Favourite Horror Film

[Rosemary Jest]

I couldn't find another an existing thread, so apologies if this has been done to death (pun intended), but since we're approaching Halloween, what is your favourite horror movie/film?

Not necessarily the best in terms of critical acclaim, but the ones which have a special place for you. I'll make a start:

Insidious: Seems to get a bad wrap from some, but I think it's a modern classic, with a bit of a twist on the usual clichéd horror genre. It's got genuine jump scares and is great imo.

From Dusk Til Dawn: Again, a bit of a classic, if you watch it for the first time not knowing the premise, you wouldn't realise it's a horror film, then it goes completely off the chart in terms of bonkers. The cast are great and George Clooney is an underrated actor, a wonderful film.

Hellraiser: maybe a bit of an obvious choice but it is a genuine nasty film, that ramps up the scariness compared to most. It's on another level compared to most horror films. The second one is good too, if not quite like the original.

Army of Darkness: just a fun, funny horror, with Bruce Campbell being his usual self, totally different to Evil Dead 2, but none the worse for it.

Bubba Ho-Tep: staying on the Bruce Campbell theme, this is a genuine off the wall film with Elvis, JFK and a cowboy mummy, that is heartwarming, scary, and just completely crazy. Makes me want to eat a Baby Ruth bar just thinking about it.

House of 1000 Corpse/Devils Rejects: I've lumped these together as they are both Rob Zombie films and both modern horror classics imo. Quite nasty films, with the feel of Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The soundtrack of Devils Rejects is fantastic.

Jeepers Creepers: often discounted as a cheesy slasher movie, possibly because of the title, its a proper scary film, with a great baddie/monster. The second and third films are good too.

Honourable mentions:

Terminator: People often stick Alien in their list of favourite horrors, so I'm putting this one in there. It's got more in common with something like say, Halloween, than 2001 A Space Odyssey as a genre, so I'm allowed. A genuinely scary film, with some of the most believable acting from a film, wonderful special effects, and a monster that is terrifying and absolutely will not stop, what's not to love. And on that note, Westworld (the film) can also be included on the list too.

So what are your favourites? Share your gems.

 

[krtek a houby]

In no particuar order

Razorback - Giant pig terrorises small outback community, very 80s
Dust Devil - disturbing killer roams the desert, (in South Africa?)
American Werewolf in London - the sillyness, the fx, the soundtrack and the Slaughtered Lamb
Dream Demon - Timothy Spall & Jimmy Nail, childhood trauma and a haunted house, very silly
Something Evil - early Spielberg, Sandy Dennis, possession
Parents - Sandy Dennis again, with Randy Quaid on the joys of cannibalism
Poltergeist - Tobe Hooper directs (with a lot of input from Spielberg)... "they're here"
The Shadow of Chikara - Sondra Locke, Joe Don Baker, Slim Pickens. Civil War search for gold goes horribly wrong.
The Beguiled - another Civil War effort, Clint hangs out at a school, gets his just deserts
Scum - Savage indictment of the borstal system and the resulting depravity that occurs within those walls.

 

[marshall]

Generally, I find horror films a bit silly; but 'Don't Look Now' messed me up when I first saw it.

 

[dessiato]

Return of the Living Dead, it was the first film my wife and I went to see together. It might have been our first ”official” date, I’m not sure.

Dusk ‘til Dawn, for the same reasons as in the OP.

I’m not really into horror, I find it, as a genre, not very interesting. Mrs D loves horror films so I sometimes watch anyway.

 

[Shellee]

I like my horror over the top and funny. Subtle, what's subtle?

Shivers -because it was the first horror film I ever saw
Dawn of the Dead
The Hills have Eyes
Halloween
A Nightmare on Elm St
Carrie
The Shining
It (mini series)
It (film)
The Exorcist
The Omen
The Grudge
Battle Royale
The Cabin in the Woods

Aliens and Terminator 2, but really I'd call them Sci-fi

 

[Reno]

Huge horror fan here.

My favourite horror films are

Don't Look Now
Rosemary's Baby
Alien/Aliens

An American Werewolf in London
The Beyond
The Birds
The Brood
Calvere
Carrie
Cat People & Curse of the Cat People (the 40s films)
Dark Water (Japanese original)
Daughters of Darkness
Dawn of the Dead (original)
Deep Red
The Devil's Backbone
Eraserhead
The Exorcist III (yup, I prefer this over the original, especially with the recently released directors cut)
The Fog
Halloween
Hereditary
The Innocents
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956 & 1978)
It Follows
Jaws
Kill List
Left Bank
Let the Right One In
Lost Highway
Phantasm
Poltergeist
Possession (1981)
REC
Rogue (2007)
Suspiria (original)/Inferno
The Tenant
Thelma
The Thing
Train to Busan
Under the Skin
Vampyr
The Wicker Man
Wolf Creek
The Woman in Black (1989 TV movie)
Zombie Flesh Eaters

Most enjoyable and consistent horror franchise (where I even like the lesser ones): Final Destination

 

[Johnny Vodka]

Generally speaking, the 70s/80s classics - Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Evil Dead 1&2, The Shining, Dawn of the Dead, The Hills Have Eyes, The Thing, Nosferatu (remake), The Dead Zone. Cujo used to scared the shit out of me as a kid. Probably still have a soft spot for Zombie Flesh-eaters. David Lynch stuff like Lost Highway and Twin Peaks: Firewalk With Me if you accept those as horror films

 

[Reno]

I couldn't find another an existing thread, so apologies if this has been done to death (pun intended), but since we're approaching Halloween, what is your favourite horror movie/film?

We have gazillions of threads on horror films btw. Search function on the top right ?

Here are just a few general ones:

Good horror films

OK I know there is a more recent horror film thread but with many search terms I couldn't find it. Just watched "Housebound" A Kiwi dark comedy/horror and really enjoyed it. There were a few points I would question but will see who else has watched it first. Also watched "Horns" last night...

www.urban75.net

Horror films featuring a harbinger of doom?

that is, someone who issues a dire warning early in the film, which is routinely ignored. It could be a practical warning from a knowledgeable local, or a supernatural one from a clairvoyant or whatever.

www.urban75.net

Can you recommend me a good horror film?

Sometimes I just like to scare myself silly. Haven't seen anything particularly good in ages though. Can urbs recommend anything? TIA :) ps not so much a fan of gore...

www.urban75.net

Can you suggest me a good horror film please?

As it's Friday the 13th and all :) Not really into the kind where people get slowly tortured though :eek: Fine with gore and violence.

www.urban75.net

Fave horror films?

The Descent (Best British horror in years) Audition (what's in the bag?) Wolf Creek (truly disturbing) The Baby's Room (Spanish short horror flick - on again over xmas) Suspira (great soundtrack) Alien (it's all about sex) Carrie (Brian de Plasma's best) There's prob a billion others I...

www.urban75.net

Horror Films

Hello. Do you love Horror fils or what? Which are your favorites? Im really in to the Phantasm series at the moment. Have any of you seen these. There is seriously nothing out there like them. I would highly recommend you sit down and watch them all in a row. Its an epic tale.

www.urban75.net

Can never have enough horror movie threads though as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Reno]

Terminator: People often stick Alien in their list of favourite horrors, so I'm putting this one in there. It's got more in common with something like say, Halloween, than 2001 A Space Odyssey as a genre, so I'm allowed. A genuinely scary film, with some of the most believable acting from a film, wonderful special effects, and a monster that is terrifying and absolutely will not stop, what's not to love. And on that note, Westworld (the film) can also be included on the list too.

Aliens and Terminator 2, but really I'd call them Sci-fi

Many films are genre hybrids, so it's not an either/or. Alien is 50% science fiction and 50% horror. It's a horror film which happens to take place in space, a Lovecraftian monster movie with strong aspects of body horror. The structure of the film is identical to that of a slasher film and the space ship has a gothic "old dark house" vibe.

Aliens carries over those horror elements but adds action, so I'd say it's 33% science fiction, 33% action and 33% horror. Like Aliens, The Terminator is a science fiction/action film with strong horror elements. By Terminator 2, which introduces a lighter tone and massively amps up the action, I'd say the horror aspects are minimal. It wants to excite more than scare.

 

[Sprocket.]

I enjoy horror films, but the one I enjoyed most was my first viewing of Carrie.
A group of us went to see it at the local laugh and scratch in the next town.
I do not think I am giving any spoilers away by mentioning after all the mayhem and carnage the scene at the end where the girl goes to place the flowers on Carrie’s grave.
The hand springs out!! One of the blokes with us, stood bolt upright in a packed cinema, shouting uncontrollably, ‘Fucking hell fire’ several times.
The place erupted in laughter.

 

[Reno]

I enjoy horror films, but the one I enjoyed most was my first viewing of Carrie.
A group of us went to see it at the local laugh and scratch in the next town.
I do not think I am giving any spoilers away by mentioning after all the mayhem and carnage the scene at the end where the girl goes to place the flowers on Carrie’s grave.
The hand springs out!! One of the blokes with us, stood bolt upright in a packed cinema, shouting uncontrollably, ‘Fucking hell fire’ several times.
The place erupted in laughter.

As a fan of the Stephen King novel, Carrie was the first time I tried to get into an 18 rated film. I was 13 and I wore my mum's platform shoes to appear taller. I didn't succeed. I finally managed to get into an 18 rated film a couple of years later, with Halloween.

 

[farmerbarleymow]

I've got a soft spot for the Excorcist. Rosemary's Baby is good too. But rarely watch horror stuff as it's not my cup of tea.

 

[Steel Icarus]

I don't really like to be scared, so horror films aren't really a genre I care for or know much about. I've enjoyed a few zombie films and creature features but I think The Fog is the best horror film I've seen.

When watching Blair Witch with Mrs SI #1 I was disinterested but she was captivated, so just before bed she went to the loo and I turned off the bedroom light and stood in the corner facing the wall. She went fucking ballistic

 

[Reno]

Horror is one type of film which is still going strong in the year of the plague. They tend to be low budget and don't make a loss when sold to streaming services.
New horror and horror-adjacent films I've seen this year:

Good to great:

The Lodge
The Invisible Man
Relic
The Rental
Becky
The Wretched
Why Don't You Just Die!
We Summon the Darkness
Gretel & Hansel
Alone
Come to Daddy
The Nightshifter
I'm Thinking of Ending Things
#Alive
Impetigore
Black Box
La Llorona (not the crappy US film, but the Guatemalan one)
Host (which has Covid 19 as a backdrop)

Decent:

Amulet
Death of a Vlogger
The Hunt
Underwater
Sputnik
The Platfom
1BR
Sea Fever
The Beach House

I didn't like these but they have their fans:

Color Out of Space
Train to Busan 2: Peninsula
VFW
I See You
After Midnight
Swallow
Yummy


On my to-watch list:

Blood Quantum
Koko-di Koko-da
Vampires vs the Bronx
Bad Hair
Scare Me
Uncle Peckerhead
Possessor
The Wolf of Snow Hollow
Antebellum
12 Hour Shift
Random Acts of Violence
Saint Maud

Best horror TV show:

The Outsider (also the best recent Stephen King adaptation)



AnnO'Neemus, you started a thread on Shudder recommendations. I don't have Shudder here in Germany, but many of these films are available on Shudder.

 

[Johnny Vodka]

I thought 28 Weeks Later was pretty awesome, much better than the original IMO (dunno if that's a controversial statement).

The Witch - that was another good recent one.

 

[rubbershoes]

Dead of night
Night of the demon
Kill list
Trian to busan
Let the right one in
Ringu
Blair witch project
Tetsuo

 

[Reno]

I thought 28 Weeks Later was pretty awesome, much better than the original IMO (dunno if that's a controversial statement).

The Witch - that was another good recent one.

Totally agree, the rare sequel better than the (slightly overrated) original. Also love The Witch but only really came round to it on a second viewing. The way it got promoted wasn't quite in line with the film itself.

 

[Rosemary Jest]

Totally agree, the rare sequel better than the (slightly overrated) original. Also love The Witch but only really came round to it on a second viewing. The way it got promoted wasn't quite in line with the film itself.

I've only seen it once and didn't find it great, in fact I can't remember much about it. Might have to watch it again.

 

[Maggot]

Carry on Screaming

 

[Knotted]

Regarding horror films of the last ten years or so. I don’t want to do some sort of iconic list but talk about how these films let me with my peculiarities into their twisted world and I'm not going to do older films, because we should focus our attention on now because now is a great time for horror films and we'll be here all day if I start going back to the 70's or the 20's.

I think the last 10 years (or to be more precise 7-8 years) have seen a real renaissance in horror films and it’s something that I have only relatively recently cottoned onto. I had lost interest in films and from 2000-2014. In that period I may have watched about 40 films in total of which only one was in the cinema. That’s purely a comment about me not cinema btw, it was a bad time in my life, I didn't have the money to pursue much in the way of hobbies and I have ADHD and often struggle to maintain focus for 2 hours. The main point is that I am now doing catch up. About 5 years back I started watching the Horror Channel and saw things like Hard Candy, Inhuman Resources, Creep Van, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane ie. films which were either great and if not great at least satirical or cheap and hammy but daft enough to be fun. It's a good genre of film to get into. Then I started seeking out the big classics of this really quite special time for horror that we're living in – The Babadook, The VVitch, Hereditary etc (I know about the old classics as well, I’m not ignorant of film (horror or otherwise), I just had a very long dry patch). So I have ten quite recent films I want to talk about so listen up… or don’t.

 

[Knotted]

A Field In England (Ben Wheatley 2013)

I am so behind with all this that I only got around to watching this a few of weeks ago. I’ve now seen it maybe ten times. I am completely in love with this film.

The way I see it is that film is not a faithful depiction of a sequence of events but a telling of a story. Most films are musicals (and we’ll talk about the few exceptions in a bit) and musicals are strangely artificial, people in reality don’t just start singing. Even when there is no singing in the film there is usually nondiagenetic music, and various theatrical artifices. Which is really the same thing as a musical. Most films use their artifices to make the film slip down your throat more easily, some films try to do away with artifice (again we’ll come back to these) and some films make their artifices a feature. I don’t want a film that slips down easy, if a film is doing the work for me and I will start thinking about something else – usually “why am I watching this?”

A Field in England is a film that doesn’t try to conceal its artifices but rather celebrates them and because of that it is glorious. Four English Civil War deserters meet up with a villainous alchemist and look for treasure in a field in England Wales. If you haven’t seen it, I could tell you the entire plot and it wouldn’t spoil it, but if I told you about the artistic decisions… now that would ruin it. Oh, this film is doing this now. The effect is grubby, witty and psychedelic with strong characterisation – you feel you know these people by the end of the film. It keeps my distractible mind enthralled for the full run time; it’s not the difficult art house flick you might think it is.

PS Jim Williams is fast becoming one of my favourite film composers. See also Raw.

 

[Knotted]

Unfriended (Levan Gabriadze 2014)

In 2016 I worked out there was a thing called Netflix. I am slow on the uptake. Anyway, I watched this along with a load of other mostly trashy horror films. This is a trashy supernatural horror film at core, but it innovates (and properly commits to) a new style of onscreen horror. This style of film, like the found footage films, is a style that minimises cinematic artifice. There aren’t any dreamy montage sequences, or musical cues telling you what to feel or fancy camera work directing your attention. There are no polished performances or arresting images. It is pure drama. Eg. the drama of your applications not functioning the way they are supposed to or the drama of typing something and then deleting it and especially the drama of helplessly watching something unfold and of something horrible coming apparent on a busy computer screen. I find this film and its sequel to be endlessly watchable regardless of their flaws.

 

[Knotted]

Creep (Patrick Brice, 2014)

Another film that was sitting there on Netflix. I tried it and found I hated it and switched it off after 15 minutes or so. It’s about a neurotic “creepy” guy who is lax with personal space and too forward with embarrassing details. It felt uncomfortable, voyeuristic and almost exploitative even though it’s obviously fiction. But then I thought if this film has had such a strong affect on me it must be up to something, at the very least I realised that watching meant being unable to take my eyes off it. So (much later) I went back to it.

It’s a found footage film, again minimising cinematic artifice. Instead of substituting the poking and prodding of cinematic artifice with the plain poking and prodding of jump scares like many found footage films do it is a stripped-down character study. Two blokes with a camera.

Spoiler

If you’ve seen it, you know how it pans out. The creepy guy is really a serial killer and not a vulnerable odd ball (breathe a sigh of relief). The film is about ensnaring the protagonist while getting him to create a video diary of his own last few days as a kind of trophy (just saying that out loud – wow what a brilliant idea for a film). The second half of the film has some well-made spooky sequences and it’s a film that delivers more than it promises as a dirt cheap found footage flick. But what made me have to go for a walk around the block was the thought of a psychopath presenting as a needy neurotic. That would totally ensnare me. I think it’s interesting from a psychology point of view. Both in reality and in fiction, psychopaths are usually low in neuroticism, so it seems as if the creep is 100% ingenuine in the first half of the film and what is really being expressed is an uncomplicated desire to destroy and consume someone else’s identity. The real horror is the disguised cynical intent. Watch it a second time and watch Mark Duplass’s steely gaze behind all the antics.

In the sequel he is very much both a neurotic and a psychopath, so he is no longer a erm… rabbit in wolf’s clothing but more a rabbit-wolf hybrid. That unfortunately takes the edge off, but the sequel has its own awkward comedy charm and if anything is a better watch.

 

[Knotted]

The Witch (Robert Eggers, 2015)

Or more properly know as The VVitch. A story of a 17th century New England puritan family too fervent in their beliefs for their community who go off to conquer the wilderness. This is actually a western in that it's an American frontier folktale albeit set two and a half centuries before most westerns when the frontier is quite a lot further east. And yes they get harassed by a coven of witches but it's not the film you think it is. The key to it is about allowing yourself to enter into the puritan mentality, which is something alien to most of us, but somehow the film allows you to do it and once you are there it is completely immersive. It's about sin and the lot of young women in 17th century America. It's a slow film with a lot of stillness but when the drama takes off, it shatters you. And that's the power of this "authentic" story telling.

My fascination with this film is so total, I will sometimes wake up in the morning thinking about it and I will go and watch clips of it on youtube. I love the little scene by the river where nothing very much happens but there is this interaction between the children, I love the twin's song about Black Phillip, the total hysteria of the exorcism scene, the witchy madness and that ending. And there's about five ways you can read it all.

 

[Reno]

A Field In England (Ben Wheatley 2013)

I am so behind with all this that I only got around to watching this a few of weeks ago. I’ve now seen it maybe ten times. I am completely in love with this film.

The way I see it is that film is not a faithful depiction of a sequence of events but a telling of a story. Most films are musicals (and we’ll talk about the few exceptions in a bit) and musicals are strangely artificial, people in reality don’t just start singing. Even when there is no singing in the film there is usually nondiegetic music, and various theatrical artifices. Which is really the same thing as a musical. Most films use their artifices to make the film slip down your throat more easily, some films try to do away with artifice (again we’ll come back to these) and some films make their artifices a feature. I don’t want a film that slips down easy, if a film is doing the work for me and I will start thinking about something else – usually “why am I watching this?”

A Field in England is a film that doesn’t try to conceal its artifices but rather celebrates them and because of that it is glorious. Four English Civil War deserters meet up with a villainous alchemist and look for treasure in a field in England Wales. If you haven’t seen it, I could tell you the entire plot and it wouldn’t spoil it, but if I told you about the artistic decisions… now that would ruin it. Oh, this film is doing this now. The effect is grubby, witty and psychedelic with strong characterisation – you feel you know these people by the end of the film. It keeps my distractible mind enthralled for the full run time; it’s not the difficult art house flick you might think it is.

PS Jim Williams is fast becoming one of my favourite film composers. See also Raw.

Jim Williams is fantastic, I still listen to the Raw score.

 

[Knotted]

The Babadook (Jennifer Kent, 2014)

Yes I'm one of those horror film bores who goes on and on about The VVitch and The Babadook. I know that neither of these films are to everyone's taste and that they are very critically lauded but I honestly love them. Because my god how emotional is this film? It's absolutely a film about mental illness as well as spooky hauntings. It explores grief, depression, sleep deprivation and dissociation as well as the struggles of a single mother coping with all this. This is very personal to me, because of somebody I know in my life. That blank look Essie Davis gives, it's not expressionless, it's numb. And I know that look. One of the rare instances in film where the depiction of mental illness is spot on. It really upsets me but in a sort of positive way.

And it's got classic stop motion action horror.

 

[belboid]

Old Classics
Blood On Satan's Claw
Witchfinder General
The Devil Rides Out
The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari
Peeping Tom
Dont Look Now

Modernish Classics
Carrie
Alien
The Evil Dead
Ringu
Halloween
The Omen
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer
Scanners

Recent
Us
It Follows
Cabin in the Woods
Midsommar
Raw
Devil's Backbone
Let the Right One In

 

[Knotted]

Under the Shadow (Babak Anvari, 2016)

I'm very sensitive to uninteresting non-diagenetic music in films or for that matter overly interesting non-diagenetic music in films. So it's good to have a film that's really minimal on that score. This is a good companion piece to the Babadook but whereas the latter explores mental illness, this explores the Iran-Iraq war, political dispossession, thwarted ambitions and women's dispossession in the wake of the 1979 revolution and some genuinely blood-runs-cold Djinn action. And although the political realist drama and the supernatural horror seem hopelessly at odds with each other, they are connected through every day frustrations and the child's mind's view.

This is a horror film that really delivers on the scares without doing very much.

 

[Knotted]

Raw (Julia Ducournau 2017)

OK I will never think about my vet in the same way again. Is veterinary school even approximately like that?? But anyway this is really a cheeky little freak show of a cannibal film. Extreme hazing rituals and the sexy desire for human flesh, and yes a great (but understated) soundtrack. But more than anything I found this taboo breaking film hilarious in a nervous giggle sort of way. As shocking as it is, it is also really quite contrived, which is where it tickles me. Ironically enough, it's a scrumptious piece of cinema.

 

[Knotted]

The Killing of a Sacred Deer (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2017)

This was my first taste of a Lanthimos film and in the meantime I have watched Dog Tooth which I quite like. But I really enjoyed this. With stilted, expressionless dialogue all the way through a surgeon is befriended and harassed by a young man with evil intent. Somehow the very fact that it feels so artificially expressionless makes the psychological horror all the more direct. Although completely different to A Field in England, it is also a film that delights in its own artifice, ie. it doesn't try to conceal the fact that you are watching a film but here it is an effect of how understated it is. It's the strength of the story and the super flat but fascinating acting that does the trick. And the sometimes striking if ambient soundtrack doesn't hurt either.

Admittedly this is one for the art house crowd... but then I often find art house films easier to watch than block busters.