horror film recs?
 

i've been making little videos that sort of have a horror thing going on. what are your favorites?

the only ones that i remember liking (a lot) are The Thing and Suspiria.

Re: horror film recs?
 

Halloween
Amytiville

I saw millions of horror films in the 80s and none of them really stick. But The Thing is definetely one of my faves of all time.

Re: horror film recs?
 

Evil Dead II

Re: horror film recs?
 

I loved The Ring. Doesn't get any better than that, IMO.

Re: horror film recs?
 

yah, i liked the first Evil Dead and The Ring. adam have you seen Ringu? i wonder how it compares.

how was Ju-On?

Re: horror film recs?
 

the Serpent and the Rainbow
the Exorcist
Final Destination 2
Hellraiser
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (remake)
Fright Night
Feast
Candyman
Wes Craven's New Nightmare
the Omen (original)
Frailty

Re: horror film recs?
 

I haven't seen Ringu. The directing in The Ring is spot-on. Puuuuuuuurrrrfect.

Re: horror film recs?
 

I don't watch horror movies much, but 'the descent' which came out last year here is one of the best i've seen.

I read that the US ending is different from the original UK ending, which is the one we got as well. The ending is one of the best parts, so if you check it out, try to get the original one.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0435625/

Re: horror film recs?
 

Favourite 'classics':

Hellraiser
The Fly
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Nightmare on Elm St.
Halloween

Favourite 'modern':

The Hills Have Eyes remake
The Descent (only seen UK version)
The Skeleton Key
Severance

Re: horror film recs?
 

Fear dot Com and then watch the Ring right after that. Fear dot Com isn't that great, but it works well with the Ring.

Re: horror film recs?
 

thanks for everything so far

i found a good website for Asian extreme cinema reviews:
http://www.mandiapple.com/snowblood/index.html

lot of good stuff to check, esp. for Ring fans ... this is more along the lines of what i'm excited about, marginal & surreal ... also, Italian giallo / horror films

Re: horror film recs?
 

I'm jazzed that you liked Suspiria, kid cue. Have you checked out much Lucio Fulci? (City of the Living Dead, The Beyond, Zombie). He's a bit gorier than Argento and also more surreal and dreamlike. Sergio Martino's Torso is also a pretty decent giallo with one incredible scene that's worth watching the whole movie for.

Mario Bava should also be on your list. Bay of Blood AKA Twitch of the Death Nerve is basically the first giallo... he's also got some solid gothic euro-horror titles as well like Kill, Baby kill! and Baron of Blood.

Another good euro-horror if you're going for dreamlike qualities is Amando de Ossorio's Tombs of the Blind Dead. There's some striking visuals there if you don't mind the more cheesy aspects that come along with it.

Demons is great. Demons 2 is also good but basically the same exact film. Also worth checking out is Lamberto Bava's first film Macabre.

On the North American side, I heartily recomend the original Black Christmas. You can't go wrong with Poltergeist or some others that people here have mentioned... I'd also add Cabin Fever and all the 70s films that it's a throwback to (Last House on the Left, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (the Donald Sutherland version although the original is also good), I Spit on your grave (ok cabin fever doesn't throw back to that, but it should)). Also remember David Cronenberg! Videodrome, The Fly, Shivers... you really can't go wrong with his any of his earlier work.

Re: horror film recs?
 

Return of the Living Dead
The Entity (I read somewhere there's a remake tentatively planned by a Japanese director)
Warning Sign
C.H.U.D.
Manitou

Re: horror film recs?
 

have tons of Fulci on my to-see list, but haven't gotten around to it yet. i wanted to view more Argento first. also, have you seen Cannibal Holocaust? i don't know how "horror" that is, but it's one of the most disquieting films i've seen.

thanks for the other recs -- totally forgot about Cronenberg, he's a given (Videodrome and Scanners and even eXistenZ are all personal favs). still have to see The Fly and Shivers, etc. Dead Ringers is in the mail :D

Re: horror film recs?
 

Cronenberg's early stuff is all very interesting. Shivers, The Brood, Rabid... very Canadian horror at its best.

I have seen Cannibal Holocaust. The impalement and the rape scenes are particularly horrific but mostly i found the movie like... yeah, not so much scary as just uncomfortable. The animal scenes probably have a lot to do with that. Still though... I'm still not quite sure how they pulled off the impalement... looks pretty damn real. A friend of mine once showed the movie and made up these little statuettes for anyone that stayed through the whole thing. I wish i had one.

That same guy made a knock-off of Last House on the Left called The House on the Edge of the Park which is fantastic. It even stars the same guy but it has that raw italian edge and much less emphasis on the plot making actual sense. pretty uncomfortable viewing.

i still haven't seen Deep Red (which I hear rivals Suspiria) but other Argento flicks I can vouch for are The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Tenebrae, and Inferno. The beginning of Opera was great but I felt it got pretty weak by the end.

I'd say it was a good idea to see more Argento before diving into Fulci though. To me he was an even more acquired taste. I'm still not a giant fan but some of his imagery is amazing.

It's not so much horror but an amazing movie that blends giallo structure with gritty crime is Strange Shadows in an Empty Room (AKA Blazing Magnums). if you can track it down it's well worth seeing. Again, not really scary but it's great to see the giallo formula played with a little bit.

Re: horror film recs?
 

Oh man Dead Ringers is great, The Fly is great too. Videodrome I really don't like though, it crosses the limit of absurdity for me. Or maybe it was cause I watched it somwhat recently. The funny thing about Cannibal Holocaust as a kid I thought the whole thing was real (my parents told me it was..bastards)

Re: horror film recs?
 

the thing that scared me about Cannibal Holocaust was that a lot of it really does seem real, even after reading all the 'myths debunked' stuff on the net, and knowing the year it was made. and the animal stuff, the way it played into the film, it wasn't even presented in a shocking or sensationalistic way, it was just there to keep sucking you into the jungle. which i found really really dark, for some reason :(

i was thinking about suggesting it for the Dirty Movie Club but then i thought against it -_-

Re: horror film recs?
 

hahahahaha ohhhhh man. now THAT would be an interesting thread.

Re: horror film recs?
 

I was going to recommend this as one of the all time best horror movies ever made. Turn out the lights, put this dvd in, turn up the sound, and try not to have nightmares.

Re: horror film recs?
 

not quite horror, but a good thriller/horror-esque flick is Session 9. I'd recommend it highly if you wanna have a constant creeped-out feeling.

Skeleton Key - better than I thought it would be

Re: horror film recs?
 

the 4 original Juon series, The Curse/The Grudge (the curse was the tv movie version before the actual movie). the whole series is really low budget but most of the ideas were quite spooky at the time.

Tale of Two Sisters...one of the most visually beautiful suspense/horror movies.

The Phone/Red Shoes...these are 2 different movies (the phone being the better of the two) not neccesarily innovative in any way but fun to watch. Phone probably has the greatest/scariest acting by a 5-6 year old ever (and she kinda looks like my 3 year old bratty niece). Red Shoes, the story doesnt make much sense, but it was kinda fun watching a mom and her little daughter fight over a pair of shoes

Re: horror film recs?
 

I got the Thing on dvd a while ago, great movie (and the dvd has a nice and really long documentary on the making of as well).

The Descent was one of the best of the more recent horror movies I've seen.
Then I watched Silent Hill recently which was pretty good (obviously not up to par with something like The Thing, but for a videogame movie it wasn't bad at all, although not really all that scary).

I haven't seen all those japanese films yet... I think I saw the Ring but none of the others mentioned (I'll get around to it sometime :))

Then of course there's the scifi stuff like Alien (the first one I think could be classified as horror, and maybe Alien 3 as well, the other's are more action/thriller stuff)