...for you-know-who! That's right, it's her, the almighty SHOCKtobra has risen from the depths to bring us all...uh, you know. SHOCKtober!
Y'all answered the clarion call and all month we are going to be counting down the hits, aka your favorite horror movies. There are a shitton of them! 816 to be exact. I didn't even know I could count that high.
This is the fourth time I'm running this little exercise and every time I'm, well, shocked to see how many films I ain't never heard of. I mean, I have a blog, you know. A horror blog. And there are times I feel like I've seen everything there is to see that was born before...mmm, let's say 2020. And then here you guys go, schooling the crap out of me with your faves. I love it.
Now then, the usual caveats: There could well be errors in this list. I don't think there are, but maybe there's some alternate title I missed or something. If that's the case, be gentle! We should all count ourselves fortunate that I can manage this thing at all, really. This is only the second time I've done this using a spreadsheet! The first two iterations found me writing hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of titles in a fucking spiral notebook and somehow keeping track, like what?? Madness. I have no idea what I was thinking. Or not thinking, I guess. The point is joining the computer age has made it easier but my eyes do still fall out of my head from time to time, so forgive me if I screwed it up somewhere.
Anyway, they're listed mostly--but not exclusively--alphabetically in order of votes received. So yeah, film #816 and film...I don't know, #600 each received the same number of votes and should technically be tied, but a huge list is more fun.
So! Let's get this thing going and begin the month-long journey counting down to this year's most favoritest movie. I wonder who will wear the crown?? (I actually already know, mua ha ha.)
- Speaking of movies I ain't never heard of, this 1979 made-for-TV Vampire; Look at that cast! Not listed: Joe Spinell! And Barrie Youngfellow of television's It's a Living! Boy, I tells ya. 1979 was quite a year for vampires, eh? Made-for-TV, theatrical, romantic and handsome, gross and gross...pretty much whatever flavor you wanted you could find. What a time.
- Did I know that Mike Nichols directed Wolf? Huh.
- A reader who submitted Warlock: "I started a Warlock fan club in the 6th grade." I love to see that it's still going strong.
- I am always surprised when I see (or remember) that Uninvited, the cat-on-a-cruise-ship George Kennedy movie, came out in 1988. I feel like it should be older than that, although maybe that's just me thinking about that cats-in-an-anthology Peter Cushing movie The Uncanny, which was released in 1977. That's not an interesting story, I am just saying.
- A reader who submitted Underwater: "It is dumb, but it is entertaining, except for T.J. Miller's 'Paul' who is annoying. Kristen Stewart is really good at this kind of quiet, subdued emotionally intense performance." Agreed!
YAY! October is here. (I've been waiting for this ever since you announced you were doing this again.)
ReplyDelete"Young Blondes, Stalked and Murdered" was one of my picks - it SOUNDS like it's going to be one kind of movie, but it's totally not that. It's a poignant film about loneliness and rejection, with one of the most creepy/suspenseful sequences I've seen in the past year. We showed it at Salem Horror Fest 7 this past April; if you see it playing at a festival, I encourage people to go!
Whoever included Vertigo on their list, I feel you. The first time I watched it, I was around ten years old and the trippy dream sequence gave me nightmares for like a week.
ReplyDeleteZodiac, too, has some incredibly tense moments and it might actually be my favorite movie ever. Still, for one reason or another, neither work crossed my mind while compiling my own list, which I now deeply regret.
But I guess seeing all the awesome movies you didn't vote for is just part of the SHOCKtober magic.
Yeah, it's why I don't gatekeep at all when it comes to this list--I love seeing what qualifies as horror--especially favorite horror--for some folks. One year someone submitted The Cable Guy! Even without elaborate explanations, I can almost always see how the named films can be viewed through the horror lens. It's cool.
ReplyDeleteJust announced, Stacie...
ReplyDeletehttps://vinegarsyndrome.com/collections/all-partner-label-releases/products/feardotcom
Also, if you were to call out every contribution that has a connection to It's a Living, it would be a very special Halloween, indeed. (The fact that Louise Lasser did an entire season is extremely trippy.)
ReplyDeleteUNDERWATER is a cracker. I loved that movie.
ReplyDelete$42 for fear dot com! I know someone out there is wicked psyched but whew
ReplyDeleteAlso @Steve -- I'm here for the connected...mmm, Jilli-verse, I'm gonna call it
Love that Underwater got some love in the list and in the comments, Kristen Stewart went hard in that one, both as an actor and as far as looking exactly like every man I had a crush on in High School
ReplyDeleteWith that movie they actually achieve a thing that a lot of other movies brag about but really don't, which is that UNDERWATER does make Stewart a Ripley-esque character.
ReplyDeleteShe has no backstory, no 'Girlboss' attitude tha puts her above anybody else. She literally is just one crew member who through circumstance becomes the lead character of the story.
I just think it's brilliant that the movie starts in the second act. And I do like Kristen Stewart. A frie3nd of mine was her security for a few days during one of the TWILIGHT junkets in Australia and he said she was very nice.