Your Top 10 Horror Movies

[Dukefrukem]

See, earlier I was talking about my top 100 list, and in my list I highlight the horror movies (so they stick out easier). I was looking through the horror movies and found these movies ranked in this order. If you asked me to name my top 10 movies off the cuff, this is not how I would rank them, but this is how they show up in my top 100 list. I'm doing it wrong somehow.

List your top 10 horror movies of all time.

1. John Carpenter's The Thing
2. Alien
3. Aliens
4. The Descent
5. Drag Me to Hell
6. Night of the Living Dead (Romero)
7. Evil Dead
8. Jaws
9. Let The Right One In
10. Dawn of the Dead (Synder)

[MacGuffin]

There are so many different kinds of horror, but here it is...

1. Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock)
2. The Innocents (Jack Clayton)
3. The Tingler (William Castle)
4. Fascination (Jean Rollin)
5. Suspiria (Dario Argento)
6. Hausu (Nobuhiko Obayashi)
7. Inland Empire (David Lynch)
8. Black Sunday (Mario Bava)
9. Pit and the Pendulum (Roger Corman)
10. Onibaba (Kaneto Shindô)

[Spinal]

1. The Vanishing
2. Poltergeist
3. Hour of the Wolf
4. Santa sangre
5. Shaun of the Dead
6. May
7. Let the Right One In
8. Diabolique
9. Evil Dead II
10. Peeping Tom

Genre definition is hard. I probably have others in my top 100 that could fit, but I'm trying to avoid films that only fit the category loosely.

[endingcredits]

1. Audition (Miike)
2. Psycho (Hitchcock)
3. The Shining (Kubrick)
4. Let The Right One In (Alfredson)
5. Funny Games (Haneke)
6. Rosemary's Baby (Polanski)
7. The Wicker Man (Hardy)
8. Hausu (Obayashi)
9. Ringu (Nakata)
10. Bram Stoker's Dracula (Coppola)

[Bosco B Thug]

See, earlier I was talking about my top 100 list, and in my list I highlight the horror movies (so they stick out easier). I was looking through the horror movies and found these movies ranked in this order. If you asked me to name my top 10 movies off the cuff, this is not how I would rank them, but this is how they show up in my top 100 list. I'm doing it wrong somehow.

Haha, yeah, I could totally see that happening to me. It's going from comparing them to all films, to then comparing only the horror films to each other.

1. The Birds
2. I Walked With a Zombie
3. The Haunting
4. The Leopard Man
5. Cure
6. Death Proof
7. Don't Look Now
8. The Seventh Victim
9. Day of the Dead
10. Candyman

I'm probably forgetting something essential.

EDIT: Ugh, reminded of The Shining, Psycho, and The Wicker Man... those might swap in for the ones near the bottom.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Off the top of my head:

1. Halloween
2. The Thing (1982)
3. The Vanishing
4. Jaws
5. Alien
6. Evil Dead 2
7. Creature from the Black Lagoon
8. The Exorcist
9. Onibaba
10. Repulsion

[Spinal]

I have this nagging suspicion that The Descent should be on my list. Gotta watch that again.

[MacGuffin]

I need to rewatch I Walked With a Zombie. I think I totally missed the boat on that one and while it may sound strange, after listening to a lot of Exuma, I feel like I have a better understanding of the tone that the movie was going for.

[Kurosawa Fan]

I have this nagging suspicion that The Descent should be on my list. Gotta watch that again.

Might be the only example I can think of where I can say, "That movie was scaring the hell out of me until the monsters showed up."

[endingcredits]

Might be the only example I can think of where I can say, "That movie was scaring the hell out of me until the monsters showed up."

I felt the same way.

[MacGuffin]

Might be the only example I can think of where I can say, "That movie was scaring the hell out of me until the monsters showed up."

The scene where they find the previous explorers' equipment is chilling in how it allows viewers to come to their own horrifying conclusions as to what occurred. So yeah, I think I'd probably agree with you, but I thought the creatures were pretty well designed.

[Bosco B Thug]

I need to rewatch I Walked With a Zombie. I think I totally missed the boat on that one and while it may sound strange, after listening to a lot of Exuma, I feel like I have a better understanding of the tone that the movie was going for.

Well, the film can be a little stilted, so maybe my putting it at #2 is a bit forced, a bit much. Doubt: the peril of listing.

[Spinal]

Might be the only example I can think of where I can say, "That movie was scaring the hell out of me until the monsters showed up."

This is why I want to watch it again. It was admittedly a bit jarring, but I wonder what the experience of watching it a second time would be like, knowing it was coming. Still think it's an extraordinary film.

[D_Davis]

1. The Thing - Dir. John Carpenter
2. Scream - Dir. Wes Craven
3. Evil Dead 2 (1987) - Dir. Sam Raimi
4. Descent (2005) - Dir: Neil Marshall
5. A Chinese Ghost Story (1987) - Dir. Ching Siu Ting
6. Misery (1990) - Dir: Rob Reiner
7. The Haunting - Dir: Robert Wise
8. Re-Animator (1985) - Dir: Stuart Gordon
9. Return of the Living Dead (1985) - Dir. Dan O'Bannon
10. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) - Dir: Wes Craven

[Melville]

1. Possession
2. Dead Ringers
3. Hour of the Wolf
4. Rosemary's Baby
5. Eraserhead
6. The Wicker Man
7. Psycho
8. Audition
9. Let the Right One In
10. Hausu
11. Repulsion

Went to 11 because I'm not sure if things like Possession and Eraserhead should count.

[Dukefrukem]

Might be the only example I can think of where I can say, "That movie was scaring the hell out of me until the monsters showed up."

That's may be the only example I can think of where I can say, "That movie was scaring the hell out of me even after the monsters showed up".

[Raiders]

1. PULSE (K. Kurosawa, 2001)
2. EYES WITHOUT A FACE (Franju, 1960)
3. DIABOLIQUE (Clouzot, 1955)
4. TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE, THE (Hooper, 1974)
5. DEAD RINGERS (Cronenberg, 1988)
6. INNOCENTS, THE (Clayton, 1961)
7. BLACK CAT, THE (Ulmer, 1934)
8. THING, THE (Carpenter, 1982)
9. OPERA (Argento, 1987)
10. GOD TOLD ME TO (Cohen, 1976)

A lot of films very tough to leave off, particularly The Seventh Victim, Peeping Tom, all three of Polanski's apartment trilogy, Alien, Bava's Kill, Baby...Kill! and Argento's Deep Red. Just to name a few.

[Bosco B Thug]

That's may be the only example I can think of where I can say, "That movie was scaring the hell out of me even after the monsters showed up".

The first half of the film is undoubtedly superior, but I definitely enjoyed the over-the-top "BE SCARED!" close-up shots of the fully-revealed creatures' eyes rolling around in their sockets and green skin dripping mucus from every pore.

I was gonna hold it in, and no offense, but I am baffled by the love Let the Right One In is getting.

[number8]

This will need some serious thinking.

[Dukefrukem]

The first half of the film is undoubtedly superior, but I definitely enjoyed the over-the-top "BE SCARED!" close-up shots of the fully-revealed creatures' eyes rolling around in their sockets and green skin dripping mucus from every pore.

I was gonna hold it in, and no offense, but I am baffled by the love Let the Right One In is getting.

I loved the movie, but if I were doing this list NOT by looking at my top 100 movies list, it wouldn't crack the top 20. I need to make some adjustments in my lists.

[Bosco B Thug]

1. PULSE (K. Kurosawa, 2001)
2. EYES WITHOUT A FACE (Franju, 1960)
3. DIABOLIQUE (Clouzot, 1955)
4. TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE, THE (Hooper, 1974)
5. DEAD RINGERS (Cronenberg, 1988)
6. INNOCENTS, THE (Clayton, 1961)
7. BLACK CAT, THE (Ulmer, 1934)
8. THING, THE (Carpenter, 1982)
9. OPERA (Argento, 1987)
10. GOD TOLD ME TO (Cohen, 1976)

Ah, Eyes Without a Face and Diabolique slipped my mind. They would be very strong Honorable Mentions.

I love Hooper, but I've recently been accumulating a small collection of misgivings about TCM that prevent me from labeling it an unimpeachable masterpiece. Still great, though.

[Sycophant]

My mind doesn't seem to want to actually produce this list, but know that The Fly, Audition, The Thing, and a host of Kiyoshi Kurosawa films are on it.

[Kurosawa Fan]

2. EYES WITHOUT A FACE (Franju, 1960)

This should have made my list too. That's what I get for going off the top of my head.

[D_Davis]

The first monster reveal in The Descent is one of the best scares of all time. Gets me every freaking time, and I've seen the movie about 12 times. It's a movie in two halves, and each half is executed with perfection. The first half is the tense man vs. nature thriller, and the second half is the monster movie. And like From Dusk Til Dawn, the first half flows effortlessly into the second.

[jenniferofthejungle]

1. Night of the Living Dead '68
2. The Evil Dead
3. Halloween
4. Dawn of the Dead (78)
5. The Thing (Carpenter)
6. An American Werewolf in London
7. The Exorcist
8. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
9. Black Christmas
10. The Changeling

I'll have to think about the rest, but the list usually has the usual suspects on it (Halloween, The Thing, An American Werewolf in London, Black Christmas...)