In this thread here (crosses fingers): http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=134035
It was posted twice that Hellraiser http://us.imdb.com/Title?0093177 is the best horror movie ever. Is this a whoosh humor attempt by Coldie? If not I can think of two better without much effort:
The Exorcist http://us.imdb.com/Title?0070047
An American Werewolf in London http://us.imdb.com/Title?0082010
Your picks, thoughts, corrections, clarifications and input is requested.
Gotta go with the Exorcist. That movie sticks with you for days afterwards, and makes you think about things that you don’t otherwise think about.
One of my personal all-time faves is a small-time Canadian movie called Black Christmas. A lot of the plot elements in this movie are now cliches (“The calls are coming from inside the house!”), but this was the first one to have them. A couple of American movies were made that were absolutely direct rip-offs of this one, and they weren’t nearly as good.
The bad guy in this movie, the obscene phone-caller, is one of the freakiest bad-guys ever. The shit he says during those phone calls makes your hairs stand on end.
Perhaps I was just young & impressionable when I saw it, but Dawn of the Dead had me positively shaking in my seat, and my knees were weak & rubbery walking out of the theater.
I also place Phantasm high up on my list mainly because of the orb. At the time I saw it, I lived in a high rise apartment building with looooooooooooooong hallways and I went into a cold sweat walking all the way down to my door.
I wasn’t especially moved by The Exorcist, and Hellraiser didn’t start scaring me until the sequels came out.
I need to nominate John Carpenter’s version of The Thing, which already has it’s own fan thread, and for good reason.
I found Exorcist to be quite boring. Hellraiser was cool as hell, as was the second in the series. The third sucked, and fourth (Bloodlines) was okay, and Hellraiser: Inferno was surprisingly good.
So yeah, another vote for Hellraiser. (Although I admit there are plenty of horror movies I’ve not seen.)
Comical horror: “Brain Dead” Greate one-liners, loads of blood and guts, makes me laugh all the way through.
Suspense horror: “What Lies Beneath” has got to rate highly in this category IMHO, I love supernatural horrors and this one made me jump in quite a few places.
These are are just a couple that spring to mind, theres loads more but it would take to long to list them.
Serpent and the Rainbow is pretty creepy. Remember the “Don’t let them bury me…I’m not dead” scene? <shivers>
I haven’t seen it in a while, but I recall Prince Of Darkness being pretty scary as well.
Psycho, by far the best.
Hellraiser? The movie about the Evil Rubik’s Cube? The one with the head full of undriven nails, and also the woman who kills guys by beating them over the head with a hammer? It sounds like a match made in Hell – howcum she never used that hammer on Pinhead?
“Freaks” was all the creepier because the characters were real people. “Google goggle, Google goggle, one of us, one of us!” I also started a thread a looonnnggg time ago about the Snow sisters, who played the pinheads in the film.
My vote for best horror movie goes to “Bride of Frankenstein.” Not terrifyingly frightening, but well-made with a little touch of humor. “We belong dead…”
No woosh, I really do think it’s the best horror ever. Honourable mention goes out to Brain Dead, although one could argue that it’s closer to comedy than to true horror.
As I said in the thread that the OP linked to, Hellraiser was a bloody disturbing movie.
But it didn’t scare me…just creeped me out.
The movie that scared me the most was The Exoricst, which has already been mentioned. Saw that movie for the first time when I was about 12 or 13, and I haven’t seen it in its entirety since. That flick scared the hell out of me.
Better horror movies than Hellraiser? Off the top of my head…
Night of the Living Dead
Dawn of the Dead
The Exorcist
John Carpenter’s The Thing
The Shining
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Jaws
Alien
Aliens
The Sixth Sense
An American Werewolf in London
The Birds
Psycho
Dead Alive (aka Braindead)
The Haunting (1963 version)
Evil Dead (One or two, basically the same movie)
Man, Hellraiser doesn’t even rate.
Hellraiser, if not THE greatest horror film ever, is certainly in the Top Five. To be truly great,a film, or any piece of art for that matter, needs to address larger issues and touch the audience in a visveral manner. Hellraiser is far more than just a movie about pinheaded demon and a woman who kills men with a hammer–it delves into the connection between sex and death, pleasure and pain, and the darker needs that drive our sadomasochistic urges. The key to the movie, for me, is when Kirsty asks, “Who are you?”, and Pinhead replies, “An angel to some, a demon to others.” The Cenobites’ implements of torture rip apart the body and mind, and take their victims into a zone where agonizing pain is indistinguishable from orgasmic pleasure, where, indeed, “it hurts so good.” Barker’s screenplay covers the same themes of pain, pleasure, dominance, and submission that de Sade and von Sacher-Masoch wrote about.
I wouldn’t consider Psycho a horror film, at least not in the sense of the other movies being discussed here. The genre recognized as “horror” generally involves some element of the supernatural. Psycho is more of a thriller, with no supernatural elements. Excellent film, but not really horror, IMO.
Hellraiser’s definitely one of the best. Great premise and stylishly done. The sequels got successively worse, but the first film was quite good.
Kubrick’s The Shining was also a masterpiece. No, it wasn’t a literal rendition of King’s excellent novel, but Kubrick’s film is intense and creepy in its own right, and has some of the most memorable horror imagery ever committed to film. Who can forget the twins in the hallway, or the blood gushing out of the elevator?
Jacob’s Ladder could be called a horror film, and if you choose to call it one, then it is one of the best also. Subtle and chilling, and with a great deal of depth.
I’ll second monster’s inclusion of Serpent of the Rainbow, too. This is probably Wes Craven’s best film, but woefully overshadowed by the likes of Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream.
And Peter Jackson’s Brain Dead (or Dead-Alive) is a classic black comedy, disgusting and hilarious.
So yeah, Hellraiser is definitely among the best horror films for me, but the best ever? Tough call.
Ah yes… someone mentioned the original version of The Haunting… that’s another great one.
Also, The Changeling is an impressive piece of work.
Well, I haven’t ever seen Hellraiser, I saw Bloodlines which was a good bad movie. I think Clive Barker is one of the worst writers in history, but the movie might be good. Imajica was one of the cheesiest pieces of crap ever penned.
That said, I’ll put down my picks.
The Shining and Cujo terrified me as a child, but I saw them both very young, like maybe 9 or 10. The Shining I can’t watch because of that fucking tricycle going from floor to carpet floor to carpet, that’s fucking creepy in and of itself.
I am not a big horror movie fan, usually the more realistic a movie can be the more frightening I find it, so stuff that always resounds with me are frightening rednecks having grown up in New Mexico.
So:
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Kalifornia
are the two on my list. Texas Chainsaw Massacre fulfills every paranoia you ever feel when you are out on a dirt desert road 100 miles from civilization. You never know what kind of freak chooses to live out there.
Kalifornia, cuz I knew Early Graves many times in my life.
Erek
Jacob’s Ladder… man o man.
The original Night of the Living Dead… I can stand watching it, and sometimes it strikes me as funny, but watch me NOT go outside at night without rushing to the car anyway. Zombies in general really terrify me; I have nightmares about them once a year or so. Ugh.
Oh, and Miller… I might agree with Alien being a horror movie, despite the science fiction/suspense trappings. It has all the right elements.
But Aliens? That’s an action flick. Doesn’t even approach horror.
Oh my fucking god, how could I be so remiss and not include “The Cube”!!!
Erek