Afterall the trick or treaters have absconded with all your candy, tonight's the perfect night to curl up with a great horror movie! Here's some suggestions which happen to be my all-time favorite fright flicks. Please, go and rent them, nothing ruins good horror like a commercial break!
Honorable Mentions:
Motel Hell - not actually a scary movie, but just for fun. I mean you have to love a film that's tag line is "It takes all kinds of critters to make Farmer Vincent fritters!"
Nightbreed - I love Clive Barker's horror/fantasy flick about the dead residents of Midian. Are they the real monsters or are we?
The Lost Boys - my all-time fave vampire film. Yes, it's sooo '80s, but Keifer Sutherland as the vamps scary leader ranks right up there with Dracula. And long before Buffy, there were the Frog brothers vampire hunters. You have to love a vampire flick with the two Coreys, right. Tag line "Party All Night, Sleep All Day, Live Forever. It's Fun to be a Vampire."

Before he was Jack Bauer ... (2nd from left)
The Descent - I explained this one earlier this week. It's got one of those I-almost-crapped-my-pants moments. Just pure horror. Scary in more ways than one. I mean, who wouldn't be scared trapped in a cave, trying to find an alternate way out. Then throw in the freaks who live there - I just gave myself a chill ...
Dog Soldiers - I blogged about this one last week too. And, hopefully, you already watched it, because I'll tell you now that this is the absolute best Werewolf movie ever. With the best werewolves I've ever seen on screen. Take a look and decide for yourself ...


OK, now on to my Top 10 Horror Flicks list:

10. House of 1,000 Corpses -- Rob Zombie's directorial debut features my favorite scary scenario. You're out in the middle of nowhere, with no one to help or no way to escape and there is a murderous family of freaks that wants nothing more than to torture and kill you! Not to mention a psycho named Otis, a serial killer called Dr. Satan and the craziest clown to ever hit the silver screen - Captain Spaulding "S- - t the Bed!"

Creepy Captain

9. Halloween - John Carpenter's masterpiece of the macabre. I mean, really, before this did you ever worry about walking the streets on Halloween night? Michael Myers as the killer w/o a conscience is absolutely horrifying. Tag line "The Night He Came Home."

8. Pumpkinhead - Yeah, I know, the title's a little silly. But anyone who's ever seen this flick says the same thing - the scariest demon monster ever!! Horror pro Lance Henricksen's Ed Harley conjures up this demon from the grave to avenge the accidental death of his son by a bunch of vacationing adolescents. But Pumpkinhead, himself, is the real star. The scene where he tracks the teens down in the abandoned church ... I just scared myself again. A true nightmare!

Hello Pumpkinhead


7. The Stepford Wives (1975) - You may have seen the 2004 Nicole Kidman remake of this flick, which turned it into a farce. However, the original, which I just recently rewatched, still scares me. Move to the quaint little town of Stepford and you'll never be the same! First your husband will join the local Men's Association and little by little, your lady friends and neighbors will start to change in inexplicable ways and it's only a matter of time till they get to you!

6. Rosemary's Baby - A remake is already set for a 2010 release, but you still have plenty of time to see the 1968 original. Starring Mia Farrow as a young newlywed who moves to New York City with her husband, an actor. They befriend the strange, elderly couple next door and her husband, presumably makes a deal with the devil ... to further his acting career. What a chump! Before she realizes it, she's pregnant with the spawn of hell ... sounds funny, but this is a truly chilling flick.

5. Alien - Tag line "In Space, No One Can Hear You Scream." Director Ridley Scott successfully brought us the first horror flick set in space in 1979 and introduced us to the first feminist heroin, Sigourney Weaver's Ripley. I was just a kid when I saw this flick on cable and seriously couldn't sleep well for a week. Like Pumpkinhead, Scott also introduced us to one truly chilling alien creature - and those retractable jaws, I just got goosebumps!

Scariest Alien Ever!

4. Jaws - and speaking of jaws ... let's revisit the film that put Steven Spielberg on the map. Traditionally, I don't think of this flick at Halloween. I always watch it around Memorial Day Weekend. It's become as much a right of summer as going to the beach (of course, we won't dare go in the water). When it was originally released in 1975, studio execs actually worried that people would get sick in the aisles. And it didn't disappoint.
Jaws is officially the first film to ever make $100 million domestically, thus becoming the first ever summer blockbuster. It's success prompted studios to take summer movie-goers seriously, as in seriously willing to spend money at the movies. And last year AFI made the shark in Jaws (Bruce, as Steven dubbed him, after his lawyer) the No. 1 Villain in film history. Darth Vader came in second!

Oops, wrong Jaws, just testing you!

3. Phantasm - Tag line "If this one doesn't scare you, you're already dead." Something's going on at the Morningside Mortuary and if you can stick around long enough, you'll be sorry you found out what. This 1979 horror film made an instant star out of Angus Grimm, who portrayed the infamous Tall Man. Trust me, after seeing this flick, you'll never look at a flying silver ball the same way again.

The Tall Man & his Little Silver Ball

2. Poltergeist - If you've been reading this blog, then you already know my feelings on this one. My all time favorite ghost story, produced by Spielberg and directed by Tobe Hooper, revolves around a little girl who goes missing inside her house. The first time I ever saw this film, at home on cable, my father snuck into the room and threw a tennis ball into my friend's lap at a pivotal moment in the film. Our screams almost shattered the windows. Watch this one and try to sleep with the lights off.

1. Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) - I know, you probably already saw the 2004 remake and thought, "that was pretty scary, but not great." That's how I felt too. I only watched the original about five years ago, and can I just say that after years of devouring horror flicks, this truly frightened me! Same scenario as my No. 10 movie, only shot so gritty that it feels real. "Based on a True Story," TCM used the real crimes committed by Ed Gein for inspiration. In reality Gein only killed 2 people, but he saved their bones, skins and some organs as a way to covet them. There are a few films about Gein, but they're not really scary - this is the one to watch. Fave shot: The infamous Leatherface chasing Sally thru the woods, chainsaw in hand, as she screams and screams and screams and the chainsaw revs and revs and revs. Favorite part: When that annoying jerk Franklin gets it right the stomach. C'mon he was asking for it thru the whole film!

Leatherface


OK, so you're asking yourself - What about the Exorcist? Well I didn't include it because it's the easy choice that tops everyone's list, and to tell the truth, I really wasn't scared. (I'm Catholic, I've been thru worse.) To me, TCM is scarier because it really could happen ...

More info on any of these flicks can be found on the Internet Movie Database, www.imdb.com
Have a Spooky Halloween - just don't scare yourselves too much!