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• 10 fashion lessons from horror movies

• Who are you calling crazy cat lady

• Moonwalk your way through Walmart (video)

• Would you wear this?

1. Horror Movie Overload

As a horror movie fanatic, this is my favorite time of the cable television year. On any given day of the week, you’ll find yourself choosing between installments of Friday the 13th, Halloween, and Nightmare on Elm Street. Scour the TV Guide, and you’ll probably also find lesser-known thrillers like The People Under the Stairs, or a wide selection of Steven King novel-turned-creepy-classics.

This is also the time of year for new horror flicks to hit the cinemas. I’m tempted to shell out $10 for Saw V, which hits theaters October 24. I also have to admit I’m tempted to check out The Haunting of Molly Hartley, which comes out on Halloween, and not just because of Chace Crawford.

2. The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror Special

Can you believe that this year’s Simpsons Halloween Special will be number 19?!? Though we have to wait until November 2 to see ToH XIX, you can bet the other 18 episodes will be running in syndication every weeknight for the next couple of weeks. This year’s episode will supposedly feature spoofs of Transformers and It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (another Halloween treat that deserves an honorable mention on this list). The opening credits are also rumored to have strong political ties, but I’d rather not spoil the surprise. If the blood and gore of horror flicks gross you out, you can still appreciate the hilarious parodies that The Simpsons bring us every year.

3. Haunted Houses and Haunted Hayrides

Any small town is bound to have an annual haunted fundraiser of sorts, where local girl scouts, boy scouts, and drama clubs volunteer to act as zombies, witches, and ghouls for your entertainment. Sure, they’re usually cheesy, and are more likely to make you chuckle rather than scream, but it’s the holiday spirit that makes it fun.

If you live near an amusement park, you can also enjoy such festivities as Bush Gardens’ Howl-O-Scream and Six Flags’ Fright Fest, which sends dozens of professional actors out in costume to try to scare the bejesus out of you while you wait in line for an adrenaline-pumping roller coaster.

4. Guys in Full-Out Jack Sparrow Costumes

If you go to a big enough Halloween party, you’re bound to find some dude that shelled out the dough for the full Jack Sparrow digs. I’m talking the hat, the wig, the jacket, the pants, the boots. True, this guy is probably a comic book geek who put too much time, money, and effort into something he can only wear one night. True, he might have just as big of a boner for Johnny Depp as I do. But the fact of the matter is, that Jack Sparrow guy is going to grab my attention, and spark some of my deep-seeded fantasies. And if I get drunk enough, I might wake up in the morning and see the real man behind the mascara.

5. Test Tube Shots

Not only are the campus bars going to be packed with costume-wearing, binge-drinking partiers, but they’re probably going to have some killer drink specials. Some popular gimmicks include shots in test tubes (which a lot of bars serve on the regular, but which are more fun to buy from a shotgirl dressed as a slutty mad scientist), fish bowls with fake body parts floating in them, and pretty much any shot that’s blood-red or slime-green (note that these shots will obviously reappear at Christmas time, but have a totally different effect). Halloween is also a great excuse to do shots of Tarantula tequila, which, in my opinion, trumps Mike and Ike and Snickers any day.

I had a lot of nightmares as a kid. Thanks to these nightmares and various frightening films I’ve developed a hilarious set of OCD habits such as opening and closing closet doors before sleeping and checking behind the shower curtain before I saddle up to the toilet (you laugh but one day someone is gonna be in there and then who’s the dumb one!)

My imagination is easily inspired. For a while I couldn’t even watch a commercial for a horror movie because I knew those 30 seconds were enough to create an entire world of horrific fantasy that I’d be trapped inside for the rest of the evening. The one thing more unnerving then horror characters and sharks (I don’t swim in the ocean, at all, ever) is muppets.

Not all muppets, Kermit is fine, Fozzy, whatever. I’m talking about those LSD muppets that creators slip in films and TV shows, mixed with other cute, lovable creatures. They lure you in with Grover and then BAM, some abomination walks onto the screen that’s burned into your mind forever. Some horribly disfigured, warbly voiced monstrosity that may as well be drenched in blood, because thats how you’ll remember them, regardless.

Here’s five of the worst perpetrators.

5) Sesame Street’s Big Bad Wolf

He first appeared in a mock ‘News Report’ that Kermit was doing about the story of the 3 Little Pigs, but eventually was cast in a full time role in my brain as the monster that lived in the crawlspace behind our dryer. His nose and mouth are almost crocodilian in length, making him a hybrid death machine that can not only eat you whole, but smell (and enjoy) your fear.

4) Sesame Street’s Yip Yip Aliens

Who the f*ck invented these? I’ve seen like 3/4th’s of every science fiction movie ever and I’ve never observed a more frightening rendition of creatures from another planet. They have no body, and their circular mouths are contorted into a look of excruciating pain. The sound they omit — ‘Yip Yip‘ — over and over gives them an almost zombie-like demeanor. Incapable of love or communication, their race knows only war.

3) Skeksis from ‘The Dark Crystal’

Bird reptiles that appear to have some type of bizarre bone disease and turn infantile when they die/age. As someone who grew up around wild turkeys, the thought of gangs of intelligent, upright walking, violent minded birds hit very close to home.

2) The Rockbiter from ‘The Never-ending Story’

Could you have designed a more horribly disfigured face? My cousins would loop this scene and force me to watch it as a form of torture.

1) The Fiery Gang from ‘The Labyrinth’

A gang of forest dwelling, possible serial rapist apes who sing about ‘showing you a good time’ while removing their limbs and creating a gallery of horrifyingly twisted body shapes. Then they try to rip your head off, in an effort to make you more like them. Awesome, just awesome.

[Got any childhood fears induced by muppets? We want to know]

That being said, I have watched a few freaky films in my time and totally appreciate their craft and originality. Nightmare on Elm Street, Aliens, The Exorcist, Sixth Sense (come on, the first time you saw it…you were kinda scared), are some of my favorites, although I may still have to watch them from under a blanket.

But here’s the thing. I’ve been noticing a trend when it comes to horror movies these days. A trend that doesn’t make me want to watch from behind my hand, but turn the damn thing off all together. We’re not just making horror movies anymore, we’re churning out torture flicks.

Newsweek explains my argument in a much more eloquent way. According to them, since last fall, seven horror movies have topped the box office, the Saw franchise, Hostel, and The Hills Have Eyes leading the pack. And what do all these movies have in common? Blood. Gore. Tits. New York Magazine’s David Edelstein is even quoted as saying the trend verges on “torture porn”.

Sex and violence have been wrapped up together since the Greeks wrote their tragedies, but today’s filmmakers seem determined to push the limits of both as far as they can possibly go. Every once in a while we get a movie like Neil Marshall’s The Decent, which stays away from heavy sexuality, but more often than not, today’s horror movies aren’t complete without play-by-play disembowelments and heavy female objectification. Sure, nearly naked or naked chicks are a major component of the genre, but I can’t help wondering; as the violence becomes more and more graphic, what happens to our opinion of the sexuality that juxtaposes it? Are audiences going to be hungrier for something more? Something worse? Where do we, as strong women, draw the line in Hollywood’s slasher portrayal of us?

What do you think, girls? Got an opinion? Why are audiences so eager to watch scenes that could be labeled as sadistic? Wes Craven, master of the horror genre, claims our current appetite stems from a post 9-11 world, a world full of uncertainty and violence and manifests itself in lots of different ways, from “people drinking a bit more to kids going to hard-core movies.” And seriously, who else was scared shitless by E.T?

How do you feel about T & A in torture flicks?