5 Must-Watch Horror Films for Halloween!
- Zebediah Oke
- Oct 18, 2021
- 3 min read
Updated: Oct 28, 2021
Staff Picks 5 must-watch horror films for the spookiest season of the year.
Fear. Dread. Disgust. Terror. These are emotions that a great horror film should aspire to instil. Originated from the Old French word "orror," which can be translated as “to shudder or to bristle”, “horror” films are meant to elicit in us a visceral reaction that taps into the primal nature of what it means to be human. Drawing from local folktales, religious anxieties, societal ailments and more–stories that scare exist in every culture across the world and, when distilled into the genre of film, are meant to exploit the vulnerability of the audience and engage them with a spectacle of harm or death. In the spookiest season of the year, we thought it’d only be right if we shared some of the favourite all-time horror movies we’ve seen.
1)The Autopsy of Jane Doe
Tommy (Brian Cox) and Austin Tilden (Emile Hirsch) run a father and son coroner business and are tasked by the local Sheriff Burke (Michael McElhatton) with examining the corpse of a Jane Doe (Olwen Kelly). As soon as they begin the autopsy, they find a series of mysterious and unfeasible injuries that are at odds with the external appearance of the body and as they proceed, they face more bizarre clues–with even more bizarre activities beginning to materialise all around them.
If you’re looking for a marriage of perplexing mystery and edge-of-your-seat suspense, The Autopsy of Jane Doe provides both in spades. This is a terrifyingly claustrophobic event, where the constant sense of impending doom throughout the film, leads us head first into nail-biting terror, heart-stopping jump scares and cruel twists of fate.
2)The Cabin in the Woods
Five university friends (Kristen Connolly, Chris Hemsworth, Anna Hutchison, Fran Kranz, Jesse Williams) arrive at a remote forest cabin for a getaway (as usual) and, within a short period, are met with an onslaught of zombies. As they each fall prey to the undead one by one, something else seems to be bubbling below the surface. With two scientists (Richard Jenkins, Bradley Whitford) somehow puppeteering everything, there seems to be something a lot more sinister happening than just your usual brain-eating ghouls.
Produced by Joss Whedon, The Cabin in the Woods is his attempt to “revitalise the genre of horror”. The film takes an unconventional approach to some familiar cornerstones, and in the midst, makes a scathing critique of the typical, worn out horror tropes. Although there’s plenty of gore and jump scares, this film is one of the more humourous additions on the list.
3)Pan’s Labyrinth
A platoon of Falange soldiers lead by the sadistic Captain Vidal (Sergi López), is sent to a remote forest in Spain to quash the rebellion. Vidal brings his new wife, Carmen (Ariadna Gil) and her daughter from a previous marriage, Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) and, as Ofelia witnesses her stepfather’s barbaric brutality, she is drawn into the magical land of Pan’s Labyrinth, a mesmerising world populated by an array of mythical beings.
Pan’s Labyrinth juxtaposes the real-word horror of a facist regime and the vicious men who steer it with a chilling, fantastical realm, creating a beautiful and haunting classic that never ceases to be a feast for the senses.
4)Tucker and Dale vs. Evil
A more hilarious addition to the list, Tucker McGee (Alan Tudyk) and Dale Gobson (Tyler Labine) are good-natured hill-billies who’ve bought themselves a nice, quiet cabin in the woods. But when some university students from out of town mistake them for redneck murderers–gore, suspense and hilarity ensues.
Tucker and Dale vs. Evil subverts the typical horror trope of the savage white trash killer thirsty to slash the lily-white teenagers in their cabin getaway and instead, has a couple of very cute and fuzzy characters in Tucker and Dale. It’s not the scariest on the list, but it is the funniest, and if you’re looking for gore, it has plenty to spare.
5)The Wailing
When a Japanese stranger (Jun Kunimura) moves into a remote village in the mountains of South Korea and, coincidentally, a mysterious infection begins to take a hold of the villagers, causing them to become deranged and violently kill their families, Jong-Goo (Kwak Do-won) investigates, leading him down a path of horrific darkness.
What the The Wailing has above the typical horror film is how it it masterfully conjures ghosts, zombies, gore, curses, exorcisms, body horror, religious terror and many other paranormalities that usually appear as a singular plot point of a film and melts them together in eerie harmony. This much supernaturality in one film shouldn’t work… but it does.
What are some of your must watch horror films? Comment yours below!
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