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shadowkatAllergies are driving me crazy (really wish the downstairs neighbors would get rid of the moldy pumpkins on the front stoop. On top of the leaves...the mold is driving me nuts. Eyes itchy, nose itchy, coughing at night...ugh. I love fall but it hates me.) Also dreading work more than usual, for reasons won't bore you with.
I'm in the mood for lists and since it is October, and nearing Halloween - am doing top horror films. May do books and tv shows in another post, since my mind drew a blank before I began those lists. Need to think on it a bit, methinks.
* My Top Horror Films (I'm a bit of a snob and most of these predate the 21st Century because I don't like modern day horror films that much and have veered away.) In no particular order just off the top of my head.
1. The Haunting (1963) directed in minimalist style by Robert Wise, starring Claire Bloom, Julie Harris and Russ Tamblyn. It is a film based on Shirley Jackson's book, The Haunting of Hill House. And unlike the Steven Spielberg version, is faithful to plot, tone, and texture of the original novel. It will haunt you afterwards. Possibly the best haunted house film I've seen.
2.The Blair Witch Project - another film that is not that scary until you start to think about it. We don't really see anything. But we are told everything we need to know and our mind is left to piece it together. The film is about a bunch of folklore students in Maryland who disappeared while filming a documentary about a local urban legend. Filmed almost entirely in black and white, hand-held, video cameras, this film changed how horror films were done. It also was the first film that played with the idea of found "footage". It feels like a documentary. And we're told the footage was found and the events are real. In addition, it was the first film to use the internet almost exclusively to market itself. Low-budget - with word spread via the internet, in much the same way that modern urban legends spread. An amazing film on many levels, and sticks with you long after it is finished. At the time - a lot of people had to leave the theater due to motion sickness. We can thank the Blair Witch for the hand-held camera craze.
3. The Vanishing skip the American remake and watch the original released in 1988, and directed by George Sluzier. It is the scariest serial killer flick I've seen and I include Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer and Silence of the Lambs in that category. A young couple are on vacation, the wife is abducted. Three years later the husband begins to receive messages from her abductor.
4. Stanley Kubrick's The Shining - possibly the best film ever made of a Stephen King novel and by far the most frightening.
King after watching it said that Kubrick appeared to want to hurt the audience. The end is beyond creepy and far more frightening than King's book. After I saw the film, I read the book and saw King's TV remake - not scary after I saw Kubrick's original. A down on his luck writer takes his family across country to act as a caretaker for a deserted hotel during the winter months. They are snowed in.
5. Ridely Scott's Alien - the end-all, be-all of Monster films meets 10 Little Indians meets the Haunted House, with a cast to die for. This was Signourney Weaver's first film. She's joined by Tom Skerrit, Lance Henrikson, John Hurt, amongst others. A mining crew in deep space discovers an alien egg that are asked by their corporation to take on board and bring back.
Things do not go well. [Yes, Aliens is more enjoyable in some respects and I can actually watch it without racing from the room in terror...but it is no where near as scary.]
6. The Hitcher - 1986. Rutguer Hauer, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and C Thomas Howell. Skip the remake and watch the original. This is a mind-bender of a movie. A young man who escaped the clutches of a murderous hitch-hiker is subsequently stalked, framed for the hitcher's crimes, and has his life made into hell by the same man he escaped.
7. John Carpenter's Halloween and Wes Craven's The Nightmare on Elm Street - these are possibly the best of the Slasher films and the most scary. There have been sequels, remakes, and copy-cats (most recently the humorous Scream flicks) but nothing compares with these two. Halloween is the least gorey of the two, but Nightmare continues to bug me. The later features Johnny Depp in his first role and it well...let's just say, "meat-grinder" comes to mind.
8. Shaun of the Dead - okay not scary, but it is my favorite zombie movie. And the only one I've made it through outside of Zombieland and possibly Night of the Living Dead. It's about a guy in England who suddenly has to fight zombies and it is a lovingly comic homage to that horror trope. Admittedly gross but not as gross as most zombie flicks.
9. Jaws - the best monster movie ever. It's really a character piece. But there are some haunting and truly frightening scenes.
Every time it comes on the screen I stop and watch. Stephen Spielberg at his minimalist best. What aided Spielberg was the animatronic shark did not work, so he had to suggest it. The suggestion is all you need.
10. Let the Right One In (skip the remake, and see the original, you'll thank me later) and American Werewolf in London. Both innovative takes on a fairly stale and overdone trope. Right One is more creepy than frightening - it's about a young boy being bullied who makes friends with a strange girl, who turns out to be a bit more than she seems. American Werewolf - is about an American college kid who gets bitten by a werewolf and unknowingly and somewhat comically goes on a killing spree. It is scary in places. The twist? His victims haunt and stalk him.
11. Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds - which made me afraid of birds for years. Based on a Daphne Du Maurie short story of the same name, a young and somewhat troubled woman visits a sea-side town for a holiday, on the way she buys two love-birds.
During her visit, there are a number of very odd bird attacks - which increase, until it literally feels as if they are at war with the human race. No one builds suspense like Hitchcock.
I'm in the mood for lists and since it is October, and nearing Halloween - am doing top horror films. May do books and tv shows in another post, since my mind drew a blank before I began those lists. Need to think on it a bit, methinks.
* My Top Horror Films (I'm a bit of a snob and most of these predate the 21st Century because I don't like modern day horror films that much and have veered away.) In no particular order just off the top of my head.
1. The Haunting (1963) directed in minimalist style by Robert Wise, starring Claire Bloom, Julie Harris and Russ Tamblyn. It is a film based on Shirley Jackson's book, The Haunting of Hill House. And unlike the Steven Spielberg version, is faithful to plot, tone, and texture of the original novel. It will haunt you afterwards. Possibly the best haunted house film I've seen.
2.The Blair Witch Project - another film that is not that scary until you start to think about it. We don't really see anything. But we are told everything we need to know and our mind is left to piece it together. The film is about a bunch of folklore students in Maryland who disappeared while filming a documentary about a local urban legend. Filmed almost entirely in black and white, hand-held, video cameras, this film changed how horror films were done. It also was the first film that played with the idea of found "footage". It feels like a documentary. And we're told the footage was found and the events are real. In addition, it was the first film to use the internet almost exclusively to market itself. Low-budget - with word spread via the internet, in much the same way that modern urban legends spread. An amazing film on many levels, and sticks with you long after it is finished. At the time - a lot of people had to leave the theater due to motion sickness. We can thank the Blair Witch for the hand-held camera craze.
3. The Vanishing skip the American remake and watch the original released in 1988, and directed by George Sluzier. It is the scariest serial killer flick I've seen and I include Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer and Silence of the Lambs in that category. A young couple are on vacation, the wife is abducted. Three years later the husband begins to receive messages from her abductor.
4. Stanley Kubrick's The Shining - possibly the best film ever made of a Stephen King novel and by far the most frightening.
King after watching it said that Kubrick appeared to want to hurt the audience. The end is beyond creepy and far more frightening than King's book. After I saw the film, I read the book and saw King's TV remake - not scary after I saw Kubrick's original. A down on his luck writer takes his family across country to act as a caretaker for a deserted hotel during the winter months. They are snowed in.
5. Ridely Scott's Alien - the end-all, be-all of Monster films meets 10 Little Indians meets the Haunted House, with a cast to die for. This was Signourney Weaver's first film. She's joined by Tom Skerrit, Lance Henrikson, John Hurt, amongst others. A mining crew in deep space discovers an alien egg that are asked by their corporation to take on board and bring back.
Things do not go well. [Yes, Aliens is more enjoyable in some respects and I can actually watch it without racing from the room in terror...but it is no where near as scary.]
6. The Hitcher - 1986. Rutguer Hauer, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and C Thomas Howell. Skip the remake and watch the original. This is a mind-bender of a movie. A young man who escaped the clutches of a murderous hitch-hiker is subsequently stalked, framed for the hitcher's crimes, and has his life made into hell by the same man he escaped.
7. John Carpenter's Halloween and Wes Craven's The Nightmare on Elm Street - these are possibly the best of the Slasher films and the most scary. There have been sequels, remakes, and copy-cats (most recently the humorous Scream flicks) but nothing compares with these two. Halloween is the least gorey of the two, but Nightmare continues to bug me. The later features Johnny Depp in his first role and it well...let's just say, "meat-grinder" comes to mind.
8. Shaun of the Dead - okay not scary, but it is my favorite zombie movie. And the only one I've made it through outside of Zombieland and possibly Night of the Living Dead. It's about a guy in England who suddenly has to fight zombies and it is a lovingly comic homage to that horror trope. Admittedly gross but not as gross as most zombie flicks.
9. Jaws - the best monster movie ever. It's really a character piece. But there are some haunting and truly frightening scenes.
Every time it comes on the screen I stop and watch. Stephen Spielberg at his minimalist best. What aided Spielberg was the animatronic shark did not work, so he had to suggest it. The suggestion is all you need.
10. Let the Right One In (skip the remake, and see the original, you'll thank me later) and American Werewolf in London. Both innovative takes on a fairly stale and overdone trope. Right One is more creepy than frightening - it's about a young boy being bullied who makes friends with a strange girl, who turns out to be a bit more than she seems. American Werewolf - is about an American college kid who gets bitten by a werewolf and unknowingly and somewhat comically goes on a killing spree. It is scary in places. The twist? His victims haunt and stalk him.
11. Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds - which made me afraid of birds for years. Based on a Daphne Du Maurie short story of the same name, a young and somewhat troubled woman visits a sea-side town for a holiday, on the way she buys two love-birds.
During her visit, there are a number of very odd bird attacks - which increase, until it literally feels as if they are at war with the human race. No one builds suspense like Hitchcock.
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no subject
Date: 2011-10-17 05:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-17 04:34 pm (UTC)Very odd film in that way.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-17 09:30 am (UTC)American Werewolf In London is so good it basically killed the werewolf genre for 20 years or so. You don't top that movie.
Actually I agree with most of these except for The Shining (beautifully made, but Nicholson is completely wrong for the part) and The Birds (I hate that ending).
no subject
Date: 2011-10-17 04:33 pm (UTC)On the Shining? I think Nicolason works if you (a) hadn't read the book first, or (b) haven't seen all his films after the Shining. I think the Shining was in the early 1970s? Around the time of Five Easy Pieces and One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest - where he was playing similar roles, hence the casting.
Having watched it with both Steven Webber/Rebecca De Morney and Jack Nicolason (and I can't remember the actress' name but she reminds me of Olive Oil) - have to say the Nicolason casting works better. More realistic and less pretty and safe. Also Nicolason looks a lot like Stephen King. Who'd you cast?
no subject
Date: 2011-10-17 05:35 pm (UTC)I wouldn't have minded someone like Hoffman in that role. Of course, he did pretty much the same role in Straw Dogs anyway.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-17 10:06 pm (UTC)I do know that when I first saw it in 1985, it scared me, even though I knew he was going to snap more or less from the beginning. Kubrick also sort of directed it that way - according to documentaries that I'd seen on the film later. Kubrick's view of the character - was that he was part of the hotel, a deranged soul - always on the verge of snapping. While King wrote the character as a drunk, not on the verge of insanity, and saw the hotel's ghosts as a metaphor for demon booze. Kubrick saw the character as not redemptive, while King wrote him very differently. (Very similar to the disagreement between Kubrick and Burgess on Clockwork Orange's Alex.)
So, I think a little of the blame has to go to Kubrick - who I think asked Nicholson to play it that way. There's a deleted scene where Nicholson is shown abusing his boy in the beginning over a red ball that leads me to believe that.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-17 09:51 am (UTC)I saw this in the theatre and I still remember that when it ended people just sat frozen in their seats for the longest time before they started to get up and leave. And watching those walls and woodwork bulge on the big screen... even more frightening than seeing it on the small screen.
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Date: 2011-10-17 02:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-17 02:23 pm (UTC)http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/kwaidan/
It was the last two: 'Hoichi the Earless' and 'In a Cup of Tea' that made the deepest impressions on me.
(sorry about the edit, but that link didn't work)