If there’s one thing about October that should be worth getting excited about it’s Halloween. Think about it, Halloween gives us the chance to celebrate life’s most exciting evils without being considered a gore-obsessed sadist. One of these perks involves watching tons of splatter-drenched horror films. Just like Thanksgiving is reason to justify overeating and Christmas is an excuse to go to church, Halloween is the perfect guise under which to celebrate some of film’s most gut-wrenching scenes and still feel OK about yourself in the morning. For this week’s list we decided to rank our favorite horror movie death scenes. Why did we do this? To celebrate Halloween, of course, and because our normal list man, Andrew Shafer, needed to take a week off and find other bands besides Led Zeppelin and the Who to praise every week. Burn.

Here are the three specifications that we ranked our selections on: brutality, originality and notoriety.

1. The infamous shower scene from “Psycho” (1960)

Say what you will about many of Hitchcock’s supposed classics, but the “Psycho” shower scene is undeniably one of the finest murders ever captured on film. This scene manages to stylize the crime so well we’re left with the feeling that stabbing naked girls with kitchen knives isn’t just acceptable behavior, it’s downright cool.

1. The bitch is dead from “House of Wax” (2005)

OK, so we had a tie-breaker to deal with at the No. 1 spot. Sure, the 2005 remake of “House of Wax” is lacking in all three categories and is so bad that any boyfriend who took his girlfriend to it should have been dumped in the parking lot, but it does have one thing that we have to stand up and applaud. That’s right – the film pretty much gives us one gem so good it transcends all three rules: Paris Hilton dead. Enough said.

2. Chestburster from “Alien” (1979)

With the help of artist H.R. Giger, director Ridley Scott created one of horror’s sickest moments and raised the question, “Who the hell names their kid Sigourney?” After an encounter with the larval aliens on an uncharted planet, Lt. Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and crew witness the worst case of indigestion in film history when their dinner is interrupted by the hideous title creature violently exiting one of her fellow crew member’s chests.

3. The entirety of “Se7en” (1995)

From being forced to eat until you’re “breathing spaghetti” to having to carve off chunks of your own flesh like it’s the Christmas ham while being held at gunpoint, “Se7en,” though not necessarily a straight horror film, is brutal to the bone. Depending on the strength of your stomach, it’ll either leave you blowing chunks or screaming “What’s in the box?!” when the pizza delivery man rings your doorbell.

4. Hammer ‘n’ hook from “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” (1974)

When Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger were all nothing more than a glimmer in their daddies’ eyes, Leatherface was murdering wayward teenage couples like it was his job. In this scene, ol’ Leathers delivers the one-two punch, disposing of the boyfriend via a messy-sounding hammer to the face followed by dragging the still twitching body into his lair, then impaling his girlfriend on the business end of a meathook. Leatherface finally lets loose with the chainsaw, making a shaved-meats platter out of the boyfriend.

5. Death by stereo from “The Lost Boys” (1987)

Besides boasting a cast that included Corey Haim, Corey Feldman and Kiefer Sutherland, “The Lost Boys” was made even cooler when Haim tags a cocky vampire teen with his bow and arrow and sends him flying into a stereo that, for no real reason, sends 10 million volts of electricity through his undead, high-top-wearing body. The climax of the scene comes when he finally blows up completely, leaving our hero to spurt out one of horror’s most memorable one-liners “Whoa, death by stereo.” Maybe our parents were right – rock music does kill. Vampires at least.

6. The Johnny Depp smoothie from “A Nightmare on Elm Street” (1984)

Furthering the speculation that Edward Scissorhands is Freddy Krueger’s illegitimate child, one of Johnny Depp’s first starring roles can be found in this ’80s slasher classic. Poor Johnny makes the terrible mistake of falling asleep and Freddy turns Depp’s bed into a blender set to puree. The subsequent geyser of blood that blasts out of Depp’s bed makes this a classic piece of cinematic gore.

7. Hail to the king, baby from “Army of Darkness” (1993)

OK, this one isn’t all that gory, but what it lacks in splatter it makes up for in hilarity brought to us by Bruce Campbell, king of the B-movie actors and our Halloween hero. After vanquishing the deadites and traveling back through time, Ash (Campbell) appears to be safely back in the present at S-Mart. When the deadites do rear their ugly heads in the form of a flying demented granny, however, Ash is ready to once again spout ridiculous one-liners and deliver a neverending stream of bullets from his trusty “boom stick.” Hail to the king, baby, indeed.

8. Eye-gouging from “Zombie” (1979)

Italian horror god Lucio Fulci was one of the early masters of gore. But with this scene, where the actress’ head is pulled toward an enormous, jagged piece of wood by a hungry ghoul, it’s all about the anticipation. Action occurs at a snail’s pace, and knowing the poor girl’s eye is going to be gruesomely ripped from it’s socket for what seems like a lifetime before it actually happens makes it that much worse. The fact that the eyeball ends up looking like a gooey marshmallow treat gone bad doesn’t help either.

9. Hammer smashed brains from “Bad Taste” (1987)

We had to give credit to “Bad Taste” because the movie looks like it was made for 50 bucks and 49 of them went toward the film’s gore budget. The whole thing is one excuse to torture our stomachs and test our sense of decency. After uzi-ing a bunch of the suckers down, our human hero, Derek, winds up battling two baddies chasing after him with sledge hammers. The scene ends after one zombie accidentally brings his hammer down on the other’s head, setting off an explosion of blood and pink-mashed-potato brains and Derek tumbles off a cliff and bursts at the bottom like a water balloon filled with the good stuff.

10. Drug addicted zombie duel from “I Drink Your Blood” (1970)

This one may be a little obscure, but it does boast one of the best character concepts ever captured by a lens – that of the acid-eating, rabid-cannibal, satanic-hippie zombie. Basically, after ingesting rabid dog blood, a cult-like band of sadistic hippies turns on the townsfolk and begins dealing with them in plenty of fun ways. What more do you honestly need? Oh yeah – LSD.