Trick or Treat: Movie Prescriptions for Halloween

Nothing says Halloween more like the time-honored tradition of settling in for a scary movie. Kristen Meinzer is a culture critic and host of the podcast "By The Book" and Rafer Guzman is a film critic for Newsday. Together Kristen and Rafer are the co-hosts of the podcast, Movie Therapy, and they joined The Takeaway to give their picks for Halloween movie prescriptions for different occasions.

KRISTEN’S PICKS:

Movie prescription for a romantic night:
Warm Bodies (2013)
A zombie romantic comedy.
After a highly unusual zombie saves a still-living girl from an attack, the two form a relationship that sets in motion events that might transform the entire lifeless world.

Movie prescription for family viewing:
Cruella (2021)
Cruella isn't specifically a Halloween movie, but it has that Halloweeny goth vibe and loads of fabulous costumes...as well as our lead's fabulous disguise!

Movie prescription for satire/comedy lovers:
Velvet Buzzsaw (2019)
A satirical horror comedy about the art world - from the snobbery to the wealth to all the people who take themselves way too seriously - starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Zawe Ashton, Rene Russo, Toni Collette, Daveed Diggs, Nitya Vidyasagar, Tom Sturridge, Natalia Dyer, Billy Magnussen, Mig Macario, and John Malkovich.

RAFER’S PICKS:

Date horror movie:
Night of the Comet (1984)
Little known horror-comedy from 1984. Great valley-girls-versus-zombies premise, fun cast (Dick Rude, Mary Woronov) and a rare Hispanic leading man. Cute, funny, scary and romantic. Joss Whedon cited it as one inspiration for “Buffy and the Vampire Slayer.”

Horror movie with the kids:
Gremlins (1984)
I still love this movie, which I saw as a kid, and I was just delighted by it. During the pandemic, I rented a movie theater for my son’s birthday, and this is what we saw. I was really happy to see them jump out of their chairs one minute and then crack up the next. Plus it takes place during Christmas, so it’s really an all-fall holiday treat.

Best ‘70s horror movie you probably haven’t seen:
The Brood (1979)
Early David Cronenberg, an extremely weird movie about a divorce that leads to the psychic birth of demonic children who roam around killing adults. Great cast, with Samantha Eggar as a kind of queen bee of the demon-spawn, and Oliver Reed as the leader of a 70s self-help cult that goes too far. Cronenberg wrote it following his own divorce, and it came out the same year as Kramer Vs Kramer, hilariously. Roger Ebert called it “reprehensible trash.”

Nothing says Halloween more like the time-honored tradition of settling in for a scary movie. Kristen Meinzer is a culture critic and host of the podcast "By The Book" and Rafer Guzman is a film critic for Newsday. Together Kristen and Rafer are the co-hosts of the podcast, Movie Therapy, and they joined The Takeaway to give their picks for Halloween movie prescriptions for different occasions.