This. One of the creepiest movies I’ve ever watched.
I agree that The Shining, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Omen, The Exorcist and The Haunting have held up, but I disagree with Halloween. It’s just a boring film. I can barely make it through even if I put on the Rifftrax for it.
I’ll go that far and beyond. I love elements of the original, but it’s just so uneven and faded and lacking in subtlety, it almost feels like a movie of the week c. 1978. To me, it’s close to the almost unarguably godawful Day of the Dead (a saluting zombie? Really?) than the fantastic Night of the Living Dead which, as others have noted, has held up quite well.
Nosferatu, the original
The WolfMan with Lon Chaney Jr.
and maybe not the whole movie, BUT the unmasking in Lon Chaney Sr’s Phantom of the Opera!
and for me, CARNIVAL OF SOULS!
I’ll go that far and beyond. I love elements of the original, but it’s just so uneven and faded and lacking in subtlety, it almost feels like a movie of the week c. 1978. To me, it’s close to the almost unarguably godawful Day of the Dead (a saluting zombie? Really?) than the fantastic Night of the Living Dead which, as others have noted, has held up quite well.
The remake’s opening titles and horrifying post-credits (or was it pre-?) footage from the boat did more for me than the entire original. Though I’ll concede that the zombie baby was just stupid.
More votes for The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Alien and The Shining. Horror at its best.
Friday the 13th is a dumb slasher, but dammit, it’s a classic dumb slasher with a great twist ending.
A Nightmare on Elm Street should still scare the kiddies, even if its utter '80s-ness is somewhat distracting.
Freaks still succeeds in being creepy, though not exactly a great example of filmmaking.
While Halloween is essential horror viewing and could fill a hundred Freudian film theory textbooks, it doesn’t really deliver chills like I imagine it did originally.
I just realized that most of my favorite horror films have been made in the past 15-20 years or so. And here I was thinking '70s and '80s horror reigned supreme.
Vindication! Although I think we can all agree the zombie baby was incredibly stupid. But I still find it believable that a newly-wed first-time father would crack under that kind of pressure and would try to “save” his wife and baby even after they start thirsting for human flesh.
And Day of the Dead really was bad. When you stop and think about it, the only unquestioned great movie in the Dead series is the first one (and even then, I’d argue Savini’s remake [which was itself partly directed by Romero] is a pretty impressive movie in its own right).
I gotta go with Archive Guy on this one. Dawn is the one horror movie I’m sure to watch a few times every year. Night is a classic, and rightly so, but Dawn just took things to a whole nother level.
Peter’s just gotta be the coolest zombie fighter of all time. Watching Roger go a bit crazy from the situation until finally it costs him and he gets bit, then telling Peter they have a lot of work to finish before they can lose him, then later still his telling Peter he’s going to try not to come back – probably the most tragic zombie movie victim of all time. Flyboy and Francine’s relationship falling apart, along with Flyboy’s trying to be as cool as Peter and Roger (and usually failing badly), and Francine wanting to be more than just the “den mother”, the movie just focuses on really great characters. Characters you care more about than the asshole in the basement or hysterical Barbra from Night*, or the rich dick and the stupid girl with the dog in the Dawn remake. The characters make the movie hold up. At least for me.
Does it have issues? Sure. Are the bikers dumb and a little unbelievable as to how they survive if they’re so stupid? Of course. But the movie isn’t about the bikers, not any more than it was about the swat team in the ghetto building or the news crew at the TV station, it’s about the four people that were in the helicopter. I can forgive zombie pie fights and the dumb biker sticking his arm in the blood pressure machine, because they’re just not that important to the story.
*-In fairness, Ben was a pretty good character in Night, but the rest are pretty much the type you can’t wait for the zombies to eat.
Agreed. It’s the unknown and unseen elements that make this movie so damned scary.
Among the things that are so scary:
What the hell is behind the door?
Whose hand was she holding?
Where did the Professor’s wife go?
I think Friday the 13th (1980) holds up pretty well. It’s no Exorcist, but I saw it when I was 12, and really getting into horror, and thought it was great fun.
Plus I peed my pants a little at the end.
Another vote for the original “Nosferatu.”
I saw “The Old Dark House” for the first time in ages a couple months ago, and thought it held up well. It’s just one cliche after another, so that you’re half into the movie and half laughing at it. Gloria Stuart (still going at 99!) was quite a looker, too.
Also, “The Shining,” although anymore I fast forward through the opening scenes to get to the good stuff. Is there anybody else that thinks Shelley Duvall is an order of magnitude creepier than Jack Nicholson?
“Carrie” still works well, although I’m not sure I’d consider it a horror movie. It’s almost unbearably sad, and there’s nothing scary about it except for how nuts Piper Laurie is.
The Haunting
Psycho
The Wicker Man
Nothing scary about it? The very last scene still makes me jump five feet out of my chair. It’s classic.
Agree here. I find Shelley Duvall so annoying that it almost ruins the film for me.
Forgot another 80’s classic… Cronenberg’s Remake of the FLY.
Tragic, gross, and best of all the leads made their characters seem like real people. I half wanted to see what the Brundlefly/Veronica/brundlefly Jr. Hybrid would have looked like.
He was obviously mad by the time he came up with that plan.
Oh and Hear hear TBG!!! I love that film because the characters were fully fleshed out as opposed to character types doing things because the plot demands it.
I’ll even defend Day of the dead if anyone is up for it!! :mad:
Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1965) - just saw it on UK TV for the first time. Five short stories with a connecting stranger on a train. Creepy, clever and eerie. Definitely stands the test of time for me.
Eric Stoltz!
Ever see the Nosferatu remake? Gorgeous & sad & creepy. NOT scary, but worth the watch!
I saw TODH a few years ago in the L.A. Egyptian Theatre at a Gloria Stuart film festival, where she spoke & they showed that, The Invisible Man and GoldDiggers of 1933(?). I found it highly entertaining but not one bit creepy. Btw, according to Gloria, it was on the set of TODH that SAG was born when the American actors saw all the cushy perks the British actors had.
Well since I made the original observation, I’ll post a couple that do hold up (though they sort of straddle the horror/sci fi genres):
The Thing From Another World (1951)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) (There’s a reason they keep re-making this one.)
But then I’ll say that while I have as much nostalgic affection as anyone for Universal horror films (Dracula, Frankenstein, etc.), they just would not hold chills for a first-time, modern viewer. So I don’t agree that any of those really hold up as horror films.
Hijacking on that note, there’s the newer film Shadow of the Vampire. It pretends to depict the “making of” Nosferatu and in it, Max Schreck (played by Willem Dafoe) is claimed by the director to be a very serious method actor who is in character nearly all the time. Really serious, as the plot unfolds.
I’d vote for Evil Dead. It’s campy and low-budget, but still packs a wallop. The scene where they’re playfully guessing cards and the sudden switch into demonic possession rocked.
I want to third Archive Guy and TBG’s take on Dawn of the Dead - they put it much more eloquently than I could.
I had an example of my own, but forgot it. I’ll be back.