Published: October 30, 2009 09:30 am      

Movies equal highlight of Halloween

Kids will take to the streets tonight symbolizing the beginning of the holiday season. Although tempted to join the candy consumption, I instead will provide the teeth-decaying items to trick-or-treaters.

Halloween provides a unique set of emotions from me. On one side, I hate to dress up in a costume. Unfortunately, I was the youngest of three sons, and wore hand-me-down Halloween outfits every year as a child. Once you dawn the handmade cat costume for five consecutive years because your older brothers had yet to outgrow their disguises, the tradition of dressing up takes on a whole new perspective.

Also, despite my challenges with weight as a kid, I did not care for candy. I wanted real food, like meat, potatoes and other delicious choices, that would increase my waist. I didn’t see the point of wasting my time with sugar.

Despite the bad, though, Halloween does bring some highlights. The holiday signifies the start of a busy two-month period, where breaks from school were allowed and presents were exchanged. As I’ve aged, this time of year denotes other events, such as providing gifts and getting together with family.

Despite the perils of dressing up like a cat and signifying the start of the holidays, the movies mark the best and most memorable parts of Halloween.

Growing up, the USA Network provided my brothers and me a great avenue to sneak around our parents control and watch movies we probably shouldn’t have watched as grade schoolers. All the Stephen King classics appeared on the channel, along with the Child’s Play series.

As a kid, even the Child’s Play movies couldn’t do much to scare us. The use of a doll as a mass murderer didn’t carry much weight in a household of three boys. We didn’t feel the need to hide under our beds on the basis of a rogue doll killing us. Only a movie made in the 1980s could base its movie on a concept so absurd.

The best flicks shown on the cable network were the Friday the 13th movies. Nothing was scarier than a boy who drowned, exacting revenge on unsuspecting teenagers. Now this genre definitely had its missteps (“Jason Takes Manhattan” comes to mind), but nothing would freak us out more after watching Jason wield his machete on his helpless victims.

Jason survived pretty much any attempt at killing him, and his theme music could make anyone look twice over their shoulder. Even at an older age, Jason’s theme music could scare the daylights out of people. Just ask my wife. After watching the latest Friday the 13th edition last year, she seemed a little shaken after my attempts of copying the music while at home in the dark.

Since my childhood experiences with the USA Network’s taste in horror classics, a few movies have emerged as solid Halloween movies, such as the original “Scream” and the beginning of the “Saw” series. Unfortunately, like in most horror movies, “Saw” has decided to extend its franchise to lengths that no one will care about, much like the “Ernest” movies (also a USA Network stable), which after a brief research session in the newsroom this week, had 10 movies, including the Halloween classic that I’ve yet to see, “Ernest Scared Stupid.”

I have been introduced to some bad horror movies in my pursuit of adulthood, too. The other “Scream” and “Saw” movies rank at the bottom, along with the later “Halloween” and “Nightmare on Elm Street” flicks. The cream of the crop when it comes to bad horror movies, though, is “Blades,” a movie shown to me by my wife a few years ago.

“Blades” is about a lawnmower that kills people on a golf course. Enough said. I don’t even want to know why my wife had that movie in her possession. Also, I don’t know how someone thought that premise could deliver a blockbuster.

Whether you’re dressing up like Michael Jackson this Halloween or sitting down, hoping for a horror movie marathon on the USA Network, enjoy and be safe tonight and Saturday.



Scott Levine is the Associate Editor at the Clinton Herald.