A Nightmare on Elm Street — The "Nightmare on Elm Street" flicks are perfect for a good scare.

Halloween Horror Movie Marathon!

Oct 29, 2020

HOLLYWOOD—Halloween is this weekend America, and I’m sure I’m not the only American who indulges in a scary movie marathon, probably in 2020 more than any other year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. I just don’t think it’s say to take the kids trick-or-treating and in terms of Halloween parties it’s not smart with plenty of COVID-19 cases on the rise. Why expose yourself if you don’t have to. With that said, the question arises what spooky flicks are your looking to watch or view to get that adrenaline rush and thrill that you want for the month of fear and scares.

I mean you can go with the classics like “Frankenstein,” “Nosferatu,” “The Mummy” or the 1960 version of “Psycho.” Perhaps old school horror is not your cup of team and you want something from the 70s like “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” “Black Christmas,” “Carrie,” “Halloween” or “Alien.” To be honest those flicks from the 70s do have a way of getting underneath one’s skin. Then we have the perennial 80s where the slasher film came front and center and as I’ve totted time and time again really destroyed the genre because the films were just so over-the-top, silly and in most cases, just stupid, poorly written and terrible.

If there are standouts, I’ll reference the films from the franchises for “Friday the 13^th,” “A Nightmare on Elm Street” and “Halloween.” “Hellraiser” is another good one that while strange is indeed interesting to say the least. You have tons of sequels and I mean tons of sequels, some stand outs include “Aliens,” “A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors,” “Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers” and “Friday the 13^th Part VI: Jason Lives.” There ain’t a lot, but I guess that depends on your cup of tea.

When you turn your attention to the 90s we saw a resurgence of horror with the iconic “Scream,” “Scream 2,” “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” “Urban Legend,” “Halloween: H20,” “Deep Blue Sea,” “The Blair Witch Project” and “The Sixth Sense.” Horror was not completely dead, but the originally element was indeed lacking. The 2000s usher in the remake phenomenon with “The Ring,” “The Grudge,” “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” “Halloween,” “Friday the 13^th,” “My Bloody Valentine,” and a host of flicks from the 70s and 80s that saw a new visual perspective, but the same story unfortunately. No real standouts in my opinion that proved to change the game of horror.

As we entered another decade we saw more remakes and but started to see some stellar standouts limited like “Don’t Breathe,” the 2017 version of “It,” “The Purge,” “The Conjuring,” “Sinister,” “Evil Dead” and “Halloween (2018)” to name a select few. Horror is all dependent on your cup of tea. Most people want to be scared, but not repulsed. I think a lot of horror relies on excessive violence as a way to unnerve a vast majority of its audiences and it doesn’t always work. Who really wants to see that? Not most people. We want films that get us to think, that unnerve us where we want to turn on the lights or leave the lights on and we question if we should investigate a sound that we hear in the house.

I would argue I’m a mix, I love a good classic I love the ushering of spine-tingling suspense that was definitive in the 70s with such iconic flicks like “Halloween.” That flick has always been a go to for me and John Carpenter’s classic will always be. If you asked me the greatest horror flick of all time, without a doubt the 1978 classic will always top my list.

While I love Jason Voorhees and I would watch almost all of the “Friday the 13^th” flicks, most are bad, so if I had a go to it would always be “Friday the 13^th Part 3D” and “Jason Lives.” However, this year I think I’m going to indulge in “The Nightmare on Elm Street” franchise because I have not watched any of those flicks in years and Freddy Krueger is a damn spooky villain. Notable standouts for me are “Dream Warriors” and “The Dream Master,” both entertaining and suspenseful flicks for me to say the least.

There is plenty of horror to indulge in this Halloween, just be safe and perhaps venture out your comfort zone and watch something you haven’t seen or watch a movie that you adore that you have not seen in years. Hopefully, it’s not something so spooky you can’t sleep at night.