10 Horror Movie Recommendations for the Halloween Season By: John Maescher

It’s officially the Halloween season, and naturally, that means it’s the best time to stock up on scary movies. Here’s a list of 11 great horror movies to watch for the spooky season that you hopefully may not be as familiar with as the iconic, established classics.

1. Blood and Black Lace (1964)

One of the earliest and most notable entries in the Italian giallo subgenre of horror, Mario Bava’s Blood and Black Lace stands as a perfect distillation of the subgenre’s trademarks—maximalist stylization, lush production design, bright neon colors, campy acting and dialogue, and gory kills that are as mesmerizing as they are gruesome. Black Lace follows an inspector who’s called in to investigate the brutal murder of a fashion house model by a masked killer, and as the house’s vices come to light, the masked killer continues to take out the models one by one. Bava, one vanguard of gialli along with Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci, delivers an expertly crafted thrill ride filled with memorable set-pieces, shadowy Gothic atmosphere, masterful camerawork, and gorgeous candy-coated colors that are simply to die for.

1. House (1977)

If you’re looking for one of the most delightfully insane viewing experiences you’ll ever have, you can’t get much better than Japanese filmmaker Nobuhiko Obayashi’s 1977 cult classic Hausu (known as House overseas). Hausu has been a staple of midnight-movie cult fascination for years, and for good reason. Few movies are this gleefully unhinged and happy to simply be themselves. The film follows a young woman named Gorgeous, who takes a trip to the countryside to visit her aunt’s old Victorian house, and invites a group of friends—named Melody, Prof, Mac, Fantasy, Sweet, and Kung Fu (maybe the best character names in any movie)—to join her. Quickly, they find that there’s much more to the house than meets the eye. Hausu ultimately proves much closer to an absurdist comedy than a pure horror film, but it’s still a perfect choice for the spooky season. Obayashi breaks every barrier and convention of filmmaking in Hausu, taking full advantage of the limitless possibilities of the cinema, and creating a singular experience bursting with imagination in every frame. There are no boundaries to anything in this film. Where else will you find a piano that eats people, a flying severed head, mattresses that come alive, dancing skeletons, and a guy that literally turns into a pile of bananas? There’s been nothing like Hausu, before or since.

1. Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)

Arriving at the peak popularity of the Halloween franchise, spawned by John Carpenter’s 1978 masterpiece and followed by the much more flawed but still enjoyable Halloween II in 1981, Halloween III: Season of the Witch was widely hated upon its 1982 release for one major distinction that sets it apart: the series’ iconic villain Michael Myers is completely absent from the film. People were so angry with this decision that the film was shunned and ignored by fans of the franchise for years, but in recent years, it’s undergone a reevaluation and become a cult classic—and for good reason. Halloween III may not have the face of the franchise, but it’s still just as evocative of the Halloween spirit as the original classic, and taken on its own terms, the film is a wonderfully unique curiosity. The film follows a doctor (Tom Atkins) and a young woman (Stacey Nelkin) who uncover a conspiracy after the woman’s father is gruesomely killed while in possession of a Halloween mask made by the Silver Shamrock company, and find that the corporation has a sinister plan for the entire country with their masks. The story is certainly goofy and ridiculous on paper, but director Tommy Lee Wallace executes it with a strong command of craft that makes the film effective and scary as a result, with atmosphere and mood to spare. And Wallace’s direction so closely channels Carpenter that if I didn’t know any better, I could easily convince you that he directed it (not to mention that Carpenter himself composes the synth music here, one of the greatest scores in horror history). Halloween III fully deserves its cult status and makes for a great fit to celebrate the season. And good luck getting the Silver Shamrock jingle out of your head afterwards.

1. The Hunger (1983)

The directorial debut of the late, great Tony Scott, The Hunger is one of my favorite debut films, showcasing ‌a cinematic voice already fully formed right out of the gate. The film follows a vampire (Catherine Deneuve) who provides immortal life to her lovers, but when her

a centuries-old companion (David Bowie) suddenly starts rapidly aging; she begins a love triangle with a doctor (Susan Sarandon) who studies the science of aging. The Hunger is a mesmerizing mood piece drenched in a thick Gothic atmosphere, filled with gorgeous visual compositions, and put together with a fragmented, hypnotic editing style. It’s simply one of the most beautiful-looking movies of the ‘80s, and has enough moody, spooky atmosphere to last for an immortal lifetime.

1. The Fly (1986)

Canadian horror legend David Cronenberg has long been at the vanguard of the “body horror” subgenre, and his 1986 masterpiece The Fly serves as his definitive achievement. The film follows brilliant and eccentric scientist Dr. Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum), who completes a groundbreaking experiment in teleportation and tests it on himself, only for things to go horribly wrong as a housefly gets inside the device, and Brundle slowly becomes one with the fly. One needs to look no further for some of the greatest practical effects work in cinematic history, with Brundle’s bodily transformation rendered in truly disgusting and stomach-churning effects that remain unparalleled in their creativity to this day. But there’s more to The Fly than just the gore and viscera—it’s also a brilliant tragedy that spends its first hour laying down the groundwork with a genuinely engaging romance between Brundle and a reporter named Veronica (Geena Davis), so that we feel all the more weight when Brundle’s life goes to hell. Cronenberg’s entire body of work is a treasure trove for horror fans to dive into, and The Fly is the best place to start.

1. Prince of Darkness (1987)

The self-proclaimed “horror master”, there’s perhaps no more iconic filmmaker in the world of horror than John Carpenter, with a filmography of endless classics that will never stop giving. But one of his more overlooked is his phenomenal 1987 film Prince of Darkness, which may not get the same attention as Carpenter’s perennial classics like Halloween and The Thing, but is every bit on the same level of mastery. The film follows a research team composed of graduate students and scientists, who discover a mysterious ancient cylinder in an abandoned Los Angeles church, only to inadvertently release forces of evil to the world upon opening the cylinder. In Carpenter’s hands, what could’ve been a campy and goofy B-Movie (and would’ve worked just fine‌) is instead rendered as one of the most unsettling and disconcerting horror films ever made. Carpenter’s unimpeachable craft creates a constant atmosphere of dread and terror in, as the film revels in the horror of the unknown, and the horror of forces beyond anyone’s control. In a decade full of riches for the horror genre, Prince of Darkness is near the very top.

1. Cure (1997)

The subgenre of thrillers about detectives becoming consumed and obsessed over long periods of time with inexplicable murder cases has been endlessly rewarding, from David Fincher’s Zodiac to Bong Joon-ho’s Memories of Murder to several more, but none have ever taken a more purely terrifying approach than Japanese filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s 1997 masterpiece

Cure. The film follows a frustrated detective (Kōji Yakusho) who teams with a psychologist (Tsuyoshi Ujiki) to investigate a series of gruesome murders across Tokyo, where the only connection is an “X” carved into the neck of each victim; in each case, they found the murderer near the victim, and has no memory of committing the act. Over time, events only become more inexplicable as the investigation goes nowhere. Cure is as haunting and unsettling as any horror film you’ll find, creating such an unnerving atmosphere that it’s almost unbearable to watch (in the best way possible). The simplistic camerawork, ambient soundtrack, and pared-down locations give the film a terrifying minimalism, and the way Kurosawa wrings terror out of mundane things like a glass of water spilling or a lighter flicking on is remarkable. It’s simply one of the scariest movies I’ve ever seen, and it’s stuck with me for over a year since I first watched it.

1. The House of the Devil (2009)

With the 1980s being such an iconic decade for horror films, genre filmmakers have also been chasing ‘80s nostalgia for the past 10 years, with examples like Stranger Things bringing ‘80s culture back to the mainstream. But no one has pulled off a more convincing ‘80s recreation than Ti West’s 2009 horror throwback The House of the Devil. The film follows a college student (Jocelin Donahue) in 1983 who takes a strange babysitting job to make some extra cash, coinciding with a full lunar eclipse; she soon finds that there’s more to her clients than what she bargained for. It’s easy enough to simply pay homage to the classics of the era, but it’s harder to actually channel the same feeling and sensibilities to where it genuinely feels like you’re watching a lost film from the time, and that’s exactly what West is here. Whether it’s the evocative grain of the 16mm photography, or the specific camera techniques deployed, or the patient build of mood and atmosphere, West clearly has a great deal of affection for the era, and it shows throughout. Not to mention it’s scary as hell too, with the tense, slow burn culminating in a relentless and full-throttle climax. Of all recent ‘80s throwbacks, The House of the Devil is the most successful.

1. Drag Me to Hell (2009)

With his increasingly comedic trilogy of Evil Dead films back in the 1980s and ‘90s, Sam Raimi established himself as horror’s resident goofball, and coming off his wildly successful Spider-Man trilogy in the 2000s, Raimi returned to his roots with Drag Me to Hell, an unhinged and deliriously entertaining horror-comedy. The film follows a loan officer (Alison Lohman) who finds herself under a supernatural curse after evicting an old woman from her home, turning to a psychic to lift the curse. The effects of the curse are brought to life with all kinds of imaginative visual ideas, offering a seamless blend of horror and comedy in its macabre set-pieces. It’s shocking that it somehow got away with a PG-13 rating, given how gloriously nasty some of the imagery is. It’s paced like a bullet, too, and never stops moving from start to finish. Drag Me to Hell is an absolute blast, and a great pick to watch with a group of friends on an October night.

1. The Empty Man (2020)

Because of the Fox-Disney merger in 2019, some films that Fox had in development ‌ended up getting pushed under the rug, and one of those victims was The Empty Man, an excellent horror film that was delayed repeatedly until getting quietly dumped onto digital services in 2020 with hardly any promotion or marketing. It’s a shame, because The Empty Man is one of the smartest and unique horror films in recent years, and although it quickly built a word-of-mouth cult following among horror fans, it deserved a wider release than it got. The film follows a retired cop (James Badge Dale) who investigates the disappearance of a group of teens in his small Midwestern town, believed by locals to be tied to an urban legend known as “The Empty Man”, and uncovers a terrifying secret beyond what he could have imagined. Directed by first-time filmmaker David Prior, The Empty Man is incredibly sturdy and confident of a debut, and it’s legitimately scary and unsettling in ways that few recent horror films have been. Hopefully, its audience will only continue to grow, because it deserved much better than the bungled release it got.

1. Malignant (2021)

James Wan has been one of the most important figures in mainstream horror of the past two decades, having spawned three separate massively successful horror franchises with The Conjuring, Saw, and Insidious (Wan directed the first installment of each, as well as the second Conjuring). Capitalizing off the stature he gained with these, as well as making a billion dollars with 2018’s Aquaman, Wan was gifted the opportunity to make Malignant, a gloriously gonzo horror extravaganza that’s less in line with the mainstream fare he’d spent years making, and more of a love letter to the delirious work of horror legends like Wes Craven, Sam Raimi, and Dario Argento. The film follows a woman named Madison (Annabelle Wallis) who’s paralyzed by random visions of gruesome murders, soon discovering that they may not just be visions after all. Wan pulls a deliberate bait-and-switch in the film’s structure, beginning as a more polished and conventional haunted-house movie with few surprises (although it’s helped with impressive visual craftsmanship), then slowly morphing into a surreal and colorful murder mystery procedural reminiscent of Italian giallo films, before suddenly pulling the rug out entirely to reveal an utterly bonkers and unhinged third act that’s best left unspoiled. I had the dumbest grin on my face watching all the delightful surprises unfold, and Wan isn’t afraid to get knowingly campy and ridiculous as the film evolves. Malignant is an absolute treat for horror fans, and a film destined to live a long life playing midnight screenings to an audience of fans hooting and hollering at the film’s wicked delights.