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

[Vaeran]

Did You Know they made a TV series prequel to Psycho called Bates Motel, that ran for five(!) seasons and was actually really good? It takes a little bit of time to really get going, and there's some early faffing about with some subplots that don't really go anywhere. But the performances are all great, particularly Vera Farmiga as Norma and Freddy Highmore as Norman, and viewers that stick with it past the shaky early seasons will be well rewarded. Check it out, maybe.

 

[Issun]

True story I confused Anthony Perkins with Anthony Hopkins and vice versa up until my late teens/early 20s.

 

[Purple]

Great, now we've all got seven days.

I mean, I'll be just fine.

Let this be a lesson to the rest of you to always disable auto-play on videos.

 

[Dracula]

No. 4 The Babadook (2014)
Points: 259 | Lists: YangusKhan (#22); Patrick (#20); Vaeran (#7); Teg (#8); Beta Metroid (#1); Octopus Prime (#11); Johnny Unusual (#6); Bulgakov (#17); Dr. Nerd (#14); Jbear (#5)
“You can bring me the boy.”

The Babadook is a 2014 Australian psychological horror film written and directed by Jennifer Kent in her directorial debut, and produced by Kristina Ceyton and Kristian Molière. A single mother and her child fall into a deep well of paranoia when an eerie children's book titled "Mister Babadook" manifests in their home.

Drac’s Notes: The Babadook was the sleeper hit of the 2010s, a small arthouse movie that played in a few theaters and was then dropped on Netflix, gaining traction through social media and memes on Tumblr. I would compare it favorably to films like Hereditary in how it approaches the psychological horrors of grief, loss, and loneliness, in this case those presented by the challenge of being a single mother. It’s never clear if the titular monster is real or a manifestation of grief and stress, but it doesn’t matter, because the journey is equally as frightening and harrowing in either case. This is a fantastic film.

All those owls on library posters were lying. "Let's read more!" "Reading is fun!" Except for when the books are full of demons!

We've had evil books already, TS. Like in Evil Dead 2, just the other day.

No library would carry a book made of human skin, though.

You'd be surprised. I --

ATTENTION: THIS IS YOUR MASTER SPEAKING.

Um, didn't you guys say you stuck him in a vault somewhere?

We totally did!

I HAVE ESCAPED THE VAULT. You will be seeing me again soon --*

Sorry about that. I forgot to turn off the loudspeaker system.

Shouldn't we be worried about an evil mad scientist on the loose?

Nah, we got friends with guns and stuff outside. Let's just keep watching movies!

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Spoiler: Spoilers for the Babadook

Horror movies about grief and depression are not uncommon by any stretch but The Babadook is probably the strongest. Its also one of the ones that capture the frustrations and fears of raising a child and cranks it up to its extremes. You start the film extremely on the side of the mother who loves her child but it being driven nuts by him and has a hard time finding a way to deal, especially with no real support system. Then as things turn we are following the child as his mother turns against him. Its scary but its also incredibly moving and insightful about dealing with depression. You can't "kill it" but you can learn to live with it in a healthy way.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Babadook and The Shining are kind of companion movies in a way, except ones about a stressed mom instead of a drunk dad.

Also, both are on the short list of movies to have legit terrified me.

That scene where the kid is so Terrified of an empty room that he passes out alone was enough

 

[Daikaiju]

This is the content I crave.

 

[Issun]

I'd always thought that The Babadook was one of those lower-tier horror flicks. Apparently it's not.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Its very much is not. The Babadook is one of the greats of modern horror and also one of the great arbitrary gay icons.

 

[Nich]

The gay icon thing happened because of a Netflix algorithm error that put it in a list of "LGBT+ Films." There was a while where people were shipping the Babadook with Pennywise, but that kind of tapered off once IT Part 2 came out and everyone remembered that IT kicks off with Pennywise spurring on a vicious hate crime against a gay couple.

 

[Zef]

Thanks for the reminder that I need to watch this film! I remember all the discussion about it a few years ago but I haven't taken the time yet; being able to read the spoilers above is now sufficient incentive

 

[ShakeWell]

Fun Fact: "Babadook" is an anagram for "a bad book."

I saw this one during its original run in a very small theatre in DC (so small, I sat in a folding chair, not, like, a real movie theatre chair), and I like it a lot! But of the sort of "indie renaissance of horror" run we've seen over the past decade, I put it lower than a lot of them (hence it not making my list), but it's definitely a unique and downright unsettling film about stress and grief and I cannot image how it affects single parents.

 

[Dracula]

No. 3 Get Out (2017)
Points: 323 | Lists: Dracula (#11); Sabrecat (#1); YangusKhan (#6); Rascally Badger (#9); Falselogic (#22); Patrick (#19); Issun (#7); Vaeran (#22); Beta Metroid (#17); Johnny Unusual (#10); Dr. Nerd (#18); ShakeWell (#15); Jbear (#1)
“Now, sink into the floor.”

Get Out is a 2017 American horror film written and directed by Jordan Peele in his directorial debut. Get Out follows Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya), a young African-American man who uncovers a disturbing secret when he meets the family of his white girlfriend, Rose Armitage (Allison Williams).

Drac’s Notes: The Trump years were flush with movies and media which sought to examine the rising pressures and effects of systemic racism in America. The era of Obama was heralded by some as a major civil rights victory - only for the mask to fall off in a dramatic way as soon as he left office. Get Out is a horror film which prefigures that unmasked America. It hit theaters just a few months before the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. A later (excellent) film, BlacKkKlansman, used footage of the rally to drive home the political point it was trying to make.

But Get Out doesn’t have such a huge scale. It doesn’t make a direct statement; it doesn’t pressure the viewer to vote, or become an activist. It’s not here to change a mind. Instead, it presents a slightly inflated version of the reality experienced every day by black Americans living in a culture of white supremacy. In this depiction, director Jordan Peele doesn’t pull any punches. There are no white saviors in this film. Systemic racism isn’t destroyed; it’s merely survived.

The film's message, though, is only part of the reason that it's so loved. In a vacuum, Get Out is simply an incredible film. Watch, or rewatch, this scene. It’s where Chris Washington, the lead character (and the viewers) begins to discover there’s more to his girlfriend’s family than typical white microaggressions.

Look at Kaluuya’s mastery of his facial expressions; the camera pulling in as his psyche begins to break down. The cuts between the tea cup and Kaluuya’s fists gripping the armrests in past and present. His fall backward into the sunken place, where he sees Missy Armitage staring back at him as if through a TV screen. This is gripping stuff. The movie effortlessly switches between moments like this and Peele's characteristic comedy, which helps alleviate some of the film's stress.

Get Out wasn’t just one of the most important films of the 21st century - it’s also one of the best. I recommend it to anyone, even people who don’t normally watch scary films.

Uh, has anyone seen TS?

When the title card came up he said he'd "be right back." And we kept watching. Apparently he didn't come back.

He probably saw the words "get out" and then literally "got out." I'll go find him.

 

[Adrenaline]

I think Peele also shot, or at least considered an ending where the cop car at the end is being driven by actual cops. I can't help but that think that would have been a better ending for a horror movie, but we also deserve the catharsis of the ending the movie has.

 

[Octopus Prime]

I’ve not seen the film, though it is by all accounts excellent, but sometimes I lay awake at night and wonder if Key is bitter that his buddy and co-star is a celebrated and acclaimed director of racially charged horror and sci-fi stories, while he’s playing bit characters on Bobs Burgers.

I still love and respect you, Keegan Micheal Key! Even if you don’t have as many prestigious awards!

 

[Johnny Unusual]

I suspect he's fine. BTW, the reason Peele quit acting in favor of directing... he was offered a role in the Emotional Movie. As Poop. Either no one thought that through or, worse, they did.

 

[Daikaiju]

I had not heard that... So casting Patrick Stewart was an overcorretion?

 

[Johnny Unusual]

There's very little correct with that movie but clearly what is widely considered to be one of worst movies of 2017 could have been even worse.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

I knew Get Out was going to be a good movie by word of mouth but after I watched it, I was all in on the Jordan Peele bandwagon. While his Twilight Zone reboot has been hit and miss (which keeps in tune with the franchise as a whole, at least), I'm constantly excited by what he is involved with as a creator. Get Out is a very clever examination of race and condemnation of presumed wokeness of people of privilege when they can be just as complicit in some very real evils. The Golden Globes confoundingly classified Get Out as a "comedy". Peele's response?

https://twitter.com/x/status/930796561302540288

 

[Issun]

Get Out is excellent on every level. Not much to say beyond that.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

I got one. Stephen Root is in it. Always worth an extra bonus point.

 

[Zef]

I completely forgot to vote for Get Out, but if I could, I would vote for it a third time.

 

[Dracula]

MEANWHILE...

I couldn't find him. He must have gotten lost. Let's go ahead and watch the next movie and if he's not back by the end, we'll all go looking for him.

He probably made friends with a tesseract and is taking a tour of Dimension T right now.

You've only just met him, and you already know him so well. Roll the next movie!

No. 2 The Thing (1982)
Points: 448 | Lists: Neo Skimbleshanks (#25); YangusKhan (#1); Rascally Badger (#6); Falselogic (#1); Issun (#1); ?? (#19); Vaeran (#5); Teg (#1); Beta Metroid (#13); Octopus Prime (#1); Johnny Unusual (#2); Adrenaline (#10); Dr. Nerd (#4); ShakeWell (#4); Jbear (#14)
“I know I’m human.”

The Thing is a 1982 American science fiction horror film directed by John Carpenter and written by Bill Lancaster. Based on the 1938 John W. Campbell Jr. novella Who Goes There?, it tells the story of a group of American researchers in Antarctica who encounter the eponymous "Thing", a parasitic extraterrestrial life-form that assimilates, then imitates other organisms. The group is overcome by paranoia and conflict as they learn that they can no longer trust each other and that any one of them could be the Thing.

Drac’s Notes: Quick thing - again I duplicated someone’s name in my tally, so there’s a #19 vote that I’m not sure whose it actually was. (I had it marked as Issun.) Even without it, though, this movie would still be at #2 by a landslide.

Now, onward. Again we revisit horror master John Carpenter, this time for what Talking Time has decided is his ultimate masterpiece. The Thing is the second adaptation of Campell’s novella, the first being the 1950s film The Thing From Another World, which incidentally can be seen playing on a TV in Carpenter’s first film, Halloween. Like The Fly (1986), this is a movie which surpasses the original and became one of the most iconic films in horror canon.

The Thing is a tense, chilly, claustrophobic film. The enemy alien imitates humans and animals perfectly, and as more and more researchers fall to the thing, the paranoia increases. But perhaps what really makes this film are the special effects -- perhaps the pinnacle of puppetry, animatronic, and prosthetic work in horror film. Watch this clip if you’re not squeamish.

I love this film, and I return to it again and again specifically for the practical effects. But given what other famous horrors it was up against, I was surprised and delighted to see it rank so highly on our list.

 

[Adrenaline]

The fact that The Thing got bad reviews and bombed at the box office shows that nobody has ever known anything

 

[Octopus Prime]

Even without the praise that gets heaped on the movie for its visuals alone, it may well be the perfect paranoia-fuel movie.

 

[Patrick]

I'm pretty sure I had The Thing pretty high on my list (if not #1). It's a great movie.

 

[Issun]

I did indeed have this movie at #19. The Birds was my #1.

I said it before in the last movie contest: The real terror is Wilford Brimley without a moustache.

 

[Zef]

I'm pretty sure I had The Thing pretty high on my list (if not #1). It's a great movie.

Ditto, it was my #7

 

[Vaeran]

Drac’s Notes: Quick thing - again I duplicated someone’s name in my tally, so there’s a #19 vote that I’m not sure whose it actually was. (I had it marked as Issun.) Even without it, though, this movie would still be at #2 by a landslide.

The fact that this of all movies has a vote from a mysterious, unknown entity who could be any one of us is :chefkiss:

 

[WildcatJF]

YES, quite delectable!