Halloween 2025: Horror Movie Reviews!

A sampling of terrifying treats with bite-sized cAndy reviews & recs!

Mirror, Mirror (1990, dir. Marina Sargenti)

As if you need anything beyond the fact that this movie stars Karen BLACK and RAINBOW Harvest to go watch it. (Sadly, my partner vetoed Rainbow as a potential kid name. To be fair, Rainbow Greene would be a tough draw.)

In this horror film with queer undertones and shades of Heathers and even Election, Rainbow Harvest is basically Winona Ryder meets Boy George playing Wednesday Addams without the confidence and supportive/monster family, perhaps because she is cursed with one of cinema’s most putrid hats.

This just might be my favorite horror discovery this Spooky Season.

Trick or Treat (1986, dir. Charles Martin Smith)

Coming out in 1986, a year before Slumber Party Massacre II, the mistitled Trick or Treat is basically “what if Alice Cooper died and became Freddy Krueger?” A haunted vinyl that leads to a zombie rockstar slasher is exactly what I needed.

There’s a lot of tension in where the film is going with the nerd outcast — is he taking the red pill, becoming an incel, a school shooter? I don’t want to spoil the journey, but I wouldn’t be recommending it if it went to The Bad Place.

Any producers who want to remake this film but with a Taylor Swift knockoff, hit me up.

Shakma (1990, dir. Hugh Parks, Tom Logan)

An animal rights horror film, where Roddy McDowall and his geeky med students (including Tina from Elm Street) play a D&D-like game in their office building after hours. The titular Shakma isn’t happy he was A) experimented on and B) not invited to play.

Of course, toxic masculinity is what dooms them, as the Final Boy constantly refuses and belittles help from women on the mantle of being the male protector. His comeuppance is satisfying.

The Dark Half (1993, dir. George A. Romero)

George A. Romero adapts one of (many) Stephen King stories that explores alcoholism and writing.

I came away wondering if we’ve let Timothy Hutton down. Kicks off his career with Ordinary People and several other great roles and then, what… Leverage?

Amy Madigan is wonderfully, unfathomably supportive and faithful to Writer Who Conjures a Real-Life Serial Killer here. Is she America’s Mom?

“What if there are other things I’ve done that I can’t remember?” is a question that has haunted me over the years, particularly with my college blackouts. This film helped give me some space to explore necessary shadow work with more to come.