I bet you could guess the Top 57 favorites if you really tried. But oh, the suspense of how these movies are ranked! I know it's killing you, so I'll get on with it. The bold number is the number of votes the film received.
57. The Howling -- 1981, Joe Dante -- 17
56. Nosferatu -- 1922, F.W. Murnau -- 17
55. The Birds -- 1963, Alfred Hitchcock -- 17
54. Don't Look Now -- 1973, Nicolas Roeg -- 18
53. The Silence of the Lambs -- 1991, Jonathan Demme -- 18
52. Dawn of the Dead -- 2004, Zach Snyder -- 18
51. Saw -- 2004, James Wan -- 18
50. Inside -- 2007, Alexandre Bustillo & Julien Maury -- 19
49. The Beyond -- 1981, Lucio Fulci -- 19
48. High Tension -- 2003, Alexandre Aja -- 19
47. Sleepaway Camp -- 1983, Robert Hiltzik -- 20
46. Bride of Frankenstein -- 1935, James Whale -- 20
45. The Omen -- 1976, Richard Donner -- 20
44. Carnival of Souls -- 1962, Herk Harvey -- 21
43. Session 9 -- 2001, Brad Anderson -- 22
42. Friday the 13th Part II -- 1981, Steve Miner -- 22
41. Hellraiser -- 1987, Clive Barker -- 23
40. Poltergeist -- 1982, Tobe Hooper -- 24
39. Phantasm -- 1979, Don Coscarelli -- 26
38. Audition -- 1999, Takashi Miike -- 26
37. The Wicker Man -- 1973, Robin Hardy -- 26
36. Martyrs -- 2008, Pascal Laugier -- 26
35. Creepshow -- 1982, George Romero -- 27
34. The Fly -- 1986, David Cronenberg -- 28
33. Shaun of the Dead -- 2004, Edgar Wright -- 28
- Friday the 13th Part II: Jason built a house. He traveled to another town. He used a phone. He tracked a woman down and killed her in her home! Y'all, whatever Jason became in later sequels, he started out as just a dude who lived in the woods, which is scary. And yes, I'm a firm believer in The Ginny Theory to explain his very existence in Part II, so there.
- Yeah yeah, you hate the twist in High Tension. Okay, we got that out of the way.
- That's right- no film got 25 votes. COINCIDENCE?
- I know that doesn't make sense, but I feel like I'm beginning to fall prey to ListMania. It could get ugly.
- Should the entry for Poltergeist have read (1982, "Tobe Hooper")? Ha ha! You know, because no one believes that he really directed it. Zelda Rubinstein claimed she only worked with Steven Spielberg during her six days on set, so who knows? COINCIDENCE?
The Birds, Audition, Wicker Man..and The Fly(number 34!)...damn! this is good!
ReplyDelete2 more of mine: Dawn of the Dead (2004) and Phantasm. I have 14 left, which means I have almost half the remaining 32.
ReplyDeleteIf there's a tie for first can we have a runoff election? Since Halloween naturally segues into Election Day anyway. In more ways than one.
ReplyDeleteAnd here I thought I'd be one of only a handful of people who would vote for 'Session 9.' It's such a terrific movie, but I honestly didn't expect it to be anywhere near the Top 100.
ReplyDelete"Jason built a house" would be a great title for a DIY book.
ReplyDeleteTo all you people loving on this list I just thought you should know that I have crammed this list down my pants and therefore you are loving down my pants. It's not that you're not welcome, the more the merrier, I just thought you should know.
ReplyDeleteIf I could be a movie, it would be Sleepaway Camp.
ReplyDeleteGlad it (me) got some love.
Some more of mine, Bride of Frankenstein & Carnival of Souls! I just ADORE three-word movie titles where the second word is "of." They make me feel all fuzzy inside.
ReplyDeleteKind of like The Birds, which didn't make my list but should've, because that movie taught me so much as a child. For example: Suzanne Pleshette is sultry, oedipal drama exists, and Christmas comes but once a year. In short: I LOVE THE BIRDS.
3 of my picks right there: The Birds, Don't Look Now and Shaun of the Dead. Still, 12 picks remain unlisted!
ReplyDeleteWord verification: lingong. Bai Ling's gong?
Yes, we do hate the twist in High Tension, or at least I do because it is so homophobic. That said, it still made my Top 20. It is otherwise a perfect suspense film.
ReplyDeleteJust a heads-up: my review of High Tension addresses the possible homophobia of the film, and the conversation about viewing it under the queer studies banner continues in the comment should you wish to talk about it, anon. It's interesting stuff.
ReplyDelete"Yes, we do hate the twist in High Tension, or at least I do because it is so homophobic."
ReplyDeleteHomophobic? Huh, I've never looked at it that way, but I can certainly see where you're coming from. My problem with the twist in 'High Tension' is that it's just trite and doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
...and there are still movies showing up that I've never heard of. This is great.
ReplyDeleteI just realized that I totally left Freeze Me out, and nobody else had it. Well, fix that, and go watch it.
ReplyDeleteMan, like 18 of my 20 are in the top 75. Great movies, all of them, but I clearly need to watch a lot more.
ReplyDeleteHigh Tension would be in my top 20 if it wasn’t for that darn meddling twist.
ReplyDeleteRe: "High Tension".
ReplyDeleteStacie and anon, this movie was really, really ruined for me by the twist. It does come across as homophobic in my eyes, and Alexandre Aja as a director fits into the same category as Eli Roth and Rob Zombie to me, wherein the only reason women are in their films are to be naked, sexualized, and otherwise victimized and fodder for slashers/monsters. So although maybe I'm reading too much into it or taking it all too seriously (I'm always open for intelligent discussion), I usually watch their films with reservation.
I like the twist in HT conceptually, but I shall continue to grouse until such time as it is explained to my satisfaction where the van came from. Still, death-by-credenza buys you a lotta leeway in my book.
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm starting to question the CW about Poltergeist; TCM has such a rep for grungy verissimilihoweveryouspellit that you forget how Speilbergian some of the camerawork is. Lot of shooting from low angles, big sky, that sorta thing. And Lifeforce feels very much like a movie by the guy who made Poltergeist minus the big-shot producer who could reign him in and force him to make some damn sense.
(I think Hooper was pretty f'd up on drugs at the time, so yeah, I'm sure Speilberg did a lot of the heavy lifting, but I just mean that he stepped in to finish what was still essentially a Hooper joint)
Re: Tobe Hooper and Poltergeist, Hooper apparently addressed this during an interview at this year's Fright Fest in London, and says that the whole thing got spun out because of one journalist who visited the set and saw Spielberg behind a camera - because he was helping out with second unit on that particular day (that bit didn't get reported). Hooper says Spielberg was way more hands off than people have come to believe...
ReplyDelete