The Haunt Of Fear: ILX Top 100 HORROR Movies Poll Results Thread

xp (spoilers) I mean, obv it's something to do with Alice but you have to completely fill in the blanks, nothing is ever spelled out

well, the evil dead movies open with the reading of a spell that's said to summon demons, and they close with the (failed) reading of a counterspell, so i'd say they exist in a well-mapped universe, even if the protagonists remain largely ignorant about the lay of the land.

I thought of the shining as well

xp

alice sweet alice is a straight up slasher flick, not sure what supernatural mystery is supposed to be at work there

hard to talk about without getting spoiler-y but alice sweet alice's antagonist is pretty clear-cut

wr2 the shining: Scatman Crothers/Dick Halloran might've been of some use -- he knew what the deal was wr2 the hotel and was coming to help after Danny called out to him telepathically -- but he got axe-murdered by Jack Nicholson/Jack Torrance before he could really do anything.

though halloran was a cook and neither a scientist nor a clergyman.

xpost It was all a set-up for one of the better Simpsons gags.

xp really? I got the sense with Alice Sweet Alice that SPOILERS there's a hint - after the reveal of the murderer's identity - that Alice was the one somehow orchestrating it all

BTW, like the results so far, more or less. And for the record, "Blair Witch" deserves to place, but "Paranormal Activity" is much scarier. I know lots of folks who had trouble sleeping the night they saw it, ridiculous or no. Less so with "Blair Witch." Though both were A+ audience experiences. But of course we'll talk about this later.

xpost "Paranormal Activity" features one of the all-time best useless experts! The dude walks into the room then goes, basically, whoa, this is out of my league, you're on your own, see ya!

Scatman Crothers/Dick Halloran might've been of some use -- he knew what the deal was wr2 the hotel and was coming to help after Danny called out to him telepathically -- but he got axe-murdered by Jack Nicholson/Jack Torrance before he could really do anything.

the book is fairly clear about the nature of the overlook's evil and its relationship to the "shining" shared by halloran and danny, but i'm inclined to treat the movie as a separate text. it's much more vague, absent much indication of a larger context in which things might be understood.

This "unexplained and unexplainable malignant force unabatedly fucking up the lives of the protagonists" is at least part of what I love about films like Possession and Inland Empire and The Tenant. Yes, in each of those instances, there is some discrete rationale alluded to, but those rationales are vague and illogical and it's never made clear whether those films aren't just about the protagonists losing their minds.

See also: most Fulci, which makes no fucking sense.

Possession and Inland Empire and The Tenant.

excellent examples! was thinking of IE myself, but failed to mention it. dumb of me not to have considered the other two, as they were both on my ballot.

xp really? I got the sense with Alice Sweet Alice that SPOILERS there's a hint - after the reveal of the murderer's identity - that Alice was the one somehow orchestrating it all

― Chris S, Wednesday, May 16, 2012 6:01 PM (1 minute ago)

always read alice as SPOILERS just an emotionally disturbed girl getting a bad rap, but there's obv a lot of intentional misdirection on the movie's part to implicate her. final frame is ominous but imo more about the poisoning of her mind by the cruelty of those around her rather than any supernatural force at work.

really loved that movie as a kid but it didn't hold up very well when I watched it again sometime in the 00s

speaking about the shining ... do we think that that one is a lock for Top 10 or not?!? i know that that film has some pretty vocal haters around here.

oh hell yeah, figure it for #1 myself

^ oops, shut up, you

I bet, haters or no, it'll place high. But I really hope it's not #1.

This "unexplained and unexplainable malignant force unabatedly fucking up the lives of the protagonists" is at least part of what I love about films like Possession and Inland Empire and The Tenant. Yes, in each of those instances, there is some discrete rationale alluded to, but those rationales are vague and illogical and it's never made clear whether those films aren't just about the protagonists losing their minds.

― Bob Bop Perano (Deric W. Haircare), Wednesday, May 16, 2012 3:07 PM (45 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah I love this kind of approach. kind of like Grant Morrison's Arkham Asylum

re: Alice Sweet Alice, yeah I considered that reading... what made me go with mine was Alice and the killer's penchant for wearing the same costume around and the killer happening to take out everyone that Alice had a grudge against (and then there was Alice's collecting all those trinkets related to the events as well). it's very subtle, kind of left open, which is what I like about it. the possibility is there, but you can't be certain of it

shining will be top five for sure

no offense dudes but duh

50-plus ballots = no amount of challoping, strategic voting, and batshit insanity will keep all the expected movies from placing high

I'm comfortable predicting a top ten showing for The Shining, but these results could be all kinds of wacked out. The top five is totally up in the air at this point, from where I'm standing.

it didn't even occur to me to vote for the Shining tbh

my top ten is like zzzz kanon klassics plus two 21st-century outliers

i tried very hard not to vote for the shining (for strategic reasons, mostly - i figured it was a lock no matter what i did), but in the end it felt too much like fronting to leave it off my list.

same goes for alien and the thing

can anyone suggest good examples of movies that work like this? would love to see an entity/poltergeist/paranormal activity/insidious-type movie where the scientific and spiritual "experts" are completely useless.

― The term or title antichrist, in Christian theology, refers to (contenderizer), Wednesday, May 16, 2012 9:30 PM (1 hour ago)

well there is the last exorcism SPOILER its a horrible pile of shit

kinda feel like every movie about satan should end with our heroes succeeding and then satan going "oh lol wait i'm satan" and destroying them all

The Shining totally mentally scarred me as a young'un, dunno why it didn't occur to me to vote for it. I'm sure it'll do fine, regardless.

i'm sure i've told this story before, but after the first time me and my sister watched the shining (ages 10 and 8, respectively), i wrote red rum with my mom's lipstick on the bathroom door so she'd see it in the mirror when she came out

my mother was not pleased

actually i think she secretly kinda was but then we're a sick family

I'm comfortable predicting a top ten showing for The Shining, but these results could be all kinds of wacked out. The top five is totally up in the air at this point, from where I'm standing.

― Bob Bop Perano (Deric W. Haircare), Wednesday, May 16, 2012 6:47 PM (13 minutes ago)

if you look at the nom list, it's really not that mystical, a couple of them will be the ones that place in every ilx poll whether you want them to or not

kinda feel like every movie about satan should end with our heroes succeeding and then satan going "oh lol wait i'm satan" and destroying them all

Seriously. There's way too much "winning" in those types of movies.

rosemary's baby

The Omen

SPOILERS: Satan becomes president iirc

xxxxpost

Yeah, I mean...The Exorcist will probably show up in the top ten, but it could just as easily show up at 10 as it could at 1. And a third of the top ten could be total outliers. I mean, my top five has some popular choices and some stuff I think is kinda left-field that could show up around 50 or, if there's enough support, could wind up in the top 10. Who knows at this point?

besides any religious/squeamish objections to horror films, i think that another reason why my parents didn't let us watch horror movies was b/c they thought we'd pull stunts like writing REDRUM with lipstick or worse. and that fear was credible b/c when i was 4 i went through a phase where i defaced paintings and photos around the house and scribbled out entire pages in books.

the beyond

I'd like to see a spoiler-free list of horror movies with nihilistic endings.

ed i hate to break it to you but in rosemary's baby 2 she bludgeons the baby to death with a copy of http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-MQONc0LFdyk/T1hzmV2wnOI/AAAAAAAAAKU/4OIg0qf9T_A/s1600/book_spock.jpg

Rosemary's Baby 3: Rosemary's Baby's Baby is really boring. I mean, cool twist and everything, but it was just a nice baby.

I'd like to see a spoiler-free list of horror movies with nihilistic endings.

― Bob Bop Perano (Deric W. Haircare), Wednesday, May 16, 2012 11:10 PM (1 minute ago)

i would give you this but we have been asked to keep our ballots secret until the results are all posted

kinda feel like every movie about satan should end with our heroes succeeding and then satan going "oh lol wait i'm satan" and destroying them all

Seriously. There's way too much "winning" in those types of movies.

well, considering that satan's great monster-power lies in his ability to convince people to go ahead and do things they already wanted to do anyway, i'm not surprised that he's so easily defeated. satan vs. hulk, for instance....

satan: "now hulk, isn't there someone here you feel like smashing?"
hulk: "HULK SMASH!"

almost every horror movie has a nihilistic ending if you assume the survivors will ne emotionally fubar forever

haha and even being strict about that nihilism that describes 36/50 from my ballot