Jackson Cooper
     Staff Writer

I’ve strayed off many potential dates with the phrase, “I love watching horror movies.” Perhaps that implies that I’m somewhat of a masochist who enjoys movies, such as “Hostel” and “Saw,” where people are torn limb for limb for our viewing pleasure.

Well, for any of my potential future dates, I haven’t even seen “Hostel.” But I have seen enough movies to know how to properly dispose of a body and how easy it is for someone to mistake blood on the carpet for a Cabernet accident.

Okay, I won’t play Patrick Bateman this week, but I will be your Roger Ebert for the Top Five Halloween movies to enjoy this season. These will trick you, treat you, make you wet yourself and will inevitably cause you to laugh hysterically. So grab your popcorn and beer and enjoy the weekend celebrations with these fine films.

5. “Night of the Living Dead”/ “I Walked With A Zombie”/ “Carnival Of Souls”

Zombie movies began as a batch of fun-fluff designed to make people scared of their neighbors. Seriously.

In the 1950s, the “horror” in movies began to move away from foreign lands (aliens, invaders) and began to introduce this notion that your friends and neighbors could be just as deadly as invaders from another planet. The three movies I listed above are all zombie-related movies that have a strong political undertone to each. “Night of the Living Dead” is a direct attack on the American family that defined the 1950s; “I Walked With a Zombie” plays with Americans “invading” another country and the backlash that occurs; and “Carnival of Souls” shows us that we are not safe in our own minds…or environment. All are chilling tales of re-animation that are perfect for a night-in.

4. “The Houses That October Built”/ “The Den”

It took me three tries to jump on the “found-footage” bandwagon. “Blair Witch” didn’t impress me, and “Unfriended” was a mediocre punch-line to an extremely interesting joke. But “October” and “The Den” blew me away with how inventive and — dare I say it — innovative they took the found footage genre and turned it on its head. “October” builds on tension in a search for the scariest haunted house in America, with the horror coming from the alleyways needed to get to the place rather than the place itself. “The Den,” a movie I audibly screamed during, uses ChatRoulette and web-camming to put the viewer (and user) in danger, and makes a profound statement on technology and anonymity in the digital age.

3. “Alien”/ “Halloween”

What is Halloween without the classics? No matter how many times I watch either of these movies, I always say, “I won’t get scared this time; I know what’s going to happen.” Although, John Carpenter and Ridley Scott (yes, the guy from Gladiator) made such damn good movies, I still can’t figure out why I nearly wet my pants every time I watch them. Maybe it’s the simplicity (watch in “Alien” for a scene involving an air-duct) that makes the movie so scary. Both play like playful haunted-house attractions where the fear inside of us knows that something horrible is around the corner, but we just can’t figure out what shape it will be taking.

2. “The Babadook”/ “Scream”

Home invasion movies are the worst. Just when you thought you were safe from the horrible world, away from derelicts, perverts and Glenn Beck, you come home and a murderer wants to kill you. Mondays, am I right?

“Babadook” and “Scream” are home invasion movies in a different respect. They target their victims when they are most vulnerable, that is, when they are comfortable. In these films, it is a home, a party, a movie store, etc. Fear cannot be escaped.

I hold “Babadook” in high regard (as does “Exorcist” director William Friedkin), for it gets under your skin in such a way that keeps you up at night, unsure whether the shadow in the corner of your room is just a coat or The Babadook himself. Just be careful if you hear three knocks at your door in the middle of the night.

1. “Grave Encounters”

Yeah, it’s that scary. Take it from me: the guy who watched “The Shining” at 10 and said, “Ehh.” “Grave Encounters” starts out like a funny found-footage flick: slacker-type characters, a creepy asylum, and an exposition that the movie is actually a Ghost-Hunters-type of show, the usual. But then things get weird. First, lights bust, and then doors disappear. “Grave Encounters” does a great job slowly, but surely, making you scared. When all hell breaks loose, there isn’t any time to catch your breath. It is truly one of the scariest, most underrated movies of the past 10 years. Just watch it at your own risk.