FILM CLATTER: Useless Clatter...12 Horror Classics Free on YouTube [and Some Thoughts on Existence]

Since in the 1970s, with the advent of the personal computer and the very, very earliest existence of the internet, we have lived in an era known as the Information Age. Right alongside the Ice Age and the Middle Ages, there will be us— inventors of the personal computer and the internet— for better or for worse. But that was a long time ago. Gone are the days of VCRs, flatscreens and dial-up, what was once breakthrough technology was now an antiquated thing of the past. We still find ourselves entranced by the pleasure of new technology just like we were 20 years ago. Only nowadays everything is just a newer version of what it once was— BluRay, HD, and wireless. The personal computer can now be taken anywhere and you can have the entire World Wide Web comfortably inside your pocket.

The connection this has to movies is both vastly helpful and slightly critical. The cinema, once a glamorous night on the town offering visitors an escape into worlds unknown, lost some of its magic. TVs offer the same escape from the comforts of one’s family room. No more worries about traffic or a babysitter. Today it is even easier. Streaming sites like Netflix, Hulu and YouTube now offer that entertainment almost anywhere on your laptop or even smart phone. There is something lost in that transformation from a duplex movie theater to a three-inch cell phone screen. It simply doesn’t compare.

But let us not be too critical and consider this the demise of the movie theater. After all, these handy pieces of technology offer audiences a slew of new movies, or a rather a reintroduction to old ones. Classics and rare titles, B-movies and foreign wonders can all stay alive on the internet and be introduced to movie lovers anywhere on the globe. Some sites like Netflix and Hulu have made fortunes meeting the demand of instant streaming, while others the same and slightly less in the form of free, (il)legal content.

The least sketchy of these sites, as one might say would be YouTube. It offers a wide array of movies right alongside the thousands of cat videos and fail clips. Good movies too, some of them. And in the spirit of Halloween, I wanted to call attention to twelve fine horror classics (or soon to be classics) found on YouTube that fit the holiday spirit and can be watched, all for free.

Night of the Living Dead [1968] dir. George A. Romero