Four days and counting to a hauntingly good Halloween!  So in the spirit of the season–no pun intended (LOL)–I’ve made a list of my favorite scary/Halloween movies.  I love to be scared–and these movies certainly did the job at one point in my life or another.  How many of these scared the dickens out of you as well?

First on my list is the non-scary but wonderfully funny Hocus Pocus.  LOVED Bette Midler and her sister witches.  Just watched this again the other night and will try to watch it again this weekend.

Theatre of Blood is another movie, with a nice blend of fright and comedy.  Being a theatre/Shakespeare buff, this movie is right up my alley–a dark one of course. 🙂  A crazed actor sets out to kill all the critics who have given him bad reviews.  (Every actor’s fantasy come true. LOL) Even better, he kills them using death scenes from the Shakespeare plays they panned him in.  Vincent Price and Diana Rigg star.  If you’re a theatre person, you’ll want to try to find this one.  It’s deliciously diabolical.

Another one that probably doesn’t make everyone’s list is An American Werewolf in London.  Great movie for the blend of horror and comedy.  I remember everyone was telling the jokes for weeks afterwards.  The special effects were awesome for the time.  Still scares the crap out of me when I think of the decomposing Jack. 

An oldie but a goodie–Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds.  This movie always fascinated me with its burgeoning horror and the knowledge that this could actually happen.  The scene where the mother discovers the man with the pecked out eyes makes me shiver to this day.  I’ve never quite looked at birds the same since.

Another fun horror flick is Tremors.  I love this movie–I’ve watched it enough I can recite the dialogue.  But I still watch it whenever it comes on TV.  The blend of humor and horror, and a young Kevin Bacon, makes this movie a treat any time of the year.

Cujo was a totally terrifying movie for me to sit through because at the time I saw the movie, my car was in the habit of not starting when I would go somewhere, leaving me stranded just like the woman and little boy in the movie.  My car was even white, just like hers!  And for once the movie had a better ending than the book (though the book’s a damn good read).

Aliens is my favorite of that series of deep space horror flicks.  I think I like it best because Ripley gets to kick some alien queen ass in the end.  The first one was probably the most frightening, but I enjoy this one more.

 Can you hear that iconic music?

 Jaws is considered one of the most terrifying movies of all time and a big part of it, IMHO, is because of the Jaws Theme, by John Williams.  I remember going to see this in the movie theatre and as soon as the music came up I had the uncontrollable feeling that something was going to come up behind me–in the theatre–and bite me on the leg.  Yep, that powerful.  Fantastic movie!

Another movie with iconic imagery and music is Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.  Perhaps the first scary movie I ever watched.  The music was enough to freak me out.  Much less the stark cinematography.  It’s still hard to watch that shower scene.

But the one movie that kept me up, that made me sleep with the lights on for WEEKS after seeing it was The Exorcist.  The ultimate scare fest according to many Hollywood lists.  One site said to watch it in broad daylight in the afternoon and still expect sleepless nights.  I think they’re right.  And again the music makes the haunting experience–“Tubular Bells” is one of the freakiest pieces of music ever written.  I have the soundtrack and I’ve listened to it many times, but not at night.  It is creepy!

So this is my list of scariest movies.  But it’s not exactly complete.  There’s another extremely scary movie that I’m saving for Monday’s post because it has to do with my scary Halloween story I’m telling then.  So head back this way on October 31 for the final installment of my Haunted Halloween.

And after all these “tricks” listed above, I thought I’d leave you with a treat.  Not a movie, but probably my all-time favorite music video:  Michael Jackson’s Thriller.  Enjoy!