Geekisms- Because Geek Is Chic

Double, double toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble.



Le Manior du diable (House of the Devil) is a two-minute French film, released Christmas Eve, 1896 and directed by Georges Méliès. It features a giant bat flying into a castle who then proceeds to transform into the Devil, conjure up a hot chick and an old man with a book, make them disappear, then run away when a knight shows up to kick his satanic butt. From these two-minutes of laughable pantomiming, the horror film was born.

At this moment, I think we should all take a minute to breathe a sigh of relief and rejoice in the knowledge that horror films have come a very long way since Méliès’s time.

Sorry old man, time’s up, let a new wave of movie-makers step up to the plate. Nothing short of your reanimation via zombie could entertain audiences today.

Anywho, everyone knows that with Halloween comes visions of ghosts with grudges, witches building stick figures, and men in masks having slasher fests. Horror films go back almost to the beginning of film itself; they allow us to take dark dreams from the intermost realms of our imagination and show them to the whole world in a bundle of screamingly intense thrillers. As many people will testify, there’s something oddly satisfactory in being scared pantless.

Because everyone seems to enjoy this milder form of masochism, here’s a list of guarenteed-to-thrill movies to put you in the Halloween spirit:

Psycho
The Hitcher
Saw
House of Wax (Original)
Halloween (The Original)
Jaws
The Omen
Amityville Horror
The Ring
The Evil Dead
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (New)
Misery
The Grudge
Resident Evil
Nightmare on Elm Street
American Psycho
The Messengers
Carrie
Seven
The Descent
Pet Sematary
The Others
The Hills Have Eyes
Christine
Rose Red
Thinner
The Fog (Either One)
Brain Dead
Dolores Claiborne
House On Haunted Hill
The Exorcist
Kugo
Silent Hill
Poltergeist
The Fly
It
Friday the Thirteenth
Scream
Vertigo
The Shining
American Haunting
Candyman
The Silence of the Lambs
American Werewolf In London
28 Days Later
The Blair Witch Project
Alone In The Dark
Black Christmas
Rocky Horror Picture Show
Aliens
Child’s Play
Sleepy Hollow
Rosemary’s Baby
Lost Boys
Interview With A Vampire
Exorcism of Emily Rose
Children of the Corn

- Cheyenne Hamberg