5 Movies to Watch on Halloween

- by Ninja Ross, 31 October 2012

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! The whole month of October our horror expert Ninja Ross was getting everybody in the Halloween spirit, listing horror games you should play, horror comics you should read, and more. Well, the time has come for us to pick the perfect list of movies to watch during Halloween! And who is gonna help you choose them, if not Ninja Ross??

5. FROM DUSK TILL DAWN
Screw Twilight, this is how modern vampires should be done.

 While the first half of the film is a serious thriller with George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino playing psychopathic brothers, it quickly turns into a gory, sexy vampire B-movie. In a good way.

 If you haven’t already seen this film, the two brothers are on the run after breaking out of jail and robbing a bank. They plan to meet a contact in Mexico, at a strip club. Along the way they abduct a Christian family and use them for cover in order to cross the border.

 Then they get the strip club and VAMPIRES! Boom! There’s boobs and blood everywhere! Mexican guy with a crotch gun, Harvey Keitel has a cross shotgun and Selma Hayek has boobs.

This isn’t exactly a scary film but it’s a nice, light way to start the evening.

4. THE BURROWERS
This film is not about tiny people “borrowing” your stuff. It’s about monsters in good old pioneer times! That’s right, a Western with monsters. And the bad guy from Highlander. Could it get any better?

After a man discovers his fiancée and her family missing with nothing left but signs of struggle and gore, he and a posse set out looking for them. They, of course, suspect Native Americans.

But the only Natives they find on their journey are not talking. In fact, they’re down right scared. And so they should be, as people begin to go missing.

A small group of people, including the fiancée, split up from the main group, finally realising that it might not be Native Americans after all. It doesn’t take long for them to find out that what they’re really after are invincible nocturnal burrowing monsters that capture people, paralyze them and bury them alive.

While this movie has quite a low budget, it manages to hide that with the classic “less is more” horror mantra. And less is indeed more in this film.

3. PONTYPOOL
Pontypool is not your average zombie film.

Instead of a virus or magic, the zombies are created because certain words in the English language are infected. That alone is interesting enough but there’s more to the film than that.

The entire film is set in a recording studio where the main characters are hosting a radio show. The producer is trying her best to keep their star, a washed up big city DJ, from ruining their light hearted show with his need to express his anger at society.

Things quickly escalate when they hear rumours of people dying, committing suicide and killing. Eventually leading things to go completely crazy as riots break out and all the information they have is a mysterious French broadcast and their “eye in the sky” reporter.

The film is a well-acted, low budget experience that should not be missed. Even if you’re not going to watch this on Halloween it’s worth watching any other time.

GAHH!!

2. CABIN IN THE WOODS
This film is awesome on so many levels. It’s funny, scary and it examines the horror genre in a way that nobody else has.

It’s difficult to talk about this film without giving too much away but what I can tell you will sound like a generic horror flick. It’s meant to sound that way, though.

A group of friend go to a cabin in the woods so they can get drunk and stoned. There’s a jock and a pretty blonde who plan to have sex, too. Just like any other horror flick.

And it does have that; sex, booze and weed. But it also has so much more. As I said, it examines the horror genre in ways nobody has done before and that’s not an exaggeration. There’s a reason people were excited when they saw this.

It really is that good, folks!

1. THE THING (1982)
Yeah... This is here because I’m bias. I love this film. It’s one of my favourites, actually. It’s probably not the best on the list but I’m putting it at number one because it’s my list. Not yours! Get your own list!

Most people have seen The Thing or at least heard about it. It’s a remake of The Thing from Another World, which was based on a short story called Who Goes There by John W. Campbell.

It stars Snake Plisskin as a helicopter pilot in the arctic, hanging around a bunch of scientists. His job is to look cool and drink whiskey.

And the Norwegians show up and spoil the film! I’m not joking. The Norwegians who are chasing the dog over the snowy hills actually tell the scientists everything that happened at their camp and, if you speak Norwegian, they spoilt the film.

But I’m guessing you don’t speak Norwegian, so that’s good.
[Unless you're one of our Norwegian readers, in which case we apologize - Ed.]

The film is famous for doing the opposite of most great horrors and showing EVERYTHING. The Thing is a monster that is... All over the place. Literally. If you separate its limbs, those limbs will become separate Things.

And these Things can mimic living creatures. Dogs, humans and probably horses. If they had horses, it would mimic them. Evil horses!!!

So these people can’t trust each other. Heck, they can’t even trust themselves. So not only do we have a crazy messy monster but we have no idea which character is infected making the film a fantastic study of paranoia.

And that’s it. Horror fans! That’s what you should be watching! What are you waiting for? Go watch! And if you feel your favorite horror movie was missing from here, drop us a comment!

Tagged: movies & TV.

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