Horror Movies For Halloween Night

Halloween, horror film about a killer on the loose in a small Illinois town. Released in 1978 and directed by John Carpenter, this film was a box-office hit and inspired the so-called slasher genre of films, in which teenagers are murdered in various ways by an unstoppable killer. Michael Myers murders his teenage sister on Halloween night as a boy and is sent to a psychiatric ward. He escapes 15 years later as an adult and returns to the town to kill many more teenagers. A psychiatrist pursues him, but the shadowy killer is extremely difficult to stop.

Evil Dead II (also known as Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn) is a 1987 American horror-comedy film. Standing as a sequel to 1981's The Evil Dead, the film was directed by Sam Raimi, written by Raimi and Scott Spiegel, produced by Rob Tapert and starred Bruce Campbell as Ash Williams. The film was followed by a sequel of its own in 1993 entitled Army of Darkness. The film opens with a very rough re-play of the important events of the first film. Ash Williams and his girlfriend Linda take a romantic vacation to a seemingly abandoned cabin in the woods. While in the cabin, Ash plays a tape of an archeology professor, reciting passages from the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis, which had been discovered during an archaeological dig. The recorded incantation unleashes an evil force which soon takes possession of Linda. Ash is forced to kill and bury her. Something remains and continues to terrorize Ash.

The Changeling is a 1980 horror film directed by Peter Medak and starring George C. Scott and Trish Van Devere (Scott's real-life wife). The story is based upon events experienced by writer Russell Hunter while he was living in the Henry Treat Rogers Mansion of Denver, Colorado. Scott stars as Dr. John Russell, a composer living in New York City, who moves cross-country to Washington State following the tragic deaths of his wife and daughter in a traffic accident while on a winter vacation in upstate New York.

Sleepy Hollow is a 1999 period horror film directed by Tim Burton, interpreting the legend of The Headless Horseman and based upon the Washington Irving story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The third film collaboration between Johnny Depp and Burton, the film also features Christina Ricci, Michael Gambon, Miranda Richardson, Casper Van Dien, Jeffrey Jones, Ian McDiarmid, Michael Gough, Richard Griffiths and Christopher Walken. The story centers on police constable Ichabod Crane sent from New York City to investigate a series of murders in the village Sleepy Hollow by a mysterious Headless Horseman. The style and themes of the story take inspirations from the late Hammer Film Productions.

Night of the Living Dead (1968), directed by George Romero, is an important independent black-and-white horror film. Early working titles were Monster Flick (draft script) and Night of Anubis and Night of the Flesh Eaters (production). Ben (Duane Jones) and Barbra (Judith O'Dea) are the protagonists of a story about the mysterious reanimation of the recently dead, and their efforts, along with five other people, to survive the night while trapped in a rural Pennsylvania farmhouse.

Nightmare on Elm Street is a 1984 American horror film directed and written by Wes Craven, and the first film in the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. The film features John Saxon, Heather Langenkamp, Ronee Blakley, Amanda Wyss, Jsu Garcia, Robert Englund and Johnny Depp in his feature film debut. Set in the fictional Midwestern town of Springwood, Ohio, the plot revolves around several teenagers being terrorized in their nightmares by the ghost of a serial child murderer named Freddy Krueger.

Scream is a 1996 film directed by Wes Craven and written by Kevin Williamson. The film revitalized the slasher genre in the mid 1990s, similar to the impact Halloween (1978) had on late 1970s film, by using a standard concept with a tongue-in-cheek approach that successfully combined straightforward scares with dialogue that satirized slasher film conventions. The film features many teen idols of the time, including: Neve Campbell, Rose McGowan, Skeet Ulrich, Drew Barrymore, Matthew Lillard, David Arquette and Courteney Cox Arquette (then at the height of her Friends fame).

Amityville Horror, motion picture based on the best-selling, so-called true story by Jay Anson about the author’s family and their new house that is haunted. Released in 1979, the film details the family’s encounters with flying household objects, strange visual distortions, and a hidden room in their cellar. The supernatural occurrences are apparently the result of the house being the site of a multiple murder and being located on top of an ancient Native American burial ground. Remade a few years ago, but the classic is better.

The Exorcist, box–office hit motion picture about a young woman who is possessed by a demon, based on a book by William Peter Blatty. Released in 1973, the film won Academy Awards for its screenplay and for sound. A woman (played by Ellen Burstyn) becomes concerned with her child’s moodiness and digestion problems, and takes her to the doctor. The doctor suggests she go to a priest. While two priests try to exorcise the demon, the girl (Linda Blair) speaks in tongues, vomits, and spins her head round and round.

The Shining, motion picture about a man hired to maintain a haunted hotel during its off-season closure, based on the novel by Stephen King. Released in 1980, this box-office hit was directed by Stanley Kubrick. Writer Jack Torrence (played by Jack Nicholson) brings his family to the Overlook hotel for the winter, hoping to find peace and quiet for his work. Jack’s young son Danny encounters the ghostly inhabitants of the hotel, who tell him he has a power called “shining,” which enables him to see visions of the future, including rivers of blood and dead bodies. Meanwhile, Jack becomes possessed by the Overlook’s former caretaker, a homicidal maniac. This story was remade into a film for television in 1997.
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