Anyone have any good suggestions?
I love a lot of older Italian and Spanish horror movies and movies from the 70’s and early 80’s.
I don’t like Hostel-type movies, gore and torture stuff in a place of a plot aren’t appealing at all.
Otherwise anything else goes, slasher, ghost, giallo etc.
Without a list of what you’ve already seen, I’m reluctant to go over the classics that I’m sure will either be mentioned a dozen times, or you’ve seen a dozen times. However, if you haven’t seen it, try The Orphanage, a Spanish horror film, a great one, about a woman who is adopted, returns to reopen the orphanage she came from. It’s not just a fantastic horror movie, it’s a fantastic movie in every sense of the word.
Also, not nearly as good as the above, maybe set a goal to catch all of the movies featured in the past two Horrorfest film marathons: http://www.horrorfestonline.com/
I’ve not seen them all, but Gravedancers is a fun, scary film. The Abandoned and Wicked Little Things are also worth a watch. Penny Dreadful not so much, and Dark Ride is not great, but is a nice homage to early 80s slashers. Reincarnation is good Japanese horror if you are into that kind of thing, but not particularly noteworthy (unlike the outstanding Ring, The Eye, and Ju-on).
I can’t help you with your favorite genre, but nothin’ says “creepy” like The Shining. I love this movie. It’s beautiful to look at and has a deep and ominous vibe that never lets up.
I know it’s a matter of taste, albeit bad, but you can’t go far wrong with House Of A 1,000 Corpses and The Devil’s Rejects.
Let the Right One In is the best movie I’ve seen this year. It’s a Swedish vampire film that is in limited theatrical release in the U.S. currently, but debuts on DVD in March 2009. It’s not too early to put this little masterpiece in your Netflix queue.
Same here, and I normally don’t like vampire movies (except maybe The Lost Boys). I was also thoroughly terrified by spelunking horror The Descent.
Shallow Grave - Creepy, no gore, good acting.
I’m with the OP, I hate gore too. It doesn’t “scare” me, instead I’m just grossed out. It is pretty darn rare to find a movie that is actually scarry.
I also enjoyed With Friends Like Harry IMDB link
I recommend a book – Stephen King’s Danse Macabre, which includes a sort of critical survey of the horror-film genre and introduced me to a lot of flicks I’d never heard of. Including some which are frightening even though there is no actual violence, or what there is happens off-camera.
B&W low budget classics:
1962? Carnival of Souls
1964? Black Sunday aka Mask of the Demon aka Mask of Satan
Hammer Films:
Curse of Frankenstein (Cushing & Lee for the first time)
Horror of Dracula (Cushing & Lee again)
Brides of Dracula (Cushing, no Lee)
Curse of the Werewolf (Oliver Reed)
Phantom of the Opera (Herbert Lom)
Kiss of Evil aka Kiss of the Vampire
~ anything with Dracula or Frankenstein or Lee or Cushing
Vincent Price:
House of Usher
Masque of the Red Death
Pit and the Pendulum
The Abominable Dr. Phibes
Dr. Phibes Rises Again
Theatre of Blood
The original 1972? Chris Lee-Edward Woodward “The Wicker Man”
Alien
The Exorcist
The Others
Near Dark is an excellent overlooked vampire movie.
The Thing if you haven’t seen it yet.
Came here to say just this. Bill Paxton is excellent!
Angel Heart. Mickey Roark is a PI, searching for a disappeared WWII veteran and Sinatra-type singer in 1950s New Orleans. Oddly, everyone he meets keeps getting murdered in some horrific way. Very, very disturbing film.
Dagon - If you like H.P. Lovecraft, you’ll love it. If you’ve never read Lovecraft, you’ll want to after seeing this. American software entrepeneur and his girlfriend are shipwrecked in an isolated Spanish coastal town whose resident worship the fish-god Dagon, and are themselves turning into fish-zombies. Good stuff …
In the Mouth of Madness - another Lovecraft-inspired story. A horror novelist’s stories are driving his fans to violent madness …
Fantastic movie. The reveal made me jump out of my chair, and I very rarely jump.
Another good one is the Spanish film [rec] which was re-made into Quarantine in the US.
I also forgot to mentionThe Host. It is a good Korean creature flick though the name makes little sense to me. Translation I guess.
I always thought The Exorcist was kind of laughable, but The Exorcist III? Good hell, that movie is creepy!
Another one I watched recently (and rather enjoyed) was Gothika with Halle Berry. Spooky!
The original The Haunting.
2nd recs for The Descent and Near Dark. I’ll add a rec for Silent Hill, best game to movie adaptation I’ve seen.
ETA: Ginger Snaps and it’s first sequel. Awesome gory flicks and recc’ed for Buffy fans.
I’ve always kinda’ liked The Night Walker, which was a William Castle movie and which starred: Barbara Stanwyck, Robert Taylor and Lloyd Bochner.