Films You HAVE To See When Getting Into Horror

 

The Horror genre is one of the most creative genres of film. So naturally, navigating such a creative genre is challenging when you’re just getting into it. There are so many options out there, from slashers to monster movies to, possession and religious horror, and much more.

Today I’m here to tell you about some films you should watch if you’re getting into the horror genre. I will cover multiple subgenres, talking about one movie a piece, with some honorable mentions at the end of each subgenre. With that being said, let’s get started, shall we?? These films are in no particular order.

 

Halloween (1978)

 When you talk about Horror, one of the most common subgenres that have always been brought up is the Slasher subgenre. Slasher films are one of the most simple subgenres of Horror, and they typically play out like this: a group of people gets carved up by a maniacal killer until one is the sole survivor.

The start of this genre can be attributed to films like Psycho and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but in my opinion, there’s one film that I feel did this the best out of them all. That film is 1978’s Halloween, directed by John Carpenter (a man who’s seen as one of the masters of Horror). Halloween has a simple storyline, but it also has a lot of depth in its characters and its villain, Michael Myers. 

Halloween is the movie that laid out the blueprint for slasher films going forward. Without it, you may never have gotten films like Scream or Friday The 13th, or The Burning. So it’s for that reason that I say you should make Halloween (1978) your first foray into slashers.

 

 Honorable mentions include: A Nightmare On Elm Street, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), Scream (series), Friday The 13th 4: The Final Chapter, Child’s Play Trilogy, and The Burning.

The Lost Boys

The Vampire subgenre is one with a rich history. From Nosferatu in the days of the silent film in the 1920s all the way to today, vampires have been a staple of the genre, and the quality of vampire films has gone through some ups and downs. 

The Lost Boys is a masterpiece from this subgenre, in my opinion. A vampire film set in the 80s with the style of the decade on full display, a soundtrack that’s one of the best in Horror, and a coming-of-age tale as well.

 

 The film centers around two brothers moving to a town named Santa Carla, a city that looks peaceful but hides something sinister. That being a group of the hippest and cool-looking vampires you’ll see in this subgenre. The vampires in this movie are also some of the creepier ones you’ll find in this subgenre, so it’s a nice balance of style and creep factor that director Joel Schumacher accomplished in this film.

There are many films I could have chosen for a vampire movie, but The Lost Boys is THE film that perfectly sums up how great the vampire subgenre is.

 

 Honorable mentions include: Fright Night (original), Dracula (1933), Near Dark, and 30 Days of Night.

Night of the Living Dead

George A. Romero’s zombie flick from 1968 remains a staple of the zombie subgenre. I chose this film specifically because it showcases what you can do on a tight budget, and it’s one of the earliest horror movies to be used as a vehicle for social commentary.

 

 The budget for this film was 114,000 dollars, which is ridiculous considering how good the film looks. The zombies' effects look great, and the storytelling is top-notch. The social commentary is also great in the movie as it uses the zombies to shine a light on social ills such as racism. It also sets up an excellent point of equilibrium from the start for you as the viewer. The film sets the town up to be read as Anywhere, USA, which shows you as the viewer that this is NOT a foreign land, but it’s happening right in your backyard.

 

 It also functions to utilize your expectations of this world regarding things like race, gender, and politics against you in what’s known as the disruption phase. It also sets up a point that a break between the past and the present is imminent right in the opening scene of the film. Not to mention the fact that this film is THE film that birthed the zombie genre in the first place.

 

 These reasons and many more are why I think that Night of the Living Dead should be your first foray into zombie movies.

Honorable mentions include: The Return of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead(original and remake), 28 Days Later, Day of the Dead, and The Crazies.

 

 An American Werewolf In London

The werewolf subgenre of Horror is the red-headed step-child compared to every other subgenre. Everyone usually overlooks it, no matter how great some of the films in this subgenre may be.

The best of this subgenre by far is An American Werewolf In London. Making its way to theaters in 1981 (the same year as The Howling), An American Werewolf In London came in and put werewolves back on the map after the Universal Monster Movie Era.

This film has it all: great characters, equally great storytelling, stellar special effects, and plenty of scares to go around. The special effects, made by effects legend Rick Baker, would win the first Oscar ever for Special Makeup Effects. They are one of the picture-perfect examples of how great practical effects are compared to CGI effects.

This film is also a perfect blueprint for combining comedy and horror. The Horror is this film is built beautifully, not relying on jump scares to scare you but instead it builds tension in its atmosphere and uses that tension and atmosphere to scare you.

If you watch a werewolf movie, make sure that An American Werewolf In London is at the top of your watch list.

Honorable mentions include: The Howling, Dog Soldiers, Ginger Snaps, Bad Moon, and The Cursed (2022).

The Thing (1982)

John Carpenter’s The Thing from 1982 is a film that is a picture-perfect example of how to build tension in a Horror movie. This story of a group of scientists on a base in Antarctica dealing with an alien being that can assimilate anyone it wants is one of the scariest horror movies I have ever seen.

This is because The Thing has some of THE scariest and most effective practical effects I have ever seen. Made by effects legend Rob Bottin, an understudy of fellow legend Rick Baker, the effects of The Thing have aged like a fine wine. They still look as realistic and frightening today as they did 40 years ago in 1982.

The film also does a stellar job of building tension with its sense of atmosphere and how the characters interact with each other throughout the film. The way this film portrays isolation and the feeling of loneliness in a stressful situation is displayed with pure brilliance by Mr. Carpenter.  

It still blows my mind that this film didn’t do as well as it should have back in the day and that it nearly ended John Carpenter’s career because it should’ve been hailed as a horror classic long before.

Those reasons are why I say you should watch The Thing. It’s a great Sci-Fi/Horror film, and you should give it a watch if you want to see a showcase in tension building and isolation.

Psycho (1960)

The final film I want to suggest is Psycho. This film from 1960 is a master class in how to build suspense throughout a film from the master of suspense himself, Alfred Hitchcock.

The film is often shown in film schools across the country, and rightfully so because this story of a woman committing a crime and then laying low at what seems to be a peaceful motel only to find something sinister instead is a perfect showcase for character-building in a script and suspense.

You have Marion Crane, a typical hardworking American girl who decides to steal some money her boss gave her to put in a safe and flee out of her city. Throughout the film, you see Marion experience a wide variety of emotions, and you share them too because you’re wondering, “is she going to get caught?” or “Is she going to get away with this?”.

You also get introduced to one of Horror’s icons, Norman Bates. A character who starts out as a shy, meek character but throughout the film develops into one of the creepiest characters in all of Horror, with more layers to his personality than a fresh onion.

Those reasons and more are why I say you should give Psycho a watch. It’s a great classic film that stands the test of time 62 years later.

Those are the films I believe you should see if you’re getting into the horror genre. Do you agree with me?? Do you disagree?? Did I perhaps miss any that you feel should have been mentioned?? Be sure to let me know in the comments below.

Thank you so much for reading this issue, and I’ll see you in the next one. 

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Issue #3- Halloween 3: Season of the Witch. A Misunderstood Hidden Gem.

Back in the early 80's, the horror genre was thriving. The slasher subgenre was hitting it's stride thanks to films like Friday the 13th, Halloween 2, and even films like the first Halloween, Black Christmas and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in the previous decade. Tut there was one movie however that was getting a lot of buzz prior to it's release. A film in the Halloween franchise that had people clamoring for what could come next in this legendary series after the events of the first two films. And that movie...is Halloween 3.

Halloween 3: Season of the Witch was released on October 22nd, 1982 to critical and commercial failure. While the the film did actually make a decent profit at $14.4 million dollars to the $2.5 million dollar budget, it was nowhere near as successful as the first two films in the franchise were. This poor reception led to the film only being in theaters for around a week or so before it left the box office. This film suffers from many, many mistakes along the way that ultimately put the nail in the coffin on its potential...and I'm going to explain those mistakes to you and show you why I personally feel that this film is a misunderstood classic.

Halloween 3 mostly suffers from extremely poor marketing. The marketing for this film didn't do enough to tell people that this WASN'T another movie with the face of the franchise himself, Michael Myers. Instead, the marketing was very vague and it seemed like the studio didn't know how to sell it to the audience at the time. This was due to the fact that the creator of the franchise, John Carpenter, didn't want to keep making more movies with Michael Myers. What John Carpenter and Tommy Lee Wallace, who directed Halloween 3 and was the editor and costume designer for the first film, wanted for the franchise after Halloween 2 was to release every single year and be a series of anthology films.

This was a good idea in theory and made complete sense given the context, BUT...there's one problem here. Not only had John Carpenter and his crew made 2 films with the same villain, but that villain had quickly become a horror Icon. So naturally, audiences were expecting to see Michael Myers when they went to see Halloween 3 and when they didn't get what they wanted and were expecting, they spoke their minds. I truly think that if the studio had marketed the film better or had named it just Season of the Witch or another title altogether, then this film may have just had a much better reception than it did. Now that you know why the film has the bad reception that it had back in the day, let me explain to you why I personally think it's a misunderstood horror classic.

Halloween 3 is a film that goes places that most horror films don't even dare to...you see, most horror films like to play it safe. You have a villain, a group of characters that help push the story forward, and a "sole survivor" in most cases. Some films like to play around with that order but it's all generally based around that same formula. Halloween 3 on the other hand, says "we're gonna be dark and taboo at the same time". What I mean by that is most horror films have a happy ending where the person who's chosen as the sole survivor overcomes the villain of the story and lives to tell the tale. 

Very rarely do you have a movie that ends on a dark note, and Halloween 3 goes for that. It's also considered taboo nowadays to harm children in a horror movie, but this film? It don't care, it puts a TON of kids in danger and it doesn't care if it's considered "taboo" or not. This film also adds in some social commentary, which wasn't uncommon in those days in the horror genre thanks to films like George A. Romero's "Living Dead" series for example. Halloween 3 tackles the topic of consumerism much like Romero's film Dawn of the Dead did but in a different context than that film did. In this film, Tommy Lee Wallace tackles consumerism in the context of obsessing over a super popular fad and the marketing of said fad.

This is done through the Silver Shamrock Novelties Company and the Halloween masks they produce. The film focuses heavily on kids flocking to stores to buy these masks and even adds in a Silver Shamrock commercial as a bit of satire to how companies advertise their products to the masses. This film also does something that most horror films tend to stay away from, which is to have a villain doing villainous thing with very unclear motivation as to why. The film basically requires you as the viewer to accept the credo that "anything is possible". And this is done through its main villain, Conol Cochran. Cochran explains in the film that people often do mischievous things with no rhyme or reason, and this case is no different.

This movie also manages to subvert the expectations of the audience which I think works in the films favor, although you could argue against it. How the film achieves this is it takes the slasher vibes that the other two films had and throws in our the window. Instead of a crazed serial killer slicing people up left, right and center like in the previous two films, this movie decides to go for a creepy, atmospheric vibe that also blends some witchcraft into it.

This film also does something that not every horror movie does. It makes someone that looks like an Average Joe its main lead. Tom Atkins is his name, and he does a fantastic job in this film of not only playing up the Average Joe look, but also doing things in the film that you would do if you were a typical Average Joe kind of guy and you were in his shoes. Going on a wild goose chase just for a chance to hop into bed with a pretty girl for instance or when the entire plan is revealed, doing everything within your power to try and stop it. 

Tom's portrayal of Dr. Dan Challis in this film is very believable and adds to the tension that the film builds because of the type of character that he is. Here's this normal doctor getting thrusted into this completely crazy, wacky situation because he thought with his dick instead of his head. And you're rooting for Dr. Charlie to make it out of this situation even though he doesn't get a whole lot of character development in the film.

And now, we have to talk about the films villain, Conal Cochran. Cochran, played by Dan O'Herlihy is a great villain in this movie. The fact that he's very well spoken, smooth and easygoing in one moment and then he can just switch on a dime to being either subtly or full on creepy and disturbing is why I believe that Conal Cochran is one of the better villains in all of horror, despite the fact that he's literally doing what he's doing in the film simply to cause mischief. Dan O'Herlihy does a phenomenal job with his performance in this movie, and I'm glad that more and more people are starting to recognize that.

Even though the film bombed at the box office in 1982, it has managed to find its audience in the home video market. From the original VHS release back in the 80's, all the way to the current 4K Blu-Ray release of the film from Scream Factory, this film has built a cult following over the years that loves and appreciates it for what it is rather than what it should be and I ask that those of you that are reading this post do the same. 

This is definitely a movie that I plan to watch every single year on Halloween, and I'm kicking myself for dismissing it and hating on it like I did as a kid. Did you have a similar experience with the film as I did? Have you always liked the film? Be sure to let me know your experience with the film in the comments below.

I hope you enjoyed this issue, and I look forward to seeing you in the next one!

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