Maggie Blackbird

Since Halloween is just around the corner, I thought I’d do a post on scary movies I enjoyed. Er, okay, my list won’t be long, and the movies hardly scary. Unfortunately, I’m terrified of movies that make your skin crawl, especially the paranormal kind. I can maybe handle slasher, gore, and some suspense, but nothing else.

Lemme put it this way: As a teen, I humoured my friend who was babysitting by tolerating Michael Meyers terrorising Jamie Lee Curtis on the TV screen. When I had to meet Mom two blocks away, my thirteen-year-old legs could have won the one hundred metre dash.

I won’t even get into the date I agreed to so the guy wouldn’t think “no” meant I was blowing him off. How do you tell someone at the age of fifteen, who is asking you to the latest, most terrifying paranormal horror flick you’d rather sit on the side of the road during a heat wave and count every vehicle that drives by? But I went, yikes, and slept with the light on for over a month. Wait, did I sleep?

I do tolerate some cheesy slasher flicks because the hubby is a big fan of gore and icky creatures. There is a line I draw, though, which he respects.

Anyhoo, without further ado, I present to you ten movies to watch Halloween weekend…

1. 30 Days of Night. Okay, vampire movies are doable for me. I enjoy vamps; plus, they’re not real! LOL. My imagination can’t run amuck when the theatre lights come on or the DVD ends. Plus, as I said in a previous post, this is how I enjoy my vampires.

In summary, when the sun disappears for thirty days in Alaska, a bunch of vampires show up to gorge until they’re stuffed.  Y’know, I’m surprised more books and vampire movies don’t have these blood-sucking dudes residing there.

2. The Hitcher. I’m a HUGE Rutger Hauer fan, so I watched this to ogle Mr. Hauer. Since he was the villain, and I saw him play a dashing hero in Ladyhawke, I could stomach the gore and suspense in this movie.  No need to give you a summary; I think the title says it all.

3. The Cave. This is more suspense than gore. Divers are sent down to a cave to…hmm, I can’t remember LOL. Anyway, they’re trapped in the cave where “things” are hunting them.

4. Dracula 2000. Some thieves break into a vault where a man keeps Dracula. They believe whatever is in the vault is valuable, but little do they know what they’re really stealing. The chase is on as the man tries to stop Dracula’s new reign of terror.

5. Dracula II: Ascension. This is the sequel to Dracula 2000. Four university students steal Dracula’s corpse from a morgue to sell to a mystery buyer. Father Uffizi is on their trail, a vampire hunter ordered to stop Dracula.

I preferred this over the original. I’m not sure why. Maybe it has to do with the twist in plot that surprised me.

6. No list would be complete without Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Gary Oldman, Anthony Hopkins and Winonna Ryder are in top form. I especially have a soft spot for Lucy in this movie. Poor thing. Plus, her three suitors were great eye-candy.

7. Frankenstein. Hubby kept asking me to watch this movie and I kept refusing. Finally, I caved when he reassured me it wasn’t scary. He was right. Helena Bonham Carter gives a brilliant performance, along with Robert DeNiro.

8. Sleepy Hollow. What a great cast: Johnny Deep, Christina Ricci, and Christopher Walken (he’s one of my all-time fave actors). When we sat down to watch, I never expected the plot to play out as it did. Instead, I thought there’d be… Never mind! LOL. I won’t give anything away.

9. The Descent. You know those nights when you’re channel surfing and there is not much on to watch? Then you see something that might be good and tune in? That’s how I came across this movie. Hubby was channel surfing and I was writing in the recliner. The next thing I knew, I set the laptop aside and immersed myself in the movie.

A group of women go on a cave expedition but wind up trapped inside…with creatures. It almost sounds like a take on The Cave, but it’s not.

10. I must include one with Robert Rodriguez directing. I give you From Dusk Till Dawn. George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino star as two criminals who need to cross the Mexican border. They take a family hostage in order to get across. When they seek shelter at a truck stop, they’re shocked to find out the place is more than a truck stop.

Okay, that’s it.  How about you?  What movies would you recommend for me, knowing how easy I scare?  Yes, nothing too spooky, please.  Heh.