Your favourite 'horror' movies?

Hi,

'The Haunting' gave me goosebumps, it was a great terrifying thriller. The suspense originated from the spooky 'experiences' none of the viewers ever got to see...

'Suspiria' - unfortunately never heard of that movie.
'Pin' ? - Nor did I hear of that one!

Last 'horror'-like production from Canada I saw (was a Canadian/USA/French coproduction, however), was George A. Romero's 'BRUISER'. Interesting topic, a bit poor in the making, but altogether a quite entertaining movie.

Best regards,
51Days

PS: Keep on telling about your favourite 'horror' movies, please! :wink:

Suspiria:

http://www.imagesjournal.com/issue05/infocus/suspiria.htm


My two favorite scenes in "The Haunting" is the holding of the hand that wasn't Claire Bloom's hand and the iron spiral staircase sequence. The missing wife suddenly appearing in the opened ceiling access door just about scared me grey.

Oh! My favorite is the beating and buckling of the bedroom door scene. OH MY GOODNESS.
One of my favorites horror movies is Dracula with Frank Langella. This was a new Dracula, a sexy Dracula, and it worked in the movies the same way it worked on Broadway. I'll never forget reading in Time how women in the audience responded to him onstage. It was a whole new twist to an old classic.

Good topic...
When I was younger a great horror consisted of just great bood and gore never mind the plot. While I aged I left the horror movies alone for awhile and seemed to go back yet my mind went towards the pschological aspect more and the plot.
A few of the greats were still the same, here is my list.
Here is my list as follows ( in no order).
The Shining
Rosemarys Baby
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
In The Mouth of Madness
April Fools
Psycho
The Addiction
Nosferatu
Night of the Living Dead
The Exorcist
The Omen
IT
Seven

51days- The Wicker Man is English:

Link to "The Wicker Man" Review

Hi,

@Phoenix...: didn't really know that the Wicker Man is an English 'Hammer' production, however, I have just read the review. Thanks for the link....sounds interesting...the film has been added to my 'to do' list.

However, while researching the German title of 'Wicker Man', I found out that there isn't really any...obviously, there hasn't been a lot of hype or media marketing around this movie so far...sounds like a tip, however...whenever I found something about this movie on the web,
it was throughout positive and sophisticated...

@ALL
Saw Hitchcock's 'The Birds' again some time ago....isn't it marvellous how this movie develops tension and atmospheric density without USING ANY MUSIC?....a masterpiece...

Greetz...
Rainer
aka
51Days

I almost forgot, I loved Tim Burton's 'Legend of Sleepy Hollow'. Christopher Walken is great as the headless horseman...

Here's another vote for "The Haunting"- its superiority over the computer generated effects-laden remake speaks volumes.

I will cast a dissenting vote against "The Birds", only because the Daphne Du Maurier short story is far scarier. In general, Hitchcock films are not scary to me, although they are suspenseful. I had nightmares over a number of episodes of his TV show, but the movies, not so much. ("Psycho" comes closest.) M. Night Shyamalan ("The Sixth Sense", Unbreakable", "Signs") is a worthy successor.

A recent movie, not mentioned yet but worth checking out, is "The Others", with Nicole Kidman. Decidedly creepy.

It was brave of Hitchcock to use virtually no musical score in "The Birds" and although I found it mildly scary on its release, it has lost much of its potency. Not so with "The Haunting," as just the titles send chills up my spine.

I don't fin Shyamalan scary at all -- more creepy and far too slow. "The Sixth Sense" is the best of the three but once you've seen it, there's nothing to conjecture about,other than whether one believes in spirits or not. That it was almost immediately copied in "The Others" is sincere flattery.

The scariest Hitchcock is "Vertigo" with "Rear Window" coming in a close second. "Vertigo" still is potent for its psychological exploration of obessession and it's scary because one has to examine their own obessessions. Now that's scary. Just the thought of what happened to the body in "Rear Windows" to the final flashbulb sequence is scary and horror on a different level than the typical monster.

("Unbreakable" was unwatchable for me).

I knew the ending of "Sixth Sense" about 20 minutes into the film.

I found myself really not paying much attention -- his films have the curious ability to hypotize me into a stupor. His dialogue, for me, is woozy and nearly unintelligble. I've momentarily left the room to see if I'd opened a bottle of Merlot and finished it!

I often feel that way about David Lynch as well, although I did like Mulholland Drive.

cavfancier said:



I'm a lot dimmer. Didn't get it until I was supposed to, although in retrospect it should have been obvious even to me.

lightwizard said:



No, I didn't get the ending on "The Others" either. In fact even now, although the surprise ending is the same, I don't find the two very similar. "The Others" is more of a classic ghost story, while "The Sixth Sense" is charting somewhat new territory.

I agree that Shyamalan is not particularly scary, although there are a few jumpy moments in both "The Sixth Sense" and "Signs", but I do find his work suspenseful, which is how I feel about Hitchcock as well. I think "Unbreakable" is Shyamalan's best film, but I am hesitant to recommend it to people for the reason you stated- the pace is daunting unless you are caught up in the story, which, being raised on comic book heros, I was.

"Unbreakable" is the one I have added to my collection, being the least dependent on the ending twist.

I'm sure he does strike a note for some, it's just that I've been a science fiction and fantasy fan since Junior High School (even started reading it in Grade school). The premises are old and tired in the science fiction annals and I don't find they are particularly well done as storytelling. The motivations don't gel for me and the characterizations are two-dimensional at best. They actors are all props to propel the story toward the trick ending. I guess I'm not in the majority on this one but personal taste is always going to be personal taste. I'd rather watch "Blade Runner," "The Day the Earth Stood Still," or "The Haunting" again that any of his films so far.

There's too much excellent science fiction and fantasy that hasn't been adapted to film then to borrow all the ideas and recycle them as one's own in what looks like newness.

The thing was with 'Sixth Sense' was that I didn't see it on opening night, and everywhere there was talk of "You'll never guess the ending..." so I went in looking for it, and figured it out. Now Blade Runner (Director's Cut) is awesome, timeless...and Darryl Hannah is in it....need I say more? Also, TONS of amazing science fiction has either been ignored by Hollywood, or done incredibly badly, so I agree with LW on that thought.

I hate to be a broken record but I'm dying to see "The Demolished Man" done by, I would hope, either Spielberg or Ridley Scott. Without Schwarzenegger to spoil it.

Ridley Scott would be my choice...I have had heated discussion regarding the merits of 'Black Hawk Down', which I loved as much as 'Aliens' really.

"Black Hawk Down" took some of it's cue from "Tigerland," the effective of making the film look like it was real by using hand held cameras and an olive-toned, fuzzy photography. It is an artistic masterpiece as far as film goes. It also has a real and exciting story to tell, harking back to "The Steel Helmet." Spielberg employed that "looking through a glass, darkly" approach with "Minority Report" giving the effect that one was looking into the future through some scientifically produced crystal ball.

I'd pick Kevin Spacey as the protagonist and anti-hero in "The Demolished Man." And Denzel Washington as the mind reading detective on his trail.