Brainbugs Top 50 Best Horror movies of all time - Baumer's top 50 starts on page 18

[Brainbug]

Another one ive never heard of lol. Shows that watching over 1000 movies still doesnt mean one has watched all that are worth giving a try

[baumer]

1 hour ago, Brainbug said:

Another one ive never heard of lol. Shows that watching over 1000 movies still doesnt mean one has watched all that are worth giving a try

 

Which one are you talking about? Bay of Blood?  If that's the one you mean, just know its considered one of the first slasher films.  People say Friday the 13th is inspired by it although Cunningham denies it.  

[baumer]

I give you my word, the remaining films are all pretty well known.

[baumer]

Let's try to get a few more done before work....onto number 32.

[baumer]

31) Phantasm (1979)

US

Box office:  12 million

Person of interest:  Don Coscarelli

Memorable Quote:  Boooy!

 

 

A teenage boy and his friends face off against a mysterious grave robber known only as the Tall Man, who keeps a lethal arsenal of terrible weapons with him.

 

 

Here's my original truncated review:

 

 

Like everyone that has reviewed this film before me, I am going to sing it's praises, however, unlike those before me, I'm not quite sure why. This film did everything it was supposed to do as a horror film. It scared me in a few areas, it was quite gory in others and it was easily one of the ten most quirky and bizarre films I have ever seen. I can't tell you why anything transpires the way it does in here, I can't even tell you why people do the things they do, but I don't really think that is the point of the film. Like David Lynch's Mulholland Drive, this is more of mind altering experience or a dream that just doesn't make any sense. Perhaps this is a film that is esoteric by design and if that is the case then perhaps I should just watch it over and over again until I do have some sort of puerile grasp of it. 

Dictionary.com's definition of a phantasm is "in Platonic philosophy, objective reality as observed by the five senses." Another definiton it gives is simply, "a notion". And if you watch this film from beginning to end you will see why this makes all the sense in the world, yet it is still an abstruse concept that is meant to be exactly what it is.

The film begins with a funeral of one of Jody (Bill Thornbury) and Reggie's (Reggie Bannister) best friends. Jody's little brother, Mikey ( A Michael Baldwin) is a precocious kid who can't seem to stay in one place and follows his big brother everywhere he goes. Hence he is at the funeral but is surreptitiously hiding out in the bushes. As the funeral ends, he sees the caretaker lift a casket all by himself and put it into his truck. This is the nascency of the bizaare rituals that encompass the film. 

Michael decides to investigate the strange looking mansion where the cemetery rests. Once he breaks into the house, he is chased by some strange Jawa looking creatures and by a sphere that seems to come out of nowhere and drains your head of blood. He does escape and finally gets his big brother to believe him when he says that things aren't quite right up at the Morningside Cemetery. Now, up until this point, the film is quite linear. You have your classic set-up, a spooky looking mansion where the dead are taken and your typical stupid characters that do the traditional scary movie things, like going to investigate a haunted house all by yourself, gratuitous breast shots, some eerie music and dark nights. But that is where the title "typical horror film" ends and it crosses over into Rod Serling territory. From here on out, it just goes weird, but in a goosebump inducing way that keeps you frozen in your seat.

Don Coscarelli can take all of the praise and/or blame for this eccentric film. He wrote, produced, directed, was the DP, the editor and as another reviewer so aptly pointed out, he probably swept the floors at night and fetched coffee for those on the set. This is his incarnation. I also happen to agree with other viewers that say that this film has one of the most haunting yet mellifluous scores which is on par with Carpenter's Halloween theme. Both are intricate pieces to the presence of the film. Words like haunting, eerie, creepy and forbidding all come to mind when you hear the score. It is also uncanny to see some of the similarities to A Nightmare On Elm Street and Phantasm. Nightmare was a little more clear with what it was trying to say but both films have an overtly murky and dream like exploration into realms that many of us have yet to understand.

The underlying theme in this film is the unsolved questions that plague many of us when we wonder what happens when you die. Most of us believe that you go to Heaven or Hell. But those are just theories. And if theories are unproven then what is stop you from believing that this movie could really be the answer to those questions? As the tag line for the film so poignantly points out, "If this one doesn't scare you, you're already dead." What if all of this was true? What if you could be stolen and made into something that you did not ask to become? Who is the Tall Man and what is he doing here in our world? One of the most harrowing yet well done plot pieces is when Mikey goes to the girl's house and finds an old picture of the Tall Man sitting on a horse carriage, looking like it is circa 1776. This leaves the viewer ripe with questions.

Phantasm will leave you with more questions than answers but I will say this about the film. In a day and age where you get prosaic, banal and myopic efforts like ( take your pick of most of the horror that has "graced" our screens since the Scream and Blair Witch craze) and you compare them to films like Halloween, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Phantasm, you quickly realize that the 70's and early 80's was the genesis of the horror film. I realize horror probably dates back to Nosferatu and it became respected with Psycho, but to look at the films that were born in the 70's and 80's, it's a veritable, indefeasible list of some of the most revered and imitated horror films of all time. Now that I have seen Phantasm I can easily see the mark it has left on other films.

 

As I said, I still can't tell you what this film is all about nor can I tell you what it all means or how it all ends, all I can say is that it made me feel something strange with it's disingenuous stroke of the brush. This is a film that absolutely demands a second and third viewing....which is what I am about to do right now. BOY!!!!!!!

 

 

 

[baumer]

30) Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

US

Box office:  25 million

Person of Interest:  Donald Sutherland

Memorable Quote:  I have seen these flowers all over. They are growing like parasites on other plants. All of a sudden. Where are they coming from?

 

 

In San Francisco, a group of people discover the human race is being replaced one by one, with clones devoid of emotion.

 

Invasion of the Body Snatchers isn't all that scary.  It is incredibly creepy and it is very well done. Where as most horror films of this era are incredibly parsimonious with their budget, you can see that there was a substantial amount of money put into this one. The special effects are wonderful and the tension that builds is excellent. I like the fact that this also doesn't take long to get into the crux of the story. In the first ten minutes you can feel a sense of paranoia. We feel just as Liz does. We know there is something wrong, but just not what it is. We know the flower has something to do with it, but not sure exactly what. The film takes great pains to unravel the mystery like an onion. It has many layers to it and each one is peeled back with painstaking precision. 

 

This is a remake that surpasses the original in every way and I say this as a big fan of the 1956 film. I have nothing against remakes, some are great, some are good, some are bad, some are downright awful. Fortunately Invasion of the Body Snatchers(1978) is one of the truly great ones.  It is a very well made film, with the special effects enhancing the mood rather than distracting from it and the scenery and cinematography striking. The make up is also outstanding.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers also has a strong score that just adds to the tension and suspense, a compelling story especially the ending, in fact for me I marginally preferred the ending here, the dialogue is intelligent and well-delivered and the direction is very fine.

There is some great acting too. Donald Sutherland and Brooke Adams are strong leads, while Jeff Goldblum steals the scenes he appears in. Overall, a great film and worthy remake. 

And it has one of the coolest last shots of a film. Who thought Donald Sutherland could be so creepy?

 

 

 

[baumer]

And we are now into our top 30.  More later this evening.

[baumer]

The next three:

 

Aragorn slithers all over Christopher Walken

Barry Levinson's best film

What many consider the pinacle of Italian horror.

[Brainbug]

11 minutes ago, baumer said:

The next three:

 

Aragorn slithers all over Christopher Walken

Barry Levinson's best film

What many consider the pinacle of Italian horror.

 

 

Suspiria better not be not even in the Top 25.

[L Silverman]

Fun fact about Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)- Sutherland's ear-piercing pod scream from the last scene comes courtesy of Ben Burtt, the legendary Oscar-winning sound effects genius of Star Wars.

 

http://www.indiewire.com/2010/06/the-scream-adam-nayman-on-invasion-of-the-body-snatchers-225763/

 

(And oh, sorry Baumer, I'm been lurking around and I have been reading your Top 50 but haven't been commenting, sorry.)

 

[Fancyarcher]

A Bay of Blood was one of the first giallo films I ever saw. It was also my first Bava film. I started exploring his work after, and he soon became one of my favorite horror filmmakers. A great film, with some superb gore effects. 

 

I saw Invasion of The Body Snatchers (1978), only a few years ago, and I instantly enjoyed it. An intelligent 70's update on the classic story, that manages to surpass the original, and wow at the ending. In fact it might be one of my favorite endings to a film ever. It's so chilling. 

[baumer]

Will get three more done tonight. 

[baumer]

29) The Prophecy (1995)

US

Box office:  16 million

Person of interest:  Three cast members of Pulp Fiction

Memorable quote:  Your war is arrogance. That makes it evil. That's mine.

 

 

The angel Gabriel comes to Earth to collect a soul which will end the stalemated war in Heaven, and only a former priest and a little girl can stop him.

 

Religion has always been a clouded issue to me. There is absolutely no evidence that there is a God or an afterlife. But that hasn't stopped me ( and billions of people ) from believing in something. And I have always been taught that if there is good, then there is also the bad. If there is a heaven, there has to be a hell. The Prophecy tells us that there is, but it is not necessarily that cut and dried. The ruler of hell in this film is more like a character in a Martin Scorsese film. He is evil ( he has to be, he is Lucifer ) but he is not necessarily here to make God's life miserable. He is not necessarily good, but he is in a self serving kind of way.

The Prophecy is a very confusing and convoluted but brilliant film. The story ( bear with me here, it's been a while since I've seen this film ) is about a war between angels. Some angels became jealous when God decided he loved humans more than them. They become bitter and decide to start a war in heaven with the angels that are loyal to God. Their theory is that if the angels that oppose them are gone, they can take over certain things and hopefully get God's love back. To do this, they must steal the soul of the most heinous person that ever lived. We meet Gabriel, the lead angel in this crusade, and played by Christopher Walken, he is one of the most entertaining characters I have ever seen in the history of film. He has a sense of humour, he is vicious and he uses humans as slaves to do his dirty work. He catches them just before they are about to die and uses them with the promise that he will kill them once their job is finished. Here we meet Jerry, as his human monkey,and the only reason I mention this is because it is one of Adam Goldberg's early roles. He was Upham in Saving Private Ryan and watching this you could tell he had talent and that he would go places. He is fantastic in this film.

Elias Koteas plays Thomas, the only one who may have an insight into what is going on. He was a former priest who understands how religion is playing a part in all of this.

Eric Stoltz plays Simon, one of the good angels that is trying to save the world from Gabriel and he is very affective here as well.

But the star of this film is absolutely Walken. He is perfect as Gabriel. He has a sense of humour and he is evil at the same time. And in some ways you are rooting for him to win. That is until the very end when Satan shows up, because he steals every scene he is in as well.

Satan is played with wicked slickness by Viggo Mortensen. When he speaks he almost slithers and creeps his words onto the screen. He makes a dark scene darker and he keeps you glued to the screen. And his role in this film is one that epitomizes convolution. He is awesome.

This film is one that should not be missed. If you don't understand everything about it the first time, watch it again and again. You'll learn something new every time. And you'll enjoy it more and more. This is one hell of a film!!

 

 

 

[baumer]

28) The Bay (2012)

US

Box office:  $30,000

Person of interest:  Barry Levinson

Memorable quote:   There's forty-five million pounds of chicken shit dumped into the bay each year.

 

 

This "found-footage" film is set in 2009 in the town of Claridge, Maryland on the Chesapeake Bay. During the town's annual 4th of July Crab Festival, townspeople become sick, exhibiting a variety of symptoms, which leads local news reporters to suspect something has infected the water there.

 

The Bay is a film that took me by surprise.  I had no idea it would have the kind of effect on me it did.  It's a found footage film but it's also a cautionary tale.  I can honestly say when I saw the film it freaked me the fuck out.  If you watch this film and aren't affected by it, I'd be shocked.

 

Here is my mini review in the RTM:

 

Ok, I'm officially freaked out.  I'm shocked at how effective this film is.  Directed by Oscar winning director Barry Levinson, The Bay is about a small Maryland town that are dying horribly because of the water in the area.  The CDC has no idea what's going on and of course the governing bodies that should be telling the people about possible contamination have stayed quiet on everything.  People die and they die painfully.  They are puking up their insides, their skin boils, fish are being eaten from the inside by parasites.  This is a film that is scary as hell because it's possible and realistic.  Kids, women, men, animals, no one is safe.  

 

Levinson directs perhaps his best film in his acclaimed and awarded career.  Rainman is over rated imo so take that for what it's worth but this one is brilliant.  I'm still freaked out.  See this film, see it. It's one of the most effective films I've ever seen.

 

And here is a little something from @K1stpierre  

 You really know a movie did it's job (especially scary) when after the movie, I really didn't almost consider never drinking from water bubblers or my kitchen sink ever again   Some of the deaths were pretty brutal, and the end I thought was very well fitting and a perfect way to end it. 

 

I was very pleased with this choice, overall I'd give it a 8.5/10, B+ overall rating. A very solid film that I think would terrorize most people into thinking, 'how safe really is our water'?....

 

 

 

[baumer]

27) Suspiria (1977)

Italy

Box office:  According to Wiki, 1.4 billion lira, not sure what that translates to but it's a lot

Person of interest:  Dario Argento

Memorable quote:  Susie, do you know anything about... witches?

 

 

An American dancer, Suzy, is about to attend a prestigious ballet school in Germany. No sooner has she arrived than another student at the school is brutally murdered. Sinister deeds are afoot and Suzy starts to think that the school houses something evil.

 

Sorry @Brainbug I know you think this should be higher.  I do love it but there are 26 other films I have slightly higher.  

 

The lovely and appealing Jessica Harper stars in this horror classic as Suzy Bannion, an American ballet dancer who travels to Europe to study and train. Arriving at the German school known as Tam Academy, she soon witnesses various strange goings-on, and comes to a horrifying realization regarding the identities and motives of the top dogs at this school.

"Suspiria" ranks as my favorite Dario Argento film and is definitely one of his most famous. The story, concocted by Argento and his former partner / sometime leading lady Daria Nicolodi, isn't necessarily a great one, but then great storytelling has never been Argentos' true strong suit. It's not what you watch his films for; you watch them for the virtuoso filmmaking, and it's on full display here.

One thing you notice right away is how powerful the film is visually. It's a marvel of eye-popping images, colorful lighting choices, and fluid camera work. Certainly cinematographer Luciano Tovoli plays a big part in why this film works as well as it does.

Overall, it's a stunning marriage of stifling atmosphere, the beautiful brutality that hardcore horror fans crave, the dark and twisted nature of many a fairy tale, and the sometimes overpowering but compelling music score by renowned Italian prog-rock group Goblin. It features an amazing murder set piece within the first dozen or so minutes, and rarely lets up until an abrupt but creepy finale. Some scenes in "Suspiria" are iconic and have burned their way into the minds of its audiences over the decades.

Well worth watching for any horror fan, especially now that the film has been restored and the picture looks more gorgeous than ever....for more of what makes this such a great film, check out Brainbug's recap of it.  

 

 

[baumer]

26) Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)

 US

Box office:  19.7 million

Person of interest:  Wes Craven

Memorable Quote:  Are you ready to go back and play Nancy one last time?

 

 

 

A demonic force has chosen Freddy Krueger as its portal to the real world. Can Heather Langenkamp play the part of Nancy one last time and trap the evil trying to enter our world?

 

My original review:

 

This should have been part 2 or 3

 

I love horror movies. I love being scared and I love the fact that a movie (something make believe that I, as an intelligent person,knows is just images projected from a screen ) can manipulate my emotions and make me nervous. This is one of those movies. And in the 90's, there have only been two movies that have actually made me nervous in some scenes. And those two movies are by Craven himself---Scream and this one.

When this film first came out, it was ten years and six films after the original. I have seen all the Freddy movies more out of morbid curiosity than out of interest. And maybe a part of me was hoping to catch a glimpse of what made the first so damn scary. And time and time again I was disappointed. But when I read in Fangoria magazine that this new one was going to be directed by Craven, I got very excited. Could it possibly be that this film would go back to it's roots?

Yes, it did.

There is no two ways about it, Craven cares about Freddy. He cares about how he was supposed to be, not what he has turned into in the last decade. Freddy was not even remotely funny in the first one. He was a brutal, maniacal, sadistic, bent on revenge murderer. He wanted to slice Nancy in two and he did that to Tina ( actually sliced her into many pieces ). But in the mindless sequels to come, he became Eddie Murphy. And there was nothing frightening about the sequels. They made money but they weren't true horror films. But this one, well this one goes back to it's roots and is almost as scary as the first one.

This story is about the film character of Freddy becoming real somehow. He has been a part of Lagenkamp, Saxon, Craven and Englund's life for so long that he has somehow become real. And now what was once a simple film character actually haunts the cast of the original. We even get to see Rod ( Tina's boyfriend from the original ) at one of the funerals. And what makes the story that much frightening is that now Freddy has decided to come after Heather's kid.

This film goes back to all the techniques that made the first a classic. There is excellent direction to make us fear what is under the bed. The lighting is classic horror film lighting and the music is perfect. There is however one complaint that I have and that is when Freddy is chasing the kid across the road. He has become larger than life. He is like the Stay Puft marshmallow man from Ghostbusters. And that it seems is much more like the other Nightmares, not Craven's version. And that takes away the delight in watching what was otherwise a perfect horror film.

I said in one of my reviews of a horror film that there are no films in the 90's that are truly scary. However this one is as close to an 80's horror flick as you will get now a days. It is very frightening and it is almost a prequel to Scream. This is one film that should not be missed. It is a tribute to what scary films are supposed to be. 

 

@The Stingray  The second best Nightmare, after Dream Warriors. The satirical, self-referential stuff Craven did on Scream really started here, only to much less financial success.

 

@75Live 

I have this as the second best Nightmare only behind the original and just above part 3.

Yes as said above this is definitely the movie that let Wes Craven know that Scream could work.

 

 

 

[baumer]

25) Night of the Living Dead (1968)

US

Box office:  30 million

Person of interest:  George Romero

Memorable quote:  They're coming to get you, Barbara

 

The dead come back to life and eat the living in this low budget, black and white film. Several people barricade themselves inside a rural house in an attempt to survive the night. Outside are hordes of relentless, shambling zombies who can only be killed by a blow to the head.

 

 

Night of the Living Dead is a true classic and without a doubt Romero's best and most influential film.

Of course, being simply influential alone would not simply allow this movie to get a full-fledged star rating if it didn't pull through with it some quality at all, which it does in spades. In Night of the Living Dead, there is good pacing, surprisingly good acting from a list of no-name actors, and the most important part that sticks with the film to this day, the sense of dread in the film. In this movie to this day you get that feeling of hopelessness, people get attacked for no reason and nothing can save them. Whether it's family-togetherness, love between a couple, or even the law-enforcers at the end, this was all tapping into the uncertainty level people were having at the time and still today it has meaning. Topping this off with Romero's (at the time) large use of gore adds to the overall uneasiness of the film. Finally at the film's current times, there is a great subtle final nail in the coffin attack with the sad fate of the character Ben. Being the only sole voice of reason is shot, which, at the time of filming brought harsh realities of such other African-American leaders who were brought down unfairly such as Malcolm X or Martin Luther King, even if this wasn't the original idea Romero had.

Overall, no matter how cheesy some of this movie make look to modern eyes, Night of the Living Dead is a classic for offering horror without a shred of hope, forever influencing every horror movie in it's wake.

 

 

[baumer]

24) Psycho (1960)

US

Box office:  50 million

Person of interest:  Hitchcock, of course

Memorable quote:   It's not like my mother is a maniac or a raving thing. She just goes a little mad sometimes. We all go a little mad sometimes. Haven't you?

 

 

A Phoenix secretary embezzles $40,000 from her employer's client, goes on the run, and checks into a remote motel run by a young man under the domination of his mother.

 

 Psycho is a pioneer for horror films and it is because of Psycho that we have films like Halloween and Friday the 13th and Texas Chainsaw Massacre and directors like Hooper and Carpenter and Craven. I was born 12 years after Psycho was made and I really didn't get into film until at least another 10 years after that, but I can tell you that Psycho must have shocked and revolutionized film. Could you imagine a film maker so bold as to tell theater owners that they are not to permit anyone into the theater after it starts? Can you imagine a film so bold as to kill the main character half way through the film? Can you imagine a film so bold as to kill someone so graphically in the shower? Sure you can imagine all that. It's 2018. This film is almost 60 years old. But imagine what it did to audiences in 1960. It must have shocked the hell out of everyone back then. Psycho is a film like no other.

There have been films that have done it better than Psycho but none of them can say they were the first. Psycho is a great film and it is enjoyable, unlike many other older films, which I will not name (ROSEBUD!!) Psycho is a creepy film and it gave birth to a genre.  This isn't a true slasher film like we know of today but it took risks in so many ways.  And not just thematically.  Hitchcock believed in this film to the point where he took out a second mortgage on his home and if the film would have failed, Hitchcock might of had trouble making another film in Hollywood. But we all know how it turned out. 

To sum it up....A seminal classic of horror by master Alfred Hitchcock, with some of the most memorable iconic scenes in the history of Cinema. Tense, horrific and a superb lesson in film making, it offers well-constructed characters, a lot of revealing dialogue and a huge regard for details. Hitchcock's classic horror featuring the world's most famous mother's boy is one of the most influential films ever made; every serial killer and slasher movie owes something to this, one of the true greats of cinema.

 

@SchumacherFTW  I've just finished watching this at long last. Yes there's bits that haven't aged well, the score as an example smacks you in the face harder than Hans Zimmer tries to. But it's still superb. The characters are all great, as are the performances. Espescially the guy who plays Norman Bates, he's scary, creepy, vulnerable, everything. One of the great performances. I do wish I could have been there on original release, when it was so fresh, so shocking, when you were forced by Hitchcock himself to watch it from the beginning, but even so, it's still a brilliant film today.9/10

 

@vc2002  If you want to know how to build up your film to the very climax and make it worth, this is the film that you learn from. Everything in the film before they found out Norman Bates' secret was to built up the suspense and it was done beautifully. One of my fav of all time.

 

 

[baumer]

That's it for tonight.  I'll get to the top 15 tomorrow.

 

The next three:

 

She is actually a he

Wyatt Earp in the cold

The second best remake of all time 

[Brainbug]

Seeing Suspiria THAT low:

 

 

This is my "Nightmare on Elm Street" Moment, that youve had with my list @baumer

 

Excited for all the films you think are better than it.