Top Ten Horror Films of all time!

Top Ten Horror Movies of all time!

The Exorcist (1973)
The Shining (1980)
Jaws (1975)
The Thing (1982)
The Omen (1976)
Alien (1979)
Halloween (1978)
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
Friday the 13th (1980)
Psycho (1960)

Now I have to admit that all lists of this nature are subjective, and clearly I haven't seen every horror flick ever made but from my personal opinion these represent the 10 scariest movies in the world. Give me your list, or give me some arguments about why my choices are retarded.

IMDB's Top 50 Rated Horror Films

My goal is to watch each one of these movies one time during the month of October, leading up to all hallows eve! Regardless of whether I have chosen the 10 best in the world, I am guaranteed to have an awesome time watching these great films.

By the way did you notice that the mid 1970's - early 1980's have some of the greatest horror movies ever? 9 out of my top ten were made during those years. I wonder what was going on in the United States that fostered such an environment based on horror films? And why has there been such a drought in this genre since then?

While your list is good, I would have to respectfully disagree that they are the "scariest" out there.

"Scary" horror movies are easily the most subjective of all, since different people are scared by different things. What makes a movie scary for some, may seem incredibly silly to others. For instance, I don't think Jaws is frightening in the least, but that's because I find fish a tad silly. Cool

Anyway, we can talk about the psychology behind fright after I give you my top-ten list. I base my top-ten on the only ten movies to ever scare me enough to have nightmares about them, or to have imagery disturbing enough that I wanted to turn away. For the record, I abhor the "surprise" types of scares (i.e. building, screeching music, pop out of nowhere).

I didn't mark the dates, but I imagine most are through the 80s and 90s, since that is the period I grew up watching movies in. I am curious if you've seen these and if you can guess why they disturbed and/or scared the piss out of me.

-C.

I have seen 4 out of your top ten movies.

#10 A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
#4 Pet Cemetery (1989)
#3 Event Horizon (1997)
#1 Three Men and a Baby (1987?)

I must admit that I haven't seen or don't remember seeing any of the others. I will have to give them a whirl sometime in the next year and maybe they can crack into the top 10 that I will watch in October 2007.

I can only guess why you might have been more freaked out by those movies than others. It seems that you are definitely into the more psychological horror films of people being confronted with deep emotional traumas and inner turmoils, and I can totally understand that. I have to admit that I am surprised about the lack of "The Shining" and "The Exorcist" being on your top ten list. I didn't quite convey any quantitative values on my simple little list, but in my opinion those two films are WAY above the rest of the crop. About the films that you listed, I will give you my impressions on them.

#10 The introduction of Freddy Krueger in A Nightmare on Elm Street, and the thought a murderer that could kill you in your dreams is something that definitely kept me up at night when I was younger. The scene where the young girl is going up the wall and to the ceiling was just unreal when I first saw it... Now of course that technique seems quite lame.

#4 Pet Cemetery was something that I saw a long long time ago so honestly I don't remember it very well... Wasn't that the one where if you buried your pet in a certain "long lost Indian burial ground out back" your pet would come back to life, except with like a demonic bloodlust? And then someone of course buries their too early deceased son there Very Happy

#3 Event Horizon was a pretty good flick. I don't know why I wasn't affected by this one more, I remember some pretty freaky imagery that would flash up for a couple seconds of Sam Neill covered in Blood and stuff like that... I guess I found this one disturbing more than frightening. I couldn't figure out where the Event Horizon went was it like the chaos dimension or frell or something? Or did it just bring back something that made everyone else go bat scheiße kinda like in Crichton's "Sphere"? If I remember this film pretty much concerned the whole crew primarily Neill's char, spiralling into insanity and bloodlust.

#1 Was that the right Three Men and a Baby? As in the one with Tom Selleck, Steve Guttenberg, and Ted Danson? If so I assume that the scariest bastard in that movie would be Guttenberg by far... I actually think Ted Danson is pretty cool, he did a couple great episodes of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and of course he did some great work on "Cheers."

"The Shining" could have easily been on my list, I agree. But I had to leave it off to make room for some discussion. Smile

"The Exorcist" however, has never held any "fright" for me, I'm not sure why. Probably because I didn't see it until I was like 17 and the effects by that time seemed really dated and a tad laughable (which detracted from the otherwise impressive ambience).

#10. You're right on the money with this one. The girl up the wall and the scene when Freddy is chasing the girl in the alley (with the goofy long arms to block her path) scared me shitless when I was a wee lad (now, you're right, they look ridiculous).

#9. I chose Psycho IV instead of Psycho I because the scenes with his mother are extremely disturbing, you have to see it to understand.

#8. Friday the 13th VI is the first Fo13 I saw, at the ripe age of 7. I remember it crystal clear and had nightmares about it for at least 3 years. The beginning scene when Tommy digs up Jason and starts stabbing him creeps me out (anytime a dead body is dug up it creeps me out -- unless it is a zombie digging itself out Wink

)

#7. The vignette "The Blob" stopped me from swimming in campground lakes for many years. Now if I saw it, I'm sure it would be laughable, but back then... man. BTW, "Creepshow" is a collaboration between Stephen King and George Romero--automatically golden. As a matter of fact, they are getting together to do another "Creepshow" scheduled for 2008.

#6. Cube plays into a fear of helplessness I have that makes me squirm every time I see it. Also, it is the most creative horror sci-fi ever made, so it gets mention on that merit alone.

#5. The little devil girl in the mirror is creepy as frell.

#4. Pet Sematary is pretty dumb until the parents bury their son in the Sematary. The thought of a four year old using his innocence to lure his own parents to their deaths has always stuck with me. Oh, and hangings. I hate hangings (and that is how he kills his own mother).

#3. Easily the most disturbing movie imagery-wise I have ever seen. The set design, the lighting, the music, and the actors themselves (especially Sam Neill) do an amazing job setting up an atmosphere that could make anyone go insane. Even the anti-gravity drive looks creepy, what with its spinning teeth and all (however improbable of a design it is).

#2. Phantasm deals with all of the topics that creep me out most. Namely, digging up dead people (and mortician/undertaker duties in general). The "bad guy" (kind of an anti-hero type, actually) is awesome. His name is the "Tall Man" and he just has the best horror movie look in modern times. Check this out: The Tall Man.

#1 Although Steve Gutenburg is horrifying awful, the thing that really got me about this movie when I was a kid, was the cardboard cut-out of a young boy that they snuck into one of the scenes. The camera pans across the scene and there, by the window, is this little boy just staring out at the audience. Being the 8 year old I was, I gullibly believed my brother when he told me it was a ghost of a boy that had fallen out of that window (or was pushed, depending on the day). So when I finally saw what the scene with the boy, I was terrified. I thought that boy was everywhere I looked. I cried. Obviously it seems silly now, but try having a big brother that knows exactly how to push your buttons who sits there tweaking you all night long (we shared a bedroom then). Awful. I will never forget that.

Oh, Ted Danson is awesome, I don't care what anyone says. And Tom Sellick has an awesome mustache.

-C.

Best Buy in Gurnee is selling some of these DVDs that we are talking about for a pretty good price right now.

Here are some that I jotted down:

Friday the 13th $6.99
Friday the 13th 2 $6.99
Friday the 13th 3 $6.99
Friday the 13th 4 $6.99
Friday the 13th 5 $6.99
Pet Sematary $6.99

I don't know if this sale is nationwide or just regional, but I thought you might be interested if you wanted to pick any of these up on the cheap. They had a bunch of others for ~ $6.99 as well.

I would have bought FT13 'the original' but I got in at Amazon for $5.50 Smile

Usually Best Buy has pretty crappy prices on DVDs so I thought this was worth noting.

-Nate

Those are pretty good prices! But you're right about Best Buy, they almost never have good deals on dvds (I wonder why?)

THanks for the heads up, I may be heading over that way soon because Rae wants to get a laptop (we can go there to beat up on the floor models to give her an idea of what's out there).

-C.

So far I have watched "The Omen" ( #5 on my list ) and "The Exorcist" ( #1 on my list ). I have a bunch of DVDs coming in soon from Amazon.com so I will hopefully get through them all before the end of the month!

I still need to purchase ( if I can find a good bargain ) or rent:

#2. The Shining (1980)
#3. Jaws (1975)
#8. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
#10. Psycho (1960)

Let me know if you see any good deals for these. I would like to add them to my collection.