Best Horror Movies

Started by Jake_82, November 24, 2003, 09:03:28 PM

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MacGuffin

Quote from: SiliasRubyI have a spoiler question for Mod. It seemed like they stole or heavily borrowed the rights to the score from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. Did they or did they not, because it sounds a lot like it....

Quote from: themodernage02OH MY GOD!  i was going to write about that but i forgot because it was late last night.  yeah, i have no idea how they can get away with ripping off the psycho score so closely for the opening titles without any problems.  it sounds even closer to the hermann original than the friday the 13th score which also rips it off pretty badly. maybe macguffin can help with any other details?

Richard Band acknowledges he was heavily influenced by Herrmann's score. He even talks about it in the video interview on the Millenium Edition DVD.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

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THE FRIGHTENERS (1996)
"Give it up, Frank. Death ain't no way to make a living.''

I love this movie.  I remember seeing it twice in the theatres when i was about 14 and just digging the hell out of it.  The same way that Poltergeist is the unholy mixture of Spielberg and Hooper DNA (what an odd combo), this is a Zemeckis Jackson mix thats just got it all.  If you've never seen it, you should do so.  Michael J. Fox is great on his pre-Spin City comeback role as Frank Bannister a bogus ghostbuster who uses real spirits to do the haunting so he can collect for the cleanup.  He has some 'skeletons in the closet' however that arent revealed till midway through the film making this ghost story a mystery as well.  Its got serial killers, ghosts, serial killing ghosts but a light touch through the whole thing that keeps it from being a total splatterfest.  The standout performance of the movie is Jeffrey Combs as Special Agent Dammers, and you wouldnt think there could be a character for him to do better than Herbert West, but I think that Dammers is that character.  Jackson and Co. took the impossible task of creating a more memorable oddball part and (to me) succeeded.  HE IS GREAT.  There are a handful of twists along the way that i wont spoil here for anyone who hasnt seen it but the whole thing is great fun.  oh, great Danny Elfman score, great Dee Wallace Stone performance, great movie.


CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON (1954)
"I can tell you something about this place. The boys around here call it "The Black Lagoon". Only they say nobody has ever come back alive to prove it."

I hadnt seen this one in years.  While not as classic as some of Universals 30's monster films, this is probably one of the best sci-fi monster romps of the 50's.  (Well, atleast one of the best that I've seen.)  My dad and I have often wondered how in the hell this weird film, made 20 years after the heyday of Universal Monster Movies somehow ended up tagging along with the other big 4 as being one of the most adored Monsters.  Watching the film tonight helped me with a few ideas.  Director Jack Arnold takes what could've easily slipped into goofy B movie stuff and makes a great monster/adventure film out of it.  Even though the Creature kills repeatedly, his affection for Julie Adams (and who can blame him?  shes like the Jennifer Connelly of the 50's), makes him sort of a tragic villian.  (Which he certainly becomes in the 3rd film, which I havent seen in years either, but whose ending has stuck with me all this time.)  Originally filmed in 3D, the film has some great extended underwater sequences and fights featuring the Creature and maybe most memorably a sort of underwater beauty and the beast scene as the creature swims underneath Julie Adams.  But most of all, the Creature costume itself is just awesome and probably the main reason he continues to be a Famous Monster today.  So, worth checking out if you've never seen it and want to see a good 50's monster movie.  Ed Wood would've killed to make a movie this good.
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

SiliasRuby

Quote from: themodernage02
THE FRIGHTENERS (1996)
Let me agree with Mod again (because that is what I am good at), this really is a fantastic flick and it just clicked that Jeffery Combs was in both these movies..Anyway, yeah, very good horror film.
The Beatles know Jesus Christ has returned to Earth and is in Los Angeles.

When you are getting fucked by the big corporations remember to use a condom.

There was a FISH in the perkalater!!!

My Collection

Ghostboy

I concur! The Frighteners and (especially) The Creature From The Black Lagoon both get must-see marks from me (they also both need to get money from me soon -- I own neither at this junction in time).

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AN AMERICAN  WEREWOLF IN LONDON (1981)
"Relax? I'm a fucking werewolf!''

I REALLY love this movie as it goes in my top 10 horror films of all time.  Everyone should see it, it's great, it's original, it's funny, it's scary and its just brilliant.  Watching the film is almost like a werewolf crashes into a John Landis comedy the same way zombies invade the british comedy in Shaun Of the Dead.  One of the best bits of the film is the new twist on werewolf lore where all the people killed by a werewolf end up in limbo as rotting corpses forced to wander the Earth until the werewolfs bloodline is severed.  One of the classic scenes in the film (which there are several) involves a handful of these corpses all coming to meet David in a porno theatre and persuading him to kill himself!  Griffin Dunne is great as his friend.  Other classic scenes are the werewolf transformation (still the best I've ever seen), and the rampage through picadilly circus (1 1/2 minutes of chaos).  FANTASTIC FILM.  Drop all preconcieved notions of what you think a horror film is, if you've never seen it GET OUT THERE AND WATCH THIS MOVIE!
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

Stefen

That is one of my favorite movies ever. It used to scare the shit out of me when I was little, I know it's a comedy but to this day it still scares the hell out of me. Just the old poster of david and the other guy in their jackets looking back at the moon gets to me. I just can't take it.
Falling in love is the greatest joy in life. Followed closely by sneaking into a gated community late at night and firing a gun into the air.

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DEAD OF NIGHT (1945)
"You wouldn't do that to me, Hugo.... I wouldn't let you. Wouldn't I? WOULDN'T I???''

One of my favorite newer discoveries, as I just saw this for the first time last Halloween and probably the best movie that I could recommend to 99% of you who haven't seen it.  Although for some reason even Netflix doesnt carry it, it is nearly impossible to find at any regular video stores, and the only way to buy it is in a double feature with Queen of Spades.  But for anyone who does seek out this movie, you're in for a good time as 4 directors put together one of the best horror anthologies ever made.  The movie opens as a man arrives at a farmhouse only to realize that he has been there before in a reoccuring nightmare.  While there, he tells the bits and pieces he can recall of what minor events lead up to something horrifying later that evening as the guests try to calm him.  But everyone realizes that they've all had a brush with the supernatural and begin to tell a variety of spooky stories.  Some are creepier, some are sillier, but just wait till you get to the finale!  Perhaps the most memorable story involves a ventriloquist and his dummy, and what may seem like a familiar story now, (William Goldman must've gotten Magic from this movie!), was probably shocking as hell in 1945.  But even better, it holds up its creepiness today.  Whether or not you still find the film particularly frightening, its a great film and recommended for fans of early British Hitchcock.  It even stars Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne from The Lady Vanishes playing the same characters from that film!  So, if at all possible, for anyone up to the challenge, FIND THIS MOVIE and WATCH THIS MOVIE.
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

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A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (1984)
"Whatever you do, don't fall asleep.''

One of my top 10 favorite horror films ever, A Nightmare On Elm Street is a movie that probably most everyone has seen at one time or another.  I know I probably saw it (and a few of the sequels) in 5th or 6th grade for the first time, as there was a TV show, action figures and dolls and all kinds of Freddy stuff around making him a big deal back then.  But with each sequel that got more and more ridiculous and turned the character of Freddy Krueger into more of a cartoon, its easy to forget what a great movie this is and how scary and original the idea was.  Think about it: what could be scarier than the idea that there is someone who will kill you when you are asleep and there is nothing you can do about it.  They control your dream, and you HAVE TO SLEEP.  Who hasnt had a nightmare they wished they could get out of, where you end up almost dying before you wake yourself up?  The most terrifying idea is that if you were to die in your dream you would actually die.  And Craven utilizes that idea here just wonderfully with this movie.  Just like your own dreams that seem like real life but something is just a little off, Much of the film takes place in a dreamlike state so you never know when they are asleep.  And Freddy in this film is scary.  The movie isnt concerned with body count either, there are in fact only 3 deaths in the whole film.  It builds the mystery of the Freddy character as he hardly speaks and you can never get a really good look at him.  And what isnt bathed in shadow is more disgusting than he appears in any of the later films.  So despite some less than stellar acting by Langenkamp, (made up for by 'introducing Johnny Depp',) this movie is truly one of the great horror films although sometimes its easy to forget.  Watch it again, rediscover its greatness.
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

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NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968)
"They're coming to get you, Barbara, there's one of them now!''

This movie is so good and unlike the Evil Dead series that I've seen a thousand times, I've really only seen this movie a handful as until recently the only copies available were of such horrible quality I don't know that I had ever seen it all the way through in high school.  Regardless, this is amazing and one of the best horror movies of all time (in addition to one of my favorite top 10).  It is a movie that breaks all the rules.  It has no rules, it kills children, it kills its heroes, it makes its heroes do unlikable things, it has very little exposition, it just is.  And I dont know if Romero conciously set out to break these rules, or if he just didnt have any idea that they were supposed to be there in the first place.  Either way, there is no other movie like this one and it MUST BE SEEN BY ALL!  The film invented the 'zombie' the way they are thought of today: flesh eating, slow moving, you have to destroy the brain, which if you think about how many movies have used 'zombies' as characters, they all have stemmed from this one movie.  That is pretty incredible.  The movie has very little exposition, what you do learn about how this happened coming from the radio and tv news broadcasts in the background so you are learning the same time as the characters what the hell is going on here.  It's very effective, and like the recent Signs, handles something as devastating as the dead rising from the perspective of a handful of people stuck in one house.  If you've never seen this before, (and I envy you) you are in for a great time because you never know where this movie is going next.  GREAT GREAT GREAT.  


THE EVIL DEAD (1982)
"We can't bury Cheryl. She's our friend."

Probably when I was in middle school about 10 years ago, around Halloween, some channel, maybe USA? was showing Evil Dead and my dad asked me if I had ever seen it.  I had not, so I sat there and watched it on TV, never having seen anything like it before and even with whatever cuts were made I was completely transfixed.  This was of course, some years after Army of Darkness had become a favorite of mine and my friends in 5th grade watching dozens of times, little did we know that was actually the THIRD movie in this series!  So, in the next year or two after seeing the film I looked everywhere to try to find the first two, which eventually did come back into print on VHS (those were the days), first 2 then the first.  I have watched the series a million times between then and now usually switching which ones were my favorite with the time that passes.  Anyways, onto the review....
Evil Dead, in the first 15 minutes has more style than the entire series of the goofy Friday the 13th.  Watching it tonight, it was more evident than ever that Raimi's style was all there even back then in the opening minutes of his film.  By the time the car arrives at the house you know you are in for something.  The biggest disappointment for me is that during my moviegoing lifetime I have not had the experience of going to the theatre and seeing something that I was completely unprepared for the way audiences who saw this mustve been.  Before this film, what could've possibly prepared you for this kind of stuff?  Again, light on exposition, you learn that somebody in the cabin before them by reading passages from some book unlocked some sort of evil that will not stop until it infects everyone.  The way the camera moves and is setup is phenomenal in this movie and goes to show what you can do with NO MONEY if you have the storytelling talent.  The way the evil is unseen, and how they choose to show it to you is brilliant without ever feeling like a cheat because once it gets inside you the sort of hell that breaks loose is just shocking.  Although the second one is currently my favorite and probably the best of the three, the first one is the scariest and just a classic.  If you've never seen this, and its hard for me to even imagine there are still some of you out there as big a cult movie as this is, GET OUT THERE AND WATCH THIS MOVIE.
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

modage



Carrie (1976)
"They're all gonna laugh at you."

WHATS IT ABOUT? The first Stephen King novel to be made into a film, Brian DePalma's Carrie remains one of the best.  Despite being a little dated, Carrie is an affecting portrait of an outcast not unlike the ones we all knew in high school and a reminder to do onto others...

IS IT SCARY? Not really.  Though the climax is unsettling, it's too iconic to really shock anymore.  (Though I bet it was really disturbing when it was released!)



WHAT'S GOOD ABOUT IT? Sissy Spacek's performance, Brian DePalmas visual flair (split screen, wild color palette, swirling camera, etc.), oh and the nude high school girls opening credits sequence.  

SCARIEST MOMENT: The final scene, which practically invented the 'one last scare' technique seen in countless films since.



WHY SHOULD I WATCH IT? Because Quentin Tarantino told Sight and Sound it was one of the 10 Best Films Ever Made.  And because next to Scarface it's arguably DePalma's most identifiable film.  

Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

Ghostboy


Garam

I really like Last house on Dead end Street. Catch it if you can.

Gamblour.

haha i'm really kinda looking for to mod's suggestions. I love halloween, it's so much fun. in fact i'm gonna try and come up with some good suggestions of my own, try to make this month a good movie-watching month.

First suggestion: Shaun of the Dead  :-D
WWPTAD?

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A Nightmare On Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)
"The bastard son of 100 maniacs."

WHATS IT ABOUT? While nowhere near as good as the original Nightmare, it is the sequel that comes closest to the spirit of the first film while doing the best job of expanding on those ideas. This was due in no small part to creator Wes Craven (along with an unknown named Frank Darabont) becoming involved in a story about Freddy Krueger returning to terrorize a group of troubled teens in a psychiatric ward.

IS IT SCARY? No, when actor Robert Englund improvised the line "Welcome to prime time bitch!" Freddy's fate was sealed as a horror villain you could cheer for and not the dark vision of terror Wes Craven had created in the original film.  



WHAT'S GOOD ABOUT IT? The first (and best) Freddy one-liner's, some inventive and truly surreal dream sequences, and David Lynch fans should appreciate the accompanying Angelo Badalamenti score.  

SCARIEST MOMENT: The first time Patricia Arquette realizes she's still dreaming.



WHY SHOULD I WATCH IT? While the characters here are too thinly drawn for you to really care about them, this is the film where Freddy Krueger becomes a fully-fleshed out character with the sadistic wit that would make him the most memorable horror villain of the past 20 years.    

Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

matt35mm

A theater here is having midnight showings of Evil Dead 2, Dead Alive, Shawn of the Dead, and Army of Darkness.  I may go to a few of those.  I think Evil Dead 2 and Dead Alive would be the top two to see on the big screen for me.