On Wednesdays we wear black.
Pumpkins, costumes, candy, haunted houses – what’s not to like about Halloween?
But there’s another Halloween aspect that can’t be forgotten: movies.
We can watch most Halloween flicks all year round – and let’s not kid ourselves, many of us do – but there’s just something about curling up with your favorite on-screen witches, skeletons and ghosts during this most spooky time of year.
This list won’t give you nightmares, in part because I’m a baby, but mainly because a true horror movie list would take up the entire newspaper. So no.
Thus, without further ado, here is a list of some must-see, strictly Halloween-themed films.
Mostly.
Beetlejuice (1988)
Adam and Barbara Maitland are the typical, picture-perfect couple – except the part about them being dead.
After a deadly a car crash, the couple is told they have to remain in their house for no less than 150 years. It’s not much of a problem until an obnoxious family moves in that they can’t stand.
When the not-so-spooky couple fails to scare the family away, they call in backup and hire a freelance “bio-exorcist” named Beetlejuice. As fate would have it, Beetlejuice, played by Michael Keaton, stalls the job when he reveals he has a lot more in mind than just helping.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice….Beetlejuice?
Hocus Pocus (1993)
In the year 1693, three sisters Sarah, Winifred and Mary were executed in Salem, Massachusetts, for practicing dark witchcraft. But 300 years later, the Sanderson sisters, played by Sarah Jessica Parker, Bette Midler and Kathy Najimy, are back after they are accidentally resurrected by Max, the new-kid-in-town who doesn’t – ahem, didn’t – believe in witches.
The witches only have one night to gain eternal youth before turning back to dust –this time forever. The ingredient? A child’s life.
Max, along with his younger sister Dani and love interest Allison, do everything they can to stop them.
The witches fly on vacuum cleaners for brooms and well, Bette Midler is in it, making Hocus Pocus one hauntingly over-the-top comedy you don’t want to miss.
The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
Halloween is just not Halloween, or Christmas for that matter, without The Nightmare Before Christmas.
Jack Skellington, the terrifying pumpkin king, is the most popular guy in Halloween Town. Halloween is clearly important to the townspeople, who prepare for the holiday 364 days a year.
But the undead pumpkin king gets awfully tired of the same..old..thing and in his slump stumbles across Christmas Town. Jack, in dire need of some change, decides to take over the holiday and kidnap Santa. But he really doesn’t get the Christmas concept as his version includes, shall we say alternative gifts, and a skeletal group of reindeer.
If you’re like me and just want the two holidays to somehow mash-up in one glorious spectacle, look no further.
Young Frankenstein (1974)
So this is the only one that sort of…kind of strays from the Halloweenish point of view. But it has Gene Wilder and it’s brilliant.
Young Frankenstein, a parody of Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein, introduces Frederick Franken-STEEN (as he likes the name to be pronounced in the beginning), the grandson of the famous mad scientist. Though he doesn’t want to be associated with the crazed scientist at first, Frederick, played by Wilder, eventually caves after inheriting his estate and decides to continue his grandfather’s experiments.
But in the process of building a new creature, Frederick accidentally uses an “abnormal” brain instead of the “genius” brain that was intended. Chaos ensues as the monster escapes on several occasions and develops a romantic affair.
I won’t go any further for those who haven’t seen it – which is just plain crazy.
Go home and watch it now….you know who you are.
The Addams Family (1991)
There was no way I was forgetting the most creepy, kooky, mysterious, spooky, and altogether ooky family in a Halloween movie roundup. Obviously.
It isn’t hard to argue that the Addams’ have a macabre lifestyle – their servant is a detached hand named “Thing” – for one. But their all-black-everything style doesn’t mean the family ran out of cash, on the contrary, they have loads of it. But, unfortunately, their stack of dough makes them easy targets.
Gomez Addams, the head of the household, reveals to the family’s trusted, yet crooked accountant, that he hasn’t spoken to his brother Fester in many years. In attempt to gain entry and break into the family’s vault, the accountant devises a scheme with his loan shark that poses the shark’s son as long-lost Fester.
Although the fake-Fester looks identical to the real one, he finds it difficult to fit in with the obscure Addams, just as the family finds it hard to adapt to the outside world, which to them, is insufferable.
All those bright colors and laughter? Yuck.
