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

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

most horrifying thing in it is the santa/dead dad story tbh

I had to check my ballot on this one, because voting for Gremlins totally sounds like something I'd do, but I did not.

~milk duds~

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.

yeah, i found the first section of lost highway almost unbearably unnerving, bill pullman in the apartment what with those long, dimly lit, almost static shots of yawning beige hallways, always with some eerie whooshing static in the background. nothing ever really happens there, but i just knew that something unspeakable was about to swim up out of that darkness, and that when it did, it would completely break my mind. i think that's lynch's best trick, btw. he gets across this idea, very familiar from nightmares, that the worst thing possible is about to be revealed.

then again, maybe i'm just a sucker for this approach. like i said upthread, the scariest monster, to me, is the one that has not yet taken shape - not the ghost itself, but the shapeless moment in which it seems (perhaps) to be appearing.

love gremlins, love the sequel even more, didn't vote for either

most clearly horror thing lynch has done:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYB2FykZgkg

always thought that gremlins was too dumb to spend too much time thinking about.

gremlins is awesome, but yeah, i see it as a comical fantasy adventure with a few dark/scary spots.

When (SPOILER) Spike melts at the end, it freaking HORRIFIED and HAUNTED me as a kid. But, yeah, today it's a comedy.

~milk duds~

LOL. I still growl this sometimes.

Yeah, sound design has much to do w/ that as well, I guess.

absolutely

http://www.hark.com/clips/kdznxgrzft-milk-duds

I have a lot of love for mulholland dr but it ain't horror in my book. now inland empire otoh...

gremlins takes the malevolence of its creatures seriously enough that it works as horror, but it's def at the light end of the spectrum. that's ok, not everything has to be a gruelfest.

it definitely put some fear into me as a kid

well SOMEBODY must have voted for Gremlins..

It was def an integral part of my childhood movie-going experience and as such prob fundamental to my taste for horror in general, but I don't ever have the inclination to return to it for either laughs or scares tbh.

Yay, Gremlins! Another low-placer on my ballot but worthy of inclusion.

can't wait to show it to my kids

Aside from Die Hard, it probably is my favorite Christmas movie, though.

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.

if you're going to try and dignify mulholland dr worship with a historical precedent, it should probably be Wizard Of Oz.

"dignify"

I'm with Edward III. Gremlins is a fantasy and a comedy, but it is still a horror movie. Made for children.

I think a reasonable, arbitrary cutoff point along the 'horror spectrum' is if a film is squarely marketed toward children. I mean, I never had a Martyrs lunchbox. Yhat said, iirc it was the release of both Gremlins and Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom & the ensuing parental uproar which led directly to the PG-13 rating becoming a thing.

"More like DON'T WHOP ME NOW!"

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7084/7221145338_0890be288a_o.jpg

63. SHAUN OF THE DEAD
Edgar Wright, UK, 2004
(301 points, 11 votes)

Also I am willing to bet that between us we know every single person in that film. ONE OF THOSE ZOMBIES COULD HAVE BEEN ME you know!!!
― sarah not at work, Tuesday, April 13, 2004 4:08 AM (8 years ago)

"even zombie flicks can have multiple Star Wars references."
Wha? Please don't make me dislike this film now.
― jaymc (jaymc), Sunday, September 26, 2004 10:15 PM (7 years ago)

This film is better than other films.
― Suedey (John Cei Douglas), Monday, January 17, 2005 4:27 PM (7 years ago)

Ugh, fuck off.

E3 dignified the shit out of that movie

well, i had to make amends for not voting for Shaun in the comedy thread ...

I was afraid this was gonna show up. Sigh. All right.

Another movie I totally support but didn't vote for.

I voted for Shaun of the Dead (in the comedy poll).

"dignify"

sorry, but it's pretty tragic seeing all the eberty "what did lynch mean?" ponderances about mulholland dr when the director himself admits it was an open-ended intro he slammed a cop-out ending onto. If you still enjoy it, great, but when people are like BEST MOVIE EVER...idgi, sorry

the other reason I have respect for gremlins - at 13 I was a hardcore horror fan, having already seen dawn of the dead, last house on the left, halloween, friday the 13th, eraserhead, and a ton of other v scary movies. but gremlins still won me over, and I ended up going back to see it a couple of times in the theater. its love of grue and willingness to go to some real places (e.g. cates' santa story) helped.

that said, if you humps try to place ghostbusters in this thing we will have words

Remember v little abt Gremlins cept Phoebe Cates chimney monologue

havent seen SotD

i cut shaun of the dead early on cuz it's a straight-up comedy (albeit one with impressively serious horror trappings). made the same decision about dead alive, though i did come very close to voting for that one. it's not like there's a clear line or anything, though. i did vote for creepshow, after all.

dead alive is such a blast. I can't imagine it won't place.

"You had to know OLD FRANK would have a slot on this countdown ALL SEWN UP!"

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7239/7221145452_0a2421f8fe_o.jpg

62. FRANKENSTEIN
James Whale, USA, 1931
(301 points, 13 votes)

I want to make a movie called "Drunkenstein"
― coffeetripperspillerslyricmakeruppers (Latham Green), Wednesday, July 6, 2011 1:25 PM (10 months ago)

IIRC there are a number of stills shot on the set that aren't actually scenes from the movie.
― five gone cats from Boston (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Thursday, March 3, 2011 4:33 PM (1 year ago)

you think it takes talent to play frankenstein?? it's all, all MAKEUP and, and GRUNTING

This would be the first of two films that I voted for in both the comedy and horror polls and which will, deservedly, show up in the results of each. Do not get the SotD reactionaries, but that might be because I'm a 'Murrican.

lol

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7239/7221145452_0a2421f8fe_o.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7239/7221145452_0a2421f8fe_o.jpg

sorry, but it's pretty tragic seeing all the eberty "what did lynch mean?" ponderances about mulholland dr when the director himself admits it was an open-ended intro he slammed a cop-out ending onto. If you still enjoy it, great, but when people are like BEST MOVIE EVER...idgi, sorry

― da croupier, Friday, May 18, 2012 2:18 PM (3 minutes ago)

I'm with you on the "what does it mean" speculations, they're amusing mind games to play but have little to do with plumbing the actual worth of lynch's aesthetics. it's pretty obv you don't have much respect for his methods or their output, but you sound kinda like a cranky old banker looking at abstract art, "what do you mean he just dreamed it up! balderdash!"

you don't get to be the frank capra of dream logic by playing by the rules

if you plead to a mod they might fix that post eric