It’s that time a year again. Time when little monsters beg for snacks and drunk soccer moms dress as slutty pirates. No it’s not kids eat free night at Long John Silvers, it’s time for our annual “Movies you might have seen but maybe not but if you didn’t then check them out halloween night movie list” or “MYMHSBMNBIYDTCTOHNML” for short. Our highway mutant editors came up with a list that in no way reflects good taste, human decency or a proper hygiene and to that we say “heck yeah!” So here’s our movie list which is in no particular order mostly because we ain’t no communists.

1. The Frighteners
Three years before that kid saw dead folk in The Sixth Sense, Michael J. Fox had a similar affliction in this here flick. But, unlike the mopey kid in Sixth Sense, MJF used his powers to make some extra cash.

2. Trick r’ Treat
A collection of interlaced short stories which nobody but four people saw, Trick r’ Treat is a hoot. Shame it didn’t get the attention it deserved, much like Jaleel White’s one man musical, Urkel Rex.

3. Ernest Scared Stupid
Yes, this may fall under the ‘kiddie’ category, but aside from being an important Public Service Announcement about the dangers of trolls, it is some of Jim Varney’s finest work as Ernest.

4. Planet Terror
A throwback to over-the-top zombie movies (are there any other kind?), Planet Terror is as fun as it is gory.

5. Call of Cthulhu
For those what like their horror a bit more on the ‘cerebral’ side (and I don’t mean floating killer brains), check out this take on H. P. Lovecraft’s classic story. It is black and white, and not a talkie, but captures the mood (and time) of the story pretty well.

6. John Carpenter’s Vampires
No Halloween movie list is complete with out at least one JC flick. Vampires is funny, gory, and gritty. No fancy hairdos or sparkling here. Trivia: stars Sheryl Lee, Twin Peaks’ Laura Palmer. Yes, please.

7. Dead Alive
Most blood and gore I’ve seen, and I’ve been looking for years to find more; all of it is absolutely gratuitous. The story of a momma’s boy whose mother is bitten by a spider monkey and becomes a zombie. Unable to properly “deal” with his mother, a comedy of errors insures and the plague spreads quickly. But the real gem is the Kung Fu priest and his line, “I kick ass for the Lord!” Can I get an Ahmen!?!

8. Evil Dead 2
This one is a no brainer. Yes, it is a popular favorite, but it stands the test of time and needs to be on any Halloween list.

9. Ghost Dad
83 minutes of terror. Bill Cosby (yes) rises from the dead to wreck havoc on those who done him wrong. Or he just comes back as a ghost and tries to make his kids love him. I can’t remember. I always pass out after the first ten minutes due to brain failure.

10. Thirst
A vampire movie that is actually cool. Not because some aesthetically pleasing teens are wearing tight black leather, but because the story is excellent. Tired of feeling useless watching patients die at the hospital he works for, a Catholic priest volunteers for an experiment to find a cure for a deadly, and incurable, disease. During one of his blood transfusions he is tainted with vampire blood. Without knowing what’s happened, he has to come to terms with his new urges and his religious calling.

11. The Signal
Someone has started broadcasting a signal on all devices, radio, television, interwebs, etc., that has driven people insane. A young girl tries to make it to a rendezvous with her lover at a train station, all the while being pursued by her husband, and what seems like the whole of the city, that’s gone psychotic. Another great mix of bloody horror and humor.

12. Murder Party
Christopher Hawley is a loser who mistakenly gets an invite to a Halloween party. The group throwing the party intends to kill him for their “art”. What they get is mayhem, mishap and hilarity.

13. Shawn of the Dead
Best. Romantic. Comedy. Ever. It took me a while to realize it was a romantic comedy because the genre is so masterfully hidden under the layers of “buddy flick” and “zombie outbreak”. Pure GENIUS.

14. The Mist
Whereas this movie has monsters, and blood and guts, the real horror of the film is what happens because of the people who are trapped, trying to survive. In true Stephen King fashion, no one gets away clean in this film, and the worst of the worst is saved for the very end. The last minute is heartbreaking.

15. Audition
This movie can be incredibly slow. I almost didn’t make it through the film. It’s about a man who’s raised his son alone after his wife died in childbirth. Now, some 17 years later, he’s looking to remarry but doesn’t know how to meet women. A friend, who’s a movie producer invites him to take part in some auditions he’s holding to fill the female lead to help him break the ice. Know this, it is WELL worth what the film’s building up to in the last 25 minutes. When it hits the fan it’ll freak you out, but good.

16. The Ugly
From New Zeland, a good looking psycho thinks he’s ugly and everyone laughs at him, so he starts butchering every chick he comes across with a straight razor because he is possessed by The Ugly. Tries to have a good relationship, but whatever pseudo-demonic force inhabits him just won’t let go, despite the best efforts of a psychologist who comes to love and understand poor Simon. Awesome mental hospital scenes, and a decent twist on the end.

17. The Abominable Dr. Phibes
Willy Wonka’s Candyman up against the diabolical Vincent Price and his wind-up jazz band. Psychedelic dance scenes, prolonged organ playing (of the musical type, you perverts!), and some of the fanciest death scenes ever! My particular favorite is the frog mask. It doesn’t get much more technicolor than this.

18. The Stuff
The best parasitic alien dessert food movie yet. White gunk bubbling from the ground is discovered by two hobos whose first instinct is to taste it. It takes off like effing wildfire, and the only things standing between The Stuff and world domination are a little boy and an industrial spy. You get an excellent grocery store freakout, melting faces, and sentient cool whip. It’ll make you think twice about eating a twinkie ever again!

19. Stanley
Vietnam veteran gets along better with snakes than he does people; your typical traditional country native fighting off the sleezy, drug-addled land developer. He takes matters into his own hands and sics his pet rattlesnake Stanley on the city scum, and then in a moment of pure ‘What just happened?’ kidnaps the developer’s daughter after he’s filled the pool with various and sundry snakes, and she falls in love with the cold-blooded swamp stud. He plans to make her his Eve, but she wants to go to the rock-n-roll show, and in a climactic man vs. nature scene, he reaps the venom he spewed.

20. Don’t Answer the Phone
Psychopathic pudge-bucket throttles ladies with extreme prejudice. Amateur S&M photography sessions, and extreme stalking behavior. The one that got away is chased and psychologically tortured, but thankfully a hunky police officer feels sorry for her and annihilates the bad guy.

21. The Blob
I can’t say much about this one other than if frigging rocks. The quintessential Earth vs. Extraterrestrial Gunk movie. Just awesome fun all the way around.

22. House
William Katt, a horror writer with PTSD inherits his aunt’s haunted house, where his son disappeared years before. Estranged from his soap star wife, he goes to the house to write his Vietnam memoirs, but ends up doing battle with the supernatura, led by Bull from Night Court. The Greatest American Hero dukes it out with sentient garden tools, slime glopola monsters, demonic troll kids, and a taxidermied swordfish. Badass.

23. Dr. Giggles
Crazy surgeon takes revenge on his home town for the deaths of his parents. His mom died of a bad heart, and his surgeon father tried to find her a replacement…by cutting the hearts out of townsfolk. They gave him the Frankenstein pitchfork treatment, but not before he had sewn the young doctor into his mother’s corpse. He runs into a teenager with the same condition as dear momma had, and makes it his mission to kill her friends and transplant her heart.

24. Popcorn
A twist on the wax museum revenge story; this time set in a movie theater where a college film studies class puts on a horror movie extravaganza, but someone’s got their sights set on murder! A little girl with vague memories of almost getting murdered by a cult, the movie the cult was filming showing up, and the hideously deformed creepazoid hiding his marred visage behind elaborate makeup untl the final showdown. Great sendups of William Castle classics and old theater gimmicks.

25. American Gothic
Traumatized woman takes an island vacation with her friends, only they land on an island inhabited by a family of nutballs who murder folks from the modern day and make them into mummified dolls for the kids. This one goes full circle, everyone getting hacked up except for the crazy lady, who goes so absolutely and perfectly insane that she joins up with the family, only to go EVEN MORE CRAZY and kill them all. Amazing

When you remember some of your favorite horror films certain scenes come to mind. Some are great jump moments, others combine all the best elements together into something that is truly timeless and classic. These are scenes that helped define the genre of horror and kept us awake at night while they replayed in our heads. Here’s a top 10 list of a few of our favorites to get you in the mood for a halloween movie night. Don’t worry, we’ll leave the light on in the hallway for ya.

Women in Black (her appearance on the bog.)
“I was also afraid my 4th grade English teacher would appear on a creepy bog.”

Prince of Darkness (The brodcast at the church)
“If you mess with your antenna, you can either get in the Lion’s game or open a portal to hell.”

Exorcist 3 (attack in the hospital)
“And you thought only staph infections were problems in hospitals.”

Halloween 3 (Mask death scene)
“Well it still beats watching American Idol.”

Blair Witch (ending scene in basement)
“He was just going down to the basement to get another beer.”

The Shining (evil twins in the hallway)
“There’s nothing much scarier that British children in a Motel 6.”

Poltergiest (the clown attack)
“Clowns are just the devil’s groupies.”

Salem’s Lot (Danny gets a visit from his vampire brother)
“Late night window washers of EVIL!”

Stephen King’s IT (Pennywise in the sewer)
“Tim Curry wether in drag or in a sewer is still horrifying.”

Nightmare on Elm St. (where’s your hall pass and tina in a body bag)
“Ziplock storage bags are incredibly versatile.”

The Room is THE text book example of the phrase “the whole is greater than the sum of it’s parts.” To see just how this works, let’s break it down into its component parts.

Acting = suck. None of the acting is good. Some is less terrible than others, but that can also be said of cancer. The best of the bad acting falls squarely on Tommy Wiseau. From his odd “American” accent, to his stilted delivery, to his misshaped face, it’s a smorgasbord of stinky green cheese.

Music = suck. Watch the love scenes with the subtitles on. First, you’ll thank me for giving you something other than Wiseau’s deformed, naked buttocks to look at. Second, and more to the point, you’ll see lyrics that even horny teenagers instantly recognize as terrible.

Story = suck. There’s supposed to be some kind of moral, I think. Something about not being able to trust people. It’s touted as having “the passion of Tennesee [sic] Williams”. By that I’m assuming they are referring to the fact that it’s gay, but that’s not cool. What’s better are the many unceremoniously dropped plot points. It’s not just small ones that come and go in a line or two. My favorite would have to be the mother who causally mentions she’s dying from breast cancer. It’s dismissed rather flippantly and then it’s never brought up again. Ever.

Title & Poster = suck. As a title, The Room would have you think there is something significant about a particular room, that it takes place in one room. Nope. The film is set all over, different rooms, the roof, the park, the coffee shop, etc.. Also, with a name like The Room, why is the movie’s poster a close up shot of Tommy Wiseau?

So, if we add it all up, Suck + Suck + Suck + Suck = (and you don’t need a Ph.D. in preventative mathematics to work this out) Suck, right?

Wrong.

I know. I know. It’s seems impossible. I believe it has something to do with transubstantiated quadruple negative transference, that is, all the suck aspects of this film, mixed together, transconfoobalates into AWE-some! I have racked my brain trying to figure this out, and will continue to do so for years to come but, even with all of my Science, I have to admit that in the end it’s all magic in a box.

Part of me desperately wants to believe Wiseau is a genius. That same part of me believes with the right amount of discipline and practice I can be a Jedi.

One way or the other, for those of us who are fans of the cult/late, late, late movies, Tommy Wiseau is our new champion, and The Room is his magnum opus. It’s also his only movie, but that’s just a silly little technicality. So keep your eyes on Wiseau, ‘cos he is very much the Edward Wood, Jr. of our time.

Now you too can experience the terror of “The Room” in the classic style of a Rocky Horror picture show event for your Halloween movie night or any night for that matter. This handy “oh hi dandy” participation guide will make your next movie event that much more vaguely european. Hurry before you get cancer!

The Room Audience Participation Guide (PDF)

There was a time not that long ago when soundtracks in horror movies actually played an important role and were treated like major characters. Each score had its own distinct personality and complemented all of the onscreen action. In slasher films usually, a series of well-placed sound cues from an orchestra or a pulsating synth rhythm would signal the killer is close by, or that the victim is about to triumph over his or her attacker. What you saw on screen and heard both worked together to create the desired thrills and chills. But sadly, not the same can be said about the majority of soulless “film scores” being churned out today. The current crop of horror composers aim for cheap scares by using loud, random noises to get a reaction out of the audience. There isn’t any kind of build-up to create tension or a feeling of dread in horror films of the new millennium, just musical punch lines that arrive way too soon and don’t end up paying off for the audience. Instead of having memorable themes like “The Shape Stalks” from “Halloween” or the “Main Title” from “Jaws” that made your heart race the first time you heard them, “music” in recent horror movies has been replaced by generic, headache-inducing distractions that totally take you out of the movie experience.

But don’t worry, Ghouls and Ghoulettes. We have put together a list of classic horror soundtracks from different eras (when movie music still mattered) that are guaranteed to make your Halloween party festive and extra creepy this year.

1. Trick ‘r Treat

Douglas Pipes (“Monster House“) delivers a surprisingly creepy film score that, along with the film, perfectly captures the spirit of Halloween. At times his composing style will remind you of the late composers, Jerry Goldsmith and Bernard Herrmann. The whole soundtrack is overflowing with eerie goodness, but standout tracks are “Main Titles”, “To The Quarry”, and “Pumpkin Shooter/Meet Sam.”

2. Damien: Omen II

This soundtrack can easily be considered one of composer Jerry Goldsmith’s masterpieces. With each track you can hear the forthcoming sense of doom that is simmering just beneath the surface. His mixture of dark mass chants and startling electronic sound effects would make even Jason Voorhees cry for his mommy.

3. Creepshow

As far as horror movie anthologies are concerned, “Creepshow” is one on the best. And John Harrison’s spooky film score has one of the best opening tracks that I’ve ever heard on a horror soundtrack. Listening to each track will make you feel like you are watching the movie all over again. The CD features previously unreleased music from “Mansions of the Moon“, “Shoobie Doobie Moon“, as well as some music from the “Tales from the Darkside” TV show.

4. Psycho (1960)

Another personal favorite soundtrack of mine. Bernard Herrmann composed this iconic score which has sent a collective shiver down the spines of fans spanning many generations. The stabbing string section on the track “Prelude” still cuts just as deep today, even though the music is almost 50 years old. Now let me go, because I think I hear “Mother” calling me.

5. Hellraiser

Christopher Young’s spine-tingling masterwork is the perfect compliment to Clive Barker’s nightmarish directorial debut. Young has created a score that features some of the most hauntingly beautiful music that I’ve ever heard in a horror movie. I couldn’t imagine watching “Hellraiser” without hearing his music.

6. Tenebre

You can’t have a top ten horror soundtrack list without including Italian Prog Rock band, Goblin, which has consistently composed some of the most unique sounding and memorable music for horror movies. At the request of director Dario Argento, three of the four original members from Goblin reunited to create a hypnotic and energetic score filled with enough up-tempo tracks that will surely have any wallflowers at your party cutting a rug.

7. Phantasm

This is another movie that just wouldn’t have the same impact if it had different music. Composing duo Fred Myrow and Malcom Seagrave collaborated to create my all-time favorite movie soundtrack that perfectly frames Reggie’s and Mike’s life-or-death struggle against the evil Tall Man.

8. Dawn of the Dead (1978)

Goblin creates another wildly inventive score using a variety of instruments and sound effects for Romero’s fan favorite zombie film. When you hear the tortured moans of the undead on track 2, “Zombi”, you’ll want to quickly lock all of your doors and board up every window to protect yourself from the coming zombie invasion.

9. The Amityville Horror (1979)

Nominated for an Academy Award, master composer Lao Shiffrin’s soundtrack is the scariest part of the movie. Without his pulse-pounding music, “Amityville Horror” would’ve been even more of a snoozer.

10. The Thing

If after listening to this score you mistakenly thought John Carpenter did the music, don’t beat yourself up too much. Because just like how the parasitic alien in the movie was able to imitate other life forms, composer Enio Morricone masterfully emulated Carpenter’s distinct style when he created this bleak, minimalist soundtrack that will chill you to the bone.

Almost every B-movie and horror movie fan out there has a story of how they were introduced to movies–like a cool uncle who let them watch “Porky’s” where they saw their very first set of boobies. For me, I became hooked on B-movies and horror movies after my first visit to Video Unlimited, a video store near where I lived. As a young boy many a weekend and summer were spent watching videos that I rented from both stores; they had two locations. I was very fortunate to have a really cool Mom who would let me watch any kind of movie, regardless of the genre (except porn). Hey, even the coolest Moms have to draw the line somewhere. My Mom became even cooler when I found out she was a big horror movie buff. On her days off from managing the drive-in (Rosen’s), she would usually be watching horror movies with me. Now how many kids can honestly say their Mom likes horror movies?

So, let me get back to my Video Unlimited memories. The one thing that always amazed me about both stores was that even though they weren’t very big, the staff magically found a way to somehow store and showcase thousands of titles. I always wondered if they had access to some kind of interdimensional portal with a limitless supply of videos. Video Unlimited’s selection was a lot like Video Vault in that whatever movie you were looking for, they usually had it or something similar to it.

And while I’m on the subject of selection, I have to mention the size of the movie rental catalog that was sitting on the front counter of the Laplata location. This thing was HUGE. Think a of a triple-decker club sandwich that is made of phone books, without the ham, lettuce, tomato, bacon, and mayonnaise. To me this catalog was my B-movie bible. I’m pretty sure that whenever I went near it the book was enshrined in a golden light and I heard celestial music coming from up above. Seriously, this catalog contained so many movies from every possible genre and sub-genre that if I live several lifetimes like the Highlander, Duncan MacLeod, I still wouldn’t see all of the movies listed in it. And when I had watched all of the current releases, or I just wanted to focus on a particular genre, this became my go-to book. The selection of the so-called “big boys” of movie rental back then and today–Blockbuster and Hollywood Video–could never compare to the impressive selection of the small Mom-and-Pop video stores. Try calling Blockbuster to find out if they carry “Wood Chipper Massacre”, and the people working there won’t have a clue as to what you’re talking about.

When I moved out of the area I began going exclusively to Video Unlimited’s Waldorf location, their second store. After about a year of renting several movies on a weekly basis and talking about movies with the staff, I was asked for my imput on what B-movies and horror movies the should carry at the store. So I began making movie recommendations based on previews I had seen, articles that I read in ‘Fangoria’ (when ‘Fangoria’ was still a horror magazine), and movie screeners that I had viewed. Yes, I was given movie screeners to watch, which was one of the coolest things to me. In case you don’t know, a movie screener is an advance copy of a movie that is shown to critics and distributors. I saw a lot of screeners, but the one that comes to mind was for the movie “Seed People.” It’s basically Full Moon Entertainment’s version of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” I remember it being an enjoyable little movie, when Full Moon actually made movies worth watching, unlike the Z-grade trash that Charles Band pimps today for a quick buck. Now if helping to select movies and viewing advance copies wasn’t awesome enough, another perk of being a loyal customer was that I had my pick of all the cool posters they had from movies, like “Silent Night, Deadly Night”, “The Fly” (Cronenberg’s version), and “Friday the 13th Part 7: The New Blood.” In addition, I also got nifty movie promos like trading cards from another Full Moon release, “Subspecies”, which I still have packed in a box somewhere today. This was way before eBay. Back then nobody really thought of this stuff as being collectible or having any real value. To the owners all it was doing at the time was taking up valuable space that could be used to store copies of movies. Now I’m sure that they probably wished they had kept a lot of these posters after seeing how popular and valuable they’ve become over the years.

Soon I got a job at Rosen’s Drive-in, and I didn’t just didn’t have as much time as I used to to watch movies, but I would still visit Video Unlimited at least once a week to say “hi” and to see if there were any new releases that caught my eye. Sure, I saw plenty of movies while working the projection booth at Rosen’s, but I could never get my fill of movies. Similar to Kirstie Alley’s relationship with food. Have you seen her lately? Yikes! She looks like she swallowed a water buffalo.

Anyway, when I started a professional haunted house attraction a short time later, I found myself with even less time. Things were so crazy that everything quickly became a blur. And before I knew it, one week, two weeks had passed by in a flash, so I decided to stop by my favorite video store to see how things were going. Well, as soon as I walked across the parking lot towards the front door I had a sinking feeling–something wasn’t right. And my feeling was confirmed when I stepped inside and saw the shelves with only a few movies scattered on each of them. All around me there was a feeding frenzy similar to Piranhas attacking a helpless swimmer at a lake resort. People were quickly grabbing and buying VHS cassettes and everything else in the store, except for the floor tiles. I didn’t ask many questions even though I was shocked and upset, because whatever I was feeling was probably nothing compared to what everybody who worked there was going through. This was their business, their livelihood. From what I was told later on the video store had been struggling for a few months. And things only got worse when their rent was raised and Blockbuster (the Walmart of video stores, which isn’t a compliment) moved into town about 300 or so feet away. The competition was simply too strong and they just couldn’t survive any longer.

To this day I don’t understand why someone didn’t tell me what was happening sooner. Maybe I could have done something to help. Though in all honesty, it probably wouldn’t have made much of a difference anyway, because the profit-driven, soulless, corporate video rental chains like Blockbuster and Hollywood Video were gaining momentum in the video rental market, and it was only a matter of time before the small Mom-and-Pop video stores like Video Unlimited would soon disappear. However, the Laplata store was able to say in business for several more years until sadly, in 2002, it was destroyed by a devastating tornado that hit the strip mall where it was located. Last I had heard the owner decided not to rebuild the business.

I hadn’t been to the Laplata location in many years, but hearing the bad news was still a real bummer. It was like loosing contact with a close friend, and then years later finding out that they had passed away. For most of my childhood these two stores had been a very important part of my life. I know it’s just a couple of video stores to most people, but the movies that I was exposed to made me, Drive-in Dan, the B-movie fan that I am today. The movies that I rented from these stores led to other interests that have carried over into adulthood, like my passion for special effects makeup after seeing Tom Savini’s masterful work in films such as “Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter”, “Dawn of the Dead”, and “The Burning.” Watching films such as “Halloween” and Dario Argento’s “Phenomena”exposed me to the unique musical styles of John Carpenter and the Italian Prog Rock band, Goblin, which I still enjoy to this day. After seeing “The Road Warrior” I was inspired to make vehicles and various contraptions using parts from miscellaneous model kits, and today I continue to create things from found objects.

I will always have fond memories of the two Video Unlimited stores. I’m glad that I grew up in the 80’s and was able to be a part of something truly awesome. Hopefully, other B-movie fans out there had their own Video Unlimited while growing up.