Halloween is just around the corner, here’s some great horror rental ideas for everyone, please feel free to leave comments and list some of your favorite modern horror flicks.

1.  Halloween– No, not the Rob Zombie remake, the original classic that started it all.  John Carpenter’s original slasher classic that introduced the world to an unstoppable boogeyman named Michael Myers and also focused more on atmosphere than gore.  A good film for everyone sick of the current cycle of torture porn films.

2.  The Texas Chainsaw Massacre– The original film from Tobe Hooper, nowhere near as violent and gory as widely reported when it was first released by religious loons and the far right, it remains visceral and disturbing to this very day.

3.  A Nightmare on Elm Street– Wes Craven’s low budget but high concept classic about a burned pedophile boogeyman that can get in our dreams.  I also recommend the highly underrated Wes Craven’s New Nightmare as far as sequels to this film go.  It’s misunderstood and under-appreciated by the  basement-dwelling and bedwetting posse of current emo goth horror film fans.

4.  Scream– Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson reinvented the modern slasher flick with this witty horror film that both worked as a send-up of tired slasher cliches, and as a slasher film on its own twisted level.  Whether you love it or loathe it, it was clever, hip and funny, and will be well-regarded long after the imitators fade from memory like a distant childhood dream.

5.  28 Days Later– This is the visionary zombie flick from the excellent Danny Boyle of Trainspotting fame.  It has characters you actually care about and the early shots of a desolate downtown London in broad daylight are creepy and hard to shake.

6.  Interview with a Vampire– This is a handsomely mounted and well-acted film based on Anne Rice’s phenomenal bestseller.  The acting hits the mark and the extended sequence where Pitt’s brooding and tortured Louis and Dunst’s Claudia meet a troupe of vampires (including an effective and very gay Armand played by Antonio Banderas) who have their own underground world is amongst the best stuff in any modern vampire flick.

7.  Oldboy– This ultra-popular Korean revenge flick isn’t really a horror film, but its about the horrors and inhumanity that lay dormant inside all of us.  A brutal and unforgettable twist ending seals the deal as maybe the most punishing film I’ve seen in many years.

8.  Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me– This is another film that isn’t a traditional horror film, but it will absolutely scare the pants off of you.  David Lynch’s disturbing film dealing with the final days of Laura Palmer where the sweetness of small town USA is peeled away (a Lynch speciality) to reveal a father who is raping his daughter (the amazing Ray Wise), creepy demons, dancing dwarfs, drugs, sexual violence and molestation.  Fans of the whimsical series rejected this film for being too nasty and graphic (the film begins symbolically with a TV set being smashed and a woman screaming for her life), but I’ll never forget the film.

9.  The Lost Boys– This is the definitive 80s vampire film with a hip soundtrack, excellent cinematography, and some nifty effects and an overall sense of style and fun.  When I was 12 years old, this was my favorite film, and who could blame me.

10.  The Descent– This is the newest film on my list, and the best horror flick in years.  The Descent has some real scares, great atmosphere and its the real deal in feminist horror.  This is the film for people who whine that horror film directors “hate women” and use them only to be maimed, tortured, or disrobed.  Director Neil Marshall gives us a group of women who are trapped in a cave and fight for their very survival.  There are no men around to rescue them, and frankly, they don’t need any.

• Tweet