THE VAULT OF ILX Top 100 HORROR Movies Poll Voting Thread (voting closes May 9 *~*~*~*2012*~*~*~*)

I've been pretty busy w/ lolwork of late & missed a lot of activity on the previous thread.. I'm just curious is Mr. Hal Jam has chimed in on any of this. I have much love for all yall ilx horror stans, but that dude's ballot is the one I'm most curious about (if he submits one, that is).

the girl who tastes the poison and then dies screaming later that night was the one that REALLY got to me

that, and the parents solemnly emptying the dead kids' dressers

I'm just curious is Mr. Hal Jam has chimed in on any of this. I have much love for all yall ilx horror stans, but that dude's ballot is the one I'm most curious about (if he submits one, that is).

yeah, i'd be interested in hearing from HJ, too, but i don't think i've seen him posting on horror threads since i returned a few months back

when we were in grade school, we had one gross-out contest where we had to answer whether we'd rather drown in a tubful of shit or a tubful of vomit.

"I would prefer not to."

I said mr hal jam's name 3x into a mirror at midnight on the nom thread and he still didn't appear

Oh, y'know, I shoulda nominated Burnt Offerings. That movie creeped the hell out of me.

I mean, I don't think it's probably a good movie. But as a teenager, it spooked me.

― something of an astrological coup (tipsy mothra), Monday, April 16, 2012 4:04 PM (1 hour ago)

same here, it's not a very good movie but it has some super creepy parts. namely:

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/burnt_offerings.jpg

this is an interesting distinction, though i'm not sure about the "sociopathic gaze" part. i strongly dislike what i consider sadism-as-horror, where the horror element is simply the spectacle of prolonged suffering, dehumanization and despair. this type of horror is often very matter of fact, but i rarely find it scary or otherwise compelling.

― BEMORE SUPER FABBY (contenderizer), Monday, April 16, 2012 4:36 PM (31 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This seems like a very tricky distinction to make wrt horror in general. Anything short of an actual snuff film that is made w/ respect to the genre, even tangentially, will generally have at least some element of the macabre - I would say this is true of even the most sadistic examples of recent 'torture porn' & 70s exploitation. I could see rejecting something like Salo or I Spit on Your Grave on such a basis, but both of those are on the far-flung fringes of the genre anyway, and might not even constitute inclusion as legit 'horror' by many (though I tend to allot fairly wide parameters personally).

Also, p sure you came to the defense of Cannibal Holocaust when I ranted about the turtle scene some years ago - and if CH doesn't epitomize what you're talking about, what would?

Standard horror movie scoring, for example, often detracts from scariness, whereas the use of source music or Lynchian sound effects/scoring (or no music at all) tends to be much more effective.

agreed on this. I'd say the problem today is an overreliance on a certain kind of jumpy post-Mtv editing and color treatment (that originated in late-90s Marylin Manson/nu-metal videos) that tries really hard to be cool/edgy (in a Hot Topic/mallgoth/WB/CW-series/Slipknot way) rather than scary (maybe the horror version of the raised-eyebrow-poochie-Pixar-film problem?), and especially a lazy fallback on loud booms and cracks and jumpscares (not to be confused with Lynch's nightmarish use of sound and atmosphere). horror trailers almost completely rely on loud cracking noises and lame Korn aesthetics

speaking of which, have y'all seen rob zombie's woolite commercial???

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sj87E-bc3xE

^ tops the list of things I'd never thought I'd say back when I was blasting white zombie's soulcrusher in my bedroom in 1988

lol

'don't let your laundry get tied up into a Slipknot"

Also, p sure you came to the defense of Cannibal Holocaust when I ranted about the turtle scene some years ago - and if CH doesn't epitomize what you're talking about, what would?

I'm not a Cannibal Holocaust defender and never have been (unless I'm forgetting something). The animal cruelty is bad enough, but I find the whole thing infuriatingly hypocritical, pretending to condemn what it flagrantly wallows in. Plus it's slow, ugly and boring.

I'm not a big fan of the seedy underbelly of exploitation cinema, tbh. I've seen a lot of it, but have few favorites that fall into categories like 'torture porn', 'extreme horror' or '70s exploitation'. There are certain visions and attitudes that I just can't enjoy, and they seem all but inescapable in certain subgenres. Wanton cruelty, misogyny, prolonged torture & rape, brutal nihilism: these things are almost always dealbreakers for me, unless distanced by means of camp (thinking of HGL's Blood Feast and the Findlay's Her Flesh films, for example).

but more importantly what do you think of rob zombie's woolite commercial

that, and the parents solemnly emptying the dead kids' dressers

Dan, you need to watch Testament. It's basically about solemnly dealing with inevitable horror. I was just skipping through clips on YouTube (the whole thing is available in sections) and feeling very intensely overwhelmed by the remembrance of certain scenes (a mother quietly sewing her dead daughter up in her bedsheets, LUKAS HAAS IN THE SINK). No one can tell me this isn't horror!!

I did not realize Rob Zombie directed that, but I'm completely unsurprised. Which is the opposite reaction I had to seeing that commercial in prime time.

I'd say the problem today is an overreliance on a certain kind of jumpy post-Mtv editing and color treatment ... that tries really hard to be cool/edgy ... rather than scary ..., and especially a lazy fallback on loud booms and cracks and jumpscares... horror trailers almost completely rely on loud cracking noises and lame Korn aesthetics

yeah this. the scratchy film, twitchy fonts and industrial tones approach is absolutely THEE WORST thing about contemporary horror aesthetics

yeah, I hate that shit

I'm not a Cannibal Holocaust defender and never have been (unless I'm forgetting something). The animal cruelty is bad enough, but I find the whole thing infuriatingly hypocritical, pretending to condemn what it flagrantly wallows in. Plus it's slow, ugly and boring.

hmm.. sry baout that then. Maybe your were playing devil's advocate, or maybe I'm completely mistaken!

lol nu-metal horror

speaking of which: no-one bothered to nominate either of Insane Clown Posse's movies (both of which could be considered "horror" i suppose).

nu-metal horror is only horror in it being an extremely unpleasant aesthetic experience

anyone see the lordi movie?

ha no, it was in my netflix queue but I think it expired

wth was it called lonely floors or something

DARK FLOORS

should've used spic n span!

keep meaning to watch it, then forgetting, or thinking of something better

I mean what could possibly be better than the lordi movie

good question

I had no idea Lordi were in that! I've been skipping past it on the Lovefilm menu but i'll have to watch it this weekend.

don't forget abt DEATH BED ppl!

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

fyi the death bed is the bed that EATS

Finishing off my ballot, and I realize that even though Jaws is one of my favourite films of the decade, it doesn't feel like a horror film to me. I can't really make a credible argument as to why--I can't say it's because there's no supernatural element, as I'll be listing other films that don't have that either. I can't even say it's because so much of takes place during daylight hours; that's true of The Birds, too, yet that feels more like horror to me. I don't know what it is. Maybe I'm just wrong--but I'm leaving it off.

No, I get that. Jaws doesn't feel like horror to me. A thriller, sure, but not horror (although the difference between the two could take all day to parse). It has something to do with directorial choices, at the end of the day. Compare, for example, the emergence of the shark in the "We need a bigger boat." scene with the emergence of the tripods in War of the Worlds (one of the only real "horror" sequences I can think of in Spielberg's oeuvre). In the first instance, Spielberg directed the scene so as to invoke surprise and exhilaration in the audience. In the second, he directed it so as to invoke panic and dread.

sacrifice to the fire pit in temple of doom is another spielberg horror moment. visit of the saucer-lights to the house in close encounters arguably swings that way too. nothing in jaws registers as horror to me. it's a thriller, a man-against-nature survival tale.

you guys

Spielberg was an uncredited director on Poltergeist

Lots of Spielberg horror moments in the two Jurassic Park movies he directed, and in Schindler's List, too.

Fuuuuuuuuck how did I not notice that burnt offerings never got nominated

Also: The Terminal. Like, the entire movie, amirite.

Also also: yeah, Dan, but I still don't think that's technically been substantiated. I was just going with what we know.

Oh, Duel was kinda horror-y, iirc.

you guys

Spielberg was an uncredited director on Poltergeist

oh i know, but i've argued abt that too many times to want to go into it again

I just noticed that last-minute write-ins are okay. So even though I'll be the only vote, and even though it's a stretch to call it horror (although it does contain various tropes of the genre), I'm putting Sybil in my top 20. There's almost nothing that ever terrified me as much as the mother and the "green kitchen"--in 1976, when it first played on TV, or when I watched it again a few months ago.

http://elmarcapaginas.com/images/sybil_03.png

May I bring the conversation down for a moment? Firestarter 2: Rekindloled is made for TV and it would be cute but they revised the original story, and that's not right. Come the fuck on. They could have made a perfectly terrible made-for-TV movie without those irrelevant changes.

Also, Stpephen King is a dipshit for hating The Shining, but then to the made-for-TV remake.

And his bitter public statements toward the guy who hit him with his car are NAGL, either.

Got five ballots already. Good job, people.

Stephen King has terrrrrrrrrrrible taste in movies made from his own books. I think he actually rates 1408 but not Carrie, The Dead Zone or The Shining.

xp

you won't be getting mine for another two weeks at least. got some catching up to do, and i want to see what people rep for. like i'm gonna watch threads at least.

Yeah, I need to try and finish my own ballot by the end of the day tomorrow. I want to make sure I'm not influenced by the direction other ballots are taking the poll.

Everyone watch anguish before voting

I've probably related this anecdote before (from an old interview with King).

In the middle of making The Shining, King got a 3:00 a.m. phone call from Kubrick. "Do you believe in god?" Kubrick asked him; King replied that he did. "I don't," said Kubrick, then hung up. King said that this got to the core of his problem with the original--that to get the film right, you had to believe in god. So he redid it himself. I have no desire to see the remake.

King is so wrong. Even the book itself doesn't have much to do with god, demons, eternal damnation. Most of its power comes from its depiction of a man refusing to come to terms with his own limitations as a patriarch.