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

Part of it is that I really, really miss stop motion creature effects and I didn't even know there were gonna be any in this. Made me v happy.

Saw Caligari with live accompaniment this afternoon, probably the first time since university. I can't remember if it made the Top 100 or not (and won't try loading the whole thread). I love the Caligari-to-Hitler subtext, and obviously it influenced countless horror films that followed. I think I prefer looking at stills from it to actually watching it, though. About 20% of the print I saw was tinted garish blue for reasons I didn't quite understand. Surprised Tim Burton hasn't remade it, with Depp as Cesare and, I don't know, Danny DeVito as Caligari. (The film was introduced by this guy, a magician, who was in a film class of mine 30 years ago. We filmed a script of his that depicted the Last Supper as a celebrity roast--it made me cringe at the time. I was nostalgic and wanted to say hi after the film anyway, but he'd cleared out.)

Don't give Burton "ideas."

Last night Thnig and I watched THE SPELL (1977), featuring the lovely Lee Grant and a young dull Helen Hunt. Perfect combo of Carrie and Season of the Witch, the home interiors are AMAZING (esp the kitchen) and it's also v short and all right here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmPuzCcWlN0&feature=related

i watched the wicker man the other day, on a big screen in high def. fucking amazing, and i've been a fan for decades. i kvetched some in this thread, saying that it had become overpraised, that it really only deserved the acclaim of other cult items, to finish somewhere in the middle of the pack, surprising the unaware. that was bullshit. it's brilliant.

a bit surprised, though, by how quick other posters are to condemn sgt. howie. he's an unlikeable anti-hero, a priggish fool, but i don't wish death upon him or see him as any worse than the cultists he investigates. howie's fate is monstrous, and the real villains of the piece are clearly lord summerisle and his followers. i love the fact that the film never really takes sides, though, either personally or spiritually.

If anyone's on Letterboxd, I've put this list up there and may do the same for the comedy/action polls:

http://letterboxd.com/ephender/list/ilxs-top-100-horror-films-poll/

Nice, thanks for that.

I watched The Seventh Victim recently, and absolutely love it. The male section of the dénouement made me laugh a bit for having such surety in values alien to me, but the Donne aspect was kind of devastating.

Also watched Near Dark. It is rubbish.

023. Possession [1981, 565 points, 17 votes, 2 first-place votes]
024. Carnival Of Souls [1962, 560 points, 20 votes, 1 first-place vote]
033. Freaks [1932, 475 points, 18 votes]
036. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari [1920, 467 points, 18 votes]
046. Eyes Without A Face [Les yeux sans visage] [1960, 371 points, 16 votes]
060. Vampyr [1932, 314 points, 8 votes]
061. M [1931, 312 points, 9 votes, 1 first-place vote]
074. Threads [1984, 251 points, 6 votes]
080. Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht [1979, 226 points, 8 votes]
088. The Seventh Victim [1943, 206 points, 6 votes, 1 first-place vote]
092. Onibaba [1964, 191 points, 7 votes]

So I'm sitting down to watch a few: Eyes Without a Face is just about perfect in terms of duration, measured performance, plot, the ending was a bit too cute but effective; Carnival of Souls was all about that score: the organ as an instrument of god as well as the devil and communicate the sheer dread; Threads isn't horror (i know i know yawn), more horrifying: anyhow the assembling of destruction via effects/photographs/staged crumbling landscape with that old 80s computer for narration of effects (the only electrical appliance that seemed to work in the end?) gripped, but I'm not sure about the dramatic strands -- they didn't work for me, apart from Ruth's daughter and her underdeveloped use of language. You had to laugh at the Industry? What Industry shouting off at the demonstration. In the end I thought Watkins' film was better at covering the same ground while also thinking this was amazing in its own right.

if that's your to-watch list, it is a pretty awesome group of films

Haha, okay, the only dramatic strand that works for you is literally the only thing I think Threads gets somewhat wrong: it moves from the known and realistic results of a very possible event, the MUNDANITY of a ravaged society (the helpless bureaucrats, the collapse of food distribution systems), the absolute devastation of not just one staggeringly huge thing but all the little fractures it causes, into a fantasised dystopia full of feral children that, I don't know, it just feels like it moves from social realism into hysteria.

There wasn't much of a balance between showing the collapse of relationships between people and the way they could also come together to support one another: it gives glimpses when it shows them working the land, but not much more. I couldn't figure out if Ruth was being helped by others during her pregnancy or not. At times she was with people, at others not so she ends up giving birth on her own. It tried to fit in too many of the effects of devastation but Ruth seemed to be used and discaded by the script on a whim.

One thing Threads works through is the bombing of Britain back to a medieval time. I didn't like feral children but the daughter's inability to ask for specific help in the final scenes, her loss of words...that touched a nerve. You see the collapse of the NHS but also of basic learning through that. It wasn't realistic, but it worked.

Guys I just saw Phantasm and whoa! SO horribly acted but yet so inventive and awesome!! That sort of intersection of supernatural + weird technology + gore, super stylized and with a heaping dose of psychedelia is just like omg, so so wonderful

though that shot from upthread of him lying on the ground in the alien wasteland was totally not in the copy of the film I saw. Deleted scene I guess?

it's been years, but i'd swear it is in the movie, when dude gets sucked through the tuning-portal. totally otm abt the "intersection of supernatural + weird technology + gore, super stylized and with a heaping dose of psychedelia"

I rewatched the scene where he gets sucked in twice; he just floated for like 10 sec before someone grabbed his belt and pulled him back through. Lasted maybe 15 sec? But I mean the orig cut was 3+ hours and there are sooooo many deleted scenes floating around, apparently.

Also some of the footage was reused in Phantasm IV

I'm pretty meh on Phantasm, but here's an interesting article on it: http://blogs.indiewire.com/pressplay/raised-in-fear-phantasm-and-the-uses-of-enchantment

am LOVING this Zinoman "Shock Value" book at the moment

Yeah, it's really great.

also I like Phantasm a lot but yeah it makes no sense

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I think I like Phantasm in large part because it makes no sense. It's like a weird post-burrito dinner fever dream.

like centipede hz?

am the proud owner of this phantasm set:

http://p.playserver1.com/ProductImages/7/2/5/9/1/7/719527_300x300_1.jpg

haha wow

sweet!

Does the orb actually work?

so i just watched "Near Dark" last night thx to these results and i can now categorically say i have no idea what some of you see in that movie.

Yeah, seriously. It is a terrible film.

guess you had to be there

sucking yr vampire girlfriend's blood in an oil field by night

i have no idea what some of you see in that movie.

vampire bar slaughter with Cramps sdtk, basically

watched De Palma's Sisters last night, feel like that maybe should've placed - wild movie

I like it a lot ... it's just that I think just about everything I like in that movie he did better later on.

i own the Phantasm boxed set but i was heartbroken when i saw the death orb version

also hell yes the lack of narrative consistency is part of the point, it's pop surrealism at its bestest

near dark is about 9/10s of a wonderful movie that falls apart catastrophically at the finish line. i pretend the ending didn't happen in order to enjoy the rest. bar slaughter is amazing, and the film is arguably a vehicle for that one scene, but i like paxton and henriksen in general, love the itinerant cowboy vampires concept. i also really like jenny wright's performance as the young vampire girl. the film pays a lot of attention, in her scenes with adrian pasadar, to the sensual texture of ordinary moments. this communicates her supernatural awareness and speed, intentionally likening her to a wild creature, but it also describes adolescence, a rush of impressions and emotions too overwhelming to contain. the thrill of freedom, lust, danger and the world at night. like the lost boys, near dark imagines vampirism as coming of age, a fascinating idea that, unfortunately, only makes the cop-out ending that much more of a betrayal. you can't go home again.

Guess I'm gnna have to watch Near Dark, something I've always kinda wanted to do anyway since I really do like Bigelow.

it's definitely superior to Lost Boys which is really only enjoyable as camp

No way is it better than Lost Boys. Partly because it IS enjoyable as camp, whereas Near Dark is just... nothing. No sympathetic characters, no interesting storyline, no scares, no emotion, no great silliness.

(First 'it' - Near Dark, second 'it' - Lost Boys. I realise that may be confusingly written.)

feel like whoever voted for it should be responsible for mounting a more staunch defense of it. I liked it allright, but I don't think it's all-time material

yeah, i didn't vote for it because my reservations are too strong. what's good is really good though.

near dark my #28. saw it during its original + brief theatrical run, was blown away. so many great scenes, the bus station, the bar scene, the motel shootout. also: jenny wright.

― diamanda ram dass (Edward III), Thursday, May 17, 2012 11:21 AM (3 months ago)

I love Near Dark, so stripped down and logical -- if there were vampires, this is probably the kind of life they'd have to lead.

― something of an astrological coup (tipsy mothra), Thursday, May 17, 2012 10:39 AM (3 months ago)

I will concede that the idea of vampires living a sort of peripatetic wild west existence is not a bad one. But the film they made out of that idea is a bad one.

No way is it better than Lost Boys. Partly because it [Lost Boys] IS enjoyable as camp...

― emil.y, Thursday, September 13, 2012 9:25 AM (25 minutes ago)

yeah, i was talking about this recently, perhaps upthread. both film shy away from the implications of the hero-turned-vampire concept, but the lost boys never takes itself seriously, so this isn't a problem. near dark seems tougher and more intellectually/artistically engaged, so the loss of nerve really hurts the film. disagree that it lacks appealing characters, though. i like everyone except the hero, his pa and the littlest vampire (river's edge weirdo kid).

plus contenderizer just did a bang up job of elucidating its high points

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I have trouble reading near dark as "bad" - sure it has more good ideas than it can realize in a satisfactory way (puts me in mind of early cronenberg) and its conclusion is troubled, so its placement in the nether regions of the poll is appropriate. its shakier aspects are offset by sophisticated camera + design work, a good tangerine dream score, and some decisions that reveal a thoughtfulness at work (e.g. the word vampire is never used). there's a mean spirited charm to the vampires, but also a sadness.

in the 80s, freak subculture was still really underground. near dark played into this both thematically and in the details - using the cramps during the bar scene was a dog whistle. decades of updated vampires and 80s fetishism have maybe dulled the charms of near dark, but it was pretty unique at the time. it captures the downbeat vibe of drifter life, a certain american lost-ness, while still retaining the poetry of the vampire myth, two poles captured in these stills:

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/ND1.jpg
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/ND2.jpg

plus bishop, vasquez, and hudson from aliens! don't know what else to say. sorry you didn't like dis movie, guys.

and I'll take the rough ugliness of near dark's dysfunctional outsider family over the pretty boy nonsense of the lost boys any day

I even like the little kid in near dark, or at least the pathos in his character - preteen boys can be snarky + annoying, imagine being trapped in that state forever *shudder*

Okay, I dunno if it makes any difference, but I had SERIOUS problems with the representation of women in this film. And the storyline runs so very very close to messianic boy-saves-girl bullshit. It's not even sexy-woman misogyny, it's just patronising homespun traditional misogyny. I found it hard to really get past this.

I wasn't saying it was bad, i was just expecting a lot more delivery of something from it - there just isnt a lot of movie there in a lot of ways. it seems kinda uncomitted to being anything really, i mean theres a really half-assed love story in there somewhere, and one bar scene of horror, and sort of a little road outlaw standoff, but none of it ever really delivers or gets sustained. it just seemed really aimless and unfocused, and not in an intriguing way xposts

I call it out upthread for being regressive but mysogynist seems like a problematic term to hang on Bigelow

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