Metal Martyr Halloween Horror Picks

Some of the best horror movies are the ones that keep you in the dark through most of the movie. The ones where the monster or villain isn’t revealed right away and that makes it more scary. Some of these that I picked are typical movies that make almost everyone list simply because they are classics. They may not be the biggest budget movies and maybe that’s why they were so good. The camera angles and lighting added to the mystery and suspense and some were just scary. Either way, they made for good entertainment year round and especially on Halloween. These are in no particular order…

The Evil Dead: The first movie in the Evil Dead series was the scariest and least cheezy of them all. The mystery of the evil flying through the back woods and the sudden moments of surprise. In  1981 when this came out I was young but I didn’t see it until 3 or 4 year later when I was about 8 or 9 years old. Either way, when you’re that young you don’t really see the cheese factor in movies of this nature. I read on IMDB.com that Sam Raimi, the writer and director of The Evil Dead is remaking this movie. I hope it’s just as good as the original.

Halloween: Although Rob Zombie’s version was pretty good, it doesn’t match the original that was made with a meek 300k and was an instant classic in horror movies. one little known fact about this movie was that the mask was originally a William Shatner  Captain Kirk Star Trek mask that they just painted over white.

Pumpkinhead:Still to this day I don’t know what it is exactly that made this movie so scary. Oh, that’s right… THE BIG-ASS MONSTER, PUMPKINHEAD! Everything about that monster was scary. The way it’s eyes seemed hollow, the teeth, drool and curling lips, the long slender claws and the bones protruding from his shoulders. That thing was scary in 1989. Lance Henrikson played a great roll in this movie too. All the sequels sucked.

Night Of The Living Dead: The original black and white Night Of The Living Dead is and always will be a horror classic. The zombies didn’t look like modern day zombies and that made it even better. The suspense and the fact that there wasn’t any real gore in it made this movie amazing without attempting to over-do it. Considering it was made in 1968, George Romano almost made it look as if it was an old 30’s or 40’s era horror. “They’re coming to get you, Barbara…”

A Nightmare On Elm Street: In 1984 everything about this movie was scary. Freddie Krueger was a scary dude back then. These days he’s more a novelty and it got extremely stupid after part 2. It was a lot more fun when you actually didn’t hear Freddie talk that much or see that much of him. That made it more scary. The first Halloween after this movie came out every kid had a stupid Freddie Krueger glove. Some looked pretty good but most looked like cheap knock-offs.

Amitville Horror: The remake of this wasn’t too bad, but you can rarely top the original. Based on a true event that is still a huge mystery, the Amityville Horror was a dark and scary flick that made basements everywhere feared by young children…and some adults. If you ever want to read more about the events that this story was based of of you can visit Amityvillehorrortruth.com. I personally think the original murderer was a schizophrenic and George Lutz just let the thought of the prior murders get to him.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: Crazy….just crazy. It starts off so strange in the back of that van with the fat dude that looks like he’s from Blues Traveler. The weird dude that cuts himself with the knife and it just gets insane from there. Leatherface was a straight up scary dude that made you not want to travel any back-wood lots anywhere. My favorite part was when the first dude get’s killed with a hammer to the skull.

Friday The 13th: Most people have no clue that the killer in the first movie was Jason’s mother. A lot of people don’t know that it wasn’t until part 3 that he started wearing the hockey mask and most don’t remember where he got it from. Here’s a clue: From the prankster in episode 3. The first three, maybe 4 movies were worth watching. After that it got really stupid and disinteresting. I always found it interesting that in every sequel Jason’s head outgrows the hockey mask.

Poltergeist: I don’t know what my mother was thinking when she took us to see this movie. I was 7 years old and seeing that paranormal investigator rip the skin off of his face in the mirror scared the hell out of me. The bodies in the muddy swimming pool hole didn’t do me any goof either. part 2 and 3 were terrible and then the little girl died died only a few months before the release of part 3 at a young age of 13 from Cardiac arrest from septic shock.

Saw: The first Saw movie was the best because you never saw the conspirator until the very end in one of the greatest twists you will ever get in a movie. There was no way to every replicate this kind of turn of events in a movie again. That’s exactly what made all the other movies predictable and unworthy.

So those are the movies that I pick and I could probably name a good handful more of them but I would be here all night. These are just a few that come to mind. Now I will leave you with one of the worst movies ever made and the worst remake ever made.

The worst horror movie ever made…The Blair Witch Project. Why was this stupid? not because it didn’t have any special effects or because you never saw the “Blair Witch”. I can live without those things in a horror movie and a lot of the times that makes them better. It was stupid because none of it made any sense at all. The girl in it is annoying ALL THE TIME. The arguing, the crying, it all made for a crap-fest. The ending was the worse because they were supposed to be in a old house from like the 1800’s or something but most houses that old didn’t have basements and this one had a hot water heater in it. I don’t care what kind of aspect that it was supposed to be shot in, it sucked. There was so much hype on it that everyone rushed out to see it and it made a ass-load of money on a story that was false but made to look real. However I do remember seeing some Cinemax soft-core skin-flick parody of this movie and it was much better, but that could have been due to all the T&A in it.

Worst Remake: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2004). If it’s not broke, don’t fix it. There was no sense in remaking such a classic and to butcher it like they did just made me absolutely hate this movie. This movie just plain out sucked and the only people that would ever think that this was a good depiction of the original are fools. If you saw and like the first one you would think that this 2004 version was outright blasphemous and an insult to the original.

All movie images from Amazon.com

Top image used with permission from Newscom.com