Halloween Horror Watchlist 2: Times of Terror

By Steve Hutchison

An excellent way to celebrate All Hallows' Eve all through October, this book contains 77 ranked reviews of Halloween-themed horror movies. This year, get ready for the horrorthon of a lifetime!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steve Hutchison
• Release date: Feb 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9781778870088

Steve Hutchison

Artist, developer and entrepreneur in film, video games and communications Steve Hutchison co-founded Shade.ca Art and Code in 1999, then Terror.ca and its French equivalent Terreur.ca in 2000. With his background as an artist and integrator, Steve worked on such games as Capcom's Street Fighter, PopCap's Bejeweled, Tetris, Bandai/Namco's Pac-Man and Mattel's Skip-Bo & Phase 10 as a localization manager, 2-D artist and usability expert. Having acquired skills in gamification, he invented a unique horror movie review system that is filterable, searchable and sortable by moods, genres, subgenres and antagonists. Horror movie fans love it, and so do horror authors and filmmakers, as it is a great source of inspiration. In March 2013, Steve launched Tales of Terror, with the same goals in mind but with a much finer technology and a complex engine, something that wasn’t possible initially. He has since published countless horror-themed books.

Book preview

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Tales of Terror’s

Halloween Horror Watchlist 2

INTRODUCTION

An excellent way to celebrate All Hallows’ Eve all through October, this book contains 77 ranked reviews of Halloween-themed horror movies. This year, get ready for the horrorthon of a lifetime!

#1

Creepshow

1982

A monster escapes from a horror comic book and visits a battered boy to inspire him in his vengeance scheme.

8/8

As if right out of an EC Comic, Creepshow uses a variety of colored lights and gobos. Still painting morphs into real footage, then back to comic world to isolate each of the 5 segments. The wrap-around story centers on the frustrations of a young boy who gets physically abused by his father, and is, in itself, a strong story featuring unique effects and surreal sociopath characters.

There’s something for everyone in this anthology, namely evil ex-lovers, monsters, alien forms, plants, bugs and revenants. There’s light humor and always a comical lesson to be learned; mostly through situation reversals. The acting is solid and delivered by familiar names who provide delightful caricatural performances. Both the protagonists and the antagonists make quite an impression.

The gore design and the creature costumes aren’t targeting realism, but they are scary nonetheless. Based on Stephen King’s writing and directed by the excellent George A. Romero, the movie is well-structured, well-paced, concise, and displays an impressive level of uniformity across its different tales. Creepshow is unarguably one of the best horror anthologies out there.

#2

Trick ‘r Treat

2007

A Halloween night turns into a blood bath for different groups of people connected to each other.

7/8

This is one of the best horror anthology films ever made. It is right up there with Creepshow and Trilogy of Terror. It sets itself apart from the norm by the way it intertwines 6 segments. Things happen before, during and after another, and we’re never sure in which order. The script is brilliantly layered in a way to juxtapose stories seamlessly. Michael Dougherty orchestrates this like a king.

The photography is so precise and so optimized that Dougherty earns our attention from frame one. The scary parts are scary, the build-up is outstanding, the gore striking, the stories original and the twists surprising. Gore feels real and so does the rest of the effects. Trick ‘r Treat’s major flaw is that its tales feel incomplete despite an intention to innovate with a new kind of narrative.

Story 1 doesn’t stand on its own but sets the tone nicely. Story 2 is about a man who gives a kid poisoned candy. Story 3 follows a bunch of teenagers who play a prank on a friend. Story 4 is about a special party in a remote location. Story 5 introduces a small demonic character who will teach a hermit a lesson. This is the best story in the pack. Story 6 ties the last lose ends nicely.

#3

Halloween III: Season of the Witch

1982

A shady mask factory plots to decimate the children population worldwide on Halloween night using a rigged live broadcast.

7/8

This Halloween sequel doesn’t feature Michael Myers, the infamous shape, and converges in no way with his storyline. This is a whole new concept. We get a darker and a highly supernatural film. Halloween celebrations are the main focus, now; not just a backdrop. It is politically incorrect and it’s perfect this way.

Indeed, despite its cheesiness and fun elements, the third Halloween contemplates the concept of child genocide as main theme and, for this reason, never lets you drop your guard. No matter how funny it gets, you can’t exactly laugh about it. This is delivered crudely, with striking gore but with stunning creativity. The script is flawed but is filled with surprises and well executed.

Halloween 3 may break the franchise’s flow, but is remarkable as a stand alone horror movie. It has its own sonata and a legendary synthesizer score that manages to creep you out. It has quite the gimmick, quite the cast, and it is completely over the top. Don’t try to make too much sense of it all. Sometimes, too much fantasy kills the story.

#4

Night of the Demons

1988

On Halloween night, partying teenagers stir up spirits inside an abandoned house after a seance.

7/8

Like all marketable horror films of the 80’s, Night of the Demons is an inexhaustible source of cheese, gore and partial nudity, has a strong gimmick and a catchy sonata. Few movies summarize quintessential b-horror like this one, though. It combines tropes of many major subgenres, namely haunting, possession, slasher and witchcraft. By genre tradition, it features teenagers in their 20’s, too.

Several aspects of the film make it one of the best horror productions out there. Contrary to vampires, zombies and werewolves, demons are an ill-defined antagonist