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

Terrifying:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wy8voDqaQ-8/TkwJFZ3lCXI/AAAAAAAAAHI/ouRCMYtJROw/s1600/deneuve_repulsion_hands.jpg

Anyone who voted for it, I've gotta hand it to you. (Sorry--too much time looking at this poll.)

i liked black swan because it was like a funny version of repulsion

"anal" "rape" "child" and "13 year old" btw

HASENPFE-FEAR!!

goat

xposts I actually argued against using that still with Pillbox because I thought it constituted a minor spoiler, but hopefully almost everyone who contributed to this poll has seen the movie already.

Alien? yes, this is ilx dude
Um, Last House? maybe? kind of a wild card tbh
Suspiria? yes, this is ilx dude
The Thing, yes, this is ilx dude
The Fly? yes, this is ilx dude

Awww, was really expecting Repulsion to make it into the top ten. My number one. That fragmentation of mind is probably the most terrifying thing to me.

That flashed across my mind, Eric, and I went ahead anyway--maybe shouldn't have.

repulsion is great, but doesn't have the wider appeal of that other movie

gonna stop speculating before jjjusten shows up and yells at me

repulsion is another film i pushed down into the southern half of my ballot for reasons that i can't now defend or even really recall. glad it finished in the top 20, though i suppose there wasn't ever any reason to doubt that it would.

once wrote a college paper on feminism and madness in repulsion and carnival of souls

"Be a FLY! Be very a FLY!"

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7082/7257160766_6718823c05_o.jpg

11. THE FLY
David Cronenberg, USA, 1986
(871 points, 29 votes, 1 first-place vote)

Let's begin with The Fly, shall we? Cronenberg says it's his meditation on aging and the strange decay of the human body, though "meditation" may be laying it on a bit thick. Still, there are so many good things about this movie. Goldblum is as good as he's ever been, nerdy and nervous at first, then scary but cracking wise to the bitter appendage-sprouting end. Geena Davis is serviceable enough -- I wonder if they cast her because she was a good match in height? The big effects date badly -- the emergence from the skin at the end looks like rubber, and the vomit-on-the-hand thing is the same cheese effect used for face-melting in Indiana Jones. But it's the details that get you. The hair coming out of the wound. The oozing fingertips. The vomiting. You're thanking the heavens they don't actually show him "eating." It's all the little stuff that adds up to one of the most genuinely icky movies I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot of other Cronenberg, so that's saying something.
― slightly more subdued (kenan), Monday, May 23, 2005 10:13 PM (7 years ago)

"The Fly" is still his triumph to me; an accessible, disgusting romantic comedy/tragedy derived from a '50s B movie (and the peak of its two stars). It had the emotion and resonance (AHoV) only has in jolts.
― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, October 19, 2005 7:57 AM (6 years ago)

i thought i'd heard he said the fly was about how in a love affair one person always turns into a monster. and of course the reading at the time was 'it's about aids'.
― j blount (papa la bas), Monday, May 23, 2005 10:16 PM (7 years ago)

Is The Fly his 'Daydream Nation'?
― Soukesian, Wednesday, November 11, 2009 11:01 AM (2 years ago)

And now, I leave you to police yourselves about the movies that have yet to place.

I made a post on ilx once about the rampant symbolism in repulsion and someone asked what the rabbit symbolized and I was like, really?

Edward III I think if you say jjjusten's name 3 times he shows up, isn't that how it works?

only if you're posting drunk at midnight

The Fly is the first one that's placed exactly where it was on my ballot!

repulsion is a great movie to intermittently nap to

i am way less concerned w/ballot guessing now that weve hit the top ten, although obv i prefer to do mine by gnashing my teeth and wailing about stuff that has no chance of placing and thus got shut out of the top 100 in favor of lesser trifles.

Everyone who saw and liked "Black Swan" should be forced to watch "Repulsion" until they know better.

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, May 23, 2012 6:45 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark

^ this

no hostel or other roth stuff, no human centipede, day of the dead not going to make it but thank goodness pontypool and the cabin in the woods got their fair shake huh

I love Repulsion, and though I prefer it, I'm tired of the "I liked it the first time, when it was called Repulsion" attitude towards Black Swan. Different films with similar themes and, to a degree, styles. Big fan of both.

repulsion is a great movie to intermittently nap to

― I want L'interieur chicken, not Hausu chicken (jjjusten), Wednesday, May 23, 2012 11:59 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Well. It's clear that SOMEONE on this thread has never been a woman with mental troubles. *flounces*

I missed a few days and had to just scroll through to see what placed, but I hope at the end of this there will be separate page/tumblr/whatever with just the image countdown. Got some friends who would love to see this.

so I guess Valerie and Her Week of Wonders is way past the chance of making it now

so in no order:

The Shining
Rosemary's Baby
Alien
The Thing
Suspiria
Wicker Man
Last House
Carrie
Psycho
Texas Chain Saw Massacre

Oh yeah, would definitely love that. There's a precedent for it, so nobody should mind.

xpost

The Fly was my #1. It goes back to what I said about Jacob's Ladder--for me the best horror movies are the ones that work as horror but also move me. And I don't know that any movie devastates me like The Fly. There's so much hope in that relationship, so much promise, and it's all undone by a moment's impulse (going into the pod) and a tiny thing gone wrong (the entry of the fly). The physical decay fucking hurts when you see (and I'm sure most of us have) what terrible diseases can do to a person, not just their body but their mind. And you can see Geena Davis trying to so hard to hang on and be supportive but after a while it's just not possible anymore -- Brundle's changing body has changed his mind. Dammit, body and mind should be separate, but they're not, and this is what the film mercilessly throws at us. Plus, it's my absolute model of efficiency in screenwriting: there are 3 damn characters in this thing and never a boring minute. Maybe it's easy to take for granted now, but for Cronenberg to look at the silly original Fly and then come up with this masterpiece that never -- never -- flinches, not even at the heartbreaking end, is like a miracle. Plus there is humor(!) and excessive gore used to rare perfect effect, and that part where she has to decide to abort the baby because of possible deformities, even though she doesn't want to. I could go on and on.

I give up what does the rabbit symbolize. Deneuve herself? her libido?

anyway now we're on to the really classic shit, I see.

I don't think Last House is gonna place

That's a great write-up, Thnig. It didn't make my ballot but I have plenty of love for that film.

got my doubts about carrie and last house for sure, wondering if there was enough backlash vis a vis action poll to keep people from voting for the thing, psycho could be victim to the "oh shit everyone else is going to vote for that" curse

surprised Tenebre didn't place at all, even if it's not quite horror

repulsion is a great movie to intermittently nap to

― I want L'interieur chicken, not Hausu chicken (jjjusten), Wednesday, May 23, 2012 11:59 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Well. It's clear that SOMEONE on this thread has never been a woman with mental troubles. *flounces*

― emil.y, Wednesday, May 23, 2012 7:04 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Actually LOL'd

xxpost nicely done, Thnig

Thing OTM to ∞

The Shining
Rosemary's Baby
Alien
The Thing
Suspiria
Wicker Man
Last House
Carrie
Psycho
Texas Chain Saw Massacre

sub NOLD for last house

Carrie is totally going to place gtfo. there are hardcore depalma stans around here

yeah, well put Thnig. honestly, The Fly is almost too much for me to take sometimes

Carrie was #3 for me, after Carnival of Souls and Rosemary's Baby at #1, but could easily take first on other days

Sad regrets to La Lechera: Sybil will not be in the Top 10.

Random notes from a busy day:
-A bunch of friends and I watched Poltergeist a few years back, expecting to have a fun & easygoing evening. I think it spooked all of us more than we ever expected it to, especially given the fact that we'd all seen it multiple times as kids. So, yeah, it still packs a wallop.
-Oh, look. HallowMEH made it, unsurprisingly.
-Videodrome has some "lovely" things to look at, but (again) Cronenberg mostly doesn't do a whole lot for me (this most recent result being one of the rare exceptions).
-Much as I love The Exorcist, I was surprised that I ultimately dropped it down to #10 on my ballot. So this seems like a decent spot for it.
-Repulsion has one of the greatest movie scares of all time. It would have earned its spot for that alone even if it wasn't a great movie otherwise.
-Dawn of the Dead: TOO LOW. And as soon as I saw it place, I knew that was Day of the Dead and Return of the Living Dead (not a sequel, as someone upthread puzzlingly suggested) were out of the running. For which this poll should be arrested because that is CRIMINAL.
-Around the time (described upthread) when I first saw Repulsion, I started going to sleep while watching Eraserhead. Every night. For weeks. I found it strangely soothing, if only because it offered some solace from the general headspace I was in at the time. Still a horror film.

I'd be surprised if Sybil got more than two votes! (mine and yours)
Are we going to get those crazy stats where you see everyone plotted on a graph and whatnot?

Repulsion & Eraserhead would make an excellent double feature

xp

Damnit, I meant to say around the time I first saw Possession.

But those two would probably make a pretty excellent and horrifying double feature.

not a sequel, as someone upthread puzzlingly suggested

I know it's not a sequel and it's not even Romero or part of the series but let's not pretend like the other sequels would have even been made without Return's success. I think of it like Halloween III, part of the franchise but not really.

Deric, your going to sleep watching Eraserhead explains a great many things to me (joeks)

no hostel or other roth stuff, no human centipede, day of the dead not going to make it but thank goodness pontypool and the cabin in the woods got their fair shake huh

― I want L'interieur chicken, not Hausu chicken (jjjusten), Wednesday, May 23, 2012 4:03 PM (7 minutes ago)

lol, much respect jjj, but are you really surprised that the former films aren't terribly well loved outside dedicated "extreme horror"/gorehound circles? i mean, i like hostel 2, love day of the dead and dieter laser's performance in the human centipede, but i'm completely unsurprised that they didn't make the ILX countdown.

i mean, i'm seriously bummed by the fact that only five of my top ten films are gonna place, but i knew i was staking a lot on my favorite dark horses: Dementia, Dagon, Blood and Black Lace, Daughters of Darkness, Trouble Every Day

Return of the Living Dead need to place because this thing needs some damn punk rock lol