October is my favorite month, and not because I happen to turn 21 on the 20th. I love fall, but out of all the holidays in the latter half of the year, I love Halloween most of all. For the month of October, I decided that all of my Odyssey articles will in some way be Halloween-themed, starting with my must-watch list of Halloween favorites.

I am the biggest scaredy cat in the world (I almost took my roommate’s boyfriend’s head off with my field hockey stick after watching Sinister), but here are some of my favorite movies to watch during the Halloween season, both scary and not very so.

1. Basically the entire Halloween franchise except for #3, 8, the 2007 remake, and its 2009 sequel.

My favorite horror movie series, Halloween is about a masked serial killer named Michael Myers whose first victim is his older sister, Judith, when he is just six years old. Soon after that grisly murder, he is committed to an asylum which he inevitably escapes fifteen years later to stalk his younger sister, Laurie, except it’s never actually revealed in the first movie that Laurie is Myers’s sister until the second film, but you get the picture. I honestly admire Michael’s confidence when it comes to hunting down his victims, because he doesn’t chase after them, but rather slowly strides towards them since he knows they have no way to escape.

2. Scream

Poor Drew Barrymore. All she wanted to do was make some jiffy pop and watch a movie, but she instead gets into a deadly phone conversation with a masked murderer, who tortures her by killing her boyfriend in front of her and then fatally stabs her three minutes before her parents get home from their night out. I love the way this movie subtly pokes fun at other scary movies and therefore appropriately inspired the popular spoof series, Scary Movie. My favorite scene: when Neve Campbell slides underneath Ghostface in order to escape his knife in the school bathroom.

3. Hocus Pocus

This is one of those movies that my family and I will literally drop everything we’re doing, regardless of what season it is, to watch this movie on TV. In order to impress the love of his life, Allison, dorky teenager, Max, accidentally brings back a trio of Salem witches, the Sanderson Sisters, on Halloween night. It’s up to Allison, Max, and his little sister, Dani, to keep the witches from becoming immortal so they turn to dust by sun-up. It’s very low on the scare-o-meter, which I like, because then I don’t have bury my head under the covers in order to go to bed. Also, Bette Midler sings a really random musical number in the middle of the movie, because, let’s face it, it’s Bette Midler and we really wanted to hear her sing.

4. Halloweentown, Halloweentown 2: Kalabar’s Revenge, and Halloweentown High

Yes, I purposefully left off Return to Halloweentown because THEY DID NOT HAVE THE ORIGINAL MARNIE, AM I THE ONLY ONE THAT HAD A PROBLEM WITH THAT? Anyway, these were definitely my favorite Halloween-themed Disney Channel Original Movies, although Don’t Look Under The Bed and Phantom of the Megaplex do deserve honorable mentions. When Marnie Piper learns that her grandmother is a witch, she and her two siblings, Dylan and Sophie, stow away on a magical school bus to Halloweentown, a place where creatures like vampires, ghouls, and werewolves are real. Once there, they have to save the magical land from an evil spirit hiding out in an abandoned movie theatre (still don’t really understand that plot point) using their own powers. Again, these aren’t really particularly scary movies (although I was terrified of “the dark thing” when I was little), but I do enjoy watching them every year nonetheless.

5. Silence of the Lambs

First thing’s first: Hannibal actually said, “Good evening, Clarice.” Okay, now that that’s out of the way, Hannibal Lector is definitely the scariest psychopathic, murdering psychiatrist with cannibalistic tendencies, okay, well, maybe he’s the only psychopathic, murdering psychiatrist with cannibalistic tendencies, but that’s kind of beside the point. Silence of the Lambs was the third movie ever to win the Oscars for best picture, actor, actress, director, and screenplay, and rightfully so, because this movie is scary. Seriously, folks, do not watch this alone and do not watch it at night.

6. Psycho

Ah, yes, the famous shower scene. This was my first Alfred Hitchcock movie, and it made me kind of scared to be alone in a hotel room after watching the psychotic, cross-dressing, schizophrenic Norman Bates stab Marion Crane to death. Once you get past the creepy taxidermy hobby, on the outside, Norman Bates seems like a mild-mannered motel owner with an overbearing (s)mother. However, once viewers discover that Mrs. Bates is nothing more than a mummified corpse, it becomes clear just how psycho Norman is. Fans of this movie will also love the prequel series on A&E: Bates Motel.

7. House on Haunted Hill

My mother let me watch this with her when I was probably about four on her little black and white TV. This movie is about the wealthy Frederick Loren who, in an attempt to off his cheating wife and her lover, invites five people over to a haunted mansion, promising them $10,000 each if they can survive the night. Because it was made in 1959, the special effects are only so-so, making the movie less scary to modern-day viewers, but the ending is truly epic. *SPOILER* ahem, dancing skeleton, anyone?

8. A Nightmare on Elm Street

Okay, truth time, I’ve never actually seen this movie and I am DYING to. I honestly can’t get my hands on a DVD nor can I find a decent streaming site to watch it on. Freddy Krueger is a disfigured slasher who haunts the dreams of a bunch of Midwestern teenagers, which actually kills them in real life. I’ve heard this is a truly terrifying movie, and if anyone knows where I can get a copy, let me know!