Welcome to the first annual—perhaps the only—Pepper Bough Halloween Movie Tournament!

Over the next nine school days, you will have the opportunity to vote for your favorite horror movies from this century, with the champion being crowned on none other than Halloween night.

The game is simple. Like any tournament, we have set up brackets in which horror movies can square off against each other in individual matchups. On each entry, there will be a poll for you to vote for your favorite of the two. The winner will move on to the next round.

Today’s first round match-up is . . .

2. The Babadook vs. 7. The Strangers

Our staff has put together some defense for each film. Take a look, then make your vote!

How scary is “The Babadook”? The story is about a mom and her troubled child. After he finds a book called “Mister Babadook” things start getting bad. The acting is amazing! The feeling it gives you is indescribable. It makes you feel uncomfortable, it makes your skin crawl, and at some point you start to understand the mother’s anger and exhaustion, and that’s without even talking about the horror parts. This movie doesn’t use the cheap jump scares; it uses actual horror. The use of mental illness, anger, and exhaustion makes it feel so real and raw. And as the Babadook slowly starts showing up more, he looks terrifying. His claws, his big coat and top hat, and that plain white face make you feel so uncomfortable.

“The Strangers” helped pave the way for repopularizing the terrifying genre of home invasion films. It follows a couple that go on a vacation but are soon attacked by the titular strangers. These said strangers torment the couple through the whole night, offering up many creative jump scares in such a small location. Though the movie was very small in scale, it garnered a gigantic fan base by advertising that the movie was based on true events. The director failed to say that the only true part about the Strangers was that a stranger came to his door one night and said the fan loved catchphrase “Is Tamra home?” While being a small film with a small cast, it sets a type of new fear that you can get hunted down by any random stranger at night.