My Favourite Horror Films

To get into the spirit of Halloween I thought it would be a good idea to list some of my favourite horror films. If you're anything like me you'll already be thinking about what scary film you can watch on Halloween and what snacks you can buy to go with it. I created this list to share some of my horror film recommendations that I think would be perfect for a spooky night in.

Before I begin my list I must say that one of my favourite horror films is Halloween (1978) but that has purposely been left off my list as I plan to review the remake of Halloween next week and will be talking about the original in next week's blog post. Having said that if you've not seen the original Halloween I would highly recommend it.

Scream

I don't think I know anyone who hasn't seen the Scream quadrilogy or at least the first three. There's four Scream films in total but in my opinion the fourth instalment in the series wasn't as good, I still enjoyed it but I think it lost a lot of it's charm, which is what made it so good to begin with. This is probably because it was made fifteen years after the release of the first film and eleven years after Scream 3.

Scream might have been one of the first horror films I was allowed to watch when I was younger. Along with Final Destination the Scream 'trilogy' are the horror films I have the most memories of because of watching them with my sisters when I was a kid. I still love the Scream films to this day and it wasn't that long ago that I re-watched them all.

If you're not familiar with the Scream films they follow the story of Sydney Prescott, the target of Ghost Face, a masked villain who's on the loose in the small town of Woodsboro. The Scream films are more slasher films rather than straight up horror films, meaning they won't necessarily scare you or make you jump, they're just a really good watch and if you've not seen them before they kind of have a 'guess who done it' vibe going on.

SAW

Saw is a film series I avoided for years because I thought it was just a stereotypical dark, gruesome and gory film that I knew I wouldn't enjoy. I couldn't have been more wrong, I've never misjudged something as badly as I misjudged the Saw franchise. I don't even dislike gore or gruesome themes so I don't even understand why I kept turning down suggestions to watch the Saw films for as long as I did. I finally caved in and watched them about a year ago and I loved them so much, I watched them back to back and even bought the Blu-ray box set. I wouldn't actually recommend buying this though, It's weird for a Blu-ray to be such poor quality but they genuinely were, they're probably no better than the DVDs and were definitely a step down from streaming them on Netflix or Amazon Video, so they ended up being quite a disappointing purchase.

One thing that I didn't know about the Saw films is that the storyline and 'games' Jigsaw plays can be extremely thought provoking at times and I certainly didn't expect to legitimately enjoy the Saw films let alone add it to a list of my favourite horror films one day. The Saw films all revolve around John Cramer AKA Jigsaw, a killer who sets traps to physically and mentally torture his victims to provide them with the ultimate test in which if they fail, they die. All of the films in the SAW series tie together so I wouldn't advise watching them out of order.

Child's Play / Chucky

Me and my boyfriend watched all 8 of the Halloween films a few months ago and I absolutely loved them. I'd never seen Halloween before and the fact that I enjoyed them so much got me in the mood to watch more horror films I'd perhaps shrugged off or dismissed in the past. Child's Play has always been one of those films I've never been interested in, partially because I didn't know enough about it and just the fact that the idea used to creep me out when I was younger. I mean I didn't even know why or how the doll came to life, I always assumed it was just something that was unexplained, like it's just something that happens in Toy Story and that it was just an unspoken and accepted thing that Chucky was alive. I didn't know until watching them that Chucky is actually a doll that has been possessed by a convicted criminal.

The 3 Child's Play films were close to what I had expected, they're quite creepy and have enough horror elements in them to make you feel slightly on edge. Child's Play and Child's Play 2 are really enjoyable and worth a watch if you've not seen them, Child's Play 3 however I actually really didn't like, I found it really boring and I wasn't even slightly interested in the plot, it's set quite a few years after the first two films, where Andy (the lead character) is a young adult and I just don't think this worked very well.

As well as the three Child's Play films there are an additional four films, Bride of Chucky, Seed of Chucky, Curse of Chucky and Cult of Chucky. I definitely wasn't expecting these to be horror comedies but they are and they're amazing. In my opinion Bride of Chucky is the best of a good bunch, they're all shockingly funny and to be honest outrageously stupid sometimes (in a good way). If you've not seen them I would recommend watching them and if you're anything like me and don't actually know very much about them, I'd suggest just going into them not knowing what you're getting yourself into. That's what I did and I really enjoyed them.

Get Out

Due to the fact Get Out has such a deep and complex theme and narrative I didn't know whether to categorise it as a horror film or not but I wanted to include it on this list anyway because of how much I enjoyed it and how genuinely amazing it is. Get Out is probably one of the best films I've seen in years, my boyfriend and I joined Odeon Limitless about 4 months ago and have been going to the cinema a lot and I can honestly say I've not seen a film as good as Get Out for a long time and that it was so much better than anything I've seen at the cinema in the past four months.

I don't want to spoil anything so I'm actually not going to explain the plot at all in this blog post, I went into this film not knowing a single thing about it and if by chance you've not seen it yet you absolutely must watch this film. I honestly don't think another film has made me feel so uneasy and on edge as this did, it's truly incredible and I would recommend it to anyone.

Don't Breath

I've only seen Don't Breath once so far, so I'm probably due for another viewing any day now, but what I learnt from seeing it for the first time is that it's extremely good, very entertaining and the sort of horror/thriller that will have you holding your breath for the majority of it's scenes. 

It's about a group of friends who decide to burgle the house of a blind man, which you (the viewer) and they themselves assume will be an easy target as he won't be able to see them coming or even know that they are there. Little do they know, he's an army veteran with a heightened sense of hearing and skilful combat abilities. The film then follows the story of the group of friends as they try to escape the house and the threatening blind man. That's all I'm going to say about this film because I don't want to ruin the plot twists (which there are quite a few of) or spoil the experience of viewing it for the first time. 

The main thing I like about this film is that it's based around human characters and has a realistic plot, it's something that 'could' happen in real life. There are so many horror films about ghosts or demons these days that are good in their own right but for me don't have the same appeal as watching something about a threatening human being.

If you've seen all of the films on this list already or none of them take your fancy there are a few other horror/thriller films that have genuinely impressed me and that I think would be great choices for Halloween. Firstly I watched a film called Ghost Stories recently which actually creeped me out, some of the scenes are very tense and the film offers a great deal of variety because its laid out as a horror anthology with strands and links to an over arching plot. There's also films called The Babadook and Hush that I think can be found on Netflix. These are pretty terrifying but also incredibly well made and enjoyable films. Lastly, I saw A Quiet Place at the cinema and absolutely loved it, I've never seen anything like it before. I loved the way sound is such a key factor in creating suspense and in keeping the story alive. I'd highly recommend any of these and if you do check one of these out, let me know in the comments what you thought and if you had a good Halloween.

Super Mario Chocolates

It was mine and my boyfriend's 5 year anniversary at the start of the month and I made him some Super Mario Chocolates to celebrate. He loves video games and owns a huge collection of games, games consoles and gaming merchandise. He particularly loves retro games and his pretty impressive game collection that takes up most of the space in our upstairs office. I wanted to make him something homemade that was personal and unique whilst still having that 'wow factor' everyone wants their gift to have.

To make the chocolates I used a Super Mario Bros ice-cube tray/silicone mould that I found on Amazon. It has the shapes of all the iconic Mario characters and objects that I knew he would absolutely love. If I was to give the mould a rating out of 10, I'd give it a 10, the chocolates came out of the mould really easily and smoothly and ended up looking incredible.

Over the past few years I've also made game controller chocolates for Rob's (my boyfriend) birthday, skull chocolates for Halloween and Christmas themed chocolates for my friends and family last Christmas. I like using ice cube moulds because they tend to be a lot deeper, which not only means you can make bigger chocolates but that there's also room to add additional flavours and textures. In preparation for Halloween last year I created a mixture of blended Crunchy, M&M's and Peanut Butter chocolates for a fun and varied selection and everybody loved them. Rob's favourite (and to be honest, mine too) was the peanut butter ones. Peanut butter and chocolate work so well together that I couldn't resist including it again this time too.

To make the chocolates all you need to do is melt the milk and white chocolate in the microwave for about 2 minutes, stirring after the first minute to make sure it's not burning (there's nothing worse than the bitter taste of burnt chocolate). Then, using a tea spoon, fill the moulds carefully with whatever combination of chocolate or additional flavours you wish to add. In this case I wanted them to have a peanut butter core, I did this by filling half of the mould with chocolate, scooping in a little bit of peanut butter and then covering with chocolate until the mould was full. You will then need to place the chocolates in the freezer for about 25 minutes or until the chocolate is firm enough to be removed from its mould (don't attempt to remove the chocolates before they have fully hardened as you risk ruining their shape and design).

Personalised chocolates like this are really easy and affordable to make, I used a few slabs of 30p supermarket branded chocolate to create these and they looked (and tasted!) really good. I made two full moulds worth of chocolates and it was plenty, he's still eating them now - 2 weeks after our anniversary.

In case anyone was wondering, I also got him a few other bits too, I think we both went a little bit OTT this anniversary because it was our first one since moving in together. He had secretly pre-ordered me Marvel's Spider-Man for the PS4 and had saved it to surprise me with on our anniversary and I enjoyed it so much that it's now my new favourite game. I've achieved 100% completion and got the platinum trophy for it already (until the DLC is released in a couple of weeks anyway).

I hope you enjoyed reading this little blog post, I had loads of fun making these chocolates and would love to know what you think, leave a comment down below and let me know if you're thinking of making some of these or doing some research into what moulds you can find.