This Halloween, Why not try something a little different…..

So its Friday night, the 31st October. You don't have work tomorrow and there won't be any kiddies knocking on your door asking for sweets or money as we live in financial crisis and somebody is bound to end up stabbed. Why don't you hold your own mini film festival?? There aren't any good horror films on TV or at the cinema after all (Saw V? Pfff)

Starting at 7pm (It'll be dark by then as the clocks have changed you know) and going until 7am the following day, you should be able to fit in 6 films at least and still have enough time to make yourself a tea or vodka with redbull.

Now if I had to do this, and bear in mind this is a website about underrated/cult movies, it would go a little something like this:

7pm - 9pm The Classic: Fright Night (1985)

You cant have a mini horror movie festival and not have a vampire film so why not kick it off with one of the best horror films of the eighties. A few years before The Lost Boys and Near Dark made vampires cool again Tom Holland directed this little gem which is so simple and yet so effective it beggars belief they haven't remade it yet. I watched this again recently and it holds up pretty well, sure the music and fashions have dated it but its such good fun with great characters performed by likeable actors. Despite the fact that there is a lot of comedy it gets quite frightening in the last twenty minutes or so with some great gore effects which haven't dated as much as you would think. Worth a look for fans of eighties teen movies and great vampire stories.

Alternatives: Bram Stokers Dracula (1992), Near Dark (1987)

9pm - 11pm The Monster Movie: The Relic (1997)

The Relic is a great, great monster movie and everyone who has seen it will agree with me. For starters its amazing nobody ever thought to set a horror movie in a big creepy museum before 1996 and it also has a great Stan Winston created beast in the Kothoga, an beast that has to survive by consuming human brains. When this movie came out, going to see it on a Saturday afternoon in May 1997 was one of the teenage filmgoing experiences that really stands out in my mind. I think it was the fact that as the film was a 15 I had no idea it would contain the level of gore that it did and back in my teens I was all about the gore. It also has Tom Sizemore in one of his few leading roles before he became a crack head who releases his own celebrity porn and the beautiful Penelope Ann Miller (what happened to her?) Along with 2010 this is one of journeyman director Peter Hyams best movies. Its amazing that the same director is also capable of shit like A Sound Of Thunder and Timecop. Everyone has an off day I guess.

Alternatives: The Host (2006), Godzilla: Final Wars (2004), Nightbreed (1990)

11pm - 1am The Ghost Story: The Devils Backbone (2001)

The hours of 11 until 1am always seem very creepy to me and what better way to indulge that creeping feeling than watching a ghost story. Prior to Pans Labyrinth and after Mimic, Guillermo Del Toro made this Spanish language ghost story which like Pans Labyrinth, is also set during war time. The general public still have not discovered this movie it seems although those that enjoyed his Oscar winning classic would do well to check it out, Del Toro has referred to this and Pans Labyrinth as brother and sister. The characters are all primarily children with the adults all being untrustworthy sorts capable of murder and other sins. Had it not been for a few graphic scenes it could have been a great kids movie. Shares a lot of similarities with The Orphanage and The Others which are two great Spanish language ghost stories that could also fill this slot.

Alternatives: Stir of Echoes (1999), The Others (2001), The Haunting (1963)

1am - 3am The Gore Fest: Tales from the Crypt - Demon Knight (1995)

You will probably need a bit of a pick me up by 1am and there's nothing like some hardcore gore to give you that buzz. Tales from the crypt was never the big deal in the UK that it was in the US and that's a shame. The installments that they released on VHS in the early nineties were all solid and much better than the similar Masters of Horror/Fear Itself series. They only ever made two Tales From The Crypt features sadly (From Dusk Til Dawn was once positioned to be a part of this franchise trivia fans) as they ballsed it up with the godawful second movie Bordello Of Blood. Demon Knight was the first movie released in the Spring of 1995 and as the competition was unwatchable its the best. I saw this when I was in my aforementioned gore hound phase and loved every minute. It has William Sadler and Billy Zane both hamming it up and an early sleazy performance from Thomas Haden Church. Plus it had creatures who grew out of pools of slime and had to have their eyes destroyed to kill them. Severed limbs flew everywhere and a kick ass soundtrack filled the theatre. Yes if you are sixteen and reading this then this could well end up being one of your favorites too. Is this even available on DVD anymore?

Alternatives: Braindead (1992), Feast (2005), Evil Dead 2 (1987)

3am - 5am The Dark Fairy Tale: The Passion of Darkly Noon (1995)

I could have had Pans Labyrinth in this slot by I have used up my Guillermo Del Toro film two choices back. I watched this one night on Sky Movies back in 1996 and it freaked me out and haunted me for weeks after. Basically the fairy tale like story surrounds this couple that live in the woods, she (Ashley Judd) is a beautiful woman named Callie who lives with the mute Clay (Viggo Mortensen) who is also her lover. Clay is off on one of his hikes or something and an exhausted man named Darkly Noon (Brendan Fraser) stumbles through the woods having just escaped from some kind of religious cult that ended when the FBI stormed the barracks. Callie nurses Darkly back to health and he falls in love with her. This confuses him as he has never had these kinds of feelings before having come from a strict religious background. When Clay returns Darkly starts his descent into madness which ends with him wrapping himself in barbed wire and fleeing into the forest. In the forest he meets a woman who tells him that she is Clays mother and Callie is a witch who has him under her spell. Darkly starts talking to his dead parents and then ends up going back to kill the couple with a big axe. Its an amazing film and the kind of film that is made for you to stumble across on late night TV. Its really well shot and is a reminder of the talent that Brendan Fraser and Ashley Judd once had before they sold out and did endless kids films and glossy thrillers.Writer/Director Philip Ridley only ever made one film before this; The Reflecting Skin (1990) and now finally over ten years after Darkly Noon he makes a comeback next year with Heartless about a man who is tricked into a deal with a demon. Seriously you may be so tired by this point that it seems like you are dreaming this film and that's how it feels very much like a dream you had between sleep and awake on a summers night. You cant get this on DVD though I just checked....doh.

Alternatives: Running Scared (2005), Pans Labyrinth (2006), Snow White - A Tale Of Terror (1997)

5am - 7am The Mind Fuck: Survive Style 5+ (2004)

To lull you into sleep and give you some awesome Halloween dreams you need something bizarre for the last film. I would usually have something by Lynch or Miike in this slot but I saw something recently that was so bizarre, macabre and finally heartwarming that I had to include it here. Survive Style 5+ is a Japanese film that got a very limited release in the west despite the fact it stars Vinnie Jones and Sonny Chiba. The plot is like Pulp Fiction on acid, it follows several stories and characters that intersect over the course of the film. The first thread is about a man who kills his wife and buries her in the woods, each time she comes back to life and waits for him at home yet somehow she is different each time, able to breathe fire one time and then fire her arms like missiles the next. The next follows an advertising executive as she comes up with one rubbish idea after the next. We also meet an office worker who is hypnotized into thinking he is a bird and stays that way and a trio of thieves who all realize how much they mean to each other. Amongst this walks Vinnie Jones as a British hitman with a Japanese translator who asks everyone what their purpose is before killing them, he may well be the grim reaper but its never confirmed. Yes its very weird and like David Lynch's best you are never given any answers. The trick is to just go with it because come the end you won't know what you just saw, but you'll want to watch it again. The visuals are amazing and it has a great soundtrack too. Not enough people have seen this one but we need to all see it now so that we can build its reputation and give it a larger audience.

Alternatives: Inland Empire (2006), Gozu (2002), Jacobs Ladder (1990).

And then to Sleep...........

Anyone got any recommendations?