Tuesday's Top Ten - Halloween Movies

"Psycho killer/ Qu'est que c'est/ Fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa far better/ Run run run run run run run away." - "Psycho Killer" by The Talking Heads

Halloween is less than three weeks away, so I thought I would devote the latest Top Ten list to my favorite scary movies. Are yours on the list? Did I make a glaring error and leave off the best horror film of all time? Let me know!

1. "The Shining" - For those of you who read my post about this movie last week, this should come as no surprise. The creepy faces Jack Nicholson makes can give even the most seasoned veteran of horror movies a serious case of the chills. Not to mention room 237, Danny's imaginary friend Tony, "All work and no play...", and REDRUM!

2. "Psycho" - Alfred Hitchcock at his finest. When this movie premiered in 1960, it was so terrifying that many people were afraid to take showers after seeing what happened to poor Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) at the Bates Motel. From today's perspective the gore and violence are very mild, but 51 years ago, it was groundbreaking. The best line in the movie is, "We all go a little mad sometimes." Well said, Norman.

3. "Halloween" - The original in the movie series about mute boogie man Michael Myers from 1978 not only kick started the career of Jamie Lee Curtis, it also opened the doors for future horror movie franchises like "Friday the 13th" and "Nightmare on Elm Street" (eww, Freddy Krueger!). It was the first, and in my opinion, the best of the series movies. What could be scarier than a homicidal, silent, escaped mental patient that stalks young girls? Oh yeah, and the mask he wore was made from a mold of William Shatner's face. Enough said.

4. "Friday the 13th" - The first installment of the series is my favorite. I have a thing for the first part in a long series, I guess. I just like to see how the story gets started. In this movie we get introduced to Camp Crystal Lake, a young Kevin Bacon, and Jason Voories before he got a hockey mask. A true classic.

5. "Scream" - Once again, the first movie in the franchise. I loved this movie when I was a teenager and it first came out, and I still do today. I especially liked how Randy, played by Jamie Kennedy, was such a horror film buff and seemed to know exactly what would happen before the event occured, except when it was happening all around him. "Look behind you, Jamie!"

6. "Misery" - This movie, based on the Stephen King book of the same name, is fantastic. Kathy Bates is terrifying as the obsessed, sadistic fan of writer Paul Sheldon (James Caan) and said a couple of great lines in the movie that my family will quote from time to time. Is that weird? Probably, but it's definitely fun! Along with "The Shining", this movie has made it clear to me that as a writer, I should never hole up in a hotel in the mountains for an extended period of time to work on my novel. Bad, bad idea.

7. "Silence of the Lambs" - Definitely the most critically acclaimed and award-winning film on my list, "Silence of the Lambs" is also the scariest. It's equal parts psychological, crime, and horror, the trifecta for truly scary movies in my book. The reason it isn't higher up on my list is because it lacks the humor that some of the other movies do, which is a little more up my alley. Still, this film is amazing. And I will forever have the image of Hannibal Lecter (shudder at the mention of his name) in the cannibal face mask emblazened in my brain for the rest of my life.

8. "The Exorcist" - Why, you ask, is this not higher on my list since it is considered by some to be the top horror movie of all time? The answer is, because it freaked me out too much! There is just something about a child getting possessed by the devil that is a little too disturbing, even for me. And I don't get disturbed that easily. Still, this movie is a classic for a reason. People were seriously scared when this movie came out, I think because it combined the elements of very creepy special effects with the fear that people really can be possessed by Satan. If you have not seen this, go rent it, download it, or better yet just buy it, because this is a movie that horror film fans should watch every Halloween. It's that terrifying.

9. "Poltergeist" - I have only seen this movie once, maybe when I was 14 or 15, and I don't know why I don't own it and rewatch it every October. I think I might have to go shopping. Anyway, the terror in this classic from 1982 all begins with television static. Remember how late at night when all the shows were over, there would just be static or a test pattern on every channel? If you don't you must have been born after 1990 or so. Before the days of 24 hour programming and a thousand TV channels, after the late night movie, nothing would be on again until the morning news. That's when the evil spirits came out in the Freeling house, spawning the famous line, "They're heeeerrre!" For a TV junkie like myself, it's pretty freaky to think that ghosts can come out of your TV. I hope my neighborhood wasn't built on an old graveyard, although that could explain why my stuff keeps disappearing and why my dog barks at nothing all the time - or at least, I think it's nothing...

10. "The Amityville Horror" - One word - flies! Whenever I see a bunch of flies, I always flash back to the scene in this movie when the flies attack the poor priest who is there to bless the house. And if I wake up at 3:15 a.m., it takes me forever to fall back asleep. I even wrote that into one of my Willow books. Willow and her friends watch this movie on Halloween and one of the other characters changes her alarm clock to read 3:15, which she did not appreciate. Okay, back to the show. What makes this movie so good is that it is based on the alleged true story of the Lutz family who buy a great house at an even better price (gee, I wonder why?), only to find out that it is haunted by some very mean ghosts. Did it actually happen? Who knows, but after watching this movie, you might believe it did.