Happy Halloween to all. I apologize for how long it's been since my last post. I have been preparing for something really big in the month of November which I hope will be worth the wait. However, since Halloween being only a few days away, I couldn't let this week pass without a little holiday-themed post.
With the country currently focused on the hurricane that's preparing to hit the eastern coastline, there are those who might forget about the popular holiday celebrated by people young and old dressing up in costumes and munching away on candy corn and miniature Hershey bars. In fact, even as I post this entry into my blog, businesses and schools are closing down, and in some towns, there are plans to postpone the annual Trick-or-Treating activity until the weekend. So, how can the families who are directly affected by the approaching storm still find the time to enjoy this old holiday dedicated to ghosts and ghouls? Why not stay indoors, whip up a steaming bowl of popcorn, and switch on a holiday-appropriate movie?
Today's post is dedicated to those choice movies that could entertain all the home-bound families who still wish to honor Halloween. What follows is a list of 30 different movies that could fit the bill. The following movies might either be frightening, spooky, or simply take place on Halloween. Regardless for which category they belong under, these movies should successfully scare or entertain you. So take a gander, see if you can spot your favorites, and maybe you'll even discover something new to see.
1)Nightmare on Elm Street- One of the most iconic names within the horror
movie genre is Robert Englund, made famous by his portrayal of Freddy Krugar,
the antagonist of the Nightmare on Elm
Street films. In this film series,
Fred Krugar was a child murderer who successfully killed twenty children in the
fictional town of Springwood, Ohio.
After the police were forced to release him from prison due to a
technicality, the parents of some of Krugar’s victims took justice into their
own hands by setting his lair on fire, thereby burning him alive. Years later, Krugar manages to return as a
dream demon bent on revenge, which he delivers by infiltrating the dreams of
the teenage children belonging to the parents who hunted him down. When Krugar kills the teenagers in their
dreams, the teenager dies in real life.
However, I must admit I could have done without parts 2 and 6 in the
film series, as they both seem to come out of nowhere. While most of the first
five movies seem to follow a set pattern, with the survivors from the previous
film interacting with new characters in the following films, the characters and
events in part 2 are never even brought up again, except in montage sequences. And then, in part 6, they decide to make up a
twist that essentially contradicts the previous continuity. I have nothing against plot twists in general,
but when there is absolutely no hint or even obscure reference about that twist
in any of the five films preceding part 6, I call foul, particularly when it
involves changing Krugar’s motives in killing the teenagers of Springwood in
their dreams.
2)Friday the 13th-
Summer camp is typically thought to be a fun experience for all, but in this
franchise, summer camp becomes something to be feared and dreaded. In the late
1950s, a small boy named Jason attended a summer camp called Camp Crystal Lake
and ended up drowning in the lake.
Jason’s mother, who worked at the camp as a cook, blamed the camp
councilors for her son’s death, as the two councilors who were supposed to be
watching the children were off having sex at the time Jason drowned, and killed
two of them. The campground closes down
shortly after these murders, but afer a time, attempts are made to reopen the
camp. But every time an attempt is made,
something happens to prevent the camp from opening. As the first movie opens, a fresh attempt at
reopening Camp Crystal Lake is being made, but an
unseen killer starts stalking the potential camp counselors while they are busy
setting up the camp, and begins killing them off one-by-one. In the end, it’s revealed that the killer is
Jason’s mother, Mrs. Voorhees, who wants the campground to remain closed so
another tragic accident wouldn't happen.
While Mrs. Vorhees is decapitated by the one surviving counselor, Alice, during the
latter’s struggle to survive, it is later revealed that Jason, whose body was
never recovered, somehow survived his drowning.
After avenging his mother by tracking down Alice and killing her in her apartment, the franchise continues with Jason continuing to kill anyone who wanders close to the abandoned Camp Crystal Lake
site. I have to give this movie props
for how well most of the movies connect with each other. Whenever a new movie begins, you can tell the
people who wrote the script paid attention to the previous film and didn't
ignore anything that happened before.
The only exception to this is the ninth movie, Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday, which has two strikes against
it, and is what I view as this franchise’s version of the sixth Nightmare on Elm Street movie. Not only is there no explanation as to how
Jason came back to life and made it back to Crystal Lake
(the film before this one had Jason defeated in Manhattan), but it also informs us that Jason
also had a long-lost sister. To make it
even worse, Jason can suddenly ‘possess’ random people, a power he didn’t have
in any of the previous films.
Thankfully, apart from that installment, you can pretty much watch all
the movies in order without getting upset at a glaring continuity issue, with
the exception of part five, Friday the
13th: A New Beginning, which is more of a side-story, very similar to Nightmare on Elm Street part 2.
3)Halloween-
While many people might think Jason and Freddy are two halves of the same coin,
I say it’s more appropriate to say that they’re actually the first two parts of
a trinity, with Michael Myers standing as the third component of that
trinity. And he has more than earned his
place in that slasher-killer trinity.
Like Freddy and Jason, his story is legendary. On Halloween night, six-year-old Michael
fatally stabbed his teenage sister.
After the murder, he was placed in Smith's Grove Sanitarium, where he
remained for fifteen years, frequently being visited by his psychiatrist, Dr.
Loomis. But then, when Michael had
turned 21, he escaped from Smith Groove and returned to his home town of Haddonfield. Throughout the saga of Michael Myers, he
targets his long-lost little sister, Laurie, his niece, Jamie, and even his
cousin’s family, brutally killing everyone who unluckily crosses his path. However, like the last two franchises, this
one also has two installments that could be left out. The first, obviously, is Halloween 3: Season of the Witch.
This one doesn't even try to continue the story of Michael Myers, and
instead gives us this rather odd, convoluted anti-children story about some demon-worshiping
cult, cursed Halloween masks that are programmed to kill the person wearing
them, and harnessing the magic infused inside Stonehenge.
Needless to say, I didn't give that movie a second viewing. The last movie in the franchise, Halloween Resurrection, is also quite
odd, and it appears to have been made only in an attempt to make more money for
Dimension and Miramax Films. Basically, in
this film, Michael returns to his childhood home to basically retire after his
mission of killing his whole family is completed, only to find that a bunch of
idiots have decided to host a live reality TV show inside his house. This premise is made even more confusing and
irritating by the fact that, based on what the previous films have told us,
Michael still has four blood relatives that, to our knowledge, are still alive
and well somewhere: his nephew, John, a cousin named Kara, Kara’s son, Danny
(who is therefore Michael’s first-cousin-once-removed) and a great-nephew who
was given the name Steven. Unless he has
somehow tracked those people down between films, Michael doesn't seem to care
anymore that he still has family members left alive. All things considered, they really should
have stopped after Halloween H20.
4)The Shining-
Seeing as how I've already posted a full review on this movie, I’m not going to
say much about it here. However, it is
still a delightful romp, particularly if you enjoy movies that are ridiculously
over the top in insanity. (No pun intended)
5)Amityville Horror-
I’d be surprised if someone hasn’t heard of this infamous story yet. In 1975, the Lutz family moves into a house
that was considered to be at a bargain price.
Thirteen months before the Lutz family had moved in, the house in
question had been the location of the brutal DeFeo murders, in which
23-year-old Robert DeFeo killed his parents and four siblings with a .35 caliber
rifle. When questioned by the police, he
insisted that he’d heard voices in the house that told him to kill his
family. After the Lutz family moved into
the house, they allegedly started experiencing a number of unsettling things
within the house. In the end, a month
after they moved in, the Lutz family fled the house, leaving behind all their
possessions. The Lutz family insisted
that the house was haunted, but the various people who lived in the house
following the Lutz family have reported no paranormal experiences within the
house. While I do believe in the
existence of ghosts, I personally agree with those who think the whole
Amityville Horror story was simply a hoax the Lutz family came up with. In spite of this, the 1979 movie based on the
Lutz family’s story is still an entertaining flick. 
6)The Poltergeist
trilogy- In the first movie in this trilogy, the Freeling family enjoy a
seemingly comfortable life in a Californian planned community. However, their comfort comes to an end when
their young daughter, Carol Anne, starts hearing voices coming from the static
on the television. In the days that
follow, furniture starts moving on their own, drinking glasses explode, and
forks and spoons bend. Then, one night, during
a violent thunder storm, a spooky-looking tree in the backyard inexplicably
comes to life and tries to eat the Freeling family’s pre-teen son, Robbie. While the rest of the family is distracted
with Robbie’s plight, Carol Anne is abruptly pulled through a mysterious portal
in her bedroom closet and vanishes. In
the days that follow Carol Anne’s disappearance, the family enlists the help of
a group of parapsychologists and a spiritual medium called Tangina in order to
get Carol Anne back. It is Tangina who
discovers that the house is haunted by many different spirits, including a
demon. This demon, known as ‘The Beast,’
is keeping the various ghosts from their eternal rest, and is using Carol Anne
to control them. Even though the family
manages to save their daughter, ‘The Beast’ refuses to let her go and continues
to try and reclaim the girl. The rest of
the trilogy follows Carol Anne’s continued attempts to escape from the entity
that is bent on abducting her, following her to Phoenix, Arizona and then to her
aunt and uncle’s apartment in a luxury skyscraper. This trilogy is particularly chilling when one
remembers the rumors that the movies were cursed, a rumor fueled by the fact
that real cadavers were used as props in the filming of Poltergeist and Poltergeist
II. Whether or not the curse
really exists or not, the fact remains that four cast members died throughout
the run of the trilogy, including Heather O'Rourke, the little 12-year-old girl
who portrayed Carol Anne in all three films, who is reported to have died of
cardiac arrest and septic shock four months before Poltergeist III’s theatrical release.
7)Steven King’s It-
One of the many Steven King novels-turned-movies, It tells the story of a group of friends from a small town in Maine
who learn their town is plagued by a shape-shifting demon that awakens from
hibernation every thirty years and hunts children in order to devour both their
flesh and their fear. When the creature
kills the younger brother of the group’s unofficial leader, the kids band
together and fight It off, forcing the demon to return to hibernation
early. Years later, when the children
have all grown up and attempted to put the ordeal behind them, It reawakens and
begins his killing spree again. In order
to keep the promise they’d made to each other as children, the friends all return
to the town they’d tried to leave behind, vowing to vanquish the evil for good. The story is unique in the sense of how the
half of the story is told in a series of flashbacks. The only downside to this is the fact that
these flashbacks make the entire movie rather lengthy, which is probably why it
also exists in the form of a miniseries.
8)The Witches-
Based on the book written by the famous children’s author, Roald Dahl, and
featuring the puppet wizardry of Jim Henson, The Witches follows a young boy named Luke. After Luke looses his parents in a car
accident, he is taken to live with his grandmother, Helga. Helga tells Luke stories about demonic-like
witches who despise children, also instructing him how to recognize them. On Luke’s ninth birthday, Helga falls ill
with a diabetes related sickness, and the doctor suggests that they go on
vacation by the seaside in order for Hilda to recover her health. While Luke and Helga are staying at a hotel
in Cornwall, a
children’s charity group called The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
to Children arrives at the same hotel for their annual convention. Luke, while playing with his pet mice in one
of the hotel’s ballrooms, inadvertently discovers that the charity group is
actually a group of witches, who are plotting to eliminate all the children in
the world by turning them into mice.
When the witches discover Luke, they force-feed him their evil potion,
transforming him into a mouse. Luke the
mouse manages to escape getting stomped on and finds his way to his Helga, Together,
they try and come up with a plan to stop the witches plan and save the world’s
children.
9)13 Ghosts-
Starring Tony Shalhoub before his days as the main character in the well-known
comedy/detective show, Monk, 13 Ghosts follows widower Arthur
Kriticos and his two children, who learn that they have inherited a mansion
from Arthur’s recently deceased Uncle Cyrus, an eccentric ghost hunter. When the family arrives at their new mansion,
they find that the entire house was constructed with glass walls and floors,
all with strange Latin phrases written on them.
However, it is soon revealed to Arthur and his children, with the help
of Uncle Cyrus’ former assistant, that the house was actually a machine
designed to open up a gateway to Hell, with the machine’s power coming from 12
violent ghosts contained within the house’s basement. When Arthur’s children go missing, Arthur is
told that the only way to free them is if he willingly sacrifices himself,
thereby becoming the 13th ghost: a ghost created out of an act of
love, which would result in the machine’s destruction. As one might expect, there are a fair amount
of jump scares and freighting images in this movie, but there are also some
moments of comic relief. Even if you’re
among those who find the movie’s plot to be poorly written, the visual style
and the ghost fright factor still makes this haunted flick a must-see.
10) The Frighteners-
After Frank Bannister loses his wife in a car accident, he discovers he has
gained the ability to see ghosts. With
this ability, he befriends three ghosts, Cyrus, Stuart and the Judge. Together, they develop a con game in which
Frank ‘exorcises’ houses that are haunted by his ghost friends. Shortly after Frank cons a health nut named Ray
and his wife, Lucy, Ray dies suddenly of a heart attack and comes back as a
ghost. With the help of Ray’s ghost,
Frank discovers the existence of a Grim Reaper-like entity that is going around
killing people and leaving numbers etched into the foreheads of its
victims. Because Frank can see the
numbers appearing in the victim’s foreheads before their deaths, he is able to
know who will be targeted ahead of time.
Unfortunately, this only results in the local police force to become
suspicious of him. Thus, Frank’s only real
ally in his attempts at stopping the entity is Ray’s widow, Lucy, who becomes a
target of the entity herself. This movie
is far from perfect, however. While it
successfully manages to be suspenseful and chilling at times, it is also
somewhat predictable. If you pay
attention in the beginning, you will know immediately who the entity really is from
the moment they explain how the body of Frank’s late wife was found after the
car accident. After that, the only real
question left is when the greasy-haired cop, Dammers, is going to get a life.
11) Ghostbusters-
Let’s be honest; what Halloween Flick list would be complete without the
popular supernatural comedy from the 1980s?
The story about a group of parapsychologists who loose their job at Columbia University and then decide to open up
their own business as paranormal exterminators, setting up shop in a retired
firehouse has become a household name.
Their first client is a single woman, Dana Barrett, whose apartment is
being haunted by demonic dog-like creature.
It is eventually discovered the entire apartment complex was actually
created by a cult leader who specifically designed the building to open up a
portal that would summon up an ancient Sumerian god who would bring about the
end of the world. It’s up to the
Ghostbusters to vanquish the evil god and prevent the world-wide
destruction. In spite of the fact that
this movie is labeled as a comedy, there are still plenty of rather scary
sequences. One of the most terrifying moments
is the part when Sigourney Weaver’s character is pulled into her kitchen to be
possessed by the demon dog. To this day,
I cannot sleep with the closet light on, and I blame it all on this scene.
12)The Worst Witch-
When it comes to movies with dazzlingly cheesy special effects, this is the Holy
Grail. The movie, which is based on the
first installment of a series of children’s books written by Jill Murphy, follows
young Mildred Hubble, who is in her first year at Miss Cackle's Academy for Witches.
Though well-meaning, Mildred simply can’t seem to perform even the
simplest spell correctly, and constantly messes things up. This quickly earns her the reputation as the
worst witch in the whole school, and a regular target for the harsh Ms.
Hardbroom’s criticism. When the snobbish
and vindictive student Ethel plays a cruel prank on Mildred that results in
poor Mildred taking the blame for the whole school being humiliated in front of
the Grand High Wizard, Mildred attempts to run away from the school in order to
avoid expulsion. But once she leaves
school grounds, she finds herself in a position where she must summon her full
magical potential to save everyone in the school from being turned into frogs. As I said, this movie is chock full of the
cheapest, most cheesy special effects imaginable, including painfully bad
green-screen action. Plus, it’s the only
time where you will see Tim Curry starring in an almost-four-minute long music
video. That alone makes this movie worth
seeing.
13)The Halloween that
Almost Wasn't- Some people might know this movie by it's alternative name, The Night Dracula Saved the World. Even though this was a made-for-TV movie, it was probably
one of the few films where you got to see Dracula, the Wolf Man, the Mummy,
Frankenstein’s Monster, a zombie and a witch interacting with each other. The story begins with a newscaster informing
listeners about a rumor that Halloween might be coming to and end and blaming
Dracula for good measure. This
accusation disturbs Dracula, so he invites his fellow monsters to his castle,
thinking that they need to remember how to be scary once again. It turns out that the rumors about Halloween
coming to an end were actually started by the Witch herself, who has grown
tired of everyone making jokes about how ugly she is. Unwilling to put up with this any longer, the
Witch refuses to take part in her time-honored tradition of riding her
broomstick past the moon. Without that
ride, there can be no Halloween. The
Witch’s fellow monsters try everything they can think of to change her mind,
but in the end, it’s a pair of ordinary children who get through to her,
convincing her that people really do love her in spite of her ugliness. And for those of you who think this film
doesn’t sound wacky enough as it is, consider the fact that it ends with
Dracula and the Witch doing disco.
14)Spaced Invaders-
On October 30th, 1938, Orson Welles came onto the radio to act out a
special Halloween episode for an American radio drama anthology series, which
Welles had adapted from H.G. Wells’ novel, The
War of the Worlds. Since the drama
was presented in the form of a series of psudo-news broadcast, it’s reported
that many listeners believed that an alien invasion was actually happening and
began to panic. In this movie set in the
1990s, the phrase ‘history repeats itself’ gains a new meaning when a radio
station located in a tiny Illinois town called Big Bean decides to replay this
broadcast as a special Halloween treat.
This time, the radio broadcast is intercepted by a crew of Martians, who
have gotten lost en route to an interstellar war against Mars’ long-time enemy,
the Arcturans. Believing that the radio
broadcast is referring to the rest of the fleet, the Martians head down to
earth to share in the glory. Since it is
Halloween in Big Bean, everyone in town simply thinks the Martians are kids in
costumes. However, a little girl named
Kathy, the daughter of the town’s new sheriff, realizes the truth and tries to
help them get back into space when the Martians realize their error. It quickly becomes clear that they don’t have
much time to do so when it’s discovered that the Martians’ ship’s hyperdriver
begins to meltdown. If the Martians
can’t get their spacecraft back to zero gravity soon, it could explode and
create a black hole.15)Buffy the Vampire Slayer- Buffy, a shallow valley girl, has nothing on her mind apart from shopping at the mall with her friends and attending cheerleader practice. All that changes when she is approached by a Merrik, a mysterious man whom Buffy previously encountered at a local mall. Merrik informs Buffy that every generation, there is one person who is marked by fate to hunt and kill vampires, and when one slayer dies, she is reincarnated to become the next slayer. He tells Buffy that she is the chosen slayer for her generation. Initially, Buffy is dismissive of his story, but once Merrik proves to her that vampires do exist, she eventually agrees to train. As Buffy undergoes Merrik’s training, she not only becomes skilled as a vampire slayer, but also begins to become a much stronger person, recognizing how meaningless her past values really were. But when Merrik is killed before her training can be completed, Buffy is left with the knowledge that she will have to eventually face Lothos, the supreme leader of the vampires whom all the previous slayers have perished trying to kill. While some people look down on this movie but praise the TV series that preceded it, I've always felt that this movie is an underrated classic. Maybe I simply like movies where irritating and shallow characters grow undergo a series of events that help them grow into a deeper, stronger person but eventually succeed using the skills they already possessed while they were still shallow. After all, that plotline worked in Legally Blonde, didn’t it?
16)Hocus Pocus-
In 1693, three witch sisters living in Salem
plot to absorb the life force of children to remain young. After they successfully lure a young girl to
their cottage and steal her life force, they are captured and hung by the
townspeople of Salem. Before she dies, the leader of the witch
sisters, Winifred, lays a curse upon the town, announcing that on a Halloween
night when the moon is full, a virgin will resurrect them, and they will return
to claim the lives of all the children in Salem. Three hundred years later, a skeptical teenager
named Max has just moved to Salem
with his parents and younger sister, Dani.
Unbelieving of the town’s legend surrounding the witch sisters, Max
carelessly lights the black flame candle, an object that allegedly raises the
dead. In doing so, he activates
Winifred’s curse, and the witch sisters come back to life. In order to stop the witches and save the
lives of the town’s children, Max and his sister, Dani, must team up with
Alison, Max’s newfound crush, and Thackary Binx, the older brother of the girl
the witch sisters killed in 1693, whom Winifred had cursed to spend eternity as
an immortal black cat.
18)Halloweentown-
13-year-old Marnie Piper simply loves Halloween, but her mother, Gwen,
absolutely refuses to allow Marnie or her younger brother and sister, Dylan and
Sophie, to go Trick-or-Treating, or attend any Halloween parties. However, on the Halloween night the movie
focuses on, the family receives a surprise visit from Gwen’s mother, Aggie
Cromwell. During Aggie’s visit, Marnie eavesdrops
on a conversation between her mother and grandmother, which reveals that the
entire Cromwell clan are witches from a parallel universe called
Halloweentown. Amazed by this discovery,
Marnie secretly follows Aggie back to Halloweentown, with Dylan and Sophie
tagging along. Upon arriving in
Halloweentown, the three children learn that the parallel dimension is in
terrible danger, as a mysterious hooded demon-like creature is threatening to
put an end to Halloweentown. Halloweentown has three sequels in
existence, but the latter two sequels sort of go off the track, maintaining
little continuity with the first two films in the Halloweentown saga. Needless
to say, I’m a bit annoyed that they abandoned the storyline that stopped after
the first sequel.
21)Ernest Scared
Stupid- The late Jim Varney’s most iconic alter-ego, Ernest P. Worrel is at
it again. In his fifth full-length
movie, it is revealed that Ernest’s ancestor, Phineas Worrell, once vanquished
a troll that was kidnapping children and turning them into wooden dolls back in
19th century Missouri. When the troll was buried at the base of an
old oak tree, the troll vowed that he would one day return and overthrow
humanity. In modern times, Ernest, upon
learning of the old legend about his ancestor from Old Lady Hackmore, incites
the incantation that would revive the troll.
So, of course, the troll returns and immediately starts attacking the
town’s children. Well-meaning Ernest
sets out to correct his mistake by defeating the troll and saving the
town. Unfortunately, as nearly everyone
knows, Ernest is far from the sharpest crayon in the box, and he’s bound to
make things worse before finally getting it right.
22)The Canterville Ghost-
Originally a short story by Oscar Wilde, the story of the Canterville Ghost has
been adapted into a six different film adaptations. There’s even an animated version of this
story in the works, with the release date currently scheduled for Christmas
2014. Each version has slight
differences, but the overall plot remains the same. (My favorite version is the 1985 version
starring Richard Kiley and Jenny Beck.) The
Cantervile Ghost is mainly about Sir Simon, who has been trapped on Earth as a
ghost for many years. When a family
moves into the house Sir Simon is doomed to haunt, the family’s daughter forms
a friendship-of-sorts with the ghost.
After Sir Simon confides in the family’s daughter the tragic story that
has condemned him to haunt the house for eternity, the girl agrees to aid Sir
Simon in appealing to the Angel of Death, in the hopes that the Angel of Death
will grant Sir Simon forgiveness and allow him to pass on to his eternal rest.
24)The Halloween Tree-
Based on the novel of the same name, this movie follows four children on their
journey to save their friend’s life.
When a boy called Pip falls ill on Halloween night and is taken to the
hospital for an emergency appendectomy, his spirit slips out of his body. In order to get Pip’s wandering spirit back
where it belongs, his four friends, Tom, Jenny, Ralph and Wally, seek out the
help of a mysterious man known as Moundshroud.
Disappointed that the four children have no knowledge of the meaning
behind their Halloween costumes, Moundshrould initially refuses to help them
get Pip back, but eventually relents, as long as they can keep up with
him. What follows is a rather
informative but entertaining lesson of the origins of modern-day
Halloween. Moundshrould takes the four
children on a journey through time, where they end up in Ancient Egypt, witness
rituals performed by Celtic Druids, help build the Notre Dame Catherdal in Paris, and even attend a Day of the Dead festival in Mexico. I highly recommend this film to anyone who is
lucky enough to come across it, particularly if you have children who think
Halloween is just about the candy.
25) Hold That Ghost-
In this comedy starring Abbot and Costello, the famous comedic duo from the 40s
and 50s, two gas station attendants named Chuck and Ferdie end up inheriting a
tavern through a rather unusual clause in the will of a recently-killed
gangster. Unbeknownst by Chuck and
Ferdie, the dead gangster had hidden money in the tavern, and some of the other
gangsters have followed them to the tavern to find it. As the night goes on, strange things start
occurring. Dead bodies appear and then
disappear, a bedroom instantly transforms to a gambling room, objects move on
their own, and people become frightened by glowing eyes. In summary, this is a very enjoyable cross
between a comedy and a murder mystery, and it’s definitely a must-see.
26) Frankinweenie (The
Original)- As audiences flock to theaters to see the most recent
stop-motion film, they may not realize that this is actually the second time
Tim Buton told us this story about a boy named Victor who brings his beloved
bull terrier, Sparky, back to life by taking a page out of Dr. Frankenstein’s
book. In 1984, Frankinweenie was produced as a live-action short film starring Barret
Oliver. There were a lot of little
homages to the actual Frankenstein films in this mini-movie, too, including the
infamous burning of the windmill (which is located in a miniature golf course)
and there’s even a brief appearance of a black poodle that sports the hairstyle
of the Bride of Frankenstein. So, for
all those who have a desire to see the remake, I urge you to check out the
original version as well.
27) Tower of Terror- Like Disney’s Haunted Mansion,
this movie was also based on a popular Disney theme park ride. However, while Haunted Mansion premiered in movie theaters, this was a made-for-TV
movie. In 1939, five people, a singer,
her boyfriend, a bellhop, a Shirley Temple-like child actress named Sally Shine,
and Sally’s nanny, Emeline Partridge, came to the Hollywood Tower Hotel to
attend a party that was being held on the top floor of the hotel. As they were taking the elevator ride up to
the party, a bolt of lightning struck the tower, and the five people in the
elevator disappeared. Years later, a
modern-day newspaper reporter, Buzzy, and his niece, Anna, meet with an elderly
woman named Abigail, who tells them that Mrs. Partridge, Sally Shine’s nanny,
had been annoyed with Sally’s spoiled attitude and had thus cast an evil spell
on the girl. However, the spell
backfired, which resulted in the five people who were on that fateful elevator
ride to become trapped as spirits in the earthly realm. Abigail explains that, in order to free the
trapped spirits from the hotel, they must repair the broken-down elevator and
locate something that belonged to each of the five missing people. With the assistance of a reluctant mechanic,
who happens to be the grandson of the missing bellhop, Buzzy and Anna work to
try and help Abigail free the trapped spirits.
However, Buzzy and Anna don’t realize that it was Abigail who actually
trapped the spirits in the first place, and they are actually helping her
complete the original spell.
28) Stepmonster-
Most people may not remember this B-list movie, but how many times will you see
Alan Thicke, Cory Feldman, and John Astin appearing together in the same movie? This film opens with a young boy named Todd
going on a camping trip with his parents.
During this camping trip, Todd’s mother vanishes without a trace, and
she is eventually declared legally dead.
Six months later, Todd’s father announces his plans to remarry, this
time to Denise, a woman he conveniently happened to meet on the day Todd’s
mother disappeared. However, comic book
fan Todd knows that Denise is not what she appears to be. He quickly comes to realize that his
soon-to-be stepmother is actually a Tropokin, a shape-shifting, man-eating
monster who is periodically killing the neighbors off one-by-one. Denise plans to marry Todd’s dad on the
Summer Solstice, when the Tropokin’s fertility is at its highest. Unfortunately, no one believes Todd’s
warnings, apart from his babysitter, Wendy (who nearly became one of Denise’s
victims herself), and Wendy’s goofy boyfriend, Phlegm. Together, they try to find out how to stop
the Denise before she makes Todd’s dad her next victim.
29) Watcher in the
Woods- The premise of this obscure Disney movie from 1980 is rather
straightforward. A family of four moves
into an old manor house, owned by the elderly Mrs. Aylwood. Immediately upon their arrival, the family’s
eldest daughter, Jan, begins to witness a number of strange happenings, from
eerie blue lights in the surrounding woods to the ghostly image of a
blindfolded girl that appears in mirrors.
What’s more, Jan’s younger sister starts hearing voices that only she
can hear. As the story progresses, it’s
revealed that thirty years ago, Mrs. Alywood’s only daughter, Karen,
mysteriously disappeared one night during a séance-like ritual Karen and her friends
were performing. Jan is convinced that
the strange things she and her sister have been witnessing are caused by Karen,
trying to reach out for help. While the
acting in this movie leaves much to be desired at times, particularly when it
comes to the actress who portrays Jan, the overall concept of this story is pretty
good, and there are some rather creepy moments, particularly considering the
movie was made by the famously kid-friendly Disney Company.
So, that was my list of must-see Halloween Flicks. If you didn't see a movie that you felt should have been included, feel free to discuss it in the comment section below. Perhaps it's among the movies I haven't discovered yet. Until next time, have a Happy Halloween, and above all, stay safe.
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