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

Good choice of #1, Morbs!

Peeping Tom: Always felt to me like a movie for students. Fascinating, but leaves me cold every time.

Does not leave me cold at all. The central conceit is just perfect, as far as I'm concerned, and the artistry of design and direction isn't just there to be deferred to as a technical meisterwork, but adds up to the awkwardness, the chills (hmm, okay, maybe it is cold, but in a GOOD way), the menace, the horror it's all there, it's all eating at me.

I love Anna Massey's jumper in that Peeping Tom still.
Since I voted for it I should probably say something more intelligent, but I can't help feeling every film studies course ever got there before me.

I find 'coldness' charge at PT as mystifying as when it's thrown at Hitchcock.

Powell provided the voice of the father btw. It was an intensely personal film for him I'd say.

I love the lack of explanation in The Birds. So spooky. So is The Haunting.

Powell was way ahead of his time with meta-horror-movie shenanigans, implicating the viewer, etc., etc. Eat your heart out, Kevin Williamson.

Eat your heart out, Kevin Williamson Michael Haneke.

Murnau's Nosferatu was my #29.

Scorsese:

"I have always felt that Peeping Tom and 8½ say everything that can be said about film-making, about the process of dealing with film, the objectivity and subjectivity of it and the confusion between the two. 8½ captures the glamour and enjoyment of film-making, while Peeping Tom shows the aggression of it, how the camera violates... From studying them you can discover everything about people who make films, or at least people who express themselves through films."

Yeah, Peeping Tom was so ahead of its time it destroyed the career of one of the most beloved filmmakers or all time. That says something. It blew minds.

Yep, was gonna mention that thing too, Josh. I think when I first saw Peeping Tom I'd only seen A Matter of Life and Death, and it totally blew my mind that the same dude could have made them (I love both, of course, and they are both aesthetically awesome, but... so so different in tone).

* I'd only seen A Matter of Life and Death out of the P&P films. It wasn't the only film I had ever seen.

Peeping Tom is shooting ot the top of my must-see list. I knew not of this film. V excited.

well, PT was entirely Powell's and Leo Marks' vision, as opposed to an Archers collaboration.

interesting bio for a screenwriter:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Marks

True, true, Morbius. But still a shock move.

And shit, yeah, Leo Marks sounds pretty awesome. Love cryptographers (though I don't love the story that encouraged him - probably the only Poe I actively dislike).

"I'm SCREAMING of a FRIGHT Christmas, where treetops and children both glisten ... WITH BLOOD!"

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7242/7248901056_8b435bc5bb_o.jpg

38. BLACK CHRISTMAS
Bob Clark, Canada, 1974
(437 points, 14 votes, 1 first-place vote)

bob clark's filmography is totally bizarro, dude made black christmas, porky's, and a christmas story
― it made me wish batman had written an article on mfas (Edward III), Wednesday, February 16, 2011 3:43 PM (1 year ago)

i think he got broken somewhere along the way, because man, so good right out of the gate
― O_o-O_0-o_O (jjjusten), Wednesday, February 16, 2011 3:46 PM (1 year ago)

but really, BLACK CHRISTMAS is all about the phone calls, which are really just the "Double Dog Dare" script from CHRISTMAS STORY pitched up a bit
― Dr. Alicia D. Titsovich (sexyDancer), Thursday, January 18, 2007 12:02 PM (5 years ago)

Yes yes yes yes yes!

#23 on my ballot. One of the few slashers that remains genuinely scary. From the phone calls to the poor girl in the attic to that eyeball.

Whoa, #23 on mine, too!

I was kind of disappointed in Black Christmas when I first saw it, was maybe the first inkling that slasher flicks are not my preferred mode - unless they do something REALLY special or are exceptionally beautifully shot - but I've seen it on telly a few more times since and I definitely like it a lot more now. Didn't quite make my ballot, though.

This is literally the only "slasher" film I ever enjoyed watching.

I love that, in the midst of all the shit going down in this movie, he slows the pace down for a fairly technical "tracking the telephone call" scene.

poor Andrea Martin

Like he doesn't just handwave it away, he shows a character in the midst of giant telephone switching equipment following connections and stuff. I bet David Fincher loves this movie.

I never expected these results to so heavily consist of movies I've never seen. Y'all are giving me one helluva 'must watch' list.

Now Bob Clark, that is one weird career.

This btw is the movie that I forgot and then panicked after submitting my ballot. Thanks again for letting me fix that Eric. My highest ranking non-post 2000 film.

I posted the trailer for Clark's Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things on the other thread; here's a still.

http://technicolordreams70.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/cspwdt7.jpg

Like he doesn't just handwave it away, he shows a character in the midst of giant telephone switching equipment following connections and stuff.

That sounds right up my alley. It makes me crazy when movies/tv don't adhere to an internal logic that at least makes sense within that fictional world. How did that subhuman psychopath manage the skill to make all the power go out, y'know?

maybe if I hadn't been jetsetting in Asia, I wouldn't have forgotten to vote for The Birds

but anyway, Black Christmas is just amazing, and I think it's the mostly-competent police work combined with the ending that elevates the movie

It's shocking how much John Carpenter ripped off Black Christmas. I'm surprised he even bother to change the holiday.

crystal unicorn murder is the best murder

hook is #2

Bob Clark also directed Baby Geniuses.

And Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2.

the phone calls are legitimately unsettling, even as they border on lurid campy nonsense. i found myself trying to laugh at how grotesque they were but it was an uncomfortable laughter at best.

That's my first-place vote; it got sentimental bonus points for being shot mostly in and around my old hood.

the ending of Black Christmas with the corpse in the attic = teh awesome

Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 was #12 on my list.

Bob Clark's swan song. RIP.

man Bob Clark's career has been odd:

She-Man is a 1967 film directed by Bob Clark.

Plot

A soldier is forced to take estrogen and wear lingerie when he's blackmailed by a violent transvestite.

Reception

The film was banned on release.

I think his Deathdream/Dead of Night ('74) has a bit of a following.

From the Black Christmas storyline on IMDB:

They set up a wiretap to the sorority house, but will they be in time to prevent a sorority girl attrition problem?

Love Deathdream, Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things, and Black Xmas. I guess I'm a Bob Clark fan. How about that.

Taglines for She-Man:

Warning To Teenagers! If You Can't Stand The Facts Of Life, Don't See This Picture!

Now... The Movie That Dares Tell All About Today's Turned-On Generation!

They All Live In A House Of White Slavery Horror!

This Is Rose. He Went Along. It Was The Easiest Way!

Wow. I don't think I could pick a favorite.

I voted for a diff bob clark movie, I seriously doubt it will show up this late but I'll defer from mentioning just in case

Bob Clark also directed Baby Geniuses.

^ much scarier than Black Christmas

Was it Baby Geniuses 2? xp

it was Porky's, I bet