A Beginners' Guide to Horror as Written by a Beginner

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Well, it's Halloween. You know what that means: time for people to pretend they care about horror movies for one month!

And it's really a shame that this obsession will go on for only a month: Horror movies do not get all of the respect they deserve (I blame found footage). Sure, horror is starting to get attention on TV ("The Walking Dead," "Hannibal," "Bates Motel," fifty new witch shows all premiering on Lifetime), but cinema is really where the genre began, and where it is at its best.

Unfortunately, horror has been one of my pop culture blind spots for years. I have been lucky enough to take a class about the genre and explore it more on my own and have a newfound appreciation for it. Maybe it's my fault for thinking that "Saw V" represented every horror movie ever.

What I am trying to say is that I am a relatively new horror fan. Unfortunately, I cannot dig up any obscure examples to show how savvy I am, as I've only seen one movie made by George A. Romero. However, I can be your Introductory Horror Spirit Guide, and lay out the basics. In my opinion, these are ten essential horror movies to kick off your love of horror movies with. Let me remind you that you can watch horror movies after Halloween ends:

Movie Review: Carrie (2013)

Poor Carrie White. 37 years later, and she still can't catch a break. The latest update of "Carrie" is not a total facelift, but it does take the White family and places them in the present day. If you've already seen the original, you might be interested to see how much more the White family feels out of place in 2013 than 1976.

Even for newbies, I believe the story of "Carrie" is well known enough at this point that I shouldn't use too much time to lay it all out. Carrie (Chloe Moretz) is still a misfit, and her mother Margaret (Julianne Moore) is still a religious fanatic. Carrie still gets bullied, gets covered in pig guts, and then gets sweet, sweet revenge.

The 2012 Sight & Sound Poll: Is Vertigo Really the Greatest Film of All Time?

Every ten years, the British Film Institute's Sight & Sound Magazine releases a list of the top ten films of all time. For every year from 1962 until 2002, Orson Welles's "Citizen Kane" was hailed as the greatest film ever made. And for the past fifty years, it has become conventional wisdom that "Citizen Kane" is indeed, the greatest film ever made.

This time around, Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo" was crowned as the greatest film of all time from votes by 846 movie experts. I am not sure what constitutes a "movie expert" in BFI's eyes, but it certainly isn't Pete Hammond or Brett Ratner.

Now, I don't consider myself a complete movie expert just yet. I don't think I'm completely certified until I've seen at least one Robert Altman film that isn't "Popeye." I should also check out "Lethal Weapon" already. But I can say that "Vertigo" is an excellent film, and one that is worthy of the growing influence it has gained over the years. Most people probably don't remember that "Gigi" (just one letter off from being "Gigli") won Best Picture that year. However, no one will ever forget that "Vertigo" didn't even get nominated. As a filmmaker, getting a spot on a list is actually a much bigger honor than getting a chunk of gold in the shape of a naked bald dude.

Horrible Decisions: The Ten Best Movies That Weren't Nominated For Best Picture

As I get older, I feel that I get more and more pessimistic about award ceremonies, especially the Oscars. Unlike sports-related competitions, the Oscars are not about which movie is best, but rather which movie had the most lavish ad campaign. The recent revelation that Academy voters are none too diverse certainly did not help. To think that some of the most revered movies of all time weren't even nominated. They are the bold outsiders. Some were completely overlooked, others were just too damn "hip." Many on the proceeding list would be chosen by many, and a few I exclusively would have chosen had I been a voter. I present with you the ten best movies that deserved a Best Picture nomination, arranged by year of release: