LIST: Top 25 Halloween Movies

Joshua Ligairi » 10.1.11 »

For me, the entire month of October is Halloween. It's a time for gathering the harvest from our small garden, enjoying the changing leaves in the mountains, making cookies, brisk Autumn walks, drinking apple cider, roasting pumpkins seeds, lots of parties, and, of course, watching movies. This is especially important for me because it is the only time I can get my significant other to watch anything even close to resembling a horror movie with me. But then, Halloween movies are, or should be, slightly different than the average horror movie anyway. A Halloween movie should be, first and foremost, fun. It should be a movie you can watch with a big group of friends (so Eraserhead is out). Whether terrifyingly scary or gut-bustingly funny, these are crowd pleasers. Bonus points if it makes me nostalgic for the Halloweens of my childhood.

A few other rules guide my list-making. For instance, if the film clearly takes place during another holiday, it cannot be considered a Halloween Movie. Examples include Gremlins (Christmas) and Friday the 13th (Friday the 13th). If you've read my "Regional Film Watching" post this makes sense, or at least, you recognize my psychosis.

As a child, my Halloween movie watching was laregly restricted to the annual TV presentations of It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown and The Wizard of OZ (two I still absolutely love), but my Halloween watching expanded over the years to include not just the films of my youth and the films of today, but favorite films of my mother and grandmother's generations. As a friend Marissa Bernhard recently put it, Autumn is a time for classic films. I whole-heartedly agree. With all that in mind, I present my Top 25 Halloween Movies. Please keep in mind that I am cheating heavily by including double-features in several instances (I'm really bad at list-making).

25. Return of the Living Dead 1 and 2 double-feature.
24. The Wicker Man (1973) and The Wicker Man (2006) double-feature.
23. The Fly (1986) and Frankenstein (1967) double-feature.
22. The Birds
21. Slither and Night of the Creeps double-feature.
20. The Haunting (1963)
19. Grindhouse (Planet Terror and Death Proof) double-feature.
18. The Thing (1982)
17. Monster Squad
16. Misery
15. Psycho (1960), Psycho IV, and Psycho (1998), triple-feature.
14. Nosferatu and Shadow of the Vampire double-feature.
13. ET
12. Shaun of the Dead and Attack the Block double-feature.
11. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
10. Troll 2 and Best Worst Movie double-feature.
9. The Private Eyes
8. Arsenic and Old Lace
7. The Lost Boys
6. Halloween (1978) 1, 2, and H20 triple-feature.
5. Rear Window
4. Ghostbusters
3. Scream
2. Clue
1. The Burbs

Honorable mentions inlcude: Arachnaphobia, Beetlejuice, Blair Witch Project, Dawn of the Dead (either version), Dracula (any version), The Fog (1980), The Frighteners, Haunted Honeymoon, House and House II, Lady In White, Monster House, Near Dark, Salem's Lot, The Sixth Sense, Teen Wolf, The Village, Without a Clue, and Young Frankenstein.

BLOG: Schaefer's minimal posters win

Joshua Ligairi » 2.23.10 »

I was pretty happy with myself for finding those Ibraheem Youssef minimalist Quentin Tarantino poster all by myself (see post here), but I quickly learned that you just can't compete with these movie news guys. Just a few days later, my friend Jordan Duke (This Is the Duke) informed me that Peter Sciretta from /Film had not only beaten me to the punch, but kicked my sorry butt.

At the risk of being redundant, I'm sharing these posters from Massachusetts-based graphic artist Brandon Schaefer (which can be seen at his site and purchased as prints from inPRNT.com) because they are simply the best minimalist poster art I have seen so far. I would buy the Rear Window and Back to the Future prints in a heartbeat and all of them have either a great concept or great design, if not both. I've posted some of my favorites below.


Minimal Rear Window poster by Brandon Schaefer



Minimal Ghostbusters poster by Brandon Schaefer



Minimal Life Aquatic poster by Brandon Schaefer


Minimal Murder by Death poster by Brandon Schaefer



Minimal 8 1/2 poster by Brandon Schaefer



Minimal One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest poster by Brandon Schaefer



Minimal Inner Space poster by Brandon Schaefer



Minimal Back to the Future poster by Brandon Schaefer



Minimal Empire Strikes Back poster by Brandon Schaefer



Minimal Sleeper poster by Brandon Schaefer



Minimal The Wizard poster by Brandon Schaefer



Minimal Child's Play poster by Brandon Schaefer



The biggest difference between Schaefer's work and others I have seen (Youssef's, for instance) is that his designs actually serve a purpose. First of all, most of the posters are for a free film screening series (I'm guessing is held in Massahusates) that looks to be the coolest screening series ever. Then, there are Scaefer's BluRay sleeves. Makes me want to throw out all of my old DVD cases right now for something a little sleeker. My only worry is that these stylish sleeves may promote illegal downloads, but I know you think that is lame.



Minimal Jaws BluRay sleeve by Brandon Schaefer



Minimal Groundhog Day BluRay sleeve by Brandon Schaefer



Minimal Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure BluRay sleeve by Brandon Schaefer



Minimal Science of Sleep BluRay sleeve by Brandon Schaefer



Minimal Office Space BluRay sleeve by Brandon Schaefer

Other favorites not-pictured are minimal posters for Annie Hall, Manhattan, Planet of the Apes, and Network. Also, I have to take issue with the poster for The Wizard for being so California-centric when one portion of the film clearly takes place in Utah. You may think that is a minor complaint, but it's not. Those LA people think they are the center of the universe and it drives me crazy. Still, nice poster from a movie I haven't seen for a VERY long time. It was just one of those movies that was instantly dated, but would probably be fascinating to see now. In fact, these posters have made me want to see all of these movies again, which is exactly what a poster is supposed to do, and why I think these particular posters are such a success.

Congratulations to Brandon Schaefer for making, in my opinion, the absolute coolest alternative posters around. If anyone is looking for a birthday gift for me (wink), you can visit Brandon Schaefer's site Seek&Speak here (remember, Rear Window). Follow him on Twitter here. These posters came to me via @slashfilm and @thisistheduke. Thanks guys! You are geekier than I will ever be.