Okay, ask me my favorite books to read for the Halloween season and you’ll get a limited answer—I have so many I’m afraid I’ll forget to list some.

But it’s fairly easy for me to recommend five films for Halloween. I’m not a big horror movie buff. Shock and gore isn’t scary and for suspenseful “surprise” endings — I tend to guess endings in the first ten minutes. So, to be a favorite, a movie has to be memorable, one that I’m willing to watch more than once and still enjoy. In fact, some of my picks are more macabre—or even darkly humorous—than scary. And, yes, I cheat (there are really six films). I could cheat more and mention Sleepy Hollow, Edward Scissorhands, Beetlejuice, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Corpse Bride, and Sweeney Todd—but then we’d be having a Tim Burton-a-thon. You have to admit, though, the man is Halloween.

1. The Crow (1994)
Flawed, yet perfect. Set on Devil’s Night/Halloween and a love story to boot: “If the people we love are stolen from us, the way to have them live on is to never stop loving them. Buildings burn. People die. But real love is forever.”

2. The Haunting (1963)
The only black-and-white movie that ever held my kids spellbound (and also scared ’em). Sounds and shadows and suspense are scarier than blood and guts any day.

3. The Witches (1990)
A sinister black comedy, Roald Dahl’s novel is a super read and the movie is almost as good. Anjelica Huston is a wonderfully terrible Eva Ernst

4. (Tie) The Others (2001) and The Sixth Sense (1999)
Okay, I did figure both of these out before the endings, but it took more than ten minutes and M. Night Shymalan deserves major credit for making two incredibly suspenseful films. The Sixth Dense owes a great deal to the script as well as the performances. In the Others, Nicole Kidman’s portrayal of an overprotective with kids allergic to light, pulls you right in. Both are visually superb.

5. Dark City (1998)
Like The Crow, directed by Alexa Proyas. Very noirish exploration of concepts of reality, identity, and more. The obvious rip-off of Clive Barker’s cenobites is sort of a bummer, though.