Favourite Horror Flick?

[LolitaHaze]

Not to take over Daisy's thread on chick flicks, I thought I would start a new thread on horror movies. So what are your favourite horrors?

I love Sleepaway Camp and Evil Dead. Both are late 70's early 80's films, which happen to be my favourite time period for horrors. The special effects are unmatched in my opinion. Plus this time frame also holds the so bad they are good horrors.

As for Golden Age, I think the only one I have seen is House on Haunted Hill. I couldn't get into it all that much the first time I rented it... and then I got distracted the second time I saw it. I finally ended up seeing it a third time and thought it was ok.

 

[CharlieH.]

The Invisible Man, by a wide margin. Claude Rains' voice therein is high-octane nightmare fuel... and I love it!

Runner up - Tod Browning's Freaks.

 

[RBH]

John Carpenters 'Halloween'.
And I truly look forward to Rob Zombies version due out this August.

 

[Lee Lynch]

I loved horror when I was younger, so there is always a special place in my heart for it, though I'm so desensitized now that I just think most of them are funny/boring.

I feel the mainstream trend in horror has become very predictable and boring. To create suspense, you have to avoid showing the monster/ghost/murderer/alien/carnivorous plant for most if not all of the movie. It instantly kills any hope of horror or suspense when the producers show off the CGI skills of their animators for most of the movie.

The urge toward 3D animation, I feel, utterly ruined Peter Jackson's version of King Kong (not to mention the agonizingly prolonged attempts at heartwarming toward the end...dangerous since it's hard to puke when you're yawning).

I thought the Blair Witch Project was a perfect example of great horror/suspense. With very few resources, it succeeded in establishing that something was terribly wrong, and the end was so much better than most, including the little hand prints all along the wall and the guy standing with his face to the corner, which was amazingly creepy. They made great use of subtlety.

Have you seen the Exorcist 3? They shouldn't have called it that, since it was better than it sounds. It was cast and directed very well, in my opinion, and had some seriously creepy aspects.

The horror that scared me was more what I read rather than saw as movies. When I first read The Shining and Salems Lot, they scared the tar out of me.

 

[LadyStardust]

Are we talking -horror- horror movies here, with blood and guts, or can we list thrillers?

 

[Viviene]

The Deadly Mantis. I kid you not. I remember watching this with my mom when I was really young and her laughing like heck.

Years later I saw the movie with my girls and I finally figured out what she was laughing at. It was the scene where the mantis grabs the guys off the boat and then spits their clothes out!

DH's favorite is the Crawling Eye.

 

[LolitaHaze]

Lee Lynch... I agree with you. In my opinion CGI has ruined the horror movie. That is why the 70's/80's are my favourite. The special effects, while not perfect, are that much more real. I don't like stories or monsters being told with a computer. I have also mentioned that to others as well about how the monster/killer/"evil" shouldn't be shown, or shown minimally. Quick glimpses that make you wish you could pause the frame to see it longer is better for me than seeing the whole thing come screaming at you for half the movie.

 

[RBH]

Are we talking -horror- horror movies here, with blood and guts, or can we list thrillers?

Lady, that was what I like about the 1st Halloween, it showed very little but was so scary and its use of the theme music just made it that much more scary.

 

[LolitaHaze]

Are we talking -horror- horror movies here, with blood and guts, or can we list thrillers?

I think thrillers can be included. They aren't too far off from each other most of the time.

 

[Cousin Hepcat]

Definitely, the original Dracula (1931) w/ Bela Lugosi.

So chock full of cool random details... like at the beginning, it shows Dracula and his wives coming out of their coffins, then a bumble bee coming out of its own tiny coffin... (from a line in the book, I found after doing some research.)

And the "rats" in the celler were opossums, because the studio considered rats too nasty

and the armadillos wandering around... so much cool atmosphere, you notice something new each time...

Have you seen the Exorcist 3? They shouldn't have called it that, since it was better than it sounds. It was cast and directed very well, in my opinion, and had some seriously creepy aspects.

Was that the one with the clip of Tommy Dorsey with his full orchestra in that church, playing his original 1930s recording of Indian Love Call, right before that guy dies? MAN, that creeped me out - was a kid when I saw that, and I still get the creeps when I hear that passage...

- C H

 

[LadyStardust]

Ooh goody. Well in that case, The Others takes the cake for me. Absolutely no blood and guts, no in your face gore, but it's basically the only movie that -still- haunts me, almost every single day, and while it's not an old movie, it's been out what about 6 years now, and when a movie can cause chills almost daily, just the memory, for that long, that means something to me. I thought it was exquisitely done, with a mastery of subtle fright and suspense. Thrillers in general are far scarier to me, because mental anguish/horror lasts alot longer than other sensory repulsion. In the same vein as The Others, I was also very startled by The Innocents, What Lies Beneath, and The Uninvited. The Innocents especially is right up there with The Others as the one that left the longest lasting chill on me. One thriller I really want to see is Ghost Story. I've heard nothing but good things about it!
Oh, and ugh, how could I forgot? Nosferatu! I still can't watch him creeping up the staircase without watching through my fingers.

 

[HadleyH]

My favorite horror flick ever is "Nosferatu" (1922) the german film with the rat-like Dracula, truly , truly scary........

 

[Shearer]

Wooo, now you're talking, Lolita.

I've got to say I love Romero's zombie movies, though I wasn't super crazy about his last one.

Lee Lynch mentioned Exorcist 3 which was MUCH better than people think. They shouldn't have made a sequel with Linda Blair at all... this one stands in its place as far as I'm concerned. And I'm so happy that RBH said Rob Zombie is making Halloween again. I love the original and I think he doesn't get as much credit as he deserves.

As far as thrillers go, the original The Vanishing.

Audition is interesting if you don't mind the subtitles.

And I quite liked The Descent, though I didn't think I would. I think I watched the European version.

 

[erikb02809]

For fun, I enjoy most zombie movies, with Dead Alive and Romero's original Dawn of the Dead probably being my favorites.

As far as what movie has scared me the most, Jacob's Ladder. I'm not sure if technically it even counts as a horror movie, but close enough. I think they keep it in the horror section at most video stores.

Also, Shadow of the Vampire has got to get an honorable mention from me. I got such a kick out of that one.

 

[Dixon Cannon]

Wouldn't really call it "horror"....

But, I'm fascinated by "The Incredible Shrinking Man", Ever since the first time I saw it as a kid. The narration is excellent throughout and I especially love the final line, "To God there is no zero".

http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue250/classic.html

http://www.garnersclassics.com/qmshrnk.htm ...the closing soliloquy.

-dixon cannon

 

[Lee Lynch]

Definitely, the original Dracula (1931) w/ Bela Lugosi.

So chock full of cool random details... like at the beginning, it shows Dracula and his wives coming out of their coffins, then a bumble bee coming out of its own tiny coffin... (from a line in the book, I found after doing some research.)

And the "rats" in the celler were opossums, because the studio considered rats too nasty

and the armadillos wandering around... so much cool atmosphere, you notice something new each time...

Was that the one with the clip of Tommy Dorsey with his full orchestra in that church, playing his original 1930s recording of Indian Love Call, right before that guy dies? MAN, that creeped me out - was a kid when I saw that, and I still get the creeps when I hear that passage...

- C H

A bumble bee...? I don't remember that from the book, lol.

I saw the Exorcist 3 about 15 years ago, so I'm not sure whether or not it shows the clip to which you refer.
It did have some great unexpected startling, and the scene where the elderly lady (possessed at the time) crawling really fast across the ceiling, and the figure in the sheet suddenly appearing stumbling behind the attendant with big garden shears was about the last truly good scare I've gotten out of any horror. I thought George C. Scott did a fantastic job as the cop.
This movie had so much more suspense, depth of plot and character development, and great acting than the original, that the actors must have groaned in frustration in seeing the "3" appended, and knowing very well that it would never get the credit it deserved.

 

[Elaina]

The one that scared me most as a kid was Halloween 3, probably because I was 8, and my brother woke me up at 2 am to see it and I had a stupid pumpkin mask he gave me from the premire at the theatre. To this day, I don't wear masks, and I've seen the movie one time in my life, yet I can still sing "3 more days to Halloween, Halloween, Halloween, 3 more day to Halloween...silver Shamrock."

Other then that, I don't have a particular favorite. Not that H3 is a favorite, mind, just the one I remember the best. If pressed, I'd say Squirm, about worms, because I once grossed out my brother and made him puke while watching that and eating spaghetti.

 

[Lee Lynch]

My favorite horror flick ever is "Nosferatu" (1922) the german film with the rat-like Dracula, truly , truly scary........

I haven't had the privilege of seeing this version, but I did rent the one made in the 70's, also in Germany, with the subtitle "Phantom der Nacht".

I enjoyed it very much, and it was so much closer to Dracula the book than the fairly lame "Bram Stoker's Dracula" made by Coppola, which pretty much ruined the original essence of the story (don't get me wrong, the casting was perfect, it was the screen-writing and directing which brought it so far beneath the standards of the book). It could have been great, and the main star, Tom Waits, made his scenes well worth watching. Gary Oldman, of course, never fails in anything he does.

None of the movies have seemed to want to show that Dracula actually had a long, wispy white mustache, and his features did more closely match the visage in the movies entitled "Nosferatu" than those entitled "Dracula".

 

[Lee Lynch]

The one that scared me most as a kid was Halloween 3, probably because I was 8, and my brother woke me up at 2 am to see it and I had a stupid pumpkin mask he gave me from the premire at the theatre. To this day, I don't wear masks, and I've seen the movie one time in my life, yet I can still sing "3 more days to Halloween, Halloween, Halloween, 3 more day to Halloween...silver Shamrock."

Other then that, I don't have a particular favorite. Not that H3 is a favorite, mind, just the one I remember the best. If pressed, I'd say Squirm, about worms, because I once grossed out my brother and made him puke while watching that and eating spaghetti.

LOL, hope your brother made it to the bathroom, Elaina

 

[Elaina]

Of course not. He was a cool 22, I was 13. *Slurp*Slurp* *gag* *slurp* *spew!*

I didn't have to clean it up, it was his apartment after all.