My Annual List of Scary Halloween Movies III

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It’s that time of year again. Time for pumpkin spiced everything, borderline-slutty Halloween costumes, teeth-rotting candy, and of course, my 2016 annual list of scary Halloween movies.

*Cue spooky music*

What to Watch this Halloween: My 2016 List of Scary Halloween Movies

We watched a good chunk of these these movies earlier this  year, but since they still fall into the “good for Halloween” movie category, I though I would add them to my list. A few of the movies are carry-overs from last year’s list that we didn’t get around to watching. This list will be updated with snarky reviews once we have finished watching the movie.

** Movies with asterisks beside their name can be found on Netflix streaming during the month of October  **
## Movies with hash tags beside their names can be found streaming on Amazon Prime ##

• Train to Busan – This zombie movie was a summer hit here in Korea. The premise was a simple one — guy and daughter get trapped on a train full of zombies — but surprisingly well-executed and intense. The zombie genre is kind of overdone these days, but this movie felt fresh and reminded us of the movie, Snowpiercer, with zombies. I won’t give too much away, but I will say that this movie contained a lot of very Korean storytelling elements. Bonus points: it was kind of cool watching a Korean movie (and recognizing certain places and things) now that we live in Korea. We both really liked T2B, and could totally see American studios remaking it.
• The Shallows – Described as a horror thriller, this movie was a departure from my usual ghost, zombie, and paranormal picks. That being said, as someone with a life-long fear of water, being trapped in shark-infested water is one of the most terrifying situations I can think of. I watched the majority of the movie with a blanket over my head. 
• ##The Witch – What is it about early colonial America that makes it so creepy? I’m not sure I 100% understood the plot or character motivations, but overall the movie was dark, eerie, and unsettling.
• Ghostbusters – Kind of stupid, kind of funny. I thought it would be more painful to watch, but for mindless entertainment I enjoyed it. I also really like Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones. Any one of them could be in pretty much anything and I’d watch it. Bonus points for finally casting women as scientists and a man as the airhead, eye candy, admin.
• 10 Cloverfield Lane – We actually watched this movie over the summer and really liked it – smart, surprising and suspenseful on many levels. I had no idea where the movie was going or what was real/not real. It’s a successor to Cloverfield, although as the plots are completely different, it stands on its own.
• **Stranger Things – If you haven’t watched this on Netflix, do it now. It’s like a remix of a bunch of old 80s movies and is so good that even my mom watched it! Totally made me feel super nostalgic and made me wish my sister was around to watch it with.  
• Ouija – dumb and predictable, yet still strangely watchable. A good movie to ‘watch’ while doing something else.
  
• Pride and Prejudice and Zombies – based on the book with the same name: take the characters from Pride and Prejudice and put them in a world with zombies where the girls are, for the most part, badasses. This movie was kind of slow for me, but it had some comical moments. 
• The Last Witch Hunter– Two words: Vin Diesel. As a witch hunter. It’s exactly as you would expect, which is either a good or terrible thing.
• Unfriended – Kind of a take on the first person shooter movie, where social media is the ‘shooter,’  and Scream. The storytelling format was probably the most interesting aspect to this movie. I didn’t hate it.
• Friend Request– Similar premise as Unfriended – social media horror, which I guess is now a new sub-genre? 
• Blair Witch –
• ##Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension – How many of these movies are they going to make?  All I know is it wouldn’t feel like Halloween season without watching a Paranormal Activity movie.
• The Purge: Election Day –
• The Conjuring 2 –
• Before I Wake – I think the last time I saw a movie with Kate Bosworth in it was way back when I watched Blue Crush. I guess she’s making overwrought horror movies with corny special effects now.
• The House on Pine Street –
• Tales of Halloween –
• Rings –
• The Wailing – Another Korean horror movie that we were hoping would be super creepy in the way only Asian horror films can be. Unfortunately, this movie was way too long. It majorly dragged on in the beginning, picked up about midway, and then sort of ended abruptly. We made it to the end of the movie so I guess it wasn’t too bad,  but it definitely took some commitment to get there. 
• Don’t Breathe –
• Tell Me How I Die – Too dumb with too many plot holes to even be enjoyable enough to hate-watch. 
• Godzilla Resurgence –
• Lights Out – Decently scary, playing on the age-old fear of the dark. A good mix of startle tactics and yelling at stupid characters. 
• **The Invitation – Slow burn psychological thriller that had me second guessing my initial presumptions. More creepy and unsettling than scary.
• The Final Girls – Tongue-in-cheek throwback to old school summer camp slasher flicks with a somewhat deeper second story line. I thought his movie was a lot of fun, and found myself LOL’ing more than a few times.
• **We are Still Here –
• Crimson Peak – I love Gothic horror (my favorite), and this Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth,  Pacific Rim) movie’s production design was expectedly dark and visually stunning. The plot, however, didn’t quite live up to the sumptuously elaborate sets and all-star cast. A bit of a wasted opportunity but still worth watching if only to get lost in all the Gothic genre details.
• The Falling – Three words: art house movie.
• Spring – Smartly written, dialogue-driven “genre hybrid” that is reminiscent of Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise (one of my all-time fave movies) with a supernatural twist. At times the merging of the two genres felt a bit disjointed, but overall we really liked this indie movie. 
• ##Goodnight Mommy –
• The Atticus Institute –
• The Gallows –
• Maggie –
• **Creep – Low budget meets found footage video = recipe for creepiness, just like the name implies. 
• **Hush – Cabin in the woods thriller with a twist: the person being pursued is deaf.  I don’t know about you but if any of my friends ask, “Who’s that person behind you?” when I’m alone in the house, I’m going to lose my sh*t.
• The Gift – For some reason this reminded me of The Invitation – rich people in an awesome modern LA house who have severely messed up relationships with other people. 
• **I am the Pretty Thing that Lives in the House  – 
• Freakish – a Hulu original series that combines Walking Dead with a worse-than-CW teen drama. Apparently, a bulk of the actors are YouTube and Vine stars who I’m to old to have even heard of. The acting is pretty bad and the script is corny, but then I wasn’t expecting (or wanting to watch) anything Oscar worthy. A good tv show to binge/hate-watch.
• ##Bonus Points:  check out the “Skull Bleeding Candle” with “eerie sounds” on Amazon streaming. According to the description you can “cast an evil spell on someone by watching video,” and there is “approximately 1 look per hour.” Awesomeness.

This is quite an ambitious list of movies so we’ll see how many of these we get around to watching. Sly has been feeling under the weather and we both still have a minor case of jet lag since being back in Korea so we spent the first weekend of October binge-watching a bunch of these movies. We have a few excursions planned this month so we have to get our movies in while we can!  It just wouldn’t feel like Halloween – my favorite day of the year – without spooky movies!

And if you haven’t seen it yet,  It Follows was our favorite movie from last year’s Halloween list.  That and Stranger Things from this year’s list would make a good Hallo-week watch.

Anyone have any Halloween favorites or recommendations?

Even more scary movies:

Scary Movies I
Scary Movies II