Feature: Meli’s Top 5 Halloween Films

Yesterday, we started our week long article on films you watch around Halloween to put you in the spirit. Each writer gets a day to list their top 5. Today, we have Meli Denton.

Trick ‘r Treat

Before last year this movie wouldn’t have been on my list, but as soon as the opening credits rolled and I saw that beautifully haunting comic-inspired intro I knew it was going to be a re-watch every Halloween thereafter. The anthology has every Halloween convention. It’s impossible NOT to get in the spirit watching this movie and every scene proves that Dougherty is a monster kid just like us!

The Nightmare Before Christmas

What’s not to love about a movie set in Halloween Town where ghouls and goblins work all year round to prepare for our favorite holiday? This is a wonderful fantasy movie with great songs you can sing-along to and an important message about being true to yourself. The Nightmare Before Christmas is good for the kiddies, but definitely a movie adults can enjoy as well. And as a bonus, you can get back into the Halloween spirit long after the candy has spoiled and pumpkins have rotted when you re-watch it at Christmas!

The Exorcist

Although not a celebration of Halloween like the aforementioned, The Exorcist is set in the fall and we still see Halloween come and go. What I love about watching it isn’t the time in which it takes place, but the fact that it is utterly terrifying. The Exorcist always goes on any all-time horror favorite list. I don’t believe in demonic spirits, but I feel that the sense of evil in this film is quite palpable and horrific. I can’t think of a better way to spend a  dark fall night than watching The Exorcist.

 

Night of the Demons

Set on Halloween and following 10 teens in their holiday exploits at the haunted Hull House, Night of the Demons is perfect Halloween viewing. It’s funny, a little sick and scary, and if nothing else you get an awesome peep under Linnea Quigley’s lovely tutu costumer as well as a nice booby shot in the famous lipstick scene.

Michael Jackson’s Thriller

It may not be a feature length film, but it is a masterpiece that I absolutely have to watch every Halloween directed by none other than John Landis. Inspired by the transformation scene in An American Werewolf in London, Michael Jackson called up Landis and simply said “I want to become a monster.” The atmosphere is spooky and when I was a kid the video actually scared me! No Halloween mixed tape would be complete without this song and no Halloween essential viewing would be complete without this video on your watch list.