Choosing which horror movies and comics to line up for the Halloween season is much like pairing wines with the right dishes. You wouldn’t serve a nice pinot gris with a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich on an everything bagel, would you? It’d be a disservice to the bagel. Same thing happens with horror and Halloween. Some things just go better together if you know how and when to enjoy them.
Here’s a few suggested comic and movie selections to enjoy Halloween with the same enthusiasm of a witch adding bat wings and fresh eyeballs into her boiling potions cauldron.
- Fright Night (dir. Tom Holland1985)
There’s a certain familiarity that comes with a classic monster. They require less explanation to get started on the killing because audiences are already in the rules that govern them. The classic vampire film Fright Night embraces this, but then it flips the formula to make us truly consider what happens when those rules turn out to be real. If you suspect a vampire had just moved in next door, how would you prove it? In the case of Charlie Brewster (William Ragsdale) and his friends, the answer lies in the vampire movies they watch on TV.
Fright Night is a horror fan’s dream. It celebrates and indulges our vampire knowledge and then creates tension with it by injecting said rules with a sense of plausibility that turns its vampire, who is called Jerry Dandridge (a performance for the ages by Chris Sarandon), into a monster that can freely venture into your home by virtue of a simple invitation. Practical effects abound and they are terrifying, with vampire creatures that look savagely hungry and eagerly violent.
Roddy McDowell (of Planet of the Apes fame) also stars as a fading movie star-turned-television host called Peter Vincent who was famous for playing the role of Van Helsing throughout his career. When faced with the prospect hunting down a real vampire, he must choose whether to flee or to face the monster he’s already fake-killed in countless movies before. His inclusion rounds out what is one of the top three best vampire films of all time.
- Vamps: The Complete Collection (Elaine Lee and William Simpson1994-95)
Women Vampire bikers. This alone will get you far, but it’s how these characters approach the mythos surrounding their state of being that really sets them apart. Vamps is a ruthlessly feminist piece of storytelling that focuses on five vamps (hence the title) that break free from their vampire master and chart a life free of the male figure that simply wanted them to act as his servant brides. That separation comes with a very violent statement of intention, taking the form of a gross dismemberment that opens up a straight path to the open road for them.
Elaine Lee and William Simpson borrow quite a bit from another vampire classic called Near Dark (dir. Kathryn Bigelow1987), which also follows a group of outlaw vampires doing whatever the hell they want. That said, where Near Dark dispossesses its vamps of moral considerations to instead look at the darkness that living by your own rules can bring, the women of Vamps wrestle with their choices more often. What’s interesting is that the choices they make aren’t there to be put under a microscope for us to judge. It’s more about a sense of justified rebellion and how far it can be taken in a world that views women as sexual objects with little to no agency.
Vamps is a great example of how far formulas can be bent to touch upon different ideas while still keeping many of the classic elements intact. You’ll get a great vampire story, that’s for sure. But you’ll also get a different flavor of violence in the process, making it a good option for those who want their Halloween vampire offerings off the beaten path.
- The Frighteners (dir. Peter Jackson1996)
Michael J. Fox plays a ghost exterminator in this underrated Peter Jackson film that has one of the best Grim Reapers ever put on film. It’s a strange movie that succeeds by embracing a kind of dark silliness that adds both heart and real terror to the story. Frank Bannister (played by Fox) is essentially a con man who can talk to ghosts due to a tragic accident that left his fiancé dead. As he goes about his usual work, a string of mysterious deaths puts him and his ghost friends on the path of the Grim Reaper (who possesses a horrifying identity).
Jackson approaches his haunts with a CGI-heavy mentality that goes for every new trick in the book at the time. Some of the effects are dated, but they never interfere with the story to the point of negatively impacting it. What truly elevates the experience is the focus on how memories of violent deaths can affect not just our psyches but that of an entire town. The Reaper’s presence enables a different kind of haunting that keeps people from moving on. The ghost characters build upon this by showing their frustrations with the living for not accepting the finality of death.
Practical effects wizard Rick Baker contributed to the ghost designs, all of which combined CGI with make-up work. One highlight is The Judge (played by John Astinthe original Gómez from the 1960s Addams Family show), a mess of rotten skin and exposed bone that is always a treat to see onscreen. The Frighteners is a fun ride that’s as hilarious as it is disturbing, going from the pain of loss to dealing with the memory of mass murderers. It feels right at home on Halloween.
- Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done? (Eric Powell and Harold Schechter)
Norman Bates, Leatherface, Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambsall fictional serial killers inspired by one Ed Gein, The Butcher of Plainfield. His fame didn’t come out of his two confirmed murders, necessarily. It came from the home appliances he would make out of human bone and skin (which featured heavily in Tobe Hooper‘s 1974 The Texas Chainsaw Massacreanother great Halloween watch). The Goon creator Eric Powell and true crime writer Harold Schechter decided to give Gein the non-fiction comic book treatment with Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done?a book that chronicles the titular killer’s turbulent childhood and how his relationship with his abusive mother (repurposed by writer Robert Bloch and later Alfred Hitchcock for Psycho) led to a fascination with death and the things one can do with a human corpse.
Powell and Schechter let loose with this story, explaining what makes a killer of Gein’s kind while also playing with the idea that some people are just born evil (although the book ultimately does a great job of showing how they’re made). Powell in particular is unafraid to go for highly interpretative and metaphorical imagery to bring out the monsters Gein both married and was afflicted by. He paints a portrait of monstrous tragedy and inconceivable violence without indulging in gratuity when it comes to Gein’s heinous crimes and macabre behavior.
Did You Hear What Eddie Gein Done is a masterful work of non-fiction done in comics. Turns out taking a peek behind some of our favorite movie monsters proves to be a harrowing experience that shows just how much darker, and deadlier, reality can be than fiction.
For more of scares, fears, and Halloween thrills, be sure to check our others Horror Beat articles.
