The Horror! The Horror!

[talktooloose]

On another bulletin board where I participate, someone asked for our favourite horror movies. Here's my response. Please comment with your faves.

The trio from my teen years are The Shining, The Exorcist and Alien, all of which opened me up to the thrill of chill and still kill me.

Jacob's Ladder is maybe my all time favourite horror movie and manages to leave indelible images of terror (the masked faces in the subway, the shaking heads at the party and in the limo) and places them in a majestically sad human context. Furthermore, it turns out to be one of the twistiest ghost stories ever and leaves you lots to think about.

For atmosphere and suspense, I offer the French film Diabolique.

Psycho and the Birds. Hitchcocks last great hurrahs and the last time he ruled and led the zeitgeist.

Wes Craven's New Nightmare in which he recontextualizes the whole Nightmare on Elm Street series and makes an impassioned case against those who would "protect" children from such horrors as the Brothers Grimm.

Neil Jordan's The Company of Wolves is another excellent movie that plays with the horror implicit in fairy tales and also looks straight at the sexual heart of Red Riding Hood. Oh, and while we're at it, Snow White, a Tale of Terror with Sigourney Weaver as the evil stepmother who starts off totally sympathetic and slowly and sadly descends into evil witch.

And, finally, I am recommending to anyone who missed it, the recent Nicole Kidman horror The Others which is one of the best haunted house movies ever and nearly flawless in every way.

Again, please comment with your favourite horror and chiller flicks.

Comments

[33mhz.livejournal.com]

I haven't got much-- I'm just seconding the The Others rec.

[untoward.livejournal.com]

I agree with most of your choices. You neglected my top three, though.

Below is the best ghost story I've seen. It's atmospheric and wonderful, and takes place in a german U Boat. You should see it for sure.

Event Horizon is amazing and frightening and genuinely disturbing for all its occasional cheesiness.

Session 9 is just so good, so creepy.

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

Okay, one of the first two is going on the DVD player tonight for sure. Probably Event Horizon with all the cheese caveats. As for Below, I loved director Twohy's Pitch Dark except for the unlikely ecosystem. What do the bat things eat every eclipse if there don't happen to be stranded humans?

Session 9 had fabulous atmosphere and characters. I felt that that the ending (which I admit I can't remember now) didn't hold together. I bought the soundtrack which I listen to when I want to creep myself out.

[nyahnyahnyah.livejournal.com]

(Not really horror, but...)Meet the Feebles. I am all for puppet sex and violance, but Peter Jackson and I need to have words over this one.

I can't do horror movies in general, as I am a fraidy cat. Stuff like The Shining and The Exorcist I can at least watch through the retro ironical filter, but newer stuff...no can do. Like the last scene of Blair Witch. Everything else I could care less about, but HOLY FUCK HE'S IN THE CORNER WHICH MEANSAAAAAH!...And every other movie where things come out of the darkness and run after you and like that. No can do.

Ooh, I just thought of Rosemary's Baby. That freaked my shit out. Most people don't have a somewhat passive mom like I do, so they aren't as convinced. But yeah.

[encyclops.livejournal.com]

The Others really didn't do it for me. Maybe I should have watched it in the dark, without subtitles, but I think that even if I had it wouldn't have helped. I think Nicole Kidman's performance went a long way toward blowing it for me, and the clever-clever Shyamalanesque ending took us most of the rest of the way. I just couldn't sympathize with or believe in Kidman's character at all, and I didn't care much about the kids either. It's kind of an interesting film, but it didn't scare me much, and I probably could have enjoyed it more if I hadn't been expecting/hoping to be scared.

I haven't really seen enough horror movies to pick favorites. Your top three seem like good choices, but I haven't seen the first two recently enough to really remember. When I was younger, I was easily scared by films that today don't seem that scary, like Critters and even Gremlins...anything with small deadly creatures that can hide anywhere (alien facehuggers, for example, always seemed scarier than the adult). The scare of a horror movie for me is less about the quality of the film itself and more about the mood it creates and the suggestions it leaves with me, so honestly I have to admit Blair Witch scared me way beyond how much it "should have."

my horror film list

[codystrum.livejournal.com]

Basically I follow the same tastes as talktooloose:

- Alien, Aliens (the first sequel was as good as the original) - when I was 17 I had dreams of something bursting out of my stomach for days.
- The Others was amazing
- Psycho bored me but I loved the Birds
- and Jacob's Ladder is also my ultimate favourite, the idea is based upon a short story from the US civil war period called An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge by Bierce Ambrose

- the film that freaked me out the worst in university days was an alien horror set in Antartica. It was John Carpenter's The Thing.
- I also liked Wes Craven's in the Mouth of Madness in the 90s.

Fuck the Shining film :) Kids stuff. The book is far, far scarier. A far better King film, imo, is Carrie (the original with John Travolta and Sissy Spacek). Also that one where this guy wakes up from a coma and can foretell the future...the name and the creepy actor escape me with at the moment

- way way up there on my list is the Japanese horror Ringu and it's excellent USA remake The Ring. I'm waiting to see if the Grudge (some of the same filmakers as for Ringu) is as good. Ringu 2, the sequel to Ringu is also great because the curse changes! Beware of the Korean copy, Ring Virus - it is terrible

-There are a couple of Japanese ghost stories that I would recommend. One is called Shikoku, which is one of the beautful forested islands there. A woman brings back a ghost by walking in the reverse direction all the way around the Island to which people in mourning should walk. The sheer beauty of that film and Shikoku Island is worth the watch.

The other is called Summer 1999 where a group of young teen boys (who are actually played by girls) left at a remote country summer school fall into intense rivalry and jealousy when a lookalike of their dead friend, who had recently commited suicide, shows up. This film plays on the yaoi manga theme which are boylover soap opera comics often enjoyed by adolescent and 20-something women, wherin the teen boys ae romantically enthralled with each other. (these manga are generally too mushy for the gayboy crowd there - who prefer manga with young men, or muscle men fucking and squirting or being raped by villanous yakuza gangsters). All this pubescent kissing and mushiness could be a bit disconcerting to some in the West with all of our pedo-paranoia. We don't understand that in Japan, this kind of boyhood romance thing is often seen as a normal phase for boys. (But ya better grow out of it by 16 and get that girl to a love hotel and get married by 28 or you are not mature!). Anyway, this movie has a mindfuck which is great, but subtle

- a recent Brit film called 28 days later is one of those end of the world horror/actions that will make you avoid dark tunnels - of course that's a steal from the Stand. But the horror isn't so much the iinfected it turns out

A beautiful ghost story that is not horror but ghost romance is called Truly Madly Deeply. A Brit film about a woman ESL teacher in deep grief about the loss of her husband, until he comes back. Made at the same time as the USA Ghost and beats it hands down. Henry Winkler in a Christmas Carol is similarily beautiful but I do enjoy AListar Sims in the dark version.

An American Werewolf in London was a wonderful horror/comedy. I thought the First Nightmare on Elmstreet was a classic.

And being gay I cannot discount the importance of Keifer Sutherland in The Lost Boys. Disney on acid. "try some rice..." I also loved Tom Cruise in Interview with a Vampire - beautiful cinematography.

I don't know what is is with sex and horror but it has been there in my life
- I jerked off my fuck buddy, Michael, in a KW theatre 14 years ago, to the Cronenburg film Naked Lunch. Bad film but good memories :) I loved Cronenburg's movie with those twins who cut each other up. And I vaguely remmber some boyhood sex play when I was ten with my two brother neighbours around with the 70s version of Frankenstein on in the background.

And talktooloose, you yourself recommended to me once the Canadian horro/sci-fi film called The Cube. That was very horrifyingly cool.