From the vaults: Happy Halloween! Here are the best films about death

Last year, we decided to think outside the box. While everyone was rounding up scary movies for Halloween, we thought it would be fun to do one for movies that are arguably scarier: films about how we all, one day, maybe soon, will die. We enjoyed writing it, because we’re horribly morbid people who think about mortality too often on any given day. We also think — to be honest — horror movies don’t take death very seriously. It becomes a joke, an abstract idea, something happening to other people on a screen. Compared to something like, oh, Maurice Pialat’s “A Mouth Agape,” a 1974 French film in which we watch a woman wheeze her way to her last breath (it made our list), horror movies about unkillable stalkers with big blades tend to be very silly.

Rather than try to top this grim landmark, we’ve decided to break it out from the vaults. Please go here to read our listicle about great movies on the subject of death and dying.

Spoiler: They include such goofy larks as “The Grey” (aka, the one where Liam Neeson is either going to freeze to death or become wolf chow), “All That Jazz” (the R-rated Bob Fosse musical in which Roy Scheider’s on death’s door), “Synecdoche, New York” (the most depressing Charlie Kaufman movie ever), “Enter the Void” (which isn’t even Gaspar Noe’s most messed-up movie) and, as we put it, “like, half of Ingmar Bergman” movies.” There’s even a not-bad punchline.

Happy Halloween! Remember: Making light of death isn’t the same as conquering it!

Follow Matt Prigge on Twitter @mattprigge