Halloween

 

Halloween is the best holiday of the year. I’m not saying that to put down the other great holidays. You got a holiday? I’ll celebrate it. But Halloween is so unique. It’s the one time of year when we’re encouraged to explore the darker aspects of our species. Horror movies take over the multiplexes, store windows are crowded with displays featuring skulls and severed limbs, and thoughts turn to contemplations of death and evil. But not in a completely serious way. It’s mostly for fun. The haunted houses, woods, and cornfields; costumes and trick or treating – they’re the thick veil of commerce and civilization that separates us from actually giving ourselves over to that darker side.

I think a lot of it is tied to the fall season, too. Trees are losing their leaves as the skies turn gray and cold rain replaces warm sun. It’s a reminder of that cycle of life; a nod to our own mortality and acknowledgement that everything eventually dies. What’s better than a crisp, gray walk through a graveyard, kicking the dry, brightly colored leaves as you breathe in their faint, sickly sweet odor of decay on an overcast October evening?

Halloween, curiously, is primarily known as a children’s holiday. I don’t know when the last time was that you dressed up and went trick or treating, but I was sixteen and THAT was like three years too long.

I think the primary difference between a kid’s Halloween and an adult’s Halloween is that kids, no matter what, celebrate Halloween ON October 31. I guess as we grow older we get more flexible. Adults (at least the ones I know) celebrate the Alcoholic’s Halloween, which is the Saturday before Halloween if October 31 doesn’t fall on a Saturday. This is the big night if you’re older than, say, sixteen. You go to parties or the bar. The actual Halloween, for me at least, is usually spent watching horror movies.

Then the next day it’s all over. Time to take the Jack-O-Lantern to the trash and put the skulls and severed limbs back in the boxes. There’s still candy left, whether you’re an adult or kid. And then, suddenly, it’s time to get ready for “The Holidays” and Halloween is a pleasant memory. Why is it that a holiday supposedly about love and peace is so stressful while a dark holiday like Halloween is pretty much just plain fun? What does that say about the nature of human beings? Probably nothing except that we’re suckers for consumerism and commercialism.

Now, that’s scary.

 

Top 100 Horror Flicks #5-1

#5 – THE EXORCIST (1973)

Directed by William Friedkin
Genre:  Devil
Last Year’s Rank:  2
Rating:  5 stars
Sequels:  Exorcist II:  The Heretic (1977, D: J. Boorman, 2 star)
               The Exorcist III (1990, D: W. Blatty, 4 stars)
               Exorcist IV:  The Beginning (2004, D: R. Harlin)
               Dominion:  Prequel To The Exorcist (2005, D: P. Schrader)

A lot of horror movies takes on elements of the supernatural.  This usually takes the form of immortal monsters, aliens, or other unexplained phenomena.  Even when a movie is supposedly “based on a true story”, the style is so heightened that it looks more like a new car commercial than a true story.  The Exorcist DOES rely on supernatural elements and it’s NOT based on a true story, but somehow it’s one of the most realistic horror movies ever produced.

I guess even if you’re not religious, there’s still this little pang in the back of your head that maybe all this devil stuff could possibly be true.  The scary thing is that the devil doesn’t really care if you’re a believer or not.  He doesn’t even need a reason to possess you.  He just does it because he can and, well, he’s the Devil.

Say what you want about Linda Blair in the later stages of her career, but as Regan MacNeil in the original The Exorcist, there’s not a child actor alive that can touch her.  One minute she’s this cute little girl and the next she’s possessed by Pazuzu, spewing lines that would make 50 Cent blush (of course, the demon voice was overdubbed by another actor, but what do you expect?).  

It’s a dark, haunting movie, and Friedkin’s almost-subliminal insertions of the demon Pazuzu are extremely disturbing.  I’m getting goosebumps just thinking about it.  If you haven’t seen this lately, treat yourself.  It’s even scarier than you remember. 

The sequels are a mixed bag.  Exorcist II:  The Heretic is absolutely awful.  Just a terrible movie, made all the more so by the fact that it capitalizes on the original’s name and stars.  Exorcist III is a very good scary movie, though not on par with the first one.  Still, there are enough scares to warrant a screening and the story, while it doesn’t look it at first, ties directly into events depicted at the end of the original.  I have not seen The Beginning or Dominion, though from the stories I’ve read about the catastrophe of making those movies, I find it hard to believe they approach the levels of the first or third entries.  

 

 

#4 – PSYCHO (1960)

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Genre:  Slasher
Last Year’s Rank:  5
Rating:  5 stars
Sequels:  Psycho II (1983, D: R. Franklin, 3.5 stars)
               Psycho III (1986, D: A. Perkins, 2 stars)
               Psycho IV:  The Beginning (1990, D: M. Garris, 2 stars)
Remake:  Psycho (1998, D: G. Van Sant, 3 stars)

Psycho could quite easily be considered the #1 horror movie of all time.  Certainly it’s the most shocking (for its time) and influential movie on this list.  It’s a masterpiece in every way.  There are so many classic scenes, memorable lines, and archetypical characters, not to mention the incredible soundtrack.  The most famous, of course, is the shower scene, worth a place in the movie Hall Of Fame for just introducing the phrase “shower scene” into the lexicon.

It’s such a sick, depraved, horrific, and sexual film.  1960s America couldn’t have been ready for this.  Norman Bates is so batshit crazy that when gets the urge to fuck, he turns into his mother (who he murdered some years back in a jealous rage) to kill the very girl he wants to fuck.   Strong stuff for the Leave It To Beaver crowd.

Psycho II was released 23 years later, continuing the story of Norman.  I do like it, though it is a much more straightforward slasher movie, it’s a good one.

Psycho III was not a good slasher movie.  It was a bad one.

Psycho IV was a made-for-cable movie depicting the origin o Norman — the circumstances that led to him murdering his mother and her lover.  It sets the stage nicely for the events of Psycho, but it doesn’t really tell us anything we didn’t already know. 

The remake was strange and hard to criticize, since it was a 99% shot-by-shot recreation of the original.  It was well done, well acted, and well directed, but was it necessary?  I don’t really have a problem with it and really like the final shot of Norman at the end.   Compare and contrast.

 

 

#3 – Ju-On (2000)

Directed by Takashi Shimizu
Genre:  Ghost
Last Year’s Rank:  4
Rating:  5 stars

 Ju-On is the original Japanese horror movie that The Grudge is based on.  It has the same writer and director, but there are numerous changes between the original and its American cousin.  The biggest change (aside from language and actors) is that Ju-On is just a lot scarier.

It’s been a couple of years since I’ve seen this, so I’m really writing this review based on memory.  That’s my way of saying it probably won’t be a very incisive review. 

The story is basically a haunted house tale.  A young woman is asked by her boss to check in on an old lady that their company has been hired to look in on.  Some sort of hospice service, I’m guessing.  The young woman discovers that all is not right in the house when she passes out, waking up to find the old woman dead.

From there, “the curse” spreads to anyone who had ever entered the house.  The old woman’s family, the young hospice worker, and a couple of police that get involved in the case.  In the end, we learn how the house came to be haunted.

There are plenty of your typical “ghost story” scares here, with apparitions appearing and disappearing, weird goings-on, and lots of things that go bump in the night.  But the real scares aren’t generated solely by the visual.  Ju-On uses sound to achieve a whole new level of terror, from the frightening growl that seems to signal the appearance of the ghost to the almost complete lack of music.  You could watch this movie with a blindfold on and you’d probably be just as scared as you  would be under normal circumstances.  And that’s saying a lot for a subtitled movie.

The dvd for this movie also has one of the best commentary tracks I’ve ever heard on a dvd featuring Sam Raimi, who developed The Grudge after seeing Ju-On and getting the shit scared out of him.  If you’ve seen The Grudge and think that’s all there is, you should definitely check out Ju-On for some real scares.

 

 

#2 – HAUTE TENSION (HIGH TENSION) (2003)

Directed by Alexandre Aja
Genre:  Slasher
Last Year’s Rank:  3
Rating:  4.5 stars

The first 3/4 of Haute Tension (or High Tension as it’s known in the U.S.) is probably the scariest movie I’ve ever seen in my life.  From the opening shots of the killer pleasuring himself with a decapitated head to the sudden stark brutal violence that invades the family of a girl and her friend who are visited over a break from school, it doesn’t take long to go from, “Where’s this going?” to “Ow.  I just pulled all my hair out from the suspense”.  Which I literally did when I watched it last October.  There’s a good hour right in the middle of the film where the suspense just never lets up.  It’s the ultimate slasher movie and the lead character, Marie, appears to be the ultimate survivor.

And then the last 1/4 hits.  There’s a twist so preposterous and completely lacking any internal logic, that it rips you out of the movie and, when it’s over, leaves you angry, feeling ripped off, and wondering how such a tremendous opening 3/4 could end in such an unsatisfying way.  Twists, in general, are the bread and butter of horror.  A good twist in the last minutes of a horror film can raise a mediocre film to almost greatness.  But a bad twist that makes no sense given all that we’ve just witnessed can have the opposite effect.  

It really is a testament to how good that opening 3/4 is that Haute Tension ranks so highly on this list.  By all rights it should be in the bottom half, but it’s just so terrifying and brutal that even with the gigantic miscue, I still have to admire the film. 

One other note.  There’s a Dean Koontz book titled Intensity that I never read that apparently has startling similarities to Haute Tension.  The book came first, I must say straight up.  I saw the tv-movie Intensity about a year ago and was able to judge for myself just how similar they are.  And the answer is that the first halves are so similar that it’s just impossible to think that Alexandre didn’t blatantly rip off Koontz’s book for his film.  In fact, I wrote a post about it. 

So, in closing, Haute Tension is one hell of a scary movie.  And the only movie in the Top Ten that hasn’t been remade or spawned a sequel.  Yet.  Rent it, but grab a friend and turn on an extra light or two.

 

 

#1 – HALLOWEEN (1978)

Directed by John Carpenter
Genre:  Slasher
Last Year’s Rank:  1
Rating:  5 stars
Sequels:  Halloween II (1981, D: R. Rosenthal, 3.5 stars)
               Halloween III:  The Season Of The Witch (1982, D: T. Wallace, 3.5 stars)
               Halloween 4:  The Return Of Michael Myers (1988, D: D. Little, 2.5 stars)
               Halloween 5:  The Revenge Of Michael Myers (1989, D: D. Othenin-Girard, 2.5 stars)
               Halloween:  The Curse Of Michael Myers (1995, D: J. Chappelle, 2 stars)
               Halloween H20:  20 Years Later (1998, D: S. Miner, 3 stars)
               Halloween:  Resurrection (2002, D: R. Rosenthal, 2 stars)
Remake:  Halloween (2007, D: R. Zombie, 3 stars) 

Halloween is, frankly, the best horror movie ever made.  It’s no accident that quite a few of the horror movies on this list are no-budget efforts from visionary directors early in their careers.  Horror isn’t something that can be improved by a bigger budget.  You don’t really want state of the art CGI effects.  You don’t need massive sets or elaborate wardrobes.  It’s a liability to have a big name star.  Cheap, dirty, warts-and-all is the best type of horror because there’s the appearance of a thinner veil separating what’s on the screen and the audience.  There’s energy, ideas, and passion that you just don’t find in the latest PG-13 cookie cutter remake. 

Halloween was made for something like $300,000 — a microscopic amount (for movies) even in 1978.  It’s biggest star was a b-movie has-been (Donald Pleasance), with the bulk of the cast filled by unknowns.  Together with director John Carpenter, they put some of the scariest scenes ever conceived on film. 

As a six-year-old, Michael Myers murdered his sister with a butcher knife on Halloween night.  Fifteen years later he escapes from a mental institution and returns to Haddonfield, IL to kill again.  He’s pursued by Dr. Sam Loomis (Pleasance) who knows exactly what Michael is:  the personification of pure evil. 

Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) and her friends Annie (Nancy Loomis) and Linda (P.J. Soles) are anticipating a typical teenage Halloween.  Linda has a date with her boyfriend, Bob.  Annie and Laurie are babysitting across the street from each other.  Laurie firsts spots Michael in the daylight, staring at her in class from a car parked across the street.  She senses something is wrong, but chalks it up to Halloween superstition. 

When the sun sets, Michael stalks his prey, waiting for his chance.  Before the night is over Linda, Annie, and Bob are dead.  Loomis manages to save Laurie by firing six shots into Michael (at point blank range), who tumbles out a second story window.  But when Loomis goes to inspect the body, it’s gone. 

Such a simple story.  Such a low body count (Michael would go on to kill 81 people over the next 7 movies, but, if memory serves, he only kills 5 people in this whole movie, including one off-screen murder.  The first real on-stage killing by Michael as an adult occurs about 2/3 into the film, but we’re never bored.  There’s a foreboding atmosphere to the movie, with the dead leaves littering the ground.  We experience Michael stalking his prey, getting closer and closer, but waiting for the perfect moment.  And when that moment comes, it’s swift and violent and unexpected. 

But perhaps the scariest part of Halloween is John Carpenter’s terrifying soundtrack.  Single notes pounded out on a keyboard have never sounded so horrifying.  Borrowing heavily from Bernard Herrmann’s score for Psycho, Carpenter never lets the music let up so that even a seemingly innocent scene, like Laurie talking to Annie on the phone in her bedroom, is filled with dread.  (Is there any other genre of film that uses sound to such precise effect as horror?) 

The sequels are, as usual, a mixed bag that never capture the glory of the original.  Halloween II picked up right where the first movie left off.  It has some good moments and we get to learn more about Michael’s motivation and Laurie’s connection to him, but the killings are impersonal and, therefore, less effective.  It’s really only when Laurie is in danger that the film clicks.  A good effort, though. 

I like Halloween III:  The Season Of The Witch a lot as well.  It goes off on a completely different tangent with no Michael Myers.  This time a witch intends to kill a bunch of people with snakes hidden magically in Halloween masks.  It’s much better than it sounds with good scares and a strong science fiction element. 

Halloween 4:  The Return Of Michael Myers kicked off a three movie series, continued in Halloween 5:  The Revenge Of Michael Myers, focusing on Michael’s niece (and Laurie’s daughter), Jamie Lloyd.  4 is the weaker of the two movies, with 5 having some decent scary scenes and capturing an appropriate seasonal feel.  But they’re pretty much just standard slasher fare. 

Halloween:  The Curse Of Michael Myers is sort of a mess.  It was Donald Pleasance’s last film and he actually died before filming was completed.  There’s an attempt to explain Michael’s immortality with the creation of the shadowy group The Thorn.  There’s a convoluted thing about Jamie giving birth to the cult’s baby (or is it Michael’s?) and Michael finally kills Jamie.  It’s impossible to follow.  I guess there’s a “Producer’s Cut” out there that I’ve heard is both much better and not quite as good. 

Jamie Lee Curtis returned with Halloween H20:  20 Years Later, which was somewhat disappointing.  Kevin “Scream” Williamson wrote a draft of the screenplay which was ultimately rejected.  This is pretty standard slasher fare, elevated by the presence of Curtis and the continuation of the Laurie/Michael story.  Halloweens 3-6 are never referred to, nor is Jamie, Laurie’s supposed daughter. 

The story would conclude in Halloween:  Resurrection, where Michael finally kills Laurie before moving back to Haddonfield to kill a bunch of teens participating in a Halloween internet reality show where contestants must spend the night in the old Myers house where Michael first murdered his sister back in 1963.

Rob Zombie’s 2007 remake is more of an curiosity than anything else.  The first half delves into the psychology of young Michael Myers.  It’s some fairly effective stuff, but I’m not sure if it contributes anything to the Halloween legacy overall.  The second half is like a greatest hits of the original movie, with scenes recreated.  And then there’s the ending, which just isn’t as good as the original by a long shot.  It’s worth a look if you enjoyed Zombie’s other movies or if you’re just curious what a remake to Halloween would look like.  Rumor is they’re making a sequel to this one, but no word yet on if it’s set in a hospital or who’s going to direct. 

One problem with the Halloween movies is the terrible lack of continuity.  I, II, VII, and VIII apparently occur in one reality, while IV, V, and VI occur in another, with III occurring in yet another.  At least in the Friday the 13th movies there’s a certain amount of respect paid with at least a minimal explanation of how Jason keps coming back.  Not in Halloween.  Both Michael and Loomis EXPLODE at the end of Halloween II.  We see Michael get reduced to literal ashes.  Yet, in IV, Loomis has a bit of a scar, but that’s it.  Michael’s as good as new.  No explanation.  Nothing.  It’s an idiotic argument, given the idiotic nature of the series, but it still bugs me. 

 

 

Horror movies are so popular because they let us face our mortality in the safety of a darkened theater, surrounded by our fellow horror maniacs, free to scream at the harmless images projected on the screen.  At the end of the movie we identify with Laurie Strode or Nancy Thompson or Ellen Ripley because not only did they survive the homicidal maniac or nightmare or alien that killed all of their friends, but we did too.  There’s a certain feeling of accomplishment as those closing credit to Audition, High Tension, or Hostel roll.  We made it to the end.  But can we survive the sequel?

 

 

 

Top 100 Horror Flicks #10-6

#10 – SAW (2004)

Directed by James Wan
Genre:  Torture
Last Year’s Rank:  10
Rating:  4.5 stars
Sequels:  Saw II (2005, D: D. Bousman, 3.5 stars)
               Saw III (2006, D: D. Bousman, 1.5 stars)
               Saw IV (2007, D: D. Bousman, 2.5 stars)
               Saw V (2008, D: D. Hackl)

The original Saw was genius in the simplicity of its premise.  Two men who don’t know each other wake up in a room with no idea how or why they are there.  Chained to pipes in the room, with a corpse and fifteen feet between them, they’re tormented by an unseen psychopath named “Jigsaw”.  And the clock is ticking with one of the men’s family to be killed if he can’t escape in time. 

Part of the genius is that we know as little as the characters at the beginning of the film.  We’re dropped in the middle of this situation with no clue what the hell is going on.  It turns out that the tormentor is the Tyler Durden of maniacs.  He wants you to stop taking your life for granted, so he devises deadly traps that are escapable if you’re willing to go far enough.  And if you do survive, you’ll appreciate living more than ever. 

It’s a premise played out to perfection.  Mystery, suspense, horror, gore — it’s got it all.  Including a twist ending that you don’t see coming. 

 

#9 – JAWS (1975)

Directed by Steven Spielberg
Genre:  Shark
Last Year’s Rank:  9
Rating:  5 stars
Sequels:  Jaws 2 (1978, D: J. Szwarc, 3 stars)
               Jaws 3-D (1983, D: J. Alves, 1.5 stars)
               Jaws:  The Revenge (1987, D: J. Sargent, 0 stars)

 Jaws not only scared the shit out of seasoned horror maniacs, but mainstream America as well.  Most horror these days is made for a niche audience, with exceptions, of course.  Jaws appeals to the masses.  Is it the magic Spielberg touch?  The fact it’s based on a novel?  Or is it that the killer isn’t something as abstract as a psycho in a mask.  It’s a shark — a prehistoric eating and killing machine.  Humans have a primordial fear of sharks, captured perfectly in the opening scene.  Naked, alone, and vulnerable in the vast waters, out of her element and easy picking for a predator in his home turf. 

With the help of the familiar eerie theme music, the shark stops being a force of nature and become the jagged tooth-filled maw of malevolent destruction — a true villain.

The sequels got progressively worse and worse and the stories became more and more outlandish.  Jaws 2 isn’t bad at all, really.  It’s a decent thriller.  Jaws 3-D was, of course, in 3-D, but the story and effects were so inept that a 10 year old could do a better job with a handheld video camera and twenty bucks.  Jaws: The Revenge is so insanely stupid, I won’t comment except to warn you not to even bother watching it for unintentional laughs.  It’s that bad.

 

#8 – ALIEN (1979)

Directed by Ridley Scott
Genre:  Alien
Last Year’s Rank:  8
Rating:  5 stars
Sequels:  Aliens (1986, D: J. Cameron, 5 stars)
               Alien 3 (1992, D: D. Fincher , 2.5 stars)
               Alien:  Resurrection (1997, D: J. Jeunet, 3 stars)
               AVP:  Alien vs. Predator (2004, D: P. Anderson, 1.5 star)
               AVPR: Aliens vs. Predator – Requiem (2007, D: C. Strause and G. Strause)

I saw this on the big screen a couple of years ago and let me confirm what you already know:  it’s scary.  Maybe it’s the way that we get to know the characters before they’re gruesomely dispatched one by one.  Or maybe it’s the aliens themselves with their razor teeth, cockroach-like exoskeleton, and acid for blood.  But it’s probably the unrelenting suspense that begins with the infamous chest bursting scene and doesn’t let up until the end credits roll.  The sequels are varying degrees of good.  Aliens is a great sci-fi/action movie, which is many people’s favorite of the series.  Alien 3 has a fairly interesting concept and a great director, but falls short.  Alien:  Resurrection is more like the second one in tone, but with some twists.  And if you’re a fan of inane PG-13 horror at it’s most insipid, there’s always Alien vs. Predator.  But you can’t go wrong with the first one.  It’s a classic for a reason.

 

#7 – A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (1984)

Directed by Wes Craven
Genre:  Slasher
Last Year’s Rank:  7
Rating:  5 stars
Sequels:  A Nightmare On Elm Street Part 2:  Freddy’s Revenge (1985, D: J. Sholder, 2)
               A Nightmare On Elm Street 3:  Dream Warriors (1987, D: C. Russell, 3 stars)
               A Nightmare On Elm Street 4:  The Dream Master (1988, D: R. Harlin, 2 stars)
               A Nightmare On Elm Street 5:  The Dream Child (1989, D: S. Hopkins, 1.5 stars)
               Freddy’s Dead:  The Final Nightmare (1991, D: R. Talalay)
               Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (1994, D: W. Craven, 3 stars)
               Freddy vs. Jason (2003, D: R. Yu, 3 stars)

Forget the sequels and the one-liner spewing, stand-up comedian version of Freddy.  The first and best movie in this series is one of the scariest films ever made.  It has a great horror concept (he kills you in your dreams), a neo-classic villain (Freddy Krueger – child killer and demon), and one of the defining horror directors.  You’d never find Heather Langenkamp’s Nancy in a horror movie released today, but she’s perfect for Nightmare; an everyday girl next door.  The entire film plays out as Nancy’s nightmare.  We never see the “real” Nancy in the movie — the girl that’s dreaming all of this.  In a sense, we, the audience, are Nancy.  Her nightmare is seen through our eyes.  In her nightmare, when she falls asleep, she enters Freddy’s realm.  But the nightmare inside the nightmare conceit allows Freddy to seemingly inflict damage in the real world and, ultimately, enter the real world.  The only explanation is that what we think is Nancy’s reality – her waking world – is, in fact, just another dreamworld.  Further evidence is how, at the end, all of Nancy’s friends (ie. Freddy’s victims) are all somehow suddenly alive and the nightmare begins anew.  Nancy, and we, it turns out, are still dreaming.  

All that aside, it’s just a frightening, disturbing movie that hits all the right notes.  The sequels are varying degrees of entertaining.  Wes Craven’s New Nightmare is commendable for introducing a new twist to the formula and bringing back the scary, menacing Freddy, but it’s not on par with the first film.  Freddy vs. Jason is a surprising fun movie, but it’s not all that scary.  Worth checking out, though for fans of either franchise.

 

#6 – FRIDAY THE 13th (1980)

Directed by Sean S. Cunningham
Genre:  Slasher
Last Year’s Rank:  6
Rating:  4 stars
Sequels:  Friday The 13^th Part 2 (1981, D: S. Miner, 2 stars)
               Friday The 13^th Part III (1982, D: S. Miner, 3 stars)
               Friday The 13^th:  The Final Chapter (1984, D: J. Zito, 3 stars)
               Friday The 13^th Part V:  A New Beginning (1985, D: D. Steinmann, 2 stars)
               Friday The 13^th Part VI:  Jason Lives (1986, D: T. McLoughlin, 4 stars)
               Friday The 13^th Part VII:  The New Blood (1988, D: J. Buechler, 2.5 stars)
               Friday The 13^th Part VIII:  Jason Takes Manhattan (1989, D: R. Hedden, 1 star)
               Jason Goes To Hell:  The Final Friday (1993, D: A. Marcus, 2.5 stars)
               Jason X (2001, D: J. Isaac, 3 stars)
               Freddy vs. Jason (2003, D: R. Yu, 3 stars)

I struggled with where to rank this series.  When I began the list, it was lodged firmly at #25.  As the weeks wore on, it moved steadily up the list until last week when I placed it at #6.  And I know that such a high ranking for such a cheap, poorly written, and poorly acted series could blow what’s left of my credibility, but I have to admit it.  I love these movies. 

When I was a kid, I wasn’t allowed to go to R-rated movies.  Even so, I saw the trailers on tv and was absolutely terrified of Jason Voorhees.  I actually read the novelization for Part 3 and it scared the crap out of me.  So when I finally saw my first actual Friday movie (which, by the way, was the first one), I was expecting the worst.  I wasn’t disappointed.  I’d never seen anything like it. 

The first eight movies follow pretty much the same basic formula and define 80s horror.  A group of 17 and 18 year olds are in the woods to apparently party and have sex.  Jason dispatches them in various creative, painful, and bloody ways until a survivor (or two) somehow defeats him. 

An exception is the first movie, where we only see Jason as the ghostly image of a deformed young boy.  The killer is actually Jason’s mother, taking revenge on the camp counselors who she thinks let her son drown while they were off having sex.  Mrs. Voorhees is decapitated at the end of Part 1, which, it turns out in Part 2, Jason, now a man who wears a potato sack on his head, witnesses.  This causes him to seek out his own revenge on a new batch of counselors, who never seem to learn their lesson that Camp Crystal Lake might not be the best place for summer employment. 

The Jason that we come to know and love finally emerges in one of the better entries of the series, Friday the 13th Part III, where he finally gets his trademark hockey mask.  He takes an axe to the head at the end, but somehow returns to duty for Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter.  This is a solid and scary entry that begins a “Tommy Jarvis” trilogy within the series, spanning parts 4, 5, and 6.  The Final Chapter ends with a 13 year old Tommy (played by Corey Feldman) chopping Jason into tiny pieces with a machete.  But was this really the final chapter? 

Probably not.  Friday the 13th Part V:  A New Beginning picked up the Jarvis trilogy storyline with an older Tommy recovering from his psychological trauma at a halfway house in (you guessed it) the woods.  The killer this time is not Jason, but someone who uses the Jason myth to make people think it’s either Jason back from the grave or Tommy, emulating Jason’s crimes.  “Jason” doesn’t even appear until the last ten minutes of the movie.  They never show the killer’s face until he takes Jason’s hockey mask from Tommy’s room.  

Friday the 13th Part VI:  Jason Lives is my personal favorite of the series.  It’s the final part of the Jarvis trilogy, in which Tommy accidentally resurrects Franken–, uh, I mean Jason — before luring him back to Crystal Lake, where Tommy chains him to the bottom of the lake. 

Friday the 13th Part VII:  The New Blood is an odd entry in that the heroine, Tina, has telekinetic powers.  No one else in the Friday universe has powers other than Jason, who seems to be immortal and super strong.  Tina is able to move objects with her mind and hands Jason the biggest ass kicking he receives in the entire series.  Part VII ends with Jason being improbably returned to the bottom of Crystal Lake. 

Friday the 13th Part VIII:  Jason Takes Manhattan is a terrible misfire, and by far the worst of the series, taking Jason out of the woods and bringing him to New York, which looks suspiciously like Vancouver B.C.  For hardcore fans only. 

After Part VIII, Newline Cinema acquired the property from Paramount and set about trying to re-invent the stale series with Jason Goes To Hell:  The Final Friday.  It was a rocky start, with Jason as a slug-like creature with the ability to possess people’s bodies.  You had to admire them for trying something different, but this was TOO different for diehard Friday fans and not different enough for non-fans.  The last shot of the movie is Freddy’s razor glove pulling Jason into Hell. 

Jason X flung the series into the far future, where Jason has been revived from cryogenic freezing.  He bonds with some cybernetic technology and becomes a literal killing machine.  Believe it or not, it’s better than it sounds, but not much. 

The most recent appearance of Jason was in Freddy vs. Jason, which delivered on the promise of the ending of Jason Goes To Hell, with Freddy invading Jason’s nightmares so that he can control Jason, making people think Freddy is the actual killer.  The theory being that if people begin remembering Freddy, it will give him the power to return to stalk children in their dreams.  Only Jason’s more difficult too control than Freddy anticipated.  (Completely off topic, but given that the first film of the Nightmare series was Nancy’s dream, an argument could be made that all of Freddy’s appearances are actually dreamed by Nancy.  If so, then Nancy is also dreaming Jason, but is she dreaming it out of nowhere or does Jason actually exist and the knowledge of his existence is impacting her dreams?  Just curious.) 

There was also a television series that wasn’t specifically associated with the movies that ran for a few seasons in the late 80s called Friday the 13th:  The Series.  Cousins Mickey Foster and Ryan Dallion inherit a shop called Curious Goods from their Uncle Lewis.  Unfortunately, Uncle Lewis was evil and sold cursed goods.  So now Mickey, Ryan, and Jack Marshack must hunt down and retrieve all the cursed items sold before more bad things happen.    It was originally planned that the final episode of the series would have them tracking down the final cursed item:  a certain hockey mask. 

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, you can’t deny the Friday the 13th series’ impact on modern horror.  You also can’t deny that the original films featured some of the scariest soundtracks ever committed to tape.  Sure, the movies have their problems.  They’re not going to win any awards.  But if you’re in the mood for 90 minutes of fun scares, pointless gore, and gratuitous nudity, you could do a lot worse.

 

 

O’Connor vs. Jason Teaser Trailer

Top 100 Horror Flicks #20-11

#20 – JOHN CARPENTER’S THE THING (1982)

Directed by John Carpenter
Genre:  Alien
Last Year’s Rank:  24
Rating:  5 stars
Original:  The Thing (1951, D: C. Nymby)

In a remote Antarctic research station, something from another world has infiltrated the small group of researchers and it has the ability to assume any shape.  As the researchers are picked off one by one, they race to figure out who – and what – the killer is.  A masterpiece of isolation horror from one of the genre’s best at the top of his game.  You’ll want to watch this one over and over again.

#19 – Night Of The Living Dead (1968)

Directed by George A. Romero
Genre:  Zombie
Last Year’s Rank:  23
Rating:  5 stars
Sequels:  Dawn Of The Dead (1978, D: G. Romero, 3 stars)
Day Of The Dead (1985, D: G. Romero, 3 stars)
Land Of The Dead (2005, D: G. Romero, 3.5 stars)
Diary Of The Dead (2007, D: G. Romero)
Remake:  Night Of The Living Dead (1990, D: T. Savini, 3.5 stars)

There’s really not much I can say about this movie that hasn’t been said a thousand times.  There’s a reason Romero is the godfather of the zombie genre.  He literally created the genre and established the rules.  And the films are actually scary, too.  Especially the original.  The hopelessness of the film’s protagonists in a world gone completely insane is made all the more terrifying with the final realization that the real evil in the world isn’t something as ridiculous as the walking dead — it’s us.

#18 – HELLRAISER (1987)

Directed by Clive Barker
Genre:  Devil, Mind Fuck
Last Year’s Rank:  19
Rating:  5 stars
Sequels:  Hellbound:  Hellraiser II (1988, D: T. Randel, 4 stars)
Hellraiser III:  Hell On Earth (1992, D: A. Hickox, 2 stars)
Hellraiser IV:  Bloodline (1996, D: K. Yagher, 3 stars)
Hellraiser V:  Inferno (2000, D: S. Derrickson, 3 stars)
Hellraiser VI:  Hellseeker (2002, D: R. Bota, 3.5 stars)
Hellraiser VII:  Deader (2005, D: R. Bota, 2.5 stars)
Hellraiser VIII:  Hellworld (2005, D: R. Bota, 2 stars)

I think I’m the only person in the entire world that has seen all eight Hellraiser movies (including the last four direct-to-dvd entries).  Here’s the thing:  they’re not bad.  They are by far the best direct-to-dvd movies I’ve ever seen.  Which isn’t saying a whole lot, but it’s something.  The original is a classic of the genre, with the introduction of Pinhead and his Cenobites.  The Cenobites are necessarily evil like Freddie or Jason or Michael.  They’re more forces of nature, summoned by desire.  They’ll show you pleasure beyond your wildest imagination, but the price for that is pain beyond comprehension.  This is an intelligent series with notorious (for its time) gore. Some people think II was better than I (not me) and III is almost universally despised.  The pick of the direct-to-dvd litter is probably the fifth entry, which is a serious trip.

#17 – THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999)

Directed by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez
Genre:  Witch
Last Year’s Rank:  18
Rating:  3.5 stars
Sequel:  Book Of Shadows:  Blair Witch 2 (2000, D: J. Berlinger, 4 stars)

There’s very little middle ground in most people’s reaction to The Blair Witch Project.  They either think it’s an amateurish mess with no scares, bad acting, and nausea-inducing camera work or they think it’s a minimalist horror classic.  Obviously, I fall into the latter category.  The film captures the sense that these three people are lost in the woods, and that’s frightening enough, but throw in a witch with a penchant for making her victims stand in a corner, waiting their turn while she dispatches others, and you’ve got a nightmare captured on celluloid.  What it all comes down to for me is that final shot.  One of the best and outright scariest final shots in horror cinema history.  People were divided on the sequel as well, but I thought it was actually a better movie than the original.  Maybe not quite as scary, but it had a solid story that builds on the legend laid out in the first film, and takes it one step farther.

#16 – THE FOG (1980)

Directed by John Carpenter
Genre:  Ghost
Last Year’s Rank:  17
Rating:  5 stars
Remake:  The Fog (2005, D: R. Wainwright, 1.5 stars)

John Carpenter makes his fourth, but not final, appearance with this crazy scary ghost story that features pirates, lepers, a lighthouse, a drunk priest, ghosts, scary music, and, of course, fog.  Carpenter sets up a classic ghost story in the first half hour and then pays it off for the remainder of the film’s running time.  While not particularly gory, there are a lot of scares, enhanced by another creepy Carpenter soundtrack.  The remake starts off good, but just derails entirely in the last act, leaving more a sense of confusion and outrage than horror.  Skip it and rent the original.  It still holds up today, hairstyles aside.

#15 – THE SHINING (1980)

Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Genre:  Ghost
Last Year’s Rank:  16
Rating: 5 stars
Remake:  The Shining (2005, D: M. Garris, 3.5 stars)

I’ve seen this movie maybe a half dozen times, have read the book at least once, and seen the remake once or twice.  And, honestly, I never really understood why people went so crazy about it.  That is, until the last time I happened to catch it on tv.  Suddenly, it just sort of clicked with me and I got scared.  Like most of the really good Stephen King stories, the premise is deceptively simple:  an already somewhat unbalanced man and his family become caretakers of a haunted hotel.  It’s the slow build-up that gets us and Kubrik’s ability to draw us into the story and identify with Nicholson’s Jack Torrence.  We’re rooting for him to find someway to escape his fate, knowing full well that he can’t until we’re forced to acknowledge the story’s unhappy ending and switch our allegiances at the last minute.  The tv-movie remake isn’t bad at all.  Everybody does a good job with the material and it hits notes that Kubrik’s version doesn’t.  But Kubrik’s is just a lot scarier.  It’s psychologically traumatizing as we realize that, like Torrence, the only thing keeping our sanity in check in some instances is the thin veil of society and once that’s stripped away, we’re capable of anything.

#14 – THE RING (2002)

Directed by Gore Verbinski
Genre:  Ghost
Last Year’s Rank:  15
Rating:  4.5 stars
Sequel:  The Ring 2 (2005, D: H. Nakata, 1.5 stars)
Original:  Ringu (1998, D. H. Nakata, 3.5 stars)
Ringu 2 (1999, D: H. Nakata, 2.5 stars)
Ringu 0 (2000, D: N. Tsuruta)

I was having a conversation with a friend about this list the other day.  He was saying that almost all the movies in #s30-21 would be in his top 20 and I commented that, if pressed, I could make an argument for any of these top 40 movies to be in the #1 position.  There’s just a lot of really good horror films out there, and I’d guess that every one of these movies is at least somebody’s favorite.  Which, sort of, brings us to The Ring.  This is one of my favorite horror movies and probably deserves a higher ranking, but I just couldn’t fit it in anywhere higher.  I first heard about The Ring maybe six months before it was released.  I knew it was based on a Japanese horror movie, but didn’t have all that much interest in hunting down the original release.  That changed after I caught an advance screening of this remake.  I was blown away.  I’d never seen anything like it and I kind of figured out that maybe the Japanese were onto something with their horror films.  I hunted down Ringu and Ringu 2.  I know a lot of people claim that Ringu is a lot scarier than The Ring, but I’m not one of those people.  The American sequel is abysmal, but it’s worth a look for the deer scene alone.

#13 – CANDYMAN (1992)

Directed by Bernard Rose
Genre:  Slasher
Last Year’s Rank:  14
Rating:  5 stars
Sequels:  Candyman:  Farewell To The Flesh (1995, D: B. Condon, 3 stars)
Candyman:  Day Of The Dead (1999, D: T. Meyer, 2 stars)

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a big Clive Barker fan.  I just eat up his films, comics, and especially his books.  I read “The Forbidden” (the short story the film is based on) years before and thought it was one of Barker’s better entries in his Books Of Blood.  But Rose really brought the story to life and setting it in Chicago’s Cabrini Green was a masterstroke.  There’s the real sense that it’s almost a different plane of reality, where the words “Be my victim” are more seductive than threatening.  Candyman himself isn’t your typical movie monster.  His origin story is unique in all of horror, that I can think of.  His tale is tragic.  He’s not killing out a particular menace or insanity.  He’s killing to immortalize his victims.  Their deaths put their names (and Candyman’s) on the lips of the denizens of the projects and that notoriety gives them life beyond the grave.  I can’t recommend this film more.  The sequels are adequate, but nothing particularly special.

#12 – SCREAM (1996)

Directed by Wes Craven
Genre:  Slasher
Last Year’s Rank:  13
Rating:  4 stars
Sequels:  Scream 2 (1997, D: W. Craven, 3.5 stars)
Scream 3 (2000, D: W. Craven, 1.5 stars)

The Scream trilogy is somewhat over-rated, but there’s one big reason why it ranks so highly on this list:  the first 15 minutes of the first film is some of the scariest stuff ever put on the screen.  It starts out playful, building in menace and voracity until the final gut-wrenching moments when Cassie (played to perfection by Drew Barrymore) is violently murdered mere feet from safety.  As the film continues, you get the impression that you’re not just watching a slasher movie; you’re watching a movie about how the conventions of a slasher movie would play in the real world.  And you can tell Wes Craven is having fun subverting the very rules that he helped create in A Nightmare On Elm Street.  And I can’t not mention that he and screenwriter Kevin Williamson have created a worthy successor to the movie maniacs of the 80s in Ghostface.  The second movie is still very scary and a little less self-referential.  A pretty solid thriller.  The third one is a complete misfire.

#11 – CARRIE (1976)

Directed by Brian De Palma
Genre:  Psychic
Last Year’s Rank:  12
Rating:  5 stars
Sequel:  Carrie:  The Rage (1999, D: K. Shea, 2 star)
Remake:  Carrie (2002, D: D. Carson)

Another Stephen King story that was made into a great theatrical movie early on that he recently went back and remade as a tv movie.  The original is a frightening story of teen angst, sexual awakening, and religious fanaticism.  DePalma uses all of his best cinematic tricks to bring the story of Carrie White to life, including his trademark split-screen and long tracking shots.  The film begins with an anointment in blood as Carrie gets her first period in the school shower.  That blood is mirrorred in the shocking end when, covered in pig’s blood, she takes her revenge on everyone that she thinks wronged her.  But the scariest scenes feature Piper Laurie as her mother, a religious zealot who wants to shelter Carrie from the wrongs she’s suffered at the hand of Carrie’s deadbeat dad.  The very end has been copied so many times it’s become a cliché, but it works to chilling effect here as we realize that the sole survivor’s horror is just beginning.  The sequel would have been better served by not trying to cash in on the “Carrie” name.  It’s not a bad movie, it’s just a not-very-good run-of-the-mill dead teenager movie.  I never saw the remake, but given Angela Bettis’ (who plays Carrie in the remake) haunting performance in May, I’m no longer as steadfastly opposed to seeing it as I used to be.

Top 100 Horror Flicks #30-21

#30 – CUBE (1997)

Directed by Vincenzo Natali
Genre:  Mind Fuck
Last Year’s Rank:  33
Rating:  4 stars
Sequels:  Cube 2:  Hypercube (2002, D: A. Sekula, 3 stars)
               Cube Zero (2001, D: E. Barbarash, 2.5 stars)

I was a late comer to the Cube franchise, having only seen the movies in the past year.  But I was sold immediately.  The first (and best) film opens with a man waking up in a cell with no apparent windows or doors.  He soon discovers that he’s in a complex made up of numerous cubes, some with deadly traps and some safe.  It isn’t long before he meets up with other people trying to find a way out of the Cube.  No one knows why they’re there or how they got there or what the purpose of their being there is and not everybody is who they seem to be.  The sequels were kind of a let-down as they explored more of what the cubes are and why they exist.  

#29 – THE FLY (1958)

Directed by Kurt Neumann
Genre:  Mutant Bug
Last Year’s Rank:  29
Rating:  5 stars
Sequels:  Return Of The Fly (1959, D: E. Bernds)
               Curse Of The Fly (1965, D: D. Sharp)
Remake:  The Fly (1986, D: D. Cronenberg, 3.5 stars)
                The Fly II (1989, D: C. Walas, 2.5 stars)

This movie freaked me out as a kid.  That final scene with the guy’s head on the fly’s body and Vincent Price’s terrifyingly humane decision on how to deal with it is truly one of the most chilling moments in horror history.  Cronenberg’s remake was good and gooey, but I just don’t think it even came close to matching the original in terms of real horror.

 

#28 – GIN GWAN (THE EYE) (2002)

Directed by Oxide Pang Chun and Danny Pang
Genre:  Ghost
Last Year’s Rank:  26
Rating:  4 stars
Sequel:  The Eye 2 (2004, D: O. Chun and D. Pang, 2.5 stars)
Remake: The Eye (2008, D: D. Moreau and X. Palud) 

This movie is similar in concept to The Sixth Sense, but is so much scarier, you’ll think The Sixth Sense is actually part of the Scary Movie franchise.  A young woman undergoes a cornea transplant and begins to “see dead people”.  But these dead people might actually want to do her harm.  She must then find out who the donor of her new corneas was so that she can begin to figure out just what the hell is going on.   As for the remake, what the hell is wrong with Jessica Alba?  Can she really not act?  Was Dark Angel just a fluke?  I mean, don’t get me wrong, she’s hot.  But damn.  She really sucks.

 

#27 – CLOVERFIELD (2008)

Directed by Matt Reeves
Genre:  Monster/Disaster
Last Year’s Rank:  NEW
Rating:  4 stars

Forget the cool trailers and the kind of annoying but effective viral marketing campaign.  Even with all that hype, the movie totally lived up to expectations.  It’s the kind of movie that Godzilla remake should have been.  Great monsters, suspense, some mild gore, some good jolts, and a bleak ending.  What more could you ask for?  I really hope they never make the sequel to this.  The more time that goes by, the more I think the ending makes any sequel unnecessary.

 

#26 – POLTERGEIST (1982)

Directed by Tobe Hooper
Genre:  Ghost
Last Year’s Rank:  30
Rating:  4 stars
Sequels:  Poltergeist 2 (1986, D: B. Gibson, 2.5 stars)
               Poltergeist 3 (1988, D: G. Sherman, 2 stars)

The first movie is probably the scariest PG-rated movie I’ve ever seen.  Hooper (also director of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre) really does a great job with the ghosts and the Indian burial ground stuff.  And who can’t relate to that clown and tree?  The sequels were less than stellar.  

 

#25 – DEAD SILENCE (2007)

Directed by James Wan
Genre:  Puppet
Last Year’s Rank:  NEW
Rating:  3 stars

This has a pretty good back story and some nice scares.  It’s a tad on the predictable side, but it’s probably the best puppet movie out there.  And let’s face it, puppets are scary.  It’s a convoluted story of revenge and tongue ripping that ends with a decent, if slightly confusing, twist.

 

#24 – FINAL DESTINATION (2000)

Directed by James Wong
Genre:  Thriller
Last Year’s Rank:  11
Rating:  5 stars
Sequels:  Final Destination 2 (2003, D: D. Ellis, 3.5 stars)
               Final Destination 3 (2006, D: J. Wong, 3.5 stars)

The Final Destination series is one of the most fun series in horror.  They’re not overly scary, true, and they’re not masochistic like Hostel or Wolf Creek, but they are solidly entertaining.  The original was created by Glen Morgan and James Wong to be an episode of The X-Files, one of the many series they wrote for.  When they left the show, they took the screenplay with them and expanded it to a feature length film.  The creative deaths, original idea, and sly references to other horror movies hit big.  The first movie is by far the best, though the second does have more elaborate and gorier deaths.  The third has, arguably, the least interesting initial premise, but the solid story and the building of the mythology created in the first two films make it pay off too.

 

#23 – THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974)

Directed by Tobe Hooper
Genre:  Mutant Human, Cannibal
Last Year’s Rank:  27
Rating:  5 stars

Sequels:  The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 (1986, D: T. Hooper)
               Leatherface:  The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990, D: J. Burr)
               The Texas Chainsaw Massacre:  The Next Generation (1994, D: K. Henkel)
Remake:  The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2004, D: M. Nispel, 4 stars)
                The Texas Chainsaw Massacre:  The Beginning (2006, D: J. Liebesman)

As a kid growing up, I had a dresser with drawers lined with newspaper.  In that newspaper was an ad for this movie.  My young imagination went into overdrive with what sounded to me like the most horrifying thing imaginable.  But the thing that really got me going was the “Based On A True Story” tagline.  Years later I finally saw this on video and it was just as horrifying and disturbing as I’d imagined.  The sequels aren’t anywhere near watchable, but the remake is terrifying in it’s own right.

 

#22 – SESSION 9 (2001)

Directed by Brad Anderson
Genre:  Ghost
Last Year’s Rank:  32
Rating:  4 stars

I reviewed this in last year’s list, but I don’t think anybody has seen it yet.  What’s wrong with you?  This is one seriously creepy movie with enough genuine scares and suspense to shatter your spine.  A crew is hired to clean the asbestos out of an old abandoned mental institution.  Only it’s not entirely abandoned.  As layers of the story and characters are pulled back, a real sense of inevitably creeps over the movie until the final stunning twist.   Criminally underrated.

 

#21 – 28 DAYS LATER (2002)

Directed by Danny Boyle
Genre:  Zombie
Last Year’s Rank:  25
Rating:  4 stars
Sequel:  28 Weeks Later (2007, D: J. Fresnadillo, 3.5 stars) 

There were quite a few admirable things about this movie, but its greatest contribution to the Zombie genre was that zombies no longer had to be these slow moving, easily avoided, uh, zombies.  These guys moved fast.  A breakout performance by Cillian Murphy didn’t hurt, nor did the stunning shots of empty London streets.  But the real horror wasn’t the zombies at all, as this movie proved once again that the scariest monsters on the planet are our fellow humans.

 

The Alcoholic’s Halloween

‘Twas the Saturday before Halloween, and inside my crib,
All of the candy had been eaten, except for one Nib.
The zombie was hung above the keg with care,
In hopes that some hot chicks soon would be there.

The bottles were arranged in a row on the bar,
But, dammit! I’d left the smokes out in the car.
And mamma in a drunken stupor and I without pants,
Had cashed our third bottle and I’d begun to break dance. 

When out on the porch, a grunting I heard!
‘Twas but my friend, Tea Bag, and his freshly laid turd.
Downwind from the smell, I tried not to stand.
But it stank really bad and I threw up in my hand.

The moon on the mountain of vomit-covered shit,
Made me reach for for a fatty and take a huge hit.

When what to my crying red eyes should appear?
Why, it’s a shot of whiskey and eight cold cans of beer.
Tea Bag handed me the drinks so lively and quick, 
I knew in a moment he was just being a dick.

More annoying than pigeons, those I’d invited were lame,
But I pretended to like them as I made up some names.

“Now, Fucker! Now, Woodsman! Now, Pockets and Mittens!
On Red Shirt! On Herr Klaus! On Tea Bag and Shittens!
To the keg on the porch! Don’t play with my ball!
Now shut the fuck up. I’m sick of you all!”

As dry heaves that before the wild beer shits fly,
The suckers took out their money and piled it high.
So into my hovel I invited my guests.
I sighed. There went my hope of fondling some breasts.

And then, as I started to shuffle the cards,
Mittens kicked that ass Pockets right in the nards.
I drew in a toke and was turning around,
When through the front window the Great Pumpkin came with a pound.

He dressed all in skins from his stem to his base,
And I swear that his cod-piece had been made from a face.
A bottle of Jäger he had tipped to his lips,
And he looked like a giant pumpkin taking big Jäger sips.

His eyes – how they despared! His pimples – how runny!
For a smiling Jack-O-Lantern, he sure wasn’t funny.
His evil little grin was curled in a sneer,
And his monstrous green stem made his intentions quite clear.

The stump of a joint he held tight in his mitt,
And he sat at the table, snarling, “Who’s dealing this shit?”
I dealt out the cards and looked at my hand,
The Pumpkin looked puzzled. Did he not understand?

He moved in to kill me; I knew it would hurt,
So between he and I, I positioned Red Shirt. 

The Woodsman picked up his axe and tightened his grip,
I had nothing to do but chew on wax lips.
We spoke not a word as the Woodsman went to work,
He hacked the Great Pumpkin, then had a quick jerk.

I then laid my cards down with all my chips in,
Pointing mockingly at their faces, I claimed my big win.
I took all their money and kicked them all out,
Then I drank some more booze and I started to shout.

Oh, they heard me exclaim as their car hit a tree,
“Happy Alcoholic’s Halloween to all, and by ‘all’ I mean ‘me’.”  

 

 

Happy Alcoholic's Halloween!

 

 

 

 

Hey kids! Don’t forget! The Alcoholic’s Halloween is tonight!!!!

Top 100 Horror Flicks #40-31

#40 – WHEN A STRANGER CALLS (1979)

Directed by Fred Walton
Genre:  Slasher
Last Year’s Rank:  42
Rating:  3 stars
Remake:  When A Stranger Calls (2006, D: S. West, 2 stars)

Review:  I first saw this movie on tv when I was around 10 years old and it scared the shit out of me.  When I caught it a few years back on HBO, I was expecting a cheese fest that would embarrass me for ever thinking it was scary.  I was wrong.  It holds up pretty well.  The remake is okay for PG-13 horror, but nowhere near as scary as the original.  I guess in the age of cell phones and caller i.d., it’s tough to pull off the evil crank caller movie.

#39 – GRINDHOUSE (2007)

Directed by Robert Rodriguez (Planet Terror) and Quentin Tarantino (Death Proof)
Genre:  Zombie/Maniac
Last Year’s Rank: NEW
Rating:  4.5 stars

This sort of bombed at the box office, but for the few who actually bothered to go see it in the theater it was a great, unique experience.  The trailers they insert between the features are great.  The look and feel of the films is just what you’d hope for and expect.  And the movies themselves are pretty good.  Rodriguez’sPlanet Terror is a “70s” zombie flick with over-the-top gore and a top-of-her-game Rose McGowan.  Tarantino’s Death Proof is Kurt Russell at his best with some of the most jaw-dropping CGI-less stunts I’ve seen in a long time.

#38 – AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (1981)

Directed by John Landis
Genre:  Werewolf
Last Year’s Rank:  35
Rating:  4 stars
Sequel:  An American Werewolf In Paris (1997, D: A. Waller)

The original is arguably the best werewolf movie ever made.  It’s got everything that makes a horror movie entertaining.  Scares, suspense, nudity, comedy, talking corpses, great special effects, a sympathetic leading man, and a kick ass director.  It might seem slightly dated today (the effects anyway), but it’s so much better than CGI.  The plot is pretty standard, but done well.  Two American friends are backpacking through Europe when a wolf attacks them.  One friend is killed and the other is badly wounded.  As the night of the full moon approaches, the dead friend appears to the wounded friend begging him to kill himself so that the dead friend’s soul can be free and no one else need be cursed.  The remainder of the movie plays out the only way it can as the curse of the werewolf claims more and more victims.

#37 – JEEPERS CREEPERS (2001)

Directed by Victor Salva
Genre:  Mutant Bug
Last Year’s Rank:  34
Rating:  3.5 stars
Sequel:  Jeepers Creepers 2 (2003, D: V. Salva, 2.5 stars)

I guess this is a mutant bug movie.  I’m not exactly sure what the Creeper is.  He’s scary, though.  You might be fooled at first into thinking that this is another Mutant Human movie.  All the obvious signs are there.  Rural location.  Creepy old house.  Rusty old truck.  Cellar full of corpses.  But something more is going on here.  Once every 23 years the Creeper gets to eat.  And while Whoppers are really good, they’re not on the Creeper’s menu.  The sequel takes place later the same night that the original takes place (to get past the “every 23 years” stipulation) and it was more of a so-so movie for me.  The original really focused on the protagonists (a brother and sister) and their deepening dread and horror as they slowly uncover what the Creeper really is.  The sequel was more your typical Dead Teenager movie (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

#36 – DEAD RINGERS

Directed by David Cronenberg
Genre:  Psycho
Last Year’s Rank: NEW
Rating:  5 stars

A very creepy film from David Cronenberg.  The gore is sparse, but the ick factor is taken to the limits with a story of twin gynocologists who really enjoy what they do.  When a woman with a unique biological part shows up, a twisted love triangle combines with some interesting new gynocological instruments to create some of the most squirm-inducing moments to grace the screen.

#35 – THE HILLS HAVE EYES (1977)

Directed by Wes Craven
Genre:  Mutant Human
Last Year’s Rank:  31
Rating:  3 stars
Sequel:  The Hills Have Eyes Part 2 (1985, D: W. Craven)
Remake:  The Hills Have Eyes (2006, D: A. Aja, 3.5 stars)
The Hills Have Eyes II (2007, D: M. Weisz)

Review:  I gotta confess that the last time I saw the original was when I was probably 14 or 15 years old and I wasn’t too impressed.  I never did see the sequel.  But I looked forward to the remake with much anticipation.  Why?  It’s the second movie from the director of instant horror classic High Tension.  Does it live up to my expectations?  Yes and no.  There’s definitely some brutal scenes.  Just absolutely barbaric.  The scares and suspense are almost suffocating.  But it left me a little hollow.  I didn’t really like the characters and, I don’t know, maybe the whole Mutant Human genre is just wearing a little thin.  Still, if you like horror, this is well worth checking out.

#34 – I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER (1997)

Directed by Jim Gillespie
Genre:  Slasher
Last Year’s Rank:  28
Rating:  3 stars
Sequels:  I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998, D: D. Cannon, 2 stars)
I’ll Always Know What You Did Last Summer (2006, D: S. White, 1 star)

Even though this film co-stars Freddie Prinz Jr., it still deserves high ranking on this list.  It has genuine scares, a good visual design for the killer, and a better-than-average screenplay by Scream writer Kevin Williamson.  The sequels aren’t worth checking out, especially the last-gasp direct-to-dvd third entry.

#33 – THE OMEN (1976)

Directed by Richard Donner
Genre:  Devil
Last Year’s Rank:  22
Rating:  4 stars
Sequels:  Damien:  Omen II (1978, D: D. Taylor, 2 stars)
The Omen III:  The Final Conflict (1981, D: Graham Baker, 2 stars)
Omen IV:  The Awakening (1991, D: J. Montesi)
Remake:  The Omen (2006, D: J. Moore, 3 stars)

In an obvious attempt to cash in on the worldwide phenomenon of The Exorcist, devil movies started being grinding out by the studios.  In The Omen, the devil isn’t taking over a child.  This time, the devil IS a child.  Expertly constructed by Donner, the tension of the film builds and builds as Thorn (played by Gregory Peck) refuses to see the screaming warnings that there is something horribly wrong with his “son”, Damien.  By the end of the movie, Thorn is driven to the unthinkable, but the prophecy of the Beast has been written and nobody can stop Damien’s terrifying destiny from being fulfilled.  The sequels are entertaining, if not particularly good.  The remake isn’t bad, featuring some good scares and gore effects.  But the leads are miscast and the screenplay doesn’t have the texture of the original.  Still, it makes for a creepy night in front of the tv.

#32 – MAY (2002)

Directed by Lucky McKee
Genre:  Doll, Psycho
Last Year’s Rank: NEW
Rating:  5 stars

Wow.  You know there are some good movies ahead when this is stuck at #33.  This is a great movie, with a really great performance from Angelia Bettis.  It’s funny, scary, dark, weird, and sad.  I really can’t recommend this highly enough.  The story centers around a, uh, weird girl with a lazy eye (whose only friend is a fucked up porcelain doll), the lesbian who has a crush on her, and the clueless mechanic that May loves. When the doll gets broken, May needs a new friend.  Really the only thing keeping this from being in the top ten is that it’s not all that scary, though there are some definite horror moments. Shit, I can’t do this justice.  Just see it.

#31 – ODISHON (AUDITION) (1999)

Directed by Takashi Miike
Genre:  Psycho
Last Year’s Rank:  34

Rating:  5 stars

There really isn’t a lot I can say about this film without giving away a lot of what makes it so great.  I’ll just say, “Kiri, kiri, kiri,” and give those of you that have dared to watch it a knowing wink.  This is a must see for not only one of the biggest shocking twists in any movie you’ll ever see, but for a richness of character development that you just don’t normally see in horror movies.  This is a special film.

Top 100 Horror Flicks #50-41

#50 – CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON (1954)

Directed by Jack Arnold
Genre:  Monster
Last Year’s Rank:  60
Rating:   5 stars
Sequels:  Revenge Of The Creature (1955, D: J. Arnold)
The Creature Walks Among Us (1956, D: J. Sherwood)

The Creature is hands down my favorite Universal Monster.  Part of that, I guess, is that it was originally released in 3-D.  I caught it on tv during the mid-80s 3-D craze and fell in love with it.  The story is about a scientific expedition to the Amazon that uncovers a missing link in evolution – a “Gill Man”, or a fish that walks like a human being.  The locales and characters and especially the monster are all first rate and this does have some pretty suspenseful moments.  I liked this one so much that I ripped it off for my short story, “The Expedition”.

#49 – EVIL DEAD (1981)

Directed by Sam Raimi
Genre:  Zombie
Last Year’s Rank:  46
Rating:  4 stars
Sequels:  Evil Dead 2 (1987, D: S. Raimi, 3 stars)
Army Of Darkness (1992, D: S. Raimi, 3 stars)

The Evil Dead trilogy is pretty infamous.  First off, it stars cult favorite Bruce Campbell (why doesn’t this guy get more parts in mainstream movies?).  Then there’s Raimi’s highly stylized direction.  And finally, there’s the crazy ass stuff that goes down.  A woman gets raped by a tree, Ash (Campbell), loses his arm (which tries to kill him), and he replaces it with a chainsaw, and for once the tension-cutting comedy is actually funny.    The second movie is pretty much a bigger budget remake of the first one, but the third one takes the series in an entirely new direction with great results.  A must see for any real horror fan.

#48 – THE AMITYVILLE HORROR (1979)

Directed by Stuart Rosenberg
Genre:  Ghost, Devil
Last Year’s Rank:  45
Rating:  3.5 stars
Sequels:  Amityville II:  The Possession (1982, D: D. Damiani, 1 star)
Amityville 3-D (1983, D: R. Fleischer)
Amityville:  The Evil Escapes (1989, S. Stern)
The Amityville Curse (1990, D: T. Berry)
Amityville 1992:  It’s About Time (1992, D: T. Randel)
Amityville:  A New Generation (1993, D: J. Murlowski)
Amityville:  Dollhouse (1996, D: S. White)
Remake:  The Amityville Horror (2005, D: A. Douglas, 2.5 stars)

Admittedly, the original version is a pretty shoddy movie.  The acting is a bit off and the scares seem a little too manufactured, but man, it’s scary.  The storyline is surprisingly similar to The Shining, where a family moves into an impressive new house and shit starts going bad.  The dad is haunted by the house’s violent past until he has no choice but to take matters into his own hands.  Very, very creepy.  The sequels invariably all sucked.  The remake was a step in the right direction, but with a PG-13 rating, the scares and gore were minimal at best.

#47 – THE WICKER MAN (1973)

Directed by Robin Hardy
Genre:  Thriller
Last Year’s Rank:  44
Rating:  4 stars
Remake:  The Wicker Man (2006, D: Neil LaBute)
I haven’t seen the remake, and really don’t intend to.  But the original is very unsettling.  A police detective travels to a remote island to investigate the disappearance of a child who the locals say never existed, but everything on the island is just a little bit off.   Something is definitely going on with the people that populate the island, as the detective witnesses weird rituals.  It all leads up to a stunning conclusion that blows your mind.

#46 – DAWN OF THE DEAD (2006)

Directed by Zack Snyder
Genre:  Zombie
Last Year’s Rank:  43
Rating:  4 stars

I was skeptical too.  A remake of Romero’s classic?  I mean, it’s been done before, with the 1990 remake of Night Of The Living Dead (which I liked), but this was a stand-alone movie and not a sequel to that remake.  But I liked it a lot.  The zombies were scary, the humans were a mixed bag of sympathetic and evil, and the direction was energetic.  But if you leave before the end of the closing credits, you’re missing the best part.

#45 – THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (1972)

Directed by Wes Craven
Genre:  Thriller
Last Year’s Rank:  42
Rating:  4 stars

Review:  What to say about this movie.  This is not a pleasant experience.  12 years before creating Freddy Krueger, Wes Craven teamed up with Sean Cunningham (the creator of Friday the 13th) to make this gruesomely realistic and disturbing low budget fright fest.  A gang kidnaps, rapes, and kills two girls and then unknowingly seeks refuge with the family of one of their victims.  It isn’t long before the fate of their daughter is revealed and things take a turn for the worse for the killers.  This is so low budget that it takes on the look of a snuff film combined with a documentary.  There’s an uncut version out there that’s worth tracking down.  You won’t necessarily enjoy this movie, but it will stick with you long after it’s over.

#44 – JENIFER (2006)

Directed by Dario Argento
Genre:  Mutant Human, Cannibal
Last Year’s Rank:  61
Rating:  3.5 stars

This is another entry from Showtime’s “Masters Of Horror” series and the second Argento film on this list.  This was written by and stars Steven Weber (from “Wings”) and it’s a genuine surprise how effective it is.  Detective Frank Spivey stumbles on a deranged guy about to kill a nubile young girl in the woods.  The killer is stopped, but not before uttering, “She’s not what she appears to be.”  He’s talking about Jenifer, a very special young woman who has a great body, but whose face is horribly disfigured.  Frank can’t get her out of his mind, and he rescues her from an institution where she is being held and takes her home.  Forsaking his wife, child, and job, Frank spins more and more out of control and Jenifer reveals her true self and a disturbing appetite.  This one will stay with you long after you’ve finished watching it.

#43 – PON (PHONE) (2002)

Directed by Byeong-ki Ahn
Genre:  Ghost
Last Year’s Rank:  41
Rating:  3.5 stars

A cautionary tale about not changing your phone number when you get a new phone.  Too bad Ji-won didn’t know that before she got her new cell phone.  If she had, maybe her daughter wouldn’t have freaked out the minute she put the phone to her ear and Ji-won wouldn’t have to investigate the gruesome deaths of previous people who had the unlucky phone number before her.  But then there wouldn’t be many scares in this South Korean horror classic.  I’m sure they’ll get around to remaking this sooner or later for American audiences, so if you have an aversion to subtitles, you can just wait for the inevitable PG-13 version.  If you want some good scares, though, you may want to add this to your Netflix.

#42 – THE DEVIL’S REJECTS (2005)

Directed by Rob Zombie
Genre:  Mutant Human
Last Year’s Rank:  40
Rating:  3.5 stars

The completely unnecessary and over-the-top sequel to Zombie’s House Of 1000 Corpses is disgusting, depraved, and a bunch of other “d” words that I can’t think of right now.  The Firefly family is at it again (no Karen Black this time out, though) in what I consider to be a superior film to Corpses.  This doesn’t play as such a direct Texas Chainsaw Massacre rip-off.  And there’s no weird, completely baffling ending.  Just good old fashioned terror and the best use of “Free Bird” in cinematic history.

#41 – HOUSE OF WAX (1953)

Directed by Andre De Toth
Genre:  Wax
Last Year’s Rank:  39
Rating:  4.5 stars
Remake:  House Of Wax (2005, D: Jaume Collet-Serra, 3 stars)

The original film starred Vincent Price and took advantage of the 50’s 3-D craze.  I saw it once in 3-D on tv and the effects weren’t bad, but you don’t need the blue and red glasses to enjoy this classic.  This is probably my favorite Vincent Price performance.  The remake is pretty good in its own right, but doesn’t hold a candle to the original (pun intended).  The effects are stunning, though.  It sort of treads the line between a Wax movie and a Mutant Human movie, but it’s a solid thriller that’s better than you think it is and probably one of the best of the current crop of remakes.

Top 100 Horror Flicks #60-51

#60 – FRIGHT NIGHT (1985)

Directed by Tom Holland
Genre:  Vampire
Last Year’s Rank:  55
Rating: 3.5 stars
Sequel:  Fright Night Part 2 (1988, D: T. Lee Wallace, 2.5 stars)

Another great 80s horror movie, this time starring Roddy “The Primate” McDowell.  Charlie is your typical suburban teenager who grows more and more suspicious that his new neighbor Jerry is an actual real life vampire.  He takes his suspicions to Peter Vincent (Roddy), host of a local horror movie show called “Fright Night”.  Together they must battle the powerful vampire to save Charlie’s girlfriend and themselves.  The sequel picks up a few years later with Charlie in college and tracked down by Jerry’s vampire family for a little revenge.  

 

#59 – CABIN FEVER (2002)

Directed by Eli Roth
Genre:  Biological
Last Year’s Rank:  52
Rating:  3.5 stars

This starts out as your typical cabin-in-the-woods horror film, but takes an unexpected and gory turn when the teens get exposed to a deadly flesh eating disease.  This is just a fun 80s-style horror movie punctuated by some of the most disturbing imagery you’re likely to see in American cinema.  

 

#58 – DRACULA (1931)

Directed by Tod Browning
Genre:  Vampire
Last Year’s Rank:  51
Rating:  5 stars

Bela Legosi’s interpretation of Dracula is the one that we all grew up with and it’s still my favorite one to date.  The black and white film only adds to the gothic creepiness of Dracula’s castle.  It might not be as scary today as other films on this list, but 75 years later it’s still creepy and there are few characters in any medium as famous.

 

#57 – THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935)

Directed by James Whale
Genre:  Monster
Last Year’s Rank:  50
Rating:  5 stars

I know that I’m woefully neglecting the Universal Monsters.  I should be, and am, ashamed.  I’ll try to do better next time.  It’s tempting to fill a lot of the list with the old Universal horror features from the 30s and 40s, but I chose to pick the standout installments and this is near the top of the heap.  Poor Frankenstein’s monster can’t catch a break.  People fear him, he’s reborn as a grotesque monstrosity, and when the good doctor finally gets around to creating a playmate for him, she wants nothing to do with him. This truly is not just a great horror movie, but a great movie.

 

#56 – NIGHTBREED (1990)

Directed by Clive Barker
Genre:  Monster
Last Year’s Rank:  41
Rating:  4 stars

There are a few Clive Barker related movies on this list, which is no surprise to me.  He’s one of my favorite authors, although “horror” isn’t really a word I’d use to describe his books.  And, really, this isn’t a horror movie along the lines of Candyman or the Hellraiser series.  But it does have a scary monster at the center of things, played by David Cronenberg.  

 

#55 – WRONG TURN (2003)

Directed by Rob Schmidt
Genre:  Mutant Human
Last Year’s Rank:  48
Rating:  3.5 stars

I’m tempted to rate this one a lot higher, because I really do like this movie.  The problem is that it’s very similar to other Mutant Human movies we’ve seen (such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre).  This one rises above the material by some great action and horror set pieces and some pretty brutal killings.  

 

#54 – WOLF CREEK (2005)

Directed by Greg McLean
Genre:  Slasher
Last Year’s Rank:  11
Rating:  3.5 stars

This is one very scary movie.  It’s true that the first 45 minutes or so are fairly slow moving as we follow two girls and a guy on a road trip through the Australian Outback.  It’s unique in most horror movies to get so much character development, but it doesn’t really pay off when the shit hits the fan.  Not to say that Wolf Creek isn’t one of the scariest movies I’ve ever seen, because it is.  Once it revs up, it’s relentless, disgusting, and suspenseful.  In fact, I tried to watch this one a couple weeks ago and had to turn it off at the “head on a stick” scene.  I couldn’t make it through!  Granted, I’m an easy target for horror movies, but it’s almost without precedent that I have to turn a movie off because I just can’t take it any more.  Definitely not for the faint of heart, but well worth it if you’re up for an edge-of-your-seat frightfest.

 

#53 – POPCORN (1991)

Directed by Mark Herrier
Genre:  Slasher
Last Year’s Rank:  NEW
Rating:  3.5 stars

A slightly better-than-average slasher movie where the killer uses the gimmick of offing people using the gimmicks of old 1950s B-movies (such as a giant mosquito from a 3-D movie, electricution from a film where the audience’s seats are rigged to give them minor jolts, and gas from the film The Stench in glorious Aroma-Rama).  This movie predates Scream by five years, but includes many of the self-referential in-jokes that would become Scream’s hallmark.  Worth checking out, even though the only copy I could get was a full screen transfer that left a little to be desired.

 

#52 – THE OTHERS (2001)

Directed by Alejandro Amenabar
Genre:  Ghost
Last Year’s Rank:  47
Rating:  4 stars

The story keeps you guessing about what’s really going on, but at the heart, this is just a really effective ghost story with some genuine creepy stuff going on.  It’s almost impossible to discuss the plot without giving away key information, so I’m not going to.

 

#51 – SHAUN OF THE DEAD (2004)

Directed by Edgar Wright
Genre:  Zombie
Last Year’s Rank:  NEW
Rating:  4 stars

Horror and comedy have been combined numerous times.  Sometimes it works out, most of the time it does not.  Usually, when it does work, the horror takes a back seat to the comedy.  In Shaun Of The Dead, the horror is front and center, and actually packs some good scares and gore.  And the comedy is, well, actually funny.