Happy to see Hereditary on there. Awesome horror movie.

An all-timer and the best since The Conjuring if you ask me.

Agreed!

So what films made the cut?

We're doing it kind of on an ad hoc basis. We eased in with Hocus Pocus and Evil Dead 2. Might have to go far to the other side tonight.

Also, home intrusion really creeps me out, so our list has The Strangers on it too I think.

Proposition Joe said:

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And for those who wonder where I stand on things:

The Thing is the greatest horror movie of all time. Cabin In the Woods is the most enjoyable horror movie of the last 20 years. Hereditary is the best horror movie of the last 20 years (even with the god-awful Gabriel Byrne death scene).

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We could be friends.

I watch The Thing every single Halloween. If I watch one horror movie in a year, it's this one.

The music, the special effects, the cast, the tension, the absolute isolation they are in while all of this is going down.

It's absolutely brilliant, peak John Carpenter.

[I'm assuming you are talking about the Carpenter version. If you are not, then you can burn in hell.]

Baskin
Terrifier

Didn't read other peoples lists. Some to consider:


Alien / Aliens
Event Horizon
Children of the Corn
The Shining
The Exorcist
Hellraiser
Poltergeist
IT (original or new)
Silence of the Lambs / Hannibal




Reprieve List:
1408.
Scream / Scream 2
Tremors
Zombieland

Old school flix from my childhood:
Phantasm
Salem's Lot

Will update on what we decided but for now... watched Dont Look Now for the first time.

Woof.

How was this so highly regarded? Filmed beautifully, but that story was a snoozefest.

Luckily for him, there is only 28 days in the month of February.

jkag89 said:

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Luckily for him, there is only 28 days in the month of February.

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A couple double headers around Valentine's Day

Not a big horror fan. But the few movies I like, are:

The Shining (Dr. Sleep wasn't bad, either)
Always enjoyed the Scream franchise
Cabin in the Woods
28 Days Later
Dawn of the dead (the remake)
Halloween
Dracula (Gary Oldman is great)
IT

The Exorcism of Emily Rose
Oculus

And no mention of 13 ghost?!? That movie still freaks me out! And honorable mention jeepers creepers

I always thought Texas chain saw massacre 05' ish with Jessica biel was underrated. That movie scared the crap out me first time saw it.

Silver bullet is a good one

Both hostels were pretty good

They get cheesy at the ends but I thought both jeepers creepers were scary

The devils rejects

The faculty

Another to suggest - John Carpenter's The Fog (1980). It was remade in 2005ish; after seeing just a few minutes of it one evening on TV, I could tell that was a steaming pile of crap. But the original remains one of the most creepy ghost stories I've ever seen (with one hell of an ending).

Original Fog is good

The mention of Salem's Lot reminded me of another made for tv movie that I thought was pretty scary when I was a youngster:

Dark Night of the Scarecrow

I haven't seen it in almost 40 years so I don't know how well it's held up, but it was pretty scary to 6 year old me when it came out.

Hocus Pocus

So a week in and some scattershot reviews.

Started with Evil Dead and found a theme was developing where I was having to explain away a relatively tame flick with "well... for the time". I can appreciate what Raimi did on a shoestring budget, as well as some of the shots he was going for. It's absolutely a classic from an industry standpoint, but really outside of the playing-card ESP scene (where we encounter our first deadite), it's a relatively un-scary movie. If you can appreciate the makeup effects of the time it is absolutely enjoyable to think "what did they use for that?". I think the SO's main takeaway from this one was now understanding what 75% of the Cabin In the Woods references were from.

Jason X (in SPACE!) - highly underrated. Knows exactly the type of movie it is and runs with it. The virtual reality sequence at Camp Crystal Lake was gold.

Addams Family - this was the "reprieve" night. Hadn't seen this one in forever and completely forgot that Fester wasn't originally "part of the family". Incredibly acted all the way around, but Ricci absolutely steals the show as Wednesday. Also makes you realize that while Christopher Lloyd has been in some absolute modern classics, he basically plays the same type quirky role in all of them. Oh, and RIP M Bison.

The aforementioned Don't Look Now... Was looking forward to this as I saw it on a lot of "best" lists. What a dud. I like Donald Sutherland, and I thought all the Italy scenes were great... But the movie starts out like it's going to be some mystery, shifts into this psychic type story with potential cult implication... then we start thinking oh this is going to be some Shutter Island-esque thing where all of the characters are just playing a bit and we find out Sutherland's character (or his wife) is crazy... and then... a dwarf serial killer in a rain coat that has no connection to the main-story at all? As I said previously, woof.

Deep Red - This one has a special place in my heart as it was my first foray into non-traditional horror when I was young. IMO it's Argento's best film, as Suspiria is far too disjointed for my tastes -- though we'll still be giving it a watch later in the month. From the Goblin prog-rock soundtrack, to the camerawork and the classic Argento gore shots and "something you missed earlier in the film that was important"... Still one of my favorites, even if it's not especially scary.

Candyman - I remembered this one being a lot scarier when I was younger. Still holds up as a wholly solid movie, but Tony Todd exists more as an impressive monster than a truly frightening one. It still works, but it doesn't have the fear factor it once did IMO. Interested if anyone has read the Barker book and can say if it's scarier?

Jason X in space had the most ridiculous ending of any movie I've ever seen. Absolutely hilarious!

Also, I would actually add The Social Dilemma to this thread. We just watched that and it scared the sh^t out of me over any movie on this thread - actual fear.

Deep Red is my fav Argento film. The Goblin soundtrack really makes it stand out.

So far this month:

Hocus Pocus
Dawn of the Dead
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
The Shining
Evil Dead 2
Sleepy Hollow
Phantasm
Cabin in the Woods

I saw Children of the Corn as a recommendation on Netflix. I remember it scaring the **** out of me as a kid, but I also know I don't think most of King's adaptations hold up (if they were ever considered good). Is CotC worth watching, or is my nostalgia making me think it was scarier than it actually was?

h1ag said:

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So far this month:

Hocus Pocus
Dawn of the Dead
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
The Shining
Evil Dead 2
Sleepy Hollow
Phantasm
Cabin in the Woods

I saw Children of the Corn as a recommendation on Netflix. I remember it scaring the **** out of me as a kid, but I also know I don't think most of King's adaptations hold up (if they were ever considered good). Is CotC worth watching, or is my nostalgia making me think it was scarier than it actually was?

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It's not scary as an adult, but the movie holds up as the acting is mostly competent.

And I never really understood the bad rap King movie adaptations get. By in large they are all good to great. The endings sometimes suck, but that's because they sucked in the book too.

Sure you have handful of stinkers (Maximum Overdrive, Dreamcatcher, Thinner, etc...), but with something like 50 movies that have been adapted, the hit-rate on good to great is extremely high.

It's funny, Maximum Overdrive is one of my favorites.

Maybe it's just because it was on TNT at 2am every weekend when I was a kid. Hosted by Joe Bob or something like that.

Probably similar to Silver Bullet for me... RT has it at like 30% which is mind-boggling to me. Gary ****ing Busey kills in that movie.

h1ag said:

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It's funny, Maximum Overdrive is one of my favorites.

Maybe it's just because it was on TNT at 2am every weekend when I was a kid. Hosted by Joe Bob or something like that.

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Monstervision with Joe Bob Briggs

Yeah, but his non horror adaptations have given us two of the greatest movies ever: Shawshank Redemption and Stand By Me.

Silver Bullet might be the only movie that has ever given me legit nightmares. That movie scared the ever living piss out of me when I was younger.

Never thought of Maximum Overdrive as a horror movie because I was too busy thinking of it as a cinematic masterpiece. Cars and appliances coming to life killing people with a soundtrack consisting of only AC/DC songs? I am in every single time.

Event Horizon and Drag Me To Hell the last couple of nights.

She wanted to watch Event Horizon because she had heard people at work talk about how horrifying it was and I think came to the same result that many people that re-watch it do -- it's a solid movie but not really all that scary -- more that the concept (a dimension of or like hell) is terrifying. What does elevate the film IMO is that the dialogue is solid all the way around -- characters do things that seem like what normal people would say/do.

Drag Me To Hell I hadn't seen in a long while and forgot how over the top it was. Probably wasn't well served doing Evil Dead and this one so close to each other as you don't really get the appreciation of Raimi going "back to his roots". Simple, disgusting, and a lot of fun.

Probably going to get her first bite of Cronenberg tonight. Passing on his more mainstream Fly/Dead-Zone and going with one I haven't seen in a long time - Shivers.

Proposition Joe said:

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And I never really understood the bad rap King movie adaptations get. By in large they are all good to great. The endings sometimes suck, but that's because they sucked in the book too.

Sure you have handful of stinkers (Maximum Overdrive, Dreamcatcher, Thinner, etc...), but with something like 50 movies that have been adapted, the hit-rate on good to great is extremely high.

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Ive never read the book, but Gerald's Game on Hulu is absolutely terrible.

If you liked drag me to hell, check out the original film it is based on, Curse of the Demon. I love that film!