Best Horror Film ever made?

Discussion in 'Art & Culture' started by alexb123, Oct 30, 2006.

  1. alexb123 The Amish web page is fast! Valued Senior Member

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    Rosemarys baby has to be one of the best. So skillfully made. No blood no guts just a huge anount of guessing.
     
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  3. Prince_James Plutarch (Mickey's Dog) Registered Senior Member

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    How about Nosferatu? The original horror film.
     
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  5. John99 Banned Banned

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    That was good, burnt offerings, turn of the screw, the exorcist, dorain grey movie...
     
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  7. imaplanck. Banned Banned

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    The Fly
     
  8. Genji Registered Senior Member

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    The Shining.
     
  9. madanthonywayne Morning in America Registered Senior Member

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    The Ring. Only movie I've actually been scared by.
     
  10. sargentlard Save the whales motherfucker Valued Senior Member

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    The Blob, scared me shitless for months when i was a wee little lad.
     
  11. Hapsburg Hellenistic polytheist Valued Senior Member

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    John Carpenter's Halloween.
    Saw.
    Hostel.

    Any of you saying that The Exorcist scared you have no spine whatsoever. That movie could not have been more obviously fake.
     
  12. Genji Registered Senior Member

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    The Exorcist was a genuinely terrifying movie. Sure, if you look at some parts of it now it looks fake, but it did not look fake in 1973, or 1983.
    Hostel wasn't scary. It was a good movie, in parts, but no more scary than a CSI episode. Just torture. That's it. (And the eye removal scene in Hostel was fake looking.)
     
  13. Oxygen One Hissy Kitty Registered Senior Member

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    "Halloween" bored the shit out of me, even when it first came out. "Saw" was cool, but not scary. Same with "Hostel". "Ring" was pretty good, but nothing to have nightmares over. "The Grudge" rates right around "Halloween's" level, maybe just below. I haven't seen this one yet, and probably am never going to, but I'll throw "Jesus Camp" into the ring.

    Now THAT's some scary shit!
     
  14. In no particular order.

    >Eh-hem!< Deep breath and...

    Dead of Night - One of the first, and still by far one of the very best, of the Horror Anthology Genre. Black and white, frightfully British, and extremely well made. A film that bleeds from one persons nightmare into the next, thoughtfully, deftly, and culminates in a truly memorable calamity of one mans reality crashing headlong into a dream from which he can never awaken from. Beautifully shot and deftly directed, something of a classic and highly, hugely, recommended.



    Cat People - The original, directed by Val Lewton. A dark, richly atmospheric allegorical tale of sexual awakening, and cats. Perfect casting and superb direction, set design and lighting, make this a gripping and unforgettable film, possibly low on the horror even by the standards of the day, but exuding atmosphere by the bucket load. It's been tried many times since, but still never surpassed. Boffo.



    I Walked with a Zombie Val Lewton again, this time in the Caribbean. A straight, no nonsense, tale but what this man can do with light and a camera is amazing. The eponymous Zombie of the title is done completely sans make up, and yet remains memorable for years after first viewing. Light weight stuff by today's standards, but good lightweight stuff. Well worth a squint.



    The Hitcher - Marvellous. Rutger Hauer. It's Rutger Hauer, being Rutger Hauer. I've never been all that sure quite how the bally duce you are supposed to spell his name, but Rutger Hauer is worth watching in most films. No body does weird and other-worldly quite like old Rut. Just don't ever give him a lift is all.



    Dance of The Vampires/The Fearless Vampire Hunters - A knockdown, stand-up farce. Written by, directed by and actually staring an impossibly young Roman Polanski, this is the Vampire film that takes the piss outrageously out of Vampire genre, and yet manages to work as a fairly passable stab at the very genre itself. Rich in texture, colour, humour and Alfie Bass as the worlds first Jewish Vampire, it's light, it's frothy, and it won't fill you up before teatime. Good stuff.



    Captain Kronos (Vampire Hunter) - Forgotten action adventure romp from the Hammer stable of Horror films, the Original Buffy The Vampire Slayer, travelling across endless Carpathian villages, slaying Vampires and rescuing damsels with really rather excellent cleavages. Lighter and frothier even than the Polanski, but enjoyable for the romp it is.



    Cronos - Odd, very touching Spanish language Vampire flick. Cronos is the tale of an old man coming towards the end of his natural life and content with his lot in life, until inflicted by the terrifying Cronos Device. An ancient mechanism which offers life immortal, but at a price naturally. Funny, scary, and at times deeply touching. This is a complete re-working of the average vampire tale, thoughtful and very, very good.



    The Crazies - When not directing Day/Night/Tea Time of the Living Dead movies, George A Romero directs other films. This is one of them. It is actually Day of the Dead, shot several years before that was actually made, but without the zombies...

    Instead, what you have here is a simple tale of Nasty Government Germ Warfare bug getting loose on Hapless Towns Folk, with mayhem ensuing. Think of James Herberts early novel The Fog. James Herbert certainly did and these days he can now afford to employ other people to wipe his arse on his own books....

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    As per-usual, Romero's eye for detailing the particulars of all things and ways Americana is as spot on as all ways. Funny and horrible by turns, it's chilling and thoughtful, fun and in actually scarier than the Zombie films in a good many ways. With what would later become the trade mark of James Cameron, Romero's eye for detail is impeccable, and though as daft as a brush film it may be, the realism of it all works to very good effect.



    The Raven - Roger Corman, what can you say? Bright, colourful, that beautiful Cinemascope look of his. Vincent Price, Boris Karlov and Peter Lorre hamming it up in a knockabout farce, and a young Jack Nicholson grinning away like a maniac for one of his first major outings on the big screen. Horror it possibly isn't, but if you've never seen it you must.



    An American Werewolf in London - Classic update of that other Hollywood B-Movie standby the Werewolf movie. Famous, deservedly so, this takes something old and makes it seem all new. On anyone's list of films to see, American Werewolf by rights should be on it somewhere.



    Wolf - Not a true horror film as such, more loving homage to the black and white classics of the 1930's, Wolf takes as its tenant the tale of Middle Aged Man faces Midlife Crisis. It invents nothing, adds nothing to the genre, and its glitzy cast caused many to dismiss it out right on its release. But this is just a simple homage of a film, nothing more, nothing less. And it manages to capture the air of days long gone, in a modern setting with a modern cast, and work as a very watchable, very enjoyable pastiche of a way film they rarely make in movies these days. Good stuff.



    Deliverance - Today more an action adventure, but at the time of release definitely X-Cert. I remember the sneaking in to see it. Burt Reynolds, John Voigt, a group of NYC yuppies off for a weekend in the hills, find themselves getting back to nature in more ways than one. Attempted to be done many times since, most notably Southern Comfort with Powers Booth in the late 80's, it's both funny and horrible, gripping and really rather dark.



    2,000 Maniacs - Stupid. This is a stupid, stupid film. Straight from the days when a producer would hold the artwork for a film poster in his mitts, remove his fat cigar and holler at the top of his tarry lungs "Great! I love it! Make me the Film!"....

    It was never meant to be serious. It isn't. This is the inspiration actually for films such as Deliverance/The Hills have Eyes/Southern Comfort, and its worth watching. Just the once though. Watching it twice unless highly stoned is not recommend, neither is it advisable. But well worth the watch. Just don't, y'know, expect anything cleaver....

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    The Dunwich Horror - Roger Corman again, this time in modern day 1970's America, attempting and not entirely un-succeeding in bringing HP Lovecraft's classic Novella of the same title to the big screen.

    It's flawed, as Corman tends to be, but its gutsy and it tries really rather well to bring to life a classic story that doesn't have you sniggering quite all the way through until the end. Watching Dean Stockwell in the role of the films main protagonist may indeed bring one to wonder, what on earth did they think they were doing back then. But if you bear in mind that around the same time this was shot, Jack Nicholson was doing walk on parts in TV shows like Dr Kildare, think of it as an affirmation, that even Hollywood stars are infact actually only actors after all, and once had phone bills to pay just like you.....

    Nothing certainly to go out of your way for, but it tries, as only Roger Corman does, and that's worth the rental.



    Evil Dead 2 - Its Evil Dead, but better. Faster, Funnier, Even more OTT. And the ending is just so Terry Gilliam, you will find yourself checking the box just to see who directed it.

    Bruce Campbell's the sort of actor that has got one of those sorts of faces that you simply can't help but look at when its on screen. Why mainstream Hollywood ever passed him by I'll never know, but here he boggles and jumps like the trouper that he is, and virtually carries the film single handed, literally in places. And that's my idea of what a good actor should do. Chainsaw optional.



    The 6th Sense - Blindingly good. Bruce Willis in a Blindingly good film. What can you say. True, the plot is such that once you've watched it the once you really can't watch it again and get quite the same kick, but it's very well plotted, paced, directed and acted on all scores. And the kid they got, seriously good at what he does. Boffo again. But probably only the once



    Alien What do you need to say, it's Alien for chrissakes....



    Aliens - Incredible on two scores: a sequel and a stand alone action film in combination that actually delivers.

    In non of its parts are you let down, the sets, the action, the story line, the characters, the Bugs themselves. True, this is the film that made Alien into a franchise and so should, by all rights, be burned at the stake till perfectly dead, but what a film it is. I saw this one back to back one evening for the first time, The Hitcher first followed by this, and though years more than I truly care to mention ago, its an evening I've never forgotten. Cameron has an eye for detail few directors if any can match. Here it is never clearer or put to such good use. Classic.



    The Haunting - Eerily atmospheric 1960's screen outing of Daphne Dumauria's classic book The Haunting of Hill House, and recently butchered for no discernible reason other than the fact that they could. It's head stuff and atmosphere, and chills a plenty. Few special effects, no colour, the original house where everything that walks there walks alone, you feel its isolation bleeding through the screen. Enough to make your breath frost. Boffo, which is better than Boff and quicker as well.



    Ghost Story - Oddly good big screen adaptation of the masterfully written book by Peter Straub, Ghost story boasts many, many fine and special features. The sight of Fred Astaire in a horror film for one has to count for something in someone's book for certain.

    It's a tight, claustrophobic story of four men, reunited by a resent death and compelled to recall the habit of their youths: to gather together and tell a ghost story. But as the film progresses it clearly transpires, they all share one paicular ghost, this one from life, which though long dead and buried hasn't forgotten about them in the slightest...

    Special kudos to Star Trek First Contact's Alice Kridge as the eponymous ghost of the story. The scene in the bathroom will make you jump so much it'll give you whiplash....

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    The Innocents - Henry James's dark, brooding tale of long dead lust come back to life and playing itself out through two children, the innocents of the title.

    Its a dark, disturbing and uncomfortable story, and interestingly told. Bit long on places, but exudes atmosphere when it does in such measure as to make it quite remarkable.

    The actual spirits themselves are seen, never directly. Always silent and unexpected in the periphery. No jumping out and standard schlock horror tactics here. You can be watching a scene the whole way through and then suddenly forced to realise, the bladdy things were there in the shot all along!

    That can make you jump more than most things you'll ever see, believe it....

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    But the most remarkable piece of the film is actually the title scene. And it's impossible to describe it, all it is being a shot of a field on a bright warm summers day, and the sound of a choir boy singing in the background. Nothing happens, there really are no tricks...

    Yet something in the scene literally and quite seriously does make the fur on the back of your head stand up. Seriously so. And not many films can actually do that, not many at all.

    Low certainly on established horror, but suspenseful in the extreme. Don't watch it alone. Or, if you do, do make sure that you actually are first....

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    I Married a Monster from Out of Space - Classic dumb B Movie shlock. Why it works is subjective and mysterious. It isn't scary or frightening at all, but its worth a watch.



    HP Lovecraft's Necronomican - A good, modern day attempt at bringing to vivid life the horror that was the lifes work of the author Henry Phillips Lovecraft. If you've never read Lovecraft, you should. This is the man who influenced more horror writer's, comic book artists and film makers than anyone may, by any normal rights, should.

    But Lovecraft was no ordinary man.

    He lived a very short, very strange life, and committed to paper some of the very greatest pieces of Horror Fiction ever imagined. Films just don't do an author of his calibre justice, this is no exception. But, if you've never read him and are indeed now curious, watch this and wonder what other dark treasures you've been missing all your life....

    Of course you do realise, a Lovecraft story isn't just for Christmas. It is actually for life. Just sit your way through but one of the stories like Cool Air and give it a think...

    You'll know exactly what I mean then...

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    The Thing From Another Word - The greatest B-Movie sci-fi Horror flick ever made. In no way can words do this film justice. They want to, but they lie. The most innovative, resourceful, intelligent sci-fi movie probably ever. A product of an age gone by, but seeing it can infact make you wonder. My, what an age.



    The Thing - Excellent and equally innovative re-working of the original, works more as a straight horror film, but packed with everything which John Carpenter is capable of doing with a good cast and a proper budget. Probably the closest thing he's ever got his hands on that actually had some degree of finance behind it, but in this, unlike so many far higher budget films of today, Carpenter excels. A shame they just don't give him the cash and let him get on with it more often. Hugely rated.



    Village of The Damned - Eerie, black and white, British. The novel The Middwitch Cuckoo's is a classic, the film sadly isn't quite. But not a bad attempt never the less. Scary kids are indeed scary, and these little beauties are no exception. Forget the re-make and the sequel, stick with the original, and let a classic bit of British Creep chill you nicely.



    The Quatermass Experiment - Another exercise in British Chill, this time bringing the classic BBC TV series to the big screen. Though badly miscasting the lead as an American, this still manages to convey something at least of the horror that was Professor Bernard Quatermass of The British Rocket Group, and a series of but four brief adventures never surpassed.

    This is horror sci-fi as it was meant to be, a classic tale of three men going off into space and only one coming back. Part horror, part whodunit. Quatermass succeeded in capturing the attention of an entire nation, and though funny in many way by the standards of today, the film manages to get something over about why people the nation over would gather in Pubs and Office Canteens the day after, and talk about what they'd seen the night before.

    Excellent stuff, fantastic even and intelligent too. Shame the monster is actually a sock, but what the hey, getting everything would be just greedy, wouldn't it?



    Night of The Hunter - Not a horror film. If I don't point that out, I'd be a very nawty litty indeed. This is not a horror film. More a dark parable, a fairy story if you like. But what a fairy story, and what a monster.

    Robert Mitchum chills like no one ever chilled before, and though its daft and old fashioned, part bright dream, part dark fable, the chilling bits do really chill, and when it comes to the frights, that's really all you need and heaps more besides. Classic film work from that great British character actor Charles Laughton, his first experience behind the camera, and all to rather sadly his very last to. But what a hint of what could and might of been. A Classic film.



    Prince of Darkness - John Carpenter again, this time with a tale of Devils in Jars, and spooky green gunk on the run. Not a commercial success by any means, not even a brilliant film. But chocced full of shocks, some which stay long after the film is over. Risibly bad in places, but the right bits, though few, are actually right.



    Dead and Buried - Nasty. Nasty, horrible, horrible film. This personifies violence, not merely the act, but also the thought. It's a daft tale, something of a Sixth Sense without the sense to it. I didn't enjoy it, but I never forgot. Bound to be on a video store shelf somewhere or other.

    Just don't watch it whilst eating crisps is all I'm prepared to say...

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    Martin - If, like me, you found The Blair Which Project just 90 minutes too much of anonymous Drama School actors and really awful camera work, Martin is a shoestring budget movie which doesn't disappoint. And the camera doesn't jitter once.

    Something of a forgotten gem from the early 1970's, directed by the Zombiemeister himself George A Romero actually, Martin is the tale of the average poor white all American boy. Shy and awkward by day at school, even shyer and more inept as a vampire by night....



    Martin is a chillier which never descends into farce, and yet you find you actually care for this budding young sociopath who thinks he's a vampire, or possibly a vampire who thinks he's a sociopath.....

    The end I promise you will leave you mouth agape, and shock you in a way fare like The Blair Witch Project can only dream. Obscure, but worth the find.



    The Lair of The White Worm - Ken Russell's isn't the very first name to pop into your head when you think of horror film directors, and with LoTWW, that's a fundamental given which isn't likely to change. True, the sight of Ollie Reed and Alan Bates wrestling naked by firelight remains to this day one of the very scariest of sights ever committed to celluloid when darling Ken's hand famously turned to DH Lawrence's Sons & Lovers. And the castration scene in The Devils to this day still will make a platoon of Marines cross their legs in unison and wince as a man .

    But a straight horror film, Ken Russell?! :shock:

    Don't worry, you haven't been slipped a crafty dose of mescaline, yet... But what Russell does deliver here is a hugely enjoyable romp of a "horror" flick.

    Imagine if you will if Enid Blighton had written The Famous Five go Mad with Dildo's and a Ruddy Big Snake Thrown In For Good Measure (though actually its based on a novel written by Bram Stoker - his only other novel if I'm not mistaken), and essentially that's exactly what get.

    Featuring a very young and incredibly fresh faced Hugh Grant in the starring role, and a perfectly cast Amanda Donnahoe as a slinky hipped, salaciously grinning villainess with a seriously all too literal taste in both men and, on occasion, the more attractive of the women, this is a film neither written nor intended to be taken in anyway seriously, and taken as such delivers a more than enjoyable night in.

    Moments to remember include a crashingly awful dream sequence featuring Hugh, several airline stewardesses and a pencil, and an extremely vivid and wickedly grinning topless Amanda doing to a sculpted phallus...... well, actually doing is probably the operative term here...

    Definitely worth the rental....

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    DustDevil - This isn't a brilliant film. If you want brilliance, check out The Hitcher.

    It's flawed, quite how and where it's not exactly easy to say, but worth the recommendation if for no other reason than you deserve to find out for yourself.

    Visually at least it is indeed stunning, and for the visual impact alone, this is a film well, well worth a squint. Similar in premise, on the surface at least to The Hitcher the director, a chap who had previously been directing rock videos for bands like Fields of The Nephalim (shame I can't remember the name), brings to this his first outing onto the big screen neither re-make or re-interpretation, but actually a South African urban myth. Much as Rutger Hauers eponymous Hitcher comes to represent something remorseless and unstoppable, mythic in stature, the DustDevil of this tale, all billowy coat and rundown bootheels, crosses the borderlines between mythic and mysticism, reality and dream.

    Forever roaming the endless wastes of the deserts of the Transvaal, the thin places on the very edge of mans world succumb to his domain. Is he a man, or a daemon, or something else in-between? For one young woman on a long dusty journey, that is a question she is forced to ask time and time again, and in what in the usual course of events one would be left with but a tale of standard cat and mouse, the lines between these two protagonists in this film shimmer and shift like patterns in the sand.

    Not a brilliant film, but an interesting enough one to be sure. And that's rare enough in the genre to make it worth the time to watch.



    The Seven Golden Vampires - Kung-Fu shenanigans and Vampires, what more can you ask. An entertaining foray by the Hong Kong school of film making of the early 70's into Hammer Horror. More entertaining than a rink full of monkeys on skates, and every bit as good as all those old episodes of Monkey all strung together, and Vamps a plenty. Fangs of Fury for all. Top stuff



    The Beast Must Die - Not entirely certain of the title of this, but if anyone recognises the description, perhaps you can set the record straight. This is a silly piece of 70's kitsch, bad as to be awful, but taken as the tongue in cheek piece of nonsense it is, worthy indeed of a silly night in with good friends and nothing better to do.

    Basic premise: A fabulously handsome and world famous Big Game Hunter Extraordinare, a Richard Rowndtree clone with an eye for the ladies almost as much as for himself, gathers together for one weekend a number of disparate and frankly perfectly awful guests to his Mansion in the countryside. Having stalked and hunted successfully the most dangerous and ferocious beast on the planet, our "hero" now wants only to capture and kill that most elusive, and by its very definition, most dangerous creature the world has ever known.

    Yes. One of the assembled is....... a Werewolf!


    Woof! Part hammy Hammer Horror, part blacksploitation flick of the worst possible kind, mainly actually a Whodunit if you can believe this. The Beast Must Die, I kid you not, will keep you chortling on your popcorn all the way through.

    Scream in terror at what actually passed for cool, shriek in horror at not very special at all effects, and guess, if you dare, the identity of The Werewolf, before the beast strikes again...... and again...... and again......... and, for variety.......

    Oh, if you do scope this one, do please remember this is a damnably silly film, and knowingly so, and try not to let The Wolf Break throw you off your track completely.

    As the dulcet tones of the late Valentine Dhal will inform you Remember, you only have 60 seconds to guess the identify of The Wolf...

    Best not to waste those precious seconds now..... Stonkingly good fun... :lol:



    Big Meat Eater - A number of years ago BrainDead was a movie of some high critical repute which brought its New Zealand born director to the attention of the movie making world. Hailed as both disgusting in the extreme and riotously funny, personally I found it just too much of the same one line gag. Gross certainly, but samey all the way through. Big Meat Eater on the other hand is the stoners BrainDead of Choice. A very funny pastiche of 50's middle-class America, all perfect lawns and white picket fences, the arrival into which of a rather incongruously large, red be-fezzed Gentleman Butcher brings to the residents of this idyllic town both cannibalism and subversive fun in equal measure. And actually funny comedy horror, intelligently written and perfectly performed, which doesn't rely on the gross out to supply the laughs. Although be warned, it does have its bits. Literally as a matter of fact. Marvellous.



    Quatermass and The Pit - You may know, or know of, someone who likes and possitively raves on about an old British Sci-fi show called Dr Who, and simply find the appeal of the thing slightly eludes you utterly.

    At its best Dr Who was a show which could scare the pants off you, make you want to hide behind the sofa yet keep you glued to the set absolute. If you've ever seen HellRaiser and thought PinHead looked wicked cool, Barker got the inspiration for that from a Tom Baker Episode of Dr Who. Meglos....

    You'd sit there on a Saturday afternoon tea time, and "see" things these days would carry Parental Guideline warnings, and the thing went out as a kids show. Amazing how times change.

    The show which influenced Dr Who at its best the very most was a trilogy series of quite the most brilliant Television sci-fi Horror ever written by a chap called Nigel Kneal. Seriously a genius writer and producer of some of the darkest monstrosities ever to grace the tiny screen. The Quatermass Experiment, Quatermass II and Quatermass and The Pit all made it to the big screen, pretty much intact and of the three possibly the one that actively benefited the most from the transition remains the last of the original trilogy.

    Quatermass and The Pit is that rare beast of a film. Intelligent sci-fi, intelligent horror. A tale of Daemons and Martians, and an ancient projectile unearthed at a central London building site. Despite its age this is still a story that can scare. In full Technicolor with a marvellous Andrew Keir perfectly cast and very much at the helm, satisfy your curiosity about what Whovanians actually see in something so tacky and incredibly cheap and reward yourself with both a ripping adventure, a classic sci-fi premise, and some spook that'll have you reaching for the cushions and glued to the set all at the very same time.

    Not a horror film as such in the accepted sense, but something better. Something more. Always worth a watch.



    In The Mouth of Madness - John Carpenter again, this time with a loving homage to the writer HP Lovecraft. Sam Neil stars as an Insurance Investigator, hired by a Publishing House to locate the whereabouts of their most successful, but highly mysterious, best selling author of Horror Fiction, Sutter Kane (and yes, the SK initials are a nod in the general direction of Old Faithful Steven king Himself).

    What begins as a straight forward job for Neil sets him on the road, quite literally, to madness, where the author in question apparently lives and would like to make freely available to the world at large just as soon as his latest opus is complete. Which for Neil becomes something of a nightmare which waking up from proves remarkably hard to do.....

    Carpenter is a man who just loves his horror. He's perfectly well versed in both the film and the book of it, and here he manages to explore a bit of both. Lovecraftian horror, with a liberal touch of Hitchcock thrown in for good measure. A good plot premise and a spirited performance from Sam Neil elevates this from what should by rights be pure dross, into something really rather enjoyable.

    If you've never seen it, do. It has its moments, more than you might first assume and certainly more than the critics ever gave it credit for on release. Worthy of consideration, admirable in parts and commendable on reflection. Good stuff.



    Eraserhead - David Lynch. Jack Nance has the sort of face I could happily watch for hours. I don't for the life of me know why that is, but he's mesmeric. For human. Some condition around the eyes or some such. Certainly the hair is memorable in itself, and to the uninitiated would require a review all of its own simply to describe.

    Eraserhead isn't strictly speaking a horror film in anything like the accepted sense of the word. There are no knife wielding maniacs, nothing with teeth and claws and a taste for human flesh. There is very little dialogue, its shot in the most moody of superb black and white. There's no discernible plot and very, very few actual people at all. But what this is is a study of anxiety. More than just a quick sketch. An exercise if you will.

    You will never in your life watch a film that will disturb you more, that is an absolute guarantee. You will never feel a sense of clawing, claustrophobic horror from watching all the other horror films so far recommended back to back, and see nothing of its like anywhere else on the shelves of your local video store.

    It's not for the faint hearted. Its unremitting, its bleak, it's very strange and very, very disturbing and yet oddly, beautifully tender.

    You probably won't want to watch it through all the way to the end, but unlike any other horror film I could ever mention, this forms no impediment to the recommendations of it. It's cinema in its purest sense. It's what the meaning of the word film can actually do.

    Not easy, not to be taken lightly, but incredible. If you do watch it, it'll only be the once. But that once will last you a life time. Think carefully before choosing, do I really want to watch this? Few films can genuinely claim true, genuine, uniqueness. This is one of those few.



    Rosemary's Baby - The late John Cassavettes was the most thoughtful, most gifted, and possibly the very most overlooked actor of his generation. Whilst names like Brando and Newman gain recognition instantly, John Cassavettes almost unilaterally garners nothing more than Who?

    Which is a shame. He was very much an Actors actor, electrifying on screen, devilishly good looking, hated the bastard with every scintilla of my being growing up, and yet still marvel today at the natural understatedness of his presence on screen.

    Why the Newman's of this world get the pick of parts like Cool hand Luke and the Cassavettes of this world get handed the television dross which was Johnny Staccato I'll never, ever know.

    Here is but one of a plethora of fine performances, and a marvellous piece of cinema to boot.

    Rosemary's Baby, Directed by Roman Polanski, starring the very waif of all waifs Mia Farrow as the eponymous Rosemary and Cassavettes as her conniving, ratish yuppie husband. This is a very black, very dark comedy or terrors. Low on the visceral but pure aviation fuel when it comes to spiralling tension. A well lauded and strangely timeless classic. Always worth the watching, just to see how it should be done.



    RepoMan - British director Alex Cox's first foray in Hollywood produced this gem of a movie which defies absolutely any one single genre of classification. Putting it under the horror category is as good enough as any. There are moments of horror. It draws outrageously from classic B-Movies of the 50's. It also works as a social satire, a comedy, a fine, fine piece of extremely good ensemble acting, a warning and a hoot. It's strange, its eclectic, it functions on so many levels you'll need that spliff just to keep a clear track of them all in your head. Watch it, watch it, watch it.

    If nothing else, telling people you have will raise by default your status of cool from Merely Just to plain, outright Uber, and its a damn fine way of going about it. A treat, a right of passage, a coming of age. Just rent the thing and get on with it....

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    Frankenstein Unbound - An odd attempt at sci-fi that, like the book of the same name, tries and fails quite admirably to mix the genre with horror, in this instance all to rather literally through the media of TimeTravel.

    This is in no way a brilliant or significant film, but predating the advent of the far superior Richard Brannah effort to breath life faithfully into Mary Shelly's actual book, this doesn't actually do a bad job. Which considering all the high concept time travel gubbins should defeat the purpose utterly, yet in a curious kind of way doesn't.

    Recommended really as an oddment, for that is what it is. You'll find better without trying hard at all, but it does actually try and succeed in a most curious sort of a way to be different. And that's always worth considering at least. Not at all highly recommended, but worthy of a scratch in the margins of off the wall horror films. Don't forget you read it here first.



    EventHorizon - Nowhere near as good as you're likely to think it, but actually no where near in truth as bad. This takes the alien formula at face value, but goes in a radically different direction with it. There's no bug, but a something.... And ghosts.

    Lots and lots of ghosts.

    Not very pleasant ones either.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 31, 2006
  15. Hapsburg Hellenistic polytheist Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,224
    Doesn't have to be scary to be a good horror movie.

    And Halloween kicked ass. It essentially started the whole slasher genre. Without it, we wouldn't have some kickass movies.
     
  16. Genji Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,285
    A horror movie is a scary movie. Not a thriller or an action film, or a crime movie, but a Horror movie, meaning scary. I disagree with your redefinition of horror as meaning not scary. I'll bet one MEEEEElyon dollars that if you saw The Exorcist in 1973 you would have been very scared and traumatized.
     
  17. iam Banned Banned

    Messages:
    700
    the only horror movie now that could scare me is a realistic one but who wants to shell out 8 bucks to see what they have to 24/7. Real life, eeeww, makes me shudder.

    I agree it doesn't have to be scary perse but more suspenseful to be enjoyable. I went on a roller coaster that had a 90 degree drop and though i was scared i did not enjoy it as much as one that had more varying turns, loops, and acceleration.
     
  18. Genji Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    5,285
    Not the best horror movie ever made but when it came out it scared the little Genji to death: "Ssssss" a 70's movie about a man that is unwittingly part of a diabolical experiment to turn him into a snake! In the end he was half man/half snake writhing in a cage at a carnival. I had dreams about that movie for YEARS!
     
  19. mountainhare Banned Banned

    Messages:
    3,287
    No one has mentioned Jacob's Ladder!

    What a kick ass movie. And a resource of ideas and concepts for future horror/thriller movies and computer games (witness Silent Hill, BAD ending...) The twist at the end of Jacob's Ladder was truly shocking.

    Anonymous:
    "The Thing" kicks ass. I remember starting a thread about it a while back.
     
  20. Mrs.Lucysnow Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    9,879
    Definitely the original Exorcist.
     
  21. redarmy11 Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    7,658
    House of 1000 Corpses.
     
  22. Oniw17 ascetic, sage, diogenes, bum? Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,423
    That movie was corny.
     
  23. flatcapman Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    91
    I cant belive you guys have not metioned this brilliant horror film

    "Suspiria"

    Its scary esp. in the 1st 15 mins with those creepy eyes at the window which gave me nightmares for years.

    Does anyone else agree?

    FCM

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