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

The allotted function of art is not, as is often assumed, to put across ideas, to propagate thoughts, to serve as example. The aim of art is to prepare a person for death. - Tarkovsky

carnival of souls is not just a great scary movie, it's one of the most effective confrontations of mortality ever filmed. a greased chute of modern alienation, crippling loneliness, existential madness, and the inescapable nature of death. go with it and it'll take you all the way.

Re: CoS streaming - Also:
http://archive.org/details/CarnivalofSouls

some time this fall I will actually have time to watch movies at home and that's when we need to do this. Maybe around Halloween.

suddenly I see a point to the Google+ circles

MOVIE PARTY, Y'ALL

Hurrah for Carnival of Souls! Definitely has some weird not-quite-working elements, but it keeps up a feeling of creepiness in a way that a lot of films just can't seem to do.

CoS also on Hulu/Criterion.

also, if anyone is considering watching carnival of souls please please please watch the criterion DVD (or I guess the hulu stream). stay away from the public domain prints and especially the colorized version, bleccch.

even though I'm constantly talking about how cheap carnival of souls looks, there are moments of b&w cinematography on display that give bergman/nykvist a run for their money. no joke.

i feel like seeing so many b horrors on mst3k kind of ruined carnival of souls for me. Could definitely see some novel qualities and effects but it just didn't take hold.

2001 isn't a horror movie in any way, shape or form; I don't care how murderous HAL got

See, maaan, it's like a horror movie where man is both victim and victimizer. And HAL, see, HAL is like the innoculation for the disease that is our species, bro, so he's like the HERO. Do you get it, maaaaan?! (tooooooooke)

i wonder if LTROI is just one of those movies where a bunch of people stuck it in the middle of their list? i don't think i voted for it, it's pretty good but not one of the best horror movies ever.

― congratulations (n/a), Wednesday, May 23, 2012 11:12 AM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

its not even one of the horror movies ever

I think any movie with an ostensibly "happy" ending but which, when considered, makes you realize the kid is probably going to die 50 years later in a hospital room with his face burned off by acid qualifies as "horror."

Yeah, I'm a MST3K stan for life, but I do kind of hate that their ethos puts an extra burden on movies like Carnival (which is hardly a Coleman Francis joint, but still).

This fuckin' poll is actually making me want to watch horror movies. DAMN YOU ALL TO THE FIERY PITS

I think you guys all watched a different Carnival of Souls than I did or something

I watched CoS the other day, and the frame pillbox used was the exact same one I thought would make a good screengrab

saw Carnival of Souls on TCM a few years ago, and it was... OK.

I cannot recommend the Carnival of Souls soundtrack highly enough. Not only is it full of that menacing organ music, but the short sound clips from Hilligoss really press home just aggressively weird is every single piece of dialogue that comes out of her mouth.

carnival of souls works like music, if you're not feeling it, it's hard to describe the appeal

dialogue is fantastic, the whole exchange between mary and her neighbor john during their "date" is on some hell-is-other-ppl level

http://mfleisig.files.wordpress.com/2011/02/carnival2.jpg
http://www.stephenjoneseditor.com/media/stills-carnival03.jpg
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/139/335648653_c1c3e87947_o.jpg
http://charlottesvillearts.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/carnival-of-souls-1962.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3278/2970314313_0230bb267d.jpg
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_liqbj3SImt1qcay1ao1_500.gif

Some people find a dirty mattress skidding itself down a giant slide at an abandoned amusement park from the turn of the century incredibly unnerving. Some don't. C'est la mort.

Advice to budding filmmakers: When you have a practical location like a pipe organ factory easily and cheaply available to you, use the shit out of it in your movie.

Carnival of Souls uses sound (and/or lack of) so well.

"Can't think of many performances that rival Isabelle Ad-HAMMY's!"

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7092/7255248130_edd2323b61_o.jpg

23. POSSESSION
Andrzej Żuławski, France, 1981
(565 points, 17 votes, 2 first-place votes)

is the best movie ever. because it involves:
- crazy ass overactign by everyone.
- isabelle adjani.
- a tentaceld monster.
- isabelle adjani having sexual intercourse with said monster.
- isabelle adjani goign hysterical in the subway, vomiting blood and pus.
- isabelle adjani torturign a little balerina for her own good.
- isabelle adjani. (its a double role ok?)
- self mutilation with electric knife.
- a mysterious villain that is known by his pink socks.
- a bum that very nonchalatnly nicks a banana off adjani.
- a private eye who is flamboyantly gay in a prussian way.
- heinz benent who is more kinski than kinski, more robbins than robbins in 'high fidelity'. and does kung fu. and beats sam neil to a pulp. and gets drowned in a toilet in return.
- the only portrayal of berlin on film i can thikn of that actualy looks and feels like berlin.
- and lots and lots of moments of crystal clear madness i cant put into words because theyre lightign and editing related.
im not quite sure if i dreamt this movie. if i didnt: please discuss.
― :| (....), Monday, November 1, 2004 6:16 PM (7 years ago)

Okay. Shit. Wow. This movie is one of the most intense and amazing artistic headfucks I've ever experienced. I have no idea how its flown so far under the radar, unless the majority of people who've seen it just want to forget that they've seen it. Which I can understand. I can safely say that Adjani's subway scene is now permanently burned into my brain. And also: of course she won best actress at Cannes. Most other actors should be shamed by her level of commitment in this film.
Is there a comparable yin to this movie's yang? It's very of a piece with The Tenant and Inland Empire in that it very effectively immerses the viewer in the characters' descent into madness/fragmentation/loss of identity. The deep, dank, dark stuff. I'm just wracking my brain trying to come up with examples of films that present a similarly immersive approach in presenting a more joyful or ecstatic madness. Something of a palate cleanser in a theoretical double bill with Possession, if you will.
― SNEEZED GOING DOWN STEPS, PAIN WHEN PUTTING SOCKS ON (Deric W. Haircare), Friday, April 15, 2011 10:31 AM (1 year ago)

even more than The Brood, it's the most descriptive divorce film about being in love with an impossibly beautiful, genuinely insane woman you could hope to see.
― Milton Parker, Tuesday, October 14, 2008 2:36 PM (3 years ago)

I just remember a lot of screaming.
― MrDasher, Thursday, May 26, 2011 10:51 AM (11 months ago)

never heard of this

I've had a copy of this sitting in my hose for a year and shamefully have yet to watch it.

er, house.

saw the trailer; suspect I'd hate it

Dunno Possession.

Good excuse for me to post my favourite ever youtube review:

i hate this movie, it's the must ridicilous movie ever. do not watch it. a man is bleeding and have seen dead body's but he go's to a resturang and then die in a toilet. and the ''devil'' look like a octopus and when a man who died later saw that ''devil'' he just '' what is that'' and didn't run away like a normal human would do and he go to a dead body who was he's lover and just ''what have you done to him'' that's say much of what the movie will turn out like. DONT SEE IT YOUR WASTE YOU TIME

hahha

Some people find a dirty mattress skidding itself down a giant slide at an abandoned amusement park from the turn of the century incredibly unnerving.

lol this is prolly the most what-the-what moment in the entire film, aside from that extra at the water fountain

is there any other film that exploits the terror of being completely cut off from the world around you? so simple but so effective. the way those moments increase in duration over the course of the film establish a claustrophobic rhythm of helplessness and impending doom.

To be fair the trailer tries to sell this very awkwardly and is also spoilering like hell. Glad I didn't saw it beforehand.

Watched it about a week ago, too late to vote for, would probably end up somewhere in my Top20.
Even thinking about giving it a second viewing soon on projektor & decent audio system but have to work out how to deal with the constant screaming beforehand. Neighbours will object surely.

YES. ALTHOUGH WAY WAY TOO LOW.

Mine was one of the #1 votes for Possession. Watching it is not unlike going into one of those carnival spook house rides expecting "scares" and slowly realizing that whoever made the damn thing was a lunatic and really isn't that concerned with preserving your physical or mental well being. Truly unnerving, truly brilliant. And Adjani (as my quote indicates) is an absolute revelation.

Possession was absolutely agonizing to sit through. Two hours of screaming, wallowing, and psychic pain. That said, it is an achievement of some sort. Unlike anything I've ever seen. More of a "respect" than "like" movie for me.

I read and the ''devil'' look like a octopus and follow it in my head with "and the microphone smells like a beer!"

HELLO. I AM SAM NEILL. I AM VERY TENSE. WOULD YOU LIKE A NICE CUP OF TEA?

Of course, once you've sat through it once, then the political text does come out more. The first time it's all ARGH SCREAM TENSE DEVIL LOOK LIKE A OCTOPUS.

(I love this film, in case you can't tell. I'm just also more than aware of its ludicrous side.)

Possession sounds like it rises to Fulci levels of what the fuck batshittery.

Those Carnival of Souls stills are beautiful! COS gets to me in a very weird, dreamlike way, like a cross between Meshes of an Afternoon and Eraserhead.

and beyond

xp

Poll Behind-The-Scenes: There was a point early on in voting when it seemed Possession was going to be a top 10'er. Then it dipped way down. Then it rebounded and landed here.

ha, was that your preserve-in-amber moment?

More of a "respect" than "like" movie for me.

imho it's easier to love than respect. it's too stupid to respect in spite of having v good things in it.

ha, was that your preserve-in-amber moment?

Questions to be answered after the rest of the results are revealed.

Possession's insanity frequently falls on the side of funny too, purposefully I imagine. I like the scene (from the screen cap actually) when they're having this brutal argument in the streets and a truck comes rolling through with cars on the back that come unleashed and go smashing across the street. They stop arguing and Sam Neil just walks off and kicks a soccerball around with some kids for a moment.

haha.

Recorded "Possession" off TCM a few weeks back. Haven't watched it yet, but reckon I will tonight. LTROI is amazing. Let Me In almost as good.

I still haven't seen LTROI (which I will rectify) but I really enjoyed Let Me In

i "respect" it for being so aggressively out there and unique, not for being "smart" or whatever. it's definitely art of some sort.

xposts

QUOTES

Is the recommended-quality version of CoS streaming/available for download anywhere for European people too, without fiddling around with proxies?
I really doubt this clusterfuck of license negotiations will be solved during my lifetime.