Baumer's 60 best Holy Bleep moments in horror movie history 3) The Changeling 2) Blair Witch 1) Sleepaway Camp

[baumer]

As many of you know the horror genre is by far my favourite of all of them. @WrathOfHan just finished another titillating and absolutely incredible rendition of the horror movie countdown. It got me interested in the forums again and I can't thank him enough for doing that as it's just basically got me interested in movies again. There's a long story behind that and it doesn't need to be told but suffice to say I'm glad to be back as a more regular member here.

 

Okay with that out of the way we are kind of in the so-called dog days of the forums right now. Everyone's Jonesing for Spider-Man to come out but that doesn't happen for a few more weeks. We've got the Martin Scorsese countdown coming up but that also doesn't start for another couple weeks.

 

So I thought I would try to entertain the forums for the next two weeks or so and give you my opinion on what I think are the 50 greatest spine-tingling, hair stand up on your arms and back of your neck, scream inducing, chilling moments in horror movie history. And what exactly do I mean by that?

 

Well as the title says basically the top 50 "holy shit" moments in horror movie history. These are moments in horror movies that have scared the hell out of us, made our eyes pop out, scenes that we just did not see coming, maybe plot twists that kind of blew us away and yes even jump-scares will be part of this.

 

Now the caveat to this course is that I'm probably about 125 years older than most of the members here. Yes I'm even older than @Plain Old Tele. Basically I'm A relic at this site now. And what that means is that my horror movie views and taste (in some ways) are kind of drastically different than a lot of yours. But, I had to sit through the horror movie thread and grit my teeth and keep my mouth shut when a lot of films showed up that I didn't agree with LOL.

 

But for those of you who choose to read this thread you might have to do the same. But I can promise you this, I'll keep you entertained, you might learn a few things, and maybe you might even go back and watch some of the films I'm talking about just to see some of these moments.

 

I promise I won't have obscure 80's grade Z micro-budgeted films here.  I'll keep it mainstream enough so hopefully no one loses interest.  

 

THE ONE THING THAT MUST BE CLARIFIED IS THAT THESE WILL BE MOMENTS FROM FILMS THAT I'VE SEEN.  IF I HAVEN'T, IT WON'T BE ON THE LIST.

 

I have already cleared this with @Eric Venkman. The deadline for his Scorsese thread is November 28th which means I'm sure  he'll be getting started shortly after that. So I will definitely try to have this done before the end of the month.

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

Give me a day or so and I will begin. 

 

And hopefully, even if you don't agree with everything, you find this thread interesting and worth reading.

 

 

 

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Here's the final list:

 

60) The Exorcist III

59) Se7en

58) Jaws 2

57) The Terrifier

56) Zombie

55) The Mist

54) Black Cat

53) The Hitcher

52) The Mothman Prophecies

51) The Exorcist 

50)  Scream

 

49) The Hills Have Eyes

48) The Invisible Man

47) Pet Sematary

46) Friday the 13th Part III

45) An American Werewolf in London

44) The Brood

43) Signs

42) Candyman

41) The Omen

40) The Devil's Rejects

 

39) Get Out

38) Final Destination

37) Angel Heart

36) Near Dark

35) I Spit on Your Grave (2010)

34) When a Stranger Calls (1979)

33) Frankenstein (1931)

32) The Thing (1982)

31) Men Behind the Sun

30) Martyr's (2008)

 

29)  The Evil Dead (1981)

28)  Poltergeist (1982)

27)  The Conjuring 2

26)  The Descent

25)  It Follows

24)  Misery

23)  IT

22)  Friday the 13th the Final Chapter

21)  Aliens

20)  The Vanishing (1988)

 

19) The Conjuring

18) A Nightmare on Elm Street

17)  Saw

16)  The Sixth Sense

15)  City of the Living Dead

14) Last House on the Left (1972)

13) The Purge

12) The Wicker Man (1973)

11) Psycho (1960)

 

10) The Ring (Samara comes out of the TV)

9)  Halloween (78) Myers rises

8} The shining (REDRUM)

7) Alien (chest burst)

6) JAWS (Ben Gardner's head)

5) Texas Chainsaw Massacre (74) (Leatherface's first appearance}

4) Friday the 13th (80) (Jason jumps out of the water)

3) The Changeling (80) (The bouncing ball)

2) Blair Witch Project (Mike standing in the corner)

1) Sleepaway Camp (Angela is a boy)

 

 

[Krissykins]

Looking forward to it @baumer! 

[Noctis]

Can already tell this will be a largely esoteric jerkfest between baumer and KrissyKins - the true horror fanatics of this forum.

[baumer]

5 minutes ago, Noctis said:

Can already tell this will be a largely esoteric jerkfest between baumer and KrissyKins - the true horror fanatics of this forum.

 

Won't be esoteric...I  already promised that.  Films like The Shining, Blair Witch, The Exorcist and many others that were on @WrathOfHan's countdown will be here as well.

[Ms Lady Hawk]

Me too. Can’t wait to see. I love horror flicks. No one I know other than my cousin has seen the classic (for me), “Silent Night, Deadly Night”. Hey, it’s that time of year.

[Ipickthiswhiterose]

Looking forward to it!

[baumer]

I spent some time today looking over some horror films and I've got about 75 films to consider and I need to get that down to 50.  And then I need to put some more thought into ranking them. I already know what my number one scene is, it's one that really messed me up as a kid lol.  And if I had to guess, I'd say none of you will guess what it is.

 

Should start this on Thursday.

[TomCruiseTop]

Blair Witch #1 please.

[baumer]

I had 100 different scenes I had this narrowed down to. After spending the last couple hours thinking things over, eliminating movies I didn't want to eliminate and pulling my hair out trying to get it down to 50, I've decided I'm going to do the 60 best holy shit moments in horror movie history.

 

The 40 that were left on The cutting room floor are still so amazing moments as well. But for the sake of this countdown I will keep it at 60. 

 

The range in horror films goes back all the way to the early thirties and has films that are represented all the way up until the the current decade. There's black and white films, colour films, micro budgeted films, studio films, big-budget films and of course a nice eclectic mix throughout the decades.

 

As promised, there's nothing too esoteric on here. There might be a few films that not everyone has heard of but there's nothing in here from the 1980s with a $5 budget that could only be found at my local video store in Windsor, Canada when I was 10 years old.

 

I promise you'll recognize 90% maybe even 95% of the movies that are here.

 

So sit back and hopefully over the next two weeks you enjoy yourselves, maybe learn a few things and look forward to reading this as much as I look forward to sharing it with you.

 

I will get started momentarily.

[baumer]

Number 60:  The Exorcist III (1990)

 

 

 

Starring George C. Scott and Brad Dourif and Jason Miller

 

Directed by: William Peter Blatty (also the author of the original book)

 

Box office:  25 million

 

My rating:  7/10

 

The Story:  A seemingly endless series of grisly killings that bear the trademark of the mass murderer, the Gemini Killer, terrorize the district of Georgetown. To further complicate matters, even though it's been seventeen long years since the killer's execution and that fateful night of pure terror in The Exorcist (1973), the skeptical police officer, Lieutenant William F. Kinderman, is still obsessed with solving the baffling case, as the death toll keeps rising. In the meantime, in the city's high-security psychiatric institution, a cryptic inmate who bears an uncanny resemblance to the late Father Damien Karras emerges from his deep catatonic state, claiming that he has all the answers Kinderman needs.

 

The terrifying scene:  Lasting about one minute, there is a scene in a hospital corridor.  The camera never cuts and we watch the nurse go into one door, come out and then lock it.  There is no music, and frankly, you are expecting nothing.  This just seems like an innocuous scene, maybe even a filler.  AND THEN BAMMM! As soon as the nurse walks away from the locked door, a figure all in white bursts out of the room with what looks to be giant scissors or hedge cutters.  The horror music stinger hits and then there is a cut away to a statue with no head.

 

I wasn't a big fan of the original film, but this one was quite well done and this scene is one that literally had people jumping in terror.  You had no idea it was coming and it has become one of the best jump scares of all time.  

 

 

[baumer]

Number 59:  Se7ven (1995)

 

Starring:  Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt, Kevin Spacey, R. Lee Ermey, Gwyneth Paltrow

 

Directed by:  David Fincher

 

Box office:  328 million WW

 

My rating:  9/10

 

Story:  A film about two homicide detectives' desperate hunt for a serial killer who justifies his crimes as absolution for the world's ignorance of the Seven Deadly Sins. The movie takes us from the tortured remains of one victim to the next as the sociopathic "John Doe" sermonizes to Detectives Somerset and Mills -- one sin at a time.

 

The terrifying scene:  Some might not classify this film as horror, I do.  There's something horrific about a man with seemingly no conscience who wants to rid the world of sinners.  There are several scenes in here that could have been THE SCENE, namely the ending where Mills yells "What's in the box?!!"  But the one scene that made me and many others jump, almost vomit and cover our eyes was the scene where they discover the presumably dead figure of a man tied to a bed.  As the team of police officers enter the room of a known pedophile, they first encounter a myriad of air fresheners hanging in the room.  They discover an emaciated body of a man with his face almost caved in from malnourishment,  There's a bottle with urine in it, a bottle with feces in it, there's hair samples and nail samples.  They find pictures detailing what he looked like at the beginning and all the way to where they are now.  As one of the cops leans over and whispers "You got what you deserved," the man coughs and everyone jumps back.  This decayed, malnourished, puss gushing, wax figure like man is still alive.  

 

 

 

 

[baumer]

That's all I have time for tonight.  Will get some more done tomorrow.

 

Coming up:

A little shakin, a little tenderizing and down you go.

Fulci makes his first appearance

A woman hanging upside down meets a very gruesome death

Stephen King's first appearance where some strange things are happening before the military shows up

 

 

 

 

 

[Krissykins]

Oooh great first two entries. Both two of the best jump scares of all time, I’d agree. 
 

I think the most effective jumpscare of all time for me is the bus kill in the first Final Destination film, holy shit. 

[baumer]

3 hours ago, Krissykins said:

Oooh great first two entries. Both two of the best jump scares of all time, I’d agree. 
 

I think the most effective jumpscare of all time for me is the bus kill in the first Final Destination film, holy shit. 

 

I too love that one.  And I can assure you FD will be making an appearance here for sure.

[baumer]

 

 

Number 58:  Jaws 2 (1978)

 

Starring:  Roy Scheider, Murray Hamilton, Lorraine Gary

 

Directed by:  Jeannot Szwarc 

 

Box office:  209 mill WW

 

My rating:  9/10

 

The Story:  It's been four years since the terrifying attacks in Jaws (1975), and now, yet another underwater predator stains the waters of Amity Island red. With Police Chief Martin Brody faced with a series of deaths, disbelief, and a possible new shark problem, and Mayor Larry Vaughn reluctant to take action, a group of teenagers, including Brody's sons, Mike and Sean, find themselves at the mercy of a rapacious, 30-foot great white shark. Can Brody rescue the trapped young sailors, and stop, once and for all, the ferocious, man-eating creature with the jaws of death?

 

The terrifying scene:  A group of teenage sailors are heading out to an island away from Amity to do some drinking and chilling wit their friends.  They have been warned by Chief Brody that there is a shark out there but of course no one takes heed to his warnings.  They should have.  The sailing party is attacked by the giant shark and Brody's son almost gets eaten right away.  He survives but in the second attack, Brody's younger son, Sean, is tossed from the boat and it looks like he could become chum.  Marge, one of Mike's friend, jumps in to save Sean.  She manages to get him up onto the overturned sailboat but she can't get up herself.  

 

In one of the most harrowing things I'd seen as a kid, Marge is swallowed whole while Sean looks on in horror.  No joke, this scene has stayed with me for 40 years.  I eventually read how they did it and even that is scary.  JAWS 2, imo, is one of the best sequels of all time.  

 

Trivia:  The picture was briefly the highest-grossing sequel in history until Rocky II (1979) was released the following year.

 

The film's tagline, "Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water . . . ", has become one of the most famous in film history. Andrew J. Kuehn, who developed the first film's trailer, is credited with coining the phrase.

 

Here's the clip of the scene....and here is also the audience reaction to the film, including that scene, in 1978.

 

 

 

 

 

[baumer]

Number 57:  The Terrifier (2016)

 

Starring:  Jenna Kanell, Samantha Kaffidi, David Howard Thornton, Catherine Corcoran

 

Directed by:  Damian Leone

 

Box office:  N/A

 

My rating:  5/10

 

The Story:  Expanded from director Damien Leone's 2011 short of the same name, Terrifier stars David Howard Thornton as silent psycho killer Art the Clown, who turns Halloween into a nightmare for several unfortunate victims, including friends Tara and Dawn (Jenna Kanell and Catherine Corcoran), and Dawn's big sister Victoria (Samantha Scaffidi).

Terrifier the clown makes Pennywise look like your family dog.  Put a different way, Terrifier and Jigsaw could be the same person.

 

The disturbing scene:  Two women are kidnapped and subdued on Halloween night.  One is tied to a chair, the other is hung upside down, naked from the waist up.  The Terrifier then takes out a saw and proceeds to cut her open from vagina to head.  There is no CGI here, this is all practical effects and prosthetics.  Think of Rick Baker or Tom Savini from the 80's.  It gory, disturbing and not for the squeamish.

 

I'll post the video, but I MUST WARN EVERYONE BEFORE WATCHING....THERE IS NUDITY AND LOTS OF GORE.  PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK.

 

Trivia:  The idea for this sawing of the naked woman came from real life medieval punishments.  Sawing someone in half was sometimes performed on rapists and child killers or just plain conquerers of one city.  The Ottoman Empire dished out punishments like this during their conquests.  

 

 

 

[baumer]

Number 56:  Zombie (1979)

 

 

 

 

 

Starring:  Tisa Farrow, Ian McCulloch, Richard Johnson

 

Directed by:  Lucio Fulci

 

Box office:  N/A

 

My rating:  7.5/10

 

The story:  A young woman wants to search for her father who is missing since he made an expidition to the antilles. She starts the search together with her friends and a reporter. They arrive at an island where they get confronted with zombies. The zombies long eagerly for human flesh. More and more undead corpses crawl up and walk arround looking for flesh.

 

The terrifying scene:  Italian horror movies are just different than North American horror movies.  Especially in the 70's and 80's they were unapologetic.  They had beautiful naked women, loads of gore and there was a feeling of dread throughout the whole film.  If you watch the original Amityville horror (directed by an American) and then the sequel (directed by an Italian) back to back, you'll notice they look completely different.  

 

Zombie isn't Fulci's best film (imo), that one will be making an appearance much later in the countdown, but it might be his most famous.  Fulci is famous for his practical effects and his gore and in this one, a young woman is accosted by the undead and she unfortunately has a splinter of wood slowly injected into her eyeball.  It's again all practical effects, prosthetics, music and terrific direction that sell the scene.  This is 1979, and people, including me, were in awe when we first saw this.

 

Trivia:  As shown in trailers before the film was released, airline "barf bags" were handed out to theater moviegoers due to the unusually high amount of violence and gore for a horror film of that time.

 

The film was written before Dawn of the Dead (1978) was released in Italy, as an action/adventure thriller with no link to George A. Romero's films. The opening and closing scenes (which take place in New York) were added to the script later when the producers wanted to cash-in on the success of Dawn.

 

 

 

[baumer]

Number 55:  The Mist (2007)

 

 

Starring:  Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden, Lori Holden, William Sadler

 

Directed by:  Frank Darabont

 

Box office:  57.2 million WW

 

My rating:  8/10

 

The story:  The Draytons - David, Steff and their son Billy - live in a small Maine town. One night a ferocious storm hits the area, damaging their house. The storm is accompanied by a strange mist the following morning. David and Billy and their neighbour Brent Norton go into town and find themselves trapped in a grocery store with several other people. There they discover that the mist contains something frightening and intent on killing humans.

 

The disturbing scene:  Five survivors are in a truck in the middle of the mist.  They hear the monsters coming from all sides.  There is no hope.  They are either going to die a horrific death or they can commit suicide by allowing David to shoot them, end it quickly.  The camera pans back and you hear 4 gunshots go off in the truck.  David is the only one left and he begins to turn the gun on himself, only to see that the horrifying sounds were mistaken for monsters.  It's the military rolling in to save the day, leaving David as a murderer.  

 

I remember discussing this movie with members of the forums when it came out in 2007.  Most liked the movie but everyone agreed that the end scene is one of the most fucked up scenes in any horror movie.  You obviously understand and empathize with David but then you are kicked in the gut when you realize it was all for nothing.

 

Trivia:  Frank Darabont directed this and he cast three actors who he would later cast in the Walking Dead as well.  Lori Holden, Melissa McBride and Jeffrey DeMunn would all show up in the Walking Dead.

 

 

 

[baumer]

Next 5 will be:

 

The original Face/off that also inspired Halloween in a way

Excoriation in black and white

Drawn and quartered....Nick Randall, Pony and Stacey Hamilton share some tense screen time

@Ipickthiswhiterose and myself share a love for Indrid Cold

The devil is having a really bad day

[Krissykins]

That ending of The Mist is tough, so well done though. Bleak!