Horror Movies

[synthesis]

I actually never liked horror movies as a kid or as a teenager, but I'm really into them now. I got into them after I watched The X-Files all the way through over a couple months, and got addicted to that feeling.

Here's a partial list of horror movies; some of these might seem like strange inclusions - movies not considered to be in the horror genre - but I'll explain why I think they should be included. If there's an asterisk after the name, it's a film that might not technically be a horror movie, but if you're a fan of the genre then you'll almost certainly like it, and if you're not a fan of horror movies, you'll probably like them better than the other ones on the list.

28 Days/Weeks Later (2002/2007) - Sort of genre-shifting for the zombie movie. More than just being "fast," the big distinction for me was that fighting back was no longer an option. You just had to run - which made it much scarier.

Alien (1979)* - This movie scared the shit out of me as a kid. The James Cameron and David Fincher approaches are probably more entertaining, but Ridley Scott's is the original sci-fi/horror movie.

American Psycho (2000)* - Sort of a proto-POV horror movie. I'm assuming everyone has already seen this. If anyone's seen Rules of Attraction (a completely different kind of movie, but a good one) the main character is Patrick Bateman's cousin.

Apartment Trilogy, by Roman Polanski: Repulsion, Rosemary's Baby, The Tenant (1965, 1968, 1978) - Three phenomenal movies. I was surprised how well they hold up to my modern, ADD sensibilities. Rosemary's Baby is the most well-known, and Repulsion is probably the most critically regarded, but I liked The Tenant the best. I found it unsettling in a way that I hadn't been made to feel by a movie since the first time I watched Mulholland Drive.

Barton Fink (1991)* - The Coen Brothers actually said they intended this to be a horror movie, and I think it shows. I liked it for the same reason as Mulholland Drive, although I much prefer the latter; this is still essential viewing.

Black Swan (2010)* - Darren Aronofsky killed this. Natalie Portman killed it, too. What a great movie.

The Blair Witch Project (1999) - Unlike Paranormal Activity and Saw, it's hard for me to see how this caught on, although I'm probably not giving it enough credit for being the first big "found footage" movie. It seems more notable for the marketing gimmick than anything about the movie, but maybe I've just seen way too many parodies of the "video diary" scenes to really view this from an unbiased perspective.

Buried (2010)* - David Fincher's Panic Room, with Jodie Foster and an unrecognizable Kristen Stewart, was supposed to be the great "claustrophobia movie," but it struck me as only scary if you're already claustrophobic. Buried is sort of like two hours of that scene in Kill Bill where Uma Thurman has to get out of the coffin - that and the fact that Ryan Reynolds is the protagonist probably makes it sound terrible, but it's so, so good. It really replicates what I imagine being claustrophobic actually feels like.

The Cabin in the Woods (2010) - Absolutely recommend this. I won't ruin it, but the more horror movies you've seen, the better this one is.

The Conjuring (2013) - Meh.

Dawn of the Dead (2004) - Probably the only Zack Synder movie I actually liked. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

Dead Alive (1992)* - Who can forget the lawnmower scene? You can't necessarily tell from this movie that Peter Jackson would make anything like the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but it's just awesome. Comedy movie for horror fans.

Dead Trilogy, by George Romero: Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead (1968, 1978, 1985) - Groundbreaking movies. I think the middle entry is the best, but they all have that bleak outlook that has become characteristic of the zombie genre.

Event Horizon (1997) - Pretty boring, not particularly impressive technically. I thought this looked awesome when I was in elementary school, but I never got around to seeing it, and when I watched it recently it was really underwhelming.

Evil Dead (2013) - I was really fucked up when I saw this in the theater, but the atmosphere is great. This movie and the original are apples and oranges; I'm not including Evil Dead 2 or Army of Darkness because I think of those as basically comedies.

The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2004) - Not scary, but Dexter's sister is good in this.

The Exorcist (1973) - Really good; better than The Omen, not as good as Rosemary's Baby and still not even in the same ballpark as The Shining. The child actor in this is great, and the little spider crawl is still creepy as fuck, but otherwise the religious motifs probably don't touch a nerve in the same way they did back then.

Final Destination 2 (2003) - Directed by the same guy as Snakes on a Plane. If you liked that movie, you'll like this one. Not the least bit scary, but hilariously over-the-top. Quentin Tarantino apparently really liked the opening scene - you probably will, too.

The Frighteners (1996)* - More like Shaun of the Dead than Tucker & Dale vs. Evil or The Revenant in that it's a horror/comedy rather than a comedy for horror fans. Actually, maybe the former could be described as a horror for comedy fans. Anyway, the FBI agent in this is funny as fuck.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)* - Most people have probably already seen this, but I highly recommend it. Not scary, but has tons of horror tropes. I really like when David Fincher has a preconstructed story to work with; his atmospheric genius combined with the great plot of the source material really comes together in a great way. Can't wait for the sequels.

Halloween (1979) - I think this is the first, and definitely the best "teen slasher movie." I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked it.

The Hidden (1987) - Not a bad Kyle MacLachlan vehicle. I wouldn't put this at the top of my viewing queue, but I wouldn't recommend against it either.

I Saw the Devil (2010)* - I'm not big on gore porn, but this movie also has a really impressive atmosphere and some brilliantly disturbing scenes.

Insidious (2010) - God, I loved this movie. Well, at least the first half of it, before they overexplain things. The imagery is incredible. Every horror fan should watch this at least to the halfway point.

Insomnia (2002)* - Good Christopher Nolan movie. Robin Williams is really good in the antagonist role.

Jason X (2001) - Fucking hilarious.

Jeepers Creepers (2001) - Monumentally stupid, with an exceptional example of what Spike Lee called the "Magical Negro" trope, but like Final Destination 2, it's somewhat entertaining in how over-the-top it is.

The Killing Gene (2007)* - I actually don't remember all that much about this movie, but I know I liked it. I'm a big fan of Melissa George, who was also in "Triangle," which I'd actually really recommend, and the excellent Showtime series "Hunted."

Legacy: Black Ops (2010)* - Definitely not a horror movie, but I'm guessing if you like the other movies here then you'll like this. Idris Elba is the main character, and Freeman from The Wire is also in it.

Los Angeles Trilogy, by David Lynch: Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire (1996, 2001, 2006)* - Obviously not horror movies, but unsettling in a way that no other movie on this list is, except perhaps Polanski's The Tenant. Mulholland Drive is my all-time favorite movie; the less said about it, the better, but if you haven't seen it, you need to watch it right now. In a dark room. By yourself. High as fuck. Anyone who's seen it will feel me on this. (David Hopper's mask in Blue Velvet is pretty freaky, too.)

Mama (2013) - I actually really liked this movie, for the most part. It has Jamie Lannister from Game of Thrones. The two child actors in this movie are really good, and the director and cinematographer are also very talented.

Maniac (2010) - Pretty interesting take on horror movie conventions; the movie of which it is a remake has been called the "quintessential exploitation flick." I prefer the 2010 version, personally.

The Omen (1976) - Worth seeing just because out of all the entries on this list, it's probably the most frequently reference in pop-culture. Probably my least favorite of all the "big" horror movies from that decade.

One-Hour Photo (2002) - I wasn't as big on this movie as a lot of people were, and I liked Insomnia better, but it's still worth watching.

Paranormal Activity (2007) - Opening myself up to some criticism here, but I like watching these no-budget sleeper hits, just to see how they're made and to try to understand why they caught on to the extent that they did. Contrary to the critical consensus, I think if you're entertained by the original, you'll almost certainly be entertained by the sequels.

Pi (1998)* - Included for obvious reasons, but I liked Black Swan better.

Red Riding, In the Year of Our Lord, 1974 (2009)* - Really good. The new Spiderman's accent was impressively spot-on, and the pace of the movie really reflected the protagonist's growing frustration in a very visceral way.

The Revenant (2009) - See Tucker & Dale vs. Evil; I'd pretty much say the same thing about this - it's a comedy for horror fans, in a different way than Shaun of the Dead - although it's got a different sense of humor and it's a play on the zombie genre instead of the teen-slasher genre.

Ringu/The Ring (1998/2002) - This might be sacrilegious, but I thought the remake was actually better - the opposite of pretty much every other Japanese horror remake. The film-within-a-film was better in Ringu, but otherwise it was pretty average, whereas The Ring kickstarted that whole wave of remakes.

Saw (2004) - I've only seen the first one as far as I can remember, but it's interesting for the same reason as Paranormal Activity: no-budget sleeper hit. Pretty impressive movie in that it was conceived as taking place entirely in one room, and sticks to that as much as possible.

Scream (1996) - Not bad, although this is probably my least favorite subgenre of horror movies.

Se7en (1995)* - Great detective story. Anyone notice Carcetti's right-hand man from The Wire in the morgue?

The Shining (1980) - Must-see, no matter your opinion on horror movies. If you've seen it before, I don't think you need to be a huge movie geek to enjoy Room 237, the documentary about the movie and its obsessive following.

The Silence of the Lambs (1991) - Not actually scary, but one of my all-time favorite movies. Still fascinating in a way that I wouldn't apply to Hannibal or Red Dragon, although I actually liked the latter better. The recent television show "Hannibal" is incredibly good. Conversely, "Hannibal Rising" is by far one of the worst movies I've ever seen.

The Sixth Sense (1999) - Shyamalan has gotten a bad rap in recent years for obvious reasons, but I'll put this out there: this movie is so well-done. Beyond just the rewatch value, it's just a top-notch horror movie, no matter how scary you actually think it is.

Shaun of the Dead (2004) - Pretty entertaining, and it did the actual horror elements better than The Revenant or Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, but I just prefer those two, for whatever reason. On the other hand, I'd say that this is probably a "better movie" in a critical sense, although I'm starting to move past that distinction in my head.

Shutter Island (2010)* - If you like the genre you've already seen this. If you haven't, regardless of whether you like horror movies, drop everything and watch it. Watch Mulholland Drive first if you haven't seen that, but watch this after.

Silent House (2011) - I haven't seen the Spanish-language original, but this was pretty impressive in a technical sense - it's edited to look like one long take, and it's hard to tell where it's not. Not the least bit scary, but still worth a watch.

Sinister (2012) - I didn't like this as much as most people did, or at least most horror fans. But again, if you're a horror fan and you haven't seen this, you're missing out. Not particularly original, but generally well-done.

Spider (2002)* - Pretty unsettling David Cronenberg movie. I think it was The Guardian that rated it either one of the best or underrated movie of the last decade. I thought the pacing was a little slow, but there's some good characterization going on here.

Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (2010)* - More of a comedy, but touches on a bunch of horror movie tropes. I'd say it's a comedy oriented towards horror fans.

The Woman in Black (2012) - I was hoping this movie would at least have some good imagery, but it was boring as shit. What the fuck was Daniel Radcliffe thinking? Whoever that girl is that played Hermione is the only one that's going to have a career after that franchise.

The X-Files: Fight the Future & I Want to Believe (1996 & 2008) - Both decent. I thought the latter was actually really underrated, although if I'd known about it before it came out I probably would've been disappointed that it didn't have anything to do with the plot arc of the series. It really reminds you of how atmospheric The X-Files was when it was set in British Columbia.

Zodiac (2007)* - Great David Fincher movie. Some of the murder scenes can really get under your skin, and it's also a great detective story, much like Se7en. I thought it was a little directionless, but my buddy said that's the main thing he liked about it (more realistic) so I can't count that against it. Overall I'd highly recommend it to anyone, regardless of your opinion of the horror genre.

Zombieland (2009) - Didn't really like it, honestly. I didn't find it particularly scary or funny. I much prefer the next collaboration between the director and Jesse Eisenberg, 30 Minutes or Less, a comedy/action movie with Aziz Ansari, Danny McBride and Nick Swardson.


I know I'm leaving a lot out here; if you can think of something I missed, I either forgot it, or it's been too long since I've seen it, or (most likely) I haven't watched it yet.

Here's my top 5:

5. Barton Fink
4. Shutter Island
3. Psycho
2. The Shining
1. Mulholland Drive

Anyway, when I was writing this, I was struck by how movies I hadn't seen yet, such as Possession, Vertigo, and The Seventh Seal. I'd like to hear what I forgot to include or recommendations for movies I haven't seen yet. There's a good chance I've either seen it or I haven't but I have the movie ready, so by all means post additional movies here.

[RedGuevara]

I sincerely applaud you for posting this. I'm a horror movie maniac. I love them, even B rated ones. I'm a big slasher fan; Child's Play, Scream, Friday the 13th, Halloween and etc.. Two of my top 5 is Hostel 1 and Hostel 2. The gore effects were superb. I also enjoy Ju-on 1 and 2. I loved Darkness Falls. The Omen was kind of a joke but it was made during the time when America was more Christian and that movie was a big spook back then. Good to see a fellow horror fan. I'm all for gore but at the same time a horror movie with good story is sometimes just as good to me. Never judge a horror movie based on it's quality because some of the best have been poor quality.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Here's a top 20 of mine:

Don't Deliver Us From Evil (1971) (France)
The Day of the Beast (1995) (Spain)
Ichi the Killer (2001) (Japan)
The Shining (1980) (USA)
Halloween (1978) (USA)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) (USA)
Schramm: Into the Mind of a Serial Killer (1994) (Germany)
Next Door (2005) (Norway)
Who Can Kill A Child? (1976) (Spain)
Matthew Hopkins: Witchfinder General (1968) (UK)
Don't Torture A Duckling (1972) (Italy)
Pieces (1982) (USA-Spain)
Kill Baby, Kill (1966) (Italy)
In A Glass Cage (1987) (Spain)
Peeping Tom (1960) (USA)
Man Bites Dog (1992) (Belgium)
A Bay of Blood (1971) (Italy)
Re-Animator (1985) (USA)
In the Mouth of Madness (1994) (USA)
Near Dark (1987) (USA)

Runners up:

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) (USA)
Angst (1983) (Austria)
Nekromantik 2 (1991) (Germany)
Singapore Sling (1990) (Greece)
Ebola Syndrome (1996, Hong Kong)

I love the horror and thriller genres. I'm a huge nerd when it comes to this subject.

[RedBen]

Rawhead Rex 86

Pumpkin Head 88

Basket Case 82

C.H.U.D. 84

Reanimator 85

Evil Dead 81

old peter jackson,

Bad Taste 87

Dead Alive 92

Meet The Feebles 89(not horror, just horrible)

[Os Cangaceiros]

As far as more recent horror goes, I like a lot of it. I thought that "Insidious" and "Sinister" were very good, despite plot issues that both had...those were overrode by the expertly crafted atmosphere of both films. As far as recent American horror goes, though, I haven't seen much very good recently.

A couple exceptions: "White Lightnin" is a really good, autobiographical jet black comedy/horror, and there's this movie called "Undocumented" that I watched on a whim (it has an illegal immigration theme)...I thought it was going to be cheesy and stupid, but it was actually extremely dark and brutal and a bit disturbing. The violence in it is really raw but the cinematography in it and the film's general look is one of the best I've seen recently. They did a really good job with the set and lighting, etc.

France has put out a bunch of worthwhile entries in recent years, like "Frontiers", "Inside" "In My Skin" and "Martyrs". Another French-language horror film from Quebec that's really good is "5150 Rue De Ormes". In Scandinavia they've done a number of good ones, including "Svidd Neger", "Let The Right One In" (<a modern classic), "Sauna" and "Skjult". In the UK, just check out the films of Neil Marshall and Christopher Smith, plus "Mum and Dad".

I'm not up too much on Asian horror (although I do like Asian thrillers and dramas from South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong etc a lot, like "The Chaser", "Memories of Murder", "I Saw The Devil", etc), but one I do recommend highly is the movie "Macabre" (or "Darah", as it's also known), from Indonesia. It's like a crazy Indonesian Texas Chainsaw Massacre, check it out.

[synthesis]

I just finished watching Noroi/"The Curse." I honestly thought it was scary as shit, at least off and on. I'm pretty sure Paranormal Activity is an unofficial remake of it; there are way too many similarities, although Noroi is much better, and I'm not just saying that because it's foreign.


I sincerely applaud you for posting this. I'm a horror movie maniac. I love them, even B rated ones. I'm a big slasher fan; Child's Play, Scream, Friday the 13th, Halloween and etc.. Two of my top 5 is Hostel 1 and Hostel 2. The gore effects were superb. I also enjoy Ju-on 1 and 2. I loved Darkness Falls. The Omen was kind of a joke but it was made during the time when America was more Christian and that movie was a big spook back then. Good to see a fellow horror fan. I'm all for gore but at the same time a horror movie with good story is sometimes just as good to me. Never judge a horror movie based on it's quality because some of the best have been poor quality.

I definitely agree about the "quality" aspect. Personally, I can't get enough of the kind of surreal/psychological horror that David Lynch excels at. I think what makes movies like Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive particularly good to me is that they scare the shit out of me even though I'm completely aware I'm watching a movie. It makes suspension of belief irrelevant and therefore is unsettling in a way that even the best movies can't pull off if they're completely internally consistent. It's like the difference between being scared that someone's going to break into your house and going through a terrifying bad trip on psychedelics.

[Five Year Plan]

The Shining is brilliant. You can actually do a really good gender reading of that movie, when you understand Nicholson's madness as linked to his inability to distinguish his domestic space from his work space. I'm really into El Orfanato (The Orphanage, 2007) right now.

[synthesis]

KmkVWuP_sO0


Christopher Smith

I loved "Triangle" - great mindfuck of a movie. It's definitely one of the top ten films I've seen in the last couple months, and I really wish Melissa George would get some bigger roles.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Smith's other films ("Creep", "Severance", "Black Death" etc) are also well worth checking out, and yeah, I like Melissa George, she's pretty good. She's also in "30 Days of Night" as I remember, which, while fairly stupid and ridiculous, was entertaining enough, and "Mulholland Dr"

[synthesis]

Wow, I totally forgot she was in Mulholland Drive. That makes her even more impressive. 30 Days of Night, if I remember correctly, put me to sleep about a quarter of the way in. It would have probably been more aptly titled "30 Minutes till Night" because of how fast I passed out.

[#FF0000]

A Tale Of Two Sisters is an exceedingly baller Korean psychological horror/thriller thing that everyone needs to check out. I also recently saw a low-budget indie thing called V/H/S/2 which was basically a series of short films which were (mostly) pretty good, if a little bit cheesy at points.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

I was really into the Japanese New Wave of Horror. I used to have a ton of DVDs, some of them obscure or bootlegs.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I actually never liked horror movies as a kid or as a teenager, but I'm really into them now. I got into them after I watched The X-Files all the way through over a couple months, and got addicted to that feeling.My "thanks" function isn't working right now for some reason, but consider this 1000 rep points!:) Way to be in the season!

It's one of my favorite genres too even though I'm not particularly into "gore" (I find it distracting when over the top and often silly - it actually reminds me that I'm watching a movie)... suspence and shock and terror are effective for me though. I think it's that even a mediocre horror movie (Conjuring or the US Grudge 2) can be affecting even if there's just one or two good set-ups or chilling moments. Good horror is like nothing else - epecially in a theater and especially with an (engaged in the movie) vocal audience. Random talking or noise can diminish the impact though. What I want out of a movie is to feel something from it and even bad horror movies can do that sometimes whereas bad action movies, dramas, and comedies can be as engaging as flipping through the channels on TV... well, that was an hour and a half of my life watching someone paint-by-numbers in storytelling.

I don't particularly like slashers (for some of the social content - mysogeny and misanthropy - but mostly because they tend to be repetative and just not that creepy) but an effective one can work alright ("Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and Carpenter's first "Halloween"). But beyond Slashers and Torture porn I'm pretty open: gothic movies and even camp movies in the genre have a special charm imo even if they don't have much visceral impact.

My personal connection to the genre (I really appreciate what you said about the X-files... china mieville and "game of thrones" totally made me reconsider "fantasy" as a genre) goes way back. I didn't have cable growing up and so in middle school I'd sneak downstairs on Saturdays at midnight after my parents went to sleep and watch a horror movie show (my dad really doesn't like horror movies so we rarely watched them). It was a local channel and so all the movies were probably the cheapest ones to get the rights to and so most of them were low-budget movies from the 70s. Sure there was a lot of "Squirm" and strange 60s b-movies about people being attacked by some monster on a beach, but there were also things like "Night of the Living Dead" and gothic horror movies, Italian horror, british horror, AI Vincent Price movies, Hammer movies, old-school Universal monster movies etc. "Night of the Living Dead" made me loooove the genre though. It was stunning as a 12/13 year old and blew my mind and probably set me up to love a low-bugdet aestetic that came in handy in the next few years as indie movies and punk/lo-fi rock began to have some more mainstream access.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Now to comment and maybe add some other movies to your excellent list:

-28 Days/Weeks Later... fantastic! In addition to the "fast-zombie" innovation I think Boyle and his Dogma-95-trained D.P. should get lots of credit for making a digital aesthetic work and actually add to a film.

-Alien (1979)*... this is soooo a horror movie (and I love how real and material it feels... the workers complain about being exploted!). It's a haunted house in space! Aliens is an action movie, I like it too, but Alien is much more of a horror movie.

-Apartment Trilogy, by Roman Polanski: Repulsion, Rosemary's Baby, The Tenant (1965, 1968, 1978) - I saw the Tenant in a theater (not when it was released and I was a baby) knowing NOTHING about it! It was the closest a movie has made me feel to dropping acid. When he goes to the hospital and sees the old tenant for the first time... sublime fantastic madness. Repulsion is good, but I like the Tenant better. Rosmary's Baby is a classic imo and also fantastic, just not the rollercoster that the Tenant is. Knife in the Water is a great suspense movie. Despite maybe some personal dislike for Polanski*, I love his work and I think he's heir to Hitchcock in terms of suspense, paranoia and effective cinematic audience manipulation. (*And Hitchcock was pretty unequivicobly a misogenist pig - but a fantastic storyteller)

-The Blair Witch Project (1999) - I saw this alone while fucked up (long story but basically I was with some friends and our party ended abruptly and the left and I didn't want to just sit around bored in that state so I walked to the theater and saw the next available movie which was this). It's totally a gimmick movie - but in a theater it was effective for me and when it was over I noticed that I had actually been clutching onto the armrests and the whole time. But not deep, I thought it was fun the first time though.

-The Cabin in the Woods (2010) - One of the best and most interesting horror movies in a while and I knew there was some kind of twist coming but the third act was still more gonzo than I anticipated.

-Dead Trilogy, by George Romero: Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead - Not a big fan of "Day" but the others are classics. I liked Land of the Dead too, but it's def not on par. Maybe I enjoyed it because it was the only Romero zombie movie I was able to see on the first run in a theater... and it was about inequality.

-Halloween (1979) - I'd add "The Thing" too. I really like Carpenter and I'll even sit through one of his latter more mediocre movies if they come on TV.

-Insidious (2010) - Yeah pleasantly surprised by this one. I did like the Conjuring too, but I think both are just sort of solid ghost-stories that create suspense and do a good job at what they do... nothing that groundbreaking, but done well.

-Los Angeles Trilogy, by David Lynch: Lost Highway, Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire (1996, 2001, 2006)* - I go back and forth on Lynch, but I though Mullholland Drive was fantastic and a total trip. Twin Peaks is also one of the great Lynch projects - with some good scares and lots of creepiness too.

-Red Riding, In the Year of Our Lord, 1974 (2009)* - Yeah - the whole trillogy is worth watching - all different, almost different genres. I bindge-watched them so I'm having trouble remembering which is which. There was sort of more cop-thriller one but I think this one had a sort of unhindged Lynch feel to it which was fantastic.

-Ringu/The Ring (1998/2002) - The remake is a better movie in my view too. I actually saw these movies when I had an old malfunctioning TV that would turn itself onto static by itself... so watching the movie was frightening as fuck and scared me for weeks afterwards. The genre-convention twist is also well done.

-Se7en (1995)* - This was scary: the constant rain, even the freaking credits. Saw this in the theater when it came out and it was a ride.

-The Shining (1980) - Probably the best horror movie and I watch it at least once a year.

-The Sixth Sense (1999) - So I was only commenting on the ones you liked that I had strong opinions on... and this one I hate. I feel vindicated because I thought he was a hack from the time I walked out of the theater after this one. I felt like I was going crazy when everyone I knew loved it though. It makes a mortal sin in storytelling IMO... a twist only works if they tell you subtly (or more overtly) to expect some kind of twist otherwise it's a snowglobe ending... it was all a dream!

-Conjuring - this worked for me... more in the first act or even first half. There was a lot that didn't make sense about the movie to me (essentially the focus on the spiritualists which seemed to only make sense if they are trying to set up a franchise around these characters). But for the haunted-house part, though it was very conventional, I liked what they did with the beginning. The clapping game was worth the whole movie to me and I think the movie resolves some problems with these Amnityville type stories (why don't the characters just leave, or alternately why does it take 2/3rd of the movie for the family to realize they are being haunted). The 2nd part where the movie goes from a Anmityville story to the Excorcist was very weak... the doll was totally superfluous and distracting to the movie (again it only makes sense if they are planning a bunch of sequels - which they probably are).

-Shaun of the Dead (2004) - yup! Hard not to like if you like Romero movies.


OK Some I'd add to my list (starting obvious and then just random as I think of them):

-Jaws

-Psycho (didn't actually like this one until I saw it in a revival in a theater).

-Poltergeist - love the total flip of the "old dark" house trope... yet some evil injustice from the past does haunt here... suburbia as modern manifest destiny.

-Bride of Frankenstein - proto-camp, creepy, and the best classic Hollywood horror movie IMO.

-Texas Chainsaw - as I mentioned. The heartland of America is inherently corrupt and devours itself... evil is Family and apple pie, sot some force. The remake was terrible the only interesting innovation was the evil cop... besides "Maniac Cop" this should be used more in the genre IMO, because even people who aren't ideologically or experientially anti-cop are at least nervous about the power they can potentially hold over anyone (even if it's just the lights of traffic cops turning on behind you). I think there are political reasons we don't see this more.

-Session 9 - effective and creepy.

-Sisters - I really didn't like De Palma for a long time because I thought he was just a Hitchcock hack, but I re-watched this one and though it is a pastiche of Hitchcock classic, now that I expected it I could enjoy it for being an over-the-top homage.

-Stir of Echoes - Kevin Bacon in a movie based on a Richard Matheson story

-Return of the Living Dead - growing up there were no fast zombies only Romero ones or These ones: Brrrraiiiinsss! It's pulpy fun like EC zombies in a Romero type situation. I also like how they are treated as a contagen or pollutant.

-House (Japan 1968/9?) - not like a contemporary ghost story, not particularly scary, but bizzare and over the top. The director made swinging mod Ads and the people in the movie act more like people in commericals than humans... which is part of what makes it unsettling. Funny and strange and colorful.

-Devil's Backbone/Pan's Labyrinth - Pan is more fantasy I guess, but fascism is pretty horror-iffic. Does anyone know why the director chose to have two movies involving the Spanish Civil War? If he was a Spanish director I could see that being a more natural choice for a backdrop.

-Ju-on/Grudge 2 (US) - I don't think either of them are great movies, but Ju-On definitely creeped me out more than the Ringu (but maybe not as good of a movie and maybe not as much as the US Ring creeped me out). My partner just makes that croaking-ghost sound whenever she wants to scare the shit out of me.

-Drag Me to Hell - not as good as the Evil Dead movies, gypsy-curses are pretty sloppy and plays on xenophobia (like why couldn't it just be a hollywood "witch"), but it still worked for me overall and I had a fun time watching it.

-Gozu/Audition - Gozu is like if David Lynch made a Yakuza movie... the opening scene where the mob meets-up is so wonderfully absurd and bizarre. I think you'd enjoy it. Audition might be called torture-porn today, but it's much more than that.

-Freeway - Red Riding Hood retold as a stalker movie

-Duel - a Spielberg made for TV movie that they ended up running in the theaters. It's proto-Jaws on California highways. Spielberg is so much better as a genre director than when he indulges in sentimentality. Some of the scenes in "Close Encounters" are totally scarry too... hell even the begining of ET scared the shit out of me and my hazy childhood memory is seeing it in the theater and all the kids crying and screaming through the opening - ha!

-Wolf Creek/Rogue - not fantastic movies, but Wolf Creek was the only real "torture-porn"/New-Slasher film of the last decade that I thought was interesting. Standard stuff - people get lost in a rural area and run into the wrong isolated loner... but the narrative is broken up which gives it a dynamic that I think really lacks in this sub-genre. Rogue is a monster movie, but I thought it was fun, disposable. I tend to go easy on monster movies...

-Tremors - not scary, but dumb and fun.

-Ghostbuters - this freaked me out when I was a kid. But yeah comedy.

-The Faculty - school taken over by evil zombie-aliens. Jon Stewart! It's pretty stupid but it has some funny commentary about schools... I love that the teacher's lounge has an air conditioner that has a note that says, "Air Conditioner: do not use". Also it's the only pro-Meth movie to come out of Hollywood that I know of.

- Grave Encounters - saw this last week. Not fantastic, but much better than the generic cover would suggest. It's a low-budget "Blair-witch" type movie with characters who are less annoying, but pretty one-dimensional and stock... they also do things which don't always make sense. The ghosts when they show up aren't really much, but the build-up is great and then in the third act some aspects change which make it a more original "stuck in a haunted house" tale... but then it kinda drags-on too. The premise is that basically one of those cable ghost-hunter shows actually find ghosts which is something I always thought would make either a funny or interesting movie. The prologue where they explain this premise is totally redundant and useless because they could have just used a title card like Blair Witch did and the point would come across less ham-handedly.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Here's a top 20 of mine:

Don't Deliver Us From Evil (1971) (France)
The Day of the Beast (1995) (Spain)
Ichi the Killer (2001) (Japan)
The Shining (1980) (USA)
Halloween (1978) (USA)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) (USA)
Schramm: Into the Mind of a Serial Killer (1994) (Germany)
Next Door (2005) (Norway)
Who Can Kill A Child? (1976) (Spain)
Matthew Hopkins: Witchfinder General (1968) (UK)
Don't Torture A Duckling (1972) (Italy)
Pieces (1982) (USA-Spain)
Kill Baby, Kill (1966) (Italy)
In A Glass Cage (1987) (Spain)
Peeping Tom (1960) (USA)
Man Bites Dog (1992) (Belgium)
A Bay of Blood (1971) (Italy)
Re-Animator (1985) (USA)
In the Mouth of Madness (1994) (USA)
Near Dark (1987) (USA)

Runners up:

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) (USA)
Angst (1983) (Austria)
Nekromantik 2 (1991) (Germany)
Singapore Sling (1990) (Greece)
Ebola Syndrome (1996, Hong Kong)

I love the horror and thriller genres. I'm a huge nerd when it comes to this subject.

Damn bruh you got some taste
My favorite horror films are CHUD, any of the old Roger Corman stuff, the Hammer horror films, The Thing, Halloween, Suspiria, Return of the Living Dead, George Romero's good period, anything Fulci, Argento, or John Carpenter.

[Per Levy]

oh well why not:

the mouth of madness: i say it as it is, its not the greatest horror movie, nor the greatest movie in general and still its my favourite movie of all time. i watched this one more than any other movie and i just love it, a good lovecraftian movie, with good athmosphere. also i just love that i liked the movie way back before i discovered lovecraft.

der todesking: very interesting movie, very depressing too, not a horror movie per se, still, seven days seven suicides. "das ist der todesking er macht das menschen nicht mehr leben wollen".

begotten: very disturbing and very interesting to watch at the same time.

i watched a lot more horror movies in my time but these kinda stand out and most modern horror movies are just gore and torture porn and i just dont like those(the same goes with stuff like texas chainsaw massacre) and im just tired of zombie movies.

i agree with syn though, rosmaries baby was really good, even though not much "happens" it just doesnt get dull at all.

edit: while thinking about more horror movies came to mind:

the haunting from 1963: i loved this movie, it also shows that you can do so much just with sound and athmosphere.

alien: well everything is said about this movie, really awsome sci-fi horror, great cast, great alien, great movie.

unlike syn i acutally liked event horizon, yeah its somewhat stupid but it has sam neil in it, and i just like whole ship being alive thing.

there are probally way more than i can think of right now.

[Jimmie Higgins]

In the mouth of madness really is a fun one.

I'll add jacob's ladder too.

Not really frightening, but I think the copala Dracula is over the top and kinda hilariously fun to watch for the first two thirds. Oldman's overacting makes up for Winona rider AND Keanu reeves non-acting.

[Dr Doom]

yeah os cangaceiros' list is dope.

i would add:

invasion of the body snatchers (1978)
dead ringers (1988)
eraserhead (1977)
the vanishing (1988)
the wicker man (1973)
the devils (1971)
eyes without a face (1960)
the fly (1986)
audition (1999)
freaks (1932)
ginger snaps (2000)
martin (1978)
the loved ones (2012)

[Yuppie Grinder]

I forgot to mention David Cronenberg, that dude's great. Lots of weird genital imagery and people bodies falling apart in weird ways.

[synthesis]

-Ringu/The Ring (1998/2002) - The remake is a better movie in my view too. I actually saw these movies when I had an old malfunctioning TV that would turn itself onto static by itself... so watching the movie was frightening as fuck and scared me for weeks afterwards. The genre-convention twist is also well done.

That sounds like an awesome fourth-wall breaker. It reminds me of this:

-O1EraGKyMo
There are tons of these, and they're fucking great. They seem to be really popular in Japan and Brazil. I thought about making a whole thread for them in Non-Political awhile back, but this seems like a better place.

The best:7N5OhNplEd4More:S0onLurNv4sMxbZgB5UNO8H_M7J7h oLzYQ65VNtZ7IDY4_WpA2FvdssXUteSXBm0m0tmtvAihwO3M

I forgot about Drag Me to Hell and The Faculty. Both are good; I really preferred the former, but looking back, The Faculty has a pretty crazy ensemble cast, and I was really surprised when, after watching Grindhouse, I learned that Robert Rodriguez directed it. That reminds me of Planet Terror, although I thought Death Proof was much better. That whole two-parter, with the fake trailers (Machete!) was excellent as a package. I also forgot about Stephen King's It; I remember I saw the first half of it when I was 13 or 14 and it scared the shit out of me, and then I saw the second half relatively recently and it was corny as fuck. I'd like to watch the whole thing sometime and see how it measures up.

But thanks to everyone who's posted in this thread so far; I now have about 40 new additions to my, ah, "Netflix" queue.

[Lily Briscoe]

I have always been totally puzzled by the appeal of slasher films. At my gym, there's a 'movie room', and I don't typically watch television while working out, but I've gone in there a few times mostly out of curiosity, and I swear to god they must have some kind of on-demand movie package that consists of the absolute worst movies that have ever existed in human history, most of which are slasher films (although the other day, they had one playing about some kind of persecuted aliens prawns.....). Seriously, what is the appeal of slasher films? Because they are the only thing I've come across in my life so far that doesn't improve, even marginally, no matter how much alcohol I consume.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I wasn't that into the Rodriguez part of Grindhouse (loved the fake trailers... "DON'T!"). I thought Death Proof was outrageous (once it actually got going):

how the misogynist serial killer got whiny and entitled ("aww, why me-eeee! what did I dooooo!") when the tables were turned.

And I guess I enjoy car chase scenes too.

[Red Flag Waver]

Some essentials I haven't seen mentioned already:

Nosferatu (1922) - see also the 1979 Werner Herzog remake
Dracula (1931)
Frankenstein (1931)
The Mummy (1932)
The Black Cat (1934)
Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
The Wolf Man (1941)
Cat People (1942)
Diabolique (1955)
Night of the Demon (1957)
Black Sunday (1960)
The Hammer remakes of Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, etc.
All the E.A. Poe flicks with Vincent Price (House of Usher, The Pit & the Pendulum, Masque of the Red Death, etc.)
Carnival of Souls (1962)
The Haunting (1963)
Onibaba (1964)
Kuroneko (1968)
The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1970)
Theater of Blood (1973)
Deep Red (1975)
God Told Me To (1976)
Rabid (1977)
Phantasm (1979)
The Fog (1980)
Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981)
Candyman (1992)

[Per Levy]

Nosferatu (1922)i've seen it, it didnt age that well tbh, there is a lot of stuff that is just funny nowadays, but some moments are still creepy and i like this version of a vampire, not your model type vampire but a monster.


The Fog (1980)oh yeah, i always liked this one too, i have it on dvd. good movie even though a lot of "critics" seem to dislike this one for whatever reason. i thought it has great effects, great actors and a great atmosphere.


I have always been totally puzzled by the appeal of slasher films.dont get me started on slashers, there are good ones of course and those few good ones are also pretty creepy. i remember watching night mare on elmstreet when i was 13 and it scared me almost to death. and i still think that nightmare on elmstreet is a good movie because it doesnt follow your usual slasher clishees. wich brings me to the point what i hate about most slashers: dumb, annoying and sexobsessed college people who are killed by psychotic murderers wich we are supposed to root for. it just doesnt work for me.

anyway does anyone know "the house with laughing windows"?

3BYOWiZlaDg

it seems really interesting but i just cant find a good torrent for it that is in english and i dont have the money to buy a dvd(if that exist). but the trailer looks really promising and almost everyone talks about it like its a lost classic or something.

edit: how could if forget "the thing"? that is an awsome sci-fi horror movie, again great atmosphere, great cast and outstanding effects wich show if you use actualy, non cg, effects in the right way they are better than anything computer can generate.

[Os Cangaceiros]

God Told Me To (1976)

Gold Told Me To, yes! People should definitely check out Larry Cohen's stuff.


anyway does anyone know "the house with laughing windows"?it seems really interesting but i just cant find a good torrent for it that is in english and i dont have the money to buy a dvd(if that exist). but the trailer looks really promising and almost everyone talks about it like its a lost classic or something.

I haven't seen THWLW but I may be able to hook you up with a good copy of it...

[Per Levy]

I haven't seen THWLW but I may be able to hook you up with a good copy of it...

that would be awsome thank you, and as i said i havnt watched the movie either but i find the movie very intriguing and i just havnt read one bad thing about the movie, everyone is just praising it and the trailer, even though i dont understand it, looks so promising too.

[bcbm]

great i just downloaded a bunch of horror to watch and now you guys with your good taste have given me even more to get. :glare:

great lists so far though, really don't have anything to add.

[Ele'ill]

limited time on library computer
if I had to list the first two that come to mind

blair witch project
Quarantine

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

I've got a few:

Clive Barker's Hellraiser - The original is still one of the goriest movies I've ever seen. Barker is a genius in pretty much any medium he works in (novels, comics, art, etc.), and I also love the over all mythology of the cenobites.

Tokyo Gore Police - This is only nominally a horror movie, but it's still one of my favorites. It's partly a gorey action flick that also takes some serious dives into nightmarish WTF territory (that snail woman still haunts my dreams).

Blair Witch Project - People mock this movie today, but back then it scared the shit out of me. The idea hadn't been rammed into the ground quite yet, so the whole 'found footage' genre was still a very novel concept.

28 Days Later - Others have already brought this up, but they're right. This is an AWESOME movie. It helps that the screenplay was written by one of my favorite authors (Alex Garland, author of The Beach).

[Per Levy]

blair witch is a godo movie and again shows that if you see less it makes it scarier. and yeah i found it creepy too back in the day, only watched it once though, n my teenage years.

and i agree 28 days is a good movie too, i really liked how it looked, i liked the actors too, and it was interesting, even though it might was the start of the running zombies.

[skitty]

Diabolique-1955
Sorry I waited so long to see this!

[RedGuevara]

I just watched Lords of Salem. Rob Zombies movie. Honestly it's one that you really have to pay attention to and I liked it overall. Very artistic but with a horror edge.

[Per Levy]

the house with laughing windows

thanks to os cangaceiros i was able to watch the movie and finished it just a couple of minutes ago, and i have to say, it was great movie, slow pacing, very atmospheric, good actors and did i mention the atmosphere? its so good, filled with twists and an amazing climax. totally worth the watch, critics are right a masterpiece and it does make me wonder why this one isnt more popular(there isnt even a english dub of this, onyl subtitles). also, i did like watching a movie and reading subtitles again. havnt done that in while and it isnt distracting at all. anyway, if you have the chance get the movie and watch it, its really good.

[synthesis]

I have always been totally puzzled by the appeal of slasher films. At my gym, there's a 'movie room', and I don't typically watch television while working out, but I've gone in there a few times mostly out of curiosity, and I swear to god they must have some kind of on-demand movie package that consists of the absolute worst movies that have ever existed in human history, most of which are slasher films (although the other day, they had one playing about some kind of persecuted aliens prawns.....). Seriously, what is the appeal of slasher films? Because they are the only thing I've come across in my life so far that doesn't improve, even marginally, no matter how much alcohol I consume.

Slashers are definitely my least favorite type of horror flicks, but like pretty much every other subgenre, there's a formula: 10% of them are excellent, 20-30% are at least watchable, and 60-70% are shit. In the first category, you have Halloween; in the second, you have Scream; and in the third you have I Know What You Did Last Summer. I can understand why some people would be really into them, though, if you grew up on them.


I just watched Lords of Salem. Rob Zombies movie. Honestly it's one that you really have to pay attention to and I liked it overall. Very artistic but with a horror edge.

I saw Devil's Rejects in college and I remember liking it even though I wasn't into horror movies at that point, although I'm not sure how drunk I was at the time.

[bcbm]

thanks to os cangaceiros i was able to watch the movie and finished it just a couple of minutes ago, and i have to say, it was great movie, slow pacing, very atmospheric, good actors and did i mention the atmosphere? its so good, filled with twists and an amazing climax. totally worth the watch, critics are right a masterpiece and it does make me wonder why this one isnt more popular(there isnt even a english dub of this, onyl subtitles). also, i did like watching a movie and reading subtitles again. havnt done that in while and it isnt distracting at all. anyway, if you have the chance get the movie and watch it, its really good.

hook me up...

[synthesis]

I hear it's on The Pirate Bay now, if you're still looking for it.

[bcbm]

not any decent torrents

[blake 3:17]

Session 9 was brilliant. I need to see it again. Very interesting from an anti capitalist perspective.

And thanks to RG for the tip on Lords of Salem. I've been very impressed by all of Rob Zombie's films -- I think his Halloween 2 is the one of the best films in the past twenty years.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I really hate Rob Zombie. His first two films were OK, then he started committing crimes against humanity.

I esp. hate how he "pathologized" Michael Myers in his Halloween remake. It's like, ooohhh, my mom's a stripper and I've been bullied in school, this adds so much depth to my character's psychosis! Pfft. All that ladled with a heapin' helpin' of RZ's unending fascination with "white trash chic".

His Halloween 2 was a vast departure from the original Halloween 2, I'll give him that. Standard remakes are boring (after all, why would you remake a storyline exactly how it's been done before? It's already been done, so why bother?) The problem with Halloween 2 was it looked like it was made by someone who hadn't yet graduated from film school, but was given a introductory book on symbolism, millions of dollars & 100 hits of 200 µg LSD blotters, then told to go make a movie. Plus it had scenes that made zero sense, and were just there to show gratuitous violence, like the scene with that hillbilly in the truck who starts whacking on Michael Myers with a bat. What the fuck was that about?

It's a shame too because those movies had some great character actors in them, like Malcolm McDowell and Brad Dourif.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Actually I take back everything I said, the trippy bizarre shit in Halloween 2 is by far the best thing about it, with the exception of Rob Zombie's wife on that horse (his wife who somehow, mercilessly, finds her way into every one of his films)

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

Titanic: The Legend Goes On....


Not because the movie is itself in the horror genre, but from the horror that the human race could actually produce such a thing..:crying:

[synthesis]

So I wanted to list some television shows that horror fans might like. Asterisks mark shows that I haven't watched all the way through, but I figured I'd list them regardless.

American Horror Story (2011 - present) - Pretty well-constructed horror atmosphere. The fact that the show "resets" every season (more or less the same actors, but completely different characters, plot and setting) gives the show a much wider palette of horror aesthetics and plot elements. I'm not sure how much this third season is going to even try to be scary, but it's still been pretty entertaining regardless.

Carnivale (2003 - 2005)* - I saw bits and pieces of it in college, but not enough to really comment on it right now. Hopefully I'll be able get around to it in the next week or so.

Dexter (2006 - 2013) - Started out really strong, went to shit, pulled off the fourth season with gusto, then sunk even further than before. But the first season is definitely worth watching, for similar reasons to American Psycho.

Garth Marengi's Darkplace (2004)* - Fucking hilarious. Honestly, most British comedies don't really do it for me, but this one hits me right in the sweet spot. Richard Ayoade is fantastic.

Hannibal (2013 - present) - One of the best shows on television since Breaking Bad ended. It's sort of a prequel to Red Dragon right now, a horror-slash-police-procedural, and will probably reimagine the events of the movies chronologically as long as the show lasts. It's pretty crazy that it's on a major network; some of it is pretty gruesome. Mads Mikkelsen is amazing as Hannibal the Cannibal, and Hugh Dancy is crazy in that he's not the same person that played Prezbo from The Wire. Given how she drew on Silence of the Lambs for Scully, it was nice to see Gillian Anderson later on in the season, and given that Hannibal (the show) draws a lot from Millennium, it was nice to see Lance Henriksen in an episode, bringing the whole influence aspect full circle.

Hex (2004 - 2005)* - Everything I've read about this series says it has horror elements, but I can't tell if it's worth the time.

In the Flesh (2013) - Billed as "the thinking man's Walking Dead." Pretty funny show that looks at a zombie apocalypse averted by the discovery of a cure, which forces the rest of society to deal with reintegrating the ex-zombies, and the show breaks out all the old "supernatural/paranormal shit as metaphor for discrimination" cliches, but it's executed very well.

The Kingdom/Kingdom Hospital (1994 & 2004)* - The first is a Lars von Trier miniseries from Denmark; the second is Stephen King's remake. Some excellently fucked up shit going on here.

Kolchak the Night Stalker (1974 - 1975) - Found out about this because The X-Files creators cited it as the major inspiration (although, having just watched Twin Peaks for the first time, it's pretty obvious that show is the origin of its archetypes, with a little Clarice Starling in Scully's character) and it's held up pretty well. Not scary, but pretty entertaining. You can find episodes online, via either Youtube or Google Videos.

Luther (2010 - 2013) - Incredible first season; it's probably hyperbolic to compare the second and third to the two Matrix sequels, but they just don't measure up. The first scene of every season is a straight horror sequence (well, maybe not the first season) and Idris Elba's eponymous protagonist is a ridiculously good anchor for the show. Really looking forward to the movie.

Millennium (1996 - 1999) - The first season of this show is fantastic; every horror fan should at least watch that. Starting in the second season, they brought on X-Files writers Glen Morgan and James Wong, and it lost a lot of what distinguished it from The X-Files, but it's still worth watching; Lance Henriksen is a great actor, and the second season episode "Jose Chung's Doomsday Defense" is so good.

The River (2012) - I'm kind of sad this didn't get renewed; even if it didn't do the "found footage" thing that well, it still had some brilliantly freaky moments. It was created by Oren Peli (the guy behind Paranormal Activity) and some other guy, with help from Steven Spielberg. The first season is still worth watching; give it a chance past the first episode.

Psychoville (2009 - 2011)* - I was surprised and kind of disappointed by the lightness of this show, given what I expected or was hoping it would be. I'm only a couple episodes in, and I'm not sure how soon I'll finish it.

Sex and the City (1998 - 2004) - Consistently terrifying. (Sorry, I couldn't help it.)

The Stand (1994)* - Haven't watched enough to comment.

True Blood (2008 - present) - I stopped watching this around the third or fourth season, because it got a little too campy and haphazardly written for my tastes, but I was really impressed by the first season.

The Twilight Zone (1959 - 1964) - I haven't seen any of this show after the first run, and I've never seen The Outer Limits or Alfred Hitchcock Presents; maybe other people would like to get into those. But when I was in elementary school, this show left me with a feeling I can't describe - not afraid, per se, more "shaken," I guess, but that's still not the right way to describe it.

Twin Peaks (1990 - 1991) - I just watched this show for the first time a couple months ago, and it was crazy to me how many modern television shows this inspired with very little detectable inspiration of its own - by other television shows, I mean. It was really the first step towards the modern television renaissance we've been seeing over the last fifteen years or so. There was nothing like it and there never will be anything like it again. Although Netflix has repeatedly said that they'd like to work with David Lynch on a reboot or continuation - and they'd do a great job - it doesn't sound likely, although Ray Wise made it sound like Lynch is slowly warming up to the idea. It's really impressive how Fire Walk with Me, as a prequel, manages to wrap up most of the loose ends I gave a shit about after the cancellation, but I'd really like to see some of the deleted scenes, of which there are apparently over two hours' worth.

The Walking Dead (2010 - present) - I probably don't really need to talk about this show too much. It's too bad Frank Darabont left (because the network "gutted the budget") because the first season actually fucked up my dreams when I fell asleep watching it.

The X-Files (1993-2002) - Man, some of these episodes are still scary as shit. The ones in British Columbia have some amazing atmosphere, and the writers are great at building tension and dread. I think my personal favorite standalone would have to be Folie a Deux, the one where only the one guy can see that his boss is a fucked up fly-cockroach creature who's turning his coworkers into zombie slaves.


The two shows I considered including but didn't were The Killing and Lost. Obviously Lost is not a horror show by any measure, and the experience has made me overly cynical about other shows' story arcs, but it had some great quasi-horror moments that didn't necessarily register as such while you're watching it. It did that "grand, uplifting music transitioning into dark and dreadful as you realize what's going on isn't what you thought was going on" motif over and over again, but for me it worked. Personally, I can't actually recommend it to anyone because of the ending, but it definitely had its moments. I'd definitely recommend Fringe, another J.J. Abrams show that really stuck the landing, so to speak, and also had horror elements from time to time.

The Killing is basically Twin Peaks without the supernatural/metaphysical/whatever elements and the campy, soapy comic relief. There's not really any similarly freaky shit going on, but I still think if you're a horror movie aficionado, you'll get some enjoyment out of it. It dragged out that first mystery way too long, but I think it's turning out to be the opposite of Twin Peaks in that it's actually gotten much better in this third season now that the original case is over with. I want to watch Forbrydelsen, but it's not at the top of my list.

[Jimmie Higgins]

-people under the stairs - a (Wes craven) horror movie about landlords, gentrification, post black power white racism, and wealth distribution. It has a campy but great couple of villains played by two actors from twin peaks.

One of my pet peeve's about the genre is that it tends to want to leave some areas of social anxiety and tension untouched. While the worst slashers will play on conservative anxieties, or other sub genres will play with xenophobia or sexuality fears... Urban poverty and racism are seem to usually be left alone aside from some very notable exceptions like night of the living dead. Tales from the hood is also an exception and that one is politically fascinating IMO in terms of class tensions and anxieties within the black community in the early 90s.

All those zombie movies that came out since 28 days later... Often taking place in cities... And none have significantly added race to the equation? I like the walking dead (sometimes love-hate it) but until maybe the end of last season, it was a show about survivors outside of Atlanta with hardly any black people and the black people they had were cardboard cut outs with no motivations of their own. They even went to a prison and the only prisoner character they held onto for more than one or two shows was white! This has since changed and unless they kill off most of these new characters, I hope they do something interesting with this.

In diary or land of the dead, Romero has one scene where the main characters get stuck somewhere and come across an urban warehouse that has been fortified and made into a holdout by a bunch of black former workers there. That's a zombie movie I want to see, why didn't Romero make that instead?

[Jimmie Higgins]

I enjoyed the last season of American horror story a lot. The show is incredibly over the top and sometimes that works for it and other times it's too much. It also sorta seems to walk a line between adding real elements of social anxiety and exploring them or exploiting them. So it's interesting, for example, that this season is the 9th ward of N.O. And apparently is mainly about antagonisms between white witches who are all wealthy and black witches because the white ones expropriated their magic from African slaves. Done well and that could be brilliant, missteps could make it awful exploitation and sensationalism (especially if the show is sneakily set a few years ago and a certain flood gets involved).

[Os Cangaceiros]

Urban poverty and racism are seem to usually be left alone aside from some very notable exceptions like night of the living dead. Tales from the hood is also an exception and that one is politically fascinating IMO in terms of class tensions and anxieties within the black community in the early 90s.

These movies don't really take a "progressive stance" on urban poverty, but what the "urban decay" subgenre? Films like "Combat Shock", "The Exterminator", the films of Abel Ferrara, etc. Granted most of those aren't really "horror", but a couple of them like "The Driller Killer" and "Street Trash" kind of tread the line...

More recently I thought that "Hobo With A Shotgun" was partly an homage to that whole subgenre of film, plus an homage to Troma of course...

Also, "Life Is Hot In Cracktown", by the same director of "Combat Shock". It has a ridiculous title but it's worth a watch...

[Os Cangaceiros]

3qP3Tx19w7c

[Ele'ill]

A movie I want to see is but heard was complete shit

the fourth kind (owl scene)

VW7gFu0cAFU


Also maybe as a 'horror' but not really scary

Let the right one in

ICp4g9p_rgo

[synthesis]

-people under the stairs - a (Wes craven) horror movie about landlords, gentrification, post black power white racism, and wealth distribution. It has a campy but great couple of villains played by two actors from twin peaks.

One of my pet peeve's about the genre is that it tends to want to leave some areas of social anxiety and tension untouched. While the worst slashers will play on conservative anxieties, or other sub genres will play with xenophobia or sexuality fears... Urban poverty and racism are seem to usually be left alone aside from some very notable exceptions like night of the living dead. Tales from the hood is also an exception and that one is politically fascinating IMO in terms of class tensions and anxieties within the black community in the early 90s.

All those zombie movies that came out since 28 days later... Often taking place in cities... And none have significantly added race to the equation? I like the walking dead (sometimes love-hate it) but until maybe the end of last season, it was a show about survivors outside of Atlanta with hardly any black people and the black people they had were cardboard cut outs with no motivations of their own. They even went to a prison and the only prisoner character they held onto for more than one or two shows was white! This has since changed and unless they kill off most of these new characters, I hope they do something interesting with this.

In diary or land of the dead, Romero has one scene where the main characters get stuck somewhere and come across an urban warehouse that has been fortified and made into a holdout by a bunch of black former workers there. That's a zombie movie I want to see, why didn't Romero make that instead?


I enjoyed the last season of American horror story a lot. The show is incredibly over the top and sometimes that works for it and other times it's too much. It also sorta seems to walk a line between adding real elements of social anxiety and exploring them or exploiting them. So it's interesting, for example, that this season is the 9th ward of N.O. And apparently is mainly about antagonisms between white witches who are all wealthy and black witches because the white ones expropriated their magic from African slaves. Done well and that could be brilliant, missteps could make it awful exploitation and sensationalism (especially if the show is sneakily set a few years ago and a certain flood gets involved).

I think you're right about social issues being largely ignored in the genre, but in its defense I'd say that to some extent this reflects a hesitancy of screenwriters to try to write characters from cultures they feel like they don't know enough about. They might not want to risk going too far in the extreme, as you put it, of either "cardboard cutouts" or "exploitation and sensationalism."

With The Wire's writers, for example (who were all white) they chose not to include any Latino characters (representing Baltimore's growing Hispanic population) because they said they didn't know enough about the culture, and therefore in the universe of The Wire, Latinos, as well as corrupt cops and non-fabricated rape, just don't exist. I assume it would be sort of a tricky balancing act if you can't figure out how to bring on writers from other backgrounds in a non-tokenistic fashion, for lack of a better phrase, but that's obviously not a good excuse not to try.

To a certain extent - and this is an extremely broad overgeneralization - I feel that this reflects a certain element of the appeal of horror movies. The genre seems to appeal to people directly proportionate to how "safe" they feel in their day-to-day life. Horror movies give us that fear-based adrenaline bred by evolution that you don't necessarily get if you live in the suburbs, or in rural areas, or in a thoroughly gentrified district of your city, or even just in a relatively prosperous geographic area. You might get your fill of that adrenaline just riding the light rail home everyday wondering if you're going to get mugged or sexually assaulted.

In this way, I think that the best horror writers were originally horror fans and therefore are the most removed from urban dangers and therefore will feel the least comfortable writing about them in a true and convincing fashion. I'm sure there are tons of exceptions to this, if it can even be considered a rule at all, but it does seem to be a general trend in the genre.

But I experienced a similar disappointment as I got further into Twin Peaks. With the focus on the logging mill in the pilot, it seemed like it was going to try to represent working class life in the rural northwest, and then literally every single character was petit-bourgeois, with a couple bourgeois exceptions, like Ben Horne and the Packard sister. But I think this just reflects David Lynch's upbringing in Missoula - he wouldn't have been comfortable trying to portray the life of northwestern lumber industry proletarians, so it's hard to hold it against him.

[blake 3:17]

But I think this just reflects David Lynch's upbringing in Missoula - he wouldn't have been comfortable trying to portray the life of northwestern lumber industry proletarians, so it's hard to hold it against him.

You can hold his right wing politics against him...

I enjoyed My Bloody Valentine, which is rife with class tensions.

And just back to the remake of Halloween 2 -- I just think the colours and cinematography are beautiful. And the what should be goofy fails of Mom dreams actually work.

[synthesis]

You can hold his right wing politics against him...

Huh, I didn't know. I guess the whole Transcendental Meditation thing threw me. What right-wing politics are you referring to, specifically?

[Jimmie Higgins]

Huh, I didn't know. I guess the whole Transcendental Meditation thing threw me. What right-wing politics are you referring to, specifically?He's a Republican - they can be artists though. I think it does come across in his films in the sort of "corrupting evil" force that exist in a lot of them. And I'm not sure that his nostalgic Americana is ironic. IMO it actually makes his moves more interesting to me, like there's another level of tension because this. I really like Twin Peaks and part of what I like about it is that it politically unsettles me too. If I were some kind of writer (and had some level of influence) I'd love to kind of give a political homage/rebuttle to Twin Peaks... I'd call it "Ghostwood Estates".

As far as horror film demographics, I think while young white males might make up the bulk in terms of numbers, I'm pretty sure that horror movies have a huge huge following among black and Latino males in the US. I've also read that women are the fastest growing demographic in horror film viewership... though this may be due to a low starting point.

EDIT: According to Nielson movie statistics, Latinos are the largest ethnic demographic for Rom-Coms and Horror in the US.


These movies don't really take a "progressive stance" on urban poverty, but what the "urban decay" subgenre? Films like "Combat Shock", "The Exterminator", the films of Abel Ferrara, etc. Granted most of those aren't really "horror", but a couple of them like "The Driller Killer" and "Street Trash" kind of tread the line...Interesting and I think maybe there are some parallels there in terms of social anxiety with sort of (post-)apocalyptic horror movies. But I don't know for me it seems like there could be a lot of room for supernatural or monster tales dealing with urban anexieties... I mean renting an appartment is like living with a force that can interfere with your life; jobs can become de-humanizing; urban life is full of alienation and so it just seems like fertile ground.

On a side note, one more good sorta-horror film: "The Skin I'm In" by Almodovar which is a bit of a Frankenstein tale with gender and control anexieties worked into it.

[blake 3:17]

Huh, I didn't know. I guess the whole Transcendental Meditation thing threw me. What right-wing politics are you referring to, specifically?

He was a Republican, but endorsed the Natural Law Party (they're the Transcendental Meditation party...) in 2000 and Obama in 2012 : http://dangerousminds.net/comments/david_lynch_endorses_obama

Maybe he's just weird.

[blake 3:17]

As far as horror film demographics, I think while young white males might make up the bulk in terms of numbers, I'm pretty sure that horror movies have a huge huge following among black and Latino males in the US. I've also read that women are the fastest growing demographic in horror film viewership... though this may be due to a low starting point.

I know I hang with total weirdos, but most of the people I know who are into horror are women.

One of the genre conventions which makes horror films flexible to interpretation is that often the final resolution happens at the very very end of the film and then often inconclusively. So trying to read them as moral fables kinda goes out the window.

[synthesis]

As far as horror film demographics, I think while young white males might make up the bulk in terms of numbers, I'm pretty sure that horror movies have a huge huge following among black and Latino males in the US. I've also read that women are the fastest growing demographic in horror film viewership... though this may be due to a low starting point.

EDIT: According to Nielson movie statistics, Latinos are the largest ethnic demographic for Rom-Coms and Horror in the US.

Well, for one thing, I didn't include race in my analysis because I don't think it's as intrinsically linked to class or, more importantly, the feeling of physical safety in an everyday sense, as it used to be. There are other cultural factors that I suspect play a role, in terms of what people are looking for in a horror movie, but I'm not sure enough about them to speculate, because they're overly broad conclusions.

(If I had to put this half-formed hypothesis into words, I think there are people who watch horror movies to be scared - for the adrenaline - and people who are in it primarily to see outlandish violence - for the Schadenfreude, to a certain extent. I want to be very clear that I'm not linking this to race at all - again, I think it ties back to the degree to which the audience feels physically safe in their day-to-day lives.)

Keep in mind that all of the above is just me thinking out loud, figuratively speaking, and doesn't represent any kind of coherent film theory I'm trying to express or even anything I'm completely convinced is true. I wish there was some tag that would make it clear that I'm putting this out there specifically to be disagreed with, in order to further my own understanding of the idea.

___

On another note, I watched the U.S. remake of Dark Water yesterday; I actually really enjoyed it, although I haven't seen the original yet, and I'm not sure why it got such bad reviews. I thought the aesthetic of the movie was enthralling and perfectly sustained throughout the movie. I couldn't help but see it through the lens of urban social commentary that you've been talking about. I really think you'd like it, and moreover I'd be curious to hear what you have to say about it in terms of its political subtext. I think if you look it up on Rotten Tomatoes and read the positive reviews, they're all accurate, so if they make it sound like something you'd enjoy then it's worth checking out.

[Jimmie Higgins]

We may have to agree to disagree on the "feeling safe" issue, but I really only have opinions based on annecdotal impressions so I don't put that much weight into my opinion on this. For me personally, I feel pretty precarious and I really enjoy horror movies:lol:. I also think that the sorts of waves in the genre reflect increased social anxieties (both in progressive and reactionary ways) for some movies: the increase in gore and bodily trama in the genre aftermath of the Vietnam war (the sense of a "quagmire" of violence in Night of the Living Dead and Texas Chainsaw; similarly the rise of "torture porn" at the same time as the recent Iraq war; even the misogany in 80s slashers could be arguably linked to fears about de-industrialization and the economic "emasculation" of blue collor workers.

Dark Water: oh, is that the one in the appartment? I was actually thinking of that movie when I was talking about the lack of ghost stories in urban environments. That movie, thematically, was exactly the type of thing I'd personally want to see more of from the genre. I can't remember it well enough to speak to what I thought about any specific subtext (beyond just appartment + ghosts) but the image of the water-stain really stuck with me... I liked a similar thing in the Tenant with the tooth in the wall. I've moved into lots of places and you find strange things left by former tenents and it's a little creepy sometimes. The place where you live doesn't belong to you and invisible forces impact your security... yup, sounds like a hunting or just renting to me:lol:.

Although I'm tired of the farmhouse trope, that was one of the things I liked about the Conjuring - they didn't leave because they were "underwater" and couldn't afford to! What could be more haunting in this decade than forclosures and/or being buried in debt... oh yeah, add some ghosts to that shit! The American Nightmare.

[Sasha]

i'm a total scarebaby when it comes to movies so i'm not a huge horror movie fan, i prefer fantasy and SF, but some movies, esp the more intelligent ones on or over the boundaries of the genre are really good.
my favorites would be hellraiser, pans labyrint, cabin in the woods, the evildead's, the living deads, 24 hours and 24 days later, the early splatter works by peter jackson, anything by cronenberg (videodrome, existenz etc), pitchblack, alien, all the old hammer studio stuff, anything by troma.

[synthesis]

We may have to agree to disagree on the "feeling safe" issue, but I really only have opinions based on annecdotal impressions so I don't put that much weight into my opinion on this. For me personally, I feel pretty precarious and I really enjoy horror movies:lol:. I also think that the sorts of waves in the genre reflect increased social anxieties (both in progressive and reactionary ways) for some movies: the increase in gore and bodily trama in the genre aftermath of the Vietnam war (the sense of a "quagmire" of violence in Night of the Living Dead and Texas Chainsaw; similarly the rise of "torture porn" at the same time as the recent Iraq war; even the misogany in 80s slashers could be arguably linked to fears about de-industrialization and the economic "emasculation" of blue collor workers.

Oh, it's totally anecdotal, and can never be anything but anecdotal. It's just sort of a trend - that's obviously not all-encompassing - that I'm trying to sort out in my head. Very well put about the social anxieties in an ostensive sense.

Actually, one thing I've noticed (that Dark Water made me think of) is the role of children in horror movies. More recent U.S. horror films - Insidious, Sinister, Dark Water, either the second or third Paranormal Activity, and so on - have featured protagonists with children, where part of the tension results from their need to protect their family. This recent trend, to me, is in sharp contrast to movies like Rosemary's Baby, which deal with the subconscious fear of bearing children, and is also reflected in the predominance of the "creepy children" trope in Japanese horror, as a negative-growth society with tons of anxiety around the issue of child-bearing. (I think The Shining is especially interesting here because it has both a protagonist with a kid and those ghost twins or whatever.)


Dark Water: oh, is that the one in the appartment? I was actually thinking of that movie when I was talking about the lack of ghost stories in urban environments. That movie, thematically, was exactly the type of thing I'd personally want to see more of from the genre. I can't remember it well enough to speak to what I thought about any specific subtext (beyond just appartment + ghosts) but the image of the water-stain really stuck with me... I liked a similar thing in the Tenant with the tooth in the wall. I've moved into lots of places and you find strange things left by former tenents and it's a little creepy sometimes. The place where you live doesn't belong to you and invisible forces impact your security... yup, sounds like a hunting or just renting to me:lol:.

Yeah, so much of it had to deal with all the shit renters have to go through with their landlord (not to mention what women have to go through in custody battles). As for the horror aspect, it generally wasn't scary (in that it didn't even try) but when it did, it was all the more pronounced. There was one visual towards the end that I thought was so fabulously creepy:

When Jennifer Connolly realizes her daughter's still in the tub and the ghost girl is sitting next to her, and then the camera suddenly shifts to the ghost girl facing across from her daughter - fantastic.

[Jimmie Higgins]

That point about children is really interesting and the more I think about movies featuring children, the more it makes sense. Creepy children!

[Os Cangaceiros]

I thought that "Orphan" was a pretty good recent creepy kids movie. The 11 year old star of that film killed it IMO

[blake 3:17]

There's something wrong with Esther!

[RedGuevara]

Just saw Dead Heads.
It's a comedy about two gents who are turned into zombies but are able to remember their old lives and are pretty much human except for being undead and they can eat humans and the like. The movie is a great twist. You see the world through the zombies eyes. I always enjoy movies that switch the perspective. Kind of like Tucker and Dale vs. Evil and Land of the Dead(of which I have not finished).

[synthesis]

I'd like to check that out. The premise reminds me of The Revenant, which I'd really recommend.

[bcbm]

i watched 'maniac cop 2' last night at a friends house. it was really special, yall should check it out.

[synthesis]

So I just rewatched The Conjuring; it's better than I thought the first time, which I think was because I watched a bootleg camera version originally, and the visuals are so important. I still thought that it didn't measure up to the first half of Insidious at all, and the central concept, that the Salem witch trials were based on real Satanic carryings-on, was kind of off-putting, but I think the plot flow was smoother, and the "infestation-oppression-possession" thing was a decent narrative justification for something that bugs me about a lot of these movies - like, why the fuck is this demonic entity going out of its way to scare people and/or do creepy shit rather than just go straight to carrying out its agenda? It was nice to see a movie at least try to take this on. (Insidious did this pretty well too, even if the justification made the first half not as scary in my view.)

One thing I'm curious about is that it seems like the most successful horror movies of the last five or six years have focused on the distinction between "ghosts" and "demons" - human and inhuman spirits, respectively; this plot device was prominently featured in the first Paranormal Activity ($15,000 budget, $193m box office), Insidious ($1.5m budget, $97m box office) and The Conjuring ($20m budget, $309m box office) and I have to admit that it stuck out and appealed to me as an interesting plot device the first time I encountered it, in the first Paranormal Activity. I wonder what, in ten years, people will think the popularity of this "ghosts-versus-demons" theme reflects about our present time.

[bcbm]

id like to see more 'historical' horror. give me advice.

i like modern horror and watch it a lot. watching modern, respectable, scientific people get spooked by hobgolbins is fun. but i want to watch ancient people who believe gods take shits on them to ruin their day get spooked. help

[Jimmie Higgins]

id like to see more 'historical' horror. give me advice.

i like modern horror and watch it a lot. watching modern, respectable, scientific people get spooked by hobgolbins is fun. but i want to watch ancient people who believe gods take shits on them to ruin their day get spooked. helpHmm, lots of Victorian horror, but the modern genre wasn't really a thing until the 1800s.

Beowolf and Greek stories had monsters. There was a TV movie "re-imagining" of the Odessey which I think they tried to make into basically a zombie movie in sandals. Can't remember the name or any other details that might help locate it though.

There was also that terrible (-ly boring) movie "Season of the Witch" (I think that's what it was called) that was a sort of feudal excorcism movie.

[synthesis]

id like to see more 'historical' horror. give me advice.

i like modern horror and watch it a lot. watching modern, respectable, scientific people get spooked by hobgolbins is fun. but i want to watch ancient people who believe gods take shits on them to ruin their day get spooked. help

Have you heard of "Sauna"? Is that kind of what you're talking about? Or more like in an Apocalypto-type setting?

[bcbm]

Hmm, lots of Victorian horror, but the modern genre wasn't really a thing until the 1800s.

Beowolf and Greek stories had monsters. There was a TV movie "re-imagining" of the Odessey which I think they tried to make into basically a zombie movie in sandals. Can't remember the name or any other details that might help locate it though.

There was also that terrible (-ly boring) movie "Season of the Witch" (I think that's what it was called) that was a sort of feudal excorcism movie.

i guess i should clarify, i want modern(ish) takes with ancient settings. gimme 'halloween' in the acropolis or idk that kinda shit. or ya know, a bit more sophisticated

[bcbm]

i like psychological horror and thats what really excites me in the genre



but 'nightmare on elm st 3' is still fun, so i dunno

[Jimmie Higgins]

One thing I'm curious about is that it seems like the most successful horror movies of the last five or six years have focused on the distinction between "ghosts" and "demons" - human and inhuman spirits, respectively; this plot device was prominently featured in the first Paranormal Activity ($15,000 budget, $193m box office), Insidious ($1.5m budget, $97m box office) and The Conjuring ($20m budget, $309m box office) and I have to admit that it stuck out and appealed to me as an interesting plot device the first time I encountered it, in the first Paranormal Activity. I wonder what, in ten years, people will think the popularity of this "ghosts-versus-demons" theme reflects about our present time.

I never thought about this. I usually just roll my eyes at demons in movies - I guess because when theology gets mixed into my supernatural tales I suddenly find it harder to "agree to believe":lol:.

Anyway, as a guess I think maybe part of this trend is due to (on two levels) increased bodily vunerability. Ghosts "haunt" and often are used to represent anxieties about buried (ha) things from the past that blur into the present and impact our lives now. Demons are portrayed as more malicious and "posess" or terrorize people with intent; whereas ghosts are often shown as just frightening people away, demons are shown as biting people, hurting them, or taking their bodies away through possession. In neoliberal capitalism the invisible hand doesn't just keep us alienated and exploited but does us bodlily damage, takes over our lives.

Oh, and the other level is that in terms of horror movie thrills, a spirit that can punch you takes it up a notch from spirits who move doors or float around and just make people feel scared.

[bcbm]

I never thought about this. I usually just roll my eyes at demons in movies - I guess because when theology gets mixed into my supernatural tales I suddenly find it harder to "agree to believe":lol:.

Anyway, as a guess I think maybe part of this trend is due to (on two levels) is increased bodily vunerability. Ghosts "haunt" and often are used to represent anxieties about buried (ha) things from the past that blur into the present and impact our lives now. Demons are portrayed as more malicious and "posess" or terrorize people with intent; whereas ghosts are often shown as just frightening people away, demons are shown as biting people, hurting them, or taking their bodies away through possession. In neoliberal capitalism the invisible hand doesn't just keep us alienated but does us bodlily damage, takes over our lives.

Oh, and the other level is that in terms of horror movie thrills, a spirit that can punch you takes it up a notch from spirits who move doors or float around and just make people feel scared.

i think the 'typical' horror movies of a given decade say a lot about the era and i think it is a topic worth examining. the reagan era with the birth of the 'moral majority' also seeing the rise of films where drug addled promiscuous teens get knifed to death is no coincidence, i think. i'd like to expand on this more but i am drunk and tired and so i will leave it for tomorrow but idk compare 'scream' to 'halloween' to 'saw' to idk what the 2010 equivalent it, but it reflects something?

[synthesis]

I never thought about this. I usually just roll my eyes at demons in movies - I guess because when theology gets mixed into my supernatural tales I suddenly find it harder to "agree to believe":lol:.

Anyway, as a guess I think maybe part of this trend is due to (on two levels) increased bodily vunerability. Ghosts "haunt" and often are used to represent anxieties about buried (ha) things from the past that blur into the present and impact our lives now. Demons are portrayed as more malicious and "posess" or terrorize people with intent; whereas ghosts are often shown as just frightening people away, demons are shown as biting people, hurting them, or taking their bodies away through possession. In neoliberal capitalism the invisible hand doesn't just keep us alienated and exploited but does us bodlily damage, takes over our lives.

Oh, and the other level is that in terms of horror movie thrills, a spirit that can punch you takes it up a notch from spirits who move doors or float around and just make people feel scared.


i think the 'typical' horror movies of a given decade say a lot about the era and i think it is a topic worth examining. the reagan era with the birth of the 'moral majority' also seeing the rise of films where drug addled promiscuous teens get knifed to death is no coincidence, i think. i'd like to expand on this more but i am drunk and tired and so i will leave it for tomorrow but idk compare 'scream' to 'halloween' to 'saw' to idk what the 2010 equivalent it, but it reflects something?

I'm not sure that either the "ghosts-vs-demons" trope or the broader trends of this decade's horror are something we'll be able to identify, quantify and analyze in a political sense for five to ten years from now. I feel like cultural shifts such as these usually take about a decade for people to fully process and put them into the proper context. I mean, I sure as shit wouldn't have been able to tie Hostel/Saw to specific aspects of the Iraq War within a couple years of when they came out.

edit: I also don't really see the "ghosts-versus-demons" theme, in its recent manifestations at least, as being tied to Christianity, theology or even really religion in general. I mean, religion is never mentioned in Paranormal Activity, the only "context" in Insidious is the generic psychic character with no affiliation, and in The Conjuring they explicitly do the exorcism without the Catholic Church's participation or approval. I'm not sure of the significance of this, but it was a trend I noticed after what you (JH) said about the demon themes.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Yeah the 00s will probably be remembered for torture-porn (maybe also for 70s remakes - I don't know what that says other than studios want to make franchizes with built-in fan bases). I don't know what the major trend is this decade - in the US so far it does look like it's haunting films of some sort. Connected to that is "found-footage" movies and I guess both of these have to do with ghosts invading our daily realities. But I don't know.

Halloween and Scream are probably pretty rich in terms of cultural gender anexieties and whatnot. It's been a while since I've seen Scream and I'm not that big of a fan, but something that sticks out to me is that the male characters (including the killers) have totally empty lives that are just a collection of pop culture references whereas the female protagonist has a real history and real concerns. The "centered" male character is the small town deputy and he has a kind of harmony and place in his life/job, but for other male characters (particularly the killers) they have no purpose and nihilistically treat life as a pastice of references with no meaning. I think this suggests something about 90s (and neoliberalism more generally) and anxieties of a loss of a male "purpose" as the family wage and industrial jobs were solidly things of the past by then.

Warning, digression: I read something about serial killers (in culture and in real life) being connected to the struggleing petite-bourgeois and the blurring of their life as humans with their profession. In fiction you have: Norman Bates: hotel owner, skilled hobbyist (taxidermy); Texas Chainsaw is a deteriorating family farm; Hannibal Lecter is a professional psychologist (i.e. gets into people's brains professionally); Dexter - never seen this show, but it seems like the height of a synthesis of serial-murder and profession. In real life: John Wayne Gacy owned a (sucessful) construction company and buried many of his victims in crawl spaces and used his professional methodology to space bodies and whatnot. Ted Bundy was a law student and worked for Republican campaigns... and was an unempathetic sociopath (imagine that) described by one campaign team as "a go-getter and believer in the system" who would later pose as a student on various colleges when stalking women. I don't know how significant any of this is, but it's interesting (also interesting that weimar germany had a cultural obession with serial killers). Most characters in film are professionals of some kind, so it could also just be coincidence. At any rate, culturally it's interesting because in these fictional characters there seems to be a confusion or tension over identity and how it's connected to what someone does for a living.

EDIT: I was half-joking about the spirituality thing. I think the use of demons may have been tied to trying to appeal to religious people (the Excorcist was pretty big among Catholics I think) before this decade, but I agree, the demons of recent horror movies are very secular and I think it has more to do with having more corporeal spirits that can do more physical damage or have more intent and are totally not human. unlike ghosts generally.

[synthesis]

Good point about the haunting. One theme I've noticed about recent movies is the haunting of people rather than places. This is most pronounced in Insidious, where they move houses thinking they can ditch the demon, but you can see it in other movies as well, like in The Conjuring and Paranormal Activity where the afflicted people are told that moving away won't help because the demon has latched onto them as people. I think part of why this is scary - and maybe why it appeals to our time - is that it can follow us anywhere, no matter where we go, and in a time where housing is a microcosm of general financial insecurity, this concept might then be more relevant to our contemporary culture.

Also, yeah, "Noroi/The Curse" (which I'd really recommend - not the Ju-on movie although that's pretty good too) is the only one that really comes out and says it ("We call it a demon because we don't know what else to call it") but "demon," at least in the dichotomy we're talking about, is really just shorthand for "a malicious entity that was never human," which I'm not really sure how to analyze - something tells me it has to do with the same theme of "corrupting, absolute evil" you mentioned as a factor in David Lynch's work, as opposed to ghosts, which necessarily have human motivations, but I'm not sure how to place that in the proper context of our current situation.

edit: That's really interesting about the link between serial killers and the petit-bourgeoisie. I feel like it might have more to do with serial killers choosing petit-bourgeois occupations, as they allow much more freedom in the day-to-day lives of the killers than either proletarian or haut-bourgeois professions, but I'm not sure; I think it's also relevant that if you look at the list of occupations that have the highest concentrations of psychopaths, they're all petit-bourgeois - journalists, psychologists, doctors, law enforcement - as far as I can remember, but still occupations that allow some degree of power and/or control over other people's lives.

[Jimmie Higgins]

the afflicted people are told that moving away won't help because the demon has latched onto them as people. I think part of why this is scary - and maybe why it appeals to our time - is that it can follow us anywhere, no matter where we go, and in a time where housing is a microcosm of general financial insecurity, this concept might then be more relevant to our contemporary culture.Whoa, this just made me think of a major albatross around people's necks today: debt.

You can buy a house and if it is about to swallow you up, you can try and leave, but then it's still going to follow you around and is nearly impossible to excorcize.

[Os Cangaceiros]

i guess i should clarify, i want modern(ish) takes with ancient settings. gimme 'halloween' in the acropolis or idk that kinda shit. or ya know, a bit more sophisticated

Black Death was pretty good. More of a dark drama than a traditional horror film but close enough. As previously mentioned, Sauna is pretty good too.


In real life: John Wayne Gacy owned a (sucessful) construction company and buried many of his victims in crawl spaces and used his professional methodology to space bodies and whatnot. Ted Bundy was a law student and worked for Republican campaigns... and was an unempathetic sociopath (imagine that) described by one campaign team as "a go-getter and believer in the system" who would later pose as a student on various colleges when stalking women.

John Wayne Gacy worked for Democratic Party shit. Here he is with the First Lady back in the 70's, LOL:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/Johnwaynegacyrosalynncarter.jpg

Psycho, The Silence of the Lambs and TCM were all partially based on Ed Gein, though.

[skitty]

id like to see more 'historical' horror. give me advice.

i like modern horror and watch it a lot. watching modern, respectable, scientific people get spooked by hobgolbins is fun. but i want to watch ancient people who believe gods take shits on them to ruin their day get spooked. helpNot ancient; but how about The Crucible?
http://vimeo.com/52989403

[synthesis]

I thought that "Orphan" was a pretty good recent creepy kids movie. The 11 year old star of that film killed it IMO

I watched this while trying to fall asleep last night. The actress playing the title character definitely killed it, but I was really impressed by the little deaf sister too. It never ceases to amaze me how kids that young, with no formal acting training and arguably not necessarily understanding what "acting" even is, can be so convincing; other movies I'm thinking of here are Looper, Dark Water, the older sister from Mama and especially Frank Black's daughter in Millennium.

(The Orphan plot spoiler here)
I was going to be so mad if Peter Sarsgaard's character didn't die. Literally every bad thing that happened in that movie was his fault. He might be one of the worst husbands/fathers in the history of cinema, aside from child molesters and wifebeaters and shit like that. Actually, like 90% of the plot was really frustrating.

[Jimmie Higgins]

John Wayne Gacy worked for Democratic Party shit. Here he is with the First Lady back in the 70's, LOL:


Oh shit, darkly hilarious! I actually never got the cultural fascination with serial killers that was such a big thing in the media in the US in the pre-9/11 days, so I had to look up details on wikipedia for my post about it and I don't think the Gacy page talked about that (I could have missed it in skimming) but the other page talked about volunteering with a Republican campaign... damn that liberal media!:lol:

In an alternate history, I guess voters could have had a choice in the 1992 presidential election between Republican candidate Ted Bundy and Democratic candidate John Wayne Gacy... or independant Ross Perot.

[Red Flag Waver]

i guess i should clarify, i want modern(ish) takes with ancient settings. gimme 'halloween' in the acropolis or idk that kinda shit. or ya know, a bit more sophisticated
I don't think there's much out there. Horror movies are all about suspending the laws of everyday life in a post-Enlightenment world. They're spooky because they tell you that the universe isn't intelligible, things aren't getting better, etc. Maybe it's harder to spook ancient man because he accepts the "horrific" as part of the natural order?

"The Name of the Rose" (based on the Umberto Eco novel) comes sort of close to being "Halloween" in a medieval monastery. Not ancient and not technically horror, but it has a creepy atmosphere and some slasher movie tropes. Murders occur and everyone thinks it's literally the work of the devil ... great fun.

Some genuine horror films with, not ancient, but pre-industrial settings are "Witchfinder General" and "Blood on Satan's Claw," set in 17th Century England. There are tons of Japanese ghost movies set in feudal times, like "Onibaba" and "Kuroneko," which I already mentioned, plus "Ugestsu" and "Kwaidan," a great anthology film. These are much more highbrow than the typical horror film, for something campier I would check out the "Yokai Monsters" series.

[Il Medico]

I was never a big fan of horror movies growing up either. They always bored me. I still really dislike the slasher and torture porn subgenres (to be clear on the torture porn sub genre, I consider it stuff like Hostel, Saw, or Human Centipede). I've grown to appreciate horror a lot more in recent years, though I tend to lean more heavily in favor of her cousin the thriller genre. I was a bit confused reading though this thread at first because a lot of the films y'all have listed I don't really consider horror but thrillers. Films like I Saw the Devil, Ichi the Killer, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo I wouldn't consider horror flicks at all honestly. Eh, anyways, most of the bases have already been covered but here are a few of my favorite horror flicks that I didn't see get a mention.

Dead Snow (2009)- Tommy Wirkola (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2482088/?ref_=tt_ov_dr)
Rare Exports (2010)- Jalmari Helander (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1118351/?ref_=tt_ov_dr)
Troll Hunter (2010) -André Øvredal (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0004217/?ref_=tt_ov_dr)
Let the Right One In (2008)- Tomas Alfredson (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0019247/?ref_=tt_ov_dr)
[REC] (2007)- Jaume Balagueró (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0049371/?ref_=tt_ov_dr), Paco Plaza (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0687042/?ref_=tt_ov_dr)
Fright Night (2011)- Craig Gillespie (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0318916/?ref_=tt_ov_dr)
Black Death (2010)- Christopher Smith (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1247462/?ref_=tt_ov_dr)
Thankskilling (2009)- Jordan Downey (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2006573/?ref_=tt_ov_dr)
Slither (2006)- James Gunn (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0348181/?ref_=tt_ov_dr)

[synthesis]

What kind of movie is Thankskilling? Like, intentionally campy/tongue-in-cheek a la Machete or Black Dynamite? Or actually a bad movie but funny, a la Jason X?

Also, has anyone seen the Insidious sequel? Is it worth paying $4 to see it in a post-release theater?

[Os Cangaceiros]

I was never a big fan of horror movies growing up either. They always bored me. I still really dislike the slasher and torture porn subgenres (to be clear on the torture porn sub genre, I consider it stuff like Hostel, Saw, or Human Centipede). I've grown to appreciate horror a lot more in recent years, though I tend to lean more heavily in favor of her cousin the thriller genre. I was a bit confused reading though this thread at first because a lot of the films y'all have listed I don't really consider horror but thrillers. Films like I Saw the Devil, Ichi the Killer, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo I wouldn't consider horror flicks at all honestly. Eh, anyways, most of the bases have already been covered but here are a few of my favorite horror flicks that I didn't see get a mention.

Dead Snow (2009)- Tommy Wirkola (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2482088/?ref_=tt_ov_dr)
Rare Exports (2010)- Jalmari Helander (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1118351/?ref_=tt_ov_dr)
Troll Hunter (2010) -André Øvredal (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0004217/?ref_=tt_ov_dr)
Let the Right One In (2008)- Tomas Alfredson (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0019247/?ref_=tt_ov_dr)
[REC] (2007)- Jaume Balagueró (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0049371/?ref_=tt_ov_dr), Paco Plaza (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0687042/?ref_=tt_ov_dr)
Fright Night (2011)- Craig Gillespie (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0318916/?ref_=tt_ov_dr)
Black Death (2010)- Christopher Smith (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1247462/?ref_=tt_ov_dr)
Thankskilling (2009)- Jordan Downey (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2006573/?ref_=tt_ov_dr)
Slither (2006)- James Gunn (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0348181/?ref_=tt_ov_dr)

You don't consider Ichi to be horror but you consider Black Death to be horror? :ohmy:

I don't think that Ichi is completely horror, either, although I think horror is a big element in it, along with action, comedy, weird drama, etc.

[synthesis]

Oh yeah, Il Medico, if you look at the original list, you'll notice that I put asterisks next to both I Saw the Devil and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which categorized them as movies I thought horror fans would like but wouldn't generally be considered of the horror genre.

[Klaatu]

The Haunting (1963)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057129/

The Mask (1961)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mask_%281961_film%29

A Return to Salem's Lot (1987)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Return_to_Salem%27s_Lot

[Il Medico]

What kind of movie is Thankskilling? Like, intentionally campy/tongue-in-cheek a la Machete or Black Dynamite? Or actually a bad movie but funny, a la Jason X?

It's a really bad funny movie. I always thought it was intentionally bad funny, but then I saw the sequel and I'm not so sure anymore (the sequel is fucking horrible, so disappointing).



You don't consider Ichi to be horror but you consider Black Death to be horror? :ohmy:

I don't think that Ichi is completely horror, either, although I think horror is a big element in it, along with action, comedy, weird drama, etc.
I dunno. Black Death isn't scary by any means, but horror movies generally aren't in my opinion. It felt pretty horror/drama to me. The film was wrapped up in the occult with this really bleak surrounding. It had this really creepy feeling of uncertainty though out the whole film, imo.

Ichi the Killer didn't really feel horror to me. I had a pretty big love affair with yakuza films for a while in my teenage years and a lot of them have a similar tone to Ichi. Ichi is crazy brutal no doubt and I love the shit out of it, but I don't think brutality denotes horror. It really just felt like a particularly violent crime/thriller/action film with some dark comedy woven in.


Oh yeah, Il Medico, if you look at the original list, you'll notice that I put asterisks next to both I Saw the Devil and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which categorized them as movies I thought horror fans would like but wouldn't generally be considered of the horror genre.
Well, um... never mind then. :o

[synthesis]

Everyone watch this right away. Or at least as soon as you can watch it: in the dark, by yourself, preferably high on some mindfuck weed.

I61l_f-328c

[bcbm]

i just saw 'the beyond' on 35mm on a big screen; it was fantastic. i think 'zombie' is a better movie generally, but this one is still a lot of fun.