Top five Halloween Movies with Animals

Bonus Blog!  Happy Halloween!!

                Halloween happens to be my favorite holiday so, this week I thought I would comment on my top five favorite horror films featuring an animal or animals as main characters.

1)  Let’s start with my favorite author Stephen King and his classic, Cujo.  What could be worse than a slavering, rabid 200lb St. Bernard holding a mother and her son hostage in their car for days in the middle of a very hot summer?  This psychological thriller is definitely disturbing.  Remember to keep your pets up to date on those rabies vaccines! 

2) There are so many critters in the Harry Potter series; it’s hard to narrow down to a few favorites.  Who could forget Crookshanks, Hermione’s ginger cat, Harry’s faithful owl, Hedwig or the Weasley’s pet rat, Scabbers who actually turned out to be Peter Pettigrew?  Then there was Hagrid’s Mastiff, Fang.  And Fluffy, the three-headed dog who guarded the Sorcerer’s stone. Hagrid's creepy giant spider friend, Aragog and his offspring. Oh!  And Nagini the snake that belongs to Voldem…sorry, to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named!  So many cool critters…

3) Back to Stephen King (did you really think there would be just one SK movie?).  In Pet Sematary a cat named Church manages to get killed on the road shortly after the family moves into a house along a major highway.  Church has the misfortune of being buried in the pet cemetery only to return as an evil cat.  We see a few cats who behave like Church from time to time; though I am sure it is just stress and not supernatural forces at work to make them behave that way when they visit the vet!

4)  While most modern vampires don’t seem to have the ability to change into bats, the original Dracula could transform in a puff of smoke and fly off into the night.  One of my favorite vampire films is 1987’s The Lost Boys.  There are no bats that I recall, but Siberian Husky, Nanook, does a good job protecting Sam (Corey Haim), from the local vampires (including a young Kiefer Sutherland well before his days on 24).

5) OK, this last one is a bit of a stretch as far as having an animal as a main character, but I have to mention it as it is my absolute favorite horror movie ever!   My Halloween is not complete without watching An American Werewolf in London.  This movie has a great mix between horror and quirky humor as well as great special effects (at least for 1981 before CGI) and an awesome soundtrack!  If you have never seen it, and don’t mind some gore, I would highly recommend renting this one. 

I feel an honorable mention must go to the Alfred Hitchcock classic, The Birds.  It's not actually one of my favorites, but the scene with all of those crows on the jungle gym is pretty creepy! 

So, there you have my top 5 Halloween movie picks.  Feel free to comment and tell us your favorite Halloween flick! 

Stay safe, enjoy some scary movies and have a Happy Halloween!  --Dr. Walters