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

Poltergeist is like 5 horror movies (ghosts! slime! hallucinations! vortexes! zombies! mean trees! clowns! evil corporations!) squashed into one, all of them good.

well to be fair to tarkovsky, I was being a bit cheeky in misusing his quote for my own sick ends

The scene from which that screencap comes is one of my favorite movie jump scares EVAR.

There's a rather inspired homage to this scare in Paranormal Activity 3.

I love Poltergeist. Because of it I get uneasy every time one of our dumb cats states raptly at a point midway up a wall.

I think my list was mostly horror comedies.

and yeah if you like horror you're going to end up hanging around a ghoul or two

There's a great story in this book

http://www.utexas.edu/opa/blogs/culturalcompass/files/8/TomSmithBookCoverBlog.jpg

about the crew on E.T. being gathered to watch dailies one afternoon. Spielberg had asked ILM to shoot over the reel with footage of the house implosion gag from the end of Poltergeist so he could see how it looked. So after a bunch of innocuous E.T. dailies, the crew saw this suburban tract home implode on itself and disappear. After a moment of stunned silence, one of the folks just said, "What the hell was that?"

xxp really? Maybe I should watch those other two Paranormal Activity movies.

Poltergeist is one of those iconic movies for me. Not that I loved it a ton, or even watched it a ton, but I was about the same age as Carol Ann when it came out, and it was everywhere all over the news and people just seemed to talk about it, and then when it came out on video it'd be playing in the store, and that 'mommmmmy?' clip, ugh. I was still a kid so seeing those clips of her stuck in the tv scared me enough that it was YEARS before I'd even think about watching it. This will sound really weird but those scenes were so vivid they felt like, I dunno, childhood memories or something...it was really fkn weird.

Craig T Nelson is one of my favorite dad actors. He's just crabby enough to be believable.

TBH, E.T. winning the VFX Oscar over Poltergeist and Blade Runner always seemed to be kind of a travesty.

Shameful confession: I don't hate Poltergeist II and I can even find room in my heart for whichever sequel took place in a haunted high rise, mostly bc it's completely absurd.

Not shameful! Poltergeist 2 & 3 have great stuff here and there.

I had a feeling you'd back me up on that one.

the preacher in Poltergeist 2 seriously gave me nightmares

still kinda freeze up a little when I see him

just wanna say if return of the living dead doesn't place I'm gonna be kinda mad at y'all

Ha! That's my controversial "sequel ranked higher than critically acclaimed original" vote.

Edward III otm

some interesting reading FYI FWIW TBH

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poltergeist_%28film_series%29#The_Poltergeist_curse

xxp really? Maybe I should watch those other two Paranormal Activity movies.

Just watched PA2 last friday; it is SCARY AS FUCK. Superior to #1 except for the fact that it depends on #1 to make sense.

Poltergeist is one of the few horror movies that is actually scary, but it's also fun and funny. Very intense for PG, too. Much more so than Gremlins and Temple of Doom, which are always credited for Pg-13.

the real-life fate of carol anne is really heartbreaking

I'm telling you, all the Paranormal Activities are good. We just don't want them to be good.

Before Poltergeist, was there another horror movie that found scares in the suburbs and domesticity?

(I mean, that's a real setup for you jokesters, but I;m serious).

most of the stuff in poltergeist could've slid under the PG rating except for the scene of the guy who basically tears his own face off. some kinda tribute to spielberg's mojo that he was able to strongarm that past the MPAA.

Lots of dead bodies. Also, kids in danger and intense killer tree/clown.

Did Night of the Creeps place yet?

Before Poltergeist, was there another horror movie that found scares in the suburbs and domesticity?

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

that one about the robot wives, to a lesser extent

The Blob?

well the options at the time were PG or R, dead bodies and kids in danger were definitely PG material, how else do you explain this

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8e/Just_You_and_Me_kid.jpg

Yeah, poor little Heather O'Rourke. :( That scene near the end, when they think it's all over, and the closet door opens up and the lights and sounds start, and she just gets the saddest look and says, "No more . . ."

BTW to Edward III, Return of the Living Dead is on my ballot.

I think the genius of Poltergeist is that it's not just the suburban setting but the hallmarks of the suburbs itself that are the threat: TV room, spacious closets, swimming pool, big tree in the yard, huge bedroom.

thought I had voted for deadalive but I guess it was a late-breaking cut

ah well, I gave it love in the comedy poll so

I am realizing a few things that are missing at this point and holding back srs nerd rage because they probably aren't going to make it

rage away
you can rage all day
if you want to

oh i might

me too

plz hold nothing back, I beg of you

But first ...

"Ever been whipped with a switch by Lillian ... well, you know the DRILL!"

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7078/7257582830_b7bf51fafb_o.jpg

19. THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER
Charles Laughton, USA, 1955
(610 points, 17 votes)

christopher nolan to remake "night of the hunter" with vince vaughan

some of you all are seriously fucking up the results a small group of friends and I came up with for the open-ended debate (inspired by a separate online discussion) on what film was the most universally beloved amongst film fans of all stripes, be it auteurist, buffdom, histiorian, critical, whatever...
Passion of Joan of Arc got some soft support, Sunrise (my personal guess) nearly came out on top, but in the end we had settled on Night of the Hunter. Now I have to open the question back up among my chums.
― Eric H. (Eric H.), Thursday, January 1, 2004 7:22 PM (8 years ago)

nice going assholes!
― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, January 1, 2004 7:33 PM (8 years ago)

ohhhh yeahhhh

wait jjj, how long have you had that display name, because lol

Real Poltergeist house still standin' strong: http://g.co/maps/mkp9m

Only 30 miles from the E.T. house! http://g.co/maps/6c3ge

really liked poltergeist, even on subsequent viewings after its initial release. but the last time I checked in around 10 years ago, it seemed dated and not very compelling at all.

loooooooooove night of the hunter

love night of the hunter, don't consider it a horror movie, so didn't vote for it <- we need some kind of shorthand for this

i don't know what it is exactly

Once again, a film so ahead of its time it basically destroyed the director's career.