It is that time of year again, where the leaves are changing colors and the weather gets crisper. I'm talking about the beautiful season of fall, and what makes fall so great is the first holiday to kick off the new season: Halloween! It is time for us to bust out our craving for everything pumpkin spiced and get crafty with Halloween costumes. It is also the time where watching scary movies are an absolute must. If you are anything like me, you probably watch horror flicks whether it's the week before Halloween and you wanna get into a scary mood, or you are just bored one day and find yourself watching any of the Scream movies on Netflix. What makes Halloween and movie watching so great is that there are endless scary movies to choose from, from your campy, blood-filled flick to the more mind-thrilling movies. Either way, here are five favorite horror flicks, and why they are (in my opinion) the best to watch during this scary season!

5. The Silence of the Lambs

This was probably the first scary movie I watched as a teenager (my parents did not like me watching scary movies when I was younger). What makes this movie so great is that it is equal parts scary and mind-boggling. The movie is about Clarice Starling, a top FBI agent who is given the opportunity to get inside the mind of Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist who is also a violent psychopath. Starling's boss, Jack Crawford, believes that she has the ability to get information out of Dr. Lecter about an onslaught of gruesome murders that take place one after the other. The chemistry between Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling makes it hard for the viewer to look away, even at the most intense scenes. The movie itself is pretty graphic at some parts, but your eyes will be glued to the screen until the very end.

4. Halloween

No, this movie is not about little kids trick-or-treating on a cold autumn night or teenagers getting drunk at a Halloween party. What this movie lives up to is its infamous killer, Michael Meyers. On Halloween night in 1963, a young Michael Meyers brutally kills his older sister, Judith. He is then sentenced to life behind bars, never to be seen or heard from again. Little do people know is that Halloween night in 1978, Michael escapes from prison and returns to his hometown, looking for his next victim, who is the young Jamie Lee Curtis. I always have to watch this movie with someone else because it is so scary and is filled with constant twists and turns. The ending is also very mysterious, and leads you to a string of remakes and sequels. The original, though, will always be the best.

3. Carrie

Another oldie, but nevertheless super good and always never fails to keep me on my toes! "Carrie" is one of those older, campy horror flicks that has enough gore to make it watchable. The movie is about Carrie White, a sensitive and shy girl who is made fun of at school and tormented by her crazy mother at home. She soon finds out through a series of events that she obtains supernatural powers, which she uses to her advantage. Carrie is then invited to the schools prom by her empathetic classmate Tommy. All seems to go well, until pigs blood is spilled over Carrie and Tommy. The rest is horror film history, which still gives me nightmares to this day. If you are not a big blood person, it is okay. While there are a few scenes that deliver gore, it is not as profusely used as other scary movies. The movie is old too ( it was made in 1976), which adds another creepy essence to the already horrific movie.

2. The Shining

"The Shining," just like "Carrie," is another Stephen King novel adapted into a movie. The story goes like this: a writer by the name of Jack Torrance is given the keys to the Overlook Hotel to maintain during the winter months. Jack accepts, seeing that staying at the hotel may give him the peace and quite he needs to get over his writer's block. He packs up his wife (Wendy) and son (Danny) and they go on their merry way. During the stay, however, Danny (who has psychic premonitions) starts to get bad vibes from the hotel itself, while Jack slowly descends into madness and ends up terrorizing his family. The movie is more of an observation of a man's slow snowball into his own psychotic mind. The movie seems slow at first, but it quickly picks up speed once Danny starts to have his uneasy ghost sightings (cue in the infamous hallway scene).

1. The Exorcist

I watched this movie just last week (with my mother's unashamed disapproval) and just a word of caution: DO NOT WATCH THIS MOVIE ALONE. The movie is loosely based off of real life events, so that in itself had me cringing and basically crying at certain scenes. The movie is about a young girl named Regan who is more or less possessed by the Devil. Her mother first thinks that she is ill, but a young priest takes a closer look and realizes that it is not the flu that has the young girl speaking in tongues and levitating off of her bed. He turns the case over to the church, where they in turn bring in a professional to take care of business. I do not know what was more scarier: knowing that these events happened, or that they made a scene where Regan (post possession) spins her head all the way around her body. I am not lying when I say this: I prayed before, during, and after the movie was over. My mother called me before I watched it and told me that even to this day she has horrible nightmares of this movie, which is where I would like to tell my readers: watch with caution!

And there you have it, my 5 top Halloween movie picks. Again, it does not have to be the spooky season to enjoy these movies. Just try and watch it with others, or consider sleeping with at least one light on afterwards. Happy watching!