Halloween is a holiday of fun, candy, and creativity. Going around town and getting free candy is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Halloween also has a different side, the spooky side! Ok not spooky, but a more scary and serious approach. Cinematic productions opened up an entire new world for Halloween stories. These can range from early horror films (dull by today’s standards, but still classics), rare comedy horrors, slasher flicks, and many others. We’ll be reviewing a couple milestone Halloween/horror movies.

1. Nosferatu (1922) – No it wasn’t Frankenstein, it wasn’t Dracula, and it wasn’t the Wolfman, but Nosferatu was one of the earliest horror movies ever made. Dating back to 1922, this German Expressionist featured a Dracula-like character called Count Orlok. The vampire shares many similarities to Dracula along with disintegrating at the break of day. The film’s star Max Scheck was so tall that in one scene he barely fits through a doorway. Orlok’s long face and beaming eyes are more intimidating than you would think, so for 1922 that’s extremely impressive. This set the bar for future “monster” films and proves that it is an important staple in movie history.
2. Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) – Fast forward 26 years and horror movies were already in full throttle. Universal studios brought all of the monsters to life (Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Wolfman) during the 1940’s in their movies. By then, everyone had known of the monsters, so what better idea would there be than to take all of the them, and smash them together with the greatest comedy duo at the time, Abbott and Costello. The film sounded far fetched, but was ultimately a huge success. It focuses around two shipment workers, who are played by the duo, that find the bodies of Frankenstein and Dracula being sent to a castle. The both of them go there only to find it’s Dracula’s castle and he’s there to bring Frankenstein to life. The Wolfman comes too, and that’s when the chaos begins. Abbott and Costello are left running around the castle from the monsters in a way that would make the word hilarious an understatement. The first comedy/horror film was fantastic and it paved the way for many more to come in future.
3. Halloween (1978) – Who would of thought an old William Shatner mask would spawn the looks of one of the scariest horror movie characters ever? Well, John Carpenter’s “Halloween” captures this with the ever so interesting Michael Myers as its main character. The most impressive factor about this movie was that the budget was extremely low. With that being said, it became one of the first well known slasher flicks. Slasher movies usually center around a force killing and harming a group of people one by one. It also features Jamie Lee Curtis, the daughter of Janet Leigh who played Marion Crane in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho.” Anyway, back to the film, it focuses around Michael Myers who spent years of his life in a mental institution after murdering his sister. After he escapes, he gets the mask and goes on a killing rampage, mainly focused on a group of teenage friends. He doesn’t have a gun, he doesn’t yell, and he doesn’t even run. He uses his stealth and nimble ability to go from place to place to murder these kids. To be honest it’s pretty impressive. Halloween shows that it doesn’t have to be a big scary monster to cause harm; it could be someone you see everyday.
4. The Blair Witch Project (1999) – This film showcases a group of college kids just looking for a local legend that is referred to as the “Blair Witch.” The unique part about this movie is that it’s shot in a “found footage” style. The shaky camera angles and uncentered shots lead to a scary and realistic setting for the viewers (since they’re literally using a video camera) and the characters as they trudge their way through a forest. Much of what is really terrifying is the unknown or what you don’t see in the movie, such as, screams from others behind the cameraman and blood trails that sometimes lead to nowhere. By the way, (this is a spoiler, so stop reading now if you don’t want to know what happens) the fact that you never actually see the “Blair Witch” just adds to the imagination of the viewers and the tension/fear throughout the movie.