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

Watching the prom scene on YouTube now, I forgot Buckley spots Irving just as the latter is about to prevent the whole thing. God, this movie.

And to think, Stephen King dumped his manuscript in the trash, and his wife found it and made him submit it to publishers.

xp both are great in their own ways. The recent Criterion transfer of Blow Out is A+.

Plus, at the beginning of the movie, the gym teacher is kind of a jerk to Carrie, too. All the girls (incl. Sue Snell, so not a totally sympathetic character) are throwing feminine hygiene products at Carrie and Miss Collins's first instinct is to slap Carrie and tell her to grow up and take care of her business.

xp yes! And pulls her out of the gym and locks her out, which is the only reason she doesn't die.

I love Carrie - haven't seen it in in age, but the book was one of the first SK novels I read and I was *right* slap bang in the middle of puberty and goddamn that thing spoke to me like nothing else I read at that time. Like maybe the bucket of pig's blood seems far fetched but to me it felt like it could have happened at my school, I could have told you exactly which kids would have done it...that malicious desire to humiliate beyond all measure of human decency really really hit home.

but back to the movie: fkn Sissy Spacek is the greatest.

We interrupt this regularly scheduled discussion for some Breaking News: Martha Marcy director helming TV remake of The Exorcist.

http://www.fangoria.com/index.php/home/all-news/1-latest-news/7135-qmartha-marcyqs-durkin-to-update-qthe-exorcistq-for-television

DIRTY PILLOWS

xp ooh yeah? i have to get that. such an emo film though. saddest score ever by Pino Dinaggio :/

I think one of the most depressing phrases in the English language is "TV remake of [classic horror film]."

Gah, my work is busy so I'm having trouble keeping up. Short story: carl a. OTM re why Carrie is awesome.

Underrated Carrie quotes for literally every occasion:

Billy Nolan. Billy Nolan.
Creepy Carrie, Creepy Carrie! [bicycle crash] Aaaargh!
Carrie White, you eat shit.

Like I will be walking to work and say to myself "Billy Nolan."

I'm reading quotes from the movie and re: using pig's blood (aside from that being particularly humiliating - VG OTM re: desire to humiliate beyond all measure), you've not only got the whole movie starting with Carrie getting her period, but also Margaret White door-to-door prosthelytizing to Sue Snell's mom and "Spreading the gospel of God's salvation through Christ's blood." So whoever said sex and religion upthread, yes.

Like I will be walking to work and say to myself "Billy Nolan."

LOL let's always be friends

It's a revenge story that doesn't require a protracted rape scene at the beginning to feel effective and cathartic.

my wife points out that the opening scene is sort of an inverted rape scene - women on women, phallic tampons, sexual humiliation

Hmmm, yeah, I can see that.

yeah that's a great idea; self-dispatched protagonists. have you ever seen OUT OF SIGHT? best self-dispatchment scene of all time right near the end.

Ha, funniest scene in the film. Yeah, this is an underexploited trope, for sure.

love carrie for all the reasons the lovers have cited

can't remember where I heard this anecdote, but remember in the olden days when ppl would line up outside the theater waiting for the previous viewing to end, usually for popular films? for carrie, these waiting customers would hear the audience let out a collective blood curdling scream seconds before pouring out looking shellshocked, leaving the next audience wondering "what the hell am I getting myself into?"

"Zombies may walk like they have TWO LEFT FEET but, of course, one of them is YOURS!"

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7213/7261591806_a5e76c63ec_o.gif

09. NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD
George A. Romero, USA, 1968
(961 points, 27 votes)

So, if all movies are dreams, then horror movies are nightmares. To quote George Romero: "You use horror to show the world being turned upside down." Based on that theory, it is my opinion that the horror genre is easily the most brutally misused of all movie genres. A good horror film can force you to face your repressed fears and desires head-on, and that is a very valuable experience. I don't feel that monsters NEED to correlate with any major historical event, but it does help. The original Night of the Living Dead, for example, plays off the chaos and paranoia of its time period (racism, gangs, rebellion, Vietnam).
― Anthony (Anthony F), Monday, March 22, 2004 8:23 PM (8 years ago)

I do often get "they're all going to laugh at you, they're all going to laugh at you" stuck in my head on rotating loop. Scarred for life, I tell you.

"They're all going to laugh at you!"

Oh yay, glad to see this place after discussion upthread. We shouldn't have doubted.

i can't think of eight horror movies better than NOTLD

One extra vote placed it ahead of Carrie despite zero first place votes. Interesting.

This (and Twilight Zone) is what started it all for me.

Unlike what I said about Carnival of Souls and Blair Witch (ie, their brilliance is partially due to accidental blundering by lucky amateurs), I feel like Romero & crew knew exactly what they were up to here and just motherfucking knocked it out of the park.

Is that a gay pride button on PJ Soles' hat?

I used to wonder that too, but apparently the rainbow as a gay pride symbol didn't even start for another few years after that.

I never saw NOTLD until I was well into my 30s. After I did I don't know how I lived without it.

Eric H, greatly appreciate all the work you're putting into this

rainbows were popular in the 70s guys

xp

yes, e.g.

http://assets.flavorwire.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/mork_mindy.jpg

http://uashome.alaska.edu/~dfgriffin/website/godspell.jpg

woah i was definitely expecting that to be higher

also eric that might be my favorite cryptkeeper line yet

Especially for its time, NOTLD breaks rules right & left: The hero does everything right and dies anyway. The asshole who complains that the basement is the only safe place is ultimately proven correct. The black guy is better than the white guys. The catatonic girl never breaks from her catatonia. The brother eats the sister. The mom eats the daughter.

i know that this is not a very popular opinion around here but the fact that the wicker man is beating some of these is really astonishing to me.

oh God, we can't even keep Robin Williams offa the horror thread!

(joke)

Great! Brilliantly elliptical on Vietnam and race, surreal, intense, audacious.

Wicker Man is more like a comedy to me

The asshole who complains that the basement is the only safe place is ultimately proven correct.

Well, yes, but no.

watching the zombies chowing down on dead person innards irrevocably scarred me as a young 'un.

i mean, i went vegetarian for a week b/c of that scene ... it didn't take long-term, but still!

had Night at 17th.

http://farm1.staticflickr.com/26/58045295_2d6042628e.jpg

This was my Halloween costume c. 2005.

goddamn I love NOTLD so much. It's just so freaking GREAT, and nothing is wasted and that it was made when it was made for the budget it was made it's just, fuckin god bless human creativity right?? I rewatched it recently and honestly I think I walked away liking it EVEN more than I did to begin with.

and the Night of the Living Bread short is hilar

carl agatha you are my hero

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktD27xVIncg

After decades of seeing this on TV, VHS, and DVD, I finally got to see a pristine 35mm film print a few years back and wowza. It's a gorgeous film. I haven't seen the subsequent Romeros on the big screen (There's Always Vanilla, Season of the Witch, The Crazies) but I can't imagine they look this good, probably bc low-budget sometimes can look classier in black-and-white.

xpost it's stuff like that that makes me say college film students rule! (and then there's all the shitty stuff that makes me want to stab myself in the eye but let's pretend those don't exist for a moment)

nowadays ppl seem more inclined to discuss the meritrs of dawn or day, so I'm suprised and pleased to see NotLD place so high. like a lot of other horror franchises, ubiquity and over familiarity have dulled its impact, and I don't think very many ppl *love* it (note no #1 votes). explains why it's nowhere to be found on my ballot.

but it's one of the first widely successful horror movies that just *went* for it, in all directions - with gore, with taboo smashing, with race, with its coldblooded nihilism. I'd go so far as to say it's the first modern horror film, and romero made it all palpatable by wrapping it in familiar howard hawkesque trappings. except this hearty adventure story ends with the precious child cargo stabbing mommmy to death and eating daddy, and the leader of our intrepid band killed by the good guys and roasting on a funeral pyre. it's an early example of what I love about modern horror, the terror not just of events unfolding on a screen, but of whose hands you've put yourself in trust of. how far are these people going to go? oh my god! they went there! ah! ahhhh! noooooooooo

a million xps

hate to say it but Crazies remake >>>> original Crazies.

I don't care what kind of crap Romero does anymore, because honestly, NOTLA and Dawn give him carte blanche to whatever the fuck he wants for the rest of his life. Those two movies are almost perfect to me.

Ben Hervey's book on NOTLD is one of my very favorite BFI monographs.

man i love how horror movies trick people into saying stuff like "that one character didn't deserve to die in a telekinetic bloodbath"

hate to say it but Crazies remake >>>> original Crazies.

otm

The denouement of this being told with grainy, documentary-style stills is absolutely brilliant. After what you've been through, seeing it all in motion would just be a bridge too far.

xp
hate to say it but Crazies remake >>>> original Crazies.

Really? Hmmmm. Must watch. OG Crazies very flawed but compellingly watchable.