Ooh, I’m SO scared!

I’m not much for horror movies. Especially not the current wave of super gross-out torture horror movies. I can enjoy something that’s sort of pervasively creepy, or something with a touch of the supernatural about it, but I just don’t like being disgusted and I definitely don’t like jumping in my seat.

All that said, I’m clearly not the kind of guy that goes for the typical fare among movies that people usually think of around Halloween time. However, I do have my “spooky” favorites. You won’t find Freddy Kreuger anywhere. The Ring isn’t here either. The criteria to be on this list is pretty loose. Basically, it’s movies that I’ve enjoyed that, to me, have some sort of Halloween-y connection and are the kinds of films I would want to watch for some creepy (or not-so-creepy) fun. They’re certainly not all “good” movies, so ridicule all you want, but I’ll explain why each of these choices are movies that come to mind for me each October.

Without further ado…

10. Army of Darkness. Earlier today, I posted quoting Bruce Campbell from this very movie, where he plays a man with a chainsaw for an arm, called out of time to defend the dark ages against a horde of “evil dead.” Sam Raimi is the big-shot director of the Spider-man movies these days, but he’s never forgotten his B-movie horror roots, and occasionally, he’ll throw scenes into his movies reminding you of where he cut his teeth (the Doc Ock surgery scene in Spider-man 2, for example). I digress. Though I’ve only seen Army once, it was campy, ridiculous, and funny — all qualities that make it the cult classic it is today.

9. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. This movie is only as low on the list as it is because it doesn’t totally qualify with the whole “creepy, Halloween” sort of thing. Nevertheless, it’s got some spooky stuff in it, and witches (even as benign as presented in the Potter series) are pretty closely associated with October 31st. The whole series is good, but Goblet is my favorite movie so far, so it’s the one with the place on the list.

8. The Faculty. Ahh, the late ’90s, when teen slasher flicks went through a revival. Enter Robert Rodriguez and The Faculty — the movie that pretended to belong to that group and tricked everyone by turning out to be a tongue-in-cheek modern retelling of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Rodriguez has a better grasp on storytelling and filmmaking than most people realize given that he leans toward niche films, so this movie was a lot of fun. Toss in a great cast (Elijah Wood, Josh Hartnett, Robert Patrick, etc.) and some creepy sci-fi thrills, and it’s a decent winner.

7. The Haunting. By all accounts a pretty bad movie, it’s still a lot of fun as a standard, classic-style haunted house movie. Nothing overly grisly or gross or outright scary, it had a good, consistent creepiness to it and a very watchable cast with Liam Neeson, Catherine Zeta Jones, and Owen Wilson. The movie was pretty laughable throughout, and the ending was just plain awful awful — unbelievable and unsatisfying — but against most better reasoning, I have enjoyed this movie more than once.

6. The Others. I’ve only seen this movie once, so my memory may be unreliable. I remember it, though, as being pretty intriguing, as much a mystery as anything else. Trying to figure out what the deal was with the ghosts (or “the others”) was fascinating, though slightly disappointing when the truth came out. Not much else to say about this one except that I should probably check it out again before I try to write a paragraph about it!

5. Shaun of the Dead. With the new zombie movie craze at a fever pitch, it’s the Brits that have come through with a decent parody (it seems all America can come up with for parodies anymore are crass, unfunny excuses to appeal to the lowest common denominator). A very smart send-up of all the other zombie movies out there, Shaun manages to stay original while playing off all the usual zombie cliches. I’m extra partial to this one because I got to see it in a pre-release hosted by Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost (the director and the two leads). Every time I think about this film, I wonder why I haven’t gotten around to seeing their new movie Hot Fuzz yet.

4. The Mummy Returns. Indiana Jones-style adventure with an over-the-top plot and a cast (and director) that knows it’s not supposed to take things too seriously. At some points, you can tell it’s all the actors can do not to turn and wink at the camera! Another very fun cast — Brendan Fraser is just the right amount of goofy, and everyone else (Oded Fehr, Arnold Vosloo, Rachel Weisz, etc.) knows their roles and plays well together. Like The Haunting, this really isn’t a “good” movie, but I enjoy it a lot. I’ve been in the mood lately to watch it, but I’d like to see the first Mummy again before I do so.

3. The Sixth Sense or Signs or The Village. Pick one. M. Night Shyamalan is a terrific filmmaker, and each of these three movies captures “creepy” very well. Sometimes Shyamalan’s cinematic style seems comes across as the directorial equivalent of overacting, where he’s more in love with his cinematography than the movie itself, but the stories are very good and are about far more than the creepiness. He’s usually got some larger message in all of it than just being spooky or offering a twist ending.

2. Psycho. The oldest movie on my list and another one that I’ve only seen once, I was very impressed by this film. I’ve watched a decent number of Hitchcock movies and many of them have not aged well. The suspense hasn’t always held up against some of the more modern suspense in movies and television nowadays, but Psycho was genuinely wiggy in some places. It’s such a classic that everyone knows the twists of the plot and the endings even if they haven’t seen it. It’s for that reason that this movie really impressed me with its ability to freak me out even though I knew what was going to happen.

1. Sleepy Hollow. I have no idea why this movie is at the top of my list. Maybe it’s because I like Tim Burton and Johnny Depp so much. Maybe it’s because it was one of the first “scary” movies I was able to go see. Maybe the setting is interesting and well-shot. I really can’t say. All I know is I enjoy it a lot, even though it is fairly grisly in some places. Obviously a terrific lead, with a great supporting cast (Christopher Walken, Christina Ricci, Michael Gambon, Christopher Lee, Ian McDiarmid, and so on) and stunts by Ray Park, Sleepy Hollow is my top choice for a “creepy” movie.

I’m sure there are others that I’m forgetting at the moment, but there’s my list. Feel free to comment with agreements, derisive statements, and your own choice picks. I’m curious to see what people think!