If you are like me then the celebration of Halloween begins in late August when the smell of  Pumpkin Spice in coffee shops reminds us that the consumer will soon be deluged with all  manner of spooky pop-up stores and retail displays. So you may ask yourself, what might The  Kooky Count suggest as proper viewing for this festive holiday? 

The Universal Monster series is always a great place to start. While the films tapered down into  the ridiculous culminating with the hilarious Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein, you can’t  go wrong with Lugosi and Karloff in the original Dracula and Frankenstein. Dracula’s two  sequels, Dracula’s Daughter and Son Of Dracula are also quite good and then there is the  exquisite Bride Of Frankenstein. And for dessert there is nothing like watching Bud and Lou and  their pal Larry Talbot encountering Dracula (with Lugosi returning to play The Count), the  Frankenstein Monster and even the Invisible Man showing up for the fun! Severin Films has a few juicy releases available including the Al Adamson masterpiece Dracula  Vs. Frankenstein starring my main man Zandor Vorkov as The Count. This film thoroughly  damaged my brain when watching it broadcast on late night USA television during my youth in  the Carpathian Mountains. They have also released the crown jewel in an otherwise dismal  filmography with Vampiros Lesbos directed by the controversial Jess Franco. And the film’s  score by Manfred Hübler & Siegfried Schwab is a real gasser! 

The always reliable Arrow Films has a couple of box sets worthy of this occasion. The first I  would suggest is the collection of “gore films” by the legendary Herschell Gordon Lewis.  Previously available in two deluxe box sets, this collection is now available in a proper no-frills  box featuring Blu-ray discs of such unpleasant and iconic films as Blood Feast, Two Thousand 

Maniacs and my personal favorite The Wizard Of Gore. There are plenty of other films in the set  including more gore classics as well as Lewis’ other ventures into the exploitation market like  Just For The Hell Of It and Scum Of The Earth. Also from Arrow is a box set dedicated to the  films produced by the legendary Sam Katzman. While one of the films, The Giant Claw is known  a golden turkey and rightfully so due to its ridiculous buzzard creature, one of the films is a  genuine genre classic. The Fred Sears directed The Werewolf is one of the best and most  effective werewolf movies ever made.  

These are just a few places to get started in your Halloween viewing pleasure. Check your local  library for DVDs to check out as there are many treasures to be found including films by George  A. Romero, the early Peter Jackson films and films by Guillermo del Toro. So Happy viewing and  don’t forget the candy!