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

this is poll is kinda wacky, I like that. non-US and pre-70s films having a pretty good showing.

I've never seen House. can someone explain wtf is going on in that still

oh many xposts --

I was obsessed with the song "Crush Story" from Cereal Killers in 9th grade! OBSESSED.
Everything you've ever said is brilliant! I am the smallest giant ever. I never had the album though.

thought for a minute that meant..

http://www.impawards.com/1986/posters/house.jpg

i fucking heart Hausu.

"Watching those SPEW-lunking ladies had me feeling positively in-DESCENT!"

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8009/7248901908_e4191732c1_o.jpg

34. THE DESCENT
Neil Marshall, UK, 2005
(471 points, 20 votes, 1 first-place vote)

i wen't along to see this last night and it is, in parts, just UNBELIEVABLY SCARY- i jumped a foot in the air about 4 or 5 times.
― jed_ (jed), Thursday, July 21, 2005 4:02 AM (6 years ago)

I saw this last summer without any prior knowledge of the movie. Arrived about 10 minutes late at the theatre, so the first scenes I saw were just women drinking and chatting and being big-girly-pamper-party etc. I thought it was gonna be a total tampon advert of a movie, but then it gets seriously gorey porey. Seriously thrilling stuff.
― ZOT! (davidcorp), Saturday, August 5, 2006 3:33 PM (5 years ago)

A couple of the ladies really disabused me of the notion that all English accents are teh hott.
― milo z (mlp), Monday, August 7, 2006 9:06 PM (5 years ago)

The basic outline is pretty much what you expect: the Sisterhood of Travelling Pants (including one who was struck by grisly, onscreen tragedy in the first reel) goes spelunking and shortly find themselves at war with blind mutant cannibals.
― 100% CHAMPS with a Yes! Attitude. (Austin, Still), Thursday, August 10, 2006 8:10 PM (5 years ago)

Watching the interviews on the Hausu DVD, it turns out the whole idea came from the directors teenage daughter, which kind of makes sense.

Huh, really? Found The Descent pretty boring.

(xpost)

Another one of my pre-2000 picks

The Descent is much more tense when it's a crawling-through-small-holes thriller than when it turns into a ropey monster movie.

The Descent features the actress I nominate for the Barbara Steele Inheritance Award, Nora-Jane Noone
http://images.tvrage.com/people_galleries/37/110543/58925.jpg

I thought it was fine if forgettable. But it reminds me I should've nominated another buzz film from around the same time, Open Water.

I've heard decent things about the sequel. Anyone want to rep for it?

Uh Hausu is one of my pre-2000 obv. Totally voted for the descent, think its great. For the love of god do not watch the mega shitty sequel.

The Descent made it onto the tail-end of my ballot, based solely on the strength of the first half (which, taken on its own, would rival just about any horror movie I've seen). Unfortunately, the directors couldn't decide which of two vastly different movies they wanted to make and thusly made the unfortunate decision to splice them together. Which is a shame, because even the back half could've been expanded into a solid little horror film on its own.

Ha tht was an xpost but I guess you know my opinion.

yeah, don't get the descent love. well-constructed, well-executed, wasn't thinking about it 5 minutes after it was over. admire marshall's desire to put characterization first, noble impulse, I just wish he cared about the mutants as much.

For the love of god do not watch the mega shitty sequel

Holds true for almost everything, apart from The Exorcist of course

I hope everyone repping for exorcist II realizes that anyone who watches the film will never trust anything you say ever again

truly 2 hours you can't get back

I guess you could get those 2 hrs back by not watching The Descent 2 like you were planning to do.

Has anyone seen Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist?

Watching The Descent is not unlike those occasions when a headlining band has to follow a vastly-superior opening act.

"We accept you, one of PUS!"

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8008/7248902146_b01d48675d_o.jpg

33. FREAKS
Tod Browning, USA, 1932
(475 points, 18 votes)

I often wonder, with it being made in 1932, if the guy without legs is a war casualty, or if he was born that way, or some other kind of accident. Freaks unfortunately seems to be known by people because of infamy - the usual effect of banning a film increasing interest is in play here, but perhaps tempered by the fact that it is in black and white, so who can be bothered? I've never really understood the banning (it was banned in the UK, I believe - I don't know about the US) is it because looking at the actors is so offensive the audience should be protected? Is it the (mostly implied) violence at the end? The themes of the film seem quite moral and normal for drama, it just seems odd. The whole 'Oh, but who are the real freaks?' thing may seem trite, but it's a very effective film, I thought. The suspence is brilliantly maintained, and the images at the end are stunning.
― Kevin Gilchrist (Mr Fusion), Sunday, October 10, 2004 4:14 PM (7 years ago)

eh, it's okay. The ending is way too trumped, but yes, it works on the level of implied violence. Strangely didn't feel the need to see this film until watching The Dreamers, but whateveh. The midgets just can't act worth a damn, even on 1930's standards. It's really sad in that respect, but again, whatevah. It's worth a look.
― Girolamo Savonarola, Sunday, October 10, 2004 5:14 PM (7 years ago)

I guess the nearest contemporary of "Freaks" that's cultish would be the Universal monster movies or the WB Busby Berkeley musicals?
― Mildred Dixon (Pashmina), Thursday, September 11, 2008 9:30 AM (3 years ago)

I really don't get all the hate for the shift in the descent

there's some interesting debate going on over here about how generally useless sequels are, but with folk repping for ones they love

The long overdue _Blade Runner_ thread

i never got the love for the descent, either. agree that the first half is pretty great, but it goes so so badly off the rails after that. it's not the introduction of the cave monsters that bothers me, but how badly they're handled. what, they're not only blind, but deaf and devoid of a sense of smell? ending's a nice gut-punch, but too little, too late.

i like The Descent and voted for it but woah after it didn't make the bottom half of the list i kind of assumed it wouldn't get that high

Has anyone seen Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist?

Yeah. The worst I can say about it is that it's kinda plodding and not terribly concerned with being a horror film.

Never seen all of "Freaks" and don't know if I ever will.

I hope everyone repping for exorcist II realizes that anyone who watches the film will never trust anything you say ever again

Most OTM statement in this thread.

Not if you rep it to a fan of films maudits

I liked The Descent in spite of the stupid cave monster bits because it was girls in a cave, and one of those girls was Nora-Jane Noone and her fantastic eyebrows. I feel like some of you are missing the point with that movie.

Freaks is so classic that people should hang stills of it in their house instead of American Gothic.

Hostel 2 is better than hostel 1, imo.

only exorcist film i even half like after the first is the third, which isn't great, but does have its moments (plus at least a quarter-hour's worth of brad dourif going full weirdo)

Hopkins recalls, "I read the script and - boom - I knew intuitively how to play him. There were two, maybe three voices that I heard. I thought of Katharine Hepburn, Truman Capote and Hal.

― judas, a homo (elmo argonaut), Tuesday, May 22, 2012 12:32 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is crazy, never had seen this quote before but makes instant total sense

I always wondered what the limbless man holding a knife in his teeth at the end of Freaks was going to actually do with it.

Freaks!! Love it.

I really don't get all the hate for the shift in the descent

For me, it can be largely distilled into: was super effective and legit scary for a stretch, then morphed into a fairly boilerplate '(wo)man v. monsters' flick. It ain't hate by any means, just mild disappointment.

The "one of us" scene is so great because we KNOW the freaks are the good guys... and yet you have to feel the villain lady's horror that she could somehow become one of them.

Freaks' signature gabba-gabba scene is phenomenal; I can't remember a whole lot from the build-up.

http://www.ciakhollywood.com/biografie/tbrowning/sulsetdifreaks.jpg

It also made room in the public imagination for freaky carnival ladies in movies like Berserk! and The Jerk and a bunch of others, I'm sure.

I know this is a ship that's long since sailed, and can't remember who the writer was, but I remember reading something about Freaks in which it's pointed out that some of the people in the film could not possibly have comprehended the idea that they were even IN a film, and what that meant in terms of the level of exploitation involved. The whole thing just kinda makes me uncomfortable.

OTOH, this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=25nl9-Z-P6U#t=66s

(ff to 1:06 if it doesn't start there)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=25nl9-Z-P6U#t=66s

Hopkins' voice sounds nothing like Hal or Hepburn mind, although maybe a little like Capote.

I really don't get all the hate for the shift in the descent

I don't either & will rep for it full-stop (tho I forgot to vote for it) as one of the best of 00s.

If you want to see a slimy grindhouse remake of Freaks, check out She-Freak (1967).