Courtney Balcombe

News Editor

clb6264@psu.edu

For years people of all ages partake in the tradition on All Hallow’s Eve, some even start as soon as September. However, it doesn’t matter when you celebrate, it matters if you enjoy it and have fun.

For children, Halloween tends to be the same every year. You get your parents to take you to the Halloween store, then convince them to get the costume you want, and finally trick or treat.

For teenagers, it’s kind of the same, except there are the Halloween parties your friends throw. So you do the same things as the children do, but you also have to convince them to let you go out, or you have the kind of parents that just let you go out without convincing them.

For the college years, maybe you’re on your own with the costume, but at least you can get whatever you want. Maybe you could even choose to DIY your costume because you found cute boots you want to have a reason to wear.

No matter the age, there are also Halloween favorites and horror movies. The slim difference can be that Halloween favorites are something you wouldn’t mind watching with a 4-year-old.

Halloween movies tend to also be the same movie each year, I tend to watch the older films we grew up with. Some of my favorite Halloween movies include:

• Labyrinth, 1986 (Netflix)
• Hocus Pocus, 1993 (Disney+)
• Nightmare Before Christmas, 1993 (Disney+)
• Halloweentown trilogy, 1998 (Disney+)
• Haunted Mansion, 2003 (Disney+)

However, my horror movies tend to be even older than those movies with only some newer ones. The older ones include:

• The Shining, 1980 (HBO Max)
• Friday the 13th collection, 1980
• A Nightmare on Elm Street collection, 1985

The newer films include:

• Get Out, 2017 (Hulu)
• It, 2017 (Hulu)
• It: Chapter II, 2019 (Hulu)
• Us, 2019 (Hulu)
• Dr. Sleep, 2019 (HBO Max)

It’s easy to tell the Halloween movies are a bit more family-friendly, but the horror movies are not so much.

The Shining is a bit more intense for some viewers because Jack Nicholson plays his part so well. Even in the scene, many know without even watching, “Here’s Johnny,” Shelley Duvall was actually terrified because they did not tell her how this scene was going to play out.

Now some of my favorites, you could look at and call jump scares. I mean in the Friday the 13th movies, it’s always the same and so obvious when Jason is going to kill his victims. The same is said for A Nightmare on Elm Street since all of Freddy’s victims either die or go crazy.

I do believe that the horror movies made in the 1980s are less scary than the ones made since 2014. I mean Get Out could be taken in many ways but it is a creepy movie, the same can be said for Us.

However, one thing is for sure, everyone enjoys watching some kind of Halloween or horror movie, whether it’s just in October or year-round.