But what movies should you be watching while you apply your slutty whiskers with promiscuous mascara this year?
"...Ladies"
Here’s our top five picks. Note that these aren’t the five best horror movies, or the five scariest movies - these are the five movies that best capture the spirit of Halloween, in all its various forms.
And no, none of the Halloween movies are on there. That’d just be lazy…
Plus last time we watched them Dave The Intern wet himself in fear, and nobody wants to bring back old memories...
5: Hocus Pocus
Start the evening off with a nice, gentle kids film. Since the Nineties, this has become a cult seasonal classic. There’s probably a large portion of you out there who have grown up watching this every year, so why make this year any different?
Hocus Pocus is the tale of three witches (Sarah Jessica Parker, Kathy Najimy and Bette Midler, who chews the scenery to a fantastic degree) brought back to life one Halloween night when a virgin lights a candle. What follows is all a lot of good clean fun, with talking cats, hypnotised kiddies, zombies and chases through graveyards.
It’s all very wholesome, and there’s no scares to be found of course, but the over-the-top sets and spectacular lighting makes this feel very much like a Halloween cartoon brought to life. There’s even singing involved.
We want to start our evening off gently, and this is the perfect way to do it.
You were gonna watch it anyways, admit it.
The Final Jump Scare: Sarah Jessica Parker is actually attractive in this movie. And that’s terrifying to think about…
4: The Nightmare Before Christmas
It may have “Christmas” in the title, but this movie is pure Halloween.
From the unmistakable designs of Tim Burton, and with songs by Danny "Simpsons Theme" Elfman, this is a beautiful gothic fairytale about the weird and wonderful citizens of Halloweentown. They may catch the Chrimbo spirit as the movie progresses, but in look and tone, this is pure October 31st.
With Burton’s signature flair (though contrary to belief, he doesn’t direct this movie), the characters range from the strangely adorable to the utterly terrifying (Oogie Boogie is still the stuff of nightmares, no pun intended), with twisted spires and curled rocky outcroppings that give the beautiful stop-motion animation an utterly wonderful and thoroughly unmistakable atmosphere.And, unlike other movies on this list, The Nightmare Before Christmas is at heart a gothic fairytale love story, between would-be Santa Jack Skellington and living rag doll Sally. Theirs is a romance that has, in just two decades, become a permanent and iconic part of our collective pop culture (even being referenced in a Blink-182 song… Yay?)
Again, you were gonna watch this one anyway, weren’t you…
The Final Jump Scare: That opening number about Halloweentown has become the movie’s signature song. But it sounds a whole hell of a lot spookier when sung by Marilyn Manson:
3: Trick ‘r Treat
This is probably the Halloween-iest Halloween movie ever made. It combines everything that you associate with the season. There are serial killers, vengeful ghosts, trick-or-treaters, vampires, cruel pranks, poisoned candy, girls in slutty costumes, werewolves, and pumpkins aplenty, all crammed in to 75 minutes of pure fun.
This isn’t a scary film, but in many respects it’s still the ultimate horror movie, with nearly every trope and creature thrown in somewhere.
The movie takes a Love Actually approach to the genre, with several interlinking stories taking place at the same time, over one eventful October 31st. And tying everything together is Sam (presumably short for Samhain), a sack-headed child-like spirit of the season. Mostly Sam’s happy to just watch the various horrors unfold, but if you neglect the traditions of the holiday he won’t take it very well at all.
Remember that when the trick-or-treaters come by tonight…
It’s a perfect blend of everything that we love about Halloween, and a glorious celebration of the best night of the year. And with a sequel recently announced, long may this franchise continue.
The Final Jump Scare: For FEARnet’s Halloween marathon in 2011, director Michael Dougherty created a short trailer that sees Sam, in bunny ears, presiding over a family Easter that goes wrong. It seems that it’s not just at the end of October that this little boy comes out to play…
2: Creepshow
This one is a bit of a stretch, as it’s the only one of our list that doesn’t directly tie in to Halloween.
But it still lives up wonderfully to the spirit of the night, as it brings back memories of the times we all spent as kids sharing spooky stories (with lashings of OTT gore thrown in).
This may not explicitly feature Halloween, but it simply has to be a staple of the season.
The Final Jump Scare: Not only does horror master Stephen King appear in the movie, the little kid in the bookends of the movie is played by none other than Joe Hill, his son and heir to the horror throne. Try reading NOS4R2 while picturing mini-Hill as the writer. It adds a whole terrifying dimension to things.
1: Ghostwatch
There’s got to be one scary movie on the list, so why not the scariest movie ever?
On October 31st 1992, the BBC decided to take the cameras to a haunted terrace house in the London suburbs, for a live Halloween ghost hunt. Friendly faces Michael Parkinson, Sarah Greene, Craig Charles and Mike Smith lead the proceedings, with studio chat, viewers phoning in with their ghost stories, and the input of a professional spook investigator and a professional sceptic to provide some scientific credibility to proceedings. Parents and kids across the country gathered around to watch, safe in the knowledge that ghosts aren’t real, and that it would all be safe, spooky fun.
Nobody knew that it was all fake.
What followed was a hoax on the scale of Orson Welles’ War Of The Worlds, as the nightmare in Fox Hill Drive turned out to be very real. As the evening carries on, it becomes apparent that “Pipes”, the ghost that haunts the Early family, is very real. The spirit of a convicted child molester who hanged himself (and was partially eaten by cats) while possessed himself by the spirit of child murderer Mother Seddons rises, and terrorises the crew - and the audience at home. Because, as Dr Pascoe the in-studio investigator notes, by transmitting live, the BBC have created a massive séance, and have made every home in the country accessible to Pipes. By the time the end credits roll, not all of the presenters have survived. And anyone at home could be next…
In retrospect, it’s obvious that this is fake - the acting is genuinely dreadful, and the professionals called in by the BBC are played by the head teacher off of Teachers and the American President off of Doctor Who.
But at the time it really seemed real, with every effort made to hide its fictional nature. Sure, the show opens with a writing credit (a last minute rule imposed by higher-ups with cold feet), but not even that gives the game away as Parky is clearly reading from an autocue. And as the events spiral out of control, Parky mentions that the following show [listed in TV guides, but never planned to air] was cancelled as the crew stayed with events in the house. It’s not until the cast list at the end that viewers at the time realised that it was all a fiction. But by then it was too late. The show was responsible for one teen’s suicide, as he wanted to kill himself before Pipes got him, inflicted “acute anxiety” and - seriously - post-traumatic stress on several children who watched, and was denounced by the Broadcasting Standards Commission for being “a deliberate attempt to cultivate a sense of menace” (which is British for “scaring the shit out of everybody, just for fun”).
Yeah, you read that right - it literally scared a teenager to death.
The Final Jump Scare: There are eight confirmed sightings of Pipes during the movie (and a few others that have been discredited by the writers). But director Lesley Manning has gone on record as saying that there are “up to thirteen” appearances from the spectre. That’s right, Pipes is still out there, un-noticed… waiting in the shadows… Sweet dreams.
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