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

Been meaning to watch both The Innocents and The Haunting forever.

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!".

i place a wall between "things that are deeply disturbing" and horror as a genre. i do this mostly because i am a dedicated fan of the latter, and am at best ambivalent about former. i don't dislike "things that are disturbing" (TTAD) movies on principle, but i'm not specifically attracted to them, either.

as i said upthread, the sensibility that is specifically attracted to TTADD is primarily an exploitation/grindhouse/sleazeball sensibility, not a horror sensibility. it might find satisfaction in grisly footage of a child being burned with a cigarette, but would find none in, say, the bride of frankenstein. the more genre horror becomes defined by people's interest in TTADD, the more debased it becomes, imo.

i say this because horror is a pop genre. as such, its dedicated fandom is inherently trivializing, inherently desensitized. if we encounter threads as fans of cinema in general, then it has the power to move us, it's horrors can be substantial. but if it's just another tickbox next to salo, guinea pig 2 and a serbian film on some superfan's list of "the most disturbing shit EVER!", then it becomes meaningless. i just don't like to see horror defined in those terms.

^ sorry if that was redundant. this is my hobbyhorse, and i will ride it.

man those clothes look SO uncomfortable
i've never seen the innocents, so that's all i have to comment on

haven't seen it in eons, but made it #34 on strength of Kerr

if you're already a fan of both bergman and horror, time of the wolf is undeniable. if you're one or the other it can become a shaky proposition.

you see that's the thing, love both, thought it would be catnip, was more like nytol.

the innocents far too low, the ghostly figure by the lake one of my favourite images in horror.

is this at all like village of the damned?

nope

I'm loving the stills and the taglines so much. Great job, Eric!

today is starting off GREAT, btw! very happy to see cemetery man, cure and hour of the wolf place.

agree with sarah on the appeal of cemetery man both as an existentialist splatterfest and as a gothic romance. some of the comic aspects are a bit trying, but everything else about the movie is just great. one of my all-time favorites.

cure is still my favorite k kurosawa flick. pulse will apparently place higher, but cure is lynch-like in its ability to conjure inexplicable dread - and to make the inexplicability resonant.

The Innocents waaaaay too low.

"¡Yo que pensé que te olvidé, pero es verDEAD es la verDEAD!"

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7224/7221145050_cc79131884_o.jpg

65. MULHOLLAND DR.
David Lynch, USA, 2001
(299 points, 9 votes)

That version of "Crying", though, was certainly a memorable moment (if you can separate it from the rest of the god-awful movie).
― David Raposa, Sunday, January 6, 2002 7:00 PM (10 years ago)

Mulholland Dr is Lynch's best work, and maybe the best feature film made by an American in the '00s.
― Your Favorite Saturday Night Thing (Dr Morbius), Monday, October 19, 2009 4:21 PM (2 years ago)

"Tuomas it's like you didn't see Mulholland Drive at all."
I'm not sure he saw Lost Highway (there are tons of boobs in that movie!!!)
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, October 20, 2009 2:42 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, but not a lesbian sex scene.
― Tuomas, Tuesday, October 20, 2009 2:45 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You didn't specify more lesbian boobs.
― Alex in SF, Tuesday, October 20, 2009 2:51 PM (2 years ago)

but cure is lynch-like in its ability to conjure inexplicable dread

agreed. remind me of this if i start up again on the "why are people voting for david lynch movies in this poll" issue!

Mulholland is a TV pilot with an "it was all a dream" tack-on finish.

"TTAD" (thanks for the shorthand, btw) is a fairly different thing than what I was referring to, contenderizer. I don't like that stuff, either. I'm mostly referring to movies which may not have consciously been made to fit the strict definition of horror or subsequently marketed as such but which achieve the same net effect horror films ostensibly strive for (and far too often fail at, largely thanks to a focus on an adherence to genre trappings over a genuine attempt to evoke horror/terror/dread/etc.). I'm not discounting straight horror movies. I'm just saying that movies that are more obliquely horror-ish shouldn't be discounted out of hand.

Mullholland is obv. great but it's not among the Lynch that qualifies as horror in my brain.

xxxpost

Best TV pilot ever, in that case.

Yeah, I'm with the 'not horror' crowd on Mulholland Drive. But not gonna piss and moan about it too much.

Mulholland Drive would have been an amazing opportunity to explore the ideas of Lost Highway in more depth over the course of a series, had it been commissioned. As it was, i think it just ended up being a really great opening episode with a lazy coda tacked on to the end to make it releasable that did nothing to advance what he's already said before.

Bah xxxp, beaten to it.

Morbs' Mulholland Dr. quote is 100% otm. Wound up fairly low on my ballot because it's tenuously horror-ish, but it's one of my all-time favorite movies, for sure.

If some of you guyz were in the film marketing biz we'd have more riots at the box office.

Mulholland is so much better than Lost Highway, regardless / in spite of its origin.

^ sorry if that was redundant. this is my hobbyhorse, and i will ride it.

naw this is a good point and tho we're coming from different angles I think we end up in the same place

Yeah, I'm with the 'not horror' crowd on Mulholland Drive. But not gonna piss and moan about it too much.

― emil.y, Friday, May 18, 2012 1:11 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

same here ... though if i had placed it on my horror ballot it would've been ranked very high.

lol @ quoted Mullholland Dr exchange

great great movie and Morbz probably OTM but I didn't vote for it, it's less of a horror film than some of his other entries imho

Mulholland is a TV pilot with an "it was all a dream" tack-on finish.

― da croupier, Friday, May 18, 2012 1:07 PM (5 minutes ago)

and casablanca was a hackneyed story worked over by a hodgepodge of screenwriters scrambling to rush the movie into the theaters. in both cases the means of production doesn't amount to much when compared to the finished product.

*don't*

yeah, shaping up to be an "i voted for this!" kind of day. i guess arty angst horror is where my heart lies.

i consider mulholland dr. a horror film because, though it spends a lot of its time elsewhere, it slips in and out of a tone of dreadful anticipation - and because three of its most memorable moments (the dumpster, the visit to the cabin, and closing scene) are among the most terrifying things i've ever seen onscreen. the ending of a film strongly affects how i characterize it, overall, and the final seconds of mulholland dr. just about scared me to death the first time i saw them.

I think you mean a hill of beans

xpost

fwiw, it's mulholland dr. that made me start thinking of lynch as not just a guy who makes weird and sometimes scary movies, but as a full-on "horror filmmaker".

agree that mulholland dr is one of the greatest films of the 00s, maybe the greatest, but my "conservative ideas" about horror kept me from voting for it. it's a mystery, a thriller, a melodrama, a doomed romance, an examination of fantasy and illusion and filmmaking, and while it exploits some horror-type moments (most specifically the winkies scene) in toto it doesn't feel like a horror film to me.

it did not even cross my mind to vote for MD in this poll, tho Eraserhead & Inland Empire are such pure distillations of fear, dread & disorientation that they seem to fit the bill much more suitably imo.

it's funny to rewatch mulholland dr. and to see that the payoff to the infamous "winkies scene" is really just [SPOILER]a lady with some black gunk on her face stepping out from behind a dumpster[/SPOILER]. hard to understand what might have made it so incredibly terrifying the first time around. o, but it was! i remember being shit-scared. something kind of magical about that.

yeah it's his timing of sound and motion in the frame that makes it work

I remember watching that scene on repeat on DVD trying to break down the mechanics

thank god jjjusten is not here to see this

Lynch is a master of making the banal totally horrifying. he can make a dim lamp in a room seem like the most terrifying environment ever.

I have no problem seeing the Lynch films on here because I love them so much, but I definitely mentally categorize them more as Erotic Thrillers than Horror.

lol what was "erotic" about IE or Eraserhead

Lynch is no minimalist across the board or anything, but dude has the uncanny knack to make a relatively straightforward shot of a lamp or ceiling just totally menacing and evil. Yeah, sound design has much to do w/ that as well, I guess.

*ceiling fan

messed up babies are totally erotic

Lynch is no minimalist across the board or anything, but dude has the uncanny knack to make a relatively straightforward shot of a lamp or ceiling just totally menacing and evil. Yeah, sound design has much to do w/ that as well, I guess.

Surely a lot of this dread is just his ADD inclusions of hallways, empty doorways, and inanimate objects.

a lot of times there's this low rumble in the background of lynch films, after many years I realized it's v similar to the sound of a highway in the distance

Speaking of messed-up babies, that final shot of Threads... xpost

http://filmbalaya.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/66153-3.jpg

"Speaking of EROTIC THRILLERS, I love the scene when those cute little MONSTERS take in a MIDNIGHT screening of SNOW FRIGHT and the SEVEN PLAGUES!"

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7240/7221145170_5f9849bab9_o.jpg

64. GREMLINS
Joe Dante, USA, 1984
(299 points, 12 votes)

I admit, I'm not much of an admirer of Gremlins, but it's almost completely worth it just for the fact that it's such a blatant riff on the cuddly, sentimental style of producer Spielberg, who actually went to great lengths to defend Dante's vision.
― Anthony (Anthony F), Wednesday, September 15, 2004 7:35 PM (7 years ago)

I do hope this doesn't degenerate into a thread about Gremlins.
― Pete, Wednesday, November 21, 2001 7:00 PM (10 years ago)

Didn't vote for it, but I do love those little guys.

Nice! Did not include on my ballot because it plays almost as straight-up comedy to me now, but great to see it get some love here.

Not that there's not some genuinely horrifying shit in there, I mean the gremlins do absolutely kill several people, but still.

yeah this is a comedy

didn't vote for it