Halloween night was always a favorite as a kid—and as a dad, when our kids were old enough to enjoy it. Dressing up is always fun, and, like reading fairy tales, I think traipsing about the neighborhood after dark trying to scare friends and family (not to mention the delight in a being scared and then laughing about it afterward) helps children learn to manage their fears.

Plus, CANDY! (Of course.)

Now all but Lily have left the nest, and she is more inclined to roam the neighborhood with her middle-schooler friends than with her parents. I stayed home this year to hand out candy. I created a giant spider from three pumpkins, two gourds, eight long and crooked birch branches, and a length of rope; this Arachno-Lantern and Lily’s Schnoz-o-Lantern greeted the children and teens who haunted our doorstep, and I got to enjoy the comments and the costumes, plus two good, old-fashioned scary movies on the over-the-air MOVIES! television channel.

I’m not a big horror movie guy, especially these days. Scenes of torture and gore are not my speed; I prefer a little drama (we loved A Quiet Place), a lot of humor (Shaun of the Dead was a guilty pleasure), or a classic, somewhat campy, monster movie. The latter is what I got on All Hallows Eve.

THE BLOB (1958)

For a week prior to Halloween, the MOVIES! channel had been advertising scary movies all day on Halloween, plus an upcoming Steve McQueen “King of Cool” film fest the following week. When I flipped on the TV on October 31 and saw McQueen on screen, I was initially confused, but after a few moments, I began to feel the prickling sensation of something lurking in the dark corners of my memory.

Many (many) years ago, when I was a youngster, I watched an old movie called The Blob while visiting my grandparents’ farm. There was only one TV in the house, a big, wood-clad console in the main room, and I have no idea how we managed to have this movie on. But I remember certain scenes of the titular monster, a gigantic, ravenous, relentless reddish ooze—like instant pudding meets thick ketchup meets canned cranberry sauce—trapping, engulfing, and dissolving people while a band of teens tried to warn an unbelieving adult population.

I remember it being campy enough to laugh about, and icky enough to stick with you nearly forty years later. In other words, perfect Halloween watching.

And, as it turns out, The Blob was Steve McQueen’s first leading role in a movie. He brings more presence to the film than it deserves, but it may be the result of his age (a 28-year-old playing a misunderstood high-schooler) and who he became, rather than who he was at the time.

(Click the image for the classic trailer.)

THE HORROR OF DRACULA (1958)

Later the same evening, MOVIES! ran the first of the Dracula flicks by British studio Hammer Film Productions, The Horror of Dracula (also marketed as just Dracula). I was geeked to discover that Christopher Lee (Saruman in the Lord of the Rings film series; Count Dooku in the Star Wars universe) was the titular vampire, and Peter Cushing (Grand Moff Tarkin in the original Star Wars) played Van Helsing.

This was a strong retelling of the classic Dracula tale, with a tall and angular Lee playing the vampire as simultaneously magentic and terrifying, and a lean and determined Cushing as his single-minded foil. The movie has that weird, breathless romance associated with most vampire movies, even with barely an ankle or a neckline visible (the poster at the right shows almost as much skin as the movie), some stark but expected violence (wooden stakes through the chest, shown only in after-effect, puncture wounds to the neck, hand-to-hand fighting and grappling, etc.) and little in the way of special effects except for the vividly red blood.

When talented performers understand the movie they’re in, what’s not to love? I’ll watch Lee and Cushing chew the scenery (and each other) anytime—and every Halloween, if I can!

(Click the image for the classic trailer.)