Best and Worst Horror Movies for Halloween

[Jimmie Higgins]

Ok, there's only a week left to go for my annual Halloweed horror movie binge. Please help me with suggestions for horror movies: I'm looking for specific categories of what are your favorite: good/bad/creepy/gory/funny horror movies. It doesn't need to be one for each category, just whatever you want, but I'd appreciate a little description or at least a one-word categorization.

Por ejemplo:

Creepy: "Rungu"
Good: "The Shining" or "Texas Chainsaw Massacre"
Monsters: "The Host"
Bad: "Thankskilling"
Funny: "Return of the Living Dead" or "Evil Dead 2"

[Apoi_Viitor]

Creepy: Ju-On (any of them)
Good: Bunny Lake is Missing (Whether or not its a horror movie is debatable)
Good: The Descent
Bad: Dead Silence
Good: Funny Games
Kinda Good: The Strangers

[Os Cangaceiros]

If you want to see an good psychological horror/thriller/mystery-type film, I'd recommend a Norwegian film called Naboer ("Next Door"). I watched tonight and thought that it was excellent. Two of the actors in it also starred in another decent psychological horror of last year called Skjult ("Hidden"), which also may be worth checking out.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Eh, fuck it, I'll name some more:

Funny:

Dead Alive (New Zealand)
Premutos: Der gefallene Engel (German, "Premutos: The Fallen Angel")
Mangue Negro (Brazilian, "Mud Zombie")
Severance (United Kingdom)
Street Trash (quite possibly the most un-PC horror film ever, LOL)

Intense:

Martyrs (French)
À l'intérieur (French, "Inside")
Ex-Drummer (Belgian)
Calvaire (French/Belgian, "The Ordeal")
Srpski Film (Serbian, "A Serbian Film")

Bizarre:

Kogyaru-gui: Oosaka terekura hen (Japanese, "Eating Schoolgirls: Osaka Telephone Club")
La morte negli occhi del gatto (Italian, "Seven Deaths In The Cat's Eye")
The Loved Ones (Australia, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED)
Hausu (Japanese, "House")
Mum & Dad (United Kingdom)

FUCKING TERRIBLE:

Die Hard Dracula
Sadomaster (Argentina)
Murder-Set-Pieces
Incubus
The Human Centipede (OK, this one has a certain amount of peculiar charm to it)

Hopefully I didn't go overboard on recs, lol. I tend to when this subject is brought up.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Creepy: Ju-On (any of them)
Good call - I think this actually creeped me out more than Ringu, but I saw Ringu first and saw it on a bootleg VHS tape that seemed like it could plausibly be a vehicle for an evil poltergeist. Also I had a TV at the time that was slowly crapping out and so every few nights it would switch on and show static - swear to God, that's true and so I was soooo scared whenever it happened after I saw the movie. Another funny coincidence is that when I saw the US remake, my phone rang right after she watched the video and my friends (who had not seen Ringu) almost shat themselves.

Anyway, on repeated viewings, Ringu seems less scary, but Ju-On still creeps me out... I think part of it is that I'm scared and at the same time have no idea what's happening. It's the Mulholand Drive effect effect.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Thanks for the suggestions comrades! Those seem really good and I've only seen a couple of those, so it seems like a lot of good possibilities already!

Here are a couple more that I like:
Maybe Not Quite Horror, but Weird: "The Tenant"
Slasher: "Wolf Creek" - I don't really like torture porn, but this was my favorite of all those kinds of movies that came out around that time. Edit: Unlike most slashers, it actually had characters I didn't want to see get hurt and dismembered.

Also my horror movie theory of the moment: In US horror, slasher/torture-porn movies and Zombie movies dominated the genre in the early to mid part of the last decade which reflects anxiety about US torture and brutality overseas. My prediction is that haunting and ghost movies will be a big trend this decade due to economic instability and anxiety about home-ownership - "Drag Me to Hell" is the best example of this so far, and it actually directly deals with banks and foreclosures. Ok, I'll stop before this gets moved to the "Post here when drunk" thread.

[Os Cangaceiros]

If you like the Tenant, then you'll probably like Naboer...it's actually a big Polanski rip-off...er, I mean homage. :sleep:

And if you like Wolf Creek, then definitely see The Loved Ones. It's AWESOME. Those crazy Aussies...

[Apoi_Viitor]

Here are some more recommendations...

Let the Right One In (Good)
Reincarnation (Rinne) - (Creepy)
Children of the Corn (Good)
Memento Mori (Good)
Kuchisake-Onna (The Slit Mouthed Woman) - (Creepy)
Begotten (Good and Creepy)
Visions of Suffering (Creepy)
Eraserhead (Good)
Silent Hill (I actually thought this was decent...)
Suspiria (Good)

Also, this website is pretty cool: http://www.asian-horror-movies.com/indexm.html

[RED DAVE]

Revisionists, sell-outs, insolent puppies:

Nothing but nothing can match the original Frankenstein, Dracula and the Wolfman.

Go trick-or-treating for candy corn with Jason and Freddy while a few of us who keep the faith watch the real thing.

RED DAVE

[Pirate Utopian]

Some recommendations:

Burial Ground (funny, even if it is unintentional. Michael makes the movie)
Braindead (sometimes known as Dead Alive; funny/gory)
Dawn of the Dead (the original; creepy) or basically any zombie movie Romero did before and including Land of the Dead.
Any of the Evil Dead movies (funny/gory)
Sugar Hill (the 1974 movie, if you like blaxploitation movies and horror you'll like it)
The Dead Next Door (alot of people seem to dislike this movie, I love it in all it's cheesyness, it's pretty funny)

I noticed these are all zombie movies. Oh well.
Some movies not to watch:

Redneck Zombies (I love Troma but holy shit was this bad)
IT (Curry is funny but other than that it's long and boring)
Blair Witch Project 2 (I liked the first one because it was genuinely creepy, the sequel is just shit)

[x359594]

Best: Das Kabinett des Doktor Caligari (1920), Haxan (1921), Vampyre (1932), The Mummy (1932), Freaks (1932), Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933), The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), The Wolfman (1941), Cat People (1942), The Leopard Man (1942), I Walked With a Zombie (1943), The Uninvited (1944), Hangover Square (1945), Curse of the Demon (1957), Horror of Dracula (1958), Psycho (1960), Eyes Without a Face (1960), The Haunting (1963), The Masque of the Red Death (1964), Night of the Living Dead (1968), The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1972), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1975), Dawn of the Dead (1978), Halloween (1978), The Shining (1980), The Keep (1983), Re-animator (1985), Cronos (1993), The Addiction (1995), Ringu (1997), Audition (1999), Ju-on (2000), Jeepers Creepers (2001), A Tale of Two Sisters (2002).

The Worst: Too many to name.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I started giving "thanks" to these posts, but actually they've all been really good and given me many more movies to put on my Netflix cue.

OG Frankenstein: My family was always the last on the block to adopt new technology and when we finally got a VHS player, "Bride of Frankenstein" and some Scooby Doo episodes were the first things I recorded (I was in elementary school - maybe 3rd grade). So even to this day, I love the atmosphere and strangeness of the first two Frankenstein movies.

I was older, but "Night of the Living Dead" also holds a similar place in my frightened heart... I think maybe I was a freshman in high school and I stayed up way too late to watch a midnight broadcast of that movie and I was totally stunned by it. That channel always played midnight (cheap) horror movies and usually it was like "Slugs" or whatever, so I thought there was no way a b-movie in black and white would scare me as much as the original "Night of the living dead" ended up doing.

[Quail]

I don't really watch many horror movies, but Evil Dead 2 is pretty good in a kind of funny/slapstick way. Maybe to ease your nerves after watching something a bit scarier :lol:

[Ele'ill]

Horror/suspense

The Thing (yes, it's scifi but it's almost horror)
Blair Witch Project (Yes, I know it's a bit lame- the suspense in it was decent and I liked the concept)
Let The Right One In-
The Howling-
Mothman Prophecies-
Storm of the Century- the Stephen King adaptation form his book.

[Oswy]

Jeepers Creepers II (2003) - great monster, almost great horror film; bus full of teens in the isolated countryside become the object of interest for a seemingly indestructable flying bad-ass.

The Fog (1980) - atmospheric (ahem) traditional-style tale of wronged sailors haunting a town's shame.

Race With The Devil (1975) - fantastic horror/romp in which campers accidentally encounter devil-worshippers and find getting away isn't so easy.

The Devil Rides Out (1968) - Christopher Lee and Charles Gray, need I say more? A must popcorn and beer British horror. Yeah, the very, very end is a little disappointing, but by then you'll not care - watch it alone and a little drunk, it'll freak you out!!! You've got to see it simply for the Charles Gray performance alone.

The Wicker Man (1973) - Christopher Lee, Edward Woodward and Britt Ekland. Weird genius; remote scottish islanders appear to have lost a little girl, and appear to have found a policeman. About as quirky a horror film as you'll see and don't expect a happy ending.

EDIT: Anyone seen Tombs of the Blind Dead (1971)? - I've seen some YouTube clips and it looks like the perfect funny/scary mix.

[Pirate Utopian]

Tombs of the Blind Dead is really good, it's really cool when they crawl out of their graves. The sequels are all decent but dont match the first one.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Best: Das Kabinett des Doktor Caligari (1920), Haxan (1921), Vampyre (1932), The Mummy (1932), Freaks (1932), Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933), The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), The Wolfman (1941), Cat People (1942), The Leopard Man (1942), I Walked With a Zombie (1943), The Uninvited (1944), Hangover Square (1945), Curse of the Demon (1957), Horror of Dracula (1958), Psycho (1960), Eyes Without a Face (1960), The Haunting (1963), The Masque of the Red Death (1964), Night of the Living Dead (1968), The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1972), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1975), Dawn of the Dead (1978), Halloween (1978), The Shining (1980), The Keep (1983), Re-animator (1985), Cronos (1993), The Addiction (1995), Ringu (1997), Audition (1999), Ju-on (2000), Jeepers Creepers (2001), A Tale of Two Sisters (2002).

The Worst: Too many to name.


Jeepers Creepers is in no way one of the better horror films from this decade.

This decade has actually been pretty damn good as far as the genre goes, MUCH better than the abysmal 90's, which was probably the worst decade ever for horror.

[Magón]

Great: Halloween, Dawn of the Dead (original), 28 Days Later, My Soul to Take (in Theaters), The Crazies, Funny Games, and some others I can't think of off hand.

Good: Halloween 2, Paranormal Activity, Scream 2, SAW, SAW II, Poltergeist (I saw it for the first time when I was 19, and it didn't bother me.) The Hill's have Eyes (1&2 + Original)

Bad: The Mist (and every other Steven King based movie), The Devil's Rejects, SAW III onward (seriously, they get pretty redundant after III.)

Fun: Every Final Destination, just because they're really easily predictable.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I got a bootleg of Jaws 3 in 3-D and Friday the 13th 3D - you know the kind with the red and blue glasses. These are probably some of the funniest bad horror movies I've seen. Even stupider and funnier in 3D.

[Oswy]

Great: Halloween, Dawn of the Dead (original), 28 Days Later, My Soul to Take (in Theaters), The Crazies, Funny Games, and some others I can't think of off hand.

Good: Halloween 2, Paranormal Activity, Scream 2, SAW, SAW II, Poltergeist (I saw it for the first time when I was 19, and it didn't bother me.) The Hill's have Eyes (1&2 + Original)

Bad: The Mist (and every other Steven King based movie), The Devil's Rejects, SAW III onward (seriously, they get pretty redundant after III.)

Fun: Every Final Destination, just because they're really easily predictable.

I love the original Halloween film. The remake of Dawn of the Dead was a pretty good film too. I've seen the original Crazies but not the recent remake. I actually liked The Devil's Rejects, I wouldn't say it was a great film but it had a certain quality about it, the ending was kinda overdone.

Anyone here seen Severance (2006)? I recommend it.

I also have to admit to liking I Know What You Did Last Summer along with all the Scream films.

Oh, and what has got to be one of the funniest vampire films - Roman Polanski's Dance of the Vampires (1967).

This thread makes me want a TV again.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I've seen Severance. It was pretty good...humor as black as coal in that film, LOL.

My favorite part was when that one dude has an argument with his co-worker about whether severed heads remain conscious for a time after decapitation (he argues that yes, they do). Then later he gets decapitated, and the last shot of him is of his severed head giving a little smile. :lol:

[Oswy]

I've seen Severance. It was pretty good...humor as black as coal in that film, LOL.

My favorite part was when that one dude has an argument with his co-worker about whether severed heads remain conscious for a time after decapitation (he argues that yes, they do). Then later he gets decapitated, and the last shot of him is of his severed head giving a little smile. :lol:

:lol: yeah, that bit was great. I also liked the bit towards the end where they stumble into their boss at the real hotel and he demonstrates his ultimate anti-terrorist weapon by accidentally blowing up a passing airliner :lol:

[Diello]

Creepy
The House of the Devil, Rabid

Good
Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht, Let The Right One In

Monsters
Alien, Cujo

Bad
Manos: The Hands of Fate, Troll 2

Funny
Braindead/DeadAlive, Ravenous

[graymouser]

You cannot go wrong with Romero's Dawn of the Dead, it is one of my favorite films and a tremendous work on its own.

I'd recommend checking out some Dario Argento if you haven't yet, Suspiria and Tenebrae were favorites of mine.

If you want to get into some John Carpenter, and you should want to do this, watch Halloween and The Thing. Great, great movies.

I've always had a soft spot for the slasher films, between the originals of Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Probably my favorite little obscure formula slasher flick was the direct-to-video Prom Night IV: Deliver Us from Evil, which was a bit on the nose as far as formulaic horror but is a lot of fun if you are just willing to go for the genre.

Anyway. Particularly check out the Argento stuff if you haven't. Suspiria is a hell of a mindfuck.

[Magón]

I should have stated both the Original and Remake of The Crazies. I like them both.

[x359594]

Jeepers Creepers is in no way one of the better horror films from this decade...

To each his or her own.

In terms of mise-en-scene Jeepers Creepers was quite good, and the monster as the embodiment of homophobia was well realized.

[Aloysius]

If your into the really gory stuff, like Braindead or the Evil Dead movies, Wizard of Gore and pretty anything by Herschell Gordon Lewis is a must-see. They're just so ridiculous...-ly awesome.

[Magón]

Child's Play series was alright and fun to watch. (And by that, I mean the ones that were actual Child's Play, not Bride of Chucky or The Seed of Chucky, those were just boring.)

[Axle]

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984, the new one sucked ass)
Hellraiser
American Psycho

[Oswy]

Child's Play series was alright and fun to watch. (And by that, I mean the ones that were actual Child's Play, not Bride of Chucky or The Seed of Chucky, those were just boring.)

I've never figured out the relationship betwene the two - were there some Child's Play films which were then taken up as Chucky films and is there a continuity between then - I've always assumed that the central character is the same doll.

[Pirate Utopian]

Which Chucky film had Redman in it? That one was particularly shit.

[Aloysius]

Hellraiser is a seriously fucked up movie. I can't watch it.

[Stranger Than Paradise]

Don't Look Now, The Tenant, Eraserhead, Images, Alien, Rosemary's Baby, The Shining, The Brood, Shivers, The Thing

are my favourites

[Widerstand]

EVENT HORIZON! (sci-fi/bizzare/creepy)

[Jimmie Higgins]

Thanks for all the suggestions and helping to make my halloweed a memorable one. I was only able to watch a few of the suggestions and some of the better ones I had never seen were:

A Tale of 2 Sisters
House (60s or 70s Japan)
Them (the French one, not the Ant one)
Night of the Creeps

Some of the ones I had seen but didn't mind watching again:

Tremors (yeah it's stupid, but it's perfect monster-movie escapism)
The Thing (the carpenter one)
The Fog (not as good John Carpenter, but somewhat entertaining)
Dracula (not my fav OG Universal monster movie - not as good as Frankenstein/Bride or the Invisible Man - but I saw this in a movie theater which made it fun).
Psycho - I never appreciated this movie until I saw it in a theater, now I don't know why I didn't like it before.
Anaconda - another stupid monster movie... I can enjoy Tremors without irony, but irony is needed for this one. But hey, any movie where the white scientist character is put out of commission so the heroes become J-Lo and Ice Cube is kinda awesome.

[4 Leaf Clover]

yeah , event horizont rocks :) i love sci fi horrors

paranormal activity was also quite creepy

srpski film (a serbian movie) is not really horror , its just extremely bizzare , and i couldn't sleep 2 days imagining scenes from the movie. wish i never watched it. and i started abnormaly hating pedophiles after it

[Os Cangaceiros]

srpski film (a serbian movie) is not really horror , its just extremely bizzare , and i couldn't sleep 2 days imagining scenes from the movie. wish i never watched it. and i started abnormaly hating pedophiles after it

That scene where the old woman is explaining to Milos about how the adolescent girl's father died fighting in a war and never got the chance to give her a "virgin's communion" was one of the creepiest scenes I think I've ever seen in a film. That movie was super fucked up.

(Awesome soundtrack, though. More movies need EBM soundtracks.)

[Blackscare]

http://www.deviantart.com/download/158283973/From_Dusk_Till_Dawn_poster_by_smalltownhero.jpghtt p://www.dvdbeaver.com/film2/DVDReviews43/from%20dusk%20till%20dawn%20blu-ray/title%20from%20dusk%20till%20dawn.jpg




A subtle yet intense, if not down-right masterful, piece of cinematic gold.http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film2/DVDReviews43/from%20dusk%20till%20dawn%20blu-ray/title%20from%20dusk%20till%20dawn.jpg

[Os Cangaceiros]

Tom Savini as Sex Machine! :cool:

It's too bad that he's a real asshat in real life, supposedly.

[gorillafuck]

Bad: Dark Harvest 3

You'll shit yourself laughing.

[Quail]

http://www.deviantart.com/download/158283973/From_Dusk_Till_Dawn_poster_by_smalltownhero.jpghtt p://www.dvdbeaver.com/film2/DVDReviews43/from%20dusk%20till%20dawn%20blu-ray/title%20from%20dusk%20till%20dawn.jpg




A subtle yet intense, if not down-right masterful, piece of cinematic gold.http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film2/DVDReviews43/from%20dusk%20till%20dawn%20blu-ray/title%20from%20dusk%20till%20dawn.jpg
I was so confused when I first watched this film. I didn't realise it was meant to be some kind of horror film, so I was like wtf when the zombies appeared.