It’s October, and all the good boys and ghouls know what that means: Time to start advertising Christmas sales and specials. Before the advertising realm prematurely jumps the Red Rider BB Gun, we at the Mountain Times would like to celebrate a holiday of yore (and candy corn). Forget fall or harvest festivals, we’re talking Halloween, and here are some of our favorite scary movies to help ring in the boo.

Scott Nicholson - The Haunting (1963)

I’ve always preferred atmospheric spooky movies over the torture terror that dominates the horror genre right now, so I’ll send you deep into the past with The Haunting, the 1963 black-and-white film.

It takes place at the haunted Hill House as an unlikely group conducts experiments to see whether ghosts really exist. (If that plot sounds cliche, it’s because this movie was so successful at inspiring the creeps, with not a single drop of on-screen bloodshed, that the imitators jumped on the bandwagon.) The movie also explores the psychology of a house as a metaphor for consciousness, but don’t give yourself a headache trying to look for theme. Just turn off the lights and get somebody to snuggle, but make sure you know whose hand you’re holding.

October is also a great time to pick up The Haunting of Hill House, the Shirley Jackson novel on which the movie was based. They are different enough that they don’t spoil each other. And, I needn’t tell you, skip the laughable remake of a few years ago.

Other recs: The Shining, The (original) Carnival of Souls, Session 9, Jacob’s Ladder, and you already know about The Night of the Living Dead (which DOES have some on-screen carnage).

Jason Reagan - Death Bed: The Bed That Eats

Although I don’t enjoy the screaming genre that much, I guess I would have to say “The Sixth Sense” gave me the creepies and really smacked me with the surprise ending. Blood and gore do not impress me — I have two children so not much grosses me out. Linda Blair barfing? Try getting yacked on by a two-year-old — in the face— in the middle of a crowded department store.

One movie I want to comment on under the heading of “I Can’t Believe They Filmed It” has to be a campy flick made in the 70s but never released until recently thanks to the magic of DVD. It’s called — get ready — “Death Bed: The Bed That Eats.” I’m going to have to see this simply for the laughs — a local version of Mystery Science Theatre 3000.

Apparently, back in the 16th century, when demons apparently walked the earth (before Orkin came along and killed them off), a man killed a demon over a bed. The bed survived until the 20th Century and, you guessed it, whenever someone sleeps or performs other — um — bedtime activities on it, the possessed bed eats them, hence the catchy title.

To paraphrase comedian Patton Oswalt: That means somewhere out there was a Hollywood producer who probably rejected 100 ideas a day. But some deranged hack comes in with the script, “Death Bed: The Bed That Eats” and the producer said “Yes! You Lovecraftian genius — Oscar material, baby!”

The moral? The next time you get some wild, psychedelic idea for a book or movie, don’t let self-doubt get in the way of finishing your opus. Remember, someone backed (yes, it’s too fun not to write it again) “Death Bed: The Bed That Eats.” Keep reaching for the stars. And look for the sequel: “Knife Couch: The Sofa That Stabs.”

Mark Mitchell - The Silence of the Lambs

Okay, truth be told, I’m not what you would call a horror/scary movie aficionado. Chilling and nerve wracking moments in the theater often lead to chilling and nerve wracking dreams afterwards for yours truly. I did, however, make an exception in 1991 to watch The Silence of the Lambs. The allure of seeing Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins together on the big screen was too much to resist.

It was a great decision because it was such a great movie. In a nutshell, young FBI agent Foster visits an imprisoned murderer, Hopkins, to learn the psychology behind a psychopath called Buffalo Bill, who is kidnapping and murdering young women. Hopkins will help, but only if Foster feeds his morbid curiosity with details of her own life. A twisted relationship ensues, one that forces Foster to face her own psychological demons while still trying to catch the psychopath running free.

Melanie Davis – Pet Sematary (or The Reason I Don’t Like Scary Movies)

I admit it – I do not have a favorite scary movie. The simple fact is I do not enjoy the genre in the least. The reason is Pet Sematary. I watched that film at the tender age of eight years old. It took days for me to look at my cat the same again.

My older sister had friends over, and I wanted to stay up with them. Little did I know, I was about to have my wits scared out of me. For those of you who don’t remember this 1989 film, the tagline says it all: “Some times dead is better.”

The Creed family purchases their dream home, except for the tractor-trailers that speed past. After the cat is killed, an elderly neighbor shows the father a “special” cemetery, which will revive the dead pet. The sweet cat returns vicious. After a boy is killed by a semi, his father hopes to revive him in the same manner. An evil child – really, this is too much. Scalpel meets Achilles tendon. Enough said.

I have considered re-watching the film, now I have tacked on nearly 20 years of age. Then I remember, I can’t read a Stephen King novel, let alone watch his films.

If you are looking to scare a small child, I highly recommend adding this film to your Netflix for Halloween.

Caroline Monday - The Exorcist

I have never really been a fan of scary movies; an especially creepy episode of Law and Order can be too much for me.

My youthful imagination had no trouble thinking of things that could come and get me in the night as I slept, and I actively avoided the many spooky products marketed toward kids.

My grown up imagination, aided by news stories of abductions and a host of other sordid things that seem to happen to young single women can be quite lively, as well. I do a fine job of creeping myself out, I don’t need any help from Hollywood.

So, my choices for best horror movie are quite limited. The Exorcist, while not the only movie that made me feel paranoid as I lay awake in the dark, is really the only movie I’ve seen that could be classified as a true horror flick.

What really scared me about The Exorcist is that, as a person raised in the Christian faith, I believe in the devil. While I am no longer a very religious person, I grew up hearing Bible stories about evil spirits inhabiting human bodies, and I know that there are forces out there that cannot be explained or controlled.

Sunday school never taught me to be scared of serial killers with chain saws, but it did teach me to fear Satan. And The Exorcist, though made in 1973 and without CGI and all the special effects used in contemporary film making, was realistic enough to water those seeds that Sunday school planted.

Frank Ruggiero – Manos: The Hands of Fate

For those not keen on Spanish, the title translates to “Hands: The Hand of Fate.” And the tagline “A cult of weird, horrible people who gather beautiful women only to deface them with a burning hand” translates to garbage. Manos, best known for its appearance on the television series, Mystery Science Theater 3000, is arguably one of the worst movies ever made, directed by fertilizer salesman (really) Harold P. Warren, who also stars as the film’s protagonist or something.

Michael (Warren) and his family get lost while driving around through a sequence of stock footage, which eventually brings them to the desert. Unable to find “Valley Lodge,” the family instead stumbles across an inn of sorts. There, they meet the mysterious Torgo (John Reynolds), the caretaker whose monstrous qualities are his oversized knees and an ability to prolong awkward silences.

The family soon learns that Torgo does the evil bidding of The Master (Tom Neyman), the film’s villain, who worships the eviler spirit (we presume), Manos, and walks around, brooding, in his black cloak, prominently displaying the red hands that have been stitched onto the dark polyester every time the opportunity presents itself.

The Master has a harem of scantily clad, trash-talking women, who end up cat-fighting for a while, and then the family’s dog gets killed, and some stuff happens, they walk around in the dark, and Torgo awkwardly fondles the wife, and… well, you have to see it for yourself.

The scariest thing about Manos is that it was actually produced. That, along with its cult status, makes it worth seeing. Oh, and you get to see Torgo’s hand explode.