Halloween is just around the corner, which got me thinking about the films I typically associate with Halloween. Those genuine seasonal classics that I have to watch nearly every Halloween in order for it to feel right.
For me Halloween cinema is separated into two categories, the bloody gore fests in which I detest, and the classics from the Golden Age of Hollywood. I don't think there is any doubt which I prefer.
I have never watched any of the gory Halloween films which are often given "classic" status by so many filmgoers. I have no desire to watch a bunch of teenagers get trapped within a log cabin, make-out, scream, and get chopped up. I want to see classic monsters, werewolves, vampires, and Frankenstein, wreaking havoc in good ole' black-and-white. These are the true classics, the Universal monster movies from the Golden Age of Hollywood.
No film in particular truly stands out, but I could easily swing for anything featuring Lon Chaney's Wolfman or Bela Lugosi's Dracula. These films are classics. Are they cheesy and over-the-top? Yes, but that is what makes them so much fun to watch.
It used to be that on TCM and AMC, hours upon hours of marathons would play around Halloween time each and every year, highlighting these classic monster movies from long ago, but in recent years they have been thrown aside in favor of Halloween marathons of the gory chop fests I mentioned earlier.
I hope that TCM and AMC will give what I believe to be the true classics of Halloween some time this year. Now while I'm not saying that you can't be a fan of the types of Halloween films in which I don't like, I simply wish for the television networks to show the same amount of love to the films in which old-fashioned film lovers, like myself, wait all year long to see.
As the days till Halloween tick closer, I'll have my eyes peeled.
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