This week, the staff of Renegade Cinema discusses what movie they would watch on Halloween over any other. Agree or disagree, let us know your favorite in the comment section below.
Trick ‘r Treat
Ruby Le Rouge: Ah, easy one. Trick ‘r Treat. It’s the perfect Halloween horror movie, and one of the most underrated flicks. It’s all about honoring Halloween, and introduces us to Sam, the spirit of the holiday, who punishes those who don’t do just that.
With a tied in anthology format, and half the cast of Bryan Fuller ‘s Dead Like Me, how can you go wrong?
Shawn S. Lealos: When I am choosing a movie to watch on Halloween, I want scares but I also want fun and Trick ‘r Treat delivers fun in spades. Honestly, this movie was dumped by the studio when it was released and deserved a much better treatment. Luckily, fate was kind and this has become a huge cult film. It is an anthology film that has horror for everyone – from a slasher killer to a ghost story to a werewolf short to an awesome new horror icon in Sam. This movie is something I plan to watch every Halloween from here on.
Fright Night
Caliber Winfield: The original Fright Night of course, the remake can go to hell. Anyway, the 5 star classic has been a staple of my family for Halloween night for years. It’s one of my all time favorite films, and I have to resist the urge to see it during other times of the year, making it that much better on Halloween.
For those that haven’t seen it, shame on you, first of all. It’s about a guy who believes, and later learns that it’s true, that his neighbor is a vampire. He soon realizes that this knowledge is going to cost him his life, so ne enlists the help of his horror-host and quasi-hero, Peter Vincent. However, he soon realizes that Peter is only the fearless hero on film, and quite the opposite otherwise.
The acting, the characters, the effects, absolutely everything creates one of the all time greatest films I’ve ever seen. The remake is a heartless pile of crap that completely missed every valuable aspect of the original, and deserved the slow, penniless death it died at the theater.
http://youtu.be/1ISgM9sjza8
Hocus Pocus
Derek Johns: Watching this film has always been something of an unwritten tradition since I was a kid. I think it’s because it contains both the horror and goofiness that has been associated with celebrating Halloween. Sure for the most part it’s a comedy but they open it up by killing a kid and cursing a teenager with immortality as a cat. And of course, it shows how one night a year people can be somebody else entirely.
Halloween
Rick Tym: Halloween isn’t just my favorite horror movie, it’s my favorite movie of all time. Take a simple concept like a babysitter killer, set it on Halloween night, come up with the best mask in the history of cinema (sorry Jason), and encapsulate it in one of the best directing and scoring efforts in the genre. Halloween is simple, effective, relatively splatter free, and manages to give me the chills every time I view the classic tale of an evil incarnate that cannot be stopped. Nor tainted by inferior sequels. It is mandatory All Hallow’s Eve viewing for this guy.
Special shout out to Trick r’ Treat though! If this question had been about any horror movie you could choose, existing or yet to be brought to screen, I would have picked the sequel to this awesome anthology. I think it’s coming sooner or later…
Cabin in the Woods
Bethany Lewis: Cabin in the Woods, because it so smartly and hilariously brings together all the best and worst and most overdone aspects of the horror genre. It’s almost like watching them all at once, with a really unique, meta twist.
And since we’re doing special shout outs, in the same vein as Cabin in the Woods, I absolutely love the season three Halloween episode of Community “Horror Fiction in Seven Spooky Steps”. The group’s horror stories span the spectrum of the genre and are perfectly tailored to the character telling it. For example, Abed’s Halloween story avoids every horror movie cliche to the extent that nothing at all ends up happening.
