13 Hollywood Horrors for Halloween

by Jack Garcia

A week from today we will find ourselves trick-or-treating with the kiddies or dancing the night away at some silly costume party.  Or perhaps we'll be lost in a corn maze or peeing our pants in a haunted house.  Maybe we'll carve pumpkins.  Bob for apples.  Tell ghost stories.  However we decide to celebrate Halloween, we cannot escape the fact that it is a week away!  

I present to you my list of 13 scary movies, in chronological order, to help get us all in a Halloweeny mood!  Some are arguably the best horror movies out there while some are just a creepy kind of silly... enjoy!

1960    Psycho

Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh, directed by Alfred Hitchcock 

“It's not like my mother is a maniac or a raving thing.  She just goes a little mad sometimes.  We all go a little mad sometimes.  Haven't you?”

1968    Rosemary’s Baby

Mia Farrow and John Cassavetes, directed by Roman Polanski

“Come with us quietly, Rosemary.  Don't argue or make a scene.  Because if you say anything more about witches or witchcraft, we're gonna be forced to take you to a mental hospital.  You don't want that, do you?”

1973    The Exorcist

Ellen Burstyn and Linda Blair, directed by William Friedkin

“You show me Regan's double, same face, same voice, everything.  And I'd know it wasn't Regan.  I'd know in my gut.  And I'm telling you that 'thing' upstairs isn't my daughter.  Now, I want you to tell me that you know for a fact that there's nothing wrong with my daughter, except in her mind.  You tell me for a fact that an exorcism wouldn't do any good.  You tell me that!”

1975    The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Tim Curry and Susan Sarandon, directed by Jim Sharman

“Touch-a touch-a touch-a touch me

I wanna be dirty!

Chill me, thrill me, fulfill me

Creature of the night!”

1976    Carrie

Sissy Spacek, directed by Brian De Palma

“Oh, Lord!  Help this sinning woman see the sin of her days and ways.  Show her that if she had remained sinless, this curse of blood would never have come on her!”

1978    Halloween

Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Pleasance, directed by John Carpenter

“ I watched him for fifteen years, sitting in a room, staring at a wall, not seeing the wall, looking past the wall—looking at this night, inhumanly patient, waiting for some secret, silent alarm to trigger him off.  Death has come to your little town, Sheriff.  Now you can either ignore it, or you can help me to stop it.”

1980    The Shining

Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall, directed by Stanley Kubrick

“Wendy?  Darling?  Light of my life.  I'm not gonna hurt ya.  You didn't let me finish my sentence.  I said I'm not gonna hurt ya.  I'm just going to bash your brains in.  Gonna bash 'em right the f**k in! Ha ha ha!”

1982    Poltergeist

JoBeth Williams and Craig T. Nelson, directed by Tobe Hooper

“She just moved through me.  My God.  I felt her.  I can smell her.  It's her.  It's her.  Smell my clothes.  It's her.  She's all over me.  It's her.  She's on me.  It's her.  I felt her.  It's her.  It is.  It's... it is... it's my baby!  It's my baby.  She went through my soul.”

1986    Little Shop of Horrors

Rick Moranis and Ellen Greene, directed by Frank Oz

“Feed me, Seymour

Feed me all night long

That's right, boy

You can do it

Feed me, Seymour
Feed me all night long

'Cause if you feed me, Seymour

I can grow up big and strong”

1993    The Nightmare Before Christmas

Danny Elfman and Catherine O’Hara, directed by Henry Selick

“This is Halloween, this is Halloween
Pumpkins scream in the dead of night
This is Halloween, everybody make a scene
Trick or treat till the neighbors gonna die of fright
It's our town, everybody scream
In this town of Halloween”

1996    Scream

Neve Campbell and Courteney Cox, directed by Wes Craven

“Never say, ‘Who's there?’  Don't you watch scary movies?  It's a death wish.  You might as well come out to investigate a strange noise or something.”

2001    The Others

Nicole Kidman, directed by Alejandro Amenábar

“At first I couldn't understand what the pillows were doing in my hands and why you didn't move, but then I knew, it had happened, I killed my children.  I got the rifle, I put it to my forehead and I pulled the trigger, nothing, and I heard your laughter in the bedroom, you were playing with the pillows as if nothing had happened, and I thought the Lord and his great mercy was giving me another chance, tell them, don't give up, be strong, be a good mother but now, but now what does this all mean?  Where are we?”

2007    Paranormal Activity

Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat, directed by Oren Peli

“No, you haven't been having any progress, and you're not in control.  It is in control, and if you think you're in control, then you're being an idiot!  Not a single thing you've done has helped, and I'm sorry, I don't mean to burst your bubble, but the camera hasn't helped and the stupid footprints haven't helped; do you think that thing would have left footprints if it didn't want to?  No! It did it because it wanted to!  It wanted you to find my photo.  It can be anywhere.  It hears what we're saying right now.”