Trick or Treat – Five Halloween Movies You Must Watch

Yeah, we are back to this time of the year again. Halloween is just around the corner and the movie industry is already cramming up classic horror movies and selling them as ‘Remade Halloween DVD Boxes’ again. However, for all the movie lovers out there – here is a little collection of the greatest Halloween Horror movies to get you into the right mood and the proper Halloween spirits.

5) Trick R’ Treat (2007) by Michael Dougherty

This movie doesn’t follow one, not two; but 4 different Halloween plots. A school principal, who is secretly a ‘part time’ serial killer; four women have to deal with a creepy stalker at a local festival; a group of pranksters discover a horrific truth buried in a local legend; and the last story an old hermit, who is visited by a strange trick or treater.

Sounds like a classical Horror movie, how everyone knows it. However M. Dougherty gets the perfect mix of horror and a certain quality of fun between the four interwoven stories. It juggles around the plots without even confusing the viewer once. Hence, this is a nice warm up movie before the night proceeds.

4) Ginger Snaps (2000) by John Fawcett

Apparently this is not only one of the top 5 Halloween movies of all time, but also one of the top 5 werewolf movies of all time. Ginger and her younger sister, Brigitte, have made a pact of dying together when they were young. However, Ginger gets bitten by a werewolf, when she is 16 years old. She starts to get scarier and scarier and starting to kill people as Halloween approaches. Brigitte needs to find a cure and the race against time begins.

Ginger Snaps uses werewolfism as a metaphor for puberty and shows the troubles and challenges growing into womanhood. But blood and gore will give you a foretaste of what will await you. Furthermore, this clever tale includes lots of subtext and symbolism if you dig deep enough.

3) The Nightmare before Christmas (1993) by Tim Burton

CLASSIC! I bet some of you were thinking that, when you read through the title of this movie. The pump king of Halloween Town, Jack Skellington, is as you would have expected bored with doing the same thing every year for Halloween. Then one day he stumbles into Christmas Town, which makes him realize how much he loves Christmas. Hence, he tries to bring Christmas to Halloween Town. However, he manages not to get it quite right in the beginning.

This is one of those movies, which you can watch all season long, from Halloween through Christmas. Although it is animated it has this unique and gothic tone to it. It has that Wallace and Gromit touch to it. Moreover, this movie had an major impact on culture in general. And honestly, who can ever complain about a Tim Burton movie?

2) The Silence of the Lambs (1991) by Jonathan Demme

Not the proper Halloween setting, but still one of the greatest Horror movies ever made. Jodie Foster is playing a FBI cadet, who must confide an incarcerated and manipulative killer to receive help on catching another serial killer, who skins his victims.

This movie proves that tons of blood and gore is not necessary for a great suspense film. Anthony Hopkins deserved his Academic Award for his outstanding performance as the genius lecturer. But this movie isn’t for weak nerves as it is on the level of ‘The Exorcist’ building up the viewers with anxiety and fear during the whole movie.

1) Halloween (1978) by John Carpenter

Okay, who would have ever thought that it wouldn’t be John Carpenter’s classic ‘Halloween’ on the top of the list? Of course, the title already gives the movie a big head start already in this list. However being serious, this movie was and still is the pioneer of all the horror movies. It single-handedly influenced the entire horror genre up to this day. This is why Michael Myers will be referred as the king of all slasher movies!

Yeah, for all newbies, Michael Myers is the protagonist, who slaughtered his teenage sister, when he was 6 years old. After couple of appointments at the psychiatrist, Myers starts his ‘slashings’ at Halloween.

So you got your ultimate film recommendations set here for a scary and nice Halloween night in. Hopefully, Mike Myers will not appear behind you with a chainsaw, while you are watching Halloween! 

Ciaran sources engraved gifts for the online retailer Personalised Gift Shop. However, he is a big fan of Horror and Thriller movies.

Read more Halloween lists on Taste of Cinema by clicking the pumpkin image below!