I know that Saturday or Sunday is usually the day we reserve for posting about non-political topics, but I just felt like putting this up somewhere. And what better place to put something to make sure it gets seen by a bunch of cool people than on Daily Kos? Anyway, it's Friday, so I guess in a "TGIF" sort of way I am not too far off from the liberal-blog tradition of cat-blogging and the like.
I have been looking for a list of horror movies (being a movie / horror movie fan) like this one the Internet and didn't find one I thought was quite good enough, so I decided just to make my own. Please offer me your own suggestions!
I tried to make a list of horror movies that are not only relatively good for horror movies, but that are also scary. Note, however, that in the nature of the thing, many of these movies succeed by your not knowing quite what is going to happen, so if you are going to check one out, I recommend not looking at the summary on the box or letting any of your friends tell you about them!
Not all these movies hold up (at least not for me) on the second or third viewing, but for me they were all pretty good the first time I saw them, and they all succeeded at scaring me. The second list are movies (below the first one, and separated from it by a line of dashes) I'm not as confident about-- they don't stand out in my memory as well-- but I don't feel I should omit, either.
The Exorcist. The original 1970s version.
The Gate and The Gate II. I'm surprised these two movies aren't a little better remembered. They are a little hard to find now. Maybe they just scare people too much. Some may think the special effects are too dated, but in my opinion, puppets and models often did a better job of allowing us to suspend disbelief. When I watch a movie and see CGI, my first thought is often something like "Okay, now I'm looking at CGI." Something about CGI-- is it a sort of glow, or the textures?-- doesn't look quite real.
Event Horizon. A sci-fi horror flick. You'll watch it expecting one thing, but then discover it's another.
The Shining. This famous movie was made from a Stephen King book of the same name. He also was behind a later re-make that was made for TV but that was much worse. King's books often don't seem to make it to film quite well (another exception, perhaps, being Misery). I guess he just wants more of the substance of his work to make it to the film, but he doesn't seem to have a sense of what makes good film. This original version of The Shining was an outstanding horror movie.
The People Under The Stairs.
The Ring (American version). This movie is a re-make of a Japanese movie called Ringu.
Evil Dead II. The original Evil Dead also had some scary moments, but maybe you should just go with Evil Dead II, which was a remake, not a sequel, of the original.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (original, 1970s version).
Wicker Man (original, 1970s version with Christopher Lee). This might be a good horror movie for a thinking person.
Poltergeist.
Poltergeist II.
Hellraiser.
An American Werewolf in London.
The Cube / The Cube II. This is sort of an absurdist horror movie, an indie Canadian pic that was re-made as The Cube II. As far as I remember, it's a toss-up as to which one is more worth seeing.
Ginger Snaps. A werewolf movie and another indie Canadian film. Besides being scary, this was a good movie in many other ways, so (like The Shining) it may be a good bet if you are watching a horror movie with someone else, perhaps someone who is not as much a horror movie fan as you are.
Nosferatu (original version). It may be hard for a lot of people to suspend disbelief watching this, since this is the original vampire movie, but if you just ignore any bits you think are hokey, you will discover a very creepy movie that is better than perhaps every vampire movie you have seen.
Nosferatu (1970s German version). In the '70s, Nosferatu was remade by a joint German-French film crew that gave it an English dialogue to make it more commercially appealing. This movie has some very horrifying images. It's hard to decide whether to recommend you should see the original or re-make first (if you want to see both), but I guess I have to say the original.
Hostel. I held off seeing this for a long time because I assumed it was going to be too crass or something like that, but it was actually surprisingly good.
Jacob's Ladder. Definitely see this flick.
The Watcher in the Woods. This is actually a Disney movie; like The Gate, it's a little hard to understand why it's not more well-known.
30 Days of Darkness. It's a little hard to fathom why people haven't been able to do better at making movies about vampires and produce something as good as The Shining, but despite numerous flaws this movie is pretty good (at least on the big screen!).
28 Days Later. This is a very good movie if you haven't seen it already, especially if you haven't seen any of the modern zombie movies.
Dawn of the Dead (2004). This is very scary.
War of the Worlds (2005). This one was also very scary.
Communion. This is a movie about aliens that was made from a book that was supposedly based on true events.
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The Others.
It.
Alien.
Aliens.
A Nightmare on Elm Street. A lot of the Freddy / Jason movies really scared me a lot when I was a kid, but don't so much now. I don't really remember among all the sequels which one was which, so rather than accidentally recommending a very bad one, I am just going to mention the original Nightmare on Elm Street, just so the fans of this type of movie don't feel like I overlooked it.
Donnie Darko. When I saw this movie originally it made a big impression on me, but when I thought and read about it more I started to feel very critical of it. I am not totally convinced those criticisms are right, though, so I am not going to say more about it.
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The Silence of the Lambs and Se7en are both good, but to me they're more like cop movies or mysteries that happen to be scary than they are horror movies. You can draw the line on genres where you want, and either of those movies are still something I might rent on Halloween, but I still think they're more appropriate lumped in with the "honorable mentions" than with the main list.