Favourite Horror Flick?

[John in Covina]

I am partial to "The Bride of Frankenstein." I absolutely love "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein" as a kid I used to get so upset when Wilbur is trying to deliver Dracula's coffin and it starts to open!

 

[Real Swell Gal]

I'm a zombie movie fan.

 

[Edward]

5. The Ring. Am I the only person to favor the American version? I liked the Japanese version, but the American did more for me. The blurry faces of those soon to die in the photographs was horribly sickening as was the face of the girl in the closet, dead from fright, which I had to freeze frame and watch still by still. yuck.
.

I preferred the US version too. I think it's a cultural thing to do with different approaches to narrative.... the US version simply carried the story thruogh more logically for me - the original seemed somehow disjointed.

I love both the 28 Days... films. Quality stuff - especially those scenes of deserted London in the first half ofv the original. Rumour had it that there was a prequel being written which would tell the story of the original outbreak.... could be interesting.

Not sure you'd call it a horror, but I remember British 80s TV film "Threads: After the Bomb" depicting the aftermath of a nuclear attack on England, specifically the bomb going off in Northern town Sheffield. At the time that wasn't entirely an unimaginable concept (about 1983), which really gave it some oomph.

I do enjoy comedy-oriented horror, stuff like the Evil Dead sequels (the original is still flat out horror and still gives me the willies), or Shadow of the Vampire (one of the best films of the past decade). I don't like stuff that is too clever-clever for its own good, though - Scream was a prime example. Far too smug in its "oh, here's the rules, ho ho here they are applied in this situation" nonsense. One of the finest comic horrors is Bubba Ho Tep - Elvis and Bruce Campbell, how could you go wrong in combining those two gods among men?

Quite possibly the worst film of any sort I've ever seen was Blair Witch Project - not a single original idea in it, and more overhyped than the Star Wars Prequels (ok.... so Blair Witch is not the very worst film I've ever seen) by the time it reached the UK. Too tedious for words.

Very few horrors have really freaked me out. Usually it's the ones that dabble in theology that I find most unsettling - those and the ones with no supernatural element whatever. The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre still is quite.... intense.... Stephen King's It gave me the willies - Tim Curry as Pennywise the clown. Eep. Oh, The Wicker Man - the original, of course, not the ghastly women-hating sequel.

 

[Dr Doran]

Why Blair Witch Project worked for me. (Spoilers.)

{whoops, had to edit front of post -- it retold the exact story I told in an earlier post about why the blair witch project worked for me. But the FOLLOWING part may be of moderate interest to those who didn't see why anyone liked it}

I Blair Witch a very refreshing change from normal horror films because the people acted very real. Such as the idiot kicking the map into the river. I know people like that. Also, in the early part, the townswoman talking about the witch and saying she was covered in black fur and her feet "never touched the ground." The idea was very weird, the lady's acting was UTTERLY believable and she seemed to truly believe what she was saying. Another lady had a boy in her arms and was being interviewed and talked about the witch as though it was a fiction or fairy tale, then made a very weird, non-actorly face in the camera which suggested that she was only saying it was a fairy tale so as not to scare her son, but she knew it was real. I deeply appreciated little touches like this. They seemed truly unstaged. The minimal gore worked for me too -- the teeth in the bandanna was, to me, just brilliantly simple. The man standing in the corner in the end, obediently, just as the former victims were said to have done, was effectively horrifying as well.

I adored The Wicker Man, especially having read the passage in Caesar explaining the wicker man of the Gauls. I did not know there was a sequel.

I'm glad to see people like Dario Argento. Loved Suspiria, and Deep Red still freaks me out with the hot bath scene.

Another rare Argento to see is a one-hour film called Jenifer. It was made for TV. Small budget, just brilliant combination of utter disgust and eroticism. It is based on a comic book story that scared me as a kid and it is just superb.

 

[Lulu-in-Ny]

The Others, with Nicole Kidman. It's everything that a good, old-fashioned ghost story should be. Tense, eerie, dark... I could go on. And Kidman is pitch perfect.

 

[mike]

The Others, with Nicole Kidman. It's everything that a good, old-fashioned ghost story should be. Tense, eerie, dark... I could go on. And Kidman is pitch perfect.

You should check out the Innocents (early 60's with Deborah Kerr) & the Uninvited (late 40's with Ray Milland)!
The Others did a wonderful job borrowingly liberally from these terrifing films!
I'd rate both these as up there with my faves. I think there was a post-Val Lewton school in the 50's and 60's that perfected spooky creeping atmosphere, with such films as the Haunting, Burn! Witch! Burn!, Curse of the Demon and several more. There's great gems in all eras though!

 

[Dr Doran]

I loved The Others and I'll look up The Innocents and The Uninvited.

Speaking of Val Lewton, I loved his The Thirteenth Victim. Was it horror? Noir? Who knows. Loved it.

 

[Lulu-in-Ny]

You should check out the Innocents (early 60's with Deborah Kerr) & the Uninvited (late 40's with Ray Milland)!
The Others did a wonderful job borrowingly liberally from these terrifing films!
!

The Uninvited is one of those movies I've always intended to see, but never made it to. I'll have to put it in the Netflix queue.

 

[Dr Doran]

The Uninvited is one of those movies I've always intended to see, but never made it to. I'll have to put it in the Netflix queue.

Can I possibly have more of a synopsis or something? If no one minds.

I must say, it is delightful to talk about horror movies with people as refined as all of you.

 

[SamMarlowPI]

All the original monster movies and especially these:

 

[KY Gentleman]

"The Return of the Living Dead" was a good one...

 

[Edward]

"The Return of the Living Dead" was a good one...

I have all three of those on DVD. Schlocky, silly fun. The first one had the bonus of The Cramps on the sountrack, too. Though I was totally smitten with the young lady in the third one....(that's got to be wrong, somehow).

I think I also forgot to mention Near Dark earlier - an absolute classic of the vampyre genre. The definitive Dracula has yet to be made, IMO. The Coppola one certainly had its good points - stuck much closer to the book than most, if not all, others I've seen, but it was also flawed in some respects. It's actually ironic that some folks conider the Nosferatu movies to be closer to the book than any made under the Dracula name. Murnau wanted to make Dracula but didn't want to pay the royalties that Stoker's widow could command as the holder of the copyright. He believed that if he simply changed the names of the chratcers he could get away without paying anything, but he got it wrong. If memory serves, he or maybe the studio was very badly hit financially when the Stokers successfully sued him for breach of copyright.

I'd love to see The Historian made into a film - I'm reading it at present and it is one of the best vampyre yarns I've come across in a long time.

 

[Pip]

For me it simply has to be "Nosferatu"...just down right creepy lol

 

[Story]

ALIENS for the writing and character portrayals.

LAIR OF THE WHITE WYRM for.... Amanda Donohoe's pure evil-osity.
www.imdb.com/Title?0095488 -

 

[Story]

Speaking of Val Lewton, I loved his The Thirteenth Victim. Was it horror? Noir? Who knows. Loved it.

Seventh Victim?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036341/

 

[PrettySquareGal]

House of Wax (Vincent Price, not remake), Psycho, and not really a horror flick but the thrilling Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, Turn of the Screw.

I do not like computer generated special effects or excessive make up. I like pure black and white psychological thrillers that rely on good acting and proper direction.

 

[Dr Doran]

Seventh Victim?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036341/

Seven, thirteen ... whatever.

 

[Feraud]

Seven, thirteen ... whatever.

Apparently you have a few more victims to add to the list.

The Uninvited with Ray Milland is a fine b&w thriller.
A brother and sister buy a haunted house. Moody, atmospheric, with a couple of well placed comedic touches. Well worth a viewing.

 

[Panache]

The Uninvited is one of those movies I've always intended to see, but never made it to. I'll have to put it in the Netflix queue.

I had forgotten about "The Univited". A Marvelous Movie well worth checking out.

As for a synopsis, well it is a ghost story.

And perhaps a certain scent may haunt your dreams afterwards.

Cheers

Jamie

 

[A.R. McVintage]

For ghost themed movies, the 70's The Legend of Hell House with Roddy McDowall and the 80's The Changeling with the great George C. Scott (Patton himself) are both very good.