Watch · Crash courseNo. 2154 · The 2026 edition
The one-night horror crash course.
Never really done Halloween horror? Three films, one evening, in the right order — and you'll understand the whole genre's grammar by midnight.
The trick to starting horror is sequencing, not bravery. Begin with craft (dread you can admire), move to fun (dread that winks at you), end with texture (dread that lingers). Three films, about five and a half hours with snack breaks. Lights stay on for film one. That's allowed.
The syllabus
- 7:00 — Halloween (1978) · ★ 7.7 — The blueprint. Notice how little actually happens on screen and how scared you are anyway — that's the whole lesson: suggestion beats splatter. Also the reason your neighbor's hedge now looks suspicious.
- 9:00 — Trick 'r Treat (2007) · ★ 6.7 — Four interlocking stories, one town, one night, and Sam — the season's pumpkin-headed enforcer of the rules. This is horror as a party: it wants you to have fun. Most people's favorite of the night.
- 10:45 — Pumpkinhead (1988) · ★ 6.2 — The graduation film: a proper creature feature with practical effects and a genuinely sad spine. If it works on you, congratulations — you like horror now.
If the night went well
- Tales of Halloween (2015) — Ten more short tales for the anthology taste you just developed.
- Halloween (2018) — See what forty years does to film one's story.
- V/H/S/Halloween (2025) — The found-footage deep end. Enter knowing it's the deep end.
Suggestion beats splatter. Everything else is homework.