Top Five

Halloween Movies

Drunken bridge-and-tunnel kids at the Halloween Parade aren't the only scary thing in town this weekend. Here, five cinematic frights, from classy to camp.

By Ben Kaplan (Email)
Published Oct 28, 2002

1. The Silence of the Lambs

The Landmark Sunshine shows Jonathan Demme's five-time Oscar winner -- still the best in the Hannibal series -- at midnight.
139–143 East Houston Street
212-358-0573.

2. The Fall of the House of Usher

The French surrealist Jean Epstein's adaptation of the Poe story plays in a double feature with Luis Buñuel's Eating Sea Urchins, a sure deterrent to candy-corn bingeing.
Gramercy Theater
127 East 23rd Street
212-777-4900.

3. The Bad Seed

Mervyn LeRoy, who produced The Wizard of Oz, was also a prolific director, and his 1956 nightmare about a demonic first-grader influenced everything from The Exorcist to The Sixth Sense.
Clearview's Chelsea
260 West 23rd Street
212-777-FILM#597.

4. Death Line

More frightening than any possible MTA fare hike is the cannibal (Hugh Armstrong) who haunts the London Underground in Gary Sherman's early-seventies gem.
Film Society of Lincoln Center
70 Lincoln Center Plaza
212-875-5600.

5. The Evil Dead 2

Back in Sam Raimi's pre-Spider-Man days, he made films like this Bruce Campbell gross-out classic, a yell-at-the-screen splatterfest that will benefit greatly from its midnight start.
The Screening Room
54 Varick Street
212-334-2100.