As Falvey’s Cat in the Stax, Rebecca writes articles covering a broad range of topics, from academics to hobbies to random events. All the while highlighting how Falvey Library can enhance your Villanova experience!

I hope you are enjoying your well-deserved break from classes! If you’re looking for ways to entertain yourself and you love spooky season, check out some of these horror movies. If you love a good scare, this list is for you!

Photo by Michael Tackette from New Line Cinema/Warner Bros.

The Conjuring

A family moves into a new home and quickly realize there is something off with the house. Strange sounds, unexplained occurrences, terrifying visions torment the family and lead them to reach out to paranormal experts in the hopes of expelling the spirit haunting their home.

Theatrical Poster from Universal Pictures

Us

A woman named Adelaide goes on vacation with her family. What should have been a time of fun and relaxation quickly takes a dark turn when the family is confronted by doppelgängers of themselves. Separated, the family work to survive the night and escape the doppelgängers hunting them.

Theatrical Poster from Woods Entertainment

Scream

On the anniversary of her mother’s death, a high school student named Sydney Prescott becomes the target of a costumed serial killer. As Sydney evades the attacks on her life, other people in her town are not so lucky.

Theatrical Poster by Haunted Movies

Insidious

A couple moves into a new house with their three children. Their new home becomes a place of tragedy as one of their sons slips into a coma. The situation grows worse as creepy and unexplainable occurrences leave the family wondering if they are not the only ones inhabiting the house.

Rebecca Amrick is a first year graduate student in the English Department and a Graduate Assistant at Falvey Library.

Happy Friday, Wildcats! Falvey Library is delivering you another semester of Weekend Recs, a blog dedicated to filling you in on what to read, listen to, and watch over the weekend. Annie, a graduate assistant from the Communication department, scours the internet, peruses the news, and digs through book stacks to find new, relevant, and thought-provoking content that will challenge you and prepare you for the upcoming week. 

We’re 6 days into October, which means we’re well into spooky season (there are “31 Nights of Halloween,” according to Freeform). Last year, I kicked October off with some quintessential spooky season recommendations. As a lifelong Halloween lover, I’d like to keep the tradition going with some updated recs to get you in the mood for all things Halloween.

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

If you have 5 minutes and 28 seconds…and want to laugh a little, watch this Halloween SNL sketch from last year. (Note: the video is rated about PG.)

If you have 26 minutes and 4 seconds…and want a throwback to your childhood Halloween parties, listen to this Halloween playlist.

If you have 58 minutes and 6 seconds…and love listening to podcasts, listen to Let’s Read’s latest Halloween-themed episode. Let’s Read is always the place to go for creepy narrations, and this episode does not disappoint.

If you have 1 hour and 20 minutes…and think M. Night Shyamalan movies are so bad that they’re good, watch Devil, available in Falvey’s DVD Collection. In this film, five people get trapped in an elevator in Philly, but (gasp) one of them is the literal devil. It’s one of those cheesy films that is somehow still enjoyable (Shyamalan’s specialty).

If you have 1 hour and 33 minutes…and don’t like scary movies, watch Paranorman, available in Falvey’s DVD Collection. This LAIKA film (famous for films like Coraline and Kubo and the Two Strings) is the perfect amount of spooky for those who don’t like horror.

Photo by Skyler Sawyer on Unsplash

If you have 1 hour and 51 minutes…and want to experience a scary movie with a crowd of people, watch The Exorcist: Believer in theaters (premiering tonight). It’s hard to beat the original, as it still really holds up, but this should be a fun in-theater viewing experience.

Bonus: if you want to catch-up with the 1973 original, watch The Exorcist, available in Falvey’s DVD Collection.

If you have 4 hours…and want to get frightened with some friends, go to The Bates Motel & Haunted Hayride. It’s not too far from Villanova, and it has a hayride, corn maze, and haunted house, enough to leave any of your easy-frightened friends jump.

If you have 8 hours…and want to read a classic horror novel, read Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, available at Falvey. This book has everything to get you in the mood for Halloween, including haunted mansions and paranormal investigators.

Bonus: if you want to be frightened and a bit emotionally devastated, watch Mike Flanagan’s The Haunting of Hill House Netflix Original series, a loose adaptation of Jackson’s book. Anything directed by Mike Flanagan is perfect for spooky season, but this show is truly some of his best work (including a beautiful 17-minute long take in the sixth episode).

If you have 10 hours…and prefer novella anthologies, read horror legend Stephen King’s Full Dark, No Stars, available at Falvey. This book contains 4 shorter novellas, including the recognizable “1922,” which also received a Netflix Original adaptation. It’s ominous, unsettling, and the perfect book for spooky season.

Bonus: if you want more Stephen King, Falvey also has some of his other spine-chilling books, including The Shining, Carrie, Misery, Cujo, and Christine, and if you want to look more into King’s terrifying world building over years, check out The Stephen King Universe: A Guide to the Worlds of the King of Horror.

Annie Stockmal is a second-year graduate student in the Communication Department and Graduate Assistant in Falvey Library.

Happy Friday, Wildcats! Falvey Library is delivering you another semester of Weekend Recs, a blog dedicated to filling you in on what to read, listen to, and watch over the weekend. Annie, a graduate assistant from the Communication department, scours the internet, peruses the news, and digs through book stacks to find new, relevant, and thought-provoking content that will challenge you and prepare you for the upcoming week. 

With Halloween right around the corner, horror movies are in season. Over the weekend, horror movies will likely fill up cable television runtime, streaming service recommendations, and, as we’ve already seen over the past month, movie theaters. As it may become clear to anyone watching horror, new or old, the Final Girl trope stands out as a lasting genre cliche, albeit with some updated takes. This weekend’s recs will explore the Final Girl trope and help you conclude this spooky season with a bang.

Photo by Florian Olivo on Unsplash

If you have 10 minutes…and are unfamiliar with the Final Girl trope, read this No Film School article. This article is a great introduction to the trope for any newcomers and an interesting (and short) read for fans.

If you have you have 34 minutes…and want to learn how the trope has evolved over the years, watch this Youtube video essay by Naomi Cannibal. She delves into the history of the Scream Queens and Final Girl tropes with some of the the most iconic historic and modern examples to date.

If you have 1 hour and 20 minutes…and want to check out a great horror movie podcast, check out Dead Meat Podcast’s “Final Girl” episode. Dead Meat is one of the best content creators for all things horror, and this episode is an enjoyable listen.

If you have 1 hour and 32 minutes…and want to check out a film that blends the best elements of campy old slashers with a comedic, self-aware twist, watch The Final Girls. It follows in the footsteps of films like Scream and Cabin in the Woods while poking fun at the Final Girl trope.

If you have 1 hour and 40 minutes…and want to check out my personal favorite Final Girl, watch Wes Craven’s Scream. This movie put the life (or death) back into the dwindling slasher sub-genre, and Sidney Prescott exemplifies a truly formidable Final Girl.

If you have 1 hour and 50 minutes…and want to see an early Final Girl prototype, watch the Alfred Hitchcock’s classic horror-thriller Psycho, available in Falvey’s DVD Collection. This movie blends the Scream Queen and Final Girl trope together and even if you are aware of the iconic shower scene and the villain’s psychology, still manages to be eerie and intriguing.

If you have 5 hours…and want to interact with some (slightly) less scary Final Girl content, read Neil Gaiman’s Coraline. This book, and the movie adaptation, gives a family-friendly twist to the horror genre, and Coraline certainly fits in the Final Girl category.

If you have 6 hours…and want to read the book that first coined the term “Final Girl,” read Carol Clover’s Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film, available online through Falvey.

Annie Stockmal is a graduate student in the Communication Department and graduate assistant in Falvey Library.