Halloween is almost upon us but everyone knows Halloween isn't just one day, no, it is the entire moth of October. You hit the haunted houses, decorate your home and stockpile bags of candy for yourself and the trick or treaters that will soon be banging on your door. But we are also compelled to watch as many horror films as humanly possible. Sure we might watch horror all year round, but when October hits it's like an unquenchable thirst for scares. This year I have picked 13 films that will get you into that Halloween spirit and quench that thirst for everything Halloween related.
13. The Guest - A string of mysterious deaths leads a teenager to become suspicious of a soldier (Dan Stevens) who showed up on her family's doorstep and claimed to be a friend of her dead brother.
12. House 2: The Second Story - The new owner of a sinister house gets involved with reanimated corpses and demons searching for an ancient Aztec skull with magic powers.
11. Idle Hands - When slacker teen Anton Tobias (Devon Sawa) has his right hand possessed by a demonic force, he finds that his life gets a lot more interesting. While Anton himself is an amiable guy, his hand proves to be an appendage of death, killing his two best buddies, Pnub (Elden Henson) and Mick (Seth Green), who return to life as wisecracking zombies.
10. The Maze - Five friends break into a closed corn maze in the middle of the night and decide to play a harmless game of tag. Little do they know that a psychopathic killer has decided to play along. As they wander aimlessly through the maze the murderer follows closely behind, taunting them and watching their every move.
09. Tales of Halloween - Ten stories are woven together by their shared theme of Halloween night in an American suburb, where ghouls, imps, aliens and axe murderers appear for one night only to terrorize unsuspecting residents.
08. House of 1000 Corpses - Two young couples take a misguided tour onto the back roads of America in search of a local legend known as Dr. Satan. Lost and stranded, they are set upon by a bizarre family of psychotics. Murder, cannibalism and satanic rituals are just a few of the 1000+ horrors that await.
07. Murder Party - Halloween Eve in Brooklyn, an average Joe loser named Chris finds an invitation to a costume party. Arriving at the "party", Chris discovers he's fallen prey to the lethal trap set by deranged artists. As the night wears on, rivalries within the group flare up. A body count accrues, and Chris must take advantage of the ensuing chaos if he's to survive the night.
06. Halloween 3: Season of the Witch - Hospital emergency room Dr. Daniel "Dan" Challis (Tom Atkins) and Ellie Grimbridge (Stacey Nelkin), the daughter of a murder victim, uncover a terrible plot by small-town mask maker Conal Cochran (Dan O'Herlihy), a madman who's planning a Halloween mass murder utilizing an ancient Celtic ritual. The ritual involves a boulder stolen from Stonehenge, the use of Silver Shamrock masks and a triggering device contained in a television commercial -- all designed to kill millions of children.
05. Night of the Demons (2009) - Eighty years ago, the Broussard mansion in New Orleans was the site of a suicide and the disappearance of six people. Now, when Maddie and her girlfriends arrive on the scene for the ultimate Halloween party, they discover that it is more than an urban legend. Malevolent entities haunt the place, and they need seven human vessels in order to break through into this world.
04. Hocus Pocus - After moving to Salem, Mass., teenager Max Dennison (Omri Katz) explores an abandoned house with his sister Dani (Thora Birch) and their new friend, Allison (Vinessa Shaw). After dismissing a story Allison tells as superstitious, Max accidentally frees a coven of evil witches (Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kathy Najimy) who used to live in the house. Now, with the help of a magical cat, the kids must steal the witches' book of spells to stop them from becoming immortal.
03. Halloween (1978) - On a cold Halloween night in 1963, six year old Michael Myers brutally murdered his 17-year-old sister, Judith. He was sentenced and locked away for 15 years. But on October 30, 1978, while being transferred for a court date, a 21-year-old Michael Myers steals a car and escapes Smith's Grove. He returns to his quiet hometown of Haddonfield, Illinois, where he looks for his next victims.
02. Rob Zombie's 31 - Five carnival workers are kidnapped the night before Halloween and held hostage in a large compound. At the mercy of their captors, they are forced to play a twisted game of life or death called 31. For the next 12 hours, they must fight for their lives against an endless parade of homicidal maniacs.
01. Trick 'r Treat - Five interwoven stories that occur on Halloween: An everyday high school principal has a secret life as a serial killer; a college virgin might have just met the guy for her; a group of teenagers pull a mean prank; a woman who loathes the night has to contend with her holiday-obsessed husband; and a mean old man meets his match with a demonic, supernatural trick-or-treater.