cult classic stuff, so grab your Halloween candy and dive in.

---

The Woods

Director Lucky McKee made a big splash with his indie horror flick May back in 2002. The film – a Frankensteinian tale about a deeply lonely and withdrawn girl (which also takes place on and around Halloween) – became immediately beloved by horror fans everywhere looking for something new, and so they eagerly looked forward to McKee’s next title. Sadly, to some degree, The Woods doesn’t fully represent the film as McKee intended to make, though he does get full final credit. Whispers of studio meddling preceded the very delayed release, and after a couple years of sitting on the shelf, it was released quietly to video.

The film, set in the 1960s, focuses on a young and troubled teen named Heather (Agnes Bruckner) who is sent to live in an all-female boarding school in the middle of the woods to get her act together. While there, she butts heads with other students and members of the faculty, although one of them, Ms. Traverse (Patricia Clarkson), sees that Heather  is special…in the practical magic kind of way. Soon, Heather realizes that there’s much more going on at Falburn Academy than just reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic – something dangerously approaching witchcraft – and she learns she’s got two options: escape, or surrender her soul.

Even all the witchy stuff aside (although it’s a big boost, because witches = Halloween), The Woods drips in Halloween environment, and a large part of that is the very foliage-driven trees which surround their school (and in some cases, creep inside). The wardrobe choices even seem somewhat inspired by Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Crucible, about witchcraft and mass hysteria sweeping through Salem, Massachusetts.

Ultimately, The Woods isn’t a rock solid production and the ending feels rushed – not just how we arrive there but the actual execution of it – but it does offer a fairly appropriate Halloween experience, some cleverly constructed scenes, an excellent performance from Patricia Clarkson, and of course, some Bruce Campbell.

---

The Houses October Built

Another quiet release comes in the form of this 2014 found-footage flick The Houses October Built, produced by Paranormal Activity’s Steven Schneider. The concept is simple enough: a group of friends who heart Halloween rent an RV and begin a cross-country tour to check out various haunts. Naturally, after going to one haunt in particular, an eerie, pint-sized haunt actor with a dreadfully creepy broken doll mask begins to follow them…as do her fellow haunt “actors.” The friends eventually find themselves forced to enter a very different kind of haunt — one that turns out to be real.

The Houses October Built isn’t a great film; in fact it probably hovers somewhere around satisfactory. As usual for found footage flicks, the characters aren’t particularly likable and the film spends just a bit too much time fucking off before getting to the fear parts. Having said that, The Houses October Built excels at the Halloween aesthetic, boasting several sequences where the camera follows our characters throughout many different haunts, offering a first-hand account of all the long-legged beasties that wait for them in the dark. It easily resurrects your own memories of having gone to such haunts in the past, and if you’re someone like me growing rapidly older and losing patience for standing in long lines just to pay $50 for a 20-minute scare, let The Houses October Built do all the work for you before removing it from your queue.

---

Lady in White

It’s Halloween, 1962, in Willowpoint Falls. Two bullies trick Frankie (Lukas Haas) into the classroom cloakroom and lock him in for a Halloween prank. After beating against the door, Frankie falls asleep…and later awakens when he hears the soft voice of a young girl. She’s in the closet with him, singing and dancing — and Frankie can see right through her. Soon her singing comes to an end, and she begins fighting off an invisible attacker who has slowly begun strangling her. Frankie passes out and later awakes on the floor of the cloakroom, his father before him. Frankie is taken home…with that same ghost girl following close behind him. Lady in White then unfolds as one big mystery with lots of small subplots figuring in, with young Frankie solving a years-old murder, but which puts him directly in the path of the murderer.

To be fair, Halloween is a device that kicks off the strange and twisty-turny events that make up Lady in White (it’s Christmastime exactly halfway through the film), but the supernatural elements are consistent enough to safely label it horror, and thus, appropriate for some Halloween watching. Not to mention that the first third of the film does feature leaf-strewn rural roads, and Main Street shop windows filled with decorations, costume-clad kids, and buckets of candy corn. As someone who has loved Halloween since I was a kid, seeing Lady in White at a young age, on Halloween, has permanently locked itself into my heart. What keeps me coming back isn’t only the machinations of the plot, the legitimacy of the characters, or the performances of the ensemble, but the healthy injection of nostalgia for which I yearn more and more as the years go by.

Lady in White isn’t a perfect film, but the ambiance it creates, and the feeling of childhood nostalgia it sets out to establish, is. (Read my full write-up on Lady in White.)

---

Pay the Ghost

Look, I know. Saying the name “Nicolas Cage” as it relates to films these days is like saying “McDonalds” when talking about cuisine. He makes an awful lot of garbage now, we know this. I know I do because I have to watch a lot of it. But quietly, in 2015, he made a little Halloween movie called Pay the Ghost, based on a short story of the same name by Tim Lebbon which appears in the gigantic Halloween anthology October Dreams. In the film, Mike Lawford’s (Cage) young son disappears in New York during a Halloween parade, leaving Mike to solve the mystery himself before his son’s case gets lost in the system. As he begins to sift through the clues, he stumbles upon a string of kids gone missing on previous Halloween nights, an ancient Celtic group very aware of the dangers of Halloween, and the powerful spirit of a witch bent on revenge.

Pay the Ghost is rare for a handful of reasons: one, it’s a small-scale/direct-to-video Nic Cage film that’s actually pretty good, and two, more importantly, it’s that rare Halloween-set film that takes place in a city environment. That may sound like a trivial detail to commend, but so many Halloween-inspired films are set in small towns, rural areas, and the suburbs; rarely do we get to see the big-city landscape dressed in Halloween lights, crepe paper, and decor. Plus the Halloween parade sequence is pretty satisfying.

It’s not just set dressing and the day of the year which make Pay the Ghost seasonally appropriate, but the film also includes modern day equivalents of age-old Halloween celebrations before it was ever called Halloween. The Celts, the sacrifice, the pre-Satanized version of the witch — these are deeply rooted in the origins of Halloween and they are fully on display here.

If you’ve bypassed Pay the Ghost a number of times because of Cage’s face on the poster, let this be the year you dive in and give it a shot. You may be in for a…treat? (Halloween!)

---

The Barn

Despite being a 2016 production, The Barn takes place on Halloween night, 1989, and feels every bit like it. After its excellent opening, which lays down the legend of Hallowed Jack, Candycorn Scarecrow, and the Boogeyman (aka the Miner), we cut to “the present” and meet our usual group of kids who will get into kid hijinks and come face-to-face with an array of evil Halloween spirits.

The Barn, the newest in a long line of throwback slasher films, has its heart in the right place, which allows it to transcend the problems that most low-budget filmmaking inevitably displays. If The Barn gets anything right, it’s the loyal devotion to Halloween. The first five minutes alone exude more October ambiance than all of Trick ‘r Treat, and the party store design of its movie maniacs easily call forth Conal Cochran’s trio of now-iconic masks from Halloween 3: Season of the Witch. When the screen is filled with costumed kids, cornfields, pumpkin patches, and those midwestern small town surroundings ripped straight from images conjured by the abstract term “Americana,” Halloween permeates through every square inch of the screen. That the legend of these monsters are told and retold through “ghost” stories — one of Halloween’s many traditions — elevates the Octoberness.

The Barn may not stand toe-to-toe with its Halloween-inspired brethren, but it’s a worthy addition to the sub-genre and a more-than-welcome guest at the yearly Halloween party. (Read my full write-up on The Barn.)

---

Extraordinary Tales

At some point, Edgar Allan Poe became synonymous with Halloween. And I’m totally cool with that. With Extraordinary Tales, five of Poe’s most famous stories are brought to life by very different animation techniques to help suit each story as well as stress the anthological nature of the project.

The Fall of the House of Usher kicks things off with its use of what looks to be wooden models, made both blocky and somewhat angular with heightened features. Christopher Lee provides the narration as well as the voices of the story’s sole two characters. The original text, much like the other stories to come, has been pared down, but also kept mostly intact. The Tell-Tale Heart switches to an all black-and-white aesthetic and is complemented by archival audio of Bela Lugosi. In terms of guest narrator impact, this one just might play the best, as the pops and hisses from the original recording (purposely left intact by the director) add an old-school charm and somehow helps to heighten the tension of this story. The Facts in the Case of Mr. Valedemar utilizes the most clever of animation techniques, implanting the story in an EC Comics-come-to-life design in which every panel is colored relying only on vivid comic book colors. The most surprising aspect of The Pit and the Pendulum is how much of a good job guest narrator Guillermo Del Toro does in bringing the story to life. His is not a voice one would typically think of in terms of narration, but he does a tremendous job in bringing a lot of emotion and tension to the story (and being that the story is about a man taken prisoner during the Spanish inquisition, he’s also an appropriate choice). The Masque of the Red Death caps off the anthology in beautiful watercolor and is largely narration-free. Roger Corman gets exactly one line in the entire thing, but the beauty of the images and how the camera moves about them more than aptly propels the story.

Extraordinary Tales has nothing Halloween about it, and except for The Fall of the House of Usher, none of the stories offer even a particularly October/autumnal experience. But, with this being in Poe territory, and with Extraordinary Tales being beautifully (and horrifically) realized, this is still an easy recommendation. (Read my full write-up on Extraordinary Tales.)

---

Boys in the Trees

Every year I do the same thing: I go to IMDB or Blu-ray.com’s search page, put “Halloween” in the keyword field, and sift through all the well-known titles and DTV garbage that inevitably follows. But I do this hoping to find some secret little film that slipped below my radar.

One year, it was Australia’s quiet indie Boys in the Trees.

It’s Halloween night, 1997, and a group of bawdy, troublemaking kids take to the streets to engage in teen pain-in-the-assness, including a campfire at a nearby cemetery. One of these numbers, Corey (Tobey Wallace), crosses paths with Jonah (Gulliver McGrath), a close friend from his past from whom he has grown estranged and who has since become a frequent target for Corey’s friends’ torments. The boys organically end up spending that Halloween night together, traversing dangers metaphysical, emotional, and very physical, resurrecting a painful past and confronting a very sad truth.

Boys in the Trees isn’t fully a horror film, and some might argue it’s not at all. It belongs equally to drama, fantasy, and thriller, as much as it does to horror. Tonally very similar to Donnie Darko, it plays almost like a darker update of Ray Bradbury’s The Halloween Tree, as it sees two young men grappling with death within the confines of a Halloween environment. Together they embark down streets dotted with illuminated jack-o-lanterns and trees decked with toilet paper as Jonah tells “ghost” stories about the houses and people they pass.

Boys in the Trees is a touch too long, its genre-hopping might frustrate those looking for something more straightforward, and there’s a strangely introduced aspect of sexual identity that doesn’t seem to go anywhere, but beyond that it’s a beautifully told and very atypical story that uses Halloween (and even Day of the Dead) in a strong manner to convey its themes.

---

The Monster Squad

There are two kinds of people: those who love The Monster Squad, and those who are total turds. Far, far superior to The Goonies, The Monster Squad is the quintessential kids-on-bikes film, the absolute precursor to Stranger Things, and the perfect kid-friendly horror title. Iconic classic monsters from the Universal monsters era (which were pared down to their generic versions to avoid a lawsuit) descend on a small names town in, led by Dracula (Duncan Regehr), in order to bring about the end of the world because of course he would. And since the adults are too busy caught up in their own adult bullshit, the kids have no choice but to take care of the threat themselves…these kids known as “The Monster Squad.”

I’ll be honest, The Monster Squad has nothing to do with Halloween, but damn it all if it’s not a perfect title to watch on Halloween, anyway. With a typically sardonic screenplay by Shane Black (Lethal Weapon), filled with all the gay slurs and body shaming that have since gone seriously out of style, The Monster Squad, though lacking Halloween iconography, at least embodies its spirit: facing down the terrors of the night with your childhood friends by your side while confronting your mortality. (Also, Frankenstein.)

---

Psychoville: “Halloween”

Don’t ask me what Psychoville is because, beyond it being a sarcastic and odd British television show, I have no idea. But during my yearly scouring, this title popped up, and without many other new options I figured I’d give it a go.

I was, again, pleasantly surprised.

Told in the anthology format, Psychoville: Halloween tells four different stories (not including the wraparound) mostly set on Halloween night. Psychoville derives from the more well known The League of Gentlemen, so that’s a good indicator of the kind of humor (dark, odd, and a little icky) you’ll be getting. As for the Halloween of it all, among the tales, a clown gets harassed by some eerie trick-or-treaters and a mother and son get picked up by a motorist on their way to a Halloween party who may or may not be a serial killer. The tales play out with your usual brand of Tales from the Crypt irony, but this time married to a helping of odd and absurd British humor that both complement and somehow heighten the fear. (That clown story, especially, is kinda spooky.)

Psychoville: Halloween is about 85% standalone, so you don’t fully need an understanding of the series to enjoy the stories, but because it also happens to be the season finale, it ends with a WTF cliffhanger that won’t make a lick of sense to you. My advice? Turn it off after the conclusion of the insane asylum wraparound.

---

The Town That Dreaded Sundown (2014)

In Texarkana, a revival showing of the original The Town That Dreaded Sundown is in full swing. Pretty Jami (Addison Timlin) isn’t really enjoying the morbid film, and her boyfriend Corey (Spencer Treat Clark, Unbreakable) notices and suggests they both get out of there. Get out of there they do – and end up in the desolate, tree-lined Lover’s Lane. After a few gropes and gooses, Jami spies someone standing off in the trees watching them – someone wearing a burlap sack, much like the killer in the film they had earlier been watching. The sack-wearing figure kills Corey and leaves Jami to escape. To confront her survivor’s guilt, Jami begins diving into the past in an attempt to solve the sixty-year-old murders of Texarkana.

This incarnation of The Town That Dreaded Sundown is an impressive feature debut by director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon. Dreamlike in its depiction and unrelenting in its bloodletting, it is a screaming example of how to make a good film based on preexisting material and still make it fresh, unique, and not just another cash grab (although the ending is an absolute copout).

If I wanted to be cheap, I’d say that The Town that Dreaded Sundown is a good Halloween night candidate because the killer wears a mask and it opens on Halloween night, but there’s more than that. Though the film really has nothing to do with Halloween, the very rural and cornfield-strewn Texarkana strikes the same tone as Haddonfield, Illinois throughout the Halloween series, and the strange, dreamy tone fits right in with Halloween’s strange, dreamy traditions. And okay, that the film opens on Halloween night and the killer wears a mask, well, that doesn’t hurt.

The Town that Dreaded Sundown is probably the least obvious title on this list, but also one of the worthiest.

---

WNUF Halloween Special

Purported to be “taped off of WNUF TV-28 on Halloween Night, 1987, this strange broadcast follows local news personality Frank Stewart and a team of paranormal researchers as they set out to prove that the abandoned Webber House – the site of ghastly murders – is actually haunted.”

The WNUF Halloween Special is a painstaking recreation of the following: a news broadcast, broken up by commercial breaks, which then leads into the actual “live” special, which is also broken up by commercial breaks. The movie itself is designed to look as if someone hit “record” midway through a news broadcast and let the tape capture everything that followed, and it’s obscenely clever. The WNUF Halloween Special is also peppered with numerous horror and Halloween homages: the haunted house’s murderous past echo that of the “Amityville horror;” the characters of Louis and Claire Berger are clearly based on Ed and Lorraine Warren (of recent dramatized fame in James Wan’s The Conjuring) who investigated the Amityville house, with Louis Berger being a purposeful recreation of legendary writer and Halloween enthusiast Ray Bradbury. There’s even a shout out to The Monster Squad’s Shadowbrook Road!

Important to note is that, despite the film’s marketing campaign, the WNUF Halloween Special is actually pretty hilarious. And it’s supposed to be, as it takes a page from the mockumentaries of Christopher Guest (Best in Show, Waiting for Guffman, etc.). More comedy than horror, the WNUF Halloween Special’s best aspect is its desire to resurrect a time in our not-so-historic history where things seemed purer — when people bought heavy metal compilation CDs or took in-store lessons on how to use “floppy discs” — and this forgotten time also includes Halloween, as our current society simply doesn’t seem to care as much about October 31st as it once did. WNUF Halloween Special has carved out a chunk of our lives, called it “Halloween,” and preserved it for all time. And for doing that, it’s beautiful. (Read my full write-up on WNUF Halloween Special.)

---

Millennium: “The Curse of Frank Black”

You might remember Millennium, The X-Files creator Chris Carter’s second series, a Red Dragon-ish thriller starring Lance Henriksen as a serial killer profiler working for the mysterious Millennium Group. Following a critically well received but not highly viewed first season, which was fairly grounded and straightforward, season 2 began exploring more paranormal themes in an effort to nab that X-Files audience. While this became the catalyst for Millennium sadly losing its way, it also directly led to episode 2×6, “The Curse of Frank Black,” which aired on Halloween night back in the dark ages of 1997.

Frank Black sits at home carving a jack-o-lantern and waiting for the right time to go pick up his daughter, Jordan, to take her trick-or-treating. Somewhere between grabbing his keys and sensing something a little bit off about this Halloween night, Frank sees the devil outside his home. And his nightmarish, unending Halloween night of terror begins, during which he recollects a terrifying Halloween past and sees that he’s in danger of it becoming his future.

“The Curse of Frank Black” is the creepiest episode across all three seasons of Millennium, heightened by its dark, windy, and foggy Halloween night weather. The Halloween ambiance is immense, along with its use of “ghost” stories, mischief, and the juxtaposition of fun Halloween scares and real, absolute danger. All that aside, the atmosphere is immensely effective and encompassing. It’s the type of night we Halloween enthusiasts wish for every year. On top of that is the creep factor: the brief few sightings of the devil are legitimately unnerving, and happenstance has Frank on foot in his old neighborhood where he stumbles across some teens egging the house he and his family lived in during happier times. Inside the empty house, he stumbles across more kids in the basement, spooking each other with ghost stories relating to someone from Frank’s past that died there.

For non-fans of the series, the episode is still a very effective watch. No, you won’t understand all the references and ins-and-outs, but for its mood, tone, and imagery alone, it’s a more than worthy Halloween night watch. (Read my full write-up on "The Curse of Frank Black.")

---

Hellions

Seventeen-year-old Dora Vogel (Chloe Rose) is having a bummer of a Halloween. Not only has she found out she’s pregnant, but a swath of demonic trick-or-treaters have descended upon her family’s isolated rural home intent on stealing her unborn baby. A one-location siege unfolds, with Dora fending off one attack after another from these costumed monster kids.

Hellions serves as a fun Halloween-infused action/horror hybrid, but also an allegory for Dora’s fears as a potential mother. That she finds herself battling evil children on the same day she finds out she’s pregnant is too on the nose to ignore, but soon the straightforwardness of the plot begins to dissipate and slowly transforms into a Lynchian nightmare, aided by the story’s surreal developments and the use of pink infrared film.

Hellions makes great use of the October aesthetic, littering the screen with pumpkin fields, Halloween decorations, and an army of deranged trick-or-treaters, and its very loose plot seems to be harvesting Halloween’s own history rooted in sacrifice and pagan worship. Every trick-or-treater’s design has the power to pulse with appropriate shiverage, and seeing them stand in crowds outside windows, in front of a flaming police cruiser, or idly on a swing set, is effortlessly eerie. Their manipulated childlike voices that whisper through their scarecrow burlap masks or oversized button-eyed doll faces cause the hair on the back of your neck to prick up.

Hellions isn’t quite a new minor Halloween classic, but it’s an interesting and worthy endeavor and deserves your fair chance. (Read my full write-up on Hellions.)

---

The Guest

Soldier David Collins shows up on the doorstep of the Peterson family, who are still reeling over the death of their soldier son, Caleb, to pass onto them Caleb’s premortem expression of his love. The Petersons invite David to stay with them until he can find a more permanent place to live. The always-smiling and perfectly polite David Collins, who inserts himself into the family’s lives, seems to be the perfect guy, until it’s revealed that he has an uncanny knack for killing — all, it would seem, without any hesitation or regret. It’s soon revealed that David Collins isn’t David Collins at all, and by the time everyone finds that out, it’s far too late, because he’s very, very dangerous.

Take the “living with the killer” concept popular in the 1990s, add the You’re Next team of writer Simon Barrett and director Adam Wingard and a healthy dose of 1992’s Universal Soldier, and you’ve got The Guest. That the film takes place at Halloween isn’t its only tie-in; The Guest is a hyper-violent and hyper-stylistic horror/thriller/action/comedy inspired by Carpenter’s late-’70s/early-’80s output, especially Halloween (and contains a fun nod to Halloween 3: Season of the Witch, the unfairly maligned, non-Michael Myers Halloween sequel). Collins embodies The Shape, including his soulless, expressionless demeanor, but this time, the mask he wears is that of humanity, and those around him can’t see him for what he really is.

The Guest offers a bit of counter-programming to your Halloween watching; it definitely satisfies in the horror department, but those wanting a little action will have an awesome time.

---

Kenny & Company

Don Coscarelli’s sophomore effort, Kenny & Company, is not an obvious choice for a Halloween movie. It’s actually not even a horror film. Instead, it’s about childhood – one fully formed by the freedom felt on Halloween night as you and your friends walked your neighborhood streets in your secret identities. It’s about the misadventures you got into, and the trouble you avoided (or nearly did). Coscarelli, most famously known for the Phantasm series, Bubba Ho-Tep and his newest, John Dies At the End, writes, produces, and directs this slice-of-life nostalgia piece about a small, nameless community in the Southern California suburbs, told through the eyes of the titular Kenny, in the week leading up to Halloween.

Refreshingly, the kids act, talk, and think like kids. And it all works to the intended comedic effect because it feels very real, and this includes the sequence in which the kids put on their Halloween costumes and go trick-or-treating, ending up at a neighborhood house’s garage of horrors. (It is during this sequence where the kids are pursued by a costumed man in the dark that inspired Coscarelli to go on to write and direct Phantasm, citing his extreme lack of enjoyment in watching his audience squirm in fear from the events occurring in that haunted garage.)

Is Kenny & Company a Halloween film? Not really—at least not in the traditional sense. But Halloween is on the film’s horizon, and it certainly nails that nostalgic look back at childhood, of which Halloween was a very big part. It wouldn’t be the first film you'd think to watch as we approach that late October day, but Halloween wasn’t only ever just scary, either. (Read my full appreciation for Kenny & Company.)

---

The Witch

After being excommunicated from their colony, a 1600s New England family journey to their new home in the middle of the woods to begin anew. But there’s something in the woods that doesn’t let them live in peace. And, at night, it comes for them — one by one.

The Witch isn’t interested in being a typical horror film. But that doesn’t mean it’s not interested in getting under your skin. It’s not a spoiler to say that this isn’t a case of “Is there a witch, or is it all in their heads?” The very real threat exists among this displaced, God-fearing family, looming over their new patchwork home in the woods like the night sky. Quick and hazy sightings of the force haunting them, rarely glimpsed but ever changing, heighten its malignancy. The thing going bump in the night is never made a primary on-screen force. It’s not hiding behind closet doors or hovering in the background of a mirror’s reflection. Its existence is felt in every frame, even if its visage is hardly sighted—a masterful accomplishment for any filmmaker, but especially writer/director Robert Eggers, making his directorial debut.

On its surface, The Witch has nothing to do with Halloween, but like The Woods, it still feels incredibly appropriate for some late-October watching. Something about colonial-era New England, the Salem Witch trials of Massachusetts — witchcraft in general — easily lends itself. As a bible thumper will be quick to remind you, Halloween has become “Satan’s holiday,” and boy oh boy does that make The Witch even more appropriate.

The Witch is very quiet and permeates with instant dread, and it’s classily and faithfully executed, but it’s not a Friday night party film like The Evil Dead. Not only does it make for an ideal Halloween film, but it makes for the final film of the night, when all is quiet, everyone’s gone to bed, and it’s just you, the silence, and the dark. (Read my full write-up on The Witch.)

---

Halloween 3: Season of the Witch

Once Michael Myers returned to the Halloween series, Halloween 3: Season of the Witch officially became the black-sheep of the franchise, but while its black-sheep status remains a fair label, it’s certainly not the turkey that many series fans like to say it is.

Halloween 3, lacking Michael Myers, instead features: Tom Atkins (rocking the mustache!), rumination on old Celtic beliefs/traditions as they pertain to Halloween, an evil corporation, Stonehenge, booby-trapped bug-filled Halloween masks, and, fuck yeah, robots. Here’s the thing, though, and hold onto your butts: While Halloween 3 is nowhere near a better film than the groundbreaking original (ha ha; lord, no), it does a far better job of incorporating the actual day of Halloween – and all the myths and iconography and history that come with it – directly into its storyline. We’re not just talking about some guy walking around in a mask on the day/night of Halloween and getting away with it because Halloween = masks. We’re talking about a revisitation of old-school Halloween; how it was celebrated and observed in lands foreign from our own; how the very idea of Halloween itself – one whose enduring popularity is credited to legions of children – is both the inspiration behind and the vehicle through which Halloween 3’s antagonist will carry forth his dastardly plan. If you know the legends and lore of Halloween, you know that the Halloween of today is a sanitized and watered-down version of what it used to be. It's this embracing of genuine Halloween that makes Season of the Witch an entertaining watch.

You might be looking at this selection and thinking, “How is this ‘obscure’ or ‘less obvious?'” If so, GOOD FOR YOU. Most Halloween series fans tend to hate Halloween 3, and these people tend to be awful. (Read my full appreciation for Halloween 3: Season of the Witch.)

---

Dark Night of the Scarecrow

It’s Halloween season in a nameless mid-western town where a young girl named Marylee and a simple-minded man named Bubba Ritter (Larry Drake) play together in the middle of a field. Bubba is harmless, but Otis (Charles Durning) and his cohorts believe he’s dangerous. After Marylee is viciously attacked by a dog, rumors spread that Bubba is to blame, so Otis gathers his hateful posse and heads out to the Ritter farm to exert some private justice. Bubba, attempting to hide within a scarecrow, is killed, and Otis and his posse are tried for Bubba’s murder. Without evidence, the men find themselves free, but then each of them begin seeing the Ritter farm scarecrow planted in the middle of their fields…before they’re picked off one by one at the hands of an unseen killer…perhaps by the ghost of Bubba himself.

Somehow, scarecrows have become infamous iconography of Halloween. Go to any Halloween party store and you’re likely to find a scarecrow mask or costume, or even a decapitated and blood-dripping scarecrow head (which makes no sense, but just go with it.) Despite this, the scarecrow has been used only moderately throughout horror cinema, which is a shame, because their visage is effortlessly creepy and could make for a good on-screen threat given the right approach. Dark Night of the Scarecrow is absolutely the best of this sub-genre, along with being one of the all-time greats in general.

In Dark Night of the Scarecrow, all the gruesomeness is left to your imagination. The men are killed, oh yes, and in imaginatively painful ways, but never on screen. It is old school in its execution because it is old school. And as the kids in town prepare for the Halloween dance, and as gusty, eerie winds pick up and blow dead leaves and trash cans down Main Street, the Halloween aesthetic will bring a smile to your face. (Read my full write-up on Dark Night of the Scarecrow.)

---

Ghostwatch

Ghostwatch is presented as a live BBC on-air special that spotlights an alleged haunted house on Foxhill Drive in London. The host of this show is Michael Parkinson, a well-known (and quite real) British journalist. Next to him sits Dr. Lin Pascoe, a parapsychologist who fervently believes that the spooky events occurring at Foxhill Drive are genuine signs of a haunting. And in the cursed house live the Early family; mother Pam and daughters Suzanne and Kim. Much like modern ghost-hunting shows of today, a camera crew enters the house to investigate the events the Early family claim to have been dealing with for months. Leading this crew is Sarah Greene, another well-known British personality. Sure enough, the house is haunted for real, and as the investigation unfolds, the events within the house steadily increase into utter chaos.

Ghostwatch is tremendous for many reasons, but most of all because it was planned, written, and executed simply to have something fun to play on Halloween night. Added to that, the Early family within their house still try to celebrate the night; the decorations are hung above the chimney with scare (haw haw), and the kids bob for apples in the kitchen. Outside, curious bystanders watching the production crew trade ghost stories about the house, or the surrounding areas, and one also very real TV personality, Craig Charles, cracks awful but awesome jokes about how difficult it would be to interview the Headless Horsemen because, “Where do you point the microphone?”

Ghostwatch caused a huge stir following its one and only airing because many viewers thought it was 100% real, despite the BBC’s many attempts before, during, and after the show’s airing to make sure people knew it was entirely scripted. It even led to a young viewer, who suffered psychological problems, to take his own life after he believed his house to be haunted by the same ghost featured in Ghostwatch, leaving a suicide note to his mother which read: “if there are ghosts, I will be … with you always as a ghost.” It’s for this reason that Ghostwatch has never aired again in England (or anywhere), although the “real” story behind the film — known as the Enfield Poltergeist — has been dramatized several times since then, most notably and recently in The Conjuring 2.

Ghostwatch has never enjoyed an official U.S. release, but you can watch the whole thing on Youtube. (Read my full write-up on Ghostwatch.)

---

The Halloween Tree

Author Ray Bradbury provided the teleplay adaptation of his novel (which earned him an Emmy award) and also provides the narration for his tale about a group of kids and the very mysterious Mr. Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud (Leonard Nimoy) pursuing the kids’ friend, Pip, across time and the world – from the pyramids of ancient Egypt to the cathedrals of Notre Dame – with each providing a bit of history on Halloween’s beginnings.

For obvious reasons, The Halloween Tree is essential Halloween watching, although it’s fallen into obscurity over the years since its award-winning release. Not just set on Halloween night, it’s a trip back to a real history that provides a perspective on how different cultures honor and celebrate death. (Both the novel and the film are an allegory for death.) This adaptation sees some minor changes from its novel, but the spirit of the story remains in place. Famed studio Hanna-Barbera provided the animation, and while it’s a reflection of the time it was made, it’s still beautiful to watch. Meanwhile, Nimoy does a good job with voicing Moundshroud, going for a strange, almost bird-like screeching voice instead of the deep baritone for which he was well known.

Regardless of when you discovered this movie – whether in your youth or your adulthood – it contains the power to enthrall and fill you with that certain kind of nostalgia that only usually happens by accident. But The Halloween Tree works in this regard. It will fill you with the kind of melancholy that only occurs when revisiting your childhood, but you’ll also laugh and maybe tear up as you watch these kids tumble through different lands and time periods, all in hopes of saving their friend. By the end, you’ll be wishing your friends were as loyal and devoted as Jenny the Witch, Ralph the Mummy, Wally the Monster, and Tom Skelton the you-know-what. (Read my full-write up on The Halloween Tree.)

---