Throwback Thursday: Five Awesomely Strange Unforgettable Halloween Movies

Halloween is one week away! In celebration, I’d like to share five of the most unforgettable (strange) Halloween movies for this Throwback Thursday and inspire some last-minute costume ideas.

5. The Addams Family (1991)

The dark comedic award winning film starring Raul Julia (Gomez) and Anjelica Huston (Morticia) features a bizarre family unlike any other. The movie is about a con artist and her son who take advantage of Fester, Gomez’s brother who’s been missing for 25 years, to steal the Addams Family fortune. Each character has a unique personality. Who could forget Pugsley or his younger sister, Wednesday? They called fun playing with torture games and dynamite. How about the family servant, Thing (a free-standing hand with no body)? So creepy!

4. Ghostbusters (1984)

The film starred Harold Ramis, Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd who played (ghostly) exterminators in the Big Apple. The movie was #1 for five weeks straight. The main reason why I remember Ghostbusters is because of its theme song, “Who You Gonna’ Call?” which was #1 on the Billboard singles chart for three weeks.

3. Gremlins (1984)

This horror comedy film is about small, evil creatures. The father, Randall Peltzer (Hoyt Axton) buys a creature known as a Mogwai (the first stage of the gremlin life cycle) and gives it to his son, Billy (Zach Galligan) who names it Gizmo (voiced by Howie Mandel). If there’s anything to remember from the movie it’s that Billy must follow specific instructions to care for Gizmo: never expose it to bright light (which will kill it), never get it wet (which will make it multiply) and never, ever feed it after midnight (bad things will happen). See for yourself in the clip below.

2. Beetlejuice (1988)

A recently deceased couple (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis) become ghosts and haunt their home. They hire Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton) to try and scare away the family who moves into their house (The Deetzes) but aren’t too successful. The film features plenty of strange scenes; here’s the weirdest one I found. I do think it would make for a great Halloween costume (now, if I can only convince my boyfriend to join me)!

1. Hocus Pocus (1993)

This is my all-time favorite Halloween movie – even Buzzfeed listed “23 Reasons why Hocus Pocus is the Best Halloween Movie of all Time”. The Sanderson Sisters–Winifred, Mary and Sarah–are one of a kind! After all, they did wait 300 years (after being executed for practicing witchcraft) to come back to life and put a spell on Salem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E816_PNfIVg

Let us know if you’ve been inspired to dress up as a character in any of these movies this Halloween, and feel free to upload your costume photos to our Facebook page!

Cover Photo Source: Kesu 
Photo Source 1: Daantjuh92 via Wikimedia Commons

Nicole Hernandez is the social media manager at SJG. She’s a Chicagoan who graduated from DePaul University with a B.A. in Public Relations & Advertising and minor in Journalism. Nicole is known to her peers as being online all the time –  while on her spare time you can find her taking footage on her phone while she’s rocking out at music festivals. She’s also training to be the new water girl at Chicago Bulls games (in her dreams).