With Halloween just around the corner, here are some of Her Campus Durham’s favourite Halloween films…
20: The Nightmare Before Christmas
Alternative Title: How the Skeleton Stole Christmas
What’s it about: A skeleton becomes fascinated with Christmas decides to usurp Santa and make the holiday his own.
Why to watch it: For the fantastic score, the memorable characters, and the sharp animation.
Who to watch it with: Anyone. With both musical, romantic and genuine spooky elements The Nightmare Before Christmas is a ‘one-size fits all’ Halloween Classic.
Bonus: Invite every member of DST and turn it into a sing-along. Cower in fear as they take increasingly drastic measures to out-sing one another.
19: Monster House
Alternative Title: Home (not) Alone
What’s it about: A house appears to be possessed by an evil spirit and is eating the residents of a small town. Three children infiltrate the house in an attempt to exorcise the spirit possessing it and save the devoured towns people.
Why to watch it: Steve Buscemi. That is all. (Also: It is an incredibly funny and touching story, with a lot more depth and sophistication than first meets the eye).
Who to watch it with: A good choice for a family-themed Halloween.
Bonus: Screen it in one of the examination rooms and watch as your own fears are bought to life.
18: The Entire Harry Potter Saga
Alternative Title: Cinematic Hero
What’s it about: Harry Potter.
Why to watch it: It’s Harry Potter.
Who to watch it with: Anyone. Anytime. Any place. Why even wait for Halloween? Why do anything else – ever?
Bonus: Watch it in Castle, and slowly allow yourself to be deluded into thinking you’re at Hogwarts (highly recommended).
17: Megamind
Alternative Title: If Durham University was a super villain
What’s it about: An obnoxious super villain accidentally kills his heroic nemesis. Finding himself bored and dissatisfied with this turn of events, he decides to create a new foe for himself.
Why to watch it: The comedy and the tunes.
Who to watch it with: Anyone who likes Halloween, but hates horror.
Bonus: Pretend that Megamind is every Hatfield student.
16: Scooby-Doo and the Cyber Chase
Alternative Title: Torrenting/streaming movies is illegal, kids.
What’s it about: Scooby-Doo and an evil video-game monster bought to life.
Why to watch it: Because who doesn’t love Scooby-Doo!
Who to watch it with: Anyone who doesn’t hate fun should be fine.
Bonus: Regress to a simpler state of mind as a child with no summative essays or exams to think about. Reconsider your life choices.
15: Sweeney Todd
Alternative Title: Johnny Depp goes headhunting
What’s it about: Alan Rickman wants to date Johnny Depp’s sexy daughter, but Grindelward from Harry Potter has got other plans. Meanwhile Helena Bonham Carter makes a killer meat pie.
Why to watch it: Because Johnny Depp is always sexy, even when lopping off heads.
Who to watch it with: A lifesize cardboard cut-out of Johnny Depp.
Bonus: Go and see DULOGs Performance of Sweeney Todd this November!
14: Dusk Till Dawn
Alternative Title: A Bee Movie
What’s it about: This is a horror film. To say anymore would be to ruin it. Don’t look it up, just watch it. I promise it will be worth it.
Why to watch it: It’s the best B-movie horror ever created. It was made to be a good ‘bad’ horror and it succeeds.
Who to watch it with: Anyone who doesn’t know the plot of the film.
Bonus: N/A (Too many possible spoilers.)
13: Sharknight
Alternative Title: Freshers Week
What’s it about: A bunch of teenagers go on holiday and get eaten by sharks.
Why to watch it: It’s gory, but any chance of the film scaring anyone is ruined by the characters who are so dislikable you will inevitably find yourself rooting for the sharks.
Who to watch it with: This years Freshers reps. They know why.
Bonus: Imagine the sharks are life’s responsibilities. Weep.
12: Warm Bodies
Alternative Title: Romeo and Juliet and Zombies
What’s it about: A retelling of Romeo and Juliet, if the splint that forced their families apart was the barrier between life and death.
Why to watch it: A sweet and funny film with a killer soundtrack.
Who to watch it with: It’s a romance, so your boyfriend/girlfriend is a good shout if you’re looking for a romantic night in.
Bonus: Look at the zombies and muse upon whether it’s really worth getting up for that 9 o’clock lecture tomorrow.
11: Zombieland
Alternative Title: Summative Season
What’s it about: The world is thrown into disarray after an outbreak of Zombies, and a group of rag-tag survivors struggle to survive and find a place in this new reality.
Why to watch it: A horror/comedy, with good acting and some very funny cameos.
Who to watch it with: A good film for a night in with a group of friends.
Bonus: Imagine the film is set post-Donald Trump’s presidency.
10: SAW III +
Alternative Title: A metaphor for the unreasonable beauty standards women are expected to adhere to
What’s it about: A serial killer kidnaps people and puts them through ironic tests of character to try and renew within them an appreciation for the gift of life.
Why to watch it: From SAW III onward the series becomes less horror film and more gore-porn/unintentional comedy. The crimes Jigsaw’s victims have committed to deserve such punishment become more and more tenuous until eventually he’s punishing insurance lawyers.
Who to watch it with: Anyone who doesn’t hate gore and enjoys films using tenuous logic as a chance to torture their characters.
Bonus: Consider how far you’d go to be one of The Tab’s ‘clubbers of the week.
9: We need to talk about Kevin
Alternative Title: America Needs Gun Control
What’s it about: A troubled boy, and his mother’s struggle to understand him.
Why to watch it: A haunting film that looks at the psychology of a killer and those closest to him.
Who to watch it with: Anyone with a strong stomach for emotionally affecting thrillers.
Bonus: There is nothing I could write here that wouldn’t be heinously offensive.
8: Misery
Alternative Title: Taking your Harry Potter obsession too far.
What’s it about: A super-fan kidnaps her favorite author, and forces him to write another book in her favorite series.
Why to watch it: A psychological horror, that excels at building tension throughout the film, primarily through the development of the increasingly twisted relationship between the two characters.
Who to watch it with: Anyone who hates gore, but loves psychological horror.
Bonus: Consider if maybe you love J.K Rowling a little bit too much.
7: The Descent
Alternative Title: What happened on my Gap-Yah
What’s it about: A group of women go on an underground expedition to explore the caves of South Carolina. Things don’t go as planned.
Why to watch it: A scary film that makes unconventional plot-decisions for some truly unexpected jump scares.
Who to watch it with: A good film if you’re having a girls-night in and have a taste for good-quality horror and strong female leads.
Bonus: Go for a nice visit down the Durham mines. Go on, I dare you.
6: SAW
Alternative Title: Taking the Durham Escape rooms too seriously.
What’s it about: Two men are trapped, chained to pipes at opposite ends of a filthy bathroom. After conferring for a while they realize they have been captured by Jigsaw, a nefarious serial killer who creates life-threatening puzzles for his victims to solve. Realizing that this is one of his games, the fight for survival begins. They must try and solve and escape his puzzle before time runs out.
Why to watch it: Despite the reputation of the later films, the original SAW combines its trademark gorn, with psychological thriller elements to make it a very clever (and frightening) film.
Who to watch it with: Any member of a gaming society whose tastes are just that little bit more macabre.
Bonus: Petition for the renovation of Jimmy A’s bathrooms.
5: Psycho
Alternative Title: You should phone your mother more. She’s worried about you.
What’s it about: A motel owner with some ‘mommy issues’.
Why to watch it: It’s a classic, considered by some to the best horror film of all time, and a staple of 1960’s Hollywood. Directed by Alfred-f***ing-Hitchock guys. Need I say more?
Who to watch it with: Any fan of classic horror.
Bonus: Consider relocating to Josephine Butler (they have private/ensuite bathrooms).
4: The Tenant
Alternative Title: Durham Find a Housemate
What’s it about: Trelkovsky rents an apartment in a rundown building before discovering the previous owner committed suicide. He begins to relate to the previous tenant and suspects that there is more to her death that meets the eye. As his neighbors become increasingly cold towards him, he starts to fear for his own safety.
Why to watch it: A masterpiece that relies almost entirely on the psychological horror with the ultimate goal of making the viewer question their own sanity (literally). An unnerving look at a man succumbing to psychosis.
Who to watch it with: That one housemate who never does their washing up.
Bonus: Make passive-aggressive references about the film to the aforementioned housemate.
3: The Exorcist
Alternative Title: That time of the month.
What’s it about: A girl gets possessed by a demon and her mother enlists a a group of priests to perform an exorcism.
Why to watch it: Considered by many to be the best horror film ever made, and by some the best film ever made. A cinematic masterpiece, with deep theological and familial themes.
Who to watch it with: Anyone you’d be happy to shit yourself in front of.
Bonus: Feel lucky Durham has so many churches.
2: Cannibal Holocaust
Alternative Title: This Film is Dark
What’s it about: An exploitation film about a lost film crew who went to the Amazon to film a tribe of cannibals. A rescue mission recovers their tapes.
Why to watch it: It’s a horror masterpiece that revolutionized the way narrative structure is used in the film industry. But the methods used to achieve this were so extreme that the director was arrested. If you are a full on horror aficionado this might be the film for you, BUT look up the content before hand. The film contains violent and sexual abuse towards real animals and therefore is not for the faint of heart (or anyone with a conscience).
Who to watch it with
Where to watch it: Prison
Bonus: Maybe University isn’t so scary…
1: Donald Trump the Art of the Deal – The Movie Don’t watch this. The film is cursed. If you watch it, stare into the mirror and say ‘make America great again’ three times, Donald Trump appears and deports you.