DVD Reviews: Pick of the best scary flicks to rent this Hallows' Eve

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 26: It’s that time of year again when the air chills the bones and rings with the haunting cries of the undead.

We have pulled together a list of petrifying parties and ghoulish gatherings taking place across the island.

There is everything from fearsome fun days for the kiddies to fancy dress events and underwater pumpkin competitions.

The girls from Lush offer devilish tips on this year’s top make-up trends and the guys down at Games + Flix select the scariest rental DVDs for the Hallowe’en holiday.

With All Hallows Eve less than a week away, we thought that we would list our top five favourite horror movies. Horror movies, broadly defined are those movies that create a strong emotional reaction by playing on our primal fears. Some horrors are in the realm of the supernatural, others bloody and other still are comedies, all however make us jump and leave the lights on.

5. Friday the 13th (1980) – Even though Jason is not even the killer in this movie, one of horror’s most infamous characters was created. Yes, there are some seriously cheesy elements in this movie, (especially the 1980’s fashions) but the final scene when a deformed Jason leaps out of the water still makes you jump 10 feet into the air.

4. The Shining (1980) – “Here’ s Johnny!” One of Stephen Kings most successful novels, its also the scariest of his books to be turned a film. Jack Nicholson takes his family to an isolated hotel for the winter where an evil spirit turns dad into a psycho while his son has visions of past and future violence. Very hard to sleep after watching this one.

3. Silence of the Lambs (1991) – Well served with fava beans and nice Chianti. Hannibal Lecter is the silver screens most iconic villain, a serial killer with a doctorate working with FBI agent Clarice Starling to catch another serial killer. Twenty years after Anthony Hopkins won an Oscar for his performance, this movie remains scary without being overly graphic with gore; it’s the psychological tension between Hannibal and Clarice that sends chills down your back. Watching Hannibal you get a premonition that there are really seemingly normal people in our midst who are serial killers.

2. Psycho (1960) – Alfred Hitchcock’s classic is the story of crazy Norman Bates and his even crazier mother. With its memorable music, the scene with Norman holding the knife in silhouette against the shower curtain and blood swirling down the drain is as famous a scene as there ever was. Many horror pictures have used elements from Psycho – in particular the psychotic mother/son relationship and pretty girls stabbed in showers elements, but none have come close to capturing the tension and nerve-wracking experience that Psycho still delivers 50 years later.

1. The Exorcist (1973) – Warning do not watch this movie by your self in the dark. The premise, a little girl possessed by demons is terrifying by itself but the real scares happen because the story is really about the intangible concept of faith and our belief in heaven and hell. What ever your thoughts of religion and God, every society at every time has always had some concept of an afterlife where righteous people go heaven and evil people go to hell. Because you can’t defeat demons with knives or guns it triggers a very deep primordial fear in our brains that Satan really does exist.