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

when it comes to 21st century horror fandom, i find that "disturbing" is generally code for "do not watch this"

that a hard line to toe

Any film in which children kill and are killed is going to be a struggle for some people but it's not gratuitously shocking for the sake of it.

No, and when people can't stretch their imaginations enough to include the possibility of an island of evil children, I'm not sure I care what they think anyway.

contenderizer, you liked shankland's the children didn't you?

Any film in which children kill and are killed is going to be a struggle for some people but it's not gratuitously shocking for the sake of it.

cool. i'm sort of itching to see it now.

as far as the "disturbing" thing goes, i don't mean it as a rule. i just think that the incorporation of super-transgressive, gutter-dwelling exploitation aesthetics into mainstream horror fandom has had a terrible effect on the genre. i mean, i'm a gorehound and a fan of extremes, but i am beyond sick of attempts to find and make "the most disturbing ever". not saying that who can kill a child? belongs in that company, btw, but i have seen it described in similar terms.

i hate to say this, but i think that horror, when taken as a form of pop-cultural entertainment, is inherently trivializing, inherently desensitizing. there's nothing really wrong with that, but i don't like the fact that films like salo and a serbian film have become an important part of pop horror's fan culture. personal taste, you understand.

contenderizer, you liked shankland's the children didn't you?

oh hell yeah! great movie. i'm not opposed to child-harm in films, and not opposed to grim and distressing content. i've just learned to be wary.

I just wanna quickly stump for Images, which is probably Robert Altman's most overlooked film (like, I've literally never heard/seen anyone talk about it ever). It probably would've been another director's greatest film, but Altman had the poor judgment to make it in the midst of making some of the best movies ever, so it was a bit overshadowed. It's very much of a kind with Polanski and Lynch's "am I losing my mind?" films (although much more subdued), and it's really gorgeous to look at. And you can apparently watch the whole thing on YouTube.

as far as the "disturbing" thing goes, i don't mean it as a rule. i just think that the incorporation of super-transgressive, gutter-dwelling exploitation aesthetics into mainstream horror fandom has had a terrible effect on the genre.

twas always thus in the lifetimes of just about everbody posting in this thread. except maybe the good doctor.

i do think the search for "extremes" can easily lead to freebasing terrible torture gore nonsense in the horror fandom crackhouse. but i dunno if i want a horror movie to not "disturb" me on some level.

I dunno, I'd say extreme horror has produced more interesting films than the dozens of post-scream ironic bullshit outings

Shit I just realized I forgot to nom "don't torture a duckling" goddamnit

Oh and also, another Netflix streaming recommendation - despite looking like it is going to be crap due to the box art, you should all really give "dead end" a shot

twas always thus in the lifetimes of just about everbody posting in this thread. except maybe the good doctor.

― jesus christ (strongo hulkington's ghost dad), Thursday, April 19, 2012 7:17 PM (56 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

is that true? maybe i've just been sheltered. seemed to me that this sort of thing went mainstream in the late 90s, when the DVD boom took off, boosted by the increasing access to internet fan communities and later by torrent-based downloading. before that, interest in the really hard stuff seemed the province of a pretty small cult w/in horror fandom. your local "video store" (lol, remember?) might have had the faces of death movies, some herschell gordon lewis titles andi spit on your grave, maybe a bootleg of cannibal holocaust or something, but it's not like most horror fans were even aware of the sleazier european grindhouse fare, 70s porn roughies, or way-out asian extremes. easy access to such stuff and to an online culture dedicated to sickness for its own sake really changed horror fandom, imo, and we've only been seeing the effects for a decade or so. i do like disturbing stuff, but i don't like the culture dedicated disturbing stuff. like i said, it's made me wary of certain films, perhaps unfairly.

i think its true, i knew about faces of death and extreme horror films by hanging out with metal kids and their older brothers, and this was in a small east texas town in the mid90s. before the internet, mail order was huge for people looking.

I dunno, I'd say extreme horror has produced more interesting films than the dozens of post-scream ironic bullshit outings

― diamanda ram dass (Edward III), Thursday, April 19, 2012 8:13 PM (55 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i i i have to admit that this is true. the way international horror exploded in the late 90s and early 00s, the fact that every curious fan now has instant access to the whole history of the genre, these are undeniably good things. hell, at good third of the movies i'm considering for my ballot were basically unknown in america until the era of netflix and torrents. i don't know how many of them will actually make it, but still. though they wouldn't ruffle the feathers of the toe tag crowd, a lot of people would probably describe films like audition and trouble every day as "disturbing" and "extreme", and there's a good chance that i'll vote for both. if i hadn't forgotten to nominate baise-moi, i'd likely be voting for for that, too.

i guess i'm just letting my distaste for so-called "torture porn" turn me into a prudish crank. over the last few years, i've often found myself angry about having subjected myself to films that other fans seem to love. i'm still pissed about funny games, eden lake and martyrs. just in the last few weeks, i've watched a bunch of seriously nasty shit out of a sense of obligation to "keep up" with the genre, including a serbian film, kidnapped (which i'd been looking forward to) and the human centipede 2. a decade of nihilistic torment-wallowing has left me with a chip on my shoulder, i guess. maybe the lesson is that i should avoid things i'm almost certain i'll hate.

"maybe" he says...

I can see yr beef w/ A Serbian Film and torture porn but what did Martyrs ever do to you???

bugged me. i don't wanna get into it cuz maybe i was in a mood or something. i will grant that it's an interesting and unusual film and that the editing in the first half made it quite a ride.

more and more i feel like ebert's original straw dogs review (written when he was a good deal younger than i am now). i know it's nagl, but i can't help it.

i will also grant that in retrospect it could be read as extremely misogynistic

that's part of it, yeah. though i know that horror films are fictional, i find the experience of watching helpless women brutalized at length a genuinely horrible experience. the more i'm encouraged to sympathize, the greater my distress and anger, especially if things end on a hopeless note. this makes me a very bad audience for certain films.

there are exceptions. though it wasn't perfect, i did like lucky mckee's recent the woman, and it pushed a lot of the buttons that ordinarily repel me.

i've also liked several of lars von trier's "female martyr" pictures, especially breaking the waves. that he manages to achieve the kind of catharsis martyrs can only talk about helps a lot.

^ probably not helping my horror cred

lvt is such a shit though

yeah, he's a handful

URGENT: ilxors voting in this poll who have not seen the original 1988 Dutch version of The Vanishing (aka Spoorloos) owe it to yourselves to do so before submitting your ballots. Please proceed directly to your Netflix queue & do not look up any info on the film b/c the less you know, the better.

i find the experience of watching helpless women brutalized at length a genuinely horrible experience. the more i'm encouraged to sympathize, the greater my distress and anger, especially if things end on a hopeless note. this makes me a very bad audience for certain films.

That's really OTM for me as well. I am also still angry (like, if I think about it, I will get actually angry) about Breaking the Waves.

martyrs seems much more honest about wanting to get to the same place as lvt tbh

like i think if lvt was honest with himself he'd just end with [HORRIBLE ACT REDACTED] to bring his female characters to "enlightenment."

We watched Breaking the Waves like... eleven years ago? and I still remember watching this movie, and being like, well, this woman is a fool but let's see where it all goes, and the end happened and I spent about an hour sobbing on the couch and probably wasn't right again for a couple of days and since then, I've had a strict no LVT policy.

otoh i think contendo *does* have a bit of a point. visitor q and martyrs are probably the only two films that will make my list that i wouldnt recommend to anyone who wouldnt be down with what they're gonna get, and maybe its not coincidental they're both 21c flicks.

Okay I just read the Wikipedia summary for Visitor Q and that is completely batshit.

actually i recommend visitor q to the whole family.

lol

martyrs seems much more honest about wanting to get to the same place as lvt tbh

otm I think its essential honesty to theme and form is the main reason why Martyrs is more effective than lvt and also seedier genre nasties like Human Centipede and what not.

Obviously this is Eric's and Pillbox's call, but my own feeling on stills: atmospheric/moody rather than bloody corpses/exploding heads. I know many would strongly disagree.

― clemenza, Thursday, April 19, 2012 10:45 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

RE: Stills - Wherever possible, I would like to use thematically appropriate, tho non-iconic screengrabs taken from the films themselves. I mean, this IS a horror poll, but if images should neccessarily be kept SFW, I can stay w/in said parameters if that is the general consensus?

Not sure what it is that makes me respond well to LVT when I usually can't tolerate Haneke.

Nah, it's a horror poll, come on.

xpost

seedier genre nasties like Human Centipede

Human Centipede really wasn't that bad. I mean, the very premise is dire and I admit I left the room for the few minutes depicting the actual surgery (so I don't even know how graphic that was) but compared to, say, Last House on the Left*, it was pretty benign, almost campy. I actually liked it a lot and like I've said, movies with brutality as a central theme are not my cup of tea.

*asterisk to nowhere

there's actually nothing that explicit in the human centipede, one of the things I loved about it was that tom six managed to terrorize, scandalize & traumatize audiences with 3 naked people and a couple of pieces of gauze. as with most great horror films, it's works based on the implication of something more than the graphicness of it.

and the fact you were driven from the room based merely on the description of something is a great success! </dr heiter>

*it works*

Oh that was no success. I'm a huge wuss and scenes of forced medical procedures are one of my big freak out buttons. Getting me to leave the room on the threat of sewing three people together mouth to anus is about as hard as startling a sleeping house cat.

But I agree w/ you completely about the movie.

The episode of How It's Made with a piece about laser eye surgery was far, far more horrifying than anything in Human Centipede.

Here's a list of everything from the nomination list that appears to be currently streaming on Netflix:

Antichrist (2009)

Atrocious

Audition (1999)

Baby, The

Beast Within, The (1982)

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon

Black Belly of the Tarantula, The

Black Sabbath

Blue Sunshine

Bucket of Blood, A

Burn, Witch, Burn

Butcher, The

C.H.U.D. (1984)

Candyman (1992)

Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (1974)

Carrie (1976)

Child's Play

Creepshow (1982)

Creepshow 2 (1987)

Dahmer

Dark Half, The

Daughters of Darkness
Dead and Buried (1981)

Dead End (2003

Deadgirl (2008)

Deathdream (1972)

Deep Red (1975)

Dust Devil (1992)

Eaten Alive (1977)

Evil Dead, The

Exorcist, The

Faust (1926)

Fido

Fog, The (1980)

Friday the 13th (1980)
Friday The 13th Part II

From Dusk Til Dawn (1996)

Funny Games (1997)

Fury, The (1978)

Gate, The (1987)

Grizzly Park

Hatchet

Hellraiser (1987)

Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer

Host, The

Hour of the Wolf (1968)

House (1986)

House of the Devil, The

Human Centipede 2: The Full Sequence, The

Human Centipede: First Sequence, The

Inferno (Argento)

Initiation of Sarah, The (1978)

Interview With The Vampire

Isolation (2005)

Keep, The

Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)

Lifeforce (1985)

Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane, The (1976)

Lost Boys, The (1987)

Lost, The
Maniac (1980)

Maniac Cop

Mimic (1997)

Nightmares (1983)

Nosferatu (1922)

Parents

Pet Sematary (1989)

Phantasm II (1988)

Pit and the Pendulum, The

Pontypool

Prince of Darkness

Pulse
Rubber

Scream, Blackula, Scream (1973)

Severance

Squirm (1976)

Tale of Two Sisters, A

Them (2006)

To The Devil... A Daughter (1976)

Tremors (1990)

Triangle (2009)

Trick r' Treat

Ugly, The (1997)

Videodrome 

Village of the Damned (1995)

whoa, thank you!!

was Hatchet actually any good? I always think of it as "the Newbury Comics horror movie" because of how it was promoted here

regarding recent trends in horror.... I've been a horror fan for over 30 years, I've seen a lot of subgenres come and go, and the past 10 years have been an embarrassment of riches. anybody complaining about the current state of horror needs to check themselves. yea, torture porn has been a dominant (and sometimes tiring) force, but there's also been asian ghost stories, zombie innovations (I'll reel off my standard list - the 28 movies, pontypool, deadgirl, the signal, the end of the line), and plenty of quality outliers (sauna, home movie). plus extreme horror has delivered its own set of triumphs among the copycat gruelfests, and at a higher rate than slasher films or 90s-meta ever did. jjjusten has a point about torture porn being a useless pejorative - everybody hates torture porn, and if you like one of the films falling under that rubric you're suddenly in a position of explaining why it's *not* torture porn, or how it distinguishes itself from its own subgenre.

that so much of modern horror is based on a knowing helplessness (e.g. a victim strapped into a torture dungeon) rather than on fear of the unknown accurately reflects our 21st century position. we know everything now, an enormous world of information is available to us with a brief swipe of our fingertips, yet terrorism and war abound and our daily happiness is at the mercy of global economies and market forces beyond our control. as our collective roles in society are defined as passive consumers of information, the terror is not some ancient unknowable evil, or in the suspense of being hunted - it is in "how much will I be shown / how much can I endure?" the tools are laid out on the table in plain view, the straps unsubtle, the ritual inevitable. the fact that a number of directors have been able to extend this trope beyond its inbuilt limitations is something to celebrate imo.

for example, I'll defend martyrs as being a thoughtful, self-reflexive hall of mirrors. the torture on display is not for sadistic pleasure or kicks, which is what we assume when the film begins. as its characters' motivations become clearer, our own motivations for watching are called into play. and laugier doesn't shove it down your throat, or pull any aesthetic dirty tricks like a haneke or von trier. he constructs a plot to keep you guessing but doesn't lead you around by the nose, never tries to seduce you into enjoyment or complicity, and - this is critical - doesn't patronize the audience or his characters. it's interesting how the film revels in grotesque intensity but never feels cheap or sordid, and how that overtly arty and clinical approach still manages to remain squarely in the horror genre.

Thanks for the list, Darin! The Nightmares on Instant isn't the one that was nominated, though. And I'm guessing you consulted instantwatcher, because Hellraiser II is available on Instant but doesn't show up on that site (which isn't the first time I've noticed stuff missing from instantwatcher).