Not really a Halloween movie, but my wife and I watch Jeff Wayne’s The War of the Worlds: Live On Stage every Halloween evening. It’s an easy concert film to start and stop as kids come by. (But…we had none at all this year.)
There are two of these. The newer one is The New Generation (with Liam Neeson). Get the original.
I’ll watch it tonight. It will be a post Halloween treat tonight. 
I don’t watch many horror films anymore. I save them for the last two weeks of October and that’s enough until next year.
We have been to Liverpool to see a live performance. It was supposed to be in Dublin, but the performance company had a problem with the ferry schedules. We were in Dublin already, so we flew over to Liverpool just for the performance. The venue was good enough to let us exchange our original Dublin tickets for similar seats in Liverpool.
Excellent show, but it was The New Generation. I really wanted the Richard Burton’s Giant Head version. OTOH, the tripod death ray effects were so close that we almost got our eyebrows singed.
Best scary movies I saw in October:
Suitable Flesh - a great movie in the spirit of Stuart Gordon or Brian Yuzna.
When Evil Lurks - probably my current pick for best movie of 2023 period, not just in the horror genre.
Would You Rather - no question mark in the title. Low budget, but stars Jeffrey Combs. Pretty fun and good.
Saw X - surprisingly good. You can watch this one without seeing any other Saw movies.
House (1986) - what a cute and fun movie. Family friendly horror for the most part.
I saw others, but would only strongly recommend my first two and the others are just decent recommendations.
I watched a lot of October horror too:
The Boogeyman - Based on a Stephen King story, a well made movie, but felt derivative. Had a ‘who is that actor??’ moment – oh yeah, it’s young Natalie from ‘Yellowjackets’.
Evil Dead Rise - I thought this was good mean spirited bloody fun. I enjoyed it way more than the ‘Evil Dead’ remake from a few years ago. The involvement of Sam Raini (as an executive producer, or something) in this one may be why.
Infinity Pool - Made by David Cronenberg’s son. Interesting, atmospheric movie, with visceral details that stayed in my mind for awhile afterward. But I had a hard time swallowing the central concept: In a beautiful but poor and backwards island that’s a vacation destination, the local government somehow is in possession of technology that allows them to make perfect duplicates of people, memories and all. What do they do with this amazing tech? Charge rich tourists who commit capital crimes a lot of money to have dupes made who will face execution in their place.
Haunting of the Queen Mary - Had heard no buzz on this, but saw it on the ‘Huluween’ list and it looked like a good watch. It did have a central concept that I liked: the ship is haunted by the ghost of a worker who had been sacrificed and entombed within the bowels of the ship in some ancient ‘good luck’ ritual. But the execution (of the plot, not the sacrificed worker) was an incoherent, muddled mess. I could not follow what exactly was supposed to be happening.
No One Will Save You - Odd movie about an alien invasion with a unique stylistic choice-- it had almost zero dialogue. I mean, like nothing but a couple choice words. After awhile the total lack of talking, even when characters were interacting, sort of pantomiming to each other, just got weird. Even a week or two after I saw it, I’m not sure whether I liked it or not.
The Nun - This was my Halloween watch just last night. Part of the ‘Conjuring’ series, but fortunately only featured the Warrens (who in real life were amoral con artists, not saintly helpers of haunted and possessed people as in the movies) in very brief framing sequences at the beginning and end. Not too complicated, just a nice spooky tale of a demonic nun and a portal to hell in the basement of an abandoned castle and former abbey in Romania. A good old-fashioned battle of good against demonic evil.
We watched Monster Inside: America’s Most Extreme Haunted House last night on Hulu. It’s a documentary about McKamey Manor. Guests are subjected to intense abuse in all sorts of ways under the pretense of pushing them to (or past) their limits. Dude makes them sign a waiver that, if memory serves, is something like forty pages, covering injuries, medical events, psychological damage, etc.
All I can say is that if this movie is anywhere close to being a fair representation of what’s going on with that guy, whoa.
You gotta love a movie whose closing credit reads: “No animals were harmed in the making of this film, but we sure did kill a lot of pumpkins.”
There’s an episode of Dark Tourist (S1E8 “Back In The U.S.A.”) that has host David Farrier visiting the Manor. He doesn’t fare well.
10/30 - The Crow. Every year (okay, aaaaalmost ever year)
Otherwise from 10/28 - 10/31 this year we had:
Beetlejuice
Tremors
Van Helsing (crappy I know but so packed with Universal Monsters!)
Sleepy Hollow (JD version)
Evil Dead 2
Army of Darkness
Shaun of the Dead
You got red on you.
We watched Willy’s Wonderland with Nic Cage on the 30th. Lots of stupid fun.
After coming home from trick-or-treating, I put on the Sleepy Hollow portion of The Adventures of Ichabod & Mr. Toad. Wow, I had forgotten how much of a sociopath Ichabod Crane is before Brom Bones tells the ghost story at the party. I had even heard about the seven deadly sins thing, but wow.
I love Willy’s Wonderland (and have the shirt!) but if I wanted something more horror and less camp with him, I watch Mandy. Or Color out of Space.
Right now I’m watching Jeepers Creepers (the1st one)
Given that I can understand barely one word in 10 of spoken dialog in movies, this might be right up my alley.
My son is fanatical about turning on subtitles in movies. I think it’s more that he’s an obsessive perfectionist and doesn’t want to miss anything.
I have been turning on subtitles as often as possible since DVD came out and they were included.
I rewatched the first two Re-Animator films (unadulterated brilliance) and watched the third (lame and bad) for the first time, all within a week. Partly that’s because I’m planning to meet Jeffrey Combs at a convention next month, but it was seasonal as well.
I’ve also been getting caught up on Mike Flanagan’s Netflix filmography over the past few weeks. Marathoned Fall of the House of Usher (loved it) and Midnight Mass (staggeringly smart and well-directed, no matter the genre). I’m three episodes into The Midnight Club now, and it’s good but not spectacular.
Been super wiped out lately, so I keep putting movies on and then nodding off. Last night I was wathing the first Quatermass movie with the commentary track playing, but had to hit the sack. Getting two shots tomorrow (annual flu jab and my first shingles vax) so I expect to be out of action for a chunk of the weekend, and I’ll catch up with that one and a few more, I hope.