Top Two Best Movies to Watch Before Halloween
-Alexys Perry

One

The first absolute best movie to watch for Halloween is The Crow (1994). It is technically not a horror movie so if you’re not into that stuff it won’t bother you. It is more like action, but has a horror movie kind of plot. Let me explain. It is about a couple who are killed on the night before their wedding, which also happened to be the night before Halloween. I watch this movie the night before Halloween every year for this reason.

The man in the couple, Eric Draven (played by Brandon Lee) comes back to life a year after this tragedy on the same day. He is accompanied by a crow who makes him invincible, and throughout the night he takes revenge on all of the people who contributed to him and his fiance’s murders in different, creative ways.

Some things I love in this movie are a super cute little girl (with her own little story separate from the main plot) who provides comic relief, a lot of really good one liners, and a phenomenal soundtrack. Most of the songs on the soundtrack were actually written specifically for the movie by mainstream rock bands, which is cool.

One other thing I want to mention is that this movie contains not only a tragedy in the plot but also one that happened in real life. During one of the scenes where a gun was used, Brandon Lee (Eric Draven) was shot with a real bullet in a horrific accident. Unfortunately, he died, and the rest of the scenes had to be made using his stunt doubles Chad Stahelski and Jeff Cadiente, CGI, and rewrites.

As you can see, this movie has romance, revenge, zombies, real life horrors, comedy, and action, just like any critically acclaimed film. It is the perfect in between in the sense that it is not scary, but made for Halloween, but also not too childish like Hocus Pocus or something like that (even though we all love that movie).

Two

The second best movie to watch for Halloween is Sleepy Hollow (1999). This movie has everything Halloween, and it is also not too scary. It follows a young man, Ichabod Crane, who is a constable from New York sent to a town called Sleepy Hollow to investigate murders. As it turns out, the town already knows who the murderer is: a headless horseman returned from the grave.

One of my favorite things about this movie is that it has a monster cast. Ichabod Crane is played by Johnny Depp, and I know we all love him so I’m not even gonna list the movies he’s in. The headless horseman is Christopher Walken (Pulp Fiction, The Dead Zone, Wedding Crashers, Joe Dirt, Nine Lives, True Romance, Click, The Deer Hunter); the love interest, Katrina Van Tassel, is played by Christina Ricci (The Addams Family, Wednesday, Yellowjackets); Reverend Steenwyck is Jeffrey Jones (Beetlejuice, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off); and Baltus Van Tassel, Katrina’s father, is portrayed by Michael Gambon, who is the famous character Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter movies 3-7. However, I have saved the best for last. This movie is directed by Tim Burton, and scored by Danny Elfman, the perfect tag team for any Halloween movie.

This movie is funny, a tad scary, has somewhat bloody murders, creative, romantic, mythical, and old-timey (in a way). It chills you but is also a fun watch and puts you in the mood for Halloween. The music, setting costumes, and acting truly make the movie special and a perfect October watch.