Halloween Marathon 2019 - Week 1

Happy October! Our favorite month is finally here, and with it, we decided to work together to bring you a full 31 days worth of Halloween movie picks to help pad out your spooky season! We’ll each be giving two picks per week, ranging from movies, to old Halloween specials and everything in between.

Check Out Week 2 here!

Week 3 is out now, check it out here!

Picks By Optimus_Grime814

Family Matters: Dark and Stormy Night (S6E6, 1994)

Due to unfortunate weather conditions, the Winslow family are forced to stay in for trick or treating on Halloween night. That doesn't stop them from having Halloween fun. Carl Winslow (Reginald Vel Johnson) suggests playing Pass the Ghost Story where they each take turns contributing to a spooky story filled with a vampire family, a nerdy midnight stroller and a damsel in distress. There is something about seeing Carl Winslow playing a vampire and drinking blood from a juice box that speaks to me on so many Halloweeny levels.

The Addams Family (1991)

They're creepy AND they're kooky! Gomez Addams (Raul Julia) brother Fester Addams (Christopher Lloyd) has been missing for years until one day, he returns.... or so he thinks. Fester is actually an imposter who works with his mother (Elizabeth Wilson) to take the the Addams families riches. While the family is happy Fester is home, Morticia Addams (Anjelica Huston) remains suspicious to Fester who seems to have forgotten his past. Fester and Lawyer Tully Alford (Dan Hedeya) get the family evicted from their house. Now it's on Gomez to take back his mansion. My favorite parts of this film would have to undoubtedly be the Mamushka, the kids bloody school play, and the scene where Gomez is playing with his toy trains. I can remember back many Halloweens ago when Thing (the hand) was the mascot for Crunch a Bunch candy; it only made sense to watch this film with a little box or two on Halloween.

Picks By Team Up

Boy Meets World: And Then There Was Shawn (S5E17, 1998)

Poster art by the talented Jennifer Ball, you can click through here to get your own copy.

One of my favorite shows growing up was Boy Meets World, and one episode that has always stuck with me and influenced me creatively was this episode of the show. You may not know it by name but this is the episode where the gang (and Kenny) all get detention and one by one all are killed in suspicious ways inspired by 80’s/90’s slasher flicks until it’s just Shawn, Cory, and Topanga to work out the emotional angle of the episode. I know this isn’t technically a Halloween episode since it premiered in February but the spookiness of it still rings true to the Halloween spirit which is why I picked it. The way each character is killed off is perfect: Kenny with the pencil that got everyone in trouble, Feeny and the scissors he is holding as a pointer in the start of the episode, Jake and Angela falling from the window together as they both came into Shawns life around the same time. But what I really want to highlight, since it made me smile like a little kid, was the fact that there is not one, not two, but three South Park references in this episode!!! The first being Eric when he comes into the classroom with a “Howdy Ho!” a la Mr. Hankey the Christmas Poo. The second and third being a rift on the “Oh My God, they killed Kenny”, one when Kenny dies and the second when Feeny is found dead. Talk about a cross over in pop culture! 12/10 would watch again.

What We Do In The Shadows

For my movie this week I chose to watch Taika Waititi’s What We Do in The Shadows. This is such a great horror comedy that really takes the teeth away from the undead and shows that vampires and ghouls can be just as goofy and weird as normal people. It takes the style of shows like The Office and Parks and Rec and goes full spooky with them for an unforgettable ride along in the life of vampires living as flat mates in New Zealand. It touches on almost every trope the vampire genre has to offer, from the unfairly long life they live to the fact that if they eat regular food they will become violently ill. They even have all the different types of vampire, Petyre being the Nosferatu style vampire, Vladislav “the Poker” being a parody of Vlad the Impaler himself, and Nick being the new age headstrong “twilight” type of vampire. Definitly one of the best works from the Thor: Ragnarok director and should absolutely make your list of must watches this Halloween season.

Picks By Zach

After seeing the other submissions for this week I noticed everyone has taken it in a more lighthearted direction, focusing more on spooky fun and the macabre rather than outright horror. I think it’s a pretty good idea to ease people into the season, so I figured it would be best to do the same with my picks, which are:

Over The Garden Wall (2014)

This is one of the most recent additions to my annual Halloween viewing schedule, Over the Garden Wall is an excellent way to kick off the whole season. It follows the story of two brothers who get lost in the forest, and have to battle mystic forces, monsters, and their own self-doubts and fears in order to find their way home. The series is beautifully animated and features tons of fall imagery and small musical numbers here and there. Don’t let its beauty fool you though, it can get very dark very quickly. The overall style is reminiscent of classic cartoons that Disney and Warner Brothers used to put out in the 40s and 50s (this is the most apparent in the 8th episode, Babes in the Wood) and yet somehow it still feels fresh and modern. The best part about this series is that it’s actually a miniseries consisting of only 10 short episodes and the whole thing can be knocked out in under 2 hours. If you’ve never seen it before, or if you’ve been putting it off, make this the year you watch it and I can almost guarantee it’ll find its way back into your Halloween watch list for years to come.

Extraordinary Tales(2015)

For my next recommendation let’s delve more into the macabre with Extraordinary Tales, an anthology film featuring animated adaptations of the works of Edgar Allen Poe. The film features an interesting framing device with Poe’s spirit represented as a Raven, speaking with death and reflecting on his life and works. I have to admit, this one’s a bit of a mixed bag. Some of the segments are really good, while others are pretty bad, but that’s fairly common with these things. Either way, they are all unique, animated by different studios, in different styles, and with a different narrator in each. The stories included are: The Fall of the House of Usher, The Tell-Tale Heart, The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar, The Pit and the Pendulum, and The Masque of the Red Death. For the narration they pulled some pretty big names such as Christopher Lee, Bela Lugosi (via an old radio recording), Julian Sands, and my personal favorite Guillermo del Toro, whose narration of The Pit and the Pendulum is really the highlight of the film for me. While I doubt there are many out there who will enjoy the whole anthology, I think it’s entertaining enough to keep you watching until the end. It might not make it into your rotation, but it’s an off the beaten path Halloween movie and definitely worth seeing at least once.

Picks By Derek

Disney’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Playing off of Zach’s Over the Garden Wall pick, I chose the classic 1949 Walt Disney interpretation of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Sleepy Hollow and OTGW share an eerily similar aesthetic at points, and I’d be incredibly surprised if this version of Sleepy Hollow wasn’t a direct inspiration for the series. While there are some common threads in terms of story beats – both pieces involve their lead characters being lost in the woods right around Halloween – it really is the visual similarities that I found most striking. Both include absolutely gorgeous autumn imagery, emphasizing the lush red and orange hues that are so prevalent in the New England area this time of year.

Sleepy Hollow is a fun, easily digestible Halloween special, clocking in at a brisk 34 minutes. It offers up what could be argued as the most iconic adaptation of Washington Irving’s short story, from narration and music starring the one and only Bing Crosby, to the headless horseman himself. While there are other serviceable adaptations out there, Tim Burton’s being one of the best, for my money, this is the one you’ll want to watch every year. Possibly even a few times!

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein

Ch-ch-ch-chiiiiiiiiick! You can’t do much better than Abbott and Costello, but adding some Universal Monsters to the mix sure couldn’t hurt! While many people credit Marvel with creating the “shared cinematic universe”, two bumbling comedians beat them to it by about 60 years, give or take. This movie is really great at blending some great bits of slapstick with a classically creepy Halloween vibe. My favorite part of this movie has to be the wax museum scene towards the beginning. The way the lightning flashes and illuminates the skeletons & other wax figures really sets the spooky tone as Costello reads a sign by candlelight out loud, awakening Count Dracula (played by Lugosi himself) from his slumber! There’s a lot to love and admire about this film, from the monsters to the timeless banter between Abbott & Costello.

*Bonus points: This movie definitely inspired this fun little bit from Sesame Street, give it a watch if you have the time!