October has begun, which means Halloween is almost here. In honor of the holiday, we've compiled a list of 31 great horror films, one for each day of the month leading up to and including that frightful night. Some may be familiar to you, some a little more obscure -- Carter Swan and special contributor Scott Collette have put their heads together to bring you not necessarily the BEST horror films of all time, but films they feel you would be missing out on if you never saw them. So without further ado, the list...

Carter's picks:

HALLOWEEN (1978)

In case any of you didn't get how I feel about this from the recent column I wrote on this, I think its the greatest achievement in horror films EVER. It literally invented a huge sub-genre (the slasher film) that continues to be beaten into the ground today. The first "horror" effort from John Carpenter, who in my opinion, is the greatest horror film director of all time.


ALIEN (1979)

The movie that really brought Ridley Scott and Sigourney Weaver into the mainstream, this film in beautifully constructed from top to bottom. Genuine scares and an interesting fresh world of "blue collar" space make this film real, relatable and ultimately as terrifying today as the day of its release.


THE FOG (1980)

I just LOVE the concept of this film, and a stellar cast along with some great directing really make this movie ooze with fear. Another great example of John Carpenter taking a smaller budget and turning it into something that feels like a much bigger film.


DEMONS (1985)
Dèmoni

From producer Dario Argento and director Lamberto Bava (son of Italian horror great Mario Bava) DEMONS chronicles a film screening in which an evil movie turns its unsuspecting audience into bloodthirsty homicidal demons. Great silly horror device, the film within a film,the signature Italian gore, and a nice surprise twist at the end make this a horror must see.


SUSPIRA (1977)
Also from Dario Argento (this time as director) this trippy psychedelic story of a young woman who is either going crazy, or has enrolled in a school of witches is one of the most interesting looking films you will ever see. This movie will get into your head and swim around in it for quite some time after.


POLTERGEIST (1982)

On the eve of it's twenty fifth anniversary, I feel like this movie has been somewhat forgotten in the sands of cinema time but it does remain a crowning achievement in horror and is easily one of the best big budget horror films ever made. it is packed with classic moments that continue to scare the shit out of me even as I watch it for the thirtieth time today.


BUD ABBOT LOU COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN (1948)

Horror and humor mix well since they are at opposite ends of the emotional spectrum. Of course this film features classic comedians Bud Abbott and Lou Costello but it also features the three most recongnizable monsters in universal history, Bela Lugosi's Dracula, Lon Chaney Jr's Wolfman, and Frankenstein (Glenn Strange) on screen together. Family friendly and must see for historians and fright fans alike.


THE MONSTER SQUAD (1987)

Speaking of family friendly, this movie is literally the Goonies with monsters. Finally released on DVD, the film features a group of suburbenite kids doing battle against FIVE heavyweight classic monsters. if you're a fan of the Universal classic monsters, you will undoubtedly love this film.


THE RAVEN (1935)

Lugosi and Karloff ditched the monsters movies to make this tale of a fiendish doctor who has a penchant for all things Edgar Allan Poe and of course, torturing people. An INCREDIBLY perverse film for its time, it features two great performances by horror legends and a twisted side to it that leaves one affected far after the film ends.


THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE HUNTERS (1967)
aka DANCE OF THE VAMPIRES
Sure Roman Polanski has had more mainstream hits, even in the genre of horror, but this film he abandons that sadistic side in order to tell an amusing tale of bumbling vampire hunters who inadvertanly stumble into a nest full of Vampires. Great fun, and interesting to watch Polanski make such a departure.

DEAD ALIVE (1992)
aka BRAINDEAD

Just all out, balls to the wall horror featuring zombies eating every type of body part, killer babies, a disease spreading bat-monkey and a lawn mower wielding protagonist, this may very well be the most over the top horror film ever made. Of course the director Peter jackson has moved on to some slightly moderate indie success in his career.

REPULSION (1965)


A GREAT psychological retelling of Alice in Wonderland featuring a young foxy Catherine Deneve as a crazy woman who locks herself in her apartment and loses her mind of the course of a few days. This is my favorite of all Polanski films and a work that I find to be extremely unsettling.


JACOB'S LADDER (1990)

Visions of demons and past horrific war crimes plague Tim Robbins in the Adrian Lyne modern classic. Another film that has great undertones to it, and is very unsettling. The beauty of this film though is that while you may be repulsed while watching it, the plot is so interesting that when the films surprise ending hits you, you must go back and watch it with your newfound understanding of it.


FUNNY GAMES (1997)

Nothing can be more terrifying than human beings that take pleasure in torturing and terrorizing other human beings for the sake of their own enjoyment. This German classic is one of the ultimate downers of all time, and will really punch you in the gut. Look for the American re-make featuring Naomi Watts and Tim Roth to hit theaters soon.


THE HITCHER (1986)

For my money this is the second best "slasher" film of all time. It really has all the ingrediants necessary to make one of these films exceptional. Creepy bad guy? Rutger Hauer is chilling. Isolated local? The desert locations make C. Thomas Howell's plight all the more chilling? Horrific ending. Jennifer Jason Leigh at the truckstop... the first time I saw this film I couldn't sleep for two days after because of that scene. Don't let the recent re-make throw you as this movie is a terrifying classic.


CABIN FEVER (2002)

Produced by our very own Evan Astrowsky, CABIN FEVER is the over the top blood bath that put director Eli Roth on the map. A great example on why horror movies can be so effective -- low budget and high gore-factor can equal big box office success. (Okay, Evan, you can stop pointing that gun at my head now)

Scott's Picks:

THE HIDDEN (1987)

THE HIDDEN stars Michael Nouri as a cop assigned to catch a bank robber. The robber is an ordinary man… except he can take fifty bullets from police fire and still walk away. The FBI gets involved and sends Kyle McLachlan to help him solve the case. Soon the bank robber dies and someone else starts wreaking havoc.

These people going crazy are the result of a parasitic alien that has landed on Earth. He inhabits the bodies of innocent people and causes as much destruction as possible before moving on to the next body. Luckily, Kyle McLachlan is also inhabited by an alien… a good one… there to track down and kill the bad one. I’m not making this up.


MAY (2003)

MAY is an unusual creepy masterpiece. Some of my friends love it and the others absolutely hate it. Angela Bettis gives an amazing performance as May: a young, awkward girl with no friends. As she begins to connect with people, they turn her away because she’s strange. Her solution to her problems is both haunting and rewarding (in that ‘I can’t believe they did that’ sort of way.) It’s TALENTED MR. RIPLEY meets FRANKENSTEIN.


THE THING (1982)

John Carpenter’s THE THING is the story of about a dozen scientists in a compound in Antarctica. Something isn’t exactly right. There’s some sort of parasitic alien that’s able to take someone over and use their body for its own bidding. MacReady leads the hunt to find who’s infected and to kill them off. If the alien doesn’t kill them off, their madness surely will.


This film has one of the most famous scenes in any modern horror film. The test scene is so intense that you’ll always remember it. I love that MacReady doesn’t want to be in charge but ultimately takes the helm because he doesn’t trust anyone else. This film is a lot of fun.

NOTE: Also, this movie might have the most entertaining DVD commentary ever recorded.


THE SHINING (1980)

I’m certain that anybody who’s read this list has seen THE SHINING. Along with HALLOWEEN, PSYCHO, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and FRANKENSTEIN; I’d say that this is one of the five most important horror films ever made. Stanley Kubrick brings his sterile ambience to the scenes that he’s used in most of his other films… it just made sense that he finally came out and did a full-out horror film. It’s so eerie that you cannot look away from the screen, as if the film itself was another person in your room that you don’t want to turn your back on. If you have not seen THE SHINING… you have to see THE SHINING.


PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE (1974)

Brian De Palma’s PHANTOM is a bizarre rock-opera horror combo mixing the stories of “Phantom of the Opera” and “Faust”. This is ROCKY HORROR before ROCKY HORROR with glam rock songs by star and MUPPETS MOVIE composer Paul Williams (best known for writing the “Love Boat Theme” and the hit “Old Fashioned Love Song”).

It’s about a composer (William Finley) who makes it big and gets screwed over by his producer (Paul Williams channeling Andy Warhol). His attempts to right his situation wind up destroying his life. Now he returns to the producer and sells his music and soul by signing a contract with Williams (which includes a clause: “all articles that are excluded will be considered included”). Finley signs under the assumption that the woman he loves will sing his music. Williams instead butchers the music into a hard rock concert inspired by KISS and Finley goes for revenge.


DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978)

George A. Romero’s DAWN OF THE DEAD is one of the first films I watched when I started getting into horror films and I’ll never forget my first time seeing it. The film opens on scenes of zombies taking over Philadelphia. Our four lead characters flee the attacks in a helicopter and decide to hide out in a shopping mall. They barricade the entrances and run around inside killing off the remaining zombies. It serves as a great fort until some other survivors come along and break in.


28 DAYS LATER (2002)

Danny Boyle’s 28 DAYS LATER is incredible. Cillian Murphy wakes up locked in a hospital exam room and nobody is around. Everything is silent. He stumbles out of the room, out of the hospital and into the streets of London. He shouts out, looking for any sign of life. When he finds a number of people in a state of… living… he realizes that they’re dangerous and he takes off running. He’s saved by some other survivors and they work together to stay alive.

The characters are intelligent and detailed and they think things through. When a horror film has the decency to provide you with intelligent characters, you’re gonna have a good time. The digital cinematography works greatly to the film’s advantage and the memorable score seems to be showing up in more trailers now than the score to REQUIEM.


ALIENS (1986)

ALIENS was always a lot of fun for me. When I was younger and lived in Utah, we used to have our Mormon friends sleep over and we would watch ALIENS, TERMINATOR and PREDATOR. They’re parents weren’t happy with my dad… but the rest of us certainly were.

In this film, Ripley is older and wiser. She’s certainly got the “Fool me once shame on you, won’t get fooled again” attitude. The assortment of supporting characters really make this film what it is. Bill Paxton steals the show. This is a film where both the regular version and director’s cuts are spectacular. James Cameron didn’t want the film to be decided by test audiences so he cut the film to two hours himself, cutting out some great scenes that are only missed if you’ve seen the longer cut. The DVD’s 3-hour ‘making of’ documentary is just as entertaining as the film.


SHIVERS (1975)

I talked about SHIVERS so much after I first saw it that it quickly became my favorite horror film. It’s unlike any other zombie movie there is. The film takes place in a high rise apartment building in Canada. Someone in the building has been infected with a parasite designed to make people revert back to their animalistic sexual urges. When that person has sex, the virus re-produces and spreads into the next person. Sooner or later, you have tons of mindless people at your door who are all horny and just want to have sex. The parasite almost seems more threatening than the zombie bite because here, so many people would consent without realizing what they were doing.

I am a huge fan of David Cronenberg’s horror films. RABID, THE FLY, THE DEAD ZONE and SCANNERS (also on this list) are some other great ones to check out.


SANTA SANGRE (1989)

Alejandro Jodorowsky’s SANTA SANGRE is one of the five weirdest movies I’ve ever seen. It’s about the son of the circus strong man and a female trapeze artist. The trapeze artist leads a religion that worships a woman whose arms were torn from her body by an angry husband. After a protest in town, the trapeze artist returns home to find her husband, the circus strongman, having sex with the bearded woman. She dumps acid on both of them and in anger, the strongman tears off her arms and she bleeds to death…

… Or does she? Years later, she lives with her son who allows her to use his arms as his own. He slides his arms into her sleeves and she forces him to kill. The physical acting is brilliant.

Now… if you read the part about the trapeze artist walking in on the strongman having sex with the bearded woman and you haven’t rushed out to find a copy… then this film might not be for you.


SCANNERS (1981) David Cronenberg’s SCANNERS is a tale about a telekinetic ability that turns people into creatures called scanners. This film is a combination of the birth of the computer age and Cronenberg’s fear of reproduction. It opens with a man trying to scan a scanner and having his head explode. The villain, Michael Ironside, gathers all the scanners he can and tries to use them together to rule the world. Stephen Lack takes the other side of the fight and tries to bring the scanner army down.


This film has one of those computer moments like in INDEPENDENCE DAY where you sit there and think: “wait… you can’t do that with computers...” Aside from that, it’s brilliant. UNFORTUNATELY… the DVD is MGM’s most irresponsible pressing EVER. Once the film hits the layer switch, the audio comes back out of sync. This lasts the entire second half of the film.


AUDITION (1999)
Ôdishon

Takeshi Miike’s AUDITION is probably the most mature film he’s made. I’m not saying I don’t like the scene in FUDOH where the girl shoots a dart through a blow gun from her vagina… and I’m not saying I don’t like the razor blade shoes in ICHI THE KILLER. What I’m saying is that AUDITION is a completely “normal” film for the first forty five minutes or so. Then it gets creepy and horrifying.

AUDITION is about a widower who uses an acting movie audition to find a date. He finds a sweet young girl who really seems to like him. He starts to go out with her but soon we start to find out that she might not be the best girl out there.

This film has one of three moments in the history of cinema where I’ve had to shut my eyes. The other two were fingernails being torn off in CLEAN, SHAVEN and STIR OF ECHOES. This one wins.


THE VAL LEWTON COLLECTION (1942-1946)

Val Lewton produced a series of horror films from 1942 to 1946 that have much more substance and story than most of the better known classic horror films. Why aren’t they better known? Because of their radical agenda of putting women in the workplace and giving honorable roles to minority actors! Unheard of… for the mid 1940’s.

This DVD set includes nine classic films, all ranging from 70-90 minutes. He was assigned the titles by RKO and instructed to make a film to fit the title. He thought the titles were stupid… so the films tried to be as creative as possible and still fit the titles. The highlights are CAT PEOPLE, LEOPARD MAN, SEVENTH VICTIM, GHOST SHIP, THE BODY SNATCHER (with Boris Karloff AND Bela Legosi) and my favorite: I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE which is a zombie version of the story of Jane Eyre.


EVIL DEAD 2 (1987)

If you haven’t seen the EVIL DEAD Trilogy, you should probably watch them over different nights. I think a lot of people love the third film, ARMY OF DARKNESS the most… but I can’t get enough of EVIL DEAD 2. In this film, you have a severed hand running around trying to kill people, you have a dead girl who dances around, rolling her head from one hand to the other, you have a man doing the coolest thing any man’s ever done with a chainsaw and you have crazy soul sucking witches. It’s awesome.


THE BLOOD-SPATTERED BRIDE (1972)
La Novia Ensangrentada

I saw this film earlier this year at a Grindhouse festival in Los Angeles. This movie is a lesbian vampire movie that knows it’s just another lesbian vampire movie. It starts out like REBECCA and for a while you think the wife is jealous of the husband cheating on her with a naked woman he found buried in sand at the beach with a snorkel. Then you realize that the women are in love. That one has been turning the other into a vampire. One great scene shows a doctor spying on the two women. He watches them suck each other’s blood and is completely horrified. Then we cut to the doctor and the husband and the doctor asks “How well do you know your wife?” The audience laughed so hard at this line… it’s something about the editing and the maturity in the film’s atmosphere… it’s as if the film knows just how ridiculous it is. Watch this with a bunch of friends.


That's the list. Enjoy and if there's a great film that we didn't include, which there undoubtedly is, let us know -- that's what the comments section is for.