I recently shared some of my Halloween memories with y’all. And today finds us with just one week until the haunting moment appears to begin the celebration of this eerie festival.

But in this day-and-age of flickering images on our HDTVs, Halloween offers even more opportunities to wallow in the horror of gore and frightful terrors and threats of unpleasant happenings in the darkness of the unknowns of the world that surrounds us. Already on several of my cable channels there’s an offering of endless dark mayhem to begin the observance of this scary revelry.

Movies Based on Stephen King Books

One channel offered up a marathon of movies based upon the works of Stephen King, one of my all-time favorite authors. So I’ve found myself over the past few days binge-watching all the movies I I filled my cable box DVR up with; The Dead Zone; Firestarter; Carrie; The Mist; Cujo; and Pet Sematary, just to name a few. And those are just the movies that King’s works have inspired.

Over the years I’ve also seen several miniseries based on King books, including Salem’s Lot, The Shining, and The Stand.

Classic Horror Films

But Stephen King isn’t the only dark world icon I’ve followed over the years. I guess you could say I’m kind of an old-school fellow when it comes to horror. I’ll never forget all those Saturdays watching what was called “Shock Theater” on my local TV channel, seeing the classics such as Frankenstein and The Mummy, with Boris Karloff, Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi, The Wolfman, with Lon Chaney Jr, The Invisible Man, portrayed by Claude Rains, and not to forget The Phantom of the Opera, featuring Lon Chaney, senior, known as “The Man of a Thousand Faces”, father of the later star of the previously mentioned The Wolfman.

Horror Film Remakes

There have also been many great movies from the early era that have been remade, and I’ve enjoyed both versions. The classic King Kong is one. Of course, there’s the first Invasion of the Body Snatchers in ’56 followed by the 1978 remake, a more gruesome take, to then be followed by two more remakes in 1993 and 2007.

Another movie,1942’s Cat People,  was remade in a more frightening and gory way, with sexual undertones, in 1982.

Then there’s 1951’sThe Thing from Another World, remade as simply The Thing in 1982 to then be followed by another The Thing in 2011, it being a prequel to the first one. But it was the 1982 version that was faithful to the 1938 science fiction novella by John W. Campbell, Jr., written under the pen name Don A. Stuart.That’s one of the things I so love, a good book being turned into a good movie.

Slash and Gore Films

Of course there’s been the classic slasher movies over all the years, beginning with Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. Then came the culprits Michael Myers and Freddy Krueger from the film series Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Though I’ve never been a fan of the slasher genre, I’ve sat through a few of them and have a fascinating study of the history of slasher films on my DVR titled Eli Roth’s History of Horror, fittingly played especially on this week leading up to our time of honoring the haunting times of Halloween chills and thrills.

So be careful while trick-or-treating or partying, and be sure and watch your back.