Halloween Drive-in Double Features #1
Halloween Drive-in
Double Features #1
October is here and what better excuse than to watch a horror movie a day than saying it is for Halloween? I trust you have your snacks and beverages ready to go. Let’s get on with the haunted festivities. (This list is comprised of titles from both the HMCPL collection, which can easily be put on hold and picked up at any branch through HMCPL, or available instantly from Hoopla.)
The Big “Night He Came Home” Show
Halloween (1978) & Halloween II (1981) (HMCPL & Hoopla)
Is there a better movie to start this Halloween Hootenanny? It the original modern classic, the story of the night Michael The Shape Myers came home after spending fifteen years in the State Hospital for the Terminally Twitchy to reenact the murder of his sister on a couple of bubble headed high school babysitters. It is one of the classiest horror films of all time, and it’s opening scene of lil’ Mike doing the old slice and dice on his older sister Judith is as iconic a scene as Marion Crane’s murder in the shower in Psycho. Match it up with Halloween II, which picks up at the exact moment the original film ends, for the best of all the various storylines. This is all the Michael Myers you need.
|
|
|
When using Halloween as the starting off film, this series is flexible enough to add different sequels for different storylines that also create triple, quadruple and a Dusk to Dawn all night marathon, depending on the storyline you pick. Here are the other storylines:
Halloween (1978) & Halloween (2018)
The 2018 sequel to the original also works as a remake, discounting every Halloween sequel made, except to make reference to them. It was one of the biggest horror movies of 2018. The next sequel, Halloween Kills, will be released in October of 2021, continuing this new storyline.
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988), Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers & Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1996)
In this storyline, branching off of Halloween and Halloween II, Michael The Shape Myers is still alive and spends the next couple Halloweens in a real bad mood. The focus is on Big Mike’s little niece Jamie Lloyd, the daughter of the Jamie Lee Curtis character from the original. (While many fans love the Jamie Lloyd saga, this is my least favorite storyline.)
|
|
|
|
Halloween: H20 (1998) & Halloween: Resurrection (2002)
This storyline continues after the end of Halloween II and sees the Jamie Lee Curtis character living under a different name in California, and Michael The Shape Myers comes looking for her on the 20th anniversary of their first Halloween together. H20 is a great continuation from Halloween II and the storyline I enjoy the most after the original two films. Unfortunately, this storyline bleeds into Resurrection, a hot mess of a movie that is hard to sit through and probably seems worse than it really is coming after H20.
|
|
Halloween Resurrection from HMCPL
|
Halloween (2007) & Halloween II (2009)
Finally, Rob Zombie made the first remake. He definitely put his own twist on the material. While I have enjoyed a couple of Zombie’s films, I really do not like his Halloween, but some fans feel it is a great film. On the other hand, everyone hated his Halloween II, but I really enjoyed what he did with that one. You can pick them both up and decide for yourself.
|
|
|
The only Halloween movie we do not have offer is the one I consider the best of the bunch, 1982’s Halloween III: Season of the Witch. It is the only installment of the entire series that does not include Michael The Shape Myers. In this installment, meant to initiate an annual anthology of Halloween themed films, Conal Cochran, a 2,000 year old warlock, just wants to play a joke on all the children of the world. If you see it playing, give it a watch.
Vampires Run Amok!
Fright Night (1985) & The Lost Boys (1987)
Vampires just want to have fun! In Fright Night, a vampire moves next door and Charlie Brewster hires local horror host Peter Vincent to help him exterminate the blood-sucker. In The Lost Boys, a gang of super-hip vampires looking like a lost 80’s hair band terrorize the residents of Santa Carla. Both are extremely entertaining vamp-flicks.
Fright Night from HMCPL
Ghosts Run Loose!
The Changeling (1980) & The Orphanage (2007)
Two excellent haunted house films sure to make the little hairs on your arms stand up. In The Changeling, the ghost of a young boy reveals a decades old secret and in The Orphanage, a young woman looks for her missing child. (You’ll probably want to sleep with the lights on if you watch them both, one after the other.)
The Changeling from HMCPL
The Orphanage from HMCPL
Alternate Reality Double Feature
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012) & Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016)
History gets a facelift by presenting our 16th President as a vicious vampire slayer in Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Then classic literature gets and overhaul by adding zombies to Jane Austen’s beloved story in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter from HMCPL
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies from HMCPL
Fractured Fiction
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019) & In the Mouth of Madness (1995)
Teens locate an evil book of scary stories that supposedly wrote themselves and then come true in Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. John Carpenter delivers a rubber-reality dreamscape where a writer’s bestselling novel series comes to life and contaminates the world in the H.P. Lovecraft inspired In the Mouth of Madness.
Scary Tales to Tell in the Dark from HMCPL
In the Mouth of Madness from HMCPL
Original/Remake-A-Rama (HMCPL & Hoopla)
Piranha (1978) & Piranha (2010)
Piranha bred for freshwater environments infiltrate a river system and put the munch on a summer camp and a vacation resort in the tongue-in-cheek 1978 original Piranha, by director Joe Dante and writer John Sayles. In the 2010 remake, prehistoric CGI piranha surprise Florida’s spring break. These are probably not the best night’s entertainment for people who suffer from Ichthyophobia, an abnormal and intense fear of fish.
Piranha from Hoopla
Piranha 2010 from HMCPL
Coming Soon: More Halloween Drive-in Double Features
Any movies available from HMCPL can be put on hold and picked up at any branch within the system. Go to HMCPL for more information or to search our catalog for more titles. More Halloween titles as we start 31 Days of Halloween- watch a horror movie a day and make the season count for something. If you pick up your materials at the Madison Branch Library (142 Plaza Boulevard) curbside, for the month of October we will have Adult Movie Horror Grab Bags. 10 Horror movies per bag, a little bit of everything. Just ask for the Adult Movie Horror Grab Bag for ten horror flicks. (Regular Adult Movie Grab Bags, which is a mix of all genres, will also be available.)