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

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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jjjusten, I guess I enjoyed that rambling aimlessness but then again I'm a two lane blacktop fan so

Ah yes, the old "women can't be misogynists" defence.

xpost

I wasn't making a generalized statement, I was making a specific statement about a particular woman, the writer and director of the movie, who I think it's difficult to hang the mysognist tag on. she's not exactly Phyllis Shlafly.

Okay, fair enough. I haven't liked any film of hers I've seen, so never paid that much attention to the rest. This one pretty much just shores up that impression.

did you dislike the portrayal of the female protagonist generally, or did you primarily object to her "rescue" by the male protagonist and his father at the end?

Bit of both. The whole 'listen to the night' thing or whatever it was felt a lot like proto-MPDG crap.

given the general misogyny in the horror genre, near dark seems a weird item to single out for it. it never set off any warning bells for me, but my last viewing of the film was about 10 years ago. isn't the main character kind of a raffish dick who underestimates jenny wright's character, and then she ends up being tasked with introducing clueless him to the world of being a vampire? she saves him so he saves her, don't think it's a one-sided relationship, and I don't remember the film in general being overly hostile or denigrating of women.

there's some problematic treatment of women in blue steel and strange days, but also strong women characters. not a huge bigelow fan, in fact this might be the only movie of hers I rep for. haven't seen hurt locker.

She sort of saves him at the beginning (from burning up in the sun), but she's definitely a sappy pixie type who doesn't actually have any control over the situation. She's also incredibly naive about what she does, and has to have her eyes opened by a man/men.

maybe, but i was struck in watching near dark (at age 20) by how much attention the film paid to her sense of being in her body, this condition as a source of both wonder and danger. the approach seemed unusual and interesting to me, and i wondered whether a male director would have made the same choices. impossible to say, of course. i want to say that her characterization is in some respects similar to that of the protagonist of amer in that film's second section, but i'd have to see both films again before i felt comfortable about making that comparison.

That didn't come across to me at all. But I'm gonna bow out of this I think, I didn't like it one bit but I didn't hate it quite enough to enrage myself about differing tastes. 4/10.

fair enough. it's been ages (at least a decade, and probably a good deal more) since i last saw it, so i might feel very differently about it now.

So, animation results aside, the talk on this thread kinda turned to 'what next?' SF, war, romantic comedy, what's next and who's doing it?

Wait, wait, wait, wait. Sisters didn't make the Top 100? Whaaaaaat.

Dressed to Kill did instead.

ppl too busy voting for dressed to kill iirc

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I watched The Caller on Netflix streaming and ugh what a risible piece of crap. The whole stalker/abusive ex-husband plot was twice-warmed-over crap, the film was set in Puerto Rico for no discernable reason whatsoever and was oddly devoid of Hispanics not named Luis Guzman, it actually had a scene of the heroine falling to her knees in front of a grave . . . it started strong but just completely went to crap very, very quickly.

so where did the caller place in the top 100

lol wrong thread

I wanted the "shit our pants" thread.

No, the other one.

rewatched Candyman the other night. I should've put that on my ballot.

I just watched it yesterday. I forgot how much I liked it.

Saw Black Christmas tonight. I think I saw it on TV once years and years ago. Definitely scared me--spent enough time covering my eyes that I was a little confused at the end--and it felt like a new kind of horror film on the timeline. Not Night of the Living Dead-new, but it did seem like a blueprint for lots that followed. Best of all, Lynne Griffin (first victim, plastic bag) was there--she must still live in the city. She spoke before and after and was great.

new list:

http://www.slantmagazine.com/features/article/100-greatest-horror-films-of-all-time

Cure missing the cut is already pitiful, but not Eric's fault I imagine. (Don't worry, I didn't participate.)

Knowing the full order right now, I can say it's great fun to see which movies fall more or less into the same placements as they did on this lists, and which movies are miles off.

btw at some point this fall Trouble Every Day was rereleased and reclaimed as a classic

huh, maybe it'll finally get a decent US home video release

Full results are now up for the Slant horror list, btw.

Slant's #1 = my #1

however ...

ILX's #1 = the "right" #1

All of the pictures are gone? ;_;

oh no -- there's always this thread
SCREAMcaps! - outtakes, alternatives and other misc. images from the ILX Top 100 HORROR Movies Poll

Not sure what happened. Maybe it's because I let my flickr account lapse out of "pro," but the set is still up here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/leechlake/sets/72157629754853602/

Despite having little affinity for the genre, I've seen the Slant top 20 cept #9 and 15, and have no argument with first three.

The only time a museum/theater has used my writing as program notes, afaik, is for Psycho.

I always read these lists hoping Psycho isn't going to be Top 3, just seems so pre-ordained and boringly canonical. At least they didn't have The Exorcist, Alien, or The Shining top 5.

Psycho's #2 ranking caught me at the best possible moment: in the middle of reading the long hard look by Durgnat.

u r boringly anti-canonical, or something, but i wd be open to replacing Psycho with Peeping Tom. (Except PT seems much more a psychological thriller, which is not really the same as horror to me.)

I don't know that book, Eric. This guy seems to prefer Robin Wood's and Paglia's approaches (tho I am intrigued by the role of Thorold Dickinson, who directed the best film of Gaslight):

http://sensesofcinema.com/2003/book-reviews/psycho_durgnat_mogg/

Neither version of Gaslight did much for me.

Saw Suspiria for the first time tonight. (I don't want to load this massive thread...I think it placed somewhere in here.) Thought it was okay, but a lot of dead air waiting around for the big set pieces. If a horror film really gets to me, walking into the house afterwards is unnerving; tonight, nothing. I did like how the last scene perfectly split the difference between Rosemary's Baby's last scene and the Black Lodge from Twin Peaks. Barbara Magnolfi, the woman who played Olga (did I miss her, or did she just disappear after her early scenes?), was there for a brief interview beforehand.

Suspiria's only failing is that its climax doesn't really live up to the lead-up.