It's almost over. Can you believe it? Dry your tears, friendos- I said "almost"! I'm dragging out your Top 30 Favorites because none of us wants to let go. It's understandable. What will we do? It's been a long journey through hundreds of movies, and I feel like we're all one big cyber-Donner Party because of it. Who will survive, and what will be left of them? Once again, the bold number represents the number of votes the film received.
32. Friday the 13th -- 1980, Sean Cunningham -- 30
31. Dead Alive -- 1992, Peter Jackson -- 30
30. The Ring -- 2002, Gore Verbinski -- 30
29. Candyman -- 1992, Bernard Rose -- 31
28. [REC] -- 2007, Jaume Balaguero & Paco Plaza -- 34
27. The Blair Witch Project -- 1999, Daniel Myrick & Eduardo Sanchez -- 35
26. The Fog -- 1980, John Carpenter -- 35
25. Re-Animator -- 1985, Stuart Gordon -- 37
24. The Haunting -- 1963, Robert Wise -- 39
23. Rosemary's Baby -- 1968, Roman Polanski -- 40
22. Let the Right One In -- 2008, Tomas Alfredson -- 42
21. 28 Days Later -- 2002, Danny Boyle -- 43
- Folks, the next time Platinum Dunes poops out a terrible remake or someone partakes in the completely fresh idea of bitching about Twilight, take a look at, oh, let's say your Top 100 favorites from this list. I get down about "the state of horror", but then I really look at the state of things and I have to punch myself in the face because you know what? It really ain't so effing bad. In fact, horror is about as strong as it's ever been, and the last decade has seen some new classics emerge- hell, 1/3 of this chunk o' list comprises films made since 2000. The biggest difference between "then" and "now", I think, is that no new directors have really been considered a voice for the genre- it's more about the films themselves, if that makes sense. When you think about how awesome old-school horror is, you think about names like John Carpenter, George Romero, and Tobe Hooper because out of the gate, man, these guys knocked out amazing horror movie after amazing horror movie. They had time to build up a body of work, and despite whatever Masters of fucking Horror tried to convince us, it's really too soon yet to know who will truly become...well, a master of
unlockinghorror. The point is, don't get down. We're doing just fine.
14 comments:
My love for Let the Right One In & Dead Alive knows no bounds...*swoon*
I still wish I could say "Handyman" three times in the mirror, and someone would show up and fix my stupid kitchen faucet.
Verification word: "tringle" - a potato chip made of fried tofu.
28 Days Later, another one of mine. Still 13 to go.
Dead Alive has a special place in my heart as the only movie to ever make me throw up.
I've had several conversations with horror fans I know who bitch, "They don't make horror movies like they used to," and then I rattle off all the good ones made in just this past decade, as you note, and they sheepishly admit they haven't seen them. Horror is indeed having another golden age!
My theory is that when horror becomes fairly popular (like now), the ratio of crap to good stuff increases, but in absolute terms, more good stuff is being produced than when horror is not popular. There are many, many bad forgotten slasher movies and bad zombie movies from the 70s and 80s that no one will remember.
Great point Stacie. I get so annoyed with people wining about how awful horror is today. Pfff. There's just as many shitty movies out now as there were in the '80s, and the '70s, and so on. There's also, if you look hard enough, just as many great ones.
Happy Halloween!
Oh, [REC] (to use the appropriate punctuation). How happy you make me. I love you. I really do.
"There are many, many bad forgotten slasher movies and bad zombie movies from the 70s and 80s that no one will remember."
Really? I thought that's precisely what all these horror blogs were for!
I know that "Prince of Darkness" already got shouted out at #76, but I wanted to briefly pay respects to Lisa Blount, who passed away this week. She was great in PoD, a pick from my top 20.
Check out the BBC iPlayer for a 3-part documentary about the three periods where horror caught the mass populations eye. Yeah, it's a bit of a fanboy sorta thing but he hits lots of nails on the head too.
I agree, these really are good times for horror films. Around the time "Blair Witch" came out, it made me think, "what are the new movies that we'll be calling classics in a while?", and I could think of a few. Many, many more have been made in the past decade. Yeah, if you're just going by what the local theater has to offer, it's not very impressive. But if you look at the big picture, with international scenes and some great titles going direct-to-video, there are a ton of great movies being made. I've been watching horror films since the early '70s, so I'm definitely not ignorant of older movies, but my own list was heavily slanted towards the past 10-20 years, because there have been so many good recent movies.
"...I feel like we're all one big cyber-Donner Party because of it."
Hahaha! Oh man, do I love The Ring, but seeing 28 Days Later makes me wonder if 28 Weeks Later was already listed and I missed it-Damn that movie scared me more than the first one!
Yup, you musta missed it (HOW COULD YOU? There have only been, like, 700 movie listed so far! :D) - it came in at #169. Its chunk o' list is here!
I've been saying for a couple years now that we'll look back on 3 golden ages of horror--the Universal monsters/Val Lewton era, the late 70s through the mid-80s (which'll never be topped, I imagine), and the oughts, or whatever the hell we're calling this decade.
I'm almost glad I lived through the quality drought between Scream and Blair Witch (which actually stretched from well before the first to long after the latter, IIRC) just so I can appreciate how good we've got it now.
God, I still can't believe how crappy that decade was for horror fans. The 90s made the 50s look like the 30s.
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