Ryan Nicholson’s Halloween Watch List
As far as this journalist is concerned, Ryan Nicholson is the Bad Boy of Horror. I suggest you check out his films Gutterballs and Live Feed, and you won’t see one ounce of pandering to the audience. Ryan was kind enough to give Killer Film his hellish picks for Halloween.
Every Halloween season means essential viewing of iconic horror films for many horror fans, myself included. Let me share five movies that penetrate my dvd player every October and why these movies are so well worn. I’ll start with the obvious, John Carpenter’s all-time classic Halloween. Horror movies do not get better than this.  Halloween not only invented a legendary screen villain introducing Michael Myers to accepting fans worldwide, it set the standard for stalk and slash style pictures, very rarely matched. Some will balk at me for my next pick but I do enjoy following Halloween with it’s lessor sequel. Light on scares but easy on the eyes with it’s gratuitous sex and violence.  Halloween II makes for a fun watch after the intense viewing of the original. Coming out nearly 3 years later but sequentially taking place mere moments after Dr. Loomis shoots Myers multiple times, Halloween II goes for the shock factor rather than scares and I dig it. Moving on, something about October brings out the anthology in me. Scary story-telling in a narrative fashion with a kick-ass wrap-around. George A. Romero and Stephen King gave us Creepshow and I thank them for it by repeated viewings. The tales are so well done with such a stellar cast, this movie has staying power and will be with horror fans for a lifetime. Tom Savini’s make-up effects were all encompassing. With gore, drowned zombies, “Fluffy” the furry little bastard and vegetation man, famously played by King himself, Savini rocked out with his cock out, well, make-up brush at least and showed what creating monsters and killing people is all about. Moving past such classics, I also watch more obscurities such as Jim Ban Bebbers’s cult-classic Deadbeat at Dawn, a movie that goes for the nutsack and doesn’t let up until the credits role. JVB he did everything on this one. Played the leading man, created the FX and did some seriously bad-ass stunts and fight choreography. Not to mention write and direct it! Finally, I will watch Jim Muro’s Street Trash every Halloween because it is also one movie that inspires me to this day. It is one movie that is as depraved as it gets and isn’t afraid to fuck your eyeballs out while you endure the sadistic humour and uber-gore that splashes across your tv screen. The movie is a success on many levels and is another one that has serious shelf-life simply due to it’s uncompromising nature. It knows it’s as un-p.c. as it gets and it just runs with it like the dude running out of the building, cock-out and all, unashamed and amused. Ah shit pal, there’s five for ya. Enjoy!
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