Top 10 Movies To Watch To Prepare For Halloween

 Happy Halloween week, bitches!!

This is seriously the best time of year! Gearing up for the big day! I know things are going to be weird this year because of *gestures wildly around him*...yeah. But! Let's not let that ruin the fun! You can still celebrate #spookyseason by watching a large amount of horror movies!

Now, I'm gonna be honest with you. I LOVE horror movies and I'll watch them anytime of year! I don't always GET to the other 11 months of the year, so I try to cram them in as much as I can in October, especially the week leading up to Halloween. It's a good thing it falls on a Saturday this year! 

"But Jason! What do I watch?! There's SOOOO MANY HORROR MOVIES!! It's TOO MUCH!! AHHH!!!"

Rest easy, reader. I got chu! Here are my TOP TEN MOVIES TO WATCH TO PREPARE OF HALLOWEEN!! In order of importance, family friendly-ness, and just overall awesomeness! Let's get spooky up in this bitch!

#10-The Changeling

The Changeling stars George C. Scott, a pianist who loses his family in a horrible car accident. He then decides to buy a giant ass house to inspire him to continue playing piano and writing piano music and piano piano. The house ends up being haunted by the spirit of a child and things get spooky fast. It's kind of a slow burn, but the creep factor is high in this one. The reasoning for everything is shocking and by the end, you'll be so engrossed, that you'll not even notice the time going by.

There's not a lot of gore or nudity, so you could theoretically watch this with young kids if they like being creeped out. Just hope they don't have a bed wetting problem cause they'll probably be having nightmares, especially when they go draw on a piece of paper.

#9-Disturbing Behavior ('90s Teen Horror)

This pick represents any of those late '90s teen horror movies that was HUGE at the time, thanks to Scream. You could even watch Scream if you wanted to. But I picked this one because not a lot of people talk about it and I don't know why. 

A teenager named Steve (played by James Marsden) moves to a small town in Washington state and immediately falls for Rae (a super hot Katie Holmes) and meets two outcasts Gavin (Nick Stahl) and U.V, an albino. There's a group of popular kids at this school who act all super preppy and jocky and get good grades and washes their hair once every two week. ONCE EVERY TWO WEEKS! Turns out something is up with this particular group of students and Steve and Rae must find out what's going on before they are forced to join this group against their will.

This is basically The Stepford Wives but in high school, so you kind of get an idea on what's going on. But it's underrated as hell and it's a shame. It's a fun movie that I think should be more loved. But if for some reason you can't watch this OR don't like this, you can easily substitute this with The Faculty, Teaching Mrs. Tingle, I Know What You Did Last Summer, or anything else Kevin Williamson wrote between 1996 and 2000.  

#8-Monster Squad

Want to watch a Universal horror film from the '30s or '40s and can't decide which one to watch? WATCH THEM ALL AT ONCE! 

A group of friends who call themselves The Monster Squad because they LOVE monster movies like Dracula, The Wolf Man, The Mummy, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, and Frankenstein and consider themselves experts on the matter. Well, today is their lucky day because those EXACT monsters have decided to show up in their town to try to take over the world! Except for Frankenstein('s Monster), he ends up being a nice guy and wants no part of it. So it's up to this rag tag group of kids of various ages to stop them and save the world. And yes, The Wolf Man has nards.

This movie is easily for kids but adults will enjoy it as well. There's some MILD PG-13 stuff, what with talks about being a "virgin" and you might have to have a conversation on what that means exactly, but again, lying to your kids is good parenting so feel free to make up something. I'll give you some suggestions.

"A virgin is a person who's never flown on an airplane before."

"A virgin is someone who hasn't danced with someone yet."

"A virgin is when a person wants to go birdwatching but hasn't found the right bird yet."

"A virgin is when a person hasn't had sex yet." It's 2020, let's stop being fucking prudes. 

Anyway, Monster Squad is awesome.

#7-Popcorn

This is kind of a meta pick because it's about a bunch of people watching a bunch of horror movies and getting killed one by one. A movie theater is showing three classic B-Movies (made up for this movie, sadly) Mosquito in 3-D!, The Attack of the Amazing Electrified Man featuring Shock-O-Scope, and The Stench in Odorama! But while each movie plays, people are getting killed left and right and our main character Maggie must figure out who's after her and why!

This is also a very underrated film but I think it's SLOWLY getting some love. They just released the Blu-Ray of it a couple of years ago. And the only place to watch it online is some place called Flix Fling. But it's worth the effort to track it down, it's a fun slasher movie and tribute to 1950's schlocky B-Movies, which is a double win for me.

#6-Godzilla vs MechaGodzilla

Halloween isn't ONLY for horror movies. You gotta watch some giant monster movies as well! And I'm going with this because it's goofy as fuck.

Aliens who look like Planet of the Apes apes want to take over the planet by using a robot that looks like GODZILLA! NO! So of course, Earth responds by sending the REAL Godzilla to beat it's robo-ass! That's really it. It's mindless monster beating fun and you can watch this with kids either before they go trick-or-treating or after while eating candy. It doesn't matter as long as you have fun. 

You could substitute this with your giant monster film of your choice obviously. 20 Million Miles To Earth is also a fun watch as well. But go with whatever you want. 

#5-Night of the Living Dead (original)

Yes, yes, this is stereotypical. EVERYONE watches this, especially in '80s slasher movies. But they only watch it because it's in the public domain. With that said, there's a reason why everyone watches this on Halloween: it's a classic!

This might be more suited for teenagers, especially couples, who start watching it then about mid-way through it's mainly about who should go in the cellar and who should stay upstairs, can start making out and ignore the rest. But you do you. Just use protection.

#4-Any Slasher Film (Truth or Dare: A Critical Madness)

You gotta watch a slasher film! I mean YOU GOTTA!! And you have TONS AND TONS AND TONS to choose from. The one I'm gonna talk about is called Truth or Dare: A Critical Madness. 

Truth or Dare: A Critical Madness is about a guy who LOVES the game Truth or Dare...so much so that he MURDERS over it! Or something like that. Look, the plot isn't important. There's kills, a killer who wears a paper mache mask that blows in in the wind while outside, despite him saying it's "made of copper", and a cop who calls people "shithead" all the time. What more could you ask for? It's available on Amazon Prime for 4 bucks. Tell them Jason sent you. 

#3-Halloween 3: Season of the Witch

Yes, I got cute and made Halloween 3 the third pick. 

OK, this movie grew on me. I was one of those people who went "BLUH, MICHAEL MEYERS ISN'T IN THIS MOVIE! IT SUCKS! WHY IS IT CALLED HALLOWEEN 3?! HUH?!?!" but over the course of time I've come to appreciate this film. 

For those of you who don't know, John Carpenter intended on keeping Michael Meyers dead after Halloween 2 and just make a series of movies set on Halloween with various other scary things happening. This was the first result and it failed miserably. It's since gotten some cult love and now is more appreciated. I too have come around and now enjoy watching this. Yes, you easily could watch Halloween 1 and 2 and that's fine. But I'm all about being different and I can't think of anything more different than watching Halloween 3.

So for these next two, I wrestled with which one to put at number 2 and number 1. Know right now that I love both of these movies equally and they easily could be flipped flopped. With that said...

#2-Trick R Treat

Yet another movie that didn't get a lot of love when it was first released. This sat on a shelf for a couple of years until it quietly was put on DVD, where it found it's loving audience. 

This is an anthology film that's unlike most anthology films. It centered around a few citizens of a small town on Halloween as they encounter various spooky things including an urban legend featuring a bus full of dead "special needs" kids, a serial killer, and a cranky old man being tormented by Samhain himself. 

It's very awesome and I highly recommend everyone watching it if you haven't seen it yet. I will say there is some sex and nudity involved so maybe only older teenagers and adults check it out. But again, you're the parent, do what you want. Just watch it.

#1-WNUF Halloween Special

I'm so glad I found this movie. My life hasn't been the same since I did. I will always sing the praises for this film for the rest of my life. I want to take this movie on tour and show it to everybody. Since The Blair Witch Project, I've LOVED found footage films and this take that concept and spins it on it's head. What if it's found footage...of a news broadcast from the '80s? And it's (mostly) uninterrupted? AND features the commercials! Yes! Brilliant!

More or less shown in real time (there's some bits that are fast forwarded) we watch the WNUF news broadcast on Halloween in 1987 that features a reporter who's going to do a special at a local haunted house as he explores it with two paranormal investigators and a priest while broadcasting live. That's about all I'm gonna tell you because you need to experience this for yourself. 

The fact this movie was only made for $1500 (no I didn't forget a zero, FIFTEEN HUNDRED DOLLARS) is super impressive, considering they filmed this in 2013 and had to get retro clothing, equipment, and sets. I think even Roger Corman would be like "damn, son!" 

Just seriously do yourself a favor and go watch this. Right now it's on the streaming service Shudder, which has a free 7 day trial. And let me know when you do so we can talk about it, cause you're gonna wanna talk about it.

OK, that's my list. I hope this helps you! Please have a good Halloween, be safe, and post in the comments below what you watch to prepare for Halloween. I'm always looking out for new movies I haven't seen to add to the rotation.

-Jason