Favorite Horror Films

My "top ten" lists are always subject to change. Pay no attention to the ranking here. But these come to mind, for different reasons:

1) Dawn of the Dead (1978)
2) The Haunting (1963)
3) Night of the Living Dead (1990; I actually prefer Tom Savini's remake)
4) Rec
5) In the Mouth of Madness
6) John Carpenter's The Thing
7) An American Werewolf in London
8) Halloween (1978)
9) Day of the Dead (1985) (Underrated, I feel.)
10) The Shining (1980)

Top ten lists are always hard for me. I just love them all so much! Here's an unranked list (sure I'm forgetting a ton).

The Shining
The Thing (anything John Carpenter really)
The Orphanage
Teeth
Ju-on (the only movie to this day that scares me)
Eraserhead
A Tale of Two Sisters
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (original)
The Changeling
Audition

I could go on. Maybe I'll come back and make a second post when I remember more. Incidentally, I'm always looking for some amazing scary movie I've never seen, and I feel like I've watched them all.

To Scare Me Out of My Wits:
Exorcist
Exorcist 3
Communion
Dawn of the Dead
The Shining
Pet Semetary
28 Days Later
28 Weeks Later
The Ring
Rec

To Make Me Laugh:
Shaun of the Dead
Evil Dead 2
Nightmare on Elm Street Part 3 (so bad, it's good)
Any Jaws other than the 1st one (so bad, they're good)

Doing a similar list for my blog, along with accompanying entries for each movie (although I haven't written them all yet):

10. Silent Hill (pale in comparison to the games, but still a solid adaptation)

9. The Crow (not scary at all, but still gets shelved under horror--it's goth eye candy and I still love it)

8. The Others (Nicole Kidman is my favorite actress, and this may be may favorite of her roles)

7. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (there will never be anything like it ever again)

6. A Clockwork Orange (best literary adaptation EVER--God bless Malcolm MacDowell)

5. Ju-On (I love the episodic nature of these movies--they're like puzzle pieces that don't fit together until you see the end)

4. Near Dark (Bill Paxton has never topped this role, and I don't think he will)

3. The Ring / Ringu (again, pales in comparison to the books; I happen to like the American version better, simply because no movie has ever scared me or gotten under my skin the way this did--it took me years to shake off my nerves enough to appreciate it)

2. A Tale of Two Sisters (even better and more moving the second time around--it's just elegant)

1. Jacob's Ladder (one of the most influential horror films out there in terms of surreal imagery and fractured realities--fantastic)

1) A Tale of Two Sisters -- emotionally wrenching, and that is part of its horror. One of the best-directed films I've ever seen, of any genre.

2) Suspiria -- Even with that horrid Goblin score, this tale of a girl who enrolls in a ballet school run by witches has every kind of authentic artistic scare, combining the best of splatterpunk and Lovecraftian horror.

3) Audition--TVTropes says it best: "Every so often, a movie comes along that makes you wonder about the mental health of the director." ... "a perfect example of the sort of movie that you have to watch through your fingers, with an air discomfort bag nearby." Yep.

4) Carnival of Souls (original): Stark, stripped down story of a young woman who's dead and literally doesn't know it. Ignore the awful "remake," please: even Larry Miller couldn't save it.

5) The Ring: Speaking of remakes, this is maybe the best of them. Throws out all the sci-fi stuff from the original novel and film, leaving the essential mystery of a little girl capable of burning images into videotapes...and people's minds. And she wants her mommy. Beautiful cinematography, a great lead actress, and one of the best horror villains of all time.

5) Memento Mori -- a tender tale (seriously) of a lesbian relationship between two schoolgirls resulting in ostracization that drives one of the girls to suicide. And then she comes back.

6) Whispering Corridors -- prequel to Memento Mori, in which a series of mysterious murders follows of an unpopular student at another high school.

7) Paperhouse -- under-seen 1988 Bernard Rose film about a sick little girl who draws a house and then finds she can enter it in her dreams. If those really are her dreams. Scary and also very emotional.

8) Mulholland Drive. Supposedly not a horror film, but check out what comes out of the blue box and then tell me it isn't.

9) Cat People (original). Dark fantasy like Paperhouse, but spooky and very beautiful.

10) Ringu. Even with the monster-from-the-sea-bit, still pretty powerful.

In no order (other than the first because it's the greatest film ever made):

1. Night of the Living Dead.
2. The Thing.
3. Rec 1 & 2.
4. Dracula (1958 Hammer version).
5. The Crazies.
6. Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
7. The Wolf Man.
8. And Soon The Darkness.
9. Pontypool.
10. 28 Days Later.

If anyone has the urge to ask me if I mean the remake or the original version of any of these (other than number 2 which doesn't count since it's closer to the original story than the Howard Hawks film), then I'm afraid I will have to punch you all in the face.

Jacob's Ladder, 28 Days Later, The Orphanage, Rec, The Hole (it seemed pretty horrific to me) Event Horizon, Saw

1. Jaws...I know it's not really horror, but ever since I've seen this movie, I've looked at the beach/ocean a little bit differently. Only recently have I been able to go in the ocean and really enjoy myself. I used to get scared whenever the fish would brush up against me. I always thought it was Jaws I guess lol.

2. Exorcism of Emily Rose...it's based off of a true story, so that in its self is terrifying. Also don't EVER youtube the girl that this is based off of. They have a recording of one of her "fits" and it was terrifying. Stupidest thing I've ever done is look that up.

3. Exorcism--I haven't seen the whole thing, but the bits and pieces that I've watched disturb and terrify me.

4. Halloween...also terrifying. The mask scares me. Also, that no matter how fast you run--despite the fact that he is running--he always catches up with you.

As a child:

B&W Cat People
Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Spencer Tracy version)

Laughed at the "Monster" films.

As an adult:

The Haunting

Most of the ones I like have been mentioned here, but one I have to add: Antichrist.

How the hell do you make nature itself evil, or even sinister? Lars Von Trier managed it. It helps that when I was watching it I was very ill and had been for days so I was in a pretty grim mood. It'll either depress the hell out of you, scare the hell out of you or beat the pessimism the hell out of you because your own life isn't that crappy.

M - Fritz Lang takes the murders off screen and lets you fill in the blanks.

A Nightmare on Elm Street - the original, before the series became self-parody

Night of the Living Dead - again, the original. The grainy/crappy grade of film only added to the atmosphere and the ending was even more shocking than the rest of the story.

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls - sorry. Wrong kinda scary.

The Exorcism - I saw that when I was 13 and it scared the hell out of me.

Trilogy of Terror - a made-for-TV movie starring Karen Black. The final sequence, "Amelia", is the high point of the show and has gone on to become a US television classic; almost nobody talks about the first two stories. I also enjoy stories about inanimate objects such as dolls and mannequins coming to life, so this was IT for me.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073820/

http://www.TrilogyOfTerror.com/

My favorites (in no particular order, just as I think of them) :

1. Psycho - the original, with Anthony Perkins.

2. Halloween - the John Carpenter version

3. Evil Dead 2

4. The Ring

5. Poltergeist - I hate clowns because of this movie.

6. Shaun of the Dead

7. Scream

8. A Nightmare on Elm Street - the original.

9. The Exorcist

10. The Omen

I've got too many to name -- horror buff. But I shall return with a list at some point. I'm sure some of my faves are already on here though.

For me, all the old Universal horror movies, Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolfman, the Mummy, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

I also enjoy all the sci-fi monster movies of the 50s, like Them!, Tarantula, The Thing from Another World, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, and Godzilla.

And Night of the Living Dead, which I have to still watch will the lights on.

Maybe I'm getting too old, but most modern horror movies with their realistic effects are just too much for me. I don't enjoy being that scared. Give me the classics any day.

Belle_91 said:

4. Halloween...also terrifying. The mask scares me. Also, that no matter how fast you run--despite the fact that he is running--he always catches up with you.

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Not to put words in your keyboard, but I think maybe you meant "despite the fact that he is walking"? I bring it up because I wanted to recommend Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon. One of the DVD deleted scenes deals with that very subject.

Shadow_Ferret said:

For me, all the old Universal horror movies, Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolfman, the Mummy, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

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Oh, hells yes. In glorious black and white.

PrincessTeacake said:

Most of the ones I like have been mentioned here, but one I have to add: Antichrist.

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Oh, christ on a bike, that film. That film. One of the singularly most depressing pieces of filmmaking I've ever seen, and terrifying on the most fundamental level.

1)Omen, the original
2)Halloween, any but number two retarded
3)Walking Dead
4)28 Days
5)28 weeks
6) Bambi, suprised this didn't rank high for everyone
7)It
8)Killer Clowns From Outer Space
9)Friday 13th #1, name that killer horror fans.
10)my mothers home movies

In no particular order:

Les Yieux Sans Visage (Eyes Without a Face)
Curse of the Demon
Night of the Eagle
The Black Cat (1934)
The Cat and the Canary (1927 - the 1939 version with Bob Hope is fun, too)
Les Diaboliques
Psycho (1960)
The Devil Rides Out
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1957)
The Seventh Victim
Captain Kronos, Vampire Hunter (with Caroline Munro - yum!)
Kwaidan
Black Sunday
The Changeling
The Uninvited (1944)
Repulsion
Targets (Karloff's last great film)
Theatre of Blood
King Kong (1933)
The Universal horrors through The Wolf Man. The later ones are fun, but not particularly scary, although House of Dracula has its moments.
Bluebeard (1944)
The Legend of Hell House
Nosferatu (1922)
The Unknown (Lon Chaney as the Armless Wonder) Or almost anything with Chaney, Sr.
Dead of Night

How could I have missed The Changeling off my list?

donroc said:

Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Spencer Tracy version)

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I'm glad to see this version is finally getting some respect. I still prefer the Fredric March one, but I watched the Tracy one recently, and it really has some fine moments in it and was overall better than I remembered it.

BenPanced said:

M - Fritz Lang takes the murders off screen and lets you fill in the blanks.

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This is a brilliant film, with a mesmerizing performance by Peter Lorre. BTW, IIRC, the police inspector turns up again in The Testament of Dr. Mabuse - an, um, interesting film.

Manuel Royal said:

Oh, hells yes. In glorious black and white.

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And 3-D, in the case of Creature From the Black Lagoon. I've seen it twice as Jack Arnold intended it to be seen, and it will jolt you out of your chair numerous times.

Too bad more films aren't made in B&W these days. Color (and widescreen format, for that matter) is unnecessary and often inappropriate for the subject matter. Alas, I can't tell that there's anyone currently working in Hollywood who knows how to light or shoot B&W properly anymore.