THE VAULT OF ILX Top 100 HORROR Movies Poll Voting Thread (voting closes May 9 *~*~*~*2012*~*~*~*)

Testament is like discovering that your dog just finished eating an entire box of D-Con.

Except instead of your dog IT'S YOUR ENTIRE FAMILY.

that makes me never want to see threads. it's a fitting description of stuff like funny games and kidnapped, my single least favorite approach to "horror".

see, this is partly why I'd never rep threads as a horror film. it's drama, or maybe heavy dystopian sci-fi. it takes the concept of nuclear winter and extends it out to its logical conclusion in a very matter of fact way. it's harrowing in the same way holocaust films are harrowing. there's nothing gothic or grand guignol about it.

A lot of straight horror films could stand to be more 'matter of fact' and less 'grand guignol'.

I'd actually argue that, in a lot of cases, the extent that a horror film veers away from 'matter of fact' is the extent to which it pulls its punches. I enjoy a great deal of stylistic variation within the genre, but the pulled punches are the reason I find very little of the genre legitimately scary.

see, this is partly why I'd never rep threads as a horror film. it's drama, or maybe heavy dystopian sci-fi. it takes the concept of nuclear winter and extends it out to its logical conclusion in a very matter of fact way. it's harrowing in the same way holocaust films are harrowing. there's nothing gothic or grand guignol about it.

I sort of agree with that, though I do think the ending takes it close to horror. But I am making an exception for its inclusion by voting for it on how much it makes me TERRIFIED, which I'm not going to judge many of the other films by.

Also, I know what DJP's getting at with his analogy (it's brutally intense) but I find it is more the deep dark futility of all action that gets to me, rather than any overt display of brutality.

Oh, I want to second ShariVari's recommendation of Short Night of Glass Dolls, too. Probably won't be high up on my ballot, but is pretty likely to make it in.

Given that The Day After more or less ruined my childhood, I don't think I'm going to watch Threads.

On my first pass through the nominations list, I've already got 53 yeses, 56 maybes, 22 movies to revisit, and 36 that I want to watch before voting.

lolsob

I just culled it down to the 60 I'd actually seen and plan to weed out from there

OH BTW y'all really need to watch Apaches, too

it will ruin your life

Now Apaches has the bluntness and random, wonton death I've come to expect from great horror.

I wonder if they'll let me take a three-week sabbatical from work to get this all sorted out.

I have a shortlist of 80 or so that I might conceivably vote for(including the five or six movies I'd like to try and watch before voting) pared down from a list roughly three times as long of movies I've seen (and largely wouldn't dream of voting for).

the only apaches i could find on Netflix was some East German propaganda film from 1973. although Stalinist propaganda and life behind the Iron Curtain were quite awful, i'm assuming that this isn't the horror film apaches that people are talking about now?!?

this is also something horrible & european from the 1970s and it's also about apaches:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yo4glASbEh4

apaches was a public service type flick from the UK to convince kids not to play on farm equipment

here ya go

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0GyRz_lOQA

*thread goes silent as everyone watches apaches*

I think the thing that pushes Apaches firmly into the realm of horror is the aparent nonchalance of the adults. Oh, three of your playmates have died on that farm in as many days? Well, pay it no mind, dear. Run along and play now. It's infanticide by proxy, I tells ya.

more discussion of Apaches here: Public information HORROR film.

Hmmmm. Amaches may be getting a couple points.

I think the thing that pushes Apaches firmly into the realm of horror is the aparent nonchalance of the adults. Oh, three of your playmates have died on that farm in as many days? Well, pay it no mind, dear. Run along and play now.

i interpret this more as LOL Britishes than LOL horror.

just submitted a ballot. i think most of the ilx hardcore horror crew would not be happy with it, it's pretty canonical and i tend to favor non-gore-heavy movies, but i had a few idiosyncratic choices that i wanted to make sure got points or else i wouldn't have bothered voting

Oh, y'know, I shoulda nominated Burnt Offerings. That movie creeped the hell out of me.

It's on there, I think.

Wait, no. Sorry!

I mean, I don't think it's probably a good movie. But as a teenager, it spooked me.

I'd actually argue that, in a lot of cases, the extent that a horror film veers away from 'matter of fact' is the extent to which it pulls its punches. I enjoy a great deal of stylistic variation within the genre, but the pulled punches are the reason I find very little of the genre legitimately scary.

"punches" certainly have something to do with horror, but aren't usually all that scary in and of themselves (jump scares notwithstanding). a film that simply and graphically depicted an child being burned with a lighter for an hour or two couldn't be accused of pulling any punches, but it probably wouldn't be at all scary. it would simply be repulsive and dispiriting. i completely disagree with deric here. matter of factness has no relationship to scariness. i'm not more scared by a knife wielding maniac in a film than a ghost simply because i think the former is more likely to exist. i'm not more scared by realism than fantasy. the scariest thing, imo, are the inchoate shapes the evocatively sculpted unknown can conjure in our minds. this is david lynch's best trick, and his films are hardly "matter of fact".

the scariest thing, imo, are the inchoate shapes the evocatively sculpted unknown can conjure in our minds.

see, I think the scariest thing is subject-verb disagreement

lol THINGS

I actually think we're agreeing in a weird way, contenderizer. When I say 'matter of fact' in this context, I'm not talking about bluntness or jump scares or realism (crazy dude vs. Lovecraftian Other) but rather the method of presentation. Camera tricks and spoooooky scores and anything OTT and showy are always, AFAIC, going to undercut any scares that a horror movie might've otherwise delivered. I'd argue that, by the definition I'm utilizing, Lynch's films are incredibly 'matter of fact' and, as a result, super effective. I suppose 'subtle' is a better word? It's about creating a substrate of normalcy that lulls the viewer into a false sense of security before letting things go horribly awry.

agreed, contenderizer. mystery/the unknown is much more effective than laying everything out. making something familiar/normal/matter-of-fact takes away what makes it frightening - or if it's something sadistic or disgusting that really shouldn't be normalized/made familiar, then it's just cruel and depressing

Camera tricks and spoooooky scores and anything OTT and showy are always, AFAIC, going to undercut any scares that a horror movie might've otherwise delivered.

i'm even more lost now. lynch relies heavily on effects and music to generate a sense of dread.

figure you're drawing a distinction between that which reads as "horror cliche" and other means of generating atmosphere. on that level, i agree. old-fashioned "spooky" organ doesn't seem scary anymore because it's become familiar.

I mean, I can see the horror of being forced to face some abject condition, like Cronenberg-style body horror, but if it veers too much in to some demystified, scientifically-clinical, almost sociopathic perspective on the condition then it's taking away the alienation and repulsion that actually makes it horrific and becomes a sociopathic gaze

re apaches: LOL death by drowning in animal shit

on the subject of Ingmar-horror, i'll also stan for the virgin spring ... you get to see a young, buff Max von Sydow uproot a birch tree, rip off its branches and flog himself before doing his ass-whuppin'. it's also available on HuluPlus.

Does its availability on HuluPlus make it horror too?

I think Through a Glass Darkly is the creepiest of the Bergmans I've seen. (Whether or not it's a horror film.)

that's what i get by forgetting english composition basics, i suppose.

xpost

ah didn't see Deric's response xxp.

I mean, I can see the horror of being forced to face some abject condition, like Cronenberg-style body horror, but if it veers too much in to some demystified, scientifically-clinical, almost sociopathic perspective on the condition then it's taking away the alienation and repulsion that actually makes it horrific and becomes a sociopathic gaze

this is an interesting distinction, though i'm not sure about the "sociopathic gaze" part. i strongly dislike what i consider sadism-as-horror, where the horror element is simply the spectacle of prolonged suffering, dehumanization and despair. this type of horror is often very matter of fact, but i rarely find it scary or otherwise compelling.

figure you're drawing a distinction between that which reads as "horror cliche" and other means of generating atmosphere. on that level, i agree. old-fashioned "spooky" organ doesn't seem scary anymore because it's become familiar.

Yes, this is what I mean. Me am no good describe things today. Standard horror movie scoring, for example, often detracts from scariness, whereas the use of source music or Lynchian sound effects/scoring (or no music at all) tends to be much more effective.

I'm starting to suspect that our ballots won't be too stylistically dissimilar from one another, contenderizer.

that apaches film is something else ... it's one part dry horror, one part critique of American cultural imperialism (the flower of British youth playing Cowboys and Indians and running around w/ popguns imitating Starsky & Hutch), and one part surrealism. i also just found out via Wikipedia that it was directed by the same guy who directed the long good friday (one of my favorite British films of all time).

I've been pretty busy w/ lolwork of late & missed a lot of activity on the previous thread.. I'm just curious is Mr. Hal Jam has chimed in on any of this. I have much love for all yall ilx horror stans, but that dude's ballot is the one I'm most curious about (if he submits one, that is).

the girl who tastes the poison and then dies screaming later that night was the one that REALLY got to me

that, and the parents solemnly emptying the dead kids' dressers

I'm just curious is Mr. Hal Jam has chimed in on any of this. I have much love for all yall ilx horror stans, but that dude's ballot is the one I'm most curious about (if he submits one, that is).

yeah, i'd be interested in hearing from HJ, too, but i don't think i've seen him posting on horror threads since i returned a few months back

when we were in grade school, we had one gross-out contest where we had to answer whether we'd rather drown in a tubful of shit or a tubful of vomit.

"I would prefer not to."

I said mr hal jam's name 3x into a mirror at midnight on the nom thread and he still didn't appear

Oh, y'know, I shoulda nominated Burnt Offerings. That movie creeped the hell out of me.

I mean, I don't think it's probably a good movie. But as a teenager, it spooked me.

― something of an astrological coup (tipsy mothra), Monday, April 16, 2012 4:04 PM (1 hour ago)

same here, it's not a very good movie but it has some super creepy parts. namely:

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/burnt_offerings.jpg