Favorite Horror movies
 

With this being Halloween and all, i figured it'd be the ideal thread to start. Name as many or as few of your favorite horror movies that you have liked. They don't necessarily HAVE to be ones that scared you. Many people are harder to scare these days so just any horror movie you enjoy be it scary or not.

Mine are a mix of ones I love for enjoyment and others cause they TOTALLY freaked me out when I saw em:

Dawn of the Dead (remake)
Salem's Lot
Jeepers Creepers
The Grudge
The Ring
The Descent
Wes Craven's: They
Final Destination
30 Days of Night
John Carpenter's The Thing
In the Mouth of Madness
28 Weeks later

AAAAAAAA!
 

Don't forget "The Exorcist" and "Child's Play". :wiltshock:

Horror isn't really my thing, aside from occasional visits to DA. If I had to pick the movies from that genre that I enjoyed, these would be my choices:

The Shining
Psycho
Rosemary's baby
The Ring
The Blair Witch Project
Final Destination
Alien

While that last one is a sci-fi movie I really felt that it had a strong horror atmosphere to it, so I included it here.

Let's see some discussion here so this doesn't turn into a "List" thread, m'kay? ;)

I would classify Alien as a horror movie despite its sci-fi trappings. The movie itself seems most reminiscent of a haunted house film, complete with boogeyman. However the sci-fi elements elevated the movie so far beyond that it transcends both genres. One can even go so far as to say it's even beyond your mere sci-fi/horror film.

I usually try to avoid horror movies. But the movies I've seen that I could probably put in this category are Godzilla: King of the Monsters, and the original King Kong.
These two movie's, while not horrors as much as they are adventures or epics, always manage to fill me with a sense of urgency and dread. The crude and olden time effects also give them a rougher and primal feel that modern movie effects just can't emulate.
I haven't really seen any actual Halloween themed movies, but I am going to try and watch Nosferatu in the next few days or so.

Alien i would definitely consider a horror movie. There are so many elements of extreme fear in that movie, and the down right hideous and freaky design of the alien monsters are easily horror material. Most of the horror classics like Exorcist, The "dead" movies, and Halloween movies I expected to be on here.

For me, the scariest movies i have ever come across would be the American Japanese remake movies. I have seen only 2 pure Japanese horror movies, Pulse and One Missed Call and while they were both very creepy (especially Pulse), being an American I could truly feel the fear from the 2 American remakes.

The Ring in particular. The movie is spectacularly well made, in acting, imagery, and the music (or lack there of hence the CREEP factor). The whole thing with the TV set makes imagining the movie all the more easier to picture it happening in your house. The TV just turning itself on is an easy and eerie thing to imagine.

The Grudge also was so dark and mysterious, how this thing just appeared and took you away to Never, Neverland was disturbing. What made it worse was the fact this ghost was virtually impossible to fight again. Btw, what's wrong with a list thread, haven't there been some made in here before?

Just a precaution. In any case I'm seeing discussion so there's nothing to worry about.

I'm not much of a horror fan, either. But I do have two favourites:

A Nightmare on Elm Street: A true horror classic. I originally liked this film because of Johnny Depp, since it's his film debut (he's the one that gets sucked into his bed, then the blood flushes up to the ceiling). But I now look at it as a milestone in horror film.

Constantine: Many people may hate me for liking this film because of a certain actor, but I thought this was Keanu Reeves' best performance. While I haven't read the comics that this film is based on (I'm not a comic reader), I still think it was a great film, and a great performance from Keanu.

I'd like to add Beetlejuice as well, but I haven't seen it yet. :(

My 2 favorites have always been

Howling 3
and
Phantasm

naturally there are many more that I like, but those are my favorite.
Monty :-[

I actually liked Constantine, despite how different it was from the original comics. However, I honestly think Keanu's best performance to have been in A Scanner Darkly.

Anyway, horror films of all types are my bread and butter. My favorites are:

Child's Play 2: While the first one was much scarier, and the later ones more fun to watch, the second one was, to me, perfection in what it set out to achieve: it was able to be creepy AND campy/goofy at the same time, without sacrificing either bit. That, and I'm a huge Chucky fan, so I had to make sure on film made this list.

Tetsuo - The Iron Man: One of the most bizarre, abstract, and creepiest Japanese films I have ever seen. It has a deeply unsettling soundtrack that meshes well with the atmosphere incredibly well, and some of the most unsettling imagery I've ever seen in a film.

Ichi the Killer: Another Japanese film, and done by the David Cronenberg of Japan, Takashi Miike. Despite some lacking graphics, it remains a very disturbing film and incredibly faithful to the original source material.

Night of the Living Dead: While I love most of George Romero's films, as well as John Russo's split from the series, the first is still definantely the best. The tension and anxiety between the survivors in the farm house, as well as the horror of watching the ghouls feed and the shockingly (for the time) downer ending makes it one of the best horror films I've ever seen.

Dead Alive: One of Peter Jackson's infamous films, I personally consider THIS to be his masterpiece (while I loved the LoTR films, I'm a hardcore Tolkien fan, and nothing can replace the books in my opinion). Along with Raimi's Evil Dead films, it's a shining example of how a good horror movie can be made from an extremely low budget. That, and the fact that the ending zombie slaughter resulted in setting the record for most stage blood used is pretty interesting to remember.

Evil Dead II: Dead Before Dawn: One of the single finest horror films I've ever seen. I am, in fact, ashamed that I only saw it for the first time a week or two ago. For being made on a shoestring budget, and with how old it is, I feel the graphics still hold up today (though I must admit I'm a sucker for horror flicks that make their gore effects the old fashioned way instead of with CGI), and the acting (especially from Bruce Campbell) is superb. It is a film ANY horror fan most see. If you haven't seen it, you've missed out on a lot.

I'll have more later, my pretties. Yes, many more.

And thank you for starting this thread, M. I was going to start it in celebration of Halloween, but you beat me to it.

Some of these might not strictly count as horror but here we go, in no particular order:

The Ring
I'd like to say that my favorite horror film is a well-respected or even obscure classic, but no. The American Ring (the first one, the second one was crap IMHO) still scares the hell out of me every time I see it and causes me to fear the TV in my bedroom for several days. I can honestly say that The Ring is the only film I've ever seen that actually *leaves* me scared, it doesn't just scare me while I'm watching it. I was mentally scarred by seeing this movie. Seriously. It's the best. I do own copies of every Ring movie, American, Japanese, and Korean, as well as all the mangas and the novels, and only the American Ring movie really scares me. The Ring 0 does well, but its nothing like the American Ring. period.

Re-Animator
I saw the unedited version of this with GM at a midnight showing downtown one Halloween, and lol. Some gross stuff in there. I keep looking for a DVD of the unedited version with no luck. Anyways this is on my list because West rules and because of the shock factor. The sequels suck but the "Re-Animate Your Feet" song from the last one has made it onto my iPod.

Evil Dead
ALL of these films rule. Especially the second one, and Army of Darkness of course is nothing to sneeze at. And I'm in love with Bruce Campbell there I said it.

Waxwork II
The first one was a snore but the second one is great. They didn't hold back on making fun of themselves which is always a plus.

Bubba Ho-Tep
A mummy in a retirement home. Sucking souls out of people's buttholes. Hunted by Elvis and JFK (if you will). With Bruce Campbell as Elvis. No movie should be made of this much win. I finally scored the soundtrack two days ago too. The end theme is the BEST.

Lost Skeleton of Cadavra
ROTFLMAO. Just...yeah. "I sleep now!"

Tremors
Well, it's a monster movie so I listed it. Some good ole boys go hunting giant worms in the desert. I really love this one. Number two is good too. Then it just got a little out there. But one and two are good.

Bloodsucking Pharaohs In Pittsburgh
Gory but quite funny. The cheesy detective is awesome, I should re-watch this and jot down some of his lines.

Lobster Man from Mars
Narrated by Dr. Demento. Should I even bother saying anything else?

Return of the Living Dead
I admit that I love this movie. The part where dead Frank takes off his wedding ring and voluntarily cremates himself...awesomeness. Say what you will.

The Eye and The Eye 2
Two fantastic films out of China by the Pang brothers (The Eye is an upcoming American remake). Actually completely unrelated plots, I think they only called the second one The Eye 2 to take advantage of the first one's success. Both highly recommended.

The Fly
Both versions, although I prefer the original. Most women in classic horror films are such weenies, I love the scientists' wife in the original Fly. Oh and the trailer scares Kiwi because of the buzzing fly sound effect. So it must really be scary!

This list was compiled only by looking at the DVDs I own, I'm probably forgetting some others I love. I mean, I do like the Child's Play films, and the second one is my favorite although it doesn't get much airtime on TV. I'll probably have to break down and buy them all at some point. There are also individual scenes in films I like without liking the whole movie...like the bit where the British dude gets it in Horror Express and right before he dies he exclaims "You can't kill me! I'm British!" or something like that. That's like, lol?

I remember when I first saw this movie. It was on the Stars cable movie channel on a freebie weekend giveaway deal they sometimes have, and I was shocked at how freaking cool this movie was. It was the first time anyone really broke the zombie "code of ethics" with "super zombies".

Zombies that could talk, run, and couldn't be killed. This movie is pure, 80s horror fun and I LOVE the music, the soundtrack is so catchy and fitting, it was one of the highlights of the movie for me. The zombies had some really original make up designs, specially the slimy black one with the "More brains" line.

There's a Return of the Living dead 2, 3, 4, and 5. I saw 1-3 and 1 is easily the best. 2 is pretty stupid and 3 had some interesting kills and ideas to mix in but they are essentially all crap. I'm not bothering to go see 4 or 5. The only thing I hated about "Return" was the ending, it was just freaking stupid.

The whole bomb dropping thing, it was like something out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon and it seemed like a cheap way to end everything especially with such a diverse and wide cast range of characters scattered all around.

They.

It's such an odd title, and when a friend told me about it, I was all "...What's it called again?"

It's a movie about these things, they have no name really, so they're just called They, and it scares me so bad, because they can only get you in the dark, so if you turn on a light they run off. They're freaky looking, and terrify me, it's a great movie, I liked it, though it ended in a cliff hanger, I hope a second one is made :[

The Ring. It didn't scare me much, but what did scare me was the beginning, when the first girl died, her body scared me, and then the girl coming out of the TV, the way she walked just...bothered me so much, and plus I have a TV in my room, so yea =P

I'd like to mention Signs and War of the Worlds, even though I guess they might be Sci-Fi? Any alien type creature who has solid black eyes just terrifies me, and the reason for that is because I had nightmares since I was about 3 years old with these alien things (Greys, they're called), and ever since they scared me =P Funny thing is, I'd never seen a picture of one, they just were in my dream, and I called them aliens after hearing a family member talk about life on other planets. I was very surprised when I saw a picture of my nightmare monster on a movie cover when I was older =P

And in case anyone is wondering, I'm not really a believer in the whole alien abduction thing, I just have weird nightmares XD

Army of Darkness is a great movie. I thought it was just another horror flick but I was so wrong. The comedy and imagery really made this movie special.
Signes was a good movie too. It delivered the scares the way I like 'em. It's hard to explain but the best example is when you see the alien walks by in the home video.
That was a piece of masterwork because the scene makes you move closer to the screen to try and see what everyone's looking at and then... about two seconds of a grainy image walking by. That scene never fails to give me a start.
I think what made it work so well was that I could definitely see that being on the news. And the lack of details just made the alien look less like a CGI character and more like a part of the world it was prowling.

Is no one else here a fan of John Carpenter's The Thing?

On the whole, I'm not a huge horror movie fan...I do like to be emotionally moved by a movie, and I certainly count fear as a form of emotional involvement, but most horror flicks - noteably the slasher variety - just gross me out without persuading me to feel anything else...except maybe contempt for how some of these clueless kids opt to handle their life-threatening situations. :wiltyeahright:

I like the Thing. It genuinely scared me the first time I saw it, but it also has a really fun and exciting storyline which kept me completely caught up in wanting to know more. The Thing itself is an interesting and truly formidable lifeform and the human characters are pretty likeable. There are some pretty gruesome moments which have me diverting my gaze down to the floorboards (those poor huskies), but for all the critical attention they receive they're pretty few and far in between. The horror here comes chiefly from the sheer anticipation of not knowing who the Thing has taken over and when it will strike next. Naturally, that particular sensation inevitably wanes on repeat viewings when you have the benefit of foresight, but thanks to Carpenter's detached direction and Morricone's chilling music it retains its creepy atmosphere sufficently enough. And it's still a great story.

I watched the 1986 version of the Fly last week, and it definitely ranks as one of the better monster movies I've seen. Not a pleasant experience by any stretch of the imagination, but it's very haunting and emotionally resonant, chiefly for the dynamic between Brundle's humanity and the muscidae genes slowly consuming him. I elaborated on it in a bit more detail in the main Movie thread.

Other than that there's Alien, and not much else I can think of right now. Well, Jekyll and Hyde should be a no-brainer for me, but I've yet to actually watch any of the movie adaptations in full. The 1931 version is apparently the best, I like what I've seen of it so far.

Hey, is Duel a horror movie? Hmm, probably not...it's a pretty horrific situation, but there's nothing remotely supernatural about it. It's probably better classified as a psychological thriller. Much like Mulholland Drive, Deliverence and a tonne of other flicks which have scared me in some way without actually hailing from the horror genre. I'm an easily rattled being.

Apocalypse Now

"I watched a snail crawl along the edge of a straight...razor."

go see the original NOT the "Redux" version.

Here are some of my favorite horror movies:

The Hills Have Eyes (2006 remake): Based on the original Wes Craven version, this is perhaps one of the few remakes that are actually good to watch. The story is very simple to follow, the actions are great and the mutants were intimidating on this one.

The Exorcist-Still one of the most frightening film to date, the Exorcist takes fear to the extreme, and I still have chills whenever I see this film.

The Saw franchise-a mixture between horror and thriller makes this franchise very unique, including the elaborate traps throughout the entire series.

Oh, horror flicks. How I love thee. Would you care to believe that about five years ago I never wanted to even look at the cover of a horror movie, let alone watch one? Well, yeah. It's the truth.

Ghost Ship (I have to start with this one because it's the first horror movie I saw. I was 14 at the time and terribly grossed out by the opening sequence. (Now, on the other hand, I don't even flinch.) Despite how grossed out I was, I loved the story. While not exactly "scary", it is still a fun movie.)

The Ring (I never, ever, ever, ever, EVER wanted to see this movie when it first came out. Just thinking about it scared the crap out of me. But when I was 14, one of my friends never shut up about this movie, and I figured I just HAD to see it. It became my favorite horror movie. Ever. And I wasn't even scared 8D)

The Grudge (I love creepy, corpsey things. Especially when they move creepy and jerky. The creepier, the better!)

The Skeleton Key (The whole Hoodoo thing intrigues me. And I love the twist ending.)

Saw (My best friend made me watch this movie even though I really didn't want to. In your face gore has never really been my thing. I'm more of a psychological fear type of person. Despite that, I was really pleased with this movie, mainly because there was some serious psychological fear going on! Jigsaw in a GENIOUS, I tell you!)

Dead Silence (Creepy doll + creepy old lady + insane twist ending = horror movie loooooove!)

I'm sure I'll be back to list more.

EDIT! OH! I forgot The Hills Have Eyes remake! That's some in your face gore that I'm totally fine with.

Mmm, love me some Tremors. The second Tremors film would actually be the first horror movie I would dare try to watch on my own, and so it holds a special place in my heart just for that memory.

While I think Romero's sequels to be superior, I still feel like John Russo's "Return of the Living Dead" films were great. I just bough the special edition of it a few weeks ago, as a matter of fact.

Like Tremors, it holds a special place in my heart due to the fact that there's one scene that always stood out in my mind, because I got a bit of it as a kid: the scene near the end where all the police get to the building...and are quickly overtaken. To my little adolescent mind, it was one of the most frightening things I had ever seen.

I dig the Army of Darkness. Nathander's avatar reminded me of it

"hail to the king, baby"
-Ash, Housewares

"Salem's Lot" had some memorable scenes liker you mentioned with Return as well. Most noticeably the dead kid scratching at the window being asked to let in, or the creepy vampire rocking back and forth in the chair hissing "look at me teacher" that one really gave me the creeps.

Gremlins weren't really horror movies but they hold as memorable monster memories as the Tremors movies did for you guys. I thought the Gremlins in 2 particularly were amazing and I grew up watching that movie dozens of times as a kid. I also grew up with "Critters" anyone remember that weird series?

Tumbleweed sized black fur balls with teeth that would put a piranha to shame. The 2nd movie made me barf half the time :-X. Dead Silence had some creepy moments too, but so far 30 days of night has been the most kick ass, scariest modern horror movie I've seen in a while.

heck yes 8D

the one critter says to the other "Hey! That one has a gun!" the other one goes"don't worry about it" right before it gets a facefull of 12 gauge buckshot. Freakin' classic

Hey, how about Plan 9 from Outer Space?

More of a science-fiction flick overall, but c'mon, it's got zombies in it. Awesome movie. :bloogrin:

I don't like horror movies

NOT THAT I'M SCARED OR ANYTHING :blooevil: Scared? Scared. Scared? Scared. Scared? Me? No. Scared? Scared. Scared? :bloosmirk: I have a nightlight. That doesn't qualify my scaredyness. Scared? Scared. Scared? Right. ::)

For some reason I just had to edit my avatar cheaply before posting here.

I do like horror movies, but slashers are sort of unsatisfying to me. I saw the remake of House of Wax and hated it; for me there needs to be a reason for the villains killing the people unless the killers are some sort of monsters. That movie was just mindless gore, just these brothers making people into wax statues for absolutely no reason. Just stupid.

As for my favourites, the list will be quite short, since I have seen far less horror films than I'd like to. *Ahem*

Alien: Fantastic movie, just really creepy. The score is magnificent, sort of mystic and adds up to the eerie tones of the film. You sort off feel uncomfortable watching the shots inside the spaceship, it feels crowded even though it's pretty empty. And when there's no one left alive but Ripley, it gets so thrilling that you can't hold on any longer. I can see why people fled the movie theaters. Still, I find Aliens more enjoyable, but I felt that was more of an action movie.

Dawn of the Dead (Remake; Director's Cut): I haven't seen the original, but this is a truly enjoyable zombie movie. Of course I wouldn't have made it through it without all the humorous scenes, like the zombie-shooting game. But the whole idea of a group of people trapped in a mall with zombies everywhere around them is a very likeable one, very good setting for a zombie movie. I like the parody, Shaun of the Dead, a bit better, though. I'm really into horror parodies, like those Simpsons Halloween specials or such.

That pretty much sums it up, I guess. (Told you it'd be short.) I would love to see more horror movies, I'm desperate to see The Shining, for instance. Also, I'd put on Beetlejuice, but that doesn't count as a horror movie, it's more like a dark comedy, and doesn't have any gore in it, just a little bit of gross-out humor. Well, that's my list ...for now! BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

(OFF- TOPIC EDIT: Man, this post is terrible! I mean, it's just so incredibly stupid that... uh... something. It's mainly my random reference to Beetlejuice that gets on my nerve. Ugh!)

Predator.
I don't see why people count it as a horror, I count it as action.

I'm not really into horrors, they've use the same stuff since Alien.

Hmm, awhile back I was on a horror movie kick. I don't really remember many of them, but the only one I ended up getting a copy of was The Ring. I love that movie, I also got the short "Rings" that happens between The Ring and Ring Two with it ^^

I never saw the remake, But I have seen the original and your description fits that one quite well,

If you like the older 70's style Horror flick, you may want to try:
Dawn of the dead (original)- Killing zombies traped in a mall
Day of the Dead - Killing zombies traped in a underground bunker
CannonBall - like cannonball run but without humor and with more violence
Death race 2000 - one of Syvester Stallones Early movies Win points for running people over
Omega Man - Lots of Zombies, lots of fun (I think the zombies talk Jive in this flick)
Soylent Green - A but more SciFi then Horror but the abstact could fall into the Horror arena.

Puppet Master Series
The original Howling was also good Horror movie.


Horror movies of the 80's had a completly different feel to them, example:
American Wearwolf in London- was great
rest of Howling series - Wearwolf movies
BloodStone series - Vampire movies
Trancers and Scanners -- 2 different series both very similar

VideoDrone - was great -- must see....

I liked Evel Dead as well, but in my opinion, It started as a great Horror Movie, Hair Raising Suspence and everything. Then about 2/3 of the way through the movie, you blink and the movie transformed into a Zombie Flick with lots of Grean blood and foam, one can not help but 8D it was really cheesy and really funny. The best part of Evil Dead is it is educational, Everyone should know the story of the Mad Arab and the book he found the Necronomicon


Monty :-[

I've now seen Beetlejuice, so I can add this one!! :bloogrin:

Beetlejuice - It wasn't as scary as the rating says it was (M +15 due to 'Medium Level Coarse Language, Horror Theme'), and I thought Michael Keaton did a great job at portraying a scaming dead man! Not forgetting one of the funniest lines of the movie:

'Nice f***ing model!' 8D

Also, Winona Ryder was really great in the movie and Danny Elfman's opening theme... BRILLIANT!! I just can't get enough of that!

Well, I just can't feel the thrill watching horror movies, or I've never watched a real horror (that's possible, I watch movies rarely). But I remember a couple of nice horror-comedies.

Evil Dead - that's just classics. It was so funny when I watched it, no words for that. And the first/second part had a nice, unexpected ending. The second/third part was perhaps even better, with those medieval stuff and skeletons.

Braindead - OMG, this film is so dumb, therefore funny. The director really made a masterpiece of gore - I can't remember any particular quote (except ,,S'ngyah" or something like this at the beginning) but it's very entertaining - if you like the sight of silly looking blood, that is.

Return of the Living Dead

best. zombie. flick. evah.

Not to be rude, but COME ON! When trying to remember particular quotes from Braindead (aka Dead Alive) how can you possibly forget the classic "I kick a** for the Lord!" line? Single greatest line in any movie ever.

Well, I can. I watched it long time ago and with polish lector, which of course makes original voices much quieter.
But you made me even more keen on watching this movie one again. Thanks!

I do still need to see Dead Alive. I don't like gore but I just need to see that one.

I'm looking forward to October so I can see some scary movies. I managed to see one of the original Dracula films on television several months ago. Despite it's differences from the book I enjoyed it.
I also managed to catch an old gem called "The Brave Vampire Killers" around the same time. It was a fun watch, being a comedy and vampire flick all wrapped into one. :D
I still need to sit down and watch "Nosferatu", though.

Some of my favorite horror movies usually involve some of the classic, older ones like from the 80s. Such as Friday the 13th, Fright Night, Return of the Living Dead, The Exorcist (a classic for any horror fan). I also enjoyed The Critters series, Wes Craven's: They, The Descent, Dawn of the dead remake (LOVED it).

But probably my all time favorite horror movies would be Jeepers Creepers, The Grudge movies, The Ring (US remake), Pulse (Japanese original), 30 days of Night, The Mist, Deep Rising. All of those would probably be my absolute top fav horror movies.