October 24, 2016

This is it! It’s Halloween week! And at this point, you’re probably already overdoing it with the candy, decorations and horror movie marathons. But isn’t this what we live for all year long, anyway?

While most people have curated their own 31 days of Halloween horror movie lists, or taken a cue from either the one I whipped up, there’s always room to make Halloween a family-friendly affair. So, while you’ve got the scary classics all in order, here’s a handful of titles I watch every year as part of tradition and to also share with the young ones in my life that aren’t quite ready yet for Michael Myers or Freddy Krueger. Elvira? Maybe!

MAD MONSTER PARTY

I have no reason behind this tradition, nor any recollection of how it started, but every Halloween morning, I will wake up, grab a breakfast burrito from Tommy’s Burgers across the street, and carve a pumpkin while watching MAD MONSTER PARTY. This 1967 Rankin Bass Claymation classic features young nerdy Felix Flankin, whom after getting fired from his day job is summoned by his uncle to come visit him at his castle. But it turns out his uncle is actually Baron Boris von Frankenstein and he has also called forth all of his monster friends with the news of his retirement. I don’t know what it is, but I just love monster bashes of any sort. And granted, this one’s a bit on the long side (and you can feel it), but it’s an ideal background movie for Halloween morning while you’re getting your costumes ready. Plus, the voice talents of Boris Karloff and Phyliss Diller? Total blast!

IT’S THE GREAT PUMPKIN, CHARLIE BROWN

Can you believe this one is celebrating its 50th anniversary this Halloween? When it comes to Charlie Brown cartoons, we have the perfect trifecta with the Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas specials, but naturally, IT’S A GREAT PUMPKIN, CHARLIE BROWN will always hold a special place in my heart, and it’s always on rotation on the week leading up to Halloween. It’s the only story in Halloween myth that introduces us to “The Great Pumpkin,” a magical figure that’s alleged to appear at the pumpkin patch every year, where Linus waits for him. People have read into the Great Pumpkin as a religious metaphor that creator Charles Schultz was commenting on in the comic strips, but really, it’s just a fun Halloween themed animated special.

THE HAUNTED HISTORY OF HALLOWEEN

Why not make Halloween educational as well? This 50 minute special from the History Channel and A&E is available on DVD and goes through the entire 3000 year history of Halloween. Narrator Harry Smith guides us on the chronological journey of how a lot of modern Halloween traditions came to be! If you love the holiday, you should know the basics revolving around its history and this is a great special to bring you up to speed!

THE SIMPSONS: TREEHOUSE OF HORROR

One of the best things about The Simpsons is their annual Treehouse Of Horror special, which often will spoof or riff on famous horror properties in 3 anthology style segments for the episode. What’s a sin is that there’s not a Blu-Ray box set collecting all of the Treehouse Of Horror specials, but instead, at the moment, there’s only a single DVD which collects 4 of them; parts V, VI, VII and XII. Granted, some of these episodes feature their best Halloween spoofs, including ones based on THE SHINING called “The Shinning” and the “Nightmare On Evergreen Terrance.” Homer screws up history in “Time and Punishment,” and the school faculty develop a taste for students in “Nightmare Cafeteria.” The DVD is fairly inexpensive, and features some great bits, but here’s hoping we get a full on Treehouse Of Horror collection somewhere down the line.

ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN

This is one of my must watch movies every October, and it’s also the one that really made me fall in love with the Universal Monsters. Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein is a comedy above all else, but throw in Dracula (the one and only time Bela Lugosi reprised the role on screen!), the Wolf Man (Lon Chaney Jr) and Frankenstein’s monster (played by Glenn Strange) and you’ve got one of the most fun & zany monster mashes of all time. Dracula has resurrected the Frankenstein’s monster and has set his sights on a brain so simple, it will bid his every command. That would be the brain of postal worked Wilbur! (Costello) Larry Talbot is the only one that knows Dracula’s evil plan and intends to stop him; that is, if his werewolf curse doesn’t keep getting in the way. This one has got the laughs, scares and the Halloween spirit through and through. I also consider it a great gateway movie into the other Universal Monsters. Once a kid sees the big three in this one, they’ll be keen to visit their solo pics!

THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN

I first caught this 1966 comedy classic on a double bill with ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN, so ideally, this makes for a perfect follow up. Luther Heggs (the great Don Knotts) aspires to be a newspaper reporter, but isn’t taken very seriously in his town. That is, until he agrees to sleep over night in the supposedly haunted Simmons Mansion! Are the things that Luther encounters real? Or a figment of his imagination? Look, any movie where Don Knott’s gets to hook up with Joan Staley as his love interest, and takes it seriously is OK in my book!

THE MONSTER SQUAD

Speaking of all the Universal Monsters, is there any better modern reinterpretation of them than as seen in Fred Dekker’s 1987 monster movie mash up THE MONSTER SQUAD? I think not! For a lot of kids, they can see themselves among the 12-ish cast that compromise the “Monster Squad,” and when Dracula awakens and tries to conquer up the forces of evil, including the Mummy, the Creature, Frankenstein’s monster and The Wolf Man, who is going to stop them? A group of horror loving kids, that’s who! If anything, this is the monster movie that proved once and for all that the Wolfman most certainly has nards.

ERNEST SCARED STUPID

Local idiot Ernest P. Worrell (Jim Varney) accidentally unleashes a mean and ugly troll on his home town Brairville, Missouri. The evil beast changes the local children into tiny wood dolls. Can Old Lady Hackmore (Eartha Kitt) and his young friends stop this troll in time for Halloween? Goofy, but fun!

GROW UP, TONY PHILLIPS

Here’s one that fell under the radar that deserves to be discovered. Writer/director Emily Hagin’s 2013 love letter to Halloween follows the shy and awkward Tony Phillips (Tony Vespe), a high schooler who doesn’t want to let go of his childhood love of making Halloween costumes. It’s a light hearted coming of age dram-edy set around Halloween, and features a great comedic performance from AJ Bowen (THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL, YOU’RE NEXT) as Tony’s older cousin Pete.

GOOSEBUMPS: THE MOVIE

Last but certainly not least, last year’s surprise came in the form of the highly entertaining, and hilarious big budget film adaptation of GOOSEBUMPS: THE MOVIE fronted by Jack Black. I was completely unaware of the R.L. Stine books that inspired both the 90’s TV show and this movie, but I didn’t need to know about them to fully invest in what becomes a fun, monster mash. The stories from all of Stine’s book come to life, literally, when Zach accidentally unlocks them. And now the only way to capture them is to do the impossible; write a story with all his crazy creations in them. If you have the means to watch this in 3D, that’s the way I strongly recommend seeing this one. And as you can tell by most of my picks, the more monsters, the better!

Notable mention: KENNY & COMPANY. I’ve been wanting to see Don Coscarelli’s 2nd full length feature for ages, but nowadays, it’s a bit tough to come by! The last known release of it here in the States was an Anchor Bay DVD that has long gone out of print. Thankfully, my buddy Daniel Budnik (from Bleeding Skull) owned it, so we plotted a very appropriate double feature of KENNY & COMPANY with BUBBA HO-TEP. All I can say is Coscarelli’s KENNY & COMPANY is a magical coming-of-age film that they just don’t make anymore. I didn’t include it on my list for a few reasons, the first being how difficult it is to track down a copy. The second being, the stuff some of these kids do in 1976 are really funny, but by today’s standards, might be considered a “bad influence” on young kids. (I don’t know. Is making a kid reach into a paperbag with a mouse trap mean? Or hilarious? I’m going with both.) Plus, it has a kid in it named Pudwell, who is unsurprisingly a total jerk.

It takes place around the Halloween season, and there’s a great homemade haunted garage maze scene that inspired a young Coscarelli to make his next feature a horror movie, based on the audiences reactions. Hopefully, one day this will get a proper Blu-Ray release and make it onto your future Halloween horror movie queue!