Ten Best Horror Movies

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by smilin ed, Oct 15, 2013.

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  1. Off the top of my head, at this moment (in no order - it looks like a common thread runs through some of these picks):

    a.) Night of the Living Dead (1968)

    b.) The Shining (1980)

    c.) Les Revenants - They Came Back (2004)

    d.) Rosemary's Baby (1968)

    e.) The Exorcist (1973)

    f.) Ju-On: The Grudge (2002) - But really all of these should be seen, even the short theater runs (one, direct to video) of the films that came before and after

    g.) Phantasm (1979)

    h.) Let the Right One In (2008)

    i.) The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

    j.) Jacob's Ladder (1990)
     
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  2. shokhead

    shokhead Head shok and you still don't what it is. HA!

    Location:
    SoCal, Long Beach
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  3. Scotian

    Scotian Amnesia Hazed

    1. Army of Darkness
    2. Seven
    3. The Thing
    4. I Saw the Devil
    5. Psycho
    6. American Werewolf in London
    7. Drag Me to Hell
    8. The Blair Witch Project
    9. Return of the Living Dead
    10. The Shining
     
  4. Khaki F

    Khaki F Forum Resident

    Location:
    Kenosha, WI. USA
    Well I agree with Psycho and Rosemary's Baby, at least.
     
  5. I'll have to give this more thought that I have time for right now but believe that the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre is in my Top Ten.
    And pretty close to the top, too!
     
  6. driverdrummer

    driverdrummer Forum Resident

    Location:
    Irmo, SC
    The Beyond, Burnt Offerings, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Dawn of the Dead, Pieces, Jaws, Suspiria, Nightmare on Elm Street, Carnival of Souls, Cannibal Holocaust
     
  7. mindblanking

    mindblanking The Bourbon King

    Location:
    Baltimore, MD
    There's a movie from late 70s early 80s called The Changeling" with George C Scott that scared me for days and I was already 14 or 15. Should be on everyone's top ten.
     
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  8. Brother_Rael

    Brother_Rael Senior Member

    In no particular order:-

    Dracula (US: Horror of Dracula)
    Frankenstein (1931)
    Scanners
    The Shining
    Alien
    Hellraiser
    Yeux Sans Visage
    Nosferatu
    The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
    Dr Terror's House of Horrors (see also Dead of Night, 1945)
     
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  9. Rose River Bear

    Rose River Bear Senior Member

    Psycho
    The Beyond
    The Shining
    Dracula (Lugosi Original)
    Suspiria
    Let The Right One In
    Texas Chainsaw Massacre
    NOTLD
    Deep Red
    Cannibal Holocaust
     
  10. Johnny66

    Johnny66 Laird of Boleskine

    Location:
    Australia.
    Yes, I'd accept Deliverance as a horror movie - although it certainly is somewhat diminished when viewed only as a horror movie. And the same might be said of No Country For Old Men, which, when stripped to its essentials, observes many of the tropes of the slasher movie, but is infinitely richer than that genre typically permits (or requires). I guess one could say such films contain horrific elements, but approach the subject matter far beyond the mechanics of 'the horror movie'.

    I recall reading that George Romero's technique is to write material that would conventionally function in typically dramatic or romantic terms. And then he adds zombies.
     
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  11. Ghostworld

    Ghostworld Senior Member

    Location:
    US
    Carnival of Souls
    The Haunting
    The Exorcist
    Night of the Living Dead
    The Omen
    Eyes Without a Face
    The Descent
    Let the Right One In
    Return of the Living Dead
    The Innocents
    The Others (Kidman)
     
  12. yesstiles

    yesstiles Senior Member

    My favorites:

    1. Suspiria (1977)
    2. Dawn of the Dead (1978)
    3. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
    4. The Evil Dead (1982)
    5. Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)
    6. Halloween (1978)
    7. Tourist Trap (1979)
    8. My Bloody Valentine (1981)
    9. Terror Train (1980)
    10. Black Sabbath (1963)
     
    Last edited: Oct 28, 2015
  13. captainsolo

    captainsolo Forum Resident

    Location:
    Murfreesboro, TN
    Bride is no. 1. Everything else is near equal in no order.
    1. Bride of Frankenstein
    The Invisible Man
    The Mummy
    Dracula
    Frankenstein
    Son of Frankenstein
    The Old Dark House
    The Curse of Frankenstein
    Horror of Dracula
    The Mummy '59

    Those just barely off:
    Night of the Demon
    Don't Look Now
    The Wicker Man
    Theater of Blood
    Pit and the Pendulum
    Masque of the Red Death
    The Mummy's Hand
    Invisible Man Returns
    Brides of Dracula
    Revenge of Frankenstein
    Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed
     
  14. We will be screening....

    1. Alien
    2. The Thing
    3. The Hidden
    4. Horror of Dracula
    5. Bride of Frankenstein
    6. The Exorcist
    7. The Fly (Cronenberg)
    8. The Gift
    9. Dr. Phibes
    10.Invasion of The Body Snatchers
    11. Night of The Demon
    12 The Haunting
    13 The Innocents
    14 the Other
    15 frenzy
     
  15. maxnix

    maxnix Forum Resident

    top ten as of today:
    - The Thing
    - The Ring
    - Frankenstein
    - The Innocents
    - Mothman Prophecies
    - The Dead Zone
    - The Descent (man, there a lot of "The. . " movies!)
    - Jaws
    - Jacob's Ladder
    - Silence of the Lambs
     
  16. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    Uncut version would be welcome.
     
  17. Ghostworld

    Ghostworld Senior Member

    Location:
    US
    I've been watching a lot of horror lately, and there's really a delicate balance needed to create a great horror film. Too much horror and they become intolerable and cheap, too little and they becoming meaningless. How the physical horror is handled can result in either classic from camp. I keep watching and deleting these movies, trying only to keep the classics on my server. My storage is growing, because so many horror film fail and creating just the right delicate balance.

    Not many people are mentioning the new film "The Witch." If you're into horror, this one really needs to be seen. Very stylish and classy.

    One of my few recent views I can't decide on is "Drag Me To Hell." Sam Rami is all about camp and "Drag Me to Hell" is definitely played for gross-out laughs. It's almost borderline too lighthearted to work, but it's so much fun at times it does. I'm keeping it on my server, I guess. Maybe there should be categories of horror. Is there a "horror comedy" sub-genre?
     
  18. redmetalmoose

    redmetalmoose Forum Resident

    Location:
    New England
    Not to be confused with 'The Witches',starring one of my favorite actresses,Anjelica Huston.It was a movie based on the Roald Dahl book and the last film that Jim Henson worked on.They changed the ending which completely pissed Dahl off but it kept pretty true to his dark and twisted humor.Scared the life out my poor daughter.Bad dad.
     
  19. moops

    moops Senior Member

    Location:
    Geebung, Australia
    I'll recommend a bit of a sleeper from a few years ago, that's a fantastic little atmospheric creepfest .....

    Session 9.

     
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  20. Session 9 was just announced for Blu-ray.
     
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  21. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    I liked the USA "Ring".
    Tbe Conjouring was great till i viewed it again.
     
  22. moops

    moops Senior Member

    Location:
    Geebung, Australia
    Here's an interesting comment from Session 9 director Brad Anderson .......

    Question: But do you think it's harder to scare people, and especially kids these days? I talked to a director recently [who said] their kids laugh at horror. Kids aren't scared as easily.

    " I saw The Exorcist reissue, while I was making the movie actually, with a young audience, Boston-based audience. I remember seeing that movie and being terrified. Everyone who saw it when it first came out was genuinely terrified. But it hasn't aged well, I think, and kids were laughing--giggling throughout the whole movie, at seemingly inappropriate moments, you know what I mean? There's always a little bit of that nervous laughter that comes with good horror, but at the same time it sort of felt wrong to me, like, they didn't get it. They were so kind of nonplussed in a hipster sort of self-conscious way. I think it is harder to scare kids--young people--because I think there is an ironic hipster stance that you gotta take now in relationship to pop culture. Because you know you're being manipulated. People are so aware of the manipulation, you know what I mean? We're all aware that movies totally toy with us and pull our strings. Of course, there was a time I think when people just didn't acknowledge that as much. Audiences were more susceptible to it; they weren't as aware of it, and now, since we are so self-aware of the entertainment factor, I think, you can't take it that seriously. I do feel like audiences--young audiences, smart, intelligent, very cognizant of how they're being marketed to--[it's] hard to break through that ironic lid, that little sort of smirk. "
     
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  23. Ghostworld

    Ghostworld Senior Member

    Location:
    US

    You can't really expect kids to react to the Exorcist the same way we did back then. Elements of the film have become so iconic: spinning heads, pea soup, "the power of christ," "your mother sews socks in hell" -- all those bits have been parodied, repeated and riffed on so many thousands of times that they're wrecked in this culture. It like asking kids to be wowed by the beauty of "The Sounds of Silence" the way it wowed us back in 1966, because they've grown up with hearing it on old peoples' classic rock stations, in commericals, and in elevators. It's been artistically devalued, just as The Exorcist has. Now, I saw The Exorcist with people in Thailand who were absolutely terrified of The Exorcist because they'd never heard of Richard Pryor or SNL and weren't oversaturated with images from the film or riffing on Exorcist bits. Harder to scare kids today? Probably not with good material. Harder to scare them with a 40 year old movie that they half know in their heads, absolutely.
     
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  24. moops

    moops Senior Member

    Location:
    Geebung, Australia
    I think the Exorcist packs way more of a punch if you watch it when you are older. Sure kids can sit and watch it and laugh at the pea soup and the "sock sewing" the same as they watch Jason vs Freddy, but one day they might reach a point when the deeper elements of the film ..... good, evil, innocence, questions of faith, redemption, possession etc, will start ticking over and open the movie up to them beyond the basic shock elements that as kids, they first focused on.
     
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  25. Tim S

    Tim S Senior Member

    Location:
    East Tennessee
    I really disliked the Conjuring the first time around. Almost a parody of that type of horror film.
     
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