HORROR MOVIES 101

'Tis the season...

   Yes, boys and ghouls, it's that magical time of the year again, when ghosts and goblins and monsters and madmen roam the earth in search of 'sweets'!   That's right!   It's Thanksgiving!  ...  Oops!   My bad!   I had my calender on the wrong page!

   To make a long story short, I just purchased a 'restored/remastered' DVD of Halloween  and I watched this movie again for about the 30th time and IT JUST DOESN'T GET OLD!   There is a story behind this one, but basically, there are actually some movies that I don't mind seeing over and over again!   What a phenomena !

   Anyhow, AOL has compiled (yet another) list of the all time best Horror Movies!   You can check it out here...   Best Horror Movies of All Time: 31 Days of Horror - Moviefone. 

   If I were to have to pick my Top Ten all-time favorite Horror Movies, I think that list would change... day to day...  depending a lot upon my mood...   At THIS moment in my life, my top-ten list would look something like this...

   1.   The Exorcist  ;   STILL THE SCARIEST MOVIE EVER MADE!!!

   2.   Night Of The Living Dead  ;   A masterpiece!   Who could NOT resist the charms of THIS classic!

   3.   Dawn Of The Dead

   4.   Zombie 

   5.   The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 

   6.   Psycho

   7.   Day Of The Dead

   8.   Return Of The Living Dead

   9.   Friday The 13th: part II 

   10.   A Nightmare On Elm Street   ...

   ...   Freddy fucking rules!

   Anyhow, those are my thoughts. What are yours?

Re:'Tis the season...

Well Doctor, I'm fairly sure I haven't seen even 10% of the horror movies you have, but I will make a list anyhow.

I know we have had many discussion in the past about what constitutes a horror movie.  But for purposes of this list, I will try to limit myself to more strictly defined horror.  In other words, I will only include movies that I think there would be a decent chance that you could find them in the "horror" section of your video rental store.  It's still hard to differentiate though because some movies might be more thriller than horror, or more sci-fi than horror, or more action than horror, or more comedy than horror.

1.  The Shining

2.  Ravenous

3.  Cube

4.  The Thing (1982)

5.  Night of the Living Dead

6.  Psycho

7.  Alien

8.  American Psycho

9.  The Blair Witch Project

10.  Sleepy Hollow

11.  Jaws

12.  From Dusk Till Dawn

13.  Funny Games

14.  Ringu

15.  Jurassic Park

Here are some more that I think are pretty close to horror that I love but might be more thrillers.

The Vanishing (Spoorloos)

Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

The Night of the Hunter

Cape Fear (the original)

Duel

Re:'Tis the season...

This list of movie graphics is getting ridiculously large after only two posts, so I wont be linking any of the movies I mention. Sorry for the inconvenience, you'll just have to look them up manually.

I'm not really good at making top ten lists, because I always think of something else after the fact, but here's a few that I think should make everyone's halloween marathon short list. I'm going to avoid mentioning movies that have already been mentioned, but rest assured I agree with(almost) all of them.

Carnival of Souls; The original, of course

Fiend Without a Face

Creature From The Black Lagoon

Dagon

Session 9

The Changeling

The Blob(both versions are excellent, and the 1970s sequel Beware the Blob is pretty fun as well)

Braindead(or Dead Alive, whichever you have acess to)

Return of the Living Dead(part one is awesome, part two is a lackluster retread, and part three is pretty damn cool)

The Fly(Cronenberg version, for extra ickiness)

That's ten, but here's some honorable mentions:
Abominable Dr. Phibes & Masque of the Red Death: My two favorite Vincent Price films. Avoid the Phibes sequel, though, it's horrendous.

The Convent: Silly, and very low budget, with an inexcusable cameo from Coolio, but also very fun. Has probably my favorite opening scene in any movie. EVER.

Pulse & Marebito: You have to have some good Asian horror on the list, and these are my two current favorites. Pulse is very slow and short on shocks, but it captures the melancholy aspect of ghosts very well.

And I can't believe no one has yet listed Audition. No movie has scared me this much in years. Whatever you do, dont watch the trailer. It gives away one of the biggest shocks in the movie, so instead of being caught off guard you'll see it coming before it happens.

Re:'Tis the season...

Oh...to limit myself to ten!  Here's an offhand suggestion for my tops (note that entire series are listed as one item):

Evil Dead, Carnosaur 1-3, Lawnmower Man, Dawn...[R], Ghost Ship, High Tension, Jason X, Jeepers Creepers 1-2, Plaga Zombie 1-2, Saw I-IV.

Everyone's lists change as will my own, "in time", but this is how it stands for now.  There is soooo much out now (Flight of the Living Dead anyone?) that I need to do some serious catching up.  :)

Re:Re:'Tis the season...

Re:Re:Re:'Tis the season...

   Anyhow...   'Carnosaur', Robert?   Thank you for that, most interesting, list!   I think it is important for every one to know, at this point, that you do not drink or do drugs...   Thanks again!

   And Thanks to you other guys for your cool lists as well!   Very interesting!    I have a question for you all....   What criteria do you use in selecting your favorite Horror Movie?   Is it the scariest?   The goriest (Robert?)?   Or simply the most well-made, best-acted and most compelling movie?   I guess for me it is a combination of all of the above....    I would be interested to hear your thoughts...

                                                       <  GOR  >

Re:'Tis the season...

Choices, choices, choices...  This might take me a while but here we go anyway!

The Thing - Duh!  Kurt Russell rocks my socks.

Resident Evil - My favorite video game made into a not-so-bad movie that kinda was weird but did its thing pretty well.

Silent Hill - Another wicked video game that made little sense but they did a nice job with it.

Return of the Living Dead - Naked zombie-lady eats a hobo...what more could you want?

Event Horizon - This is why I don't want to be an astronaut.

The Silence of the Lambs - No, Clarise!  DON'T remember the lambs!

Army of Darkness - Bruce Campbell can do no wrong in my opinion.

28 Days Later - Cillian Murphy does a damn fine job being a hero guy in this one AND he's wicked hot in the rain with no shirt on.

Bad Taste - I think this one disturbed the crap out of me more than it scared me...but it's still pretty gore-tastic.

Saw - My foot hurts...

Re:Re:Re:Re:'Tis the season...

Dr_Gor:

 What criteria do you use in selecting your favorite Horror Movie?   Is it the scariest?   The goriest (Robert?)?   Or simply the most well-made, best-acted and most compelling movie?   I guess for me it is a combination of all of the above....    I would be interested to hear your thoughts...

                                                       <  GOR  >

I've actualy tried in the past to come up with some sort of formula for how I rate movies, and I just can't do it. I basically let my mind go while watching the film, allow myself to be sucked in, and then formulate opinions afterwards. In my reviews I tend to follow my gut feeling about a film and then try and come up with arguments to defend why I feel that way. Totally subjective, but anyone claiming to review movies objectively is lying.

It varies from film to film. Here's a couple examples to illustrate my point. The Changeling and The Beyond(Which I can't believe I forgot to put on my list).The Changeling is a fairly slow moving, subtle(until that ghostly wheelchair... I try to ignore that part), stately horror movie. An old fashioned ghost story with slamming doors and flickering lights, and I love it. The Beyond is, let's be honest, a really crappy display of filmmaking. The dialogue is awful, the script is nonexistent. Scenes change without any real development and the main plot is poorly explained at best. It feels like something thrown together quickly after a week of particularly vivid fever dreams. But I love it. I find it hard to explain, but the Beyond hypnotizes me every time I watch it, and I can't look away. Parts of it even scare me, although I have no way of explaining why.

In the end it just matters that the movie... moves me. If a movie, no matter how crappy, has that spark, that one idea that gets me thinking, it's worthwhile.

Re:Re:Re:Re:'Tis the season...

Dr_Gor:

And Thanks to you other guys for your cool lists as well!   Very interesting!    I have a question for you all....   What criteria do you use in selecting your favorite Horror Movie?   Is it the scariest?   The goriest (Robert?)?   Or simply the most well-made, best-acted and most compelling movie?   I guess for me it is a combination of all of the above....    I would be interested to hear your thoughts...

Honestly I just have all the movies I've seen rated in IMDB, and I did a search for movies that IMDB lists as "horror" and looked at the ones I rated the highest.  So I'm just basically telling you my favorite movies that also happen to be considered in to be largely "horror" movies if not also part of some other genre as well.

Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:'Tis the season...

   I find it quite fascinating that  Return Of The Living Dead  made it onto three of the lists above!   (including my own!)   What, exactly, is it about this movie that makes it so compelling?   It is, obviously, more comedy than horror...  in fact it is a parody of all the zombie movies to come before.   It is (loosely) based on the  NOTLD  mythology, but quite ground-breaking in some respects.   The fast-moving, agile zombies  (WAY before 28 Days Later!)  and the zombies ability to speak!  ("BRAINS!")  I've always had a bit of a problem with that last one because I know that you need to have at least three functional organs (4 counting a funtional mouth) to accomplish this including lungs, vocal-chords and a tongue...   somebody correct me if I'm wrong...  but most of the zombies I have ever seen, in THIS movie in particular, were obviously missing some, or all, of those particular organs.

   I don't know...  if I had been in a more serious horror mood when I made my list, I could easily have replaced this movie with  Frankenstein  or  The Haunting  or  The Legend Of Hell House  or  Halloween ...   I guess it is because  Return...  is so much darn FUN!   Any Monty Python fans here?   You might know what I'm talking about...   Some movies are just fun to watch!

                                                           <  GOR  >