Horror Christmas!

Another quality post brought to you by Steve!

Hey kids!  It's the happ-happ-iest time of the year!  Horror Christmas (aka Halloween) is right around the corner!

Maybe I'm a little late to the party.  Maybe I'm a day late and a dollar short.  But you know what?  There's still a solid 26 hours of Halloween season joy remaining before November 1 hits and the horror love slams to a halt like a Pinto skidding into a lamppost and I'm going to make the best of it, dammit!

Now, it wouldn't be much of a Halloween season if I didn't tell you where you could purchase some fine horror literature, would it?  Well, if you swing by my Amazon store between now and November 1, you can pick up three of my novels for only $0.99 and the most recent (SLASHVIVOR!) for only $1.99!

But that's just an appetizer.  An amuse-bouche, if you will.  Everyone knows the real way to spend Halloween is not with your nose stuck in a book, but with your eyes stuck to a screen!  So I'm going to list a couple of classic movies you can spend tomorrow night watching.  But here's the catch: I know some of our readers (and even our fellow bloggers) are self-described horror wimps.  So how about if I list a few movies for marshmallows to enjoy, and a few for the gorehounds to enjoy, and a few for  (yes, I'm going to square this circle) both to enjoy together!  Without further ado, here we go.

For the marshmallow:

"The Nightmare Before Christmas"

A perennial favorite for both Halloween and Christmas, Tim Burton's stop-motion classic is spooky, creepy, and weird, but won't scare anyone who's much over ten.  With fun music, genuinely touching characters, and a staggeringly beautiful look, this is a decisively Halloween-themed movie anyone can enjoy

For the gorehound:

"Dead Alive"

"I kick ass...for the Lord!"

Why not take this Halloween to revisit the undisputed all-time champion of gore, "Dead Alive" aka "Braindead?"  While I won't disparage gore for it's own sake, this is also a ridiculously funny romp and a weirdly deep descent into an Oedipal nightmare straight out of Freud's most deranged fever dream.

For both:

"Night of the Living Dead"

Can't decide to board Mom's terror train or Dad's creepy caboose?  Why not split the difference with a classic of yesteryear?  There's genuine gore enough to please the maddest among us here in the progenitor of the zombie genre, and yet it was a film that kids watched almost fifty years ago.  The horror lover can get a genuine fright and the horror neophyte can enjoy a true classic of cinema.

For the marshmallow:

"It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!"

I re-watched (and live-tweeted) this Halloween classic when it was on ABC last week, as it has been for the last 51 (!) years.  I was ready to rip into some Baby Boomber nostalgia, but you know what?  Even a demented cynic such as myself can't find a whole lot of fault.  It's just so damned earnest.  Every moment of it rings so excruciatingly true, from Lucy busting Charlie Brown's balls by drawing on the back of his pumpkin-shaped head to that same miserable cuss wrapping her brother in a blanket and dragging him in out of the cold.  Sure, it's Boomer-era shlock.  So find yourself unable to not enjoy it with your parents.

For the gorehound:

"Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn"

"Army of Darkness" is funnier.  "Evil Dead" is scarier.  But for my money, the best of the series is the middle entry, sandwiched right in between those two points.  Geysers of blood, giggling game heads, and a veritable cornucopia of demons all recommend this one for the horror lover.  (For bonus points, check out the "Ash vs. Evil Dead" show on Starz, a more than worthy successor to all these movies.)

For both:

"The Rocky Horror Picture Show"

And here we come to the end, dear readers, and why not round it out with the grand-daddy (mommy?) of all Halloween viewing, "The Rocky Horror Picture Show."  See it at home in comfort or see it in the theater for the whole ridiculous viewing experience.  It's wacky, hilarious, gory, and when it comes to the true meaning of Halloween - putting your weirdest foot forward - it still takes the cake.

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What about you, dear readers?  What is some of your favorite Halloween viewing?  Let me know in the comments below!