It’s Devil’s Night, one more day until Halloween, and I have one last list of scary movies to recommend. The horror of the demonic is quite a popular sub-genre of film. These movies focus on how evil lurks beneath the surface (demonic possession) or how evil manifests itself in the form of actual demons walking the earth.

Nicholas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now is a quintessential example of dark forces scaring a couple to death. Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie play a couple who move to Venice after the death of their child. They meet two elderly sisters who have something sinister about them. The film is based on the Daphne Du Maurier story.

Other classic examples are of the horror of demonic from the 1960s and 1970s (funny how they all clustered in that time period):

Rosemary’s Baby (1967)

The Exorcist (1973) - I love me some vintage Ellen Burstyn.

Demon Seed (1977) - yay, more Julie Christie! But poor her, a scientist has impregnated her with a horrible evil entity.

One of my favorite Denzel Washington movies is Fallen from 1998. He plays Detective John Hobbes, a determined homicide detective that notices a trend of similar serial killings that could only be committed by a man that was executed. Somehow the killer’s spirit can move from body to body, which makes him an exceptionally hard to catch criminal!

And most people didn’t like Constantine, starring Keanu Reeves, Tilda Swinton, and Rachel Weisz, but I really liked it. The story was intriguing, altho some of the dialogue could use some work. Nevertheless I think director Francis Lawrence’s did a good job of keeping you fascinated by balancing special f/x with a story of the anti-hero John Constantine.

Happy Devil’s Night, party safe by watching scary movies in the safety of your home and put those finishing touches on your halloween costume.

Witches (and Warlocks) have been depicted in art, then fiction and non-fiction books, and then movies and television. The definition of a witch is basically: any individuals with supernatural powers (i.e. people who cast spells, read minds, cackle and all that jazz). Sometimes, they are depicted as demonic witches who are inhuman and use magic to torture, murder, or control people (i.e. like the witch killing those people in The Blair Witch Project).

Here’s a rundown of my favorite scary movies featuring witchcraft and the occult:

Dario Argento’s Suspiria is a classic horror movie that doesn’t skimp on the creepy or fright factor. Whenever I remember this movie, I think about the soundtrack and that final scene. That coven of witches gave me some serious shivers. Plus, bonus points for featuring a young Udo Keir as a psychiatrist who believes in the existence of witches.

Julian Sands in Warlock may seem a bit cheesy and over the top when I watch this flick again, but as a kid this movie scared the crap outta me! However, I did become aware of the silly factor in the sequel, Warlock: The Armageddon.

Cast a Deadly Spell with Julianne Moore and Fred Ward from 1991.

And an old movie called Necromancy (1972) with Orson Welles (!!!!) that I stumbled upon on the Arcane Film Archive listed at The Witching.

After looking at this list of horror films, I wonder where how these classic witch costumes featuring purple, green, and pink are so popular.

They don’t remotely eflect any witch character from any movie I’ve seen except maybe Wizard of Oz.

Bonus witch movie that’s awesomely bad, directed by the king of empty style, Renny Harlin and is about male witches: The Covenant starring Steven Strait and Taylor Kitsch (Friday Night Lights).  Pajiba kindly reviewed this movie that year and took a bullet for the rest of us. It’s strictly late-night cable television viewing only.

Ghosts, spirits of the dead, or poltergeists are different than zombies. They have no real physical manifestation and exist in a sort of netherworld dimension that bleeds over to our reality. At least that’s how the movies explains it to me!

There are tons of movies featuring ghosts like the animated Casper version, or the super sexy Swayze Ghost, or the truly frightening specters of Poltergeist or The Watcher in the Woods.

The coolest and most original ghost effects I’ve seen in recent time were from Peter Jackson’s The Frighteners. Bless encore cable channel for playing this movie non-stop. =) Michael J. Fox was perfect as Frank Bannister, a ghostbuster of sorts who could see the undead after a traumatic experience. Chi McBride (”Pushing Daisies” and “Boston Public”) brings the comic relief as a ghost from the 1970s.

Other ghost films to watch to inspire your Halloween costume choices (please get more creative than a white sheet):
1408 - Model your costume after John Cusack’s horror writer slacker wardrobe
Beetlejuice - Tim Burton and Michael Keaton at their best!
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947)
High Spirits - Beverly D’angelo’s character is hilariously mean
The Wraith - ghosts, cars, and Charlie Sheen

Find an even more comprehensive list of ghost films on wikipedia.

Zombies (aka re-animated corpses that usually snack on the living) have had somewhat of a horror renaissance at the box office lately. I think Zack Synder’s remake of Dawn of the Dead from 2004 revived the zombie horror genre. Ever since then, box office seemed to exploded with films variations of the zombie mythology, most notably with the continuation of the marginally successful Resident Evil trilogy.

Zombies have been part of the film horror lexicon since the 1940s, most notably portrayed in RKO’s I Walked with a Zombie (1943). This film decided to take use voodoo spells to conjure up zombies.

And of course who can forget the 1968 classic, Night of the Living Dead, which was shot entirely on 16mm format and then transfered to 35mm for theatrical exhibition. In this film, a chemical spill created the undead epidemic of dead bodies rising from their graves. There have been countless remakes and sequels to George Romero’s original film (most of them by himself!). My favorite sequel was the camp-tastic Return of the Living Dead (1985) where the zombies could talk and use machinery! Hilariously, all they could say was the word “brains” over and over.

Every film purports their own back story of how and why the zombies appear. My favorite explanation of events was in 28 Days Later where the “rage” virus was created in a lab and spread into the human population with a simple bite from a lab monkey. The sequel, 28 Weeks Later further pushed the idea of zombie-ism as disease by suggesting there was a possible cure tucked away in the dna of individuals that have different colored eyes.

My favorite comedy-horror hybrid of the mythology is Shaun of the Dead starring the hilarious Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, and Bill Nighy. It’s a dark satire that portrays a London based zombie infestation that is hardly noticed by the city’s inhabitants until it’s too late. And in the end, they domesticate the afflicted and have them performing menial jobs!

Since Halloween is just around the corner, I decided that I’m going to blog every week about my favorite horror movies and genres until October 31st arrives. Today, let’s start with the vampire sub-genre, since it’s such a popular subject on TV.

The definition of a vampire changes from film to film, but at the heart of the myth, vampires are basically the undead who must feed on the blood (aka lifeforce) of the living. The Hammer Horror Dracula series depicted a more traditional idea of a vampire, where the actor dressed up in some caricatured vampire costume.

As for me, I’m drawn to the vampire films where they portray them in a more realistic manner like in Near Dark. And they seem to treat vampirism like a virus or disease that an unlucky person can catch.

Near Dark

Or when they turn them into fantastical creatures, like they did with Dracula aka Drake in Blade: Trinity.