Happy Halloween, readers! There’s no better holiday tradition than turning out
the lights, cozying up on the couch with a bucket of popcorn — and inevitably
spilling that popcorn all over the floor at the first jump scare of your macabre
movie marathon.
Everyone has their go-to favorites for the spooky season. We chatted with some of our favorite movie buffs in the Lowcountry — College of Charleston professor Scott Poole, Charleston City Paper writer Kevin Young and horror writer Grady Hendrix — and asked them a single question: What does someone’s favorite Halloween movie say about them? Be prepared to be spooked.
Slashers
Friday the 13th (1980)
- “You know that at summer camp you will die if you go swimming, drink beer, dance, take off your shirt in front of a mirror, smoke a joint, have sex and/or are a young Kevin Bacon. You also have complicated feelings about your mom (see also: Psycho).” —Poole
Halloween (1978)
- “Babysitting makes you nervous but so do small towns, mechanics’ jumpsuits, leaves on sidewalks, laundry flapping in the wind, closets and kitchen knives. You are very jumpy, all the time.” —Poole
- “You take your work seriously. You aren’t flashy about it, you don’t go on about it constantly, you don’t get worked up over it. You’re not trying to impress anyone. You just have a checklist, and you go down it and cross items off one by one. Michael Myers is your spirit animal.” —Hendrix
Halloween 2 (1981)
- “Beneath that seething cauldron of arrested adolescent angst, you’re truly a complex and layered human because you can enjoy the excessive profanity and exhausting pretension of Rob Zombie’s remake sequel equally.” —Young
- “For you, life mostly feels like an inferior sequel to something cooler that happened before. Alternatively, you are a competitor and chair the Jamie Lee Curtis Fan Club. You are the only horror fan still mad about the Michael Myers-free Halloween 3: Season of the Witch and wish it had been entitled Halloween III: Then the Next Day, This Happened.” —Poole
Trick or Treat (1986)
- “Owning a copy of the Fastway-laced soundtrack (the only heavy metal tape you own) is based solely on your love of watching a resurrected Sammi Curr slaughter a bunch of people in a high school gym. You’re no rock god, you’re false metal.” —Young
- “The Satanic panic was a really tough time for you. It was really hard to explain to parents, teachers and preachers that an album called Number of the Beast featured love songs and celebration of Native American life or that Ozzy’s ‘Suicide Solution’ was kind of a PSA about as dangerous as an after-school special. You feel numb when someone expresses 80s nostalgia. It all really sucked.” —Poole
Comedy horrors
Hocus Pocus (1993)
- “You are a mom! You subscribe to Disney+ and wish the Hallmark Channel would produce spooky meet-cutes and family-friendly Halloween fare. Ironically, you also believe it’s morally acceptable to eat children under certain circumstances.” —Poole
- “You only ever have two drinks and never hard liquor. The speed limit exists for a reason. You like dogs wearing costumes. You wish there was more positivity in the world. Your other favorite Halloween movie is The Nightmare Before Christmas.” —Hendrix
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
- “You believe there is someone out there for everyone. Even if you have to help a mad scientist build them out of cadavers.” —Hendrix
- “You are W. Scott Poole, historian of pop culture and politics at the College of Charleston.” —Poole
Ernest Scared Stupid (1991)
- “You are a former knife-wielding masked maniac. On your last kill spree, the Final Girl brained you with a shovel, and ever since, you’ve only been able to sit in your padded cell watching your favorite film on an endless loop. Or maybe you just like films that are, um, not very demanding?” —Poole
- “Having an adoration for this film. or any Ernest film for that matter, tells the world one thing. You’re an easily amused troglodyte.” —Young
Night of the Demons (1988)
- “Sometimes the movies you rent from the Video Station on James Island steered you wrong. Like that part in this flick where a possessed Suzanne (aka scream queen Linnea Quigley) easily inserted lipstick into her nipple.You actually tried it yourself, and surprise, it didn’t work. You dimwitted clod.” —Young
- “You are a person facing debilitating social anxiety. This could be because the last party foul you committed involved raising an ancient evil that killed all your friends. But it’s OK! Get back out there and … wait, why are you drawing that weird symbol? Oh God. No, no, no!!!” —Poole
WNUF Halloween Special (2013)
- “Put simply, your adoration for this still very underrated mockumentary/horror-comedy and all the other films by Chris and Melissa LaMartina have made it abundantly clear that you have an unhealthy obsession with this dynamic duo. Leave those poor people alone!” —Young
- “You are pretty old and remember when Geraldo opened Al Capone’s vault and the day Kurt died. You agree with the phrase, “Nostalgia is a hell of a drug,” but don’t understand that as a criticism. You have a Stranger Things T-shirt and when you watch that show with friends, you tell them, ‘It was just like that,’ even though you know you are lying to yourself and others. At least you aren’t a boomer?” —Poole
Monster movies
Jaws (1975)
- “You avoid the beach, you don’t fly, you would never go hiking and leaving the all-inclusive resort in another country is a hard, ‘No.’ When people ask why, you put on this movie.” —Hendrix
- “A horror fan who loves the sunshine instead of the shadows. You are probably not afraid to go back into the water. You may also spontaneously yell, ‘Shark Week!’ in late July.” —Poole
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
- “Plain and simple, anyone who loves this film is a great person in my warped book. You likely find it criminal that George A. Romero never got to really cash in on the genre he helped usher in.” —Young
- “Crowds make you nervous, and you really wish no one would ever invite you to a concert again. You want to delete Facebook. Traffic stresses you out. So do neighbors. You want to move to a remote farmhouse with a rock solid basement and live there for the rest of your life.” —Hendrix
Dracula (1931)
- “Foreign accents intrigue you, the idea of an older European man whisking you off to a secluded villa thrills you and your dating profile says, ‘Loves adventure.’ ” —Hendrix
Frankenstein (2025) or Nosferatu (2024)
- “You deleted Twitter before it was cool, you saw John Mayer back when he was playing to 100 people in college cafeterias and you will exhaust all your friends telling them how much better the 1931 and 1922 versions of these movies are. You will die alone.” —Hendrix
Paranormal and folk horror
Paranormal Activity (2006)
- “You don’t use your devices for an hour before bed, you stop drinking caffeine at
10 a.m., you own a cooling gel pillow and your sleep hygiene is still garbage. Clearly, you’re possessed by a demon. What other explanation is there?” —Hendrix - “Long silences where nothing happens isn’t awkward for you, it’s straight up terrifying. Most of your life’s fears revolve around empty rooms and real estate.” —Poole
Ginger Snaps (2000)
- “You had a difficult adolescence, to say the least. You were bullied for your gothcore persona, but you proved them all wrong! Yes, you transformed into a ravening beast and ate much of your peer group that one time. Yes, your own sister had to call animal control. But that’s not you anymore! Also, you really enjoy movies with clever dialogue paired with incredibly obvious metaphors.” —Poole
- “Your idolization of the late hairy Ginger Fitzgerald isn’t based on your love of lady lycanthropes but is actually rooted in follicular envy.” —Young
Final Destination (2000)
- “You barely leave the house. There is nothing about driving through a construction zone at 5 p.m. in downtown Charleston that feels OK to you.” —Poole
- “Accidents only happen to people who aren’t prepared, trips go wrong because people don’t do their research and nasty surprises are for others. Therefore, this franchise really stresses you out, but you watch every single installment to study every single worst case scenario possible so you can be prepared.” —Hendrix
Psychological thrillers
Silence of the Lambs (1991)
- “You do your homework and ask for extra credit. If something is worth doing, it’s worth overdoing. You always want to exceed expectations because you know that if you keep over-performing, one day you’ll rescue a senator’s daughter from a serial killer’s torture basement, and then everyone will finally stop rolling their eyes at you.” —Hendrix
- “Congrats, you are a fan of one of the small number of Oscar-winning horror films. Also, you are exhausted from explaining to normies why Silence is a horror film. Most of the time you just like to listen to true crime podcasts and daydream about being an FBI agent. You never put hand lotions in a basket.” —Poole
Get Out (2015)
- “You recognize great films layered with incisive and thoughtful social commentary. You are deeply suspicious of anyone who eats cereal while separately drinking milk (and so you should be). Unfortunately, when friends want to talk about movies, you are prone to phrases like ‘the most important social document of our time’ and ‘a transformative cinematic experience.’ ‘Can we just watch the movie?’ your social circle moans.” —Poole
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