Top 13 Films to Watch With the Lights Off on Halloween
Scott Hallam
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Session 9
When you talk about putting in a movie and turning the lights down, aliens and slashers and people arising from the dead in the Micmac Burial Grounds are all great. But a true haunting might be the most frightening in-the-dark experience. The problem is, it’s hard to generate a quality haunted house (asylum) film. Fortunately, with Session 9 you get all the skin-crawling, fingernail-chewing, teeth-gnashing frights that you can possibly handle. Session 9 is one of the most frightening hauntings captured on film in years. Danvers State Mental Hospital (an actual facility in Massachusetts) made for an incredible setting for one of the most memorable hauntings in a long, long time. And one that will no doubt spruce up your Halloween holiday celebration!
The Thing
So, if hauntings aren’t your thing, maybe we can scare you with claustrophobia and a potential civilization-ending apocalypse. If we can’t scare you with the lights off while an unknown alien presence infects your camp, creating ungodly creatures while everyone becomes insanely unsettled and on edge as there is no way to figure who are the good men and who are the monsters, then how the hell can we scare you?. Such a fantastic staple of the horror genre, The Thing is among the greatest work of John Carpenter and perhaps the best genre performance of Kurt Russell. You’ve got a cramped, frightening environment, some incredible monsters, and the world potentially coming to an end. The Thing is indeed one to watch with plenty of illumination.
Ginger Snaps
Oh, Ms. Isabelle, you had us at Ginger Snaps. One of the most memorable Halloween-themed movies ever, Ginger Snaps is a classic. We all love to watch Ginger Fitzgerald snap and bite! It’s easy to see what makes this movie so attractive. Teenage angst, rebelling against the establishment, and…oh yeah…huge brutal werewolf action. Ginger Snaps never really fell into stride with some of the mondo werewolf staples of the horror genre like The Howling or An American Werewolf in London, but Ginger Snaps has effects that are at least as good as any film on that list.
Donnie Darko (1990)
Let’s dig into another movie set around the Halloween season, and that includes the one and only dastardly duo to be found in Donnie Darko. Part horror, part sci-fi/mystery/drama, Donnie Darko never seems to take itself too overly seriously, and we get a story that leaves us begging for more. Slammed in the face by a giant meteor, or whatever smashed into Donnie’s house, what we come to find out is that Donnie Darko is indeed mysterious, if nothing else. Starring Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal, James Duval, Drew Barrymore, Patrick Swayze and Noah Wylie, Donnie Darko may be the most star-studded entry on this list, but it also has to go down as one of the creepiest. Shut the lights out and watch this one, and I dare you to give me the play-by-play afterwards.
