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

heh considering some of the amoral crap i voted for putting two polanski films on my ballot was the only thing that gave me a moment's pause

Late to the game since I was out this evening, jesus christ get one life you shut-ins, but anyway: But my question in these situations is always, "Who says this person is any more of an expert with unexplainable stuff than, say, John Edwards or the Ghost Hunters douchebags? Who says they have any real grasp on or control over this completely bugfuck situation?"

"Poltergeist" does lampshade this with the dude telling Craig T. Nelson and JoBeth Williams about the toy car they filmed moving like six inches over a period of several hours, after which they open the door to the crazy carnival in the kids' room.

Also, Stephen King's hierarchy in Danse Macabre was terror > horror > gross-out.

to me essentialist evil still translates as 'evil' as revealed through selfish actions or corrupted conditions... spiritual/supernatural evil still works for me (this is due to having a liberal pastor father who never emphasized evil as this detatched thing but always explained it in terms of relations and cause and effect. so moral language never really bothered me, and its presense as a current or atmosphere or tendency in aesthetics or literature still signifies something real to me. supernatural and psychological horror is much more disturbing to me than base fear-of-death horror)

the Rosemary's Baby reveal works for me in part I think because it still mantains its sense of terror/mystery - despite finally knowing what's happening, you still see very little, there's just this disturbing music and Mia's horrified reaction... "what have you done to his EYES?"

re: Alice Sweet Alice, yeah I considered that reading... what made me go with mine was Alice and the killer's penchant for wearing the same costume around and the killer happening to take out everyone that Alice had a grudge against (and then there was Alice's collecting all those trinkets related to the events as well). it's very subtle, kind of left open, which is what I like about it. the possibility is there, but you can't be certain of it

― Chris S, Wednesday, May 16, 2012 6:15 PM (3 hours ago)

that is a really interesting reading, I'd prolly buy into it more if the movie more explicitly alluded to a supernatural element, as it is it takes pains to connect the dots to implicate the killer in a whodunit way. also I'm assuming only one of us was a big enough nerd to read the novelization.

that said I really need to watch it again.

I think what I was getting at with the "unexpert experts" thing is less the idea of them being overtly exposed as chumps and more about showing them to be seemingly competent and effectual but also ambiguously hinting that they may fundamentally misunderstand the supernatural phenomenon they've "fixed". The presence in The Exorcist (never specifically named or identified in the original film) may have died with Father Karras. Or it might not have. And all of the priests' work at battling the presence may have had little more effect than to convince it to move to a different body. I think the possibility of their basic ineffectiveness (along with the ineffectiveness of everyone consulted about Regan's problem) is a totally valid read on the film based on what we're shown.

Awesome seeing The Seventh Victim place.

yeah xxp, I haven't read the novelization either - I'd be interested to see if it gives any more explanations there. I've tried finding explanations online and get no clear answers

happy to see a lot of my recent vintage picks just barely make the poll (Pontypool, PA and Wolf Creek), especially because my insanely high ranking for Pontypool helped it get into the top 100.

You soulless horrible monster

it's such an awesome movie, i love it

just to be clear, I am a big enough nerd to have read the novelization of alice sweet alice

"Be kind! Re-DIE-nd!"

just sayin..

"it was sort of a cop-out to hinge Mia Farrow's brilliant and sustained unraveling on some comparatively garden-variety supernatural eeeeeevil."

halloo, IRA LEVIN.

Satan is real, u heathens

"it was sort of a cop-out to hinge Mia Farrow's brilliant and sustained unraveling on some comparatively garden-variety supernatural eeeeeevil.

yeah, i don't agree with this at all. i find the ending of rosemary's baby a letdown not because it collapses the ambiguity, but because having done that and intimated the awful unknown, it retreats to the dull quotidian. the film only permits us a glimpse of the beyond and shies away before we can drink our fill. farrow's closing shriek bubbles the horror back up to marvelous effect, but the first time i saw it, i couldn't help but feel a little ripped off.

4/15 today - Phantasm, May, Wolf Creek, Witchfinder General

Need to see Blood on Satan's Claw & The Seventh Victim

Also, Stephen King's hierarchy in Danse Macabre was terror > horror > gross-out.

cool, thanks phil. it's been ages, so i'm not surprised that i remembered it incorrectly. according to google, i didn't get much of it right.

apparently king treated "terror" as most do, as dreadful anticipation. otoh, his "horror" is analogous to what i called "shock": not after-the-fact disturbance, but rather the climax-point at which suspense is violently ruptured. his gross-out third element is "revulsion", which seems like an extreme and rather debased form of the traditional definition of "horror".

prefer my terror/SHOCK!/horror breakdown, but then i would

I had no idea this was happening.

Wolf Creek is one of my favourites of recent years because it 1.) took it really seriously and, perhaps as a consequence it 2.) understood the sheer horror of hopelessness. a lot of films twist into that or throw an ending in that speaks to that hopeless quality that is truly terrifying, but I've not seen it as well done recently as it was here, when the girl has the knife and thinks she's got a shot but then he swings and her fingers fall off. There's a real feeling of "this is it, fuck..."

i'm not a horror guy so i didn't feel remotely qualified to vote in this, but i think the climax of 'rosemary's baby' is incredible. i like that you can read it either way -- either rosemary has given birth to the son of satan, or she's fallen -- inextricably, forever -- into the hands of a bunch of maniacs. either way, it's pretty horrifying.

"the dull quotidian"

That's where you find the most insidious evil! A bunch of elderly well-to-do Upper West Siders.

Ditto--incredible. I don't think there's anything Polanski could have shown in terms of actually seeing the baby that would match the look of "unspeakable" (Rosemary's word) terror we see on Mia Farrow's face. I love everything about that scene from the moment she sets foot in Roman and Minnie's apartment--the way people are arranged around the room as the camera hops from one to another ("And his feet!"), the jokes (Laura-Louise sticking her tongue out is sublime), Rosemary's contemptuous reaction to Guy, etc.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NUwfkgXncHg/TgEA9kY0a1I/AAAAAAAAAVE/4UUknoNeY_Q/s1600/Rosemarys_Baby.jpg

i find the ending of rosemary's baby a letdown not because it collapses the ambiguity, but because having done that and intimated the awful unknown, it retreats to the dull quotidian.

I find its retreat to the quotidian genius. It's sort of like the end of "Some Like It Hot:" "Nobody's perfect!" After all this horror and torment, she holds the baby and, well, yeah, it might be the spawn of Satan, but it's her spawn of Satan, dammit!

Or: "You're trying to get me to be his mother."
"Aren't you his mother?"

Perfect.

or we'll kill ya milk or no milk

Yeah, I agree with the quotidian-defenders on that count. While I may prefer an ambiguous line, if you're going to break through the ambiguity then banality of evil is much scarier to me than spooky superpowered evil.

i like that you can read it either way -- either rosemary has given birth to the son of satan, or she's fallen -- inextricably, forever -- into the hands of a bunch of maniacs.

I don't think there's anything Polanski could have shown in terms of actually seeing the baby that would match the look of "unspeakable" (Rosemary's word) terror we see on Mia Farrow's face.

come on, it's p unambiguous, you see his devil eyes.

I always appreciated the "well...ok" ending of RB because it shows how surprisingly at peace she is with the idea of her life not going exactly as she planned. She just acquiesces and life goes on. Maybe.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/60/Satan_is_Real.jpg/220px-Satan_is_Real.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVOMJDL3hEI

"Ah, Twin Peaks. My favorite little town, where you can truly TROUBLE your DOUBLE!"

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5119/7211432328_e5f94b6d05_o.jpg

85. TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME
David Lynch, USA, 1992
(218 points, 8 votes)

Not to unduly separate him from filmmakers I have a greater (Hitchcock, Lang) and lesser (De Palma) regard for, but DL is kind of a fucked-up misogynist.
― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Sunday, February 26, 2012 3:11 AM (2 months ago)

someone said (i think on a previous thread) that FWWM was more of a "free jazz" take on the story whereas the series was more (creepy?) doo-wop.
― gygax! (gygax!), Tuesday, August 31, 2004 3:43 PM (7 years ago)

every time I watch it I go from "lol what the hell is this mess" to terrified and crying by the end of it
― time to put it in hi geir (WmC), Monday, August 1, 2011 4:40 PM (9 months ago)

"Wanna hear about our specials? We haven't got any."
― LSTD (answer) (sexyDancer), Friday, January 7, 2005 11:50 AM (7 years ago)

you see his devil eyes

Rosemary does; we don't.

I'm randomly gonna out myself here as a fan of found-footage horror movies (though I didn't go too nuts with these in my voting). Stuff like Blair Witch, Paranormal Activity, Diary of the Dead, Cannibal Holocaust, REC, Cloverfield, The Last Exorcism, Troll Hunter, Home Movie, Apollo 18 -- I've even enjoyed rip-offs like Paranormal Entity. I don't set out to like these; in fact, I arrive to each one dubious, then end up finding each one effective. Anyone else a sucker like me?

xpost

ive been thinking that i should rewatch FWWM for a while now

That image is SO GREAT. And vvv scary!
I have had so many petrifying Bob-spotting moments since I first watched Twin Peaks when it aired.

I don't think I ended up voting Twin Peaks. I guess I was on the verge of whether it was truly a horror or more a mystery/drama/something else, but realistically I have no problem with it being horror. The main thing that would have stopped me was that I take all the Twin Peaks stuff as a package these days - my vote would be for the film, but influenced unduly by the series, and I don't feel that it's right to vote like that.

you see his devil eyes

Rosemary does; we don't.

um, yeah we do? is there a different cut where we don't see the yellow devil eyes in the hirsute face?

Saw FWWM for the first time in February. While better than I expected (it was almost unanimously excoriated in '92), and effective in being relentlessly doomy in its last 2/3, I guess I just don't find it essential. Laura Palmer is still a cipher; aside from MacLachlan's Cooper, all the compelling characters in the TP series were around the edges.

I recall the RB baby eyes as being a double exposure w/ Farrow's face, that never goes dissolves all the way to its own 'pure' shot?

i was 13 when fwwm came out in theaters & tried to go see it w/ a friend (we'd be into twin peaks big time) who's mom bought us tickets and then left. still remember that the ticket taker turned us away saying 'you dont wanna see that, theres some sick and twisted stuff in it' (we know!)

I recall the RB baby eyes as being a double exposure w/ Farrow's face, that never goes dissolves all the way to its own 'pure' shot?

It's actually Rosemary recalling her eyes meeting Satan's during the earlier impregnation/dream sequence.

really? oh wow... i never thought of it that way... hmm

are we sure? what about the "he has his father's eyes" quote?

Yeah, it's the same shot that they dissolved to in that sequence, so I always interpreted as her fully processing "He has his father's eyes."

Never saw FWWM because I never completed season 2

that makes sense. i always thought that shot ruined the ending a little, so thanks for the reinterpretation i guess! xp.

You have to hand it to FWWM -- when Lynch finally, finally gets to Laura Palmer's murder, it does not disappoint.

I saw FWWM years before I saw the series! SPOILER: the series is better.

"I can still remember a time when American vampire movies didn't ... SUCK!"

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8154/7211432536_f633e8ef0a_o.jpg

84. NEAR DARK
Kathryn Bigelow, USA, 1987
(219 points, 10 votes)

The roadhouse scene alone -- Bill Paxton just on the verge of exploding, edits and camera cuts just right, and the slow dawning realization among the bar staff and patrons that they're going to die. Riveting -- and they pulled it off to a muted soundtrack that's not only the Cramps' version of "Fever" but included Jools Holland and George Strait. Tarantino was taking note, I tells ya.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, June 12, 2003 12:18 AM (8 years ago)

What happened to Adrian Pasdar? Not only is he gorgeous, his physical performance in the first half when he's constantly nauseous and suffering from his new vampiric status is really committed; you feel the cold sweats... I also forgot how funny Bill Paxton is doing a shitkicker Nicholson.
― Indiana Morbs and the Curse of the Ivy League Chorister (Dr Morbius), Saturday, August 29, 2009 12:36 PM (2 years ago)