Just Keep Telling Yourself It's Only a Thread: Talking Time's Top 50 Horror Movies!

I love House. I can’t think of another film that looks like it. Need to check out the director’s other work.

Johnny Unusual said:

Short answer no... for a grown-up. Imagine a movie that's that's something scary from a kids movie for the length of the film. Like a certain kind of nightmare that's silly in hindsight but affected you at the time. It follows kid dream logic and I imagine without the grown up filter and you accept everything, weird effects and all, thanks that case, yes.

Click to expand...

Awesome! Thanks. Sounds like it's a film for me to watch ASAP.

I’m in the minority for preferring the original Frankenstein to the sequel, but Praetorius is such a good villain. He’s everything you’d want from someone in the Mad Science field.

Lokii said:

Is House scary?

Click to expand...

I'm with the others here, I say no. It's wild. It's weird. It's surreal. But I wouldn't class it as frightening (I do still class it as a horror film, just not an especially scary one).

Peklo said:

I've mentioned this before but the scene in Bride where Pretorius just has himself a nice outing inside a crypt, downing wine and cigars while cackling at a skeleton is one of the most incredible and perfect moments in cinema.

Click to expand...

Ernest Thesiger is a treasure, he's one of the best parts in a fantastic film. Interestingly, Karloff was against the monster speaking, which is wild, because, as Drac said, this is largely considered better than the original (I agree with that sentiment). If anyone has not seen the weird and wonderful Old Dark House, a lovely pre-code gem starring Karloff and Thesiger among a wonderful ensemble cast, I highly recommend it (and kind of assume at this point it won't show up here). Also directed by James Whale!

Oh my god I didn't vote for House! Nooooo

It's okay, Yangus. Neither did I

SOLD! Apparently in the 80s he did some teen fantasies that were incredibly influential, notable on "Your Name."

Oh, and I wrote a thing on House.

I went in thinking its some kind of "so good its bad" movie. But if someone where to ask me know "is it a silly movie watch or genuinely good" I'd say yes. Its an artist following his own vision and his vision is insane and imaginative and wild and like nothing else. He chose to make the special effects unrealistic to give it a dream-like quality. And the film very much is like a child's dream: it has all the elements of making you uneasy but at the same time it is still incredibly goofy. Its almost the inverse of those movies from your childhood that were aimed at you but scared you. It means to scare but it also delights with its whimsy.

Click to expand...

The other movie that it reminds me of is actually Beyond The Valley of the Dolls. In that, it seems to be at time intentionally a parody and also unintentionally goofy. House is similarly a movie that is very much its own thing and it is hard to completely discern the intent. There is genuine cleverness but there's also the stuff where you have to ask "am I reacting at all in a way the artist intended?"

Also, a guy turns into bananas.

I don't remember who described it as such but the moniker "the cheeriest horror movie ever made" seems about right.

Johnny Unusual said:

The other movie that it reminds me of is actually Beyond The Valley of the Dolls.

Click to expand...

Incidentally, also in the Criterion Collection

Dracula said:

Incidentally, also in the Criterion Collection

Click to expand...

They know quality.

And yet, no Sorcerer. What the Hell?

I haven't seen Bride of Frankenstein n a long time, but I really liked it. It is one of those great middle chapters of a trilogy (Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, Young Frankenstein).

You joke, but Son of Frankenstein starring Basil Rathbone as the titular son is actually very good. (Also, the final time Karloff would play the monster in a Universal film, though he did return to play a mad doctor in House of Frankenstein.)

Please tell me there’s nothing like that House film on the docket today.

Click to expand...

No, sir. But we do have a triple feature.

Click to expand...

Oh dear.

Click to expand...

What’s the matter Mr. Master? Gettin’ scared!? Bring ‘em on!

Click to expand...

Bram Stoker's Dracula is a 1992 American gothic horror film directed and produced by Francis Ford Coppola, based on the 1897 novel Dracula by Bram Stoker. It stars Gary Oldman as Count Dracula, Winona Ryder as Mina Harker, Anthony Hopkins as Professor Abraham Van Helsing, and Keanu Reeves as Jonathan Harker.

Click to expand...

Drac’s Notes: How can you hate the 90s when they brought us masterpieces like this? Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a ridiculous movie. It’s all over the map. Gary Oldman’s Dracula is the very definition of a Large Ham. He chews it up in every scene. Meanwhile, Keanu Reeves struggles to pronounce “Budapest,” and his attempt at an English accent comes and goes between words. Dracula has overdesigned muscle armor, Tom Waits makes a cameo...this movie tries really hard to be “high art,” but it never quite rises above “tawdry romance” and I love it all the more for it.

Incidentally, the title is kind of misleading, too. It does emulate the book, but it’s really no more or less faithful than the Lugosi version. It’s missing one of my favorite setpieces from the novel -- Dracula’s arrival at the port town of Whitby with its hillside cemetery and crumbling abbey -- and there is a shoe-horned attempt at time-lost love between Dracula and Mina, which you may surprised to learn, doesn’t exist in the book. But I digress. I love this movie; check it out.

Halloween III: Season of the Witch is a 1982 American science fiction horror film and the third installment in the Halloween film series. It is the first film to be written and directed by Tommy Lee Wallace. John Carpenter and Debra Hill, the creators of Halloween, return as producers. In the film, Doctor Daniel Challis seeks to uncover a plot by Halloween mask company Silver Shamrock.

Click to expand...

Drac’s Notes: Here’s another one that was on my list. Halloween III is the only film in the venerable slasher series that not only isn’t a slasher, but also doesn’t star the the film series’ mass murderer, Michael Myers. The movie actually has nothing to do at all with the rest of the series. Instead, it’s a film about a corporate conspiracy in which Conal Cochran, the depraved owner of Silver Shamrock, intends to use Stonehenge energy broadcasted through Halloween masks to summon hordes of deadly insects into the world and kill everyone. At the time, this film was loathed -- mostly because Halloween II had led everyone to expect more Michael Myers. But it’s become one of my favorite horror films. The plot is total nonsense, but the slow reveal of Silver Shamrock’s plan is effective, and it’s augmented by the beautifully understated synth score. If you’ve never looked at this one because of its reputation, I’d urge you to give it a second chance!

The Blair Witch Project is a 1999 American supernatural horror film written, directed and edited by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez. It is based on the purportedly true story of three student filmmakers—Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, and Joshua Leonard—who hike into the Black Hills near Burkittsville, Maryland in 1994 to film a documentary about a local legend known as the Blair Witch.

Click to expand...

Drac’s Notes: Speaking of classics from the 90s, here’s one of the more infamous horror films of all time. Blair Witch is the original “found footage” horror. Many have attempted to emulate the success and hype that Blair Witch generated around the time of its release, and few have matched it. People thought they were looking at real footage! It was effective, man. I’ve actually still never seen this movie, though. I’d always heard it’s kind of a let-down, but these days I’d watch it just for the atmosphere.

By the by, this is not our last tie, but it is our last three-way tie! Whew! We sure had a lot of ‘em!

Season of the Witch is a disaster and a treasure and is dumb and wonderful. There's also a really good episode of the How Did This Get Made? podcast I recommend. Also, I do think its a shame Carpenter's plan for an annual horror movie with the same title never took off. Maybe if 1) John directed and 2) Halloween 2 never happened...

Also, the guy who created Quatermass (which was a big inspiration to 70s era Dr. Who) was involved, till he was booted.

I haven't watched The Blair Witch Project since it came out, and I suspect it doesn't hold up well without the nagging thought that everything you're seeing is genuine found footage. Without spoiling anything, there's nothing in the film itself that ever makes that claim totally unbelievable, so in the brief time before it was all debunked and then relentlessly imitated, it could get into your head in a way no other horror movie could.

Halloween III is still the only Halloween I've watched. It's good. A regular series of films connected only by the occasion of Halloween itself is a good idea, and while I understand the appeal of Michael Myers (I do intend to watch the first Halloween and maybe the 2018 sequel at some point), it's a bit of a shame that concept wasn't allowed to continue past here.

Fun fact: Silent Hill 2 pays homage to the Silver Shamrock song in the famous dog ending.

I watched Blair Witch a few years ago and it was a good time. And yeah, the genius marketing strategy probably made it even more effective.

I also haven't watched Blair Witch since it came out, but I remember what a phenomenon it was. Really the first film to truly take advantage of internet marketing. It was also atmospheric as hell and the rising tension all came from the slowly disintegrating relationships between the characters.

It did eventually lead to drek like Paranormal Activity, but that's not its fault.

Halloween 3 remains the only movie in the series I’ve watched and I felt no particularly strong desire to correct that since I doubt that a masked murder man with scary eyes can live up to the totally nonsense that is Season of the Witch

Octopus Prime said:

Halloween 3 remains the only movie in the series I’ve watched and I felt no particularly strong desire to correct that since I doubt that a masked murder man with scary eyes can live up to the totally nonsense that is Season of the Witch

Click to expand...

We're not quite done talking about the Halloween series, but I will agree that I've had no real interest in engaging with the series beyond the first one and Halloween III. I guess I generally find slashers to be the least interesting horror sub-genre, unless they've got some really cool SFX or themes going on, and I don't really find Michael Myers to be compelling enough to watch the other movies he's in.

But I won't say more, because we might have some opportunity to talk about ol' Mikey later...

I won't name any other such movies for fear of spoiling future list entries, but I have a great appreciation for both slow-burn horror and horror movies that do a lot by only showing a little. You won't find any monsters, witches or otherwise, in The Blair Witch Project, and in fact to the best of my recollection no antagonists of any kind are ever captured in a shot -- for the most part we only see unsettling evidence that someone or something was there while our main characters were sleeping. It's a film that has been often parodied or mocked for being so different from everything else around it, but despite the waves and waves of found-footage horror that came after, I don't think anything ever quite managed to top what Blair Witch was able to accomplish in terms of unique atmosphere and dread.

Both of its sequels are reheated butt.

Finding out I had Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula at number 4 was a bit of a surprise and makes me wonder if I should apologize for my list. I might not have paid as close attention to the order as I should have.

It was definitely going to be on my list, though. As is a theme with my list, it is a beautiful movie that really isn't all that scary. Everyone seems to be having fun, except Keanu.

I almost put Blair Witch on my list, but my (extremely vague) memory was that the phenomenon of it was more interesting than the actual movie itself. But I'm pretty sure I didn't see it until after the point where everyone knew it was acted, so I probably didn't get the full effect.

Blair Witch probably should have been on my list, but it's been so long since I've watched it. I will say, that even though I knew it wasn't real, it stuck with me in a way few other films have.

Halloween III is sublime, and probably falls just outside my top 25. Tom Atkins is wonderful as always, as is Dan O'Herlihy as Cochran. It's an extremely silly film that plays it totally straight, which I think is why it works. (As mentioned, Alan Howarth & John Carpenter's score doesn't hurt.) It was the first film in my local non-profit movie house's 12 Hours of Terror marathon in 2019, and the only film they "announced" (in that all the marketing and the shirt had Halloween III imagery all over them), and it was a blast to see it in that setting.

Speaking of marathons, tangential to this thread, but Joe Bob Saves Christmas is tonight on Shudder. The theme is killer Santa movies "but not the ones you're probably thinking of."

Blair Witch holds up I think even without the "is it real????" conceit. It invented a new genre if nothing else, and there's plenty else. It's very effective in its dread and low-key weirdness. The characters waking up to find the primitive stick ornaments and stone piles or finding themselves trapped in the expansive yet banal woods gives an otherworld dimension to the horror that "it's a witch" doesn't normally carry. The witch here is a force much closer to a Lovecraft horror than a Halloween lady, and then the film climaxes with a pitch-perfect nothing/everything ending. It's got a lot going for it beyond found footage and dripping nostrils.

Also, "I'll be here... by this bush." Is tremendously funny. I worked at a movie theatre when it first released and that line always got a huge laugh.

Rascally Badger said:

Finding out I had Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula at number 4 was a bit of a surprise and makes me wonder if I should apologize for my list.

Click to expand...

Heck no! Never apologize for your film loves, especially not a big lovable mess like Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Whoa. 2 for 3 today.

Lokii said:

Blair Witch holds up I think even without the "is it real????" conceit. It invented a new genre if nothing else

Click to expand...

Wikipedia disagrees somewhat:
"As a plot device, found footage has precedents in literature, particularly in the epistolary novel, which typically consists of either correspondence or diary entries, purportedly written by a character central to the events. Like found footage, the epistolary technique has often been employed in horror fiction: both Dracula and Frankenstein are epistolary novels, as is The Call of Cthulhu by [racist ass motherfucker] H. P. Lovecraft.

In filmmaking, the 1980 cult horror feature Cannibal Holocaust* [by Italian director Ruggero Deodato] is often claimed to be the first example of found footage. The device was popularised by The Blair Witch Project (1999)."

*Trigger Warning if you are curious about this movie: Absolutely all of them. (Per my understanding. I have never seen it but I am aware of its unsavory reputation.)

Popularized in modern horror then, my goodness.

Cannibal Holocaust is not entirely found footage. It has normally filmed scenes which are not presented as footage filmed by documentarians. It's not the same thing in my opinion.

There were lots of individual parts of Dracula I really liked, even if I didn't care that much for the final product

Octopus Prime said:

There were lots of individual parts of Dracula I really liked, even if I didn't care that much for the final product

Click to expand...

slightly confused wily eyebrows

Octopus Prime said:

There were lots of individual parts of Dracula I really liked

Click to expand...

I'm a big fan of the Rib