School is back in session! With it comes new things to learn and new social anxieties to realize. And if you’re especially lucky, there may be an interesting new face hanging around the fringes of your circle of friends, wanting nothing more than to get to know you (and possibly bestow some sort of witch’s curse upon you or alien slug-monster inside of you). Give your fancy book-learnin’ a rest and take a gander at these here back-to-school spookshows!
10) The Woods (2006)
When Bruce Campbell is your dad and he ships you off to a creepy all-girls school in the wilderness, you can pretty much assume that something bad is going to happen. There’s a foreboding headmistress (Patricia Clarkson, no less), mean girls and an ominous witch legend. is it just the new school jitters, or an actual curse? Imagine the setting and concept of Suspiria, mixed with the time period and character focus of Girl, Interrupted, minus the gore. For some reason, The Woods was not given a theatrical release, instead being shipped direct to bargain DVD bins everywhere and being largely forgotten, but it’s worth a watch if you can handle the slow pace.
9) Suspiria
Dario Argento’s 1977 pastel gorefest is a must for any “new kid at school” movie list. You don’t have to be a world-class ballerina to enjoy this classic Italian horror, though I’m sure it helps… I will never understand why someone at this dance academy decided it was a good idea to store all that razor wire in one room. Come on now!
8) Phenomena
Didn’t get enough Argento? Well, good, here’s another: 1985’s Phenomena. More weird Italian boarding schools, more ominous headmistresses, more Goblin soundtracks, and this time, Donald Pleasance and a razor-wielding chimpanzee. Really. Thrill at young Jennifer Connelly’s bad acting and the disturbing amounts of live bugs they used! All of the usual Argento plotholes are here, so it’s best to just sit back and not question anything. So, basically higher education in general.
7) Child’s Play 3
Time travels differently in the Child’s Play universe (much like it did during Chem 111 for me), with the third movie taking place eight years after the events of Child’s Play 2, though only a year passed in our time. Andy Barclay is understandably messed up after his previous run-ins with Chucky, and finds himself at a military academy. A newly-reassembled Chucky follows and sets his rubbery sights on a young recruit to be his new fleshsuit. It’s a thoroughly run-of-the-mill killer doll film, but worth watching if you’ve got 90 minutes to kill and a thing for foul-mouthed toys.
6) Disturbing Behavior
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vPdDyROQJM
After the death of his brother, James Marsden moves to a sleepy Pacific Northwest town with his parents and sister (Katharine Isabelle in overalls, by the way. Overalls.) Even his chiseled features can’t get him in with the cool kids, so he slums it with a paranoid stoner, a Powder stand-in, and gothy Katie Holmes. If that sentence doesn’t illustrate how insanely 90s this film is, I don’t know what would. There’s a convoluted plot about mind controlled teens too, but the plot is secondary to William Sadler’s Rainman impression. How bad does this town suck if your only romantic interest is Katie Holmes? Poor James Marsden.
5) The Faculty
As mentioned earlier, sometimes you gotta watch out for those mind-controlling alien slug monsters, though it seems odd that they would attack a small town in Ohio of all places, during an Indian summer drought of all times. I mean, this species is intelligent enough to master space travel, but not smart enough to wait until springtime when it rains every day? Kevin Williamson must’ve been a bit over-busy on Dawson’s Creek to do a logic-check on this plot, which is basically new girl shows up, stops people from beating up Elijah Wood, stops Josh Hartnett’s amphetamine business, gets gothy Clea Duvall to shower, and teaches the T-1000 to be a little easier on his football team.
4) Fright Night 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uYdPX2EG5U
Almost all the stuff you loved about Fright Night, college edition! Charley Brewster and Peter Vincent are once again thrown together to take down a sexy female vampire instead of Prince Humperdink. If you start waking up from frat parties with a killer hangover and really gross hickeys, you might want to brush up on your whittling skills and grab a couple bottles of Garlique.
3) The Craft
Sometimes the only thing that can make you feel comfortable at a new school is to join a coven of witches. Is it weird that this trope comes up 3 times on this list, or does it just show how likely this scenario really is? I never moved around, so I can’t say, but Robin Tunney sure knows how to pick her friends – or at least, her friends know how to pick her. There’s complainer-to-cutiepie Neve Campbell, token Rachel True, and trailer chic Fairuza Balk. If they were X-Men, their powers would be skin-shedding, racism-finding, and the ability to float 4 inches off the ground and kill your drunk stepdad, respectively. That’s the kind of horrors that await anyone who tries to join their clique, so you have been warned.
2) Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge
If your family moves into the town where a bunch of teens died in their sleep, CHECK THE BASEMENT FURNACE. There will invariably be a Freddy glove and directions on how to win over your crush (who looks oddly similar to Meryl Streep) by killing your classmates at her pool party. Score! I’ll never know why they went with Freddy’s Revenge instead of The Man Inside Me, but if you’re looking for tips on how to fit in as the new kid in town, look no further!
1) The Lost Boys
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_lwtRMg0ts
Of all of the new towns in all of the movies listed here, Santa Clara has to be the coolest. There’s a carnival every day on the boardwalk, a well-stocked comic store, oiled-up saxophone dudes and gypsy vampires. You can have a new girlfriend with big hair and mom jeans, while your brother pals around with Corey Feldman; there is literally no downside to this scenario. Just don’t touch Grandpa’s root beers and double-thick Oreo cookies or there’ll be hell to pay.
Honorable mention:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 1 episode 1, because it’s hard to top Buffy’s first day in Sunnydale. New friends, new town, new vampire menace… Pretty standard Hellmouth stuff.
So, what do you think? Did I miss any hidden horror gems in the bottom of my moving boxes? Leave a comment!