Happy Halloween!

One of my traditions at Halloween, besides watching "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown", which I'm pretty sure I've watched every year since birth, and have completely memorized, is having my own horror movie marathon after the trick-or-treaters have gone home. Usually I would make things easy on myself and watch Fearfest on AMC, but this year they have decided to show Night of the Living Dead four times in a row, so I am forced to get creative and pull out my own movie collection in search of the perfect movies to give me a nice scare for the season. Even though I have movies of my own, I decided that I would see what else is out there, and I found some great stuff. One website in particular, best-horror-movies.com, was very helpful to me. They have a list of the top 100 horror movies, and they also have one called the Horror Beginner's Shelf made especially to ease novices into the genre, so that they are not scarred for life from the first movie they see (like me, when I was younger, who started with The Exorcist, which I have finally recovered from). Here are some of my personal favorites from the list.

98. The Ring
If the movie wasn't scary enough, there was also the whole legend about the phone ringing after you watch the first time, which is completely true by the way.

93. Salem's Lot
I have a thing about evil / undead children. I just don't like them. The floating boy in this one has stayed with me for years.

91. It
I was terrified of drains for a while after this one.

86. Pet Semetary 
Evil baby. Enough said.

37. The Sixth Sense
This little girl wasn't actually undead, she was a ghost, but this movie would've still been creepy even without her.

17. Ju-On
This is the original Japanese version of the Grudge, and it's just terrifying (to me), and  again there's an undead child in it.

7. Nightmare On Elm Street
This one actually didn't scare me, but it was Johnny Depp's first acting job, so I still manage to watch it every year.  :D

1. The Exorcist
As I said, it was the first major scary movie I ever saw, and it definitely stuck with me for a long time.


Speaking of movies that stick with you, Paranormal Activity freaked me out more than any horror movies have in awhile. I was fine through most of the movie, but the ending definitely stayed with me. If you haven't seen it yet, I definitely recommend it.
I now leave you with something a bit more mellow to start the day. Have a happy and safe Halloween, and have fun!