A Halloween Related Email

Trick, or, treat?

Author

Ed Rigg
October 31, 2025

In partnership with

Well well well, Halloween eve, officially the scariest evening on the planet. Unless something seriously terrifying happened to you on another evening. Like once I was chased by cows on an Autumn evening. Maybe I’ll make a film about it one day. #killercows.

What’s top of your RecDek watchlist?

The Celebrity Traitors is the real talk of the town here in London. It’s not that scary though. But I’m actually really into Task at the moment. More like a sort of the FBI doing Slow Horses (good stuff but only like 3/10 scary).

What about 3I/Atlas the comet/possible comet behaving oddly in the sky? Is that scary? Head to brilliant Arrival for a movie reference here I’d say. LOVE that film.

I mused this morning: what’s the film that I was genuinely terrified of as a kid, then I thought, why on earth I was watching The Blair Witch Project as a child? Absolutely mental. But then I also thought about Candyman and Scream and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and then I decided the latter wins the scary awards and that I might revisit it this evening. If I don’t go to the pub.

Original nightmare fuel

So the granddaddy of all slasher films just turned 50 and still hasn't lost its power to disturb. It’s our pick of the week.

  • The Texas Chain Saw Massacre 
    Tobe Hooper's 1974 shocker feels utterly different from the polished horror that followed. No jump scares, no screeching violins - just gritty, social-realist terror inspired by serial killer Ed Gein. When college kids investigate grave robberies in rural Texas, they encounter Leatherface and his cannibalistic family in their remote farmhouse. The first murder happens with the camera positioned across the room, almost documentary-style. You don't see much explicit gore, but the implications are stomach-turning - particularly the notorious dinner scene where the "final girl" Sally (Marilyn Burns) is forced to sit with Leatherface's deranged family. The film really predates the slasher formula it would inspire. There's a minimalist, almost cinema verité quality that makes it feel like you're witnessing something real rather than a genre exercise. The climactic chase into bright daylight - where you half-expect the villains to burst into flames like Dracula - remains unforgettable. Fifty years on, no sequel or imitator has captured its uniquely unsettling atmosphere.
    ADD IT TO YOUR RECDEK WATCHLIST

Take care and have an absolutely lovely evening.

Ed

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