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

[FantasticBeasts]

2 minutes ago, baumer said:

Aliens will be on mine

It is probably my #1 If it counts (or #2) but I think it lacks that spooky atmosphere that the first one's got. It is more of an action packed film with a scary bad "guy".

Wikipedia and imdb say "Sci-fi,Action".

[FantasticBeasts]

2 minutes ago, Brainbug said:

 

Aliens is a super-interesting case, because while it is the sequel to a horror film, it uses basically none of its techniques and rather its own as an action thriller. Aliens for me is not a horror movie, because it never wants to scare us directly, unlike films like the first one or Predator. Aliens' goal is to entertain the viewer by is suspense and action, not by the horror aspects. One thing makes that very clear for me: The Xenomorphs in Aliens dont actually feel like that much of a threat on their own, because the characters manage to kill hundreds of them, making them basically typical no-name bad guys from other 80s action films. In the first one, there was only 1 Alien and the fact that it seemed so unkillable made it so scary.

 

To be clear, i love both films. But they coudnt be much different. Dont expect Aliens to pop up here

I think you put this in a very nice way. I agree with you.

I only recently watched both of the films and although my first response is that Aliens felt better I have to rewatch them probably 5 times to make up my mind. They are both masterpieces though, no doubt.

Do you think the other Alien movies are worth it? 

[Brainbug]

8 minutes ago, FantasticBeasts said:

I think you put this in a very nice way. I agree with you.

I only recently watched both of the films and although my first response is that Aliens felt better I have to rewatch them probably 5 times to make up my mind. They are both masterpieces though, no doubt.

Do you think the other Alien movies are worth it? 

 

Alien 3 - on its own - is a solid enough film, but i hate, i HATE what they do in the beginning (i dont know if you know it, so i wont spoil it), because it completely undermines the ending of Aliens, which looses nearly all of the impact because of it. Aliens is a better film when one does not know whats happening in Alien 3.

 

Alien: Resurrection is hilarious garbage. Its entertaining, but baaaaaaaad. Like i said, i dont really care for the crossovers with Predator, Prometheus was an entertaining mess (worth watching though imo) and Alien: Covenant sucked big time for me.

 

Also, deciding if Alien or Aliens is better is like choosing between two giant chocolate cakes which both taste totally different and great at the same time.

 

 

 

 

Edited June 6, 2018 by Brainbug

[L Silverman]

5 hours ago, Brainbug said:

 

Aliens is a super-interesting case, because while it is the sequel to a horror film, it uses basically none of its techniques and rather its own as an action thriller. Aliens for me is not a horror movie, because it never wants to scare us directly, unlike films like the first one or Predator. Aliens' goal is to entertain the viewer by is suspense and action, not by the horror aspects. One thing makes that very clear for me: The Xenomorphs in Aliens dont actually feel like that much of a threat on their own, because the characters manage to kill hundreds of them, making them basically typical no-name bad guys from other 80s action films. In the first one, there was only 1 Alien and the fact that it seemed so unkillable made it so scary.

 

To be clear, i love both films. But they coudnt be much more different. So dont expect Aliens to pop up here and guys, please dont kill me for that i hope you can understand my reasoning

 

Cameron himself said on the commentary that Aliens was a thriller and specifically not a horror movie.  Army of Darkness, Predator, all great choices, Brainbug...except of course for You're Next. And Alien: Covenant was absolute garbage.  What I hated the most about that movie was that everyone wanted a true 'Alien' picture, the studio, the fans, everyone.  Everyone except for Scott.  So Scott pretended to give people what they wanted but really made a Prometheus sequel and basically gave a giant F.U. to the fans and everyone.

Edited June 7, 2018 by L Silverman

[Krissykins]

I agree with The Ring being better than Ringu.

 

 

[Brainbug]

2 entrys for today. The first one is our next #1 guess and the second one an absolute classic in the slasher genre, which i will publish later today.

[baumer]

10 minutes ago, Brainbug said:

2 entrys for today. The first one is our next #1 guess and the second one an absolute classic in the slasher genre, which i will publish later today.

 

Hmmm so my guess is Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street.

 

Can't wait for your next entries.

[baumer]

I think Aliens is better than Alien. But they are both fantastic films. 

 

Another analogy ( brainbug used chocolate cake) is using offers for sex from women id never have a chance with. 

 

Aliens is like being offered to have wild crazy sex with Kristen Bell in her Forgetting Sara Marshall days.

 

Alien is like being offered to have wild and crazy sex with Kristen Dunst in her Spiderman/Melancholia days. 

 

I find Bell slightly more attractive but would do cartwheels for Dunst. 

 

😎😎😃😃

[baumer]

I'm going to start making my list over the next few days. I'm camping right now so i have lots of time. 

 

When BB is done his I'll see if 75 is ready to go and if not I'll get it started.

[baumer]

I love your list and writeups.  Very entertaining and edifying all at once. Great job so far BB.

[Brainbug]

Just now, baumer said:

 

Hmmm so my guess is Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street.

 

Can't wait for your next entries.

 

Sadly, it think you wont like the next one, just judging from posts ive seen in the past

[Brainbug]

Number 26:

 

 

The Babadook (2014)

 

Director: Jennifer Kent

Box Office: 7,5 Million

 

Story: 9/10

Tension: 9/10

Atmosphere: 7/10

Rewatchability: 5/10

 

 

Plot Synopsis:

 

Amelia Vanek (Essie Davis) is a troubled and exhausted widow who has brought up her six-year-old son Samuel alone, after her husband was killed in a car accident. While trying to handle her grief and her (very) annoying son, she finds a children's book which is about the Babadook and reads it for her son. Maybe she shoundt have done that in hindsight.

 

This is...

 

...NOT the film the marketing made it out to be. Watch a trailer for this and you would immediately think its a hounted house or monster horror film and well, it is not. Not at all.

 

This surprised me big time when i finally saw it. Ive seen the glowing reviews - and the many negative comments on various movie forums before. Many people felt cheated with the film and the trailers and labeled it as boring, pretentious or not scary at all. And if i would have gone into this movie expecting a scarefest, i probably would have been disappointed too.

But The Babadook is the prime example of a great movie that has just been falsely marketed. The horrors here dont come from the titular figure, they dont come from the noises in the Night scenes or the jumpscares. The real horror here is the trauma that Essie Davis' character has to endure and process, the depression and grief and this actress is just phenomenal here. She makes this movie. All of her emotions feel incredibly real and raw and imo she would have deserved an oscar nomination.

Like The Witch though, this movie makes it really hard to like it. The son character is so so annoying in the 1st act, i never root for children to die, but here i was near that point sometimes. It gets a lot better later on in the movie tough, otherwise, this film would rank much lower. The direction here is nothing groundbreaking, but its solid enough and a nice bonus to have such a film directed by a woman.

 

Furthermore, i really like this movie for its depiction of depression. A friend of mine suffers from it and he said that the movie really leaved an impact with him and depicted it very realistically. Its his favourite horror movie of all time and luckily i can say that it seems to get better with him with every year

 

Fun Fact: The Babadook is an icon in the LGBT-community. How and why, i dont know at all LOL.

 

 

@Water Bottle nice guess!

 

@baumer im sorry

[Brainbug]

Screw posting later lol, im in the mood now.

 

Will post numbers 25-20 today. Beginning with the next entry, we enter the realms of the horror movies i not only really like, but love. Its nunances now that seperate them from another.

[Krissykins]

Can you do a list of the films so far? 

[Brainbug]

Number 25:

 

 

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

 

Director: Wes Craven

Box Office: 25,5 Million (US)

 

Story: 7/10

Tension: 8/10

Atmosphere: 9/10

Rewatchability: 8/10

 

 

Plot Synopsis:

 

Four Teenagers (one of them Johnny Depp in his first ever role) are stalked and hunted in their dreams by no one other than Freddy Krueger - and when they die in the dreams, they die in the real world as well. Searching for explanations, they find out that their parents might hold a dark secret...

 

A pure classic and entertainig as f*ck. Wes Craven (again, RIP, you legend) crafted a nonstop-thrillride of a shlasher flick that would go on to have endless sequels and influence dozens of other movies. Why does it work so well? Well, for one, it has one of the most iconic villains of horror history: Robert Englund is hilarious and at the same time terrifying as Freddy, basically every second of him on-screen is a delight. Heather Langencamp as Nancy, the main protagonist, also does a great job. Shes brave, intelligent and never gives up, making her very sympathetic and one character we just want to see succeeding. Its also a very well-directed film where Craven lets his imaginations play wild and in the process, he gave us some really awesome chase and kill sequences that stick with you.

Of course, the film isnt flawless. The music, while good on its own, sometimes is very loud and distracting, not all the performances are stellar and the effects - well, some of them are still impressive and some are hilarious. A Nightmare on Elm Street hasnt aged as well as other horror films, but i always try to imagine what it was like to see it in theaters back then. And knowing the small bugdet the film had, i can overlook some cheesy visuals, if the rest is entertaining enough. And hell yeah, it is, still to this day!

 

 

Reagarding the sequels, none of them are in the Top 50 for me, a small overview:

 

Nightmare 2: Freddys Revenge - meh. Its entertaining in parts, but i didnt care too much for it.

Nightmare 3: Dream Warriors - better than 2, maybe the best direct sequel. Overall a solid film.

Nightmare 4: The Dream Master - i didnt care much for that either. Not awful, not good, a one-time watch.

Nightmare 5: The Dream Child - Now, THAT is awful.

Wes Craven's New Nightmare - A good movie. I liked it.

Freddy vs Jason - Total guilty pleasure, that one just missed the Top 50 actually.

The Remake from 2010 - godawful, i hated it.

Edited June 7, 2018 by Brainbug

[Brainbug]

3 minutes ago, Krissykins said:

Can you do a list of the films so far? 

 

Good idea, i will add it to the First Post.

[Krissykins]

13 minutes ago, Brainbug said:

 

Good idea, i will add it to the First Post.

Thanks, with the ads on this forum it’s a nightmare to look through lol

[Krissykins]

On 6/3/2018 at 6:00 PM, Brainbug said:

Number 48:

 

 

Scream 4 (2011)

 

Director: Wes Craven

Box Office: 97,1 Million Worldwide (way too low in other words)

 

Story: 6/10

Tension: 8/10

Atmosphere: 7/10

Rewatchability: 7/10

 

Plot synopsis:

 

Sidney Prescott (Neve Campbell) returns to Woodsboro after ten years as part of her book tour. Though this beeing a soft reboot, what the film is aware of, it shoundt be too much of a surprise for her that Ghostface returned to kill (mostly horny) students from Woodsboro High. And together with Dewey and Gale Weathers, the guessing and killing game begins again...

 

Scream 4 imo is the best Scream sequel, though i know that this is quite a polarizing opinion/film. Wes Craven (RIP!) returned to give us a 90s slasher film that came out in 2011, for all the better. Like its predecessors, this movie works as a horror film as well as its parody. It makes fun of remakes, (soft) reboots and the horror film industry in general, while presenting an engaging and thrilling slasher story. The killer here can be guessed a bit easier than in the films before, but that doesnt make the finale any less exciting or brutal (and damn is it bloody). The actor/actress of the killer (i dont want to spoil it) makes a far better job here than the Ghostface(s) of Scream 2 and 3 imo. The acting all around is excellent for horror film standards. Its just a hell of a good time and its a damn shame that the movie didnt do well at all at the box office. As a final feature movie from the legend that is Wes Craven, it coudnt be much better.

 

Clip from the Opening of the movie:

 

 

@Krissykins should like this i think. Also @baumer im interested in your thoughts about the Scream sequels

 

 

 

You’re absolutely right, I do love this post!! Lol 😍😍

 

go Scream 4! 

[Brainbug]

Number 24:

 

 

Re-Animator (1985)

 

Director: Stuart Gordon

Box Office: 2 Million

 

Story: 8/10

Tension: 8/10

Atmosphere: 8/10

Rewatchability: 8/10

 

 

Plot Synopsis:

 

Herbert West (Jeffrey Combs) is a medical student who has invented a reagent which can re-animate deceased bodies. Great idea! What could possibly go wrong with that?

 

Well, this is one film that i dont think enough people have seen. Re-Animator is disgusting, its gory to no ends and when you think that the first 40 minutes cant be topped, wait for the insanity that comes after that. Its so brutal that, at points, it becomes satirical and extremely funny (if you like very dark humour that is). When i first watched it, i was stunned not only at the level of blood i saw on the screen, but also by the fact that i just coudnt stop looking at it all. And i began laughing and smiling from start to finish.

Re-Animator is a car crash of a horror movie: Its very often bloody and disgusting, but you cant look away, its way too entertaining (if you thought that this joke was inappropriate and cynical, dont watch the movie. If you thought it was funny, watch it). Stuart Gordon made many splatter movies, but this one here is the best of them all imo. Besides the red insanity, weve got genuinely tension-filled built-ups to certain sequences and very entertaining performances by the cast, which obviously had a blast doing this and im happy to see that i had own too watching this.

 

It has become a cult film since its release. I dont fail to see why. But its not for everyone: You need quite a strong stomach and, like i said, a sense for very dark humour.

 

Fun Fact: Herbert West comes directly out of H. P. Lovecraft's books. And if you listen to the movie's theme, one other film might come to your mind LOL:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Lucas]

I always loved how fucking blatant the ripped off theme was