Driven primarily by Halloween, October is the peak month for horror movie viewership. BlazeTV hosts Stu Burguiere and Dave Landau both enjoy a good spooky flick, especially during pumpkin season.
On this episode of “Stu and Dave Do America,” the duo along with special guest and horror movie expert Angela Boggs rank their top five horror movies in descending order.
Dave’s list:
Dave, who briefly studied film in college, says the following are his favorite horror movies based on what he personally enjoys watching.
5. John Carpenter’s 1982 classic “The Thing,” starring Kurt Russell. The film follows a group of researchers at an isolated Antarctic station who encounter a shape-shifting alien that perfectly imitates living organisms, forcing them into paranoia as they try to discern who is still human.
4. “The Cabin in the Woods” (2011), directed by Drew Goddard, starring Chris Hemsworth. The plot revolves around five college friends who spend a weekend at a remote cabin, only to discover that they’re being manipulated as part of a much larger, ritualistic horror scenario.
3. “Evil Dead II” — the second film in the franchise — directed by Sam Raimi in 1987, starring Bruce Campbell as Ash Williams. Williams, the central character throughout the original trilogy, returns in this film to face even more extreme Deadite horrors, including a possession of his own hand.
2. “American Psycho” (2000), directed by Mary Harron, starring Christian Bale, Willem Dafoe, Jared Leto, and Reese Witherspoon. The plot centers on a wealthy, status-obsessed Wall Street banker who secretly leads a double life as a serial killer, committing increasingly violent murders while maintaining a perfect outward image.
1. “The Shining” (1980), directed by Stanley Kubrick, starring Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall. This iconic horror film follows the Torrance family as they spend the winter as caretakers of an isolated hotel. The father slowly descends into madness under the influence of the hotel’s dark supernatural forces.
Stu’s list:
While Stu isn’t a horror movie megafan like Dave and Angela, he enjoys the occasional scary film, including:
5. The original 1996 “Scream” movie directed by Wes Craven. The film, which kicked off a long-running franchise, follows a masked killer as he terrorizes the teenagers of a small town by phoning them with horror-movie trivia questions before attacking.
4. “Signs” (2002), written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, starring Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix. It centers on a former priest and his family living on a rural farm who discover that the mysterious crop circles in their cornfield are actually signs of an extraterrestrial invasion.
3. “Misery” (1990), directed by Rob Reiner, starring James Caan and Kathy Bates. Based on the Stephen King novel, the film is about a famous novelist who is rescued from a car crash by his number-one fan; she then holds him captive in her remote home and forces him to rewrite his latest book to her satisfaction.
2. The original 1978 “Halloween” film, directed by John Carpenter and starring Jamie Lee Curtis. The movie, which launched a major long-running franchise, introduces escaped mental patient Michael Meyers, who returns to his hometown on Halloween night and begins stalking and killing babysitters, while his psychiatrist races to stop him.
1. “Halloween 3: Season of the Witch” (1982) — the third installment in the series — directed by Tommy Lee Wallace, starring Tom Atkins. Famous for being the outlier in the series, this film does not include the iconic Meyers and instead follows a doctor as he investigates a series of murders linked to a toy company that plans to kill children across America using cursed Halloween masks triggered by a TV commercial.
Angela’s list:
Angela, host of “Angela Does Horror,” where she posts horror reviews, watch-alongs, recommendations, and discussions, is a horror film superfan. Her top five list, she says, is intentionally “quirky and different” but still gets her “in the Halloween spirit every year.”
5. “1408” (2007) directed by Mikael Håfström, starring John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson. The film follows a skeptical author who debunks haunted hotels; he checks into the infamous room 1408 at a New York hotel and is forced to confront genuine supernatural terror.
4. Indie horror film “Starry Eyes” (2014), which had a limited U.S. theatrical release. The plot revolves around an aspiring actress in Los Angeles who makes a dark deal with a sinister film production company in exchange for the fame she’s desperate to achieve.
3. “Unfriended: Dark Web” (2018), written and directed by Stephen Susco. The low-budget studio horror, which got a theatrical release, follows a group of friends on a video chat as they discover that one of them has stolen a laptop connected to the dark web. The original owners begin systematically targeting and killing them while they watch helplessly.
2. “Late Night with the Devil” (2023), directed by Colin Cairnes and Cameron Cairnes. This independent film that was also theatrically released is a found-footage-style film revolving around a struggling late-night talk show host in 1977, who tries to boost his ratings with a live Halloween special featuring a possessed girl, only for the broadcast to unleash real demonic forces on air.
1. “As Above, So Below” (2014), directed by John Erick Dowdle. Presented in found-footage style, the film takes place in the catacombs of Paris, as a team of explorers searching for the philosopher’s stone becomes trapped in a nightmarish labyrinth where their personal sins and fears are turned against them.
To hear the panel go into depth about their top horror picks, check out the episode above.
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