Our Fright Night Fest

Tomorrow is Halloween a favorite holiday for horror enthusiasts. My oldest daughter and I both share an obsession for horror. We have a family tradition in our house that we have celebrated for years now. Each Halloween we go out and buy tons of candy put it in a big bowl and sit our butts in front of our big screen tv. No trick or treating for us.

I made the decision years ago that the stress and danger wasn’t worth allowing my kids to wander from house to house begging for candy. Each year I take them to a local carnival with games, face paintings, costume contests and hay rides to satisfy their driving need to dress up for just one night. We also try to find a local haunted house, something that has grown more difficult in recent years due to a lack of funding.

Halloween night in our family is celebrated with a horror movie marathon, a fright night fest if you will. It entails a list of our favorites from both the past and present.

Our lineup for this year’s fright night fest: We decided on Movies the majority has never seen before.

Psycho (1960) – A Phoenix secretary steals $40,000 from her employer’s client, goes on the run and checks into a remote motel run by a young man under the domination of his mother.

An oldie but goody. Though this movie has been around for years my kids have never seen it so we found a copy of the original movie for our fright night fest.

 

Curse of Chucky (2013) – After her mother’s mysterious death, Nica begins to suspect that the talking, red-haired doll her visiting niece has been playing with may be the key to recent bloodshed and chaos.

In my opinion the whole Chucky franchise has been overdone, but I got out voted by my own little monsters.

 

A Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia (2013) – A young family moves into a historic home in Georgia, only to learn they are not the house’s only inhabitants. Soon they find themselves in the presence of a secret rising from underground and threatening to bring down anyone in its path.

This was my kid’s choice. While I generally like ghost stories I’ve never heard of this movie so have no opinion.

 

The Last Exorcism Part 2 (2013) – As Nell Sweetzer tries to build a new life after the events of the first movie, the evil force that once possessed her returns with an even more horrific plan.

The trailer for this movie prompted us to go back and get the first movie. It’s done along the lines of the Blair Witch Projects. I have to say I wasn’t really expecting the ending of the first movie. Horrible IMDB rating, but again kid’s choice.

 

Just for fun my family got together and voted on the creepiest movies of all times. Since we tend to be desensitized to horror in general it was a difficult process, but I think we did a decent job.

Dead Silence (2007) – A widower returns to his hometown to search for answers to his wife’s murder, which may be linked to the ghost of a murdered ventriloquist.

I have a deep fear of anything doll or clown related. This movie scared the crap out of me.

 

 

The Ring (2002) – A young journalist must investigate a mysterious videotape which seems to cause the death of anyone in a week of viewing it.

There was a unanimous vote 6/6 that this movie held a definite creep factor.

 

 

White Noise (2005) – An architect’s desire to speak with his wife from beyond the grave, becomes an obsession with supernatural repercussions.

The idea of voices beyond the grave not only exist but can be picked up by certain electronic devices just left us a bit creeped out.

 

The Eye (2002) – Originally titled Gin Gwai this is the Chinese version of the 2008 American movie by the same name. A blind girl gets a cornea transplant so that she would be able to see again. However, she got more than what she bargained for when she realized she could even see ghosts. And some of these ghosts are downright unfriendly. So she embarks on a journey to find the origins of her cornea and to reveal the history of the previous dead owner

We all six agreed to a high amount of creep factor when dealing with the ghosts from this movie. I have to say when it comes to horror/thrillers in most cases foreign films are just done better. American film makers tend to lean more toward gore than actual fear, which while still entertaining on some levels loses some of its spook appeal.

Two movies that stand out for me personally:

Black Christmas (1974) – A sorority house is terrorized by a stranger who makes frightening phone calls and then murders the sorority sisters during Christmas break.

As a child I was obsessed with many horror/thrillers, but none left a lasting impression on me quite as much as this movie. For years it topped my list as the scariest movie of all time. Oddly enough I watched it again when the remake came out, a comparison if you will of old to new, but it didn’t affect me the same. I think it held such a huge impact on my childhood fears more because of the reality factor. Without a paranormal twist it left you wondering just how real something like this could be.

Mama (2013) – Annabel and Lucas are faced with the challenge of raising his young nieces that were left alone in the forest for 5 years…. but how alone were they?

I found this recent thriller to have a decent combination of creep and entertainment without the slasher gore found in more modern films.