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

has a SLAY with words, etc

Didn't vote but SotD would have made my ballot.

films that i voted for thusfar (12-for-45):

059. Cat People
060. Vampyr
061. M
063. Shaun of the Dead
067. Hour of the Wolf [Vargtimmen]
071. Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer
075. Invasion Of The Body Snatchers [1956]
077. Pan's Labyrinth
082. Kwaidan
080. Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht
090. Dressed To Kill
093. Se7en

KJB's ethos works for him bcz he's seen everything. YMMV, DWH

my votes thus far:

061. M [1931, 312 points, 9 votes, 1 first-place vote]
065. Mulholland Drive [2001, 299 points, 9 votes]
066. The Innocents [1961, 298 points, 10 votes]
070. Let's Scare Jessica to Death [1971, 272 points, 11 votes]
(tie). Drag Me To Hell [2009, 261 points, 9 votes]
075. Creepshow [1982, 250 points, 10 votes]
084. Near Dark [1987, 219 points, 10 votes]
086. Witchfinder General [The Conqueror Worm] [1968, 209 points, 10 votes]
089. Wolf Creek [2005, 205 points, 7 votes]
096. May [2002, 186 points, 8 votes]
100. Phantasm [1979, 175 points, 8 votes]

KJB's ethos works for him bcz he's seen everything. YMMV, DWH

Could be, but I don't personally view the discovery and consumption of art as a race or a competition. I like to think that I'll still be discovering gems in my golden years. Plus I have no professional incentive to be massively coversant about any particular artform, so it's nice to relax my slacks and not feel any need to "keep up".

I think you may have the notion that I'm artistically incurious, Morbs, which really isn't the case.

nah I wouldn't assume that, bub

...but I am not going to risk Wm Castle-style cardiac arrest by watching new horror films in my dotage.

"He died as he lived … talking about movies he never saw."

I just watched THREADS on YouTube. Yipes.

took me a while to realize that upthread references to 'them' as one of the movies-too-scary-to-watch were not references to the giant atomic ant movie.

Yeah, it's the French remake, iirc.

not a remake unless joeks in which case n/m

them! was not remade as them which was remade as the strangers

1. wait, my Them vote was a vote for the giant atomic ant movie!

2. genre is less a verb than an adjective imo

Personal wrap-up:
Putting The Innocents, M, Vampyr and The Bride Of Frankenstein on the To Do list.

Contemplating to better store Ils deep down in a well or something instead of watching it someday.

Especially delighted to see Spoorloos place so high.
It's very hard to put it in words the right way, but I still very vividly remember that distinct silence at the final scene that befell me, my brother and my father watching it on TV years ago. Never again experienced this phenomen of having a whole group of people in union being slapped by a film in such a way (on the other hand, I tend to watch my horror films on my own generally).

not a remake unless joeks in which case n/m

When in doubt, it's generally safe to assume my posts are ill-formed joeks that no one but me will get/appreciate.

# of films thus far by decade. assuming 70s will pull ahead as we get into the higher ranks.

30s - 4
40s - 4
50s - 2
60s - 5
70s - 6
80s - 9
90s - 4
00s - 10
10s - 1

When in doubt, it's generally safe to assume my posts are ill-formed joeks that no one but me will get/appreciate.

You're stealing my m.o.

Putting The Innocents, M, Vampyr and The Bride Of Frankenstein on the To Do list.

sort of envy you

call me an idiot, but i enjoyed haute tension more than inside or martyrs. i even liked the conclusion, despite the fact that it's patently ridiculous.

This makes perfect sense to me. The ending of Haute Tension is so patently horrible and such a total cheat that it allows the viewer to lift themself guiltlessly away from the entire proceedings and go about their life unmarked, whereas the likes of Inside and Martyrs mark their viewers with an imprint of having been exposed. Which is why I unquestionably prefer the latter two to the former one, but we've been down this road in the last two threads.

Also, KJB did not disappoint.

And I want to see Satantango again.

Tho admittedly, I never want to see The Awful Truth again and I think it is decidedly not great, so maybe the theory is true after all.

Thx e.mily for doing the end-of-day roll call of titles. I had to run after posting today.

ils(them) is not the endurance test that some seem to be making it out to be itt. it's no martyrs. watched it late and with a few beers in me but didn't hit half as hard as i was expecting from all the talk around it, i preferred the strangers tbh.

so maybe the theory is true after all

where was a theory?

The Strangers is underrated on ilx imo.

xp

Both Frankensteins, Cat People, The Innocents and The Vanishing from the latest bout. I voted for, that is.

I found Vampyr a bit of a bore, I'm afraid. And I must add M to my rental queue at some point.

The Strangers is underrated on ilx imo.

jesus fucking christ i can't believe i forgot to vote for this. so good.

^^^^

ils(them) is not the endurance test that some
seem to be making it out to be itt. it's no
martyrs.

i'd agree but found ils much, much scarier. it's going for something a little more trad horror rather than 'endurance test' (and largely succeeding).

Do we think The Strangers is gonna make it? If it's not the best straight-up American horror flick of the '00s, it's at least in contention.

(I gave more points to Bug but I know that one's hopeless.)

I think that The Strangers did what it was doing so well that when it lost its footing a bit towards the end (it a very particular moment when the POV shifted slightly from the invaded to the invader and I was all like, NO NO NO WHAT ARE YOU DOING MR. DIRECTOR MAN NOOOOO), it kinda deflated the tension balloon for me. I probably should've still voted for it (like I did for that other 2000s movie that was super-effective up until its awful misstep) but I didn't.

IMO the only misstep that counts in The Strangers is the very last shot.

I watched The Seventh Victim last night, something I've had sitting on the shelf for a while. Quite a striking film, although I drifted for a few minutes in the middle (not the film's fault--par for the course when I watch something at home) and missed a plot point or two. Did Bettie Page take her look from Jean Brooks? Fantasticly atmospheric photography, and a clear influence on Psycho and (maybe) Rosemary's Baby.

Watched Dressed to Kill right after, and I'm second-guessing myself a bit on that one. Iconic villain and some inventive direction (and some that's just kind of jerking around); performances are really hit or miss. (I think Allen does the best.) Seeing it in a packed theatre right when it came out was great.

concerned at all these people who forgot to or nearly but didn't vote for the strangers.

^^good luck parsing that.

I'd love to see The Strangers get a still and crypt-keeper line, but this thread will still reveal a handful or so of ilxors really liked it whether or not it places.

Wicked, Wicked (1973) wasn't on the ballot, was it? It's a great giallo-style slasher in which the whole film is delivered in "Duo-Vision" split-screen. It's used in endlessly inventive ways, not just to show simultaneous action in diff locations, but also 2 angles on the same scene, or even what's going on inside the head of a character. Overwhelming to watch to say the least and hard as hell to find in the U.S. (I saw it on late-nite TCM), but well worth seeking out. Let's add it to the nominees when we do this again in 2022.

2nd half problems erased all the good will I had for the strangers, alan n otm re: ils, a more economical and solid film throughout

watched martyrs again last night. forgot how heartbreaking it is, and how good mylene jampanoi is in it. aside from the shocks and violence, there's a tragic sadness saturating the first 30 minutes, something that gets overlooked when ppl talk about it. it's not just grue and sadism, it's a story of desperate, broken people seeking peace in all the wrong places. the way audience sympathies are shifted back and forth between the characters is subtle and well-managed, and it's these sympathies that give the film its emotional punch.

it's also rare to see a horror movie without a sense of normalcy. there's usually a fall from grace, a transportation from order into chaos, but in martyrs we start in a living hell and go downwards from there. alan n also otm about the how the film is almost psychedelic in its effect - the grim stretch at the end puts me in a near trance state, an involuntary sympathetic response that echoes the main character's journey, giving the conclusion a surreal, physically palpable hall-of-mirrors feel. for those who surrender to it, a powerful viewing experience.

Whenever people talk about that movie, I think I saw a different movie. Maybe I did!

I have that problem with Mulholland Dr.

Is there much carnage in The Strangers? I almost bought a cheap used copy this afternoon, but I've developed such an aversion to gore the past few years--even the elevator scene in Dressed to Kill had me looking away last night--I ended up putting it back (and buying a box with The Wolf Man and three others instead).

Nah, there isn't much gore in Strangers. The ending is pretty bleak, though.

we often reject the manipulations of films we don't respect, making them a pass/fail proposition. weird example but the one that comes to mind for me is kramer vs kramer. can't deny that it's emotionally affecting but it leaves me feeling resentful. as much as I enjoy martyrs, it's clear to me why someone would hate it, even aside from standard issue repulsion at its content.

It occurs to me that it would be helpful to have a ratings system for gore. Like, the gore in The Strangers is maybe a 4 or a 5 (just a little beyond what they're likely to show on a non-CSI-ish broadcast television show). Whereas some scenes I've seen from CSI-ish shows are actually something like an 8 or a 9 (I happened upon a scene from that Dana Delaney medical examiner show where she pulled back the skin on this dead woman's head and used a bone saw to cut the top half of her skull off, uncovering a missing brain in her brainpan. It was seriously gruesome.)

xp to josh

The Gore-meter: what would you give The Texas Chainsaw Massacre? It's amazing how it achieves such intensity without actually showing much--Edwin Neal cutting Franklin's arm is probably the most graphic image in the film in terms of actual blood spilled.

damn, E3, so otm re: martyrs