It's Halloween Month!

I'm a long-time horror fan, and every month has room in it to catch some good old scary horror films. But Halloween is the time of year for all to enjoy, celebrate and indulge.

Speaking of indulging, I don't just regard October 31st as Halloween, I celebrate it all month! It's time to have my own personal film festival full of favorite fright flicks.

I sometimes pick a theme as a starting point to choose the films I'm going to see. In years past I've had Zombie Month, Slasher Month, Ghost Month, Satan Month, Animal Month and other similar categories. It's fun to hunt down films in my collection as well as rentals or new DVDs to buy that fit in with the theme. Then it's time to sit down with my favorite plate of pasta, complete with plenty of bloody-red marinara or meat sauce, and pork out on horror.

This year I went simple and obvious, and just picked 80s horror movies. It's such an easy theme, and you can't fit in more than a small fraction of the many available films from that decade that kick ass for every reason kickassable. No matter what age you are, you have to tip your severed head in honor of the 80s horror films.



From the classy and original (Nightmare on Elm Street, American Werewolf in London) to the hearty meat-and-potatoes basics (Friday the Thirteenth, The Prowler), from the wild and sleazy (Basket Case, Street Trash) to the cheap and cheezy (Deadly Spawn, Bad Taste, Silent Night Deadly Night), from the avalanche of gut-punches (The Thing, Day of the Dead) to the unexpected and creepy (Dead and Buried, April Fool's Day), from home plate (Poltergeist) to left field (Phenomena), from the good (Re-Animator, Evil Dead) the bad (Parasite, Visiting Hours) the ugly (New York Ripper) and the really ugly (Maniac, Brain Damage), the 80s has it all.

Tonight I revisited A Nightmare On Elm Street. You've probably seen the film two, three, maybe fifty times. But you owe it to yourself to try to clear your mind and watch the film again and just enjoy. Just soak in the story, the cinematography, the sound effects, the experience. Like they used to say in the home video ads, "watch it again for the first time".

And remember that there was a time when this guy used to be scary...