Illustrations by Emily Thomas.
For the first time in living memory, the usual celebrations of this very Irish holiday are unable to go ahead, which makes it a perfect time to light some candles (recommended), wear your cloak (optional), put on your fangs (optional), and watch some spooky films in the dark. What follows are the recommendations of what to watch for Halloween from a team of editors, film lecturers, and TN2 Film writers. Their choices are varied and personal, with some confessing their aversion to the horror genre by offering a couple of non-scary recommendations, and other horror fanatics suggesting something to keep you up at night well after the fireworks have stopped.
Connor Howlett (Film Editor): V/H/S, Vivarium, Dead of Night, The House of the Devil.
V/H/S (Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, David Bruckner, Tyler Gillett, Justin Martinez, Glenn McQuaid, Radio Silence, Joe Swanberg, Chad Villella, Ti West and Adam Wingard, 2012) is a found-footage film about a group of burglars who are hired to break into an empty house to steal a rare VHS tape. As they enter the property, they discover far more tapes than they had anticipated, so begin to watch them so that they can definitely steal the right one. What they see on these tapes will stay with them for the rest of their lives. As an anthology film, V/H/S has a number of interesting horror directors, but the beauty of this format is that it provides a range of creative, self-contained horror stories, all trying to outdo one another with the scares. It’s nasty, chilling stuff that proved to me that effective found-footage didn’t just rise and fall with The Blair Witch Project (Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez, 1999), and when it’s effectively directed, can be really frightening. V/H/S is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video and Shudder.
Vivarium (Lorcan Finnegan, 2019) is about a young couple looking for a new home, only to find that they cannot escape the neighbourhood of identical-looking houses when they try to leave. An unsettling exploration of the monotony of being stuck in one place, the film can be seen as a metaphor for the Irish housing crisis, or perhaps more aptly, as it was released in Ireland just as the first lockdown started, a metaphor of lockdown living. The horrors of domestic tedium may hit a little too close to home during Level 5. Vivarium is available to stream on Shudder.
Dead of Night (Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Chrichton, Basil Dearden, Robert Hamer, 1945) is another anthology film, this time coming from Ealing Studios. A collection of supernatural stories are told at a social gathering in a completely logical attempt to settle a man with an increasing sense of dread as his half-remembered dream seems to come true. The stories are spooky enough, but Cavalcanti’s “The Ventriloquist’s Dummy” is not only influential on horror cinema, but will linger in your mind long after watching.
The House of the Devil (Ti West, 2009) is another neat, underseen gem. It not only managed to disarm and unsettle me at the same time, but the film also features a disturbingly tall man, a fantastic needle-drop moment to The Fixx’s ‘One Thing Leads to Another’ that the horror genre can use to great effect, and stars Greta Gerwig. What more do you want? The House of the Devil is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video and Shudder.
Savvy Hanna (Deputy Film Editor): A Nightmare on Elm Street.
Released near the end of the golden age of slasher films, A Nightmare on Elm Street (Wes Craven, 1984) differentiated itself from other horror hits of the time with its use of dream sequences, mixing the classic slasher with elements of surrealism. The film’s villain, Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund), invades the dreams of teenagers and murders them as they sleep. While Krueger is now a horror icon alongside Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers, the best part of the original Nightmare film is the teenage protagonist, Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp).
When Nancy’s friends begin dying at the hands of Krueger, and the adults she goes to for help appear useless, Nancy makes it her mission to defeat Krueger herself. Nancy doesn’t just passively end up as the ‘final girl’, she fights to get there. She’s strong-willed and intelligent, taking time to research and plan before facing Krueger. As Nancy says herself, she’s into survival.
A Nightmare on Elm Street is also notable for its use of practical effects—some of which hold up better than others—and for being the film debut of Johnny Depp, who plays Nancy’s fluffy-haired, crop-top-wearing boyfriend, Glen Lantz. Glen’s unfortunate demise is one of my favourite horror film deaths, as a sleeping Glen is pulled into his bed by Krueger and reemerges as a geyser of blood, turning his entire bedroom red. Krueger’s ability to appear in dreams allows for some wonderfully surreal and gruesome deaths that would be impossible with any other villain, making Nightmare a must watch for horror fans.
James McCleary (Deputy Film Editor): Pan’s Labyrinth.
While not a traditional horror film in the sense shared by most of the choices on this list, there is no single piece of media responsible for more of my childhood nightmares than Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo Del Toro, 2006). Del Toro made his name through the beautiful, practically realised monsters that decorate his career, and the pantheon on display here is beyond even his typical standards. Setting aside ghoulish concepts like the bulbous toad and the relentless Pale Man (Doug Jones), Pan’s Labyrinth has to be held accountable for turning the Faun (also Doug Jones—evidently a pretty spooky guy), a relatively tame species in Roman mythology, into a hulking demon who relishes with glee his talent for leading children into harm’s way. A scene late in the film, wherein he pays a surprise visit to young Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) in her bedroom late at night, is frankly unacceptably scary.
Pan’s Labyrinth is a fairy tale ripe with twisted imagery that taps into the most impressionistic imaginations, but the film’s greatest monster permeates through into our reality. In a more typical film, Captain Vidal (Sergi Lopéz) would be a dastardly villain; a bully with a sadistic mind and an untapped power complex. Framed through the eyes of a child (and embellished with a razor to the cheek) however, Del Toro transforms this war criminal into a beast every bit as frightening and immortal as the goblins and gremlins hiding under the bed. There is commonly a divide in cinematic storytelling between the horrors of the fantastical and the brutalities of warfare, but Del Toro’s unique ability to ground his campfire creatures in familiar spaces has the result of making them one and the same. Fair warning though—you’ll probably need to have a good cry afterwards.
Dr Ruth Barton (Head of School of Creative Arts, TCD): Cat People, I Walked With a Zombie.
I’ve never been keen on bloodfest cinema. I prefer the horror you can’t see, the one that plays with your mind rather than your gut. If I have to, I’d choose a ghost story, with its doppelgangers and sense of otherness, over a slasher any day. But I return over and again to two classic films of the 1940s, Jacques Tourneur’s Cat People (1942) and I Walked With a Zombie (1943). The term ‘legendary’ is overused, but it was Tourneur’s legendary partnership with producer Val Lewton that allowed for these (and their other horror films for RKO) to see the light of day. Between them, the two men insisted on the lurking terrors of everyday life and the imminence of death. Both Cat People and Zombie place at their centres women whose marriages are not all they should be. Whether Irena (Simone Simon) in the former actually wields supernatural powers, or transforms into a slinking panther, or Zombie’s catatonic Jessica (Christine Gordon) can be cured by voodoo is up to us to decide. Either way, both films propel us and their characters into deliriously dark places. Perfect Covid viewing.
Dr Justin MacGregor (Head of Film, TCD): The Enfield Haunting, The Conjuring 2, The Changeling.
While global politics can keep me up at night, the following films keep me sleeping in the safety of the daylight.
The Enfield Haunting (Kristoffer Nyholm, 2015): In August 1977, a series of unexplained and terrifying events take place in a seemingly ordinary house in Enfield in North London. These events will soon become one of the most recorded and archived hauntings of all time. Did I mention it’s a true story? That’s just what you want to hear when watching a horror film… This three-part series is terrifying for its feeling of being a period drama telling a supernatural story including both neighbours and police as witnesses. The Enfield Haunting is available to stream on Sky/Now TV.
If you don’t like gritty television shows, you might prefer: The Conjuring 2 (James Wan, 2016) is also about the Enfield Haunting but is told from the point of view of real life paranormal investigators Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorrain Warren (Vera Farmiga). In the cinema, this film left me ducking behind the seat in front of me for longer than I care to admit. It follows a similar terrain to The Enfield Haunting but adds everything Hollywood is great at to terrify. The detail is amazing—every hanging coat is positioned to look like someone is in it and, as the reality of the story sinks in, these everyday objects start adding as much tension as the shocking appearances of the Enfield ghost. Truly chilling in places. It makes you want to sleep under the covers—though, according to this film, that won’t help at all.
The Changeling (Peter Medak, 1980): This underrated and forgotten film stars George C Scott as a composer who relocates to a large house in Seattle that is, you guessed it, haunted. There are no jump scares (as they call them) in this film, just a very well-realised psychological horror that will also leave you waiting for dawn. Scott is superb as you’d expect. But who knew a child’s bouncy ball could be so terrifying? You don’t have to trust me—Martin Scorsese placed The Changeling on his list of the 11 scariest horror films of all time. One of English Canada’s (sadly) few international successes. The Changeling is available to stream on Shudder.
Grace Gageby (Food Editor): Orphan.
While her performance as Clove in The Hunger Games (Gary Ross, 2012) was a testament to Isabella Fuhrman’s typecast as an irredeemable villain, this case was frankly already closed after Orphan (Jaume Collet-Serra, 2009). The film follows Esther, a seemingly innocent nine year old girl adopted into a new family. Orphan’s slogan upon release was “You’ll Never Guess Her Secret,” and, if you’re anything like me, you won’t: a welcome change in the often predictable world of mainstream horror. While it received mixed reviews, it took the classic horror tropes of an evil little girl, a clueless Dad who can’t see that his little girl is evil, a home invasion and an orphanage, and deftly sidestepped both tedium and gratuitous gore. Orphan balances slow burning suspense with jump scares aplenty. Horror elements aside, the film is also a moving examination of complex family dynamics: the strained marriage between Kate and John (with incredible performances from Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard respectively) after a miscarriage and subsequent battle with alcoholism, and the sibling rivalry of their two birth children.
With a series of creepy articles available online about the true events the film is based on, and a prequel allegedly in the works, there’s plenty of Orphan material out there if you’re looking for something scary that isn’t a) a slasher or b) extremely predictable. Orphan is available to stream on Netflix and Amazon Prime Video.
Alice Payne (Sex Editor): Addams Family Values.
Disclaimer: Addams Family Values (Barry Sonnenfeld, 1991) isn’t – except for one jump scare moment that took me entirely by surprise – a scary film in the traditional, horror-genre sense. However, I am a big scaredy cat who wanted to make sure all my other fearful friends had something seasonally-appropriate to watch on Halloween night.
I specify that Addams Family Values isn’t a scary film in the traditional gore/scream-fest sense of the word, because it is a scary film from a social perspective. The film manipulates caricatural stereotypes to show us how we might treat, and then discourage us from treating this way, those who do not conform to social norms and traditional standards of beauty as monstrous outsiders or as inferior to ourselves.
The film is far more complex than the opening shots might suggest. I think that’s the point. In a way, I almost feel bad recommending it as a Halloween-themed film, as the film’s real monsters aren’t the ghosts or ghouls we tend to associate with the holiday. Nevertheless, I feel that the characters’ obsession with the morbid, and the presence of a disembodied hand allow me to urge you to watch it this Halloween night. You don’t need to be a social crusader to enjoy the film, nor do you need nerves of steel – instead, you can simply allow yourself to be entertained. The film’s thoroughly witty script made me snort with laughter more than I care to admit, and, rather charmingly, features several NSFW jokes which I didn’t expect from a film I’d always understood to be a family feature… Addams Family Values is available to stream on Netflix.
Mia Sherry (Editor in Chief of The Cinema Graph): Midsommar.
I am a self-professed scaredy cat. A mere shadow can send me into fits of tears and a jump scare will send me to the morgue. I don’t do horror films, it’s not my thing. Or at least, it wasn’t my thing, until the noise got far too loud. Memes, video clips, stills; everywhere I looked people were talking and talking about one film: Midsommar (Ari Aster, 2019).
So, one wintery night I armed myself with popcorn and holy water, and watched. I knew the vague premise before I went in: girl, boyfriend, Sweden, cult, (bear?). But nothing, and I truly mean nothing could have prepared me for the masterpiece that unfolded before my eyes. It wasn’t just a horror film, I realised—that would be to deny it down to its bear essentials. But it was so much more. It was the very definition of the uncanny, the unhomely, the female place in the male dominated space, the overwhelming and claustrophobic power of the gaze. It took the elements of just existing as a woman in any society and elevated them to knuckle-biting heights. Sure, to any seasoned horror veteran it’s probably akin to a child’s bedtime story. But to me, to someone so new to the genre, it opened up a world of potential. Midsommar is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.
Molly Donnery (Productions Officer, DU Film): Coraline.
Horror has never been my number one genre of choice, simply because I am, in fact, a wuss-puss (ah the Coraline (Henry Selick, 2009) references coming into play already), but ever since first seeing Coraline back when it came out, I have been absolutely obsessed with it. “Well how could a kids animation be your favourite horror film?” you might ask. To that I say, what is more terrifying than the merging of reality and an imagination that seeks to destroy you? Especially when illustrated through stop motion (don’t even try to tell me that is not the creepiest form of animation, because you are lying). Every time I watch this film, I am brought back to the wonders and annoyances of childhood, the possibilities we allow ourselves to dream of, and equally how the things we think we want can ultimately destroy us in some ways (aka when your Other Mother tries to sew buttons into your eyes and steal your soul: not ideal—maybe just stick to the unreal breakfasts for dinner and beverage chandeliers).
Aside from that, it really is just a beautifully made film, and has a lot of easter eggs for any of you horror-loving fiends out there. Most certainly great for a scare during this locked-down Halloween, no matter what age you are. Coraline is available to stream on Sky/Now TV.
Kate Lancaster Ryan: Blue Velvet.
If my life ever turns into a soap opera and I end up with amnesia, I would like to think that, in my soul, I would know that my deepest desire would be to watch Blue Velvet (David Lynch, 1986) for the first time again. It is an experience. That’s the best way to describe it. An experience. If you’ve never seen it, do it, preferably now and preferably not around your parents. You’ll spend the next few hours experiencing complete confusion, discomfort and adrenaline. If you’re like me, you’ll audibly say “WTF” every few minutes.
Kyle MacLachlann plays Jeffrey, a boy next door with an earring who randomly finds a severed ear. Determined to figure out the mystery behind the ear, Jeffrey gets sucked into a weird world of lounge singers, deranged gangsters and Roy Orbinson lip syncs that lurks beneath his all-American suburbia. It may not be a typical horror film, but with an unpredictable plot and a pervading sense of anxiety, it should definitely count as a psychological horror. There are many metaphors scattered throughout it, but it’s best not to watch Blue Velvet with an analytical eye and instead just let the experience batter the psyche.
