What is your favorite film that is based on or takes place on/around Halloween?
Daniela Costa: Casper! The original Casper movie, that is. They hosted a Halloween party at the manor, so that kind of makes this a Halloween-themed film, right? Plus, you gotta love watching a young Christina Ricci doing her thing, and Cathy Moriarty‘s voice!
Erin Faith Wilson: I’m sure everyone is going to laugh at me when I say this, but I love It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. It’s such a classic and I love the Peanuts!
Chelsea Steiner: Hocus Pocus, if only for introducing “yabbos” to the cultural lexicon. SISTAHS!
Ali Davis: I know this is a little on-the-nose, but I love Halloween. After the scary open, you spend close to 20 minutes getting to know the leads before all hell breaks loose. Laurie is a genuinely great heroine (and one hell of a babysitter), and the whole movie is just really well done. It’s still one of the best, scariest horror flicks. Plus P.J. Soles!
Kim Hoffman: John Carpenter‘s Halloween because I’m a sucker for ’70s babes getting stoned on their walk home from school, and will never forget catching it on TV for the first time as an eight year old-the scene when little Tommy Doyle is being bullied, smashes his pumpkin on accident and encounters Michael Myers in broad daylight. My babysitter was coming over that night, so I asked her about it and she drove us to the video store to promptly rent it. It’s what sparked my love of horror, it’s still my number one. Laurie Strode is pretty mythical.
Lindsay King-Miller: Ginger Snaps, aka THE GREATEST Canadian werewolf movie about sisterhood and empowered women EVER IN HISTORY, also Katharine Isabelle needs to call me. It’s funny, it’s gory, it’s scary, and it’s got a nice little safe-sex message in there as well! (Don’t have unprotected sex or you might become a werewolf.) I cannot overemphasize how much I adore this movie. And the final showdown takes place on Halloween-which, of course, is also the full moon.
Elaine Atwell: It’s not technically a Halloween movie, but I love the Halloween scene in Meet Me St. Louis, because I love anything that captures the terror of being a child. Also, apparently kids used to behave A LOT WORSE and everyone was just cool with it.
Dana Piccoli: It’s pretty impossible to beat the Halloween party and scenes from Mermaids with Cher, Winona “4eva” Ryder and Christina Ricci. That mermaid costume is everything. Let’s all make some appetizers and watch it.
Chloë: The Nightmare Before Christmas is, in my mind, the ultimate holidays film. Burton’s animated masterpiece melds the giddy creepinesss of Halloween with Christmas sweetness. Plus a killer aesthetic and soundtrack. Hocus Pocus comes in a close second, Bette Midler is everything.
Anna Pulley: I enjoy the film “avert your eyes when anything remotely scary comes on, even the Reese’s peanut butter cup commercials with the terrifying laughter and the chocolate-as-teeth thing until Christmas season starts.” And, The Craft.
Miranda Meyer: My first and second choices were taken, so I will go with a lesser-known contender: The Guest. It’s not about Halloween, but it has a climactic chase scene in a Halloween maze in a small town high school with a jammin 80s-style synth soundtrack, so it’s definitely in that tradition.
Dara Nai: I’m going with Trick ‘r Treat, starring Anna Paquin. This one has it all: spooky houses, serial killers, an old man in a bathrobe, walking alone in the woods at night, big knives, dead bodies, jack o’ lanterns and the legend of the Halloween School Bus Massacre.
Trish Bendix: As a sucker for both dark twisted teen movies and Jena Malone, I’m going with Donnie Darko. The climax of the film happens on a fateful Halloween night, and if you don’t know what I’m talking about, then I am beginning to doubt your commitment to sparkle motion.
What’s your favorite Halloween flick?
