Gotta be The Thing, John Carpenter and Rob Bottin, match made in heaven...
Effects still look good today, apart from the stop motion bit at the end..

Stop Motion gets a bad press. They never had CGI back then so you have to put it into context.

As such, I'd say the stop motion in The Thing is pretty good. Nowhere near Harryhausen, but pretty effective nonetheless.

In 10 years they'll be saying CGI looks crap too. I assume we will be watching 3D holograms by then.

First of all, horror movies don't scare me easily. A few did when I was a kid, but not anymore now as an adult. Therefor, I rarely watch 'em with the idea that I'm going to get frightened in any way. These days, I just judge 'em based soley on the quality of entertainment that I get from the story, art direction, acting, blah blah blah....
So here are a few that I do enjoy:



5. Texas Chainsaw Massacre - This movie's story came off as very genuine. While most horrors tend to want the viewer say things to the screen like "Idiot! Run outside, not to the upstairs!" or"Don't go in there, you moron!", this movie actually made the situation of the onscreen victims seem logistically believable. Therefor, their fright & inevitable demise doesn't come off as deserving as those characters in other films who make one feel that their stupidity justified thier grisly end. This film sory's intent was aimed at making the obseverer feel the fear thru the fear of the victim, not just thru the idea of a mad demonic slash-object-wielding maniac.

4. Silence Of The Lambs - Yes, it does seem like the lambs have been extraordinarily quiet lately.
And that can only mean one thing: trouble is abrewing.

3. Night Of The Living Dead - Sort of the Blair Witch Project of it's day.

2. Blair Witch Project - As I said before, I really can't get scared from movies anymore. Especially, if there's a monster or a Jason/Freddy/Michael Myers involved. The minute I see these guys, I am instantly reminded that I'm watching a movie, thereby negating any chance of being frightened anymore. Blair Witch tried to come as close to reality as any horror movie could. Making it seem like this could actually happen. Plus, we never saw the witch. And as it has been stated many times over centuries, "The greatest fear is that of the unknown". This movie, while it still didn't scare me, it came as close as it possibly could at this point in my life. Something that I can't ever see happening much again.

1. Exorcist - I saw a preview of this as a kid, where the girl was on the bed as it shook. That night, I was scared as hell to go upstairs to my fuckin' bedroom.
That fuckin' movie.......

quote:

Originally posted by kraftdeluxe:
Hmmm...I guess I never replied to this. Okay, well:

Favorites:
"Psycho", "The Shining", "28 Days Later", "The Blair Witch Project", "Silence of the Lambs".

Least Favorites:
"Rose Red," "Hannibal", "Signs".

Psycho has special memories for me. I'm a musician these days but as a child I didn't realise how much I understood music and so, the score of Psycho was working on me without my knowlege and, I had to sleep between my parents for a week or so; my dad was not happy about that; atleast, I hope he wasn't. Also the half preserved skull of Mrs Bates is something I still cannot face. When i was an infant, my big brother was eating an apple and I wanted one too. He told me that there was another apple in a bag on the floor in the kitchen. I ran and opened the bag and inside was... a skull. He also painted a petagon on the floor of a shed and invited someone to go inside, after which, my brother locked the door and read out a script to summon the Devil. That guy inside smashed through the inch thick door and ran at amazing speed over the hills and far far away. Oh, we did have some fun times back then. Yes, the music must be right and the music in the actors voice must be perfect also.

1. Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975). An eerie, haunting mystery of the unknown fate of three girls in the turn of the century Australian outback. Directed by Peter Weir.

2. Nomads (1986). One of the most captivating, haunting, eerie movies made starring Pierce Brosnan in one of his finest performances as a anthropologist and the female doctor who has a strange connection to him in her attempts to discover the mystery of his man's demise.

3. Alien (1979). The original theatrical release. Set a new landmark for serious science fiction in the best directed movies of the 1979 along with a strong female role starring Signourney Weaver. IMDb #63.

4. Carnival of Souls (Original 1962 Version). A haunting, twilight zone film.

5. 1408 (2007). One of the best horror thrillers in years, setting a new standard for this genre. John Cusack is a father who lost his daughter to cancer and is now staying in and writing about haunted places and he gets attempt to survive room 1408 in an hotel. 9/10. [Reviewed 6/23/07].

6. The Blair Witch Project (1999). The best low-budget, scary, amateur movie in history.

7. The Thing (1982 remake by John Carpenter).

8. The Exorcist (1973). IMDb #207.

9. Nosferatu (1979).

10. Silence of the Lambs (1991).

11. Dark Water (2005). The best psychological-supernatural thriller of 2005 creates through its color choice, music, and superb acting one of the most finely layered, textured creepy and qualitatively eerie movies in years. Using the childhood terror of divorce and living in a strange and institutionalized feeling apartment complex, along with mentally disturbing images from both the past and present, Dark Water is a retro-classic of The Birds (1963). [Reviewed 2/20/06]. 8/10.

12. The Birds (1963).

13. Psycho (1960). IMDb #24. National Film Registry movie.

14. Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983). A mysterious traveling circus comes to town that foretells of evil and two boys must uncover secrets while their father holds the key to their salvation.

15. The Reaping (2007). Hillary Swank is a disillusioned religious scientist who encounters the religious signs of the apocalypse. This consistent, entertaining thriller is a quality American occult cinema with the twist. Eight out of Ten Stars. Reviewed 4/25/07.

16. The Legend of Hell House (1973). A class, ghost/horror genre movie about four people investigation the Mount Everest of haunted houses. Starring Roddy McDowell, this is a low-budget but serious adaptation of the sensual Richard Matheson's Hell House. 7/10. [Reviewed 11/11/06].

17. Cube Zero (2004). The prequel of the Cube series that provides a compelling Brazil-like feature film that offers a fascinating look at a dysfunctional faceless controller and the powerless individuals who must survive in a mechanical cube of horror with observers who are also observed.

Favourite: Kairo (Pulse), the original Japanese version, NOT the crap US remake which completely misunderstood the point of the original. Any self-respecting horror fan with an above-average IQ would LOVE this movie.

Least: There are a LOT of crappy, low-budget B-movie dreck out there (as we all know), so I would base my least favourite on the most disappointing movie ever that could have been good, but was buggered up.
And the winner is: The Shining.
Yes, believe it or not, I think this is the most over-rated horror movie ever. (And so thinks Stephen King as well)
Stanley Kubrick was absolutely the wrong director for this movie. He had the perfect set (the hotel DID look very scary indeed), some great shots (the Steadicam of Danny riding his trike) but he changed too much stuff from the novel and totally missed the scariest point of the book. That being the fact that the Overlook Hotel's supernatural entities forces a basically decent but flawed man into becoming a monster who tries to kill off the people he loves the most.
Jack Nicholson looked positively psycho from the beginning, as if he was just biding his time to strike and there was no character development as in the novel.
And the bathtub scene (the scariest scene in the book) was totally f*@!ked up by good old Stanley's inept direction and the piss-poor editing.
Stephen King and Mick Garris tried to rectify Kubrick's mistakes in the mini-series with Stephen Weber and Rebecca de Mornay, but it wasn't much better, with a TV-movie feel to it and not much scares.

Well least favorite for this year would have to be between "The Unborn" and "Grace" thus far, in South Africa we are still waiting for The Final Destination 3D and H2, so I'm sure I'll have something to say about those two.

So far I really enjoyed the french film "Martyrs" by Pascal Laugier and the remake of "Last House on the Left" wasn't too bad either I thought, and another little gem that intrigued me was "Let the Right One In" by Tomas Alfredson.

As for "Friday the 13th 09" I expected way more! although the "killer cut" is much better than the theatrical cut it left out so much of what the true fans were expecting.