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

[_____V_____]

...which would it be, and why?

[hammerfan]

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.

[realdealblues]

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 ;)

[newb]

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

[ChronoGrl]

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.

[neverending]

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.

[roshiq]

Atmospheric horrors from the 60s/70s

[fortunato]

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.

[_____V_____]

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.

[MichaelMyers]

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. ;)