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

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

also this: we often reject the manipulations of films we don't respect, making them a pass/fail proposition., is why i find most negative criticism to be really boring.

thx.. so hard to write about it and avoid spoilers

I guess it is true that there are a lot more movies I respect but don't like than movies I don't respect and like. And I will say, as much as I neither respect, terribly, nor like "Martyrs," it is at least going for something more than butt-stupid movies like "Inside" or "High Tension" or whatever.

Inside is better than martyrs imo, but I voted for both. I always think of the strangers as more akin to funny games than ils/them tho.

funny games doesn't derive its suspense from the anonymity of the invaders, tho. also way more conceptual than ils or the strangers.

After reading the synopses of Inside and Martyrs, I'm pretty sure I don't want to be in a room alone with any of you folks who dig on this kind of movie. Jayzis!

I R delicate flower

stick to gremlins I guess?

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.

Yeah, that's probably, what...a 2 or 3, at most? Obviously the Gore-O-Meter and the Terror-O-Meter are separate concerns. TCM is prolly, like, an 8 on the latter. But then take something like Brain Dead and it's almost flipped. It's arguably one of the goriest films ever (if only in terms of the sheer quantity of gore presented onscreen) and probably would be an 8 or 9 in those terms, but it's so OTT and cartoonish and distinctly unterrifying that I think most people could unflinchingly hang with the gore (with the possible exceptions of things like pus in the custard, which really is pretty effing gross).

tobe harper meant for texas chain saw massacre to be at least a bit humorous. and i, for one, saw the (admittedly sick) humor in the film.

Well, yeah, there's definitely some pitch black humor. Which somehow fails to detract from its terror.

TCM has some very funny moments--my favourite is when the guy conscientiously runs back in to shut out the lights before locking up the gas station.

I think my favorite blackly funny moment is Grandpa's inability to finish off Sally.

man i feel like i saw a totally different strangers

Strangers is engrossing for the first 2/3rds, but the denouement is both a let-down and a betrayal, no less so because of just how great the preceding sequences are.

going in I knew nothing about it, and was totally hooked by the intentional omission of various details and the overall pacing. very intense and well-done.

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

― diamanda ram dass (Edward III), Wednesday, 16 May 2012 22:11 (4 days ago)

^ this btw in re: alice sweet alice was totally wrong. I started to watch it last night and got riveted. currently free on hulu. avoid spoilers!

the only bad thing I can say is that at 1hr40mn it has got some pacing problems, but everything else about it delivers. perverse and atmospheric, with brief bursts of shocking violence, it's prolly one of the most innovative stabby mcstabberson films out there. with a pre-fame brooke shields, a great performance by paula sheppard of liquid sky fame, and, of all people, lillian roth in one of her last roles. if you're a fan of low budget 70s horror or giallo it's well worth a watch.

i don't know that the gore-o-meter is a terribly useful indicator in itself. that old saturday night live skit where julia child cuts her finger is far more bloody than psycho or even the texas chainsaw massacre, but since the gore is played for laughs, it's not terribly disturbing. though it probably varies from individual to individual, i think extreme brutality is generally harder to deal with, psychologically, than gore. when splatter exceeds our thresholds, it only becomes a disgusting gross-out. when we're overwhelmed by the anguished intensity and brutality of a film, however, the experience can be very nearly traumatic.

^ i don't mean that as another installment in my ongoing rant against "torture porn" and "exploitation aesthetics". horror is a kind of dare. horror movies promise to put us through the wringer, and we expect them to deliver. to that end, intensity and brutality are important spices. a horror film that entirely lacks the ability to disturb its audience might be a good film by whatever measure, but it fails at the most basic level to deliver on the genre's promise.

well w/ the SNL sketch it probably helps that you can almost see the tube coming out of Aykroyd's sleeve.

063. Shaun of the Dead [2004, 301 points, 11 votes]
064. Gremlins [1984, 299 points, 12 votes]
065. Mulholland Drive [2001, 299 points, 9 votes]

y'all can thank me for this section of the poll, lol

I have more films popping up on this than I expected and Threads was WAY TOO LOW

i don't know that the gore-o-meter is a terribly useful indicator in itself. that old saturday night live skit where julia child cuts her finger is far more bloody than psycho or even the texas chainsaw massacre, but since the gore is played for laughs, it's not terribly disturbing.

This is 100% RONG in my opinion; that skit was one of the most horrifying things I remember seeing on television as a child

y'all can thank me for this section of the poll, lol

i voted for 2 of the 3 too - more than 10 people voted for all except mulholland

I think TCM's reputation stems from the emotional violence, I guess, which is so unrelenting that the gore is almost beside the fact (and on that count, i want to say the only really gore is when Leatherface - who, never forget, wears a mask made out of human skin; does that count as gore? - cuts his own leg with his chainsaw at the end).

I've also noted that the gross out factor vis a vis blood is pretty overrated. The most wince inducing moments in movies are often either very minor - like the thumb-slicing in "The Thing," so tiny versus all the surrounds it, but guaranteed to make people squirm - or implied (like gruesome sound effects and implied cutting/slicing/chopping noises). When gore goes over the top, I think comedy is the only logical extreme, a la "Dead Alive," or "Evil Dead 2" or whatever. It's the reason I can't take seriously the latest wave of x-treme experiences, whether "Inside" or "Martyrs" or even "A Serbian Film." They go so far that, yes, they achieve a surreal state, but I bet most of these offerings would be scarier or more intense or better minus their explicitness, which comes across a distraction. Except "A Serbian Film," I guess, which is little more than its explicit over the topness and therefore needs to go there.