Five Scary Movies for Scaredy Cats
Halloween falls on the weekend this year, and instead of getting drunk at a big costume party, you and your friends decide to avoid the hoopla and have quiet night in, ordering pizza and pull an all-nighter watching horror movies. A group text goes out asking what to rent and the suggestions soon arrive. As you read the IMDB synopsis for
Martyrs and T
he Human Centipede, you can feel the bile starting to rise in your throat. Even though you display a take no prisoner’s attitude around your friends and co-workers, they have no idea that secretly you are terrified of horror movies. But because it’s Halloween, it really doesn’t seem right to pop in
Titanic and wait for Celine to sing you to sleep. So listed below is a group of scary, but not nightmare-inducing scary movies that will satisfy both your friends’ needs and your sanity.
- The Evil Dead (1981) – A group of teenagers go to a cabin in the woods for a weekend getaway, only to be led to The Book of the Dead and a taped incantation awakening hidden evil and turning the unsuspecting teenagers into deadly demons. The Evil Dead is a straightforward horror movie with an easy to follow plot and lots of monsters. It was filmed in 1981, but the zombie effects are a little dated, so it’s not that hard to watch anymore. There was a pretty good remake made in 2013, but I don’t recommend that one for the horror handicapped.
- Oculus (2013) – An orphaned sister and brother attempt to expose the truth about their parents’ murder ten years ago, that the crime was committed by supernatural forces. This one is more of a supernatural thriller than a horror film, but it definitely has plenty of scary moments. Oculus does an excellent job telling its story of what is happening in both flashback and present time. It’s also really well-written and well-acted. We scaredy cats definitely approve.
- Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998) – Of all the Halloween sequels, this one is the best. You get nice big showdown between Michael Myers and original star Jamie Lee Curtis, some pretty good kills, and a kickass ending. There’s a good amount of killings here but not an over the top number, the gore present but minimal, and also a really fitting end to the series. I know Halloween: Resurrection came out three years later, but I like to pretend that didn’t happen.
- Halloween (1978) – The original, not the remake. Much like The Evil Dead, so much time has passed that you know what’s going to happen and it’s not really scary anymore. But still, it’s just a little scary. And it’s scary because its looks like your neighborhood in your town, and your neighbor went nuts when he was kid and offed his whole family. But I doubt he would come back and finish the job… I hope.
- From Dusk until Dawn (1996) – This one is probably the goriest one on this list. George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino portray criminals who take a priest and his family hostage, and end up taking refuge in a seedy bar full of hungry vampires. From Dusk until Dawn is both gory and scary, but it’s also really funny, which makes it way more tolerable for us scaredy cats.
