All Time Horror Movies to watch on DVD – (in case you missed)
iView Author: BIPIN VADDI (Boston/U.S.A)
Email: bvaddi@gmail.com
All Time Horror Movies to watch on DVD – (in case you missed)
Ok, I don’t know many who can actually enjoy and appreciate horror movies this is for them and as for all the other sane people, who don’t want to scared witless, well there’s always those cuddly rom-coms to go home to ïŠ . So hopefully this would be my first post of many to come on this wonderful website, where I spend increasing amounts of time, while – I am bored senseless writing up code on my computer. Yes, I am yet another disillusioned software engineer from the U.S – who’s a cine pile … to say the least.
Here it goes, I love rush and so naturally I have a leaning towards thrillers, horror movies, sci-fi. Especially Horror Sci-Fi because imagination is the limit, you can go beyond and show/see anything and it just fits the bill. There’s nothing right or wrong and it’s just a pure ride. Shut off the switch in your head, turn the lights off and take it all in.
Of late, there have been movies called “horror”, but they are not. A few stupid scares for teen- age girls are not what make a good horror movie. Too much dependence on CGI and the whole deal is killed. Where’s the rawness? Where’s the chainsaw? Where’s the rush of opening the door and finding someone in your closet with an axe? Where’s the rush of seeing someone crash through the door? Where’s the rush of hunting down a man-eater? Where’s the rush of the whole city full of zombies?
Crappy movies like boogeyman or plain gore like one of the Rob Zombie’s movies are not what we need. We need horror movies which mean what they intend to do and unfortunately there have not been many
in the recent years. It’s difficult to make a list of the top 10 horror movies, I am sure I missed a few for sure. But if I have to stick to 10, then here they are, and do tell me your faves in the comments section. Some good old scary movies to go home to and watch it on DVDs.
1. THE EXORCIST
So much has been said and written about this movie that we hardly feel that our two bits will make the slightest difference; YET, I am among the people who actually found the opening sequence as brilliantly effective and crucial to setting the tone for what is to follow. This is a marvelous horror film – one that could have ended up being laughable had it been treated differently. The film is a quarter of a century old yet still has the power to scare, an achievement in itself considering all the horrors of this century are not in monsters and creatures that suck blood and devour human flesh. There is far too much real, tangible horror around us in our everyday lives for us to feel threatened any longer by a Dracula, a Frankenstein or indeed Satan. The Exorcist is, by a whisker the most frightening experience that I have enjoyed in a cinema.
2. THE OMEN
Damien does it all. A true classic movie, great music, great picturization, Gregory pecks in one of his best roles and just about everything in its right place. There are no words to describe this movie. If you have not watched it, well – may be you really should not be reading this post ïŠ . Suffice to say, one of the very originally scary movies ever. Well, you could still catch it on DVD.
3. THE SHINING
If Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining is not the best haunted house movie ever made; it is certainly among the most intricately constructed. Renowned mostly for Jack Nicholson’s cartoonish outbursts and for its often traumatizing imagery, the film is yet another of Kubrick’s analyses of the effects of a system on the mind and humanity of the individual. Horror film
audiences are accustomed to thinking of film characters as idiots who brashly ignore countless warnings of impending doom. And while the characters of this film are not arrogant teens entering an old haunted house, there is an air of determinism that structures the film and makes its truly macabre tableaux—creepy twins, elderly full frontal, oceans of blood, Nicholson’s eyebrows—that much more shocking.
4. PSYCHO
The “Mother” of modern horror. A superlative, utterly compelling shocker, superbly acted, directed and scored. It has certainly lost some of its power to shock over the years as it has become established as an internationally recognized icon and one of the most parodied and “borrowed” sources for stuff like TV commercials and other movies. Yet, it remains THE class act among horror movies and has, like the other horror classics to stand up to a million repeat viewings. Each new viewing brings forward something new to admire and focus on; such is the depth of Hitchcock’s masterpiece shocker.
5. THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE
Left me shell shocked for several days. The first death scene is so absol utely shocking and presented with such cold starkness that it’s almost too real to be bearable. Followed by such shockers like the girl being slowly let down onto a meat hook which is hooking into the back of her head. She tries desperately to climb off the hook, but to no avail. There was an expectancy of such brutal horror materializing from nowhere in this film that even an open doorway into the darkness of night presents a terrifying prospect. There are elements of black humor here, but obscured by the monstrous horrors on display. It just takes the sound of that grotesque chainsaw sputtering to life to make the hairs on one’s neck stand up. The film is an incredible terror ride, and more incredible for the fact that having watched it and felt as though you have just visited a slaughterhouse, there is hardly a drop of blood shown in the entire movie.
6. THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS
The intimate and disturbing characterizations of mass murderers who mutilate their victims (usually female) were shocking, particularly the character of evil personified – the notorious, cobra-like, intelligent psychiatrist turned psychopath Hannibal Lectern (portrayed masterfully by British actor Anthony Hopkins) and his bargaining game to share information about another wanted serial killer (”Buffalo Bill”) with dedicated, fledgling, vulnerable and rising female FBI agent-trainee/investigator Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster). The most compelling part of the film is in the developing dynamics of their participation in a cat-and-mouse battle of nerves, and the many chilling, spell-binding discussions in four scenes between them. Their relationship dances and alternates back and forth between psychopath/aspiring female agent, deranged psychologist/therapeutic patient, and father/daughter.
7. ROSEMARY’S BABY
The creepy, eerie gothic film is about a young newlywed couple who moves into a large, rambling old apartment building in Central Park West, and begin a loving, post-honeymoon period. They become friendly with the eccentric next-door neighbors, an overly-solicitous and intrusive elderly couple (members of a coven), and soon the husband’s acting career turns promising. But after a nightmarish dream of making love to a Beast, the paranoid, haunted, and hysterical woman believes herself impregnated so that her baby can be used in the New Yorkers’ evil cult rituals.
8. ALIEN
The fated journey of commercial space vessel the Nostromo in Ridley Scott’s “Alien” is the kind of epic space excursion that avid 1970s science fiction pioneers like Steven Spielberg would probably discard in early script stages. As a finished screenplay, it would be hard to assume the result being anything other than a carbon copy of those low-budget 1950s space exploitation sci-fi horror films that only film-crazed teens would have paid money to see. This is a brilliant effort.
9. 28 DAYS LATER
Danny Boyle is one the best contemporary directors around and that itself seals the deal for me. When I watched this movie, I was spell bound. One of the best zombie movie’s I have seen in a very long time. beautifully shot, especially deserted London. A must watch, if you haven’t already.
10. THE RING
Here comes the fear. An unmarked videotape is circulating in Seattle. Seven days after you watch it, you die – face frozen in a rictus of terror.
Grabs the attention, dun nit?
Nothing much to write, since this is so popular that I am sure you must all have seen it. A very nice gripping terrorizing movie, it has its moments which make you feel bloody uneasy.
God Bless The Movies!!!
-BIPIN VADDI
Tags: Alien, Danny Boyle, Hollywood, horror, Pyscho, Silence of the Lambs, The Ring
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Amazinggg Article……you rock!!!
After reading this post I got intrigued by a question. If Silence of the lambs is a horror movie what is the difference between a horror movie and a thriller?
Seven, Red dragon, Bone collector, Saw, Jaws, What lies beneath, Sixth Sense- are all they horror movies?
I had this subconscious notion that any movie with a supernatural element as negative character is a horror movie and anything with only human elements is a thriller. But now I realise that generalisation doesnt hold true. You cannot call sixth sense a horror movie (neither a thriller).
Saw appears to be more than a thriller.
Can someone clarify on this differentiation?
brilliant post. very nicely written article. welcome to PFC> keep writing.
cheers.
PS: will definitely watch some of the movies, which I gave a miss earlier…..
@ scriptlarva
you do have a valid point. I guess cinematically speaking ,”Silence of the Lambs” is indeed a thriller and does not have a supernatural presence in it – I guess one of the reasons I got in this list – was the scare I got , when for the very first time, I saw a cannibal. whenever Hopkins is in the scene, I was drawn to the edge of the seat- expecting him to jump across the victim and eat him/her. For that matter – even the original “texas chainsaw massacre” would come under the same category and “the shining” as well. I guess some movies could easily cross genres depending on the frame of the mind of the audience , at the time of the watch.
my 2 cents.
Very well compiled list ! Horror is a genre which has to be handled with care for the risk of crossing into comical territory (eg. Evil Dead 2).
But I’m surprised you have left out some Japanese classics which are unarguably the creators of a new wave of horror cinema which succeeds in scaring the shit out of the audience by exploiting our fear of the unknown.
I would like to add a few more masterpieces to your list :
11) Audition
Takashi Miike’s surreal film which starts off on a slow note showing a widower (Ryo Ishibashi) trying to overcome loneliness in his life by devoting his time on bringing up his only son but finally succumbs to his friends offer of finding a new wife through a special audition. Thus starts a journey into the mysterious world of the chosen candidate : Asami Yamazaki. I guarantee that anyone who watches this movie won’t forget it for a long long time to come.
12) Ju-On : The Grudge
Directed by Takashi Shimizu, the original Grudge movie is about a mysterious and vengeful spirit that marks and pursues anybody who dares enter the house in which it resides. I feel this should be Ramu’s favorite horror movie since he has paid homage to it in Bhoot, Vastu Shastra etc.
13) The Sixth Sense
Manoj Night Shyamalan’s pathbreaking movie with one of the finest suspense ending of all time gave sleepless nights to all who watched it alone at home.
@ RD
I absolutely agree with you on your comment regarding leaving out jap horror. I was only trying to keep it under 10. but, yes, there are so many scary horror movies which have scared me to shit in my pants, that I cant put them all in top 10… lol. may be, I will expand on this one soon.
cheers…
anyone for
“the last house on the left ” ?
recent horror top 10 (Starting from 2000 and released in US as movies or direct to dvd)
10. Dark Water
09. Saw 2
08. Exorcism of Emily Rose
07. Midnight Meat Train
06. 1408
05. The Orphanage
04. The Ring
03. L'¥t den r'¤tte komma in
02. Saw
01. Bugs
The Genre is not dead, bhai, only the sparkles are few.
‘The Others’ is also a good horror flick
Even “Shutter” shouldnt be missed
“the descent” was another one..
The real people who can make horror films are East Asians
And yeah i watched El Orfanato in theaters last year, scared the shit outta me
I have seen many many horror movies, most were psychologically disturbing like the silence of the lambs and psycho, etc. butttttt the movie that has scared me so bad that i couldn’t sleep the night i saw it was
[REC]
Spanish movie, which was remade into the extremely not scary at all Quarantine last year. But [REC] is truly the movie that ” SCARED THE SH*! OUT OF ME”. Literally.