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

Another last-minute cut. Great movie.

Ok, Britishers, last night I sat down and watched the only movie on this thread I hadn't heard of -- #74, Threads -- and I Have Opinions.

First off, for those of you who were forced to watch this in school, you have my deepest condolences. This knocks the shit out of the U.S. equivalent, The Day After, and features about 9 or 10 images that I cannot believe were foisted upon the general public. The charred baby, of course, but for me the most alarming image is the hand sticking out of the rubble with each fingertip on fire. But is it a horror movie? I think so -- after all, it clearly was made to scare the shit out of everybody and has virtually no other narrative purpose (in fact, it has almost no sensible narrative at all, which kinda aligns it with the Lynch discussions upthread).

In conclusion, if you like watching burnt people puke until they die, this is the movie for you.

― The Thnig, Friday, May 18, 2012 10:41 AM (7 minutes ago)

I made this point on the voting thread, but the primary thing keeping me from classifying threads as a horror film is its social conscience. I disagree that it has no narrative purpose - it was meant to shock and horrify ppl into *action*. the threat of nuclear destruction was very real in the 80s. two superpowers were massively stocked with enough weapons to destroy the world several times over, and if you had little faith in human beings' ability to curb their self-destructive impulses it was terrifying - but not terrifying in an immediate sense, it was a low level throb, a constant background hum of distress (the minutemen's "paranoid time" is prolly the best snapshot of the time).

the goal of films like threads and the day after were to get the populace to demand disarmament, to shock them out of complacency (and apparently to scare the crap out of british school children). in my mind the closest analogue is pixote, about the horrors visited on children of poverty in brazil. it is equally as bleak and horrific as threads, but its larger purpose is to bring attention to an issue.

when I saw threads as a kid in the US, it was on PBS, not chiller, and it was in the context of political protest, a blunt scream against the madness of mutually assured destruction. today the threat is no longer palpable, so we can view threads as a horrorshow, an entertainment. I understand, but for me the impact will always be associated with the political condition it was designed to address.

xxp the most recent thing I saw Moriarty in was an episode of "Masters of Horror" where he hammed it up unbelievably. I mean enough to take me right out of the episode, and it was about competing serial killers.

Okay, I don't know Cemetery Man at all.

Threads was too low, should've been top 10 for sure. And yeah, I agree with EdIII that it totally has a narrative purpose - similar to The War Game, it was an anti-nuclear tract. If anything, I think that such a narrative drive is made TOO obvious at times, rather than not obvious enough.

Glad to see Let's Scare Jessica To Death place even though I haven't seen it - all my proper horror buff friends are big fans.

In the summer of '87 I unironically started a local chapter of the Children's Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament with flyers and meetings and everything, but the only people to show up were my two friends, but I was not at home when Thnig watched Threads :(

but but but

Glad to see Henry place--brutal movie and the quotes Eric selected have it right--but that was the last serial killer movie I ever needed to see. That didn't stop me from watching American Psycho, which is a different sort of animal all together.

I made a very specific decision not to watch Threads based on all the comments that it's way worse than The Day After and the, oh, five to eight years of anxiety that The Day After engendered after seeing it as a kid.

Cemetery Man has been on my "need to watch" list forever. I would have watched it during the Sick Times Horror Marathon yesterday, but it is only available on DVD.

Strangely, I have definitely seen Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer and... I can barely remember it. I must have been drunk.

Oh, no doubt Threads had a purpose. But taken just at face value (not that I'm sure why'd we do that), it's mostly absent of coherent narrative in any traditional sense of characters, conservations of elements, structure. Either way, pretty potent stuff.

I'm guessing people who like Cemetery Man also really like Evil Dead 2. I could do without it, but, again, happy enough to see it here.

Okay, I don't know Cemetery Man at all.

I find this shocking - more commonly known as dellamorte dellamore in europe?

the primary thing keeping me from classifying threads as a horror film is its social conscience.

This seems like kind of an arbitrary disqualifier. Not to single you out, but some people in this thread have voiced fairly conservative ideas about what horror is or what it should or should not do. Which I think are probably pretty common concerns and are a large part of the reason why so few filmmakers attempt to make horror films that break the mold. I personally see no reason why a having a social conscience should disqualify a film as horror. But, hey, it's all subjective at the end of the day.

I made a very specific decision not to watch Threads based on all the comments that it's way worse than The Day After and the, oh, five to eight years of anxiety that The Day After engendered after seeing it as a kid.

I'm apparently just gonna keep harping on this: TESTAMENT! TESTAMENT!!!! I don't know why it's so unfairly and consistently overlooked when people discuss horrifying nuclear-age films! And I'm so sad that it looks like it isn't gonna show up in these results despite the many, many points I threw its way. Truly one of my all-time most dread-inducing movies.

I saw Testament, too, but I think I was already too scarred by The Day After. (That's not commentary on the quality of either movie, just the way it worked out.)

what I'm saying is that the ppl who made threads weren't trying to give you a horror thrillride. if you're saying the intent of the filmmakers is a non-issue as long as the sum effect disturbed and horrified you, then why not vote for pixote, midnight express, apocalypse now, titicut follies, boys don't cry, etc.

xps

"If there's a KYUA for CYST, I don't want it!"

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7104/7221144694_2085e56e12_o.jpg

68. CURE [aka KYUA]
Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Japan, 1997
(289 points, 9 votes)

Cure was my favorite. it made me paranoid that i was being hypnotized.
― Fetchboy (Felcher), Tuesday, January 23, 2007 12:40 AM (5 years ago)

Kiyoshi Kurosawa = zzzzzz
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, August 18, 2009 7:47 PM (2 years ago)

it is um... extreme
it's kind of Noir. The most famous movie it's like is Seven, but more noir than that.
― A Nairn (moretap), Thursday, November 4, 2004 3:32 PM (7 years ago)

nice. cure didn't land on our shores until '01, I remember reading hoberman's writeup for it in the voice and being instantly intrigued...

http://www.villagevoice.com/2001-07-31/film/fear-eats-the-soul/1/

Yay Kiyoshi Kurosawa! Haven't seen Cure yet. ;_;

there are plenty of horror films with a social conscience wtf. quite a few more are going to show up here, I reckon.

xp

there's a difference between a horror movie with a social conscience and a film of social conscience that is horrifying

which is...?

tho assisting Eric in this endeavor has been rewarding on multiple levels, I have to say I'm a little ashamed at how few of the placing pre-1960s, Asian & European genre essentials, in addition to other misc. cult obscurities, were on my radar at all before recently - the holes in my genre familiarity being compounded as I've searched out imagery from these films and discovered how incredible a lot of it is. LSJTD & Cemetery Man are the latest examples of this (I really dig the photography of both, for almost completely different reasons), though the same could be said for much of what has placed thusfar. If nothing else, once the dust settles, my Netflix queue will be spoken for for some time!

if you're saying the intent of the filmmakers is a non-issue as long as the sum effect disturbed and horrified you, then why not vote for pixote, midnight express, apocalypse now, titicut follies, boys don't cry, etc.

Yeah, I actually would say the intent of the filmmakers has limited importance with respect to how the finished product is viewed by audiences. Particularly when total hacks can half-heartedly dabble in genre conventions and crank out garbage that somehow earns a 'horror' label just because it has features some crazy dude with a chainsaw. I still haven't seen Threads, but I'd argue that people's general reaction to it earns it a horror designation more readily than, say, Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan's boilerplate snoozery does.

xpost - even if the latter is more horrifying than the former?

I feel like this conversation always turns into, "No way is The Long Goodbye film noir! It's not even in black and white!"

Cure my #11, had a diff KK ahead of it...

Fires on the Plain might be more horrifying than anything on my ballot. It's still a war film.

Man, I still hate "thrillride" in any cinema context.

^^^prefers snoozefests

xp - I feel like it turns into "THAT's not metal"

I appreciate that y'all are working hard to try and top the Action and then Comedy polls boundary contentiousness, but I am frankly worried about what the 100 All-time Porn Film arguments will look like.

I was wondering about romantic movies. What does ILX think is romantic? I don't think I want to know.

Dead Alive

I will never, ever get some people's "you got chocolate in my peanut butter!" allergy to genre cross-pollination. I'm gonna start referring to Saving Private Ryan as a horror film in y'all's honor.

Taxi Driver iirc

man, only on ILX would somebody debate the categorization of a film they haven't seen

well, while watching the opening of saving private ryan, all I could think was "spielberg's favorite movie is texas chainsaw massacre, he must be trying to top it here", hope it shows up on the list soon

When I was going through my ballot and trying to figure out which movies did and did not end on a nihilistic note, I realized that Dead Alive actually is pretty romantic.

I also do not with to learn how highly ILX rates Amelie.

it's also odd how my opinion on whether or not a movie is horror is somehow "enforcing boundaries", I'm not the ballot police

man, only on ILX would somebody debate the categorization of a film they haven't seen

I'm not stumping for the classification of Threads as a horror film. I'm arguing that, in general, if the audience reacts to a film as if it were a horror film, it should qualify as a horror film at least as much as the rote garbage that's only accepted as horror because it sports a big neon sign flashing "I IS HORROR, BOO!".

xp Okay, you know quotes only go around things people actually said, right?

Dude, come on. Don't scare quote stuff nobody even said. We're just discussin' stuff here. Ain't nobody mad atcha.

i feel much better calling "Threads" a horror movie than most David Lynch films tbh

haven't even heard about these last 3 movies, much less watched them.

I found CURE to be kind of a snore, myself. Maybe the pacing of the movie just threw me off.

Cemetery Man is also v romantic - i saw it in the theater on a date!

I saw the first bit of Cemetary Man at a friend's late at night and it did less than nothing for me, but maybe it's not the kind of film that rewards being drunk and sleepy.

I agree that the intent of the creators of the movie weighs in very heavily. Intent isn't always clear, though, and there are a lot of intentional horror movies that are clearly dramas and were not designed to act as thrill rides.

Having said that, PETA documentaryies are designed to horrify, but are not horror movies. I mean, is Threads more like a PETA documentary or Texas Chainsaw Massacre?

http://www.scotsman.com/news/end-of-the-world-revisited-bbc-s-threads-is-25-years-old-1-773083

cure is good but kk's done better, one of which i expect to place.

and by expect i mean demand.

I find this shocking - more commonly known as dellamorte dellamore in europe?

Yes, at least here in GER. Quite surprising to see it place and then so comparatively high (although it's good, from the parts I can remember).

"All you FART HOUSE SICKOS will just WOLF down our next selection!"

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7214/7221144824_9d91aa92cd_o.jpg

67. HOUR OF THE WOLF [aka VARGTIMMEN]
Ingmar Bergman, Sweden, 1968
(292 points, 10 votes)

wow, Hour of the Wolf is about the worst thing he did in the '60s, amirite?
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, September 27, 2007 8:39 AM (4 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm no fan of The Silence, which desperately needs Woody Allen.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, September 27, 2007 9:49 AM (4 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

at least there are no bargain-basement vampires in that one, and Erland Josephson walking on the ceiling.
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, September 27, 2007 9:56 AM (4 years ago)

lol i wonder if hour of the wolf will make it and how the grindhouse lot here will react!!
― Boris Kutyurkokhov (Eisbaer), Thursday, May 17, 2012 2:50 PM (Yesterday)

If I've learned nothing else in my time on earth, I've at least come to realize that comedy and horror are as easily-definable as obscenity and that any attempt to draw boundaries is just about as likely to achieve consensus approval.