Um…
The Company of Wolves, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Profondo Rosso, Santa Sangre, Candyman…
Not that Hellraiser isn’t a good flick, but I can think of many better ones.
Yeah that tall Phantasm guy and his little orbs and Jawa people freaked me out.
Does anyone remember a little movie called Nightmare on Elm Street?
Problem with the Phantasm, Nightmare on Elm Street and Hellraiser movies is the sequals started getting too much into the backstory of the villains. I generally find it more creepy when I don’t know anything about the weird guy stealing bodies and sticking them in another dimension. Once you put it into a rational framework its like “oh that’s not so scary”.
Well, as long as we’re naming great horror movies…a lot of my favorites have already been mentioned, including Romero’s Dead Trilogy.
The Fog–not a particularly deep story, but it still delivers the goods every time I see it.
Rosemary’s Baby–Even though there is not a single bit of gore on-screen, and you never even see the title character, Polanski’s direction and Mia Farrow’s portrayal of poor rosemary Woodhouse create a masterpiece of paranoia.
Curse of the Demon–Great old b/w movie about power, diabolism, and Messing with Things Best Left Alone.
Reanimator–Simultaneously hilarious and horrifying, this movie is a pure hoot!
Interesting sidenote: Director Bob Clark, the auteur behind this one, went on to bring us gems such as Porky’s, A Christmas Story and Baby Geniuses. That last one is truly horrifying.
Dario Argento’s Terror at the Opera, also known as The Opera and a bunch of other titles. It’s very gory, and not for those with weak constitutions.
It has to be the unedited version. I’d seen edited versions a couple of times and just thought it was a nonsensical gore fest, but the unedited version is very coherent and well paced. Like many horror movies, you can’t rent this from blockbuster.
Hellraiser is a worthy effort, but I don’t think it even gets in my top 10.
I disagree completely with this, even with your qualifier “generally.” By ignoring away movies without a supernatural element, the following movies would be left out of your classification for “horror”:
The Texas Chain Saw Massace
The Thing (both versions)
Night of the Living Dead (There’s never any specific reason given for the dead reanimating, although there’s any insinuation about a comet.)
Scream
Friday the 13th (The first one, anyway, aside from the “shock” ending.)
Frankenstein
Jaws
The Fly (both versions)
There tends to be a significant amount of overlap between the science-fiction, horror and thriller genres, but I wouldn’t take Psycho out of the horror box just because it happens to contain so many elements of the thriller genre. Indeed, Hitchcock’s whole intent was to make an inexpensive, lurid, absolutely terrifying movie.
I would have to say that The Exorcist, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Alien are in my top 3 spots for scariest movies ever.
I’ll admit that The Blair Witch Project did a good job of frightening me (and making me nauseous), but it’s pretty much a one-time thing. It’s not nearly as effective upon the second viewing nor is it all that scary on a TV screen.
Well, it scared the crap out of me. That makes it a horror movie in my book. Yes, it’s an action movie. It’s also a space opera. It’s also frickin’ terrifying. Movies don’t always (or even usually) fit into just one catagory.
And I think you are way off base in your assertion that a supernatural element is necessary for a film to be “horror.” All a horror film needs is to be scary. Similarly, I’m puzzled about why you said Alien was a horror movie “despite” have sci-fi trappings. Horror films with a sf theme in them are at least as common as horror films with a fantasy theme. The “thriller” is a sub-genre of horror, in which the terror comes from a wholly human source (Silence of the Lambs, Psycho, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Seven, and so forth).
I disagree with this, I feel that if it’s done well (which these were not) that it can be VERY scary to see the development of somethign that is the complete antithesis of who and what we are, yet still feel compelled to understand them.
Erek
Certainly, but Hellraiser was hardly the first horror movie to deal with those themes. The Whip and the Body did it earlier, and IMHO better.
another vote for “The Excorcist”. imho, the acting set it apart from almost every other horror pic. Ellen Burstyn was especially good. and it was hella scary too.
I do agree that Freaks is impressive.
In a modern context, The Stepford Wives was incredibly scary. The loss of identity, the scene at the end with Katherine Ross’ duplicate with the black eyes, and then the final scene of her shopping…
It is one of the scariest movies I have ever seen that has no gore.
I guess my point is that horror is a genre that usually comes with certain elements. Most important in a horror film is the creation and manipulation of fear, but horror films usually do this in different ways than other films. Alien is a good example because it has all the elements of a horror film, but with a science-fiction plot.
Aliens, on the other hand, is a pure action film. High-adrenaline, to be sure, and even suspenseful in parts (moreso in the Director’s Cut), but not terribly frightening. It certainly never struck me as horror film. This is not intended s a slam against the film, by the way. I quite like Aliens, but I simply don’t see it as a horror film.
As for “thrillers,” I see them as a seperate genre from horror, though related. Psycho, Seven, Silence of the Lambs… these are all thrillers. Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a slasher film, as are the Scream movies and the first Friday the 13th, which I would consider a sub-genre of thriller. Again, none of this is intended as a slam on the films at all. Some of them are excellent movies.
I’ve been a reader of horror literature and a watcher of horror films for as long as I can remember, and I suppose I just have specific things I look for before I consider something a “horror” story or film. The lines are blurred, definitely, and lots of crossover is possible (thus the inclusion of Alien and Jacob’s Ladder). The horror genre is kind of a special thing to me, and not every “scary movie” gets included in it. That’s all.
But like I say, you’re welcome to disagree. Hell, Blockbuster does. grin
I didn’t think I’d have to clarify my opinion, snce I’v written extensivel on this Board and in Teemings, but people may have gotten the wrong impression. I realize that Clive Barker was trying to bring up complecx issues in Hellraiser. I just don’t think he succedded. He didn’t with me, at any rate although evidently others feel differently. I found the plot a pointless mish-mash, and that by the end he seemed to be throwing things in just for the sake of a jolt, without any rhym or reason. I can’t say that I understand the appeal Barker has for some people.
As for Psycho, I stand by my definition – It’s horror, and was so called when it was first released. It’s a thriller, too, but the boundaries betwen enres is pretty nebulou at times. I’ll agree that Alien is both horror and sf. (but give me It! The Terror Beyond Space instead, anyday. nd most folks would put that squarely in the sf camp.)
I break horror down into three sub-categories: Slashers, Creepers, and Creatures.
Slashers, obviously, are the movies that rely on loads of blood and assorted gore to induce “fright”. Certainly, since lots of people are squeamish about such things, this approach is valid on its face. Of course, the genre has become corrupted, since any fool with a gimmick, a gallon of red-dyed Karo syrup, and a HandiCam can make his own Slasher flick. Usually, these films rely on the strength of their gimmick (“I know! The killer in our movie can use a nail gun!”) or the promise of topless women to draw an audience, at the expense of the storyline. Because they’re the easiest to make, most of what we get today in the “horror” genre is slashers, and most of them are quite bad. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween are Slashers done right.
Creepers are the great ones. They’re the hardest to make, because they rely on the strength of the story, and good writing is time-consuming and difficult. Also, when a creeper fails, it fails miserably. But, the greatest horror movies have some connection to the Creeper category. Probably the clearest pure-Creeper example from recent years is The Blair Witch Project, which relies entirely on the situation to create a sense of creeping unease and dread. The Wicker Man is another good example, an unusual one since much of the movie takes place in broad daylight, but everything about the island is just so unsettling…
Creatures are coming back into style, since computer graphics have made previously-unfilmable things possible. Creatures, like Slashers, rely on the strength of a gimmick, but in this category the gimmick is a dangerous animal of some sort; not a killer human, but killer sharks or bats or rats or dogs or wolves or pigs or shrews or mutant babies or komodo dragons or anacondas or spiders or king cobras or mosquitos or worms or ticks or whatever. I have to admit that this is my favorite genre, because they can be so much fun, even when they’re bad. A great creature can make a movie.
Now, there’s lots of crossover between these subcategories; The Exorcist, I reckon, belongs to all three. But there’s no question, at least in my mind, that the very best horror movies are strong on the Creeper, and I gotta say that Hellraiser is much stronger on the Slasher.
I don’t think a horror movie needs to have any supernatural elements whatsoever. Horror isn’t plot or setting, it’s tone. It isn’t what happens, it’s how the events are presented.
And Miller nailed something else I wanted to say, but just because he said it first doesn’t mean I can’t present my version. Movies, like literature, seldom occupy just one niche. Those that do are seldom, possibly never, great art. Frankenstein is science fiction, and horror, and a class conflict drama, and a spiritual exploration all at the same time. Aliens is horror, action, and sci-fi all at the same time.
On to the OP.
Among American movies that haven’t been mentioned yet:
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer
Rosemary’s Baby (can’t believe I’m the first to mention it)
Carnival of Souls
The Bride of Frankenstein
Dracula
And to show how pretentious I am:
Nosferatu (silent)
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (silent)
The Ring Virus (The Japanese remake, not the Korean original)
Audition (Japanese)
Anatomy (German)
The Untold Story (Hong Kong)
Supiria (Italian, Dario Argento’s best, though Opera is very good)
Funny Games (German)
Wicker Man (British)
The Vanishing (Dutch)
I’m going to base my vote on something strange- I’ll vote for the only movie I’ve seen twice that scared me both times. That’d be Phantoms(1998), which might not be high art or critically aclaimed, but is creepy as hell. For some reason I don’t scare that easily, might be that I’d had a steady diet of horror novels since the age of 11…I’m looking forward to seeing US versions The Ring and The Kingdom (since I’ll probably never get a chance to see the orginals) because from what I’ve hear they might be really scary 
Dawn of the Dead
Time for the obligatory reference to Dead of Night, best horror fillum ever made and no argument.
I’d vote for The Shining. Hellraiser did not make any lasting impression on me (hell, Chucky was more scary ;)). However, the single most chilling scene is from Carrie (near the end - if you have seen the movie you know what I mean).