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

omg I love Jacob's Ladder

sent me wayyyy down the rabbit hole on Project 112 and MKULTRA and all that creepy irl mindblowing shit too, which was a nice bonus

Hot dog, I'm happy to see this. When it comes down to my very top few votes, it ends up being the movies that serve well as horror films but also just plain move me. And JL is just filled with crushingly sad scenes. So beautifully shot, and what a great balance between a drama with extremely believable/sympathetic/complex characters and total surrealistic nightmare.

~controversial~ poll result

I love that Garfield

I stand by my original comment. The "it was all a dream"-style ending always struck me as cheap and lazy, not to mention nonsensical

Jacob's Ladder is one of those movies where all the disturbing visuals and odd atmospheric things under the surface stuck with me for days after first seeing it, much like The Shining or Exorcist

that said lol @ four first places

― jesus christ (strongo hulkington's ghost dad), Wednesday, May 23, 2012 12:47 PM (2 minutes ago)

xpost Shakey I usually hate those endings but I disagree on this one. In JL they pull you soooooo deeply into his life, into his paranoias and hallucinations that the ending is almost a relief, somehow? I dunno, it really moved me. And scared the BEJABBERS out of me too.

it fascinates me a little that Lyne made this movie in the middle of a 10 year run in which his other movies were 9 1/2 Weeks, Fatal Attraction and Indecent Proposal

I love that he made BOTH Flashdance and Jacob's Ladder.

every time I think of Jacob's Ladder, the phrase "house party dance scene" comes to mind and I cringe a little

this film makes me understand why/how people become horror buffs, but it's far enough removed from the splattergore that has come to define the genre that I can actually embrace it

In JL they pull you soooooo deeply into his life, into his paranoias and hallucinations that the ending is almost a relief, somehow?

YES. It's like allowing him mercy: please, let this tortured soul go. It's hardly in the same category of the end of Boxing Helena, y'know?

I honestly never thought of it as a horror movie but I guess it's kind of 'a personal horror', and I'm happy to see it get so much love ITT

it fascinates me a little that Lyne made this movie in the middle of a 10 year run in which his other movies were 9 1/2 Weeks, Fatal Attraction and Indecent Proposal

― some dude, Wednesday, May 23, 2012 11:52 AM (8 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Some of that shows through in the freaky dance scene.

for years i would get this movie confused w/ Lorenzo's Oil, and then even when i started watching it at first i thought it was just a Nam vet movie, so part of my enjoyment of it was the total surprise/confusion

I think there are several disconnected levels going on in the movie; obv there is the intramovie extended fantasy where all of these conspiracies and torturous events were psychic manifestations of dude clinging to life and trying to make sense of what happened to him, but there was also a metatextual extramovie angle re: the testing of battle drugs on our soldiers, and I think the confusion/inconsistency arises from trying to make the two fit together when I think it's supposed to be more that one is supposed to set the stage for the other and Tim Robbins' character never REALLY finds out what happened to him before he dies.

the atmosphere of jl *is* great. i'm always down for sad horror movies too.

my problem with the ending is that positing that the majority of the film's narrative was a hallucination raises more questions than it answers. As he was dying, he hallucinated information he could not possibly have known, including the explanation for his hallucinations (the chemist), Danny Aiello, his surviving platoon-mates having hallucinations, etc.? It's just... waht? There's plenty of good stuff in the film, but I felt kind of betrayed by its sloppy construction. The ending is like the scriptwriter going "omg look! What's that over there?" to the audience and then running away

xp

Confession: I always used to get Jacob's Ladder confused in my head with Flatliners.

Does someone grow a snake tail in this one?

The dance scene: classic.
The ice-water bath scene: classic.
The girls singing "Wait a minute, Mr. Postman" as he delivers mail: classic.
The nightmare hospital surgery sequence: classic.
His name being Jacob and the drug being called "the Ladder": dumb, but I forgive it.

Wow. I voted for Jacob's Ladder in the middle-ish of my ballot, but this placing is a surprise!

What Maurice Jarre did for the film is underrated even by film score nerds...

lol @ Flatliners. so bad.

LTROI is amazing. Let Me In almost as good.

They're totally worth watching back to back, or on successive nights. I like them about equally. Very different strengths.

Anyone ever read the much-longer original screenplay for this? Much more political, lots about Jacob trying to get the government to fess up to what the did in the war, culminating with a scene of him on courthouse steps, doused in gasoline, threatening to set himself on fire.

Elizabeth Peña: classic

Ha, Flatliners. My roommate in college put the bit where the little girl curses out Keifer Sutherland on our answering machine.

For two, uh, thematically similar movies, Carnival of Souls > Jacob's Ladder

main thing i remember about jacob's ladder aside from the dance party is him being stuck in the empty subway station at night

man if I didn't have dinner plans tonight I would rewatch JL

every time I think of Jacob's Ladder, the phrase "house party dance scene" comes to mind and I cringe a little

Pretty OTM. I think Jacob's Ladder wound up falling off the bottom of my ballot, but mostly just because it's been so long since I've seen it (like maye the year after it came out?).

(we are down to 21 spaces for the 22 films that came up yesterday, BTW)

I agree that the ending of Jacob's ladder is flawed. iirc this is in part due to studio interference & a sloppy rewrite. But still a great movie. It made my list.

(we are down to 21 spaces for the 22 films that came up yesterday, BTW)

― Andrew Farrell, Wednesday, May 23, 2012 1:09 PM (23 seconds ago)

sorry guys critters 3 is not placing

I thought I would be shouting "TOO LOW" when JL came up considering it was my #1 but really, I think this is a great placement for it.

Oh god it just occurred to me. What if ironical troll 2 votes place it in the top 20.

side note: anyone interested in irl Jacob's Ladder stories, check out John D Marks' "In Search of the Manchurian Candidate." Holllyyyyy shit.

I'm also starting to think Last House on the Left may not place, which would be a shocker considering Henry, etc.

while I will amiably bend like the reed whatever the outcome, I wouldn't mind the top 20 being a little less chin-stroky.

"Coincidentally, I EAT GLASS for the Lord!"

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7235/7255248470_2ff4c904c2_o.jpg

21. BRAINDEAD [aka DEAD ALIVE]
Peter Jackson, New Zealand, 1992
(598 points, 19 votes)

I just watched Braindead for the first time in years and I want to change my vote to that.
― onimo, Saturday, June 23, 2007 8:07 PM (4 years ago)

I like it when matey shoots a huge fuck-off hole in a zombie, sticks his shotgun through the hole, then cheerfully shoots other zombies through it, using the first zombie as a shield.
― chap, Saturday, June 23, 2007 8:37 PM (4 years ago)

if you want dead alive just watch fucking dead alive, geez
― congratulations (n/a), Wednesday, October 7, 2009 4:26 PM (2 years ago)

xxxp Speaking of which one day we need to do a poll of the " . . . In Space!" horror sequels. Critters vs. Jason vs. Hellraiser vs. Leprechaun vs. ?

!!!! YAYYYYY BRAINDEAD

now that's more like it

ha, I just looked at my ballot and the highest-placing non-chinstroky movie is... Shaun of the Dead

What, Eric, no picture of the bloody custard available?

god I love Braindead so much. Like in a 'why don't you marry it' way

urgh

I am probably never going to see that movie, no matter how hilarious people say it is

Wow, no first place votes! I first watched this with my friend Aaron, who is a horror FREAK, on a DVD made from a badly-copied VHS import from New Zealand. We were both absolutely flabbergasted at its constant inventiveness and audacity, from the very beginning with the explorer dude to the time the credits rolled. Zombie intestines are among the all-time great movie jokes.

while I will amiably bend like the reed whatever the outcome, I wouldn't mind the top 20 being a little less chin-stroky.

― da croupier, Wednesday, May 23, 2012 5:15 PM (27 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Agreed, and Braindead's presence (finally!) makes me v. happy.

part of my problem w/ jacob's ladder was that I was soooo ready to love it. great marketing campaign, at the time I was in college and suffering my own, uh, disconnections from reality... this movie had me in the palm of its hand. in the theater I was loving the hell out of it, but instead of being straightforward and just going for it, it got overly complicated and it felt like I was drinking sweat from the screenwriter's brow. such a letdown.

I checked back in again in the late 90s, and still found it problematic. maybe it's time for another watch.