Seeking the Thrill: My Top 3 Horror Movies to Watch This Halloween Season

By Jessica Lee

“Trick-or-treat!” 

A subtle suggestion that demands a treat – preferably candy – or else a trick will fall upon that individual. A simple, iconic phrase that is said that one special time of the year. Halloween. It’s almost that time of the year where people dress up in diverse costumes, devour candy, and watch scary movies. However, how do you know which movie is truly the most terrifying: the clown that lives in the sewers or the boy who is possessed by an unknown demon?

As fanatic of the horror and thriller movie genres, I have composed an updated top three scariest 2022 movies for you, friends, or family to get spooked beyond the mainstream titles that you’ve probably already heard of. 

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  • Smile (2022)

Released on September 29, 2022, with a current IMDb rating of 6.8, this film will take you on a journey of frightening jump scares and emotions contradictory to its innocent title. It revolves around Dr. Rose Cotter, who starts seeing unexplainable yet terrifying images after she witnesses a traumatic incident involving her patient. To face this trauma, she must reopen her past wounds and accept her new fate. This terrifying masterpiece directed and written by Parker Finn is by far the scariest, most unsettling horror/psychological thriller film that keeps your heart racing with thrill and excitement. I highly recommend this for those seeking a film that is cinematically alluring yet also filled with sudden jump-scares, but I would also recommend watching it in theaters or with a great stereo system as this film heavily relies on its sound design to keep you on your toes.

  • Incantation (2022)

Released on March 18, 2022, with a current IMDb rating of 6.2, this film is one of the most horrifying Taiwanese movies of all time. Perhaps it’s the incorporation of shaky, hand-held camera movements and unsettling vlog elements or maybe it’s the eerie incantation that is repeated throughout the film, but it is by far the most unpredictable and psychologically unnerving film I have ever seen. It follows the perspective of Li Ronan, a mother who is cursed after breaking a religious taboo. After being cursed, she must save her daughter from the same fate. Unlike the traditional horror film, Incantation is shot predominantly in found footage (FF), which is a cinematic technique where footage is presented through video recordings or discovered by the characters. By doing so, director Kevin Ko cleverly hides yet slowly reveals varied motifs and details for audiences to ultimately fully digest and reflect upon in their sleep. Furthermore, unlike Smile, this film does not rely on jump scares or sound design to haunt you. Rather, this film has a continued sense of fear beyond the screen. This film is available on Netflix in various languages and subtitles for you to conveniently enjoy at home.

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  • The Black Phone (2022)

Released on June 24, 2022, with a current IMDb rating of 7, this film is based on “The Black Phone” by Joe Hill. While this story is not based on an actual occurrence, the fact that it is inspired from a combination of real serial killers during the late ‘70s is quite disturbing. The premise of this film involves a child killer who abducts and locks children in his soundproof basement. However, Finney Blake – a 13-year-old-boy – receives help from the voices of past victims through a disconnected black phone on the wall, ultimately determined to help him to break free. Director Scott Derrickson presents an emotionally riveting film that includes great character development and acting to the extent that makes you disgusted by such a sadistic, evil, and monstrous being. The Black Phone makes you wonder why such cruel beings exist and makes you empathize with the young victims. While this film follows more of a traditional horror film concept, it contains a solid premise around a black phone that is intense and creepy. I strongly recommend this film for those who enjoy performative and emotionally intense horror films.

2022 has been a solid year in the genres of thriller and horror with other honorable mentions such as Nope (2022) by Jordan Peele and Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022) by Halina Reijn. While this list is subjective to my personal tastes and limited to the year of 2022, I strongly recommend these three films for those who seek a terrifying and heart-racing thrill in celebration of Halloween.

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Jessica is a third-year student pursuing a double major in Cinema and Media Studies and Public Policy. As an aspiring filmmaker, writer, music producer, and director, she has been exploring her passion for the entertainment industry as a producer’s assistant for Palette Pictures and a member of Delta Kappa Alpha’s Professional Cinema Fraternity. At USC, she is the President of Taekwondo Club and Vice President of Public Relations of Trojan Steel. In her free time, she enjoys experimenting with sound design, filmmaking, playing the piano, drinking boba, writing, listening to music, and playing tennis.

Learning About Language in Singapore

By Eric Chow

Over summer break, I traveled to Singapore to visit some friends and family and to learn more about the country. When I arrived, I was interested to see how many different combinations of languages are spoken there. Something I noticed when I was there was that both Mandarin and English were spoken in equal frequency. However, in some cases, the English that was spoken oscillated between American and British styles of English. Coming across someone who spoke perfectly fluent English was few and far between. In Singapore, English is spoken in two main forms: Singaporean Standard English (indistinguishable grammatically from Standard British English) and Singapore Colloquial English (better known as Singlish).

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Singapore is a cosmopolitan city, with 37% of its population born outside the country. Singaporeans, even those of the same ethnic group, have many different first languages and cultures. Standard Singapore English is the standard form of English used in Singapore. It generally resembles British English and is often used in more formal settings such as the workplace or when communicating with people of higher authority such as teachers, bosses, and government officials. In Singapore, English is a working language that serves the economy and development and is associated with the broader global community. Meanwhile, the rest of the languages spoken are “mother tongues” that are associated with the country’s culture. Although Standard Singapore English is mainly influenced by British English and, recently, American English, there are other languages that also contribute to its use on a regular basis. Most Singaporeans speak more than one language, with many speaking three to four. Most Singaporean children are brought up bilingual. They are introduced to Malay, Chinese, Tamil, or Singapore Colloquial English (Singlish) as their native languages, depending on their families’ ethnic backgrounds. 

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The role that English plays is so important that the Singapore government aimed to improve English speaking throughout the country. The wide use of Singlish led the government to launch the Speak Good English Movement in Singapore in 2000 to replace Singlish with Standard English. This movement was made to show the need for Singaporeans to speak Standard English. Nowadays, all children in schools are being taught Standard English with one of the other official languages being taught as a second language. It was so fascinating to me to see how languages have developed in other countries with a lot of cultural diversity. If you have a chance to, I recommend visiting Singapore to check this out for yourself!

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Eric is a first year undergraduate majoring in Philosophy, politics, and Economics and Business Administration. He spent most of his life in San Diego but he moved to Shanghai and then Taiwan. Being an international student, he understands the struggles of crossing a new language barrier. He is both a native speaker of Chinese and English and has extensive experience in mentoring and public speaking. On campus, he is involved with Troy Camp which specializes in both academic and non-academic mentorship. Outside of campus, he plays the piano, works out, swims, and reads comic books.

My Last Day in New York

By Matthew Kim

“Wake Up Matthew, it’s time to go!” I slowly begin to open my eyes, still holding tight onto my blanket, as my friend Ryan tries to wake me up. The time is 8 am and it’s my last day in the state of New York. I was visiting for the very first time in my life and was having a great time. This past July, my friends and I stayed in Manhattan for four nights and spent the last night in Port Jefferson. We spent the majority of our last day trekking all the way to Newark International Airport, where we had a return flight to Los Angles to catch at 2:35 pm. Surely, we had enough time for one last eventful day in New York.

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We all rushed out of our hotel as soon as possible to grab bagels at a local spot, Fratelli’s Bagels, before heading to the train station back to the city. We all grabbed a generous extra amount of bagels to eat throughout the day and to take back to Los Angeles. The train ride took a while but it was fun being around good company, eating delicious bagels in a completely new environment. We only had one goal to accomplish in the city before hitting the airport, which was to get a very essential meal of Korean Barbeque.

When we arrived at Let’s Meat, the KBBQ restaurant we had been looking forward to eating at, they allowed us to leave our luggage in an open space near the front and told us they would look over it. Throughout the meal, the service kept getting better as our table always had meat and appetizers filling our plates as quickly as we could eat. The food tasted great, and it wasn’t served frozen as some KBBQ places serve it, which was a big plus. After only eating bagels up to this point in the day, we made sure to get our money’s worth before hopping back on the metro for Newark International. After eating, we checked the navigation to the airport and we were scheduled to arrive roughly 20-25 minutes before our flight. We weren’t too concerned but we knew that we had to move with urgency.

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