What's your favorite scary movie?
It's spooky szn.
I love to scare myself.
Whether it’s hosting a Friday The 13th-themed birthday party when I turned 10 (we watched the original movie and half the girls weren’t allowed to watch and had to sit in the other room WOW that makes me sound like such a bad friend) or Wikipedia-ing Ted Bundy out of boredom, I have always loved a little dose of the foreboding.
But I’m not into the gore, I’m into the feeling. The adrenaline. The best example of the feeling a scary movie can give you comes via one of my other faves: Jaws.
What made Jaws so unique, as far as monster movies go, is that this monster is rarely seen. In Jaws, the shots are almost always above-water and that’s what so gripping: you don’t see the shark. Instead, you see the victim bobbing her head and suddenly being yanked under.
While all these years later, that seems like such a striking cinematic choice to make, it was actually done on accident.
You see, the film studio ponied up $250,000 to make a mechanical shark. And it was a total joke. Per Mental Floss, “The beast was anything but menacing. His eyes crossed. His teeth were too white. His jaws didn’t close properly. And he had a big dimple that made him look like Kirk Douglas.” On its first day in the Nantucket Sound, where the movie was filmed, the shark (named “Bruce”) sank.
When the mechanical version didn’t work, it was back to the drawing board, and wow – producers had some truly terrible ideas (one of which was to hire someone to train an actual great white shark). Needless to say, those ideas did not work.
It was the film’s director, Steven Spielberg, who ultimately determined what to do: make Jaws an unseen enemy.
“I had no choice but to figure out how to tell the story without the shark,” Spielberg said in a later interview. “So I just went back to Alfred Hitchcock: ‘What would Hitchcock do in a situation like this?’ ... It’s what we don’t see which is truly frightening.”
And so, one of the most iconic monsters was born. One I like to return to every year.
Of course, there are other truly stellar flicks that will scare your socks off, if you aren’t interested in monster sharks.
But — as Randy so knowledgeably intones in the original Scream — “there are certain rules someone must abide by to survive a scary movie.” I’ve found that there are also rules for surviving a scary movie marathon. So I’ve rounded up some of my favorite tools below.
PS. You know what’s really scary? Anti-semitism. If you’ve been sickened by the spew of hate that’s been unleashed in recent weeks and days, you can donate to the Anti-Defamation League here.
Here are my favorite scary movies (some of which aren’t really scary at all), if you’re looking to engage in a Halloween film fest:
Jaws (1978)
Halloween (1978)
Alien (1979)
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Beetlejuice (1988)
Scream (1996)
I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)
Get Out (2017)
And here are all the bits and bobs you’ll need to round out your movie marathon.
There have never been better sweatpants. I love the double entendre (depending on how you red them, they mean two entirely different things, which is kind of the point) and they’re a classic shape, too. Honestly, when I first saw these, I kicked myself for not thinking of this first for a painting.
If you’re going to be watching a feature-length film, you’ll need a very chic bowl in which to serve your popcorn.
A movie marathon just isn’t complete without a cozy blanket, and this one hits all the marks: comfy, chic, and dark enough to hide stains.
Also highly necessary? A candy bar stuffed with nougat, caramel and peanut butter.
Here’s an easy popcorn recipe, to make your couch feel more like the movies.
You’ll need:
1 bag microwave popcorn
1/2 stick butter, melted
1/2 C. grated parmesan
1/4 tsp. cayenne
1/2 tsp. chili powder
2 tsp. salt
To make:
Nuke the popcorn, then mix the butter, salt and spices in a bowl. Drizzle the butter mixture over the popped popcorn and finish by dusting the whole mess with grated parm.
And I’ll leave you with this….