My TA, Sam, is quite the horror movie junkie. Much like I was when I was his age. Though times have changed and it's far easier to watch such films now. I recall getting done with school and heading a block north to one of the local Cenex convenience stores in RLF to look over the VHS rental shelves for new horror films.
Let me tell you, it was often slim pickings. But we did come across a few gems. When that happened, I usually had to persuade either Harry, Lon, or Simon to watch them at their house - since we lived 10 miles out of town and . . . believe it or not . . . didn't have a VCR until my junior year of high school!
The gems included Prince of Darkness, Fright Night, 976 Evil, Puppet Master, Nightbreed, American Werewolf in London, The Howling, Creepshow II, Robocop, Scanners, Maximum Overdrive, and a slew of other very low budget films that we devoured. I learned mostly of these through my steady diet of Fangoria magazines.
Days like that are long gone. Thanks to Netflix and iTunes, anyone today has instant access to more films than I ever could have dreamed of when I was a kid.
Sam and I have been discussing lately our favorite horror films. His current list reminds me much of my own when I was in high school . . . how little I really knew back then. Ha. A horror that I thought was truly excellent back then, like Prince of Darkness, pales in comparison to some of the classic horror films I've grown to appreciate, such as Psycho, which was just far too boring when I was younger.
While no lists ever agree totally, it's always interesting to see where your picks fall on other lists.
Here are a couple of my favorite lists.
Boston.com's list.
Entertainment Weekly's list.
IGN's list.
So here is my annual Halloween list of my top ten favorite horror films -
10 Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil. This is campy and hilarious. Casey suggested this several months ago, and I was regretting agreeing to it, but then things kicked in and I was hooked. The film flips the traditional horror cliche of the inbred, rednecks in the woods stocking preppy, good looking college kids on its head. And it works brilliantly.
9 The Howling. I had seen werewolf films before. But I never had seen transformations like this! Rick Baker's effects were mind blowing. I'm not going to lie. If I was home alone and I caught the beginning of the film, I wouldn't be able to watch it all the way through. It still creeps me out all these years later. I first caught part of this on normal cable when we were visiting my sister's boyfriend's (now her husband) family. In fact, I had been watching Escape from New York on cable one night and they showed just the previews for The Howling, which would be shown the next week, and just the previews were enough to freak me out. So when Bud and I caught The Howling on TV, we thought we were big kids. Then the characters started transforming into werewolves and I had to hide behind their couch.
8 American Psycho. I tried several times to watch this. I'd make it 45 minutes it and just get too disturbed and I'd have to stop. Then I'd catch it on TV again and I'd make it 60 minutes in before getting too disturbed. Then finally I caught the last 25 minutes . . . and I was blown away. Another brilliant ending to a horror film. And one that makes it all the more disturbing. If you consider yourself a fan of horror films at all - this is mandatory viewing.
7 The Silence of the Lambs. The book is classic. But the movie is just as good. Is there a scarier character than Hannibal the Cannibal? Not. This guy would have Freddie or Jason for breakfast. Literally. The movie is creepy and has a fantastic plot. I think Red Dragon is almost just as good. Thomas Harris has an eye for horro.
6 The Mist. Not going to lie. I had read the short story years earlier. But this movie creeped me out from the start all the way to the end. And what an end! Maybe the 'greatest' ending of a horror film ever.
5 The Omen. When I was in graduate school, I saw a series on this film (and it's sequels) on the movie channel and made the mistake of watching it. I was hooked. So I spent the next six hours or so watching a documentary on The Omen and then watching the film itself. Then the next two nights the movie channel showed the sequels, so I was sucked in to watching them too. When little Damien turns around in the last shot of this film and gives that devilish (pun intended) smile, that's creepy as hell.
4 The Thing. I'll never forget when I first saw thing - well, most of it before it freaked me out that I had to run outside - my parents were doing yard work when I was ten or so, and I went in the house. HBO used to do a free month trial every so often, and so I found that we had free HBO. And it was showing John Carpenter's The Thing. I was enthralled. Until the man that was 'the thing' seemed to have a heart attack. Then the doctor tried to help him and the thing's chest opened up and turned into this huge mouth - with fangs - and bit the good doctor's arms off (as he's trying to save the poor guy) at the elbows. That freaked me out. It still gets me today!
3 The Descent. I still squirm when I think of certain claustophibic parts of this film. I recall showing it the first time I ever taught College Comp when we had a little down time right before Halloween. One of my students, himself a horror fan junkie, just said, "Alright, I can't take this anymore. It's freaking me out and I'm not going to sleep tonight," and headed out the door. That's a successful horror film.
2 The Blair Witch Project. I know many today don't think it's scary. But that's because it was so scary and so successful and so ground breaking. Since it came out, it's been ripped off a million times (Cloverfield, Quarantine, Paranormal Activity, to name just a few). When this came out, though, people had never seen anything like it. The internet was still relatively young and there was a groundswell of chatter on it that this sucker really was true and based on real events. What a great buzz leading up to the film. Plus, the film didn't have a real script. The actors had an outline of what to do (wander around the woods and look for the witch), but when the odd stuff starts to happen, that's honest emotion on their faces because the film crew was in the woods with them - though the actors didn't know where they were - and they were leaving all these creepy things for them. And the film crew also woke them up randomly in the middle of the night. So when the tent shakes and the actors start screaming, that is real because they're waking up from a dead sleep, tired and hungry, and terrified for that instant that something is really shaking their tent. That's brilliant.
And if you don't think it's scary (or that the film sticks with you), just try thinking about the film and then camping out . . . and having your little brother place a package outside the tent's door the next morning!
1 Seven. To put it simply: there isn't a more thought provoking horror film out there. You'll never be the same after this one. And I bet you'll never see the end coming, which is the second greatest ending to a horror film next to The Mist. Unlike most horror films, which are just excuses to kill people in disgusting ways (hence Saw or Hostile or any of the slasher flicks), you actually care about these characters . . . which makes the ending all the more difficult to take.
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