Horror for Halloween

[TheHills44060]

When I first saw American Werewolf I would have said it was the scariest movie I'd seen; it deserves to be on the list for sure..

For some reason the scariest moment for me when I saw that movie as a kid was when the masked Nazi guys broke into the house and shot the place up. I remember having a few similar nightmares.

[Smokey]

I don't know bout that list. It got some good horror movie selection, and it does few misses too. I would not call The Birds or Cat Poeple (and the remake) a horror flick. Suspence is more like it

I would add Ghost Stories to the mix also.

[Feanor]

For some reason the scariest moment for me when I saw that movie as a kid was when the masked Nazi guys broke into the house and shot the place up. I remember having a few similar nightmares.

Yeah, me too -- and I was in my 30s.

[RGA]

One of the scariest movies on the list was Halloween. But in truth it doesn't hold up well. Even John Carpenter notes this in his excellent running commentary. There is a 5 minute scene or something where Curtis is walking to the house where Michael is waiting inside. Carpenter notes that a 1970s audience was screaming at the screen telling her to run away - don't do in the house. An audience today would be bored from the length of time it was taking her to get to the house.

What is interesting is that there is virtually no blood in Halloween. It arguably started the "slasher" movie genre but it wasn't really a slasher film.

I saw the new movie The Thing and it wasn't that bad - but Ebert is bang on correct - too much creature and gore and sustained shots of it that it loses the scares - it also doesn't help that it looks like CGI cartoon a lot of the time while the 1981 version looked like a dog turning inside out and gallons of juicy blood and puss flying all over the place. The new one has that morphy cartoon (computer graphic) look. Too bad because it has some other slick effects and decent enough acting.

Frankly if you're not going to do real special effects like the old days and your choice is CGI or nothing - choose nothing and have the creature in the dark and use lighting and shadow effects instead. At least then you have a chance to scare the audience instead of making them look at something that is supposed to look real but instead looks like a computer graphic.

This is why I still like the change sequence in American Werewolf in London.

Remember though that this movie was part romance/love story and very much comedy. Jackson gets credit for Thriller but Landis directed it.

The best horror film is the "The Corporation" :-) it's scary because it's true.

THE CORPORATION [1/23] What is a Corporation? - YouTube

[Worf101]

Thanks Deano, I enjoyed that immensely. I liked the list a LOT, I could quibble with a few of the rankings, but overall I think they did a great job. I particularly like the fact that they recoognize the fact that OTHER countries were making good to great scary movies at the same time that we were. I also would've put The Exorcist first. I alos would've added "The Omen" and Goorge Romeo's version of "Salem's Lot" and eliminated some others, but all in all I found this to be an excellent and well thought out list.

Worf