Author Topic: Best Horror Movie Ever Poll - Group 2 of 10  (Read 8733 times)

Swamp

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on: December 11, 2009, 06:43:23 PM
The Shining trounced the competitiion in the first poll.  It will be joined in the semi finals by Nosferutu, which came in second place.  Third and fourth place winners were The Lost Boys and the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers, respectively.

This new poll has some more classics as well as some off beat films.  I have left the polling period at two weeks in case anyone wants to rent these movies before they vote.  I will keep that period throughout these first ten rounds (unless I get a bunch of complaints).

The movies may be horror, but don't be too afraid to vote.

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Ocicat

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Reply #1 on: December 11, 2009, 07:50:44 PM
I just can't wrap my brain around Jurassic Park being considered a horror movie.  I mean, ya, it's got monsters I guess - and people die... but there's way too much "Golly Gee Wiz, look!  Dinosaurs!" to think they were really going for an atmosphere of horror.  It's just an action/adventure movie.

Not all monster movies are horror.  King Kong isn't, and Godzilla vs. Gigan sure as hell doesn't qualify...



Sgarre1

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Reply #2 on: December 12, 2009, 12:10:55 AM
Yeah, most monster movies, in the big monster sense, are science fantasy or fantasy.  A few are science fiction, but then that pesky square-cube law comes into effect



Sgarre1

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Reply #3 on: December 12, 2009, 12:41:48 AM
Well, had to go with (SPOILERS below)

THE INNOCENTS - that scene at the reflecting pool, boy!  TURN OF THE SCREW has never been done better.

PHANTASM - probably the greatest boy's coming of age horror film that's ever been made - the terrible realization that your childhood is over and all the future means is people leaving - because they die, sex - which leads to death, getting old - which leads to death and death - which leads to work as you're crushed into a ceaselessly toiling dwarf!  Just an amazing movie to see, especially if you're 12/13!.  Not to everyone's taste....

VIDEODROME - simply wonderful - Cronenberg saw everything coming years before anyone else, and then made a truly disturbing movie about it.  "Turns out, it's from Pittsburgh!"  "The world is getting soft, patrone"  Just went to see this again last year on the big screen.  "Someday, we will all have Television names" ...and we do!.  A horror movie for adults.  Part of my trilogy of Cronenberg's greatest horror movies (although I like 'em all)

TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE - a Grimm's fairy tale set in modern times - so god-damn grimy and unrelenting!  "I'll do anything!" followed by juvenile giggles, because "anything" doesn't mean much to them...  "She escaped through a window in hell".

THE DESCENT - maybe jumping the gun on this, in retrospect there might be a bit too much screaming and running around in the dark, but I haven't been so entertained by a horror movie in years - Lovecraft's de-evolutionary fears meet survival horror.  Best seen packed into a giant theater with lots of people where the house lights are low, so when the screen goes dark, it is DARK!)


As for the others:
NEAR DARK is great (the bar scene especially), but I still think the end is a bit of a cop out.

FRIDAY THE 13TH is okay.  Probably the only one of the series that's actually closest to frightening, in a pure physical threat way but, again, the ending is a cheat (you can't have the mystery killer be a character you never introduced, fer gosh sakes!).

HELLRAISER is a funny film - works great, wonderful re-invention of the concept of demonic deals and a very dark treatment of love, lust and death.  But I found myself watching a revival showing back in the late 90's thinking, "why isn't this movie better?"  It's not bad - so much works well, but it does have a patchwork feel to it.  Still, the Cenobites are stunningly original and there's lots of nice ideas floating around - watch it as a double feature with JACOB'S LADDER and tease out the interesting different treatments of gnostic duality!

THE ORPHANAGE - liked it, didn't love it.  Ending, again, a bit too "Lifetimey" (my friend's term, derived from the Lifetime cable channel) and the husband has a very unrewarding role to play.

JURASSIC PARK - lots of fun, not horror to me.



lowky

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Reply #4 on: December 12, 2009, 01:54:50 AM
I voted for Hellraiser.  I agree with most people that Jurassic Park is not horror (unless you count the needless changes to characters from the book. 
Friday the 13th wasn't that good in my opinion.  The slasher genre was much better established by Halloween and Psycho.  It's hard to look back at any of the slasher movies though and call them scary now, because they have all become caricatures of themselves.  A slasher is a slasher is a slasher now nothing new, not scary so much as startling. i.e. where/when is the inevitable slasher going to pop out and kill the teenagers who are being naughty.  They are all morality plays.  They are fun sometimes, but really not that scary to me.


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Reply #5 on: December 12, 2009, 05:12:54 AM
I've seen very few of these (and agree that Jurassic Park doesn't belong anywhere in the contest).  I've seen Phantasm so long ago that I barely recall it, saw Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Friday the 13th but no great opinion of either.  Maybe Videodrome would get my vote, though I have only a slightly better memory of it than I do of Phantasm.  I might have seen Near Dark... did it have vampires?

I'll have to abstain this round.

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Swamp

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Reply #6 on: December 12, 2009, 05:45:40 AM
Re Jurrasic Park:  I teetered on whether to eleiminate it or not as it is primarily action/adventure.  I left it in because it was "nominated" due to horror methods of shooting.

Movies I say are horror movies, but that weren't marketed as such:

Jurassic Park - No really.  Look how it's shot, and even plotted.

Maybe Ben will come in and defend it.

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Sandikal

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Reply #7 on: December 12, 2009, 04:06:20 PM
I had never thought of Jurassic Park as horror until I saw it on the list, but I can concede that it does fit.  It came out when my daughter was 10 or 11.  She spent half the movie with her back turned and her face buried in the seat.  The scene where you hear thumping and see the ripples on the cup of water is classic horror.  The attorney cowering in the bathroom then getting eaten by the dinosaur is classic horror.  The scene with Laura Dern and the hunter going to turn on the electrical grid is classic horror.  And, the scene with the velociraptors chasing the kids in the kitchen was almost exactly like the scene of Jack hunting Danny in the kitchen in The Shining.  It's seriously scary stuff, so I do agree with Ben that it has enough horror elements to be considered horror.

It's also the only movie on the list I've seen other than the original Friday the 13th.  I didn't vote for that one just because I don't like slasher movies.  I prefer psychological terror.
« Last Edit: December 12, 2009, 04:08:36 PM by Sandikal »



Sgarre1

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Reply #8 on: December 12, 2009, 04:42:28 PM
Quote
I prefer psychological terror.

Then get thee to THE INNOCENTS!



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Reply #9 on: December 14, 2009, 06:37:15 PM
Movies I say are horror movies, but that weren't marketed as such:

Jurassic Park - No really.  Look how it's shot, and even plotted.

Maybe Ben will come in and defend it.

Haha, or maybe not.  I was just chatting amiably, not seriously suggesting it belongs in a Horror Hall of Fame or anything.  But FWIW I'm greatly amused at its inclusion.



deflective

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Reply #10 on: December 15, 2009, 05:12:38 AM
these polls have been enjoyable because there's time to see every movie and pretty much every one is worth the two hours to see it.

i'm wondering if anyone want to see a movie this weekend?  we can set a time, start the movie and open a thread to talk while it's playing.  as long as we stay in sync there wont be any problems with spoilers.  if there's enough interest & chatter we could look at setting up a chat room and make it a regular event.

the two movies i haven't seen yet are near dark and the orphanage.  either of those grab you?



Ocicat

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Reply #11 on: December 16, 2009, 04:46:26 AM
I seem to be the only voter for Near Dark.  And granted, it's not one of the world's best horror films, but damn if it isn't FUN!  You got white trash southern vampires, your cute/creepy kid vampire, a cheezy vampire love story, and half the cast is straight from Aliens!  Bill Paxton alone is worth the price of admission, and Lance Henriksen really ups the bar.   Some of the images from the film really stick with you, too.



deflective

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Reply #12 on: December 21, 2009, 02:33:43 AM
just saw near dark and i'm not even sure why it's in here.  all the other movies are good or iconic or ground breaking in some way, this one is just an example of bad 80s movie making.  Bill Paxton's performance was entertaining, the rest of it left me bemused & uncertain why i was watching it.  the supernatural hicks thing is done much better in true blood and supernatural, maybe this would have played better before that.

and, admittedly, there is a type of movie that is hugely popular that i just don't get.  armageddon, ghost rider & transformers all kill at the box office when i can't even sit through them.  this kinda feels like that.



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Reply #13 on: December 21, 2009, 07:17:12 AM
armageddon, ghost rider & transformers all kill at the box office when i can't even sit through them.  this kinda feels like that.

Hint: you need to turn your brain off.


Sgarre1

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Reply #14 on: December 22, 2009, 12:09:50 AM
Well, as you said, NEAR DARK did some stuff that hadn't even been thought of at the time (vamps as down on their luck hick shit-kickers) and beat Anne Rice to the screen with a version of the "little kid turned into a vamp and stays a kid" character (I phrase it like that because I'm sure Rice, or someone before her, wrote it first, but it hadn't really made it into a movie), dreary "modern country" locations, mixing a horror movie with Western motifs but setting it in modern times, and I really like Lance Henriksen in it.  For my money, a much better film than the analogous LOST BOYS, even with the cop-out ending.



Swamp

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Reply #15 on: December 22, 2009, 07:49:32 PM
We've got a three way tie going for second place.  Though the poll ends on Christmas day, I doubt that a lot of people will be rushing to vote then, so vote early if you want to break the tie, or if you feel strongly about Jurrasic Park's inclusion in the poll.
« Last Edit: December 22, 2009, 11:41:32 PM by Swamp »

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Reply #16 on: April 15, 2010, 06:15:32 PM
Okay, this is confession time.

I cannot watch Friday the 13th. Not because of anything in the movies... they're very cheesy and just not scary at all.

But after watching the original, I was in the woods around my house as a kid, playing with a couple of my cousins (I live way out in BFE... and still do). And one of them decided it would be funny to sport his hockey mask and chase me through the woods with a machete. All while doing that breathing thing. The cousin is dead now, a drug overdose... but I still can't stand to hear that breathing crap. It was right in my ear (my cousin with that eh, eh, eh, eh... ah, ah, ah, ah stuff)! Shawn didn't do anything to me, but it was a wild ride. When a horror character comes into your real life... it's weird to say the least. Yeah, it was just my cousin in a mask... but still.

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