Both Hillary and Bill are the epitome of real evil and their evil is not some Hollywood fantasy. It is real. Everyone should be afraid of them.
Two despicable people. Their marriage was truly made in heaven. What a pair! The Dems love them. Does that make Democrats/Communists evil or just stupid?
You talking real evil from those two and terrifying, and I don’t think that marriage was made in heaven it was made here on earth unfortunately to our detriment.
I can see them now, stirring the pot chanting "Double, double, toil and trouble, fire burn, cauldron bubble." With Harris and Hillary cackling away.......
Bruce, I'm surprised you would have watched that..for how else would you have known how shit scary that truly was?? (Perhaps replicated by the GOP coronation version of 2020, but I didn't see that..)
I told my sister I put UV light outside our house so when I take the garbage out for pick up, vampires can't get me. I wanted her to tell her husband that. He's a retired Marine colonel who already thinks I am not tightly wrapped anyway.
I didn't know that UV light works against vampires. So no more cross and garlic? Or I guess that's old-fashioned. We live in the 21st century. Must get with the program.
But she survives in the end! Thanks to her cunning. Remember, she would have been dead hours before Clarice arrives to save her if not for capturing the dog, right?
I didn't know that. But just last night I watched Halloween III, although not well received I thought it was super creepy and I saw in the credits Carpenter did the music, which was similar to Halloween. I knew he had a part of the music but not actually playing it. Most of his scary movies have those few keys of music - Halloween, The Thing, The Fog, Prince of Darkness
Prince of Darkness, another classic Carpenter film that scared me when I was younger.
Yes, that's a good one. And the great original from 1951, "The Thing from Another World," though dated, remains watchable. Also, I recommend reading John W. Campbell's 1938 novella, "Who Goes There?" on which the various films were based.
The best scene from the original Thing was the woke scientist groveling to the Thing, saying "you're so much wiser than we are," etc and then the Thing just knocking him ass over teakettle. As true now as it was then.
That's one of my all-time favorites, unsung and underrated. The way tension and paranoia slowly build in that movie is brilliant. I feel it's more about the dark side of humans than it is about a shape-shifting alien. That final scene is epic. And the score -- pure tension-building genius.
I feel that isolation is almost essential to a horror movie. Without it, the writers have to go to great lengths to explain why help is not available. Usually, the protagonists or the "authorities" appear to the audience as being dumb and unperceptive.
Hah, this leads me to my theory that we now have so many stories set in the 70s, 80s, and 90s under an umbrella of "nostalgia" that is really about solving that problem. Why don't they just call? Why don't they just look it up on their phone? Hmm...I guess it better be in 1988 then.
Thank you for remembering Blair Witch, I feel like it's been forgotten after all these years. And I didn't think of the first Alien, but I saw that when it came out in theaters and it was terrifying. I had nightmares about that thing! It had a mouth inside of its mouth! "In Space No One Can Hear You Scream."
That John Hurt dinner scene still gets me every time. Nothing like that had ever been seen in a film before.
Both film versions of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" are good, albeit in different ways. One nice touch is that Kevin McCarthy, star of the 1956 version, makes a cameo appearance in the 1978 version.
I did not know that! My wife was ready to deliver baby number 2 in 1978, but nothing was happening. We went to see the remake of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”, which scared the beejeezus out of my poor wife, and within hours baby number 2 arrived. Ob/Gyn doctors now prescribe horror movies to induce labor, and some health insurance companies cover the cost of admission.
If you remember the scene with Donald Sutherland and Brooke Adams in his car, driving through downtown SF, being accosted by a wild-eyed guy yelling something like “They’re already here!”—that was McCarthy.
I loved Blair Witch Project. But the horror film that had the most lasting impact on me was a 70s made-for-TV, star-studded movie called Haunts of the Very Rich, which I saw as a young teen. It introduced me to the idea of having died without realizing you're dead. To this day, the concept haunts me.
"The Shining." Nicholson alone is worth the price of admission. It's really Danny and to a large extent Scatman Crothers who are the protagonists in that picture. And don't forget Shelley Duvall's eyes. And the two little girls....
If you've ever seen the magnificent Stanley Hotel in Estes Park that is where Steven King got the inspiration for The Shining after waking up from a nightmare. He and his family were staying in room 219. It was the last night the hotel was open because it was built without heat and shuts down from fall through spring. They were the only people there except for a few staff. King walked the halls for a while and then went out onto the balcony in the middle of the night where he wrote most of the novel in his head.
Room 219 at the Stanley is booked out in advance for years. Everyone wants to stay there and see if they get some inspiration.
King's novel also saved that beautiful hotel. Without The Shining the Stanley would have gone into bankruptcy (again) and would have been bulldozed. They have since installed heat and it's open year round. If you ever go there I recommend the tour. That Hotel and its founders, the Stanley brothers, have a fascinating story.
I did think of "The Shining," but to me it was not so much frightening as unsettling. King's novel, whatever may be said of its literary quality, was genuinely scary, with the supernatural element front and center. Kubrick, on the other hand, went for ambiguity. Right up to the end of his film it was never quite clear whether we were watching an alcoholic under stress, slowly going insane, or a genuine haunting.
My doctoral advisor used to sneak into our grad student office with a small plastic knife and start shouting, "Here's Johnny!". He was a one of a kind, not your typical academic.
When it came out, my father encouraged me to see it, saying it played in his head for weeks. So I did. He was right. A few years ago, we watched it with my college-aged daughter. A few weeks later, she and I decided to hike to the top of Blood Mountain in north Georgia. Afterward, we drove the dirt roads through the mountains so I could show her a few of the places I used to hike. Then the sun started going down, the shadows lengthened, the hollers began to grow dark. And she was ready go home. Now!
Five of my favorites, proffered in no particular order:
Definitely “The Exorcist,” frightening not so much for Linda Blaire’s makeup but because the film takes the idea of demonic possession of a young girl very, very seriously.
“The Haunting” (1963), based on the novel by Shirley Jackson, starring Julie Harris and Claire Bloom. The ultimate Bad Place movie.
“Horror of Dracula” (1958), the Hammer Films take on Bram Stoker ‘s novel, starring the late, great Christopher Lee as the sanguinary Count and the late, equally great Peter Cushing as Dr. Van Helsing. This old-school screamer holds up surprisingly well.
“Pet Sematary” (1989), very frightening indeed. When Stephen King finished the first draft of the novel, he filed it away, telling himself that he’d finally gone too far. But his wife convinced him to resurrect and publish it. A recent movie remake is more gruesome but somehow far less frightening than the 1989 version.
“Stir of Echoes” (1999), starring the ubiquitous Kevin Bacon, based on the 1958 novel by Richard Matheson. If you’ve ever thought that it might be cool to have psychic powers, this movie will change your mind.
It does not matter how many times I watch “The Haunting” or “The Exorcist “ I am still completely creeped out with chills running up my arm. These are the only two movies to do this to me on repeat watching
Re Pet Sematary - interesting that Stephen King himself thought he had gone too far. I read every Stephen King book before Pet Sematary. After I read that one, I swore never to read another. Way too far, and I didn't even have kids yet.
That's generally recognized as his all-time best, and I have to agree. Profoundly and effectively disturbing. The film was far inferior.
I think "going too far" is what horror is supposed to be. But I discovered my own too-far, and it was in The Witch, the baby-sacrifice scene. No, just no. Some things just need to take place off-camera. Ruined an otherwise decent movie.
Oh don't get me wrong, I haven't read probably even half of his books, so I'm hardly qualified to name "the best" of all, only the best of what I've read. I never got into the more science-fiction-y stuff. I'd also recommend his short-story collections (The Mist, Langoliers) as well as books he wrote under the Richard Bachman pseudonym like Thinner and Dark Half.
I think King is way past his prime, but the best of his more recent stuff is the anthology Full Dark, No Stars. I think it's about ten years old. One of the stories is modeled on the BTK killer. Read it if you dare, hee hee hee.
I'm sad to see you and others glorify "Get Out" - a racist insult to every person who by chance was born white. "Get Out" is not a horror movie at all except in its clear depiction of the rapid cultural decay of the American bicoastal elite. "Get Out" is instead a racist fantasy that promotes the tired and endlessly repeated themes of black victimhood and white supremacy. The silly, racist conspiracy presented in "Get Out" says nothing about white people in America and everything about Jordan Peele and the others who produced it. Peele is even on record (see Hollywood Reporter 3/26/19) saying he will never hire a white man in a lead role. Insert any other ethnicity and he'd have been rightly excoriated as a racist. Neither Jordan Peele nor his racist propaganda should be celebrated.
See, I loved "Get Out," both as a horror movie and as a satire of try-hard white liberals. "We think black people are GREAT! We think they're so great, we want to TAKE OVER THEIR BODIES!"
Jordan Peele may very well be racist. Roman Polanski raped a thirteen-year-old girl, and "Rosemary's Baby" is still one of the best horror movies of all time.
I like your take on Get Out. That makes it more interesting to me!
I really hated it when I saw it, thought it was kind of a hacky remake of Stepford Wives, but instead of women it's black people being terrorized / replaced. The fact that serious reviewers didn't even mention the Stepford parallels was very surprising to me.
exactly. it was a skewering of the noisy "white ally", with more metaphors tucked into it - and yes, inspected some black pain. I also love how he turned over the standard horror trope at the end with the faithful friend who rushes into a bad situation ass first (usually to be killed almost immediately), and instead said "Nope!" lol and drove off.
I'm afraid I have to agree with you on Polanski. It's hard to separate the art from the artist, but that is a perfect film. And he was only like 33 years old when he made it.
That's the vibe I got, so I never saw it. I live in one of the whitest places in the country. We have black people, but they don't get shot by cops, even if they do commit crimes, and as far as I know, they live the same lives day in and day out as we do. We all have much better things to do (like work and live) than harass people who look different than we do. And I suspect nearly 100% of "white America" is just like that. But if it was genuinely a satire of white liberals, like Mara U. says, I might give it a try.
What was really hilarious was all the movie critics at the time piling on the praise for Peele's satirical genius--as if they were not themselves the very same sort of white liberal hypocrites skewered in the movie.
One of my favorite parts is when the white parents are showing the black boyfriend this picture of the dad’s dad (I think), and exclaiming happily about how he tried out for the Olympic track team back in the day, but didn’t get a spot because he was beat by Jesse Owens! The boyfriend is like, “Must have sucked for him to not make the team,” and the parents just kind of blink in confusion at his reaction.
For me, the irksome thing was that the premise didn't quite hold up. All these aging white men coveting the bodies of young black men. But if virility and athleticism are what you're going for, why only black? What old guy wouldn't want the body of Michael Phelps? Or any other white athlete in his prime? I get the sexual component okay, but like the old blind guy who was going to take his body, all he wanted was to see. So why black? Still, I enjoyed the movie as good entertainment, nothing more. I thought the critics' attempts to make it into some big social statement were a joke.
Because having to stay white people wouldn’t give them the chance to throw around “woke minority” status, I think. With the blind photographer, I figured he came in on the scheme once the practice of picking black people was set. Plus, he wanted Chris’s body in particular because Chris was a talented photographer.
I watched it. Figured it out halfway through, and figured that all the praise was from our virtue signaling critics. I decided to skip all of Peeles ,movies going forward.
To a little boy who liked trucks, Spielberg's early film "Duel" was gripping. Dennis Weaver was the perfect unwitting and hapless fool - sort of like the twits who hide behind the chainsaws in the Geico ad.
The Fly - The original, but Jeff's version was a classic as well
Night of the Living Dead
Exorcist
Hereditary
The first three gave me many nightmares through my youth. I watched the Exorcist as a 15 year old when I was home alone. I read the book in one night, and went to the theater to see it the next. I slept with every light in the house the next week, and still heard shit in the attic. The scariest movie ever.
I had to walk out to the lobby when I was watching Hereditary, twice. Great movie, but it was so upsetting to me ... not the supernatural stuff, but the family stuff.
But didn't you think the ending was a let-down though? I found it anticlimactic after all the creepy build-up. And sort of unintentionally funny and cheesy.
*** SPOILER ALERT FOR HEREDITARY DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT WATCHED AND PLAN TO WATCH **
I love Hereditary but I don't understand this critique about the ending, which I've heard in other threads about the ending from some viewers. The whole story was about the fact that the grandmother was in a demon worshipping cult and had sacrificed her family in exchange for what is suggested to be the potential for the reborn demon to re-incarnate the dead grandmother and reward her, and the cult, with wealth, luck and power. And honestly, the final sequence, with the mother crawling on the ceiling, but with the son so desperately wanting his "mommy" was done so fantastically well - from both a scary and emotional point it almost made me pee my pants and want to cry on first watch and I'm a seasoned "horror vet" lol. I do agree the "magic" of that movie was the superb acting and writing that went into it. The characters were fully fleshed out and the emotional horror portrayed made this a much more immersive story to go along with the occult horror.
IMO, if you subtracted out the occult elements, or "cheated out" the ending with "it was all in their heads" it would have been an entirely different movie. I actually dislike movies and books that use horror elements but only to say "surprise fooled you it was 'mental illness' all along". When I watch a horror movie I want actual "horror elements", not necessarily a metaphor for mental illness. There are a few cases where this works ("Babadook" maybe being an exception, "Mommy" another) but otherwise I actually feel a bit cheated when the "horror" is explained out at the end, especially for a "message".
Note, what I also loved was how well they kept the lid on the "twist" from the trailers, which implied another "evil/creep kid" movie, and yet turned out so differently from the first act.
Hey Smarticat, thanks for your question, I love hashing this stuff out with other horror fans. I didn't dislike all of Hereditary, just the very last scene. I actually wrote a blog post which dissected it in more detail but the site's been taken down. For my theater companion and me, it was mostly that crown on Peter's head/Hail Paemon, we thought that was over-the-top and very not-scary, B-movie material. (Also, what was the deal with the headless bodies?) Up til then, I thought it was very effective in evoking a mounting sense of dread, with the help of brilliant camera work and sound. Style-wise it gets an A for sure. I guess going in with high expectations from the hyped up reviews (one critic said "wear brown pants," LOL) I expected to leave the theater a basket case, but we looked at each other when the credits started like, what was that? I sensed from the crowd's silence that we weren't alone. So all in all, I felt it had great promise but just kind of fizzled at what should have been the climax. (A few critics wrote that the narration at the end "over-explained" what was already obvious to the audience, not sure I agree but that is another criticism that's out there.)
I thought Midsommar, the second movie by that director, was better. I look forward to more of his work.
Then there's the idea that the demon-worshiping coven thing with sweet grandmas has been done to death (see the Paranormal Activity movies). But I agree about those "mental illness" plot lines, it feels like a cop-out. The Lodge and Relic are two that come to mind.
wow sorry! i lost this in a morass of replies and an inconvenient case of COVID where I just didn't have the energy to post : /
I guess my point is that the culmination of taking Peter's body for Paemon was the whole point. It drove the cult, and the grandmother's actions the entire time. The point of the movie is that the circumstances were almost set in stone, the family was doomed was because "Gramma" made a deal with the demon and the cult to give her family over. What I wanted an answer to is, the Gramma made references to all the "riches" and benefits not only to her, but to her daughter, in the bargain. So given both died, how did they realize these "gifts"? Resurrection??
I at least felt "Hereditary" put better play to the "familial demon cult" than the PA series (which just gives us bits of exposition at the very end - I want very much to have a Paranormal Activity that goes back in time to the grandmother's time and quits dancing around the plot). For that point, I did like the conclusion of Hereditary - it was "for real" the whole time. No punches pulled :)
You mention "The Lodge"- I would add that to my "exceptions" list of "mental illness is the true horror" - it was done very well and I didn't feel "cheated" at the end. Just watched "Relic" recently and it was "OK". Honestly, I've found so few and far between truly "scary" movies lately - Hereditary hit the mark. Midsommar was good, but I found it less scary than trippy. The hit the "shrooming"/psychedlic experience on the head, I felt like I was shrooming on first watch literally lol, and to have that "feeling" in such a weird situation, yeah I was "squirmy" the entire time lol.
BTW - as what was a recently very surprising (and somewhat humorous) entry: have you seen "Barbarian" (2022)? It was.. perfect for a Halloween "fun" scary movie :D
I have not heard of Barbarian. I assume the riches referred to in Hereditary was probably glory in the afterlife (Hell, presumably) for the mother and daughter. There was a photo of Grandma dressed as Paemon's "bride."
As for Paranormal Activity, the difference is that it's a franchise and not a single film like Hereditary, so the story, such that it is, is disjointed because they were literally making it up as they went along. I don't know if you subscribe to the Paramount Plus streaming service, but there's a fascinating documentary on there about the making of the franchise, starting with the very first shoestring-budget installment all the way to "The Ghost Dimension." The writer/director of the first one, Orin Peli, was different from the makers of the later installments, which is why the story arc is all over the place. The first was not expected to be the massive hit that it was or spawn sequels. They had a hard time even finding a studio to take it. It's amusing to watch the different filmmakers talk about how they developed the demonic coven storyline and tried to build on each previous film until by the end they were tapped out of ideas. I think your idea about going back to the "origin" (a la the Alien/Prometheus movie) with Katie & Kristie's grandma, maybe as a young woman, is excellent - you should try pitching it to the studio!
I like Hereditary okay, but not as much as Midsommar, the director's next movie. I liked watching a horror film that took place in a sunny idyllic village.
Yeah, here's the Rotten Tomatoes review. The suspense before they finally showed the creatures was insane. Another movie that was incredibly suspensful, but nor a horror flick was A Stalking Moon. Crazy scary.
Not a fan of the genre, and Halloween is my least favorite holiday. But you have to admire Alfred Hitchcock's skill as a moviemaker, and he can't be matched for suspense and plot twists.
Indeed. "Psycho" was the first—and greatest—of that popular genre, the slasher flick. How terrifying "Psycho" is may be gauged by the fact that Janet Leigh was never able to get in the shower again after playing the doomed Marion. Another fun fact: the blood seen in the shower scene was actually chocolate sauce.
Anything and everything Alfred Hitchcock touched is the pinnacle of film making. The moment when Mother’s skull is superimposed on Norman Bates’ face still gives me the creeps every time even though I’ve seen Psycho dozens of times. Bernard Hermann’s soundtrack is half the genius as well.
Eastwood’s Play Misty For Me. Terrifying because it’s completely capable of happening.
The scene in The Road where they go into the cannibals’ meat locker/dungeon are one of the scariest moments in film for me, again because it’s another thing that could actually occur.
I think it was the inspiration for Fatal Attraction. Funny how people at the time thought that movie was so original; no it was heavily derivative and Misty did it first.
Fetal Attraction, as I called it. Lilith versus Eve again, the real conflict being -- not between man and woman -- but between two kinds of woman. That's why feminists hated it.
Just watched Rosemary's Baby last night! It's such a beautifully-shot movie and sad, as well as scary. It stuck with me all last night and into today; I'm still thinking about it.
Now I want to read the book by Ira Levin, who also wrote The Stepford Wives. Imagine a time when a man could write two novels that explore the world from a female POV ... and not be attacked for it. There was so much creative freedom in mid-century America and it produced great popular entertainment.
-RANT AHEAD-
I would say that about half the modern books I read are garbage, but since they're from the "correct" authors, with the "correct" message, they get published. Recently I read this book called Reluctant Immortals. The main character was Lucy from Dracula. I've always loved Dracula, and Lucy is my favorite character. In the original she's so sparkly, flirty, and fun, so when (SPOILER) Dracula turns her into a vampire it's a blow, and then when she gets staked ... well, I almost stopped reading. I've always wanted to see a version where Vampire Lucy lives and is able to break free from the Victorian norms that held her down.
Well, the Lucy in Reluctant Immortals was ... dour, joyless, and kept talking about how "men like Dracula" have ruined so many girls. She lives in poverty, like a nun. UGH. BORING. And it misses the incredibly obvious subtext of Dracula, which was about repressed female sexuality. A Vampire Lucy who not only survives, but is unburdened by Victorian norms would be very interesting and, dare I say ,"feminist'. But writers today are so simplistic. Man = bad (the author of all evil). Woman = good (but she must suffer).
Anyway. I'm sure Ira Levin will be a lot more interesting.
Postmodern vampires are so annoying. They have feelings and they’re misunderstood and of course they’re dealing with the pain of being members of a marginalized community. Oh, and the whole sex thing is just so, so complicated! Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Ingrid Pitt— we miss you!
I just found out she was a holocaust survivor AND escaped from East Germany by swimming across the river in costume (govt was about to raid the theater before a performance to arrest her). Now I'm obsessed.
Writing from a female POV ... if The Bard could do it, or whoever wrote A Thousand and One Nights (probably a male author, or anthologist) ... why not Ira Levin?
I have a problem with really enjoying horror films, especially the ghost and demon sub genre and then having it ruin my life for a solid six months. It makes me literally afraid of the dark. I’m 38 years old and if I’ve seen a ghost movie and the lights are off I’m getting increased blood pressure. Paranormal Activity ruined me for a solid year. So of course I saw the second one. Another year. I stupidly saw The Conjuring and I was off horror forever. At least ghosty horror. I love creature features!
Same, I don't watch them anymore. I still look under my bed from watching the original Friday the 13th in 1980. Dare to watch? https://youtu.be/f7UEgyxYFF8
I’ve never seen that clip. Was that Kevin Bacon? That did startle me but slasher flicks have never bothered me much either. It’s an initial fright and then it makes me laugh.
Yes it was Kevin Bacon. It's interesting how many soon-to-become famous actors got their start in horror flicks. Johnny Depp in Nightmare on Elm Street being another.
The second Paranormal Activity was better than the first! I actually saw 2 before I saw 1, which is better anyway since it's supposed to be a prequel. PA 3 is great too. The final ten minutes of that were so creepy I had to keep pausing the DVR. The franchise went downhill after that. I also liked the second Conjuring better than the first.
Silence of the Lambs.
I couldn’t go in my basement for a long time.
I can still hear, Clariiiiiiice in my head.
Not the replay of the 2016 DNC convention that coronated Dame Hillary? lol
Both Hillary and Bill are the epitome of real evil and their evil is not some Hollywood fantasy. It is real. Everyone should be afraid of them.
Two despicable people. Their marriage was truly made in heaven. What a pair! The Dems love them. Does that make Democrats/Communists evil or just stupid?
Their nuptials were conjured somewhere but "heaven" does not come to mind.
You talking real evil from those two and terrifying, and I don’t think that marriage was made in heaven it was made here on earth unfortunately to our detriment.
🤣🤣🤣 Hillary is and always will be scary. Just thinking of her running America is your worse nightmare
She wouldn't need Air Force One just her broom.
Her and Pelosi and Harris: the three witches from Macbeth.
I can see them now, stirring the pot chanting "Double, double, toil and trouble, fire burn, cauldron bubble." With Harris and Hillary cackling away.......
Oh, boy. That's a creepy image.
That’s about right!
Cackling like a Halloween witch as she sends us to the Gulag.....
Cue the offensive cartoons of Hillary on her broom! :)
Bruce, I'm surprised you would have watched that..for how else would you have known how shit scary that truly was?? (Perhaps replicated by the GOP coronation version of 2020, but I didn't see that..)
:)
How was your weekend?
It did have a certain comic value. But then, as you observe correctly, all conventions are idiotic.
Autumn is definitely here. How was yours?
Nice, all in all. A hike. And then a drink, and then another drink..
I suspect a pattern here..
I told my sister I put UV light outside our house so when I take the garbage out for pick up, vampires can't get me. I wanted her to tell her husband that. He's a retired Marine colonel who already thinks I am not tightly wrapped anyway.
Well last I looked you're not among the undead. So...........
I didn't know that UV light works against vampires. So no more cross and garlic? Or I guess that's old-fashioned. We live in the 21st century. Must get with the program.
It works against Scandinavian Trolls too according to Troll Hunter!
That movie did for basements what Jaws did for the ocean, what Blair Witch Project did for the woods.
That one was bad because it's usually the skinny blond that gets it, but this was a girl of a certain size, and I am a girl of a certain size.
But she survives in the end! Thanks to her cunning. Remember, she would have been dead hours before Clarice arrives to save her if not for capturing the dog, right?
So true.
No one has mentioned The Thing(1982) with Kurt Russell. What a great movie.
Great soundtrack too...
John Carpenter has great music in his movies
Yes, he actually played Halloween's score himself on the piano. Amazing the effect that only a few keys can have.
I didn't know that. But just last night I watched Halloween III, although not well received I thought it was super creepy and I saw in the credits Carpenter did the music, which was similar to Halloween. I knew he had a part of the music but not actually playing it. Most of his scary movies have those few keys of music - Halloween, The Thing, The Fog, Prince of Darkness
Prince of Darkness, another classic Carpenter film that scared me when I was younger.
Or score, I guess--Ennio Morricone
Yes, that's a good one. And the great original from 1951, "The Thing from Another World," though dated, remains watchable. Also, I recommend reading John W. Campbell's 1938 novella, "Who Goes There?" on which the various films were based.
The best scene from the original Thing was the woke scientist groveling to the Thing, saying "you're so much wiser than we are," etc and then the Thing just knocking him ass over teakettle. As true now as it was then.
😂😂😂
The 1951 original is great. Didn't know about the novella, I will definitely check it out. Thanks!
That's one of my all-time favorites, unsung and underrated. The way tension and paranoia slowly build in that movie is brilliant. I feel it's more about the dark side of humans than it is about a shape-shifting alien. That final scene is epic. And the score -- pure tension-building genius.
That's why it's so good. It blends all if that.
That was really good. Nothing like the bleak Antarctic for a horror movie.
I feel that isolation is almost essential to a horror movie. Without it, the writers have to go to great lengths to explain why help is not available. Usually, the protagonists or the "authorities" appear to the audience as being dumb and unperceptive.
Good point. I've often thought how much easier it must have been to make horror films in the pre-cell phone era.
Hah, this leads me to my theory that we now have so many stories set in the 70s, 80s, and 90s under an umbrella of "nostalgia" that is really about solving that problem. Why don't they just call? Why don't they just look it up on their phone? Hmm...I guess it better be in 1988 then.
Funny, I've thought the same thing.
Yes, excellent film. The practical effects were cool. I still feel bad about those dogs.
So do I man, I loved those dogs lol
Here are mine (not in any particular order):
Night of the Living Dead
Blair Witch Project
The Body Snatchers (1954 B&W political allegory)
Rosemary's Baby
The Exorcist
Alien (original only - sexy and terrifying)
The Fly (original )
The Original Alien is a masterpiece of horror.
It is. And H. R. Giger was a genius.
Most definitely. Often imitated, never equalled.
Yes Giger. I first saw his work in his album art (a lost art!) for Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. Striking that his style is so recognizable.
-- ‘they come at night, mostly mostly’ is one of the crepiest lines ever.
I went to see Alien the first weekend it opened. It was a Saturday night in Long Beach and the line for tickets was around the block.
Groundbreaking film.
Thank you for remembering Blair Witch, I feel like it's been forgotten after all these years. And I didn't think of the first Alien, but I saw that when it came out in theaters and it was terrifying. I had nightmares about that thing! It had a mouth inside of its mouth! "In Space No One Can Hear You Scream."
That John Hurt dinner scene still gets me every time. Nothing like that had ever been seen in a film before.
Blair Witch Project, often overlooked
Both film versions of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" are good, albeit in different ways. One nice touch is that Kevin McCarthy, star of the 1956 version, makes a cameo appearance in the 1978 version.
I did not know that! My wife was ready to deliver baby number 2 in 1978, but nothing was happening. We went to see the remake of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”, which scared the beejeezus out of my poor wife, and within hours baby number 2 arrived. Ob/Gyn doctors now prescribe horror movies to induce labor, and some health insurance companies cover the cost of admission.
If you remember the scene with Donald Sutherland and Brooke Adams in his car, driving through downtown SF, being accosted by a wild-eyed guy yelling something like “They’re already here!”—that was McCarthy.
Horror films = standard of care
I loved Blair Witch Project. But the horror film that had the most lasting impact on me was a 70s made-for-TV, star-studded movie called Haunts of the Very Rich, which I saw as a young teen. It introduced me to the idea of having died without realizing you're dead. To this day, the concept haunts me.
Never heard of that one. There were good TV movies in the 70s. The Others with Nicole Kidman did that same theme, as did The Sixth Sense.
Yes, Sixth Sense is another "twist" movie, although I wouldn't call it horror.
"The Shining." Nicholson alone is worth the price of admission. It's really Danny and to a large extent Scatman Crothers who are the protagonists in that picture. And don't forget Shelley Duvall's eyes. And the two little girls....
If you've ever seen the magnificent Stanley Hotel in Estes Park that is where Steven King got the inspiration for The Shining after waking up from a nightmare. He and his family were staying in room 219. It was the last night the hotel was open because it was built without heat and shuts down from fall through spring. They were the only people there except for a few staff. King walked the halls for a while and then went out onto the balcony in the middle of the night where he wrote most of the novel in his head.
Room 219 at the Stanley is booked out in advance for years. Everyone wants to stay there and see if they get some inspiration.
King's novel also saved that beautiful hotel. Without The Shining the Stanley would have gone into bankruptcy (again) and would have been bulldozed. They have since installed heat and it's open year round. If you ever go there I recommend the tour. That Hotel and its founders, the Stanley brothers, have a fascinating story.
I forgot about The Shining. I nearly forgot to pick up my mom at the airport because I couldn't stop watching, and I normally don't do horror films.
I did think of "The Shining," but to me it was not so much frightening as unsettling. King's novel, whatever may be said of its literary quality, was genuinely scary, with the supernatural element front and center. Kubrick, on the other hand, went for ambiguity. Right up to the end of his film it was never quite clear whether we were watching an alcoholic under stress, slowly going insane, or a genuine haunting.
My doctoral advisor used to sneak into our grad student office with a small plastic knife and start shouting, "Here's Johnny!". He was a one of a kind, not your typical academic.
"Deliverance" (1972)
When it came out, my father encouraged me to see it, saying it played in his head for weeks. So I did. He was right. A few years ago, we watched it with my college-aged daughter. A few weeks later, she and I decided to hike to the top of Blood Mountain in north Georgia. Afterward, we drove the dirt roads through the mountains so I could show her a few of the places I used to hike. Then the sun started going down, the shadows lengthened, the hollers began to grow dark. And she was ready go home. Now!
Paddle faster, I hear banjoes.
:-D
Horror in the hollers, up a crick without a piddle.
Five of my favorites, proffered in no particular order:
Definitely “The Exorcist,” frightening not so much for Linda Blaire’s makeup but because the film takes the idea of demonic possession of a young girl very, very seriously.
“The Haunting” (1963), based on the novel by Shirley Jackson, starring Julie Harris and Claire Bloom. The ultimate Bad Place movie.
“Horror of Dracula” (1958), the Hammer Films take on Bram Stoker ‘s novel, starring the late, great Christopher Lee as the sanguinary Count and the late, equally great Peter Cushing as Dr. Van Helsing. This old-school screamer holds up surprisingly well.
“Pet Sematary” (1989), very frightening indeed. When Stephen King finished the first draft of the novel, he filed it away, telling himself that he’d finally gone too far. But his wife convinced him to resurrect and publish it. A recent movie remake is more gruesome but somehow far less frightening than the 1989 version.
“Stir of Echoes” (1999), starring the ubiquitous Kevin Bacon, based on the 1958 novel by Richard Matheson. If you’ve ever thought that it might be cool to have psychic powers, this movie will change your mind.
Stir of echoes is so good
It does not matter how many times I watch “The Haunting” or “The Exorcist “ I am still completely creeped out with chills running up my arm. These are the only two movies to do this to me on repeat watching
Re Pet Sematary - interesting that Stephen King himself thought he had gone too far. I read every Stephen King book before Pet Sematary. After I read that one, I swore never to read another. Way too far, and I didn't even have kids yet.
I gave up reading King or anything like him after reading Pet Sematary. Just too disturbing.
That's generally recognized as his all-time best, and I have to agree. Profoundly and effectively disturbing. The film was far inferior.
I think "going too far" is what horror is supposed to be. But I discovered my own too-far, and it was in The Witch, the baby-sacrifice scene. No, just no. Some things just need to take place off-camera. Ruined an otherwise decent movie.
I thought The Stand was by far his best, but then it was the only one I read in the 40 years since Pet Sematary. To each his own!
Oh don't get me wrong, I haven't read probably even half of his books, so I'm hardly qualified to name "the best" of all, only the best of what I've read. I never got into the more science-fiction-y stuff. I'd also recommend his short-story collections (The Mist, Langoliers) as well as books he wrote under the Richard Bachman pseudonym like Thinner and Dark Half.
I think King is way past his prime, but the best of his more recent stuff is the anthology Full Dark, No Stars. I think it's about ten years old. One of the stories is modeled on the BTK killer. Read it if you dare, hee hee hee.
Bari,
I'm sad to see you and others glorify "Get Out" - a racist insult to every person who by chance was born white. "Get Out" is not a horror movie at all except in its clear depiction of the rapid cultural decay of the American bicoastal elite. "Get Out" is instead a racist fantasy that promotes the tired and endlessly repeated themes of black victimhood and white supremacy. The silly, racist conspiracy presented in "Get Out" says nothing about white people in America and everything about Jordan Peele and the others who produced it. Peele is even on record (see Hollywood Reporter 3/26/19) saying he will never hire a white man in a lead role. Insert any other ethnicity and he'd have been rightly excoriated as a racist. Neither Jordan Peele nor his racist propaganda should be celebrated.
See, I loved "Get Out," both as a horror movie and as a satire of try-hard white liberals. "We think black people are GREAT! We think they're so great, we want to TAKE OVER THEIR BODIES!"
Jordan Peele may very well be racist. Roman Polanski raped a thirteen-year-old girl, and "Rosemary's Baby" is still one of the best horror movies of all time.
Another bizarre and frightening Roman Polanski movie was "The Tenant".
I like your take on Get Out. That makes it more interesting to me!
I really hated it when I saw it, thought it was kind of a hacky remake of Stepford Wives, but instead of women it's black people being terrorized / replaced. The fact that serious reviewers didn't even mention the Stepford parallels was very surprising to me.
exactly. it was a skewering of the noisy "white ally", with more metaphors tucked into it - and yes, inspected some black pain. I also love how he turned over the standard horror trope at the end with the faithful friend who rushes into a bad situation ass first (usually to be killed almost immediately), and instead said "Nope!" lol and drove off.
I'm afraid I have to agree with you on Polanski. It's hard to separate the art from the artist, but that is a perfect film. And he was only like 33 years old when he made it.
That's the vibe I got, so I never saw it. I live in one of the whitest places in the country. We have black people, but they don't get shot by cops, even if they do commit crimes, and as far as I know, they live the same lives day in and day out as we do. We all have much better things to do (like work and live) than harass people who look different than we do. And I suspect nearly 100% of "white America" is just like that. But if it was genuinely a satire of white liberals, like Mara U. says, I might give it a try.
What was really hilarious was all the movie critics at the time piling on the praise for Peele's satirical genius--as if they were not themselves the very same sort of white liberal hypocrites skewered in the movie.
One of my favorite parts is when the white parents are showing the black boyfriend this picture of the dad’s dad (I think), and exclaiming happily about how he tried out for the Olympic track team back in the day, but didn’t get a spot because he was beat by Jesse Owens! The boyfriend is like, “Must have sucked for him to not make the team,” and the parents just kind of blink in confusion at his reaction.
For me, the irksome thing was that the premise didn't quite hold up. All these aging white men coveting the bodies of young black men. But if virility and athleticism are what you're going for, why only black? What old guy wouldn't want the body of Michael Phelps? Or any other white athlete in his prime? I get the sexual component okay, but like the old blind guy who was going to take his body, all he wanted was to see. So why black? Still, I enjoyed the movie as good entertainment, nothing more. I thought the critics' attempts to make it into some big social statement were a joke.
Because having to stay white people wouldn’t give them the chance to throw around “woke minority” status, I think. With the blind photographer, I figured he came in on the scheme once the practice of picking black people was set. Plus, he wanted Chris’s body in particular because Chris was a talented photographer.
Oh right, I forgot about the photographer part. That would make sense.
I watched it. Figured it out halfway through, and figured that all the praise was from our virtue signaling critics. I decided to skip all of Peeles ,movies going forward.
To a little boy who liked trucks, Spielberg's early film "Duel" was gripping. Dennis Weaver was the perfect unwitting and hapless fool - sort of like the twits who hide behind the chainsaws in the Geico ad.
The Ring. One of the best in the last 20 years.
Right on. But the Japanese version..late '90's..
Chronologically from my youth:
Them
The Fly - The original, but Jeff's version was a classic as well
Night of the Living Dead
Exorcist
Hereditary
The first three gave me many nightmares through my youth. I watched the Exorcist as a 15 year old when I was home alone. I read the book in one night, and went to the theater to see it the next. I slept with every light in the house the next week, and still heard shit in the attic. The scariest movie ever.
Exorcist terrified me. I had to go in the other room, I couldn’t finish watching it
Traumatized me for sure, and I first saw it on a small black-and-white TV set!
The book was creepy.
Back then, me and all of my 15. 16 and 17 year old friends were of the understanding that it was based on an actual event. It was truly terrifying.
I had to walk out to the lobby when I was watching Hereditary, twice. Great movie, but it was so upsetting to me ... not the supernatural stuff, but the family stuff.
But didn't you think the ending was a let-down though? I found it anticlimactic after all the creepy build-up. And sort of unintentionally funny and cheesy.
*** SPOILER ALERT FOR HEREDITARY DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT WATCHED AND PLAN TO WATCH **
I love Hereditary but I don't understand this critique about the ending, which I've heard in other threads about the ending from some viewers. The whole story was about the fact that the grandmother was in a demon worshipping cult and had sacrificed her family in exchange for what is suggested to be the potential for the reborn demon to re-incarnate the dead grandmother and reward her, and the cult, with wealth, luck and power. And honestly, the final sequence, with the mother crawling on the ceiling, but with the son so desperately wanting his "mommy" was done so fantastically well - from both a scary and emotional point it almost made me pee my pants and want to cry on first watch and I'm a seasoned "horror vet" lol. I do agree the "magic" of that movie was the superb acting and writing that went into it. The characters were fully fleshed out and the emotional horror portrayed made this a much more immersive story to go along with the occult horror.
IMO, if you subtracted out the occult elements, or "cheated out" the ending with "it was all in their heads" it would have been an entirely different movie. I actually dislike movies and books that use horror elements but only to say "surprise fooled you it was 'mental illness' all along". When I watch a horror movie I want actual "horror elements", not necessarily a metaphor for mental illness. There are a few cases where this works ("Babadook" maybe being an exception, "Mommy" another) but otherwise I actually feel a bit cheated when the "horror" is explained out at the end, especially for a "message".
Note, what I also loved was how well they kept the lid on the "twist" from the trailers, which implied another "evil/creep kid" movie, and yet turned out so differently from the first act.
How would you have preferred the ending?
Hey Smarticat, thanks for your question, I love hashing this stuff out with other horror fans. I didn't dislike all of Hereditary, just the very last scene. I actually wrote a blog post which dissected it in more detail but the site's been taken down. For my theater companion and me, it was mostly that crown on Peter's head/Hail Paemon, we thought that was over-the-top and very not-scary, B-movie material. (Also, what was the deal with the headless bodies?) Up til then, I thought it was very effective in evoking a mounting sense of dread, with the help of brilliant camera work and sound. Style-wise it gets an A for sure. I guess going in with high expectations from the hyped up reviews (one critic said "wear brown pants," LOL) I expected to leave the theater a basket case, but we looked at each other when the credits started like, what was that? I sensed from the crowd's silence that we weren't alone. So all in all, I felt it had great promise but just kind of fizzled at what should have been the climax. (A few critics wrote that the narration at the end "over-explained" what was already obvious to the audience, not sure I agree but that is another criticism that's out there.)
I thought Midsommar, the second movie by that director, was better. I look forward to more of his work.
Then there's the idea that the demon-worshiping coven thing with sweet grandmas has been done to death (see the Paranormal Activity movies). But I agree about those "mental illness" plot lines, it feels like a cop-out. The Lodge and Relic are two that come to mind.
wow sorry! i lost this in a morass of replies and an inconvenient case of COVID where I just didn't have the energy to post : /
I guess my point is that the culmination of taking Peter's body for Paemon was the whole point. It drove the cult, and the grandmother's actions the entire time. The point of the movie is that the circumstances were almost set in stone, the family was doomed was because "Gramma" made a deal with the demon and the cult to give her family over. What I wanted an answer to is, the Gramma made references to all the "riches" and benefits not only to her, but to her daughter, in the bargain. So given both died, how did they realize these "gifts"? Resurrection??
I at least felt "Hereditary" put better play to the "familial demon cult" than the PA series (which just gives us bits of exposition at the very end - I want very much to have a Paranormal Activity that goes back in time to the grandmother's time and quits dancing around the plot). For that point, I did like the conclusion of Hereditary - it was "for real" the whole time. No punches pulled :)
You mention "The Lodge"- I would add that to my "exceptions" list of "mental illness is the true horror" - it was done very well and I didn't feel "cheated" at the end. Just watched "Relic" recently and it was "OK". Honestly, I've found so few and far between truly "scary" movies lately - Hereditary hit the mark. Midsommar was good, but I found it less scary than trippy. The hit the "shrooming"/psychedlic experience on the head, I felt like I was shrooming on first watch literally lol, and to have that "feeling" in such a weird situation, yeah I was "squirmy" the entire time lol.
BTW - as what was a recently very surprising (and somewhat humorous) entry: have you seen "Barbarian" (2022)? It was.. perfect for a Halloween "fun" scary movie :D
I have not heard of Barbarian. I assume the riches referred to in Hereditary was probably glory in the afterlife (Hell, presumably) for the mother and daughter. There was a photo of Grandma dressed as Paemon's "bride."
As for Paranormal Activity, the difference is that it's a franchise and not a single film like Hereditary, so the story, such that it is, is disjointed because they were literally making it up as they went along. I don't know if you subscribe to the Paramount Plus streaming service, but there's a fascinating documentary on there about the making of the franchise, starting with the very first shoestring-budget installment all the way to "The Ghost Dimension." The writer/director of the first one, Orin Peli, was different from the makers of the later installments, which is why the story arc is all over the place. The first was not expected to be the massive hit that it was or spawn sequels. They had a hard time even finding a studio to take it. It's amusing to watch the different filmmakers talk about how they developed the demonic coven storyline and tried to build on each previous film until by the end they were tapped out of ideas. I think your idea about going back to the "origin" (a la the Alien/Prometheus movie) with Katie & Kristie's grandma, maybe as a young woman, is excellent - you should try pitching it to the studio!
Wow, no. It was disturbing on several levels, at least imho.
I like Hereditary okay, but not as much as Midsommar, the director's next movie. I liked watching a horror film that took place in a sunny idyllic village.
Yeah, I thought the ending was a bit cheesy. But the rest of it was so disturbing.
Yeah, it was a very unique movie. I Don't know what I could compare it to.
Do you mean Them the French film from several years ago?
No, far trashier, but terrifying to a 5 year old.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047573/
Oh the OG Them!
Yeah, here's the Rotten Tomatoes review. The suspense before they finally showed the creatures was insane. Another movie that was incredibly suspensful, but nor a horror flick was A Stalking Moon. Crazy scary.
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1021186-them
Exorcist was terrifying. I saw it at age 14 (probably not legally). I didn't flee the theater, but I felt the strangest mix of nausea and fright.
Not a fan of the genre, and Halloween is my least favorite holiday. But you have to admire Alfred Hitchcock's skill as a moviemaker, and he can't be matched for suspense and plot twists.
Indeed. "Psycho" was the first—and greatest—of that popular genre, the slasher flick. How terrifying "Psycho" is may be gauged by the fact that Janet Leigh was never able to get in the shower again after playing the doomed Marion. Another fun fact: the blood seen in the shower scene was actually chocolate sauce.
I'll be in the kitchen eating Kit Kats (and Milky Ways, Sinckers, Reese's Peanut Butter cups, etc.) with Bari.
Anything and everything Alfred Hitchcock touched is the pinnacle of film making. The moment when Mother’s skull is superimposed on Norman Bates’ face still gives me the creeps every time even though I’ve seen Psycho dozens of times. Bernard Hermann’s soundtrack is half the genius as well.
Eastwood’s Play Misty For Me. Terrifying because it’s completely capable of happening.
The scene in The Road where they go into the cannibals’ meat locker/dungeon are one of the scariest moments in film for me, again because it’s another thing that could actually occur.
( Shudders )
“Play Misty for Me”—good choice!
Love that movie
I think it was the inspiration for Fatal Attraction. Funny how people at the time thought that movie was so original; no it was heavily derivative and Misty did it first.
Fetal Attraction, as I called it. Lilith versus Eve again, the real conflict being -- not between man and woman -- but between two kinds of woman. That's why feminists hated it.
Just watched Rosemary's Baby last night! It's such a beautifully-shot movie and sad, as well as scary. It stuck with me all last night and into today; I'm still thinking about it.
Now I want to read the book by Ira Levin, who also wrote The Stepford Wives. Imagine a time when a man could write two novels that explore the world from a female POV ... and not be attacked for it. There was so much creative freedom in mid-century America and it produced great popular entertainment.
-RANT AHEAD-
I would say that about half the modern books I read are garbage, but since they're from the "correct" authors, with the "correct" message, they get published. Recently I read this book called Reluctant Immortals. The main character was Lucy from Dracula. I've always loved Dracula, and Lucy is my favorite character. In the original she's so sparkly, flirty, and fun, so when (SPOILER) Dracula turns her into a vampire it's a blow, and then when she gets staked ... well, I almost stopped reading. I've always wanted to see a version where Vampire Lucy lives and is able to break free from the Victorian norms that held her down.
Well, the Lucy in Reluctant Immortals was ... dour, joyless, and kept talking about how "men like Dracula" have ruined so many girls. She lives in poverty, like a nun. UGH. BORING. And it misses the incredibly obvious subtext of Dracula, which was about repressed female sexuality. A Vampire Lucy who not only survives, but is unburdened by Victorian norms would be very interesting and, dare I say ,"feminist'. But writers today are so simplistic. Man = bad (the author of all evil). Woman = good (but she must suffer).
Anyway. I'm sure Ira Levin will be a lot more interesting.
Postmodern vampires are so annoying. They have feelings and they’re misunderstood and of course they’re dealing with the pain of being members of a marginalized community. Oh, and the whole sex thing is just so, so complicated! Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Ingrid Pitt— we miss you!
Ingrid Pitt! YES. I love 70s vampire movies. She was perfection.
I just found out she was a holocaust survivor AND escaped from East Germany by swimming across the river in costume (govt was about to raid the theater before a performance to arrest her). Now I'm obsessed.
Thank you for that trigger warning :)
Writing from a female POV ... if The Bard could do it, or whoever wrote A Thousand and One Nights (probably a male author, or anthologist) ... why not Ira Levin?
1963’s “The Haunting “ is the scariest movie I have ever seen. It stays with you long after it ends
I have a problem with really enjoying horror films, especially the ghost and demon sub genre and then having it ruin my life for a solid six months. It makes me literally afraid of the dark. I’m 38 years old and if I’ve seen a ghost movie and the lights are off I’m getting increased blood pressure. Paranormal Activity ruined me for a solid year. So of course I saw the second one. Another year. I stupidly saw The Conjuring and I was off horror forever. At least ghosty horror. I love creature features!
Same, I don't watch them anymore. I still look under my bed from watching the original Friday the 13th in 1980. Dare to watch? https://youtu.be/f7UEgyxYFF8
Oh man, Pet Sematary ruined me for under the bed. I’m always afraid some ghost baby with a scalpel is going to cut my Achilles.
I’ve never seen that clip. Was that Kevin Bacon? That did startle me but slasher flicks have never bothered me much either. It’s an initial fright and then it makes me laugh.
Yes it was Kevin Bacon. It's interesting how many soon-to-become famous actors got their start in horror flicks. Johnny Depp in Nightmare on Elm Street being another.
The second Paranormal Activity was better than the first! I actually saw 2 before I saw 1, which is better anyway since it's supposed to be a prequel. PA 3 is great too. The final ten minutes of that were so creepy I had to keep pausing the DVR. The franchise went downhill after that. I also liked the second Conjuring better than the first.