Halloween Top 20 (3/4)

I'm back with the third part of my Halloween List. I've got five more good, scary movies for you to watch this Halloween season.

The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005)

This one didn’t hit off as well with the critics, but it did do fairly well with the fans. Either way, I liked it. I hadn’t seen the original Exorcist until about three years after I saw this, so I didn’t know what a movie about exorcism would be like. This movie was pretty disturbing however. It features a young woman who suddenly begins acting strange. She starts seeing disturbing imagery, she losing control of her mind and body, she crawls around like a spider, she speaks in tongues, she screams and roars at everything. Conclusion: she’s been possessed by the devil. The movie isn’t entirely centered around her exorcism however. A concurrent storyline is about the pastor who exorcised her. He manages to relieve her of the devil, but is unable to save her life, and so his methods are called into question as to whether or not they were ethical. The movie itself stands alone well enough, but what really makes it disturbing is watching it knowing that it’s based on a true story. Of course, “based on” can be a pretty loose term, but just knowing that events like this have happened to people kind of sends shivers down your spine.

Orphan (2009)

This is one cah-reepy movie. It follows a family who looks into adopting a young Russian girl named Esther. But Esther isn’t like most 9-year old girls; she’s psychotic. Aside from the creepiness in general she tends to carry around on her persona, there’s just something very off about her. She makes decisions and talks in manners that many will find unnerving. She persuades her adoptive sister to do bad things, and she brings physical harm to her adoptive brother, all the while threatening to kill either of them if they ever bring word to her adoptive parents. And then she gets a weird obsession with her new father, and we’re not talking a cute schoolgirl crush on her Math Teacher. I mean this girl wants mommy out of the picture. With an overall super creepy vibe and an ending I never would have seen coming, Orphan definitely delivered.

Last House on the Left (2009)

Not that I’m trying to spoil the movie or anything, but you know how sometimes you get a real douche of a villain, but they manage to get away without you, the viewer, getting the satisfaction of watching them get mutilated in return? This movie is for you. This movie features a band of villains that kidnap, rape and kill a pair of best friends that unfortunately end up in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people. Well, as it turns out, one of the girls actually manages to get away, and word is gotten to her parents what happened, and the whole dichotomy of the movie shifts as now it’s the villains’ turn to take a chance at survival. I’m hardly a sadist, but it’s oh so satisfying to watch such awful people get just what they deserve.

Sleepy Hollow (1999)

I haven’t seen this movie in a long while, but what has always stood out to me with this title is the lack of gore. This movie probably has more character deaths than any other on my list, yet in return has the least amount of blood. The story follows the headless horseman, terrorizing a village, riding around lopping off the heads of the villagers, trying to find a replacement. So the movie is just chop, chop, exposition, chop, chop chop, yet no blood. This only further proves my belief that you don’t need wild gory deaths to have a good, scary movie. Saw VI? Lots of gore, terrible movie. Sleepy Hollow? Minimal gore, great movie. If this description isn’t enough for you, it’s made by Tim Burton, featuring Johnny Depp and Christopher Walken [when he was still playing villainous roles], with Danny Elfman on music. This should be a no brainer.

The Others (2001)

I love a good ghost story. Events of the supernatural are something that no human truly understands. Included in this is Grace Stewart, played by Nicole Kidman. Grace is a mother of two with a husband at war. Her tightly knit family lives humbly in a quiet country home, and life in general seems to be pretty normal. Her children develop a disease that makes them weak to sunlight, but nothing too out of the ordinary. Well, not until ghosts inhabit the house. Suddenly strange events begin to take place. The little girl is drawing pictures of a family she keeps seeing. A scary old woman appears wearing the daughter’s clothing. Someone hides the curtains, endangering the children. These events leave Grace certain that these are hostile ghosts that wish to bring harm to her poor children, but perhaps that’s not the whole story. Pay attention all the way through, because there may just be another surprise in story.

Well that’s it for my movie list. Saw 1, Saw 2, Final Destination, Disturbia, Thirteen Ghosts, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Orphan, Last House on the Left, Sleepy Hollow, and the Others are ten good, scary movies for you to enjoy this Halloween. The list ends next time.