If you had to choose only *ONE* set of films to represent Halloween...?
 

...which would it be, and why?

For me, it's the vintage movies. Mainly because that's what I grew up watching on TV. When I was a kid, there was no such thing as DVD, VHS, Blu-Ray, or cable. You had what was on TV, and that was it. And, every year, one of the local stations would run old horror movies all day and night.

I would like to vote the Halloween Film Franchise just because of the name, but I'm voting the Classics.

Why?

Well, I never dressed up as Rosemary's Baby or anyone from The Little Shop Of Horrors...lol. I did go as Jason & Freddy later on but as a kid I always wanted to be Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man or The Mummy.

Most scholars don't really agree on where or what Halloween or All Hallows Evening actually was/is or came from. I still go with the thought that it was an honoring of the dead, nothing more. But who's more dead than Dracula, Frankenstein or The Mummy ;)

I'm going with vintage as well.....I DID dress up as Frankie....Wolfie and Drac during my youth.

fun times

cept for the people who handed out cookies.....NO parents would ever let a kid eat a home-made cookie.

of course my own collection of required viewing would encompass many different styles and years of horror movies

Even though, growing up, I dressed up as Dracula, and loved the vintage classics, it was the Slashers that have always represented Halloween for me.

Why?

Because I grew up watching all of the classic movies, but I didn't watch any of the "Slashers" until I was much, much older - What the Slashers represented for me was this Unknown horror - I hadn't seen the movie but I had HEARD that they were just absolutely horrifying... So the Slashers personified this concept of ambiguous, unheard of, unimaginable horror.

I chose the 60s-70s... lots of really creepy films from that era that can still deliver the shivers, like Rosemary's Baby, Let's Scare Jessica to Death and The Wicker Man.

Whatever the origin of the holiday is, one thing is certain- this is the only celebration we have that celebrates the fact we have a dark side, and that the dark side is necessary. Without the dark, the light doesn't have much meaning, does it?

When I was young the dark side was going mainstream. Horror literature was popular, Anton LaVey was making headlines with his Church of Satanism, UFOs were in the news daily, big budget mainstream movies were full of terror, music was full of monsters- the dark side was everywhere.

Halloween in the 60s was a time of freedom, of abandonment. Trick or Treating was a wild free for all- we left the parents at home.

This spirit is most apparent to me in the films of the 60s-70s.

Atmospheric horrors from the 60s/70s

It's hard, and I could probably make an argument for myself on a few of these options, but I'm going with the vintage ones. If nothing else, because they just exude the atmosphere that fits so perfectly into the season and reminds me of Hallowe'en the most.

My choice would be creepy, atmospheric horrors from the 60s & 70s. Pretty hard to beat those dark, brooding scarefests where unknown horrors lurk in the dark, and you don't have the faintest idea of what to expect next.

Excellent poll, V. I have contemplated these options lying awake in bed for all the nights since it has been posted. I eventually narrowed down my options to slashers and the classics. After toggling back and forth between them on the poll, I finally (not without some reluctance) chose slashers. Why? The same reason ChronoGrl did, in the end. They are the films I grow up with. Also, I cannot betray my forum handle.

Now, back to blasting Chrono in the hunting zone. ;)

I had a hard time with this poll and ended up having to vote 'other'. For me, this time of year I always start to drift towards gothic horror flicks. I want classic story telling set against a back drop of desolate graveyards and rolling fog banks. Decrepit buildings and dark secrets, the sort of films where the setting is as important as the characters... I really can't pin that down to an era of cinema.

The Slashers. Just because of Halloween and in some ways Friday the 13th Part 1 & 2. Maybe add in Part 6. They have the feel right for Halloween. The time of year, kids having fun in the neighborhood or woods, an unknown and unstoppable killer.

I do love the classics. But they are a bit different from what I remember. They are very good monster movies. Not so much Halloween time of the year movies unless you just want to dress up like one of the monsters. By the way, Mondo is having a Universal Monsters show next week. But it seems like no one here likes Mondo posters.

Most of those come under the Atmospheric horrors of the 60s & 70s (some 80s too). Pretty hard to beat Hammer films in that section.

This is a hard one. There are truly great films from all eras and the ideal way to go would be to pick the best from each, toss them into a box and call it a set. BUT IF I WERE ON MY DEATH BED---it would have to be vintage.

Atmospheric horror from the 60s/70s without a shadow of a doubt for me.I only have to look through my dvd collection...rosemarys baby,The beast must die,The shuttered room,Asylum,Torture garden,twins of evil,countess bathory,Vault of horror!..(loads more!)to know that all the horror I watched growing up had a profound effect on me .I can watch a horror nowadays and forget it really easily but I can remember the plots,the names of characters and the music from the stuff from the 60s/70s..

Yea, I agree, and I could've easily voted for that category. I just felt like there are enough quality gothic horror flicks outside that era that made it difficult to pin my halloween favourites down to the 60's and 70's.

That's what I went with as I would also include atmospheric horrors from the 80s such as Fulci's Gates of Hell trilogy and Argento's Inferno, Phenomena and Terror At The Opera which I usually watch every halloween (evoking the spirit of the occasion for me personally) and other times too. Though this year I'm going to go to a special halloween screening of The Shining which is another of this category but from 1980.

When I think about halloween, I think about movies like Dracula.
But for me it's also much about these iconic slashers like Halloween, FT13 etc.

Man this was a tough one. I'd love to have said more modern fare, but (as someone has already said) the old classics really embody what Halloween is all about. The mood, the look, the monsters. So I'll stick with the classics.

Really tough decision between Atmospheric and Slashers, but I have to go with Slashers, because those are what I always watch on Halloween.

Slashers, and purely for nostalgic reasons.

Romero's Dead trilogy. For me these three films win every time.

Slashers from the 70s & 80s.

"There's something real about a guy with a knife who just… snaps."

Atmospheric Horror for me I love movies from each period. but I tend to be more drawn to the one's from the 60's and 70's

Classics, because they were there first, and laid the foundation for all the newer stuff...I grew up with those films, and with Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, so those old monsters are like the main staples, the Campbell's vegetable soup characters of horror. Always tasty, always welcomed.

Damn is this a hard choice. Vintage feels right because as a kid its not to scary but it has that atmosphere. As a teen till now the slashers got me and right now its all about the shitty B/indie movies. But i think i'm gonna go with Atmospheric since they're highly entertaining and have more to say than the others.

I'd say more of the slashers but it's true as a kid I dressed up as Dracula and my mom making the costume "authentic" with amulets and and vests and hairline etc. It's a tough one cause on Halloween I watched stuff like pumpkin head, leprechaun, Friday the 13th and etc with my kids. I would have to say the 80's gave Halloween the horror look based on the previous generations.

I would go with the vintage films.

Very atmospheric and great actors.

http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/338...asmarthama.jpg

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

THE DUCHESS