Happy Halloween!

Popcorn time

We are now in proper holiday time, and we need some stress relief, thanks to this election madness. (Vote, fellow Americans!) Horror movies have been shown to be good for you—no, really, you can trust me, I was a therapist—so this Halloween can be cathartic.

I have a list on Letterboxd that might help throughout this holiday season; it’s a curated list of movies that take place on holidays, so it’s evergreen throughout the season. They aren’t all horror, if that isn’t your thing; you can filter by genre at the top, using this nifty menu.

The top banner is an intriguing Christmas horror movie from France, The Advent Calendar, with a disabled main character. (I have a list for disability in horror, as well. If you know me, you know I am a list maker.)

So what do I suggest from off the beaten path for today?

Three movies immediately come to mind, all about haunt attractions:

Hell Fest (2018): a horror theme park becomes more extreme as the patrons go further, and the real violence seems to be part of the fun. Fun Tony Todd cameo. Produced by Gale Ann Hurd, one of the producers of The Walking Dead.

Haunt (2019): a ragtag group tries an off-the-beaten-path haunt attraction despite the red flags.

Hell House LLC (2015): a group of friends runs a haunt attraction business, and moves it out of New York City to an abandoned hotel for this Halloween. Found footage.

Heads-up, should you need them: Heavy clown content in Haunt and Hell House. All clowns, all the time. So many clowns in Haunt that I’m not sharing the poster. Hell House LLC is the only one without gore, the other two are quite gnarly, Haunt being the most intense. Haunt has abuse themes.

I love these three movies; not only are they set on Halloween, but they feel like Halloween. Early dark, swirling leaves, the dark crackly color scheme rather than bright oranges and purples, too many sweet treats feeling sour, uncertainty behind masks, costumes with sinister tint, cold gusts of wind with the last hint of warmth, as if Halloween were something we could construct, the sense of going deeper into the evening, as if it were space as well as time…

If you watch one or all, have fun, and let me know if you enjoy them. Check out the list for the rest of the season—there’s even movies for Thanksgiving. I’m going through the movies now and labeling the less obvious films with their holiday. And share your favorites with me as well. Happy Halloween, and when we fight, we win!