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

also dont worry morbs i am sure that we will retreat back to the rolling pants shitting thread soon enough

OK, Angst is ultimately a touch too obviously symbolic and typically Austrian in being terrified of people with mental difficulties (I mean the son as much as the killer here, both pretty awful parodies), but it wasn't a waste of time watching it. And I can now say that horror movies filmed close to where you live are by definition a tick scarier.

Anyway, early 80s Austro film that I might recommend (but I don't know where you'd find it if you don't have a code free dvd player): "Der Schüler Gerber" (Gerber the Student) from Wolfgang Glück, which is a tragedy about student-teacher conflict; "Exit -- nur keine Panik" (Exit -- don't panic) from Franz Novotny, about a small-time crook who wants to go straight and open a coffee house, but stealing the espresso machine he needs sets off a shit storm; and "Müllers Büro" (Müller's Office), which is a noir detective parody musical cocaine daydream.

Here are some clips:

"Der Schüler Gerber": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7JfObB1mVs

"Exit -- nur keine Panik": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnbbwjYy9AI

"Müllers Büro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2ZglYvUfbA

All three are not inappropriate to this thread (can't tell you why on Gerber, too big a spoiler) -- Exit and Müller both using extreme violence in very unexpected places to blacken the comedy even further.

Tera and I tried to watch Possession. It was late and we both sleepy, but I had sort of hype the movie due to this thread. We made it half way through and had to turn it off. Maybe we'll try to watch again when we are more awake, but it was maybe one of the scariest movies I've seen. Not sure why it terrified us so much but surprised it didn't place higher.

You could almost call it ... ridiculously scary, if you catch my drift.

Chalk up "Black Christmas" and "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things" as two dull as rocks classics I could barely tolerate. They might as well have been improvised (and may very well have been). Just blah blah blah.

Whoa thinking black Christmas is dull is super weird to me, and I say that as of one of the board appointed extremo modern horror apologists

i think CSPWDT owes its enduring legacy to a deathless title, which instantly evokes drive-in and grindhouse nostalgia in a way that obfuscates the film's many, many shortcomings. but, yeah, it's slow as hell. not without its own meager, wooly charms, though. the last reel features some great makeup and a few genuine scares.

Gotdammit. You know what I totally forgot about in the noms thread? Dark Forces. Excellent early 80s psychic powers biznazz from Australia. Fuck.

Dark Forces didn't work for me. hung a pseudo-supernatural (clown) costume on the Rasputin narrative, but the script's muddy mix of politics, parable, and the paranormal just went nowhere.

I had a list of aussie films I wanted to watch before voting, obv this did not happen

long weekend - 1978 animal horror
thirst - 1979 vampire flick
chain reaction - 1980 radioactive nonsense
next of kin - 1982 slasher thriller thing
undead - 2003 zombies, surprise

Awesome stuff, managed to read and catch-up on most of the discussion. Thx to all! Made it for a really enjoyable chunk of my time.

Surprised by how much I've seen -- these are the ones I'll need to chase:

023. Possession [1981, 565 points, 17 votes, 2 first-place votes]
024. Carnival Of Souls [1962, 560 points, 20 votes, 1 first-place vote]
033. Freaks [1932, 475 points, 18 votes]
036. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari [1920, 467 points, 18 votes]
046. Eyes Without A Face [Les yeux sans visage] [1960, 371 points, 16 votes]
060. Vampyr [1932, 314 points, 8 votes]
061. M [1931, 312 points, 9 votes, 1 first-place vote]
074. Threads [1984, 251 points, 6 votes]
080. Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht [1979, 226 points, 8 votes]
088. The Seventh Victim [1943, 206 points, 6 votes, 1 first-place vote]
092. Onibaba [1964, 191 points, 7 votes]

As well as The Thing. Doubt I'll ever see The Shining as it'll probably spoil my enjoyment of the Simpsons parody.

Haxan is a must for outside the top 100

Would get Onibaba right now but there is a Shindo season at the BFI for the next two months (he not only died, but did so two days before the season opened) so I'll save it for the big screen in a month.

watched May last night, good stuff. omg @ blind kids crawling around on glass, easily the best scene in the movie

Tera and I tried to watch Possession. It was late and we both sleepy, but I had sort of hype the movie due to this thread. We made it half way through and had to turn it off. Maybe we'll try to watch again when we are more awake, but it was maybe one of the scariest movies I've seen. Not sure why it terrified us so much but surprised it didn't place higher.

I chalk it up to the movie feeling as unhinged as the characters are. For a film where the mise en scene is so often really matter-of-fact and prosaic (even the completely batshit moments are framed like scenes from a straight dramatic film), you never feel like you're observing a world that's at all sane or predictable. You're never allowed to get your footing.

watched May last night, good stuff. omg @ blind kids crawling around on glass, easily the best scene in the movie

yeah great movie - the leg shaving sight gag is also a stand out scene

Possession was too heavy for me. The film drained me, what we saw of it. After we turned it off I regained my energy and we watched something else. I'd like to return to watching it, want to see how it ends.

I am watching Paranormal Activity 3 right now. In a mostly dark basement. By myself. This is not among the smartest decisions I've ever made.

Pulse last week, It last night. The first felt like a bridge between Videodrome and Ringu/The Ring. Many nice images, and I give it credit for eschewing gore and easy shock for atmospherics; in the end, though, the build-up drew me in and the last half-hour or so lost me. It's resolution was completely preposterous, there was a lot of bad acting (especially Harry Anderson), and the occasional Big Chill detours made me wince. But Pennywise was great; it did scare me.

It seem obvious too, as I watched It, that King was trying for his own Nightmare on Elm Street (film '84, book '86).

"seemed"

tbf there's no way they could have filmed the actual climax of "it" without being arrested for sex crimes so

Haven't read the book, so I don't know how it really ends. Surely they could have come up with a better substitute, though--not just in terms of what the physical manifestation of "It" turned out to be, but also the idea that all they had to do all along was gather round and start hitting it really hard.

SPOILER ALERT young teen gangbang. Seriously.

actual climax involving literal climaxes

They have to go back and do it again when they're adults though - cant remember if that actually involves "doing it" again.

Grauschleier filling the gaps of his horror knowledge, part 1: The Brood, starting now.

Lucky you.

I watched most of BURN WITCH BURN on Friday and it was great. The academic department internal squabbling made me lol too.

going to see Poltergeist this afternoon at the Alamo Drafthouse, don't think I've ever watched it all the way from beginning to end

That was actually quite great. Iconic scenes in the kitchen (again: what a great screencap upthread) and the school. Toddlers in snow suits will never look the same from now on. Nice use of deep-saturated 70s-yellow in the set design, at least in the beginning.
Also some interesting conceptual linkage to Possession.

the brood/possession would make for a doozy of a marital strife dbl feature

http://s10.postimage.org/r5t6drm7t/178_51_broodytyme_04.gif

man that little thing is so GROSS!
<3

the brood/possession would make for a doozy of a marital strife dbl feature

I believe both were made in the wake of the dissolution of the respective directors' marriages.

yeah, and a messy custody dispute in cronenberg's case as well

Halfway through trouble every day and really hoping someone still awake can promise me that this gets less boring. Also another great reason to want to punch Vincent Gallo in the face.

Let that keep you going.

I liked trouble every day! it wasn't really scary but had nice soft focus and a great score.

Ok the next time one of you assholes gets on me abt torture porn, I am using this piece of shit movie as a defense.

Cleansing my palate (hopefully) with Amer

Halfway through trouble every day and really hoping someone still awake can promise me that this gets less boring. Also another great reason to want to punch Vincent Gallo in the face.

awww. i think i've been its primary defender around here, so sorry you didn't like it. nice photography, moody music & atmosphere, and some interesting ideas. it hit me right, what can i say? sure, vincent gallo was/is an annoying dork, but that didn't bother me much for whatever reason.

wouldn't be surprised if you didn't like amer, either. it's not unpretentious...

20 minutes in and my main problem with amer is that I didn't see it in time to give it a shitload of points in the horror poll. Blown away so far, this is incredible.

cool! nice bounceback from trouble every day anyway.

I voted for trouble every day but wouldn't recommend it without reservation - it's slow, it's arty, it involves looking at vincent gallo for long stretches of time - not for everyone obv, but worth checking out.

I like the lack of exposition, how the movie doesn't connect all the dots for you. and even tho I'm not a huge gallo fan, his performance works here, maybe for similar reasons as walken's in the dead zone? there's a natural freakishness that lends itself to the outlandish happenings. same goes for dalle I guess. when TED first came out I remember being struck by the combination of high-art cinematography and bloodsoaked grindhouse splatter. there have been a number of folks in france since who made careers out of that trick.

few who've handled the "high-art" end of that equation anywhere near as well as denis does in trouble every day, though.

agree that gallo was well-cast despite his oddity and deficiencies as a performer. and walken in the dead zone is a very apt comparison. they're both weirdly empty and inert characters, and creepy besides.

i also like that it's an entire film seemingly spun out from the mundane observation that "people who are kissing look like they're eating one other"

Watching "Repulsion" for the first time now, btw.

Caligari and Eyes Without a Face are on the Cinematheque's summer schedule here.

Watched The Gate (1987, Tibor Takacs) last night and totally loved it. Why isn't this movie better known? Total echt-80s YA horror with wonderful stop motion creatures and a great best friend character (who has a Venom denim on in his first scene but then a Killer Dwarfs denim for the remainder of the movie).

About as scary as Troll 2 if memory serves.

Never seen. Think it will always have a tiny spot in history for being the movie that topped the American box office the week Ishtar was released.