Spooky Month Special: My Top 25 Favorite Horror Films of All Time, Part Two
The Top 10 Thrills and Chills for this Particular Movie Nerd
Continuing from Part One, here are the Top 10 of my 25 Favorite Horror Movies of All Time, as of this present writing.
LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (2008) - Directed by Tomas Alfredson
Real vampires don’t sparkle. They are vicious, lonely, and Swedish.
I love a good vampire movie, and I have my own set of favorites which range in genre from mystery to comedy to romance — but this gem from Sweden is my favorite one which classifies as true dramatic horror. It explores the reality that vampires are trapped in a place where they long for human connections they cannot have, because it was stolen from them — trapped between a desire to love and necessity to kill. Despite what the Lost Boys tell you, it’s not really fun to be vampire. You may never die, but you must feed — and Let the Right One In reflects the bleakness of this truth through its cold Swedish landscape, all while being a beacon of hope & light for the marginalized at the same time. So many layers are under the ice of this cold and strangely beautiful masterpiece.
CREEPSHOW (1982) -Directed by George Romero
I’m sensing a window theme here, kids.
Before the Spider-Verse movies gave us a fresh vision of cinema that looks and feels like a comic book, there was the demented glee of George Romero and Stephen King joining forces on the anthology feature Creepshow.
I was mesmerized and terrified of images from this movie on behind-the-scenes TV specials, in the newspaper and the cable guide when I was 7 or 8, and when I finally watched it at a friend’s sleepover at age 13, it warped my brain to transform me overnight (literally) into a horror fan.
Promised as “the most fun you’ll have being scared,” it’s a great mix of humour and horror where the campy E.C Comics silliness of it all meshes perfectly with moments that are still genuinely frightening. Still holds up incredibly well and the film score has always been one of my favourites. It’s a true ‘80s horror classic and a rollicking good time.
Ranked Favourite Stories:
#1. THEY’RE CREEPING UP ON YOU
E.G. Marshall’s performance is fantastic and the whole thing is vicious and squirmy with a glorious final gross-out. Don’t watch this if you are afraid of bugs.
#2. THE CRATE
Still one of the greatest & scariest monsters ever, and it has the best jump scare in the whole movie, topped by one of the best lines: “Just tell it to call you ‘Billie.’” Don’t watch this if you are afraid of what might be under your stairs.
#3. FATHER’S DAY
I don’t know what’s scarier, the skeleton or Ed Harris’ dancing. Don’t watch this if you are afraid of graveyards.
#4. SOMETHING TO TIDE YOU OVER
A truly unsettling slow burn with effective suspense, and the zombies chanting “If you can hold your breath” is still really scary. Don’t watch this if you are afraid of drowning.
#5. THE LONESOME DEATH OF JORDY VERRILL
The campiest and most comedic of the anthology, and Stephen King is amazing and strangely endearing as he turns into a plant. Don’t watch this if you are afraid of meteors.
THE THING (1982) - Directed by John Carpenter
This movie still freaks the hell out of me. It’s the one of the only sci-fi horror films where the gore and goopiness are not merely there for shock value, but actually mesh with the storytelling to create a real sense of dread that stays with you. It does what it sets out to do, and does it brilliantly, with just the right pinch of mystery. The isolation created by its remote location and minimal musical score are the icing on the cake. Bonus points for being made in British Columbia!
The fear of The Thing is losing what makes you human and not even knowing it, and that is a frightening concept.
ALIEN (1979) - Directed by Ridley Scott
Also in the realm of sci-fi horror, and essentially a haunted house-monster movie in space.
It’s amazing to think how terrifying and mind-blowing this film would have been to its first audiences back in its original run. Can you imagine?
There was nothing like it before...and very few like it since. Certainly none that have matched its atmosphere and combination of elements firing on all cylinders. Everything about it works. Brilliant, unrelenting, vicious, brutal, timeless, and shocking.
THE BABADOOK (2014) - Directed by Jennifer Kent
For some reason, my first viewing of this Australian horror film left me perplexed and underwhelmed, but the second time...sweet merciful crap. That’s when I realized this movie is scary as hell, and is actually the second-most scariest movie I think I’ve ever seen.
It’s scary because its true horror lies not in mere jump-scares or even in supernatural forces...it’s an unflinching look at what happens when grief is left not dealt with, shoved under the rug, and denied — until you are alone with that grief and there is nobody there to help you. The boogeyman in this film is unchecked grief and trauma, and that is real.
The BAaa-BAaa-DOOK of grief is a boogeyman we can’t get rid of, we must only learn to live with it one day at a time, keeping it at bay while trying and learning to love one another. The only characters who are aware enough to fight against the evil in this film are named Samuel (which means “God has heard”) and Grace (Gracie, the next door neighbour), thereby making it a spiritual tone poem of truth.
NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968) - Directed by George Romero
This IS the most frightening movie I’ve ever seen.
There are “scary movies” and there are “horror movies” — and then there are true HORROR FILMS, like this one. The scariest American horror film ever made, and the one that changed everything, even more than Psycho. There is also a great documentary worth seeking out called Birth of the Living Dead (2013) which explores not only how this movie was made but how it reflected perfectly the time it was made. It reflects on how the wake of JFK’s assassination, the civil rights movement, and Vietnam war left its stamp on American society and somehow channeled all of its rage & fury into this cheap little horror movie. It was made for nothing, yet it’s about everything. Even things still going on today.
It’s hard to fathom how much this film works on every level — despite some corny “aw shucks” acting by Tom & Judy. The bulk of the cast is top-notch and Romero’s direction & editing is flawless. It’s one of the most brutal, visceral, eerie, and horrifying things ever created, truly living up to its title as an incredible cinematic masterpiece.
In Night of the Living Dead, everybody dies. Nobody wins. You need that kind of honesty now and then to really wake up to how bleak things can turn out when the follies of war truly win the day. Things get really, really scary.
THE EXORCIST (1973) - Directed by William Friedkin
Brutal and unrelenting in its terror, this is most certainly the first American horror film in color which changed the game forever — but the true power in this classic movie comes not only in its shock value but also in its pacing, its atmosphere, its screenplay. and especially its characters. It has a spell cast under it and I’ve always been captivated by it.
Even more frightening, to me at least, is the Extended Director’s Cut released in 2000.
The extra scenes of Regan in the doctor’s office not only make her transformation less sudden, but when juxtaposed alongside the scenes of Damian’s mother in the hospital it sets up the theme earlier on of the parallels between Damian, his mother, and Regan...the themes of his guilt playing a part in his ultimate sacrifice.
Likewise, the addition of the vicious spider walk down the stairs right after the news of Burke’s death (also down the stairs) is a touch of brilliance. That scene alone makes the film ten times scarier.
THE SHINING (1980) - Directed by Stanley Kubrick
I first experienced this film on VHS, in a VERY dark room with a circle of friends, when I was about 14. It became an obsession for us, and would be watched over and over and over again to the point of intense memorization and embedding into our molecules. To this day I can’t explain why, other than the imagery, the music, the dialogue, and the strange cerebral spell it cast on our adolescent brains. All the little inside jokes and Rocky Horror-ish comebacks we invented still come to mind upon re-visitation.
Sometimes I wonder why this movie garners so many re-watches and aches to return for this many multiple viewings. Kubrick himself was a bit of an obsessive monster, the acting is often overdone, the pacing often goes either too slow or too fast, and it's just a really strange, plodding movie with some really disgusting moments. And yet, this movie casts a spell regardless. Its images are so iconic: the way it feels, the way it sounds, the way it looks, and the enigmatic atmosphere it creates — you can't look away or shrug it off. The scenes with the girls in the hallway have literally given me nightmares for years, and yet I still keep coming back.
There’s all kinds of crackpot theories for what THE SHINING is all about (some of which are explored in the terrible documentary Room 237) but one of the interpretations I lean towards is that it’s about white American males and whatever kind of evil, madness, toxic masculinity & perverse insecurities have led them over the centuries to colonize, overpower, and ultimately massacre indigenous cultures and their women & children. The Native American motifs, the Calumet Baking Powder labels in the store room, and pictures of Native American children on the walls of the hotel which is literally built on an ‘Indian burial ground’ (thus the elevator flooded with blood) with lots of American flags (including recurring color choices of red, white and blue) often showing up in the background tend to drive this theory forward — and this is the evil that Wendy, Danny, & Dick Halloran (representing women, children, and people of color) are fighting against — trying to survive or escape from. Why else would Jack make reference to the “white man’s burden” and be present at a ball from the 4th of July? Evil begets evil and implodes upon itself, and because of his guilty conscience, crime, and horrible white nationalist atrocities committed against other human beings, he’s always been the caretaker, and the Overlook claims him in the name of justice.
A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (1984) - Directed by Wes Craven
The original Nightmare on Elm Street was probably the first movie I was initially too scared to watch, but felt an intense rush of relief when I got through it to the other side and realized I was okay. I was about 14 at the time, and for better or worse it cemented my appreciation for the genre.
It’s never given me literal nightmares (like The Shining and The Exorcist have), but my appreciation for its craft has only matured with age. I still love its atmosphere, musical score, and dark surrealism — it almost borders on Lynch-level weirdness at times. The ‘80s were the best time in the world to grow up with strange & wicked horror stories like this one. We had the strangest of any generation, especially with the myriad of kooky Elm Street sequels, which I also have a soft spot for. As the franchise unravelled, each film got progressively worse until it devolved into self-parody and vulgar cartoonish stupidity in its last dying breaths. Until that stage was reached, Part 2 (Freddy’s Revenge) and 3 (Dream Warriors), and to some small degree, 4 (The Dream Master), have their share of effective moments and I still like many things about them as nostalgic guilty pleasures. Part 2 in particular gets a bad rap but I like it a lot despite its cringe factor. But the original Nightmare on Elm Street film alone is lightning in a bottle which the sequels never captured in the same way, especially with how it depicts Freddy as the monstrous boogeyman he’s supposed to be.
The musical score by Charles Bernstein is amazing and the visual atmosphere of its production design adds to the sense of dread, surrealism and visceral spookiness of the whole thing. That’s what most horror movies are missing these days — they’re violent, bloody, and bleak, but rarely SPOOKY. The original Nightmare on Elm Street is all of these things…and also spooky.
And it has Nancy. Total final girl royalty and the best of them all.
HALLOWEEN (1978) - Directed by John Carpenter
…but finally, the one that encompasses the Spooky Month season for me most of all, from its opening title sequence to the ending frame, is John Carpenter’s original Halloween.
With all that’s come in its wake, you really forget how understated and brilliant this film is. The lighting, the atmosphere, the long takes, the characters, and especially — most especially — THE MUSIC.
The looming sense of dread and the slow burn of those long walks where nothing happens but walking towards houses, around houses, in and out of houses, and then BAM. It’s still absolutely frightening.
What’s also impressive about Halloween is how, much like Night of the Living Dead, it was made for practically nothing, and yet is about everything. Michael Myers represents the faceless, speechless essence of fear, anxiety and evil that you can’t reason with. He merely haunts you, taunts you, comes your way, and can only be killed until the next sequel. He will keep coming back, and there is no happy ending in this film that will reassure you he’s gone for good. It may sound bleak, but in the end I think it works because we shouldn’t always need art to remind us of what will save the day. In the end we will need to turn to friends, family, love, community, beauty, laughter, and ultimately faith to keep the Babadooks, Freddies, and Michaels from consuming us. As clay animator Bruce Bickford wisely quipped, “People shouldn’t kill each other, they should just make movies about it.”
If only that were true. With every headline, every atrocity, Halloween reminds us, “It was the boogeyman.”
“As a matter of fact, it was.”
But take heart. Unless we lose hope and keep our guard down, we are all the final girl.
Sweet dreams, kids! Grab some candy, snuggle up with your loved ones, and enjoy your spooky month.