Spooky Season is here, and what better thing to do than relax and watch a scary movie! This is Tommy Steimer, your local IA Film Director with many classics to recommend!

For those who want a REAL scare, I have two movie recommendations for you. The first movie is IT.  IT is about a group of kids in the town of Derry Maine who have to face a shapeshifting clown that embodies their worst nightmares. The second movie is The Blair Witch Project. It is about a group of film students that decide to interview the townsfolk about a local murderer. It all takes a turn for the worse when they get trapped in the woods and start hearing demonic screams. This movie has a very unsettling story about how it is filmed. The three fairly unknown actors actually got thrown in the woods for 8 days straights with no script, only a basic story outline, and cameras to film themselves. By night, the production crew would harass the actors by leaving demonic symbols throughout their camp, shake their tents, and combine sound effects with megaphones to scare the actors. This lead to genuine and real performances from the actors. 

For those who like psychologically unsettling dark movies, I have 2 recommendations for you! Coraline, a PG animated movie about a girl who discovers a secret door in her house in Dakota. It leads to another world that is almost just like hers, but better in a lot of ways. That is until she realized that her parallel family wants to keep her there forever… The next recommendation is The Shining. The Shining is one of if not the greatest Stanley Kubrick film ever made. It is a completely unsettling phycological thriller about a family watching over a haunted hotel over the Winter. Everything is going normal until the Hotel brings out the evil in the family and convinces them to do unthinkable things… 

Many people, however, do not like the thrills and scares of many Horror Movies, and that is completely fine! The two movie recommendations I have for you are the original (1984) Ghostbusters and the original (1993) Hocus Pocus! These movies are cold classics that have embedded themselves into our culture. Both are lighthearted and still feel like they have real stakes in the story. Don’t even look them up just go watch them! 

DISCLAIMER: Many of these movies are rated R and parental advisory is recommended.