Halloween is finally here. Time to get the costumes stitched up and the candy bowls full of sugar because All Hallows Eve night is coming fast. What will people wear? Who will they be trick or treating with? Will people even go trick or treating at all? All of these are very important questions with very important answers, but no answer is as important as the answer to the question, “What is your favorite Halloween movie?”

 This Oct. 31, millions of Americans of all ages will gather around with family and close friends on their couches and sofas to watch all kinds of Halloween-themed movies, from scary to funny. After filling their stomachs up with candy they will wearily slip out of their costumes and turn to their favorite streaming service. There is just one problem left: who will get the remote control?

If Dad or Mom gets a hold of the remote control it’s straight to the classic films such as Halloween (Micheal Myers), The Exorcist, Ghostbusters, Nightmare on Elm Street, and The Shining. If baby brother gets the remote control it may be newer and funnier releases such as The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ghostbusters, and Hotel Transylvania. But what would a high schooler do with the remote? Teens might find the in-between areas where the movie is scary enough to be entertaining but new enough to be relevant. Movies like The Conjuring, IT, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and The Blair Witch Project. 

Diving deeper into the idea of what the different generations of people thought about different Halloween movies, here are some differences between Mickey Campbell, a Social Studies teacher here at Dunbar, and Braxton Miller, a Junior here at Dunbar, which illustrate how big a difference the age gap really matters when it comes to Halloween movie opinions.

As could be expected, the answers to each of the movies varied tremendously. Braxton tended to go against the classic movies, giving It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown a “0 out of 10” and saying “It’s old.” Mr. Campbell, on the other hand, tended to lean towards the older ones, giving The Shining an “8.2 out of 10” and calling it  “scary.”

Although people might not all agree on the quality of movies from different eras, something they can all agree that watching Halloween movies is a tradition that should never die.