Assorted Tricks and Treats (Part 1): Seven Lesser-Known Movies You'll Want to Add to Your Halloween Season Watch List

Prominent on my wall and in my heart, Forbidden Planet is one of several movies you can use to usher in the season.

I recently had the opportunity to sit down for lunch at a fast food restaurant I used to haunt as a kid. Just a couple of blocks from my parents' house, it was our default option whenever we didn't have time to cook. While it's gone through several renovations over the years, the layout--the dining room, the atrium, the booths and tables--is still quite similar to what it was when I was nine years old and my little sneaker-clad feet swung lazily above the tiled floor. In many ways, it's a time capsule--for my Halloween memories in particular.

While most holidays are steeped in tradition--national, regional, personal--Halloween rivals Christmas and Thanksgiving in terms of the range and texture of traditions that people observe. And those traditions change and evolve as generations cycle through different phases of life. When I was a kid, I remember that Halloween was similar to Christmas in that it was preceded by a long season of anticipation. Some of that was driven by environmental change--cooling temperatures and the changing of the leaves--and some of it was driven by the gradual peppering of autumn sights and sounds into the flow of daily life with pumpkins, corn stalks, and plastic decorations springing up in front of most houses, stores and restaurants.

Through the fourth grade, I attended a relatively large red brick elementary school reminiscent of the one depicted in A Christmas Story. It was just a few doors down from my house, and I remember how I'd walk home from school and immediately begin to peel the little ghost, witch, and pumpkin stickers off my tests and quizzes--presumably to decorate my book covers and notebooks--while gazing out the window at the bright red and yellow foliage on the hillside. On some level, that will always represent Halloween to me.

In the intervening years, I've had the chance to see the holiday from several other angles and in several other roles: as a teenager, a college student, a newlywed, a dad, etc. I've enjoyed the season through hayrides and ghost tours, trick-or-treating and theme parties, and through the consumption of music, books and lots and lots of movies. While that hasn't bestowed on me any special insight into what the best pastimes are--as that's always going to be subject to personal taste--I'll be using my next couple of posts to share some of my favorites on the chance that there might be places where my own list doesn't match yours and may help to expand your horizons.

Seven Lesser-Known Movies You'll Want to Add to Your Halloween Season Watch List

The easiest place to start is with the silver screen. In today's smorgasbord of hundreds of cable channels and on-demand streaming entertainment, these outlets provide access to a huge seasonal catalog of horror movies throughout the month of October. Some movies and franchises are always very deservedly prominent in that offering--Friday the 13th, Alien, Wes Craven's Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream franchises, the works of John Carpenter, George Romero, etc. Also popular are horror comedies like Ghostbusters, Hocus Pocus, Young Frankenstein and Shaun of The Dead. But even with all of the slots available to be filled, some movies never quite climb out of obscurity--living on the fringes of fan consciousness. Below are several such films--some you'll have heard of, some of which might not ring a bell, but all of which are worthy of your consideration for your fall watch list.

• Fright Night - I recently had the good fortune to catch a reunion of the cast of the original 1985 movie at a local Pittsburgh comics convention, and I loved the way that Chris Sarandon described this horror comedy as having "had fun with but not made fun of the vampire genre." Think Rear Window meets Dracula with some of the teen angst (i.e., "no one believes me") of The Blob. I actually like the 2011 Collin Farrell remake too even though it's quite different, so you could always watch both and compare.

• Something Wicked This Way Comes - The most family-friendly offering on the list, I don't know how many people are actually aware of this 1983 Disney adaptation of a book by famed science fiction writer Ray Bradbury. The story is set in a turn-of-the century mid-western town suffering a series of strange disappearances coinciding with the arrival of an unusual but charismatic carnival owner (Jonathan Pryce) and his troupe. BTW - If you find you like this one, I'd also suggest the 1988 film Lady in White. While the story is quite different, I found it to have a similar setting and feel.

• Sleepy Hollow -Your interest in this film will likely depend on your opinion of Johnny Depp. But if you do choose to give it a try, you'll find this one--like his several other collaborations with Tim Burton--to be a visually striking movie. Note that you need to throw your expectations out the door in the first few minutes--as Burton transforms the quaint Washington Irving tale about a school master and his romantic rival into an unabashed supernatural slasher film. Nevertheless, if you're able to set that discontinuity aside--including the idea that Burton's Ichabod Crane is a police inspector--you'll be treated to some fantastically atmospheric set design and visual effects in keeping with the season. 

• Event Horizon - The scariest and most intense film on this list, I've always liked this 1997 Laurence Fishburne/Sam Neill movie because it takes the haunted house trope and transplants it very successfully into an outer space setting. Sometimes exploration needs to be bound not by where we can go but rather where we should go.

• X The Unknown - The oldest movie on my list, you can probably find this one on YouTube--as the copyright on it has lapsed. A 1956 offering from the same Hammer Studios that would later be responsible for Christopher Lee's many Dracula films, this movie holds a slot that could easily be filled by the likes of Fiend Without A Face, Children of The Damned or other early science fiction movies that retained the mood and trappings of gothic horror. Looking and feeling a lot like an episode of "Twilight Zone" or "The Outer Limits"--neither of which is a bad thing, mind you--this is the tale of a group of scientists led by Dean Jagger (the general from White Christmas) chasing down a blob-like energy vampire across the forests and moors of the English countryside.

• The Day of The Triffids - Given assembled geekdom's ongoing fascination with dystopia, this might scratch that itch for you in a way that scores of zombie movies cannot. Unlike The War of The Worlds--which is still worthy of a viewing in its own right--this 1963 film involves invasion from an unlikely quarter, the plant kingdom. Carnivorous alien plants sprout up across the world and--following a plague of blindness that sweeps the globe--begin to munch on the now-helpless survivors save for small bands of holdouts who have retained their sight.

• Forbidden Planet - As will likely become a running joke on this blog, I could probably add Forbidden Planet to any favorites list I compile--for while it's one of the great early science fiction films, it has enough horror beats to be in this count too. The moody, otherworldly score should hook you within the first few minutes. Plus, it's (kind of) Shakespeare--as it loosely adapts his play "The Tempest."

Enjoy! And let me know in the comments section if there are any favorites of yours that I should consider.

Next time: Games to weave into your pre-Halloween entertainment