On All Hallow’s Eve, When the Moon is Round…

“Hang Us, Burn Us, What Ye Will,
Our Souls will Abide Here on this Hill!
On All Hallow’s Eve,
When the Moon is Round…
A Virgin Will Summon Us,
From Under the Ground…”
– Hocus Pocus (1993)

It’s October 7th. I’m already in the Halloween spirit, and have been for at least 2 weeks. It’s around this time ever year, however, that I worry my Halloween spirit may vanish by the time the 31st actually rolls around. So I’ve decided to compile a list of my top favourite films and TV episodes to watch in order to get me back in the Halloween spirit… They are in no particular order but let’s start with an obvious one…

Hocus Pocus (1993)
This one has become a classic in many people’s homes around Halloween time. It just ticks all the right boxes. For one thing it is set at Halloween! But not only that, it glorifies the amazing length that every American goes to at Halloween to decorate their houses and celebrate death, and it has a magnificent storyline! Add to that three wonderfully camp performances by some talented actresses and one hell of a great mid-film musical number, “Hocus Pocus” sums up that wonderful feeling you got wandering around the neighbourhood at dusk dressed as a Power Ranger with a black bag in your hand full of sweets.

Halloween (1978)

The classic… The ultimate… The pivotal… These are all precursors when it comes to describing this film. The classic horror film, “Halloween”. The ultimate in slasher movies, “Halloween”. The pivotal Halloween film, “Halloween”. I have watched this film on the 31st October every year for the past four years. It’s become a ritual. Asides from the fact this film is a gory, twisted slasher film – it’s also a really great portrayal of the feeling and atmosphere to what Halloween is all about. When we are first introduced to Scream-Queen Jamie Lee-Curtis, she is walking through the sleepy suburb of Haddonfield, red, orange and yellow leaves are scattered everywhere and pumpkins line the streets. It’s one big warm gooey love-fest to the holiday of Halloween. Oh and it’s about a psychopath who wears a William Shatner mask and kills anyone who gets in his way…

Halloween II (1981)

Made three years after the first film, but set 3 minutes after the events of the first film, this film holds up really well as a sequel. Critics slammed the film and it’s become sort of a joke amongst die-hard “Halloween” fans, but personally I think it’s just as good as the first one. The only annoying things are the music (funked up 80’s rock version of the original theme tune, with an added electric drum solo) and Jamie Lee-Curtis’ wig…

The Addams Family (1991) & Addams Family Values (1993)

Not really a Halloween link apart from the fact they provided millions of kids with an endless supply of Halloween costume ideas, but The Addams Family films, like “Hocus Pocus”, provide a creepy, kooky, spooky and ooky relief for those Halloween lovers too wimpy to enjoy a good slasher flick.

The Shining (1980)

What a perfect job… I would LOVE it! Stock up on cans of soup and some board games and head to a giant hotel to look after it during the Winter season, when it will be completely empty, with the promise you will be snowed in for a couple of months and will not have contact with the outside world for that time… Wonderful. I would love it. Give me a chance to catch up on my writing, read a few books I’ve always meant to, run around the giant, endless corridors buck naked, sleep in a different room each night. It would be awesome… But for some reason, Jack Nicholson doesn’t agree, and instead when he’s given the job of Winter caretaker for The Overlook Hotel, he decides to terrorise his family and chase them around trying to kill them…

The Blair Witch Project (1999)

I’ve said this a thousand times to people, if you just give this film a chance then you might enjoy it. People always scoff at this film and say “Oh what a waste of time” or “what the hell was that ending all about?” but honestly, if you are a true horror film fanatic and you have a spare morning then watch this film. And believe me you have to watch this film in the morning. If you watch it at night then you will fall asleep halfway through and not follow the plot. You have to follow the plot in order to get into it and enjoy it for what it was back in 1999 – the first ever “found-footage” film. Since then it seems the world of cinema is plagued by them…

The Mist (2007)

I’m including this one purely because I have never seen “The Fog”, and apparently it’s a really great Halloween horror film, so the best I could do was “The Mist”, which I have seen, and did enjoy! (APART FROM THE ENDING… Oh the horrific ending… )

Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998)

Another entry in the “Halloween” series of films, this was set and made twenty years after the very first film. Technically this film is “Halloween 7” but the producers decided to completely ignore everything that took place in Halloween 3 to Halloween 6 and just pick up from Halloween II. This is by far and away my all time favourite out of the entire series, even beating the first film (but of course you need to have seen and appreciated the first film to understand this one). The look of the film is once again perfect, with Autumn in full “bloom” and that guy in the William Shatner mask is back to terrorise Jamie Lee-Curtis again on Halloween. What makes this film kind of nice is the small cameo by Jamie’s mom, fellow scream-queen Janet (“Psycho”) Leigh. 
This nice little clip shows Janet’s cameo, and little piece of trivia – the music that plays while she walks to her car is the theme from “Psycho”, and the car is the actual car from “Psycho” used in 1960.

Scream (1996)

This film is basically a love letter from a Horror-film fanatic dedicated to every horror film ever made and aimed to please every horror geek the world over. And it does. Following on from this are three really great horror sequels that continue to make love to the horror genre.

Notable “Halloween Special” Episodes of TV Shows:-

That 70s Show – “Halloween” (Season 2 Episode 5)
Roseanne – “BOO!” (Season 2 Episode 7)
Sabrina the Teenage Witch – “A River of Candy Corn Runs Through It” (Season 2 Episode 7)
Murder, She Wrote – “Reflections of the Mind” (Season 2 Episode 6)
The Waltons – “The Changeling” (Season 7 Episode 5)
Family Guy – “Halloween on Spooner Street” (Season 9 Episode 4)

Halloween Films I Have to See:-

“Idle Hands” (1999)
“Practical Magic” (1998)
“The Fog”

And any others – I’m open to suggestions.