October is my favorite month of the year. At night I find myself submerged in mounds of blankets on the couch, sipping hot cider out of ceramic mugs and staring up at the Walmart spiderwebs I draped on my bureau in awe at my decorating skills. While all of these things place a warm hum through my heart, the best part of the night is always when my roommates and I pop on a Halloween movie.
We love every part of them, no matter how cheesy. Each and every jumpscare is cherished, every werewolf montage valued and every ghost in the corner of the frame adored. If resumes worked differently, I’m sure my Halloween curriculum vitae would knock the socks off any interviewer. Given the many years of experience I have plopping down on couches and watching Michael Myers do his thing, I feel more than qualified to share some spooky recommendations!
“It”
When I saw Pennywise the clown pull a little boy into a sewer and eat his arm, I thought I might die in my seat. When I recovered, my heart was won instantly by the group of misfits that went looking for the little boy, all brought together by his older brother, Bill. Horror movies don’t generally phase me with their use of jump scares and gore. The group of children being targeted by the clown though were marvelous actors leaving me feeling too invested to feel indifferent. I rooted for the underdog boy who liked poetry, the young girl who felt betrayed by her feminine qualities, the boy with the overbearing mother, and most of all the boy who just wanted desperately to get his little brother back. Yes, this movie had terrifying dancing clowns and bones being twisted on screen, but what makes it the horror movie to watch above others is the heart.
“Halloweentown”
For a large portion of millennials, watching “Halloweentown” brings back instant memories to being a young kid on Halloween. Some people think of “Hocus Pocus” for their guide to all witchery, but personally I’ve always looked to the Cromwell family. The movie focuses on the eldest Cromwell sister, Marnie, on her 13th birthday. After that day, she will no longer be able to enter Halloweentown and accept her powers. Hearing this, she stows away on a bus that leaps from the street like a bird and takes her to Halloweentown. When her grandmother sees that Marnie has come, she is ecstatic. She then realizes there’s something awful happening in the town at that exact time. Luckily, she has Marnie there to help her, along with her other siblings who snuck along too. Every year in October I make sure to watch the Cromwell clan take on this evil together.
“Beetlejuice”
“Beetlejuice” follows a newly deceased married couple as they navigate the ins and outs of the afterlife. If you’ve ever thought about what happens when you die you’ve probably never imagined it like this. There are a lot of interesting visuals in the film: ghosts waiting in line to speak with afterlife customer service, demons transforming their heads into snakes just for the heck of it and a poltergeist advertising his crude haunting services in TV infomercials. The movie stars a young Winona Ryder as a goth teenager who recently moved into the home of the dead couple. If you want a fun night filled with kooky ghouls than Beetlejuice is for you!
“Sweeney Todd”
“Sweeney Todd “is a musical dramedy about a man just released from prison after being wrongfully convicted 15 years ago. His obvious next move involves him starting to turn people into meat pies. While he is preparing to take revenge on the judge that sentenced him, he meets a snappy pie shop owner named Mrs. Lovett who combines her craziness with his own craziness in the worst possible way. He works as a barber and kills his clients with his shaving raiser while she enhances her pies with their bodies. A dynamic duo. For a movie about cannibalism it’s oddly funny and entertaining, definitely worth a watch!
“The Corpse Bride”
The movie begins when Victor Van Dort ran into the woods following a public embarrassment at his wedding rehearsal dinner to practice his vows. As he was practicing, the ghost of a woman appears, thinking he was professing his love for her. The woman, Emily, is a skeleton like figure with a maggot crawling in and out of her eye socket. Not exactly a blushing bride. Hearing this, Emily sweeps Victor down to the Underworld to start their life together. Victor has to decide between staying with Emily, who he is feeling a strong connection with, and his fiancé from the living room who he cares for deeply. The movie has all kinds of fun characters, each their own brand of deceased. There’s romance, humor, music, and plenty of spooky characters! This movie is the underappreciated sister of Nightmare Before Christmas that deserves more appreciation.