I've decided it's about time I made up a list of my top
40-odd something or other to entertain the audience. Obviously it would be too
easy to put the entire top 45 here at once so I've decided to do it in weekly
installments leading up to that scariest of horror events, Halloween. I'll
still be doing my other lists but consider this the big Friday list. (I'll
follow this up with other bigger lists) First up though, there are a couple of
points I should make;
What is Horror? Whilst making the list, this was the
hardest question to answer. What do we consider a horror film. I could quote a
dictionary reference here but I'm not going to because that's just plain
clichéd, in fact one could say it's as clichéd as the innocent girl getting off
whilst all her friends die at the end of the film. The problem really lies in
what scares us in cinema today and the answer seems universally amongst many
people to be nothing, an answer I might add that I find frightening in itself.
I'm not going to lie, there are films on this list that many will not consider
horror (and by that I don't mean that I've included the scariest film ever
made: Battlefield Earth) but I do consider them such.
Why is such and such a film not on list? Probably
because it's rubbish. I am most likely going to have another list in a couple
of weeks of the horror films which I consider most over-rated. I might add that
there are lots that many people include that I don't like.
Are you sure you've seen enough to comment? I love
horror films. I've certainly seen enough to be making a decent list. There may
be some gaps and if I re-made this list in a few years I'm sure there'd be some
changes.
What was Number 46? Probably Gremlins 2: The New Batch.
Which is a brilliant film. Way better than the first one. Actually I probably
prefer it to half the films on this list but I just couldn't find a place for
it. It's sort of like the relative who comes to visit but you don't have enough
chairs for. (Actually come to think of it, how come every time I visit my
relatives they don't have enough chairs... wait a sec. Nah, can't be.)
45 - The Car (1977)
When the Lumière brothers first exhibited their film "L'Arrivée D'Un Train
À La Ciotat" people apparently ran terrified from the theatre, or
something to that effect. That oft-repeated, and probably ever changing, story
surely has to be mentioned in this list somewhere so I thought I'd add it here
to demonstrate the fear vehicles hold in the imagination of man. (A couple of
years ago Channel 4 here in the UK produced an absolutely terrible list of the
"Scariest Moments" from TV and film voted by visitors to their
website. A lot of good films were there but the list also included ridiculously
silly scenes from soap operas and surprisingly L'Arrivée D'Un Train À La
Ciotat. I say surprisingly not because I'm saying that it's not scary, I have
no real context with which to understand what a film must've looked like to the
unsuspecting audience, but it definitely seemed doubtful that any or today's
audiences voted for this, at least not enough to get it onto a list. It really
raised suspicion for me about how the channel puts together their many list
programmes. On a seperate note, another interesting thing about that film is
that I heard somewhere that there was a guy in the audience that night who
reviewed the film saying not that it was frightening but only that he could not
see the scientific value in the invention which, I think you'll agree, is a
fascinating insight into the mind of the Victorian critic.)
The Car has to be seen as part of that whole possessed vehicle sub-genre of
horror, probably missed by few, to which Christine and Maximum Overdrive also
belong. Personally I love the ridiculousness of all these films. It's like
someone was sitting one night watching Night Of The Living Dead and thought to
themselves what if the zombies were actually cars. After all who could blame
them? People like cars. People also like zombies. Why not mix the two? (I guess
there's probably a lot of people who could answer that question with a simple
"because it's a shit idea" but they'd be wrong.) If only they'd made
a film where the cars looked like zombies, with zombie faces and zombie style
slow speeds. Anyway, the plot of this particular film revolves around a small
town whose residents suddenly find their quiet lives interrupted by the coming
of an evil and apparently driverless black car (I hadn't thought of it until
just now but do you think there was some secret racist subtext flowing through
this film. That damned James Brolin!). They find that the car has apparent
religious leanings when they learn that they can avoid it by going onto
consecrated ground though I can't remember if they ever learn why. It's simply
genius. Watching a car chase innocent people on bikes and a crowd of school
children around is priceless if you're into that sort of thing. (Writing this
particular entry has made me wonder if anyone has made any possessed train
films, wherein a train terrorises a poor unfortunate station. I suppose it
could be called Night Of The Living Dead Thomas The Tank Engines. On second
thoughts...)
44 - The Beyond (1981)
Lucio Fulci, as I'm sure many of you will know, was like a one-man Italian
horror film industry. His films range from bad to really bad. Actually that's
not really fair but I'm not going to lie about the fact that the quality of the
films was not always consistent. There are many who consider this, apparently entitled
"E tu vivrai nel terrore - L'aldilà" in Italy, to be his best. I've
not really seen enough of his other work to comment on that claim but this is
certainly the best I've seen. Secretly it's absolutely terrible but it's so
bizarre that it's undeniably compelling. You can't take your eyes off screen
when a spider begins to tear apart a character's face, even though the entire
scene makes little sense. When the film suddenly changes into a zombie film you
are confused at best but somehow not quite put off. There's random scenes with
a car at the end of a road which I never quite worked out and there's a whole
secret hidden vortex in a basement which seems to be there for no reason other
than to beam people to bizarre locations, including what we suppose is hell in
a scene that surprised me by actually being visually well made. As horror goes,
gory it certainly is but I'd be reluctant to call it scary, unless of course
you're someone who is particularly scared of flesh eating spiders, in which
case you're screwed.
43 - The Relic (1997)
Ridiculously silly monster movie with a plot that makes little to no sense, not
because it's confusing but because it's riddled with faux-science and Penelope
Ann Miller's constant overly melodramatic style of acting. Of course it's also
so much fun and one of a few films on this list which I simply can't resist
watching if it's on TV, no matter how stupid I think it is. I think it is the
perfect material for future archives, to show the tomorrow's generations every
monster movie cliché in action. (Look at the serious contemplation on the faces
of Tom Sizemore and Miller, true thinkers!)
42 - Candyman (1992)
Candyman, Candyman, Candyman, Candyman, Candyman. There that made this whole
list just that little bit more full of filler. Clive Barker. I'm not going to
repeat his name five times for fear that I'll get yet another piece of that
Hellraiser crap. Thankfully this film was nothing like that, instead it was
probably one of the best examination of urban legends cinema has raised. The
way that it manages to create the entire Candyman myth, complete with the way
the fear and superstition surrounding it effects the inner-city residents, is
certainly far more realistic than any of its peers' attempts. Lets face it,
Virginia Madsen is far more convincing as an educated person who comes to
believe than the dumb students in the film Urban Legend (a fun but undeniably
stupid film) who I really struggle to believe could even get into college. Well
all that and the fact that it's got Tony Todd with a hook!
41 - The City Of The Dead (1960)
Ah, Christopher Lee. This is the first of his entries on this list. The first
of the great. His very name should send shivers down your spine. If we're going
to be honest, and you all know it's wrong to tell fibs, he is the Horror Movie
incarnate. If we want to talk about horror sub-genres then you have to agree
that he is a whole genre into himself. This relatively early effort has him
play a professor who sends a student off to a mysterious village (yeah, it's
definitely not a city like the title suggests!) with a history of witchcraft,
curses and apparently a fine range of smoke machines which produce a permanent
and quite eerie fog. As you'd expect Christopher Lee is up to his neck in all
this (the witchcraft that is and not the fog which seems to only ever reach the
height of the average person's knees) and it's not long before the innocent
young virgin finds herself the victim of a good old fashioned sacrifice.
(Interestingly, this film follows that whole Psycho change of main character
half-way through structure. Ruined the film for those who haven't seen it but
you'll just have to believe me when I say that you see it coming anyway.) For
some reason this film had the cringeworthy title "Horror Hotel" in
the US, presumably a more appealing title to the drive-in b-movie audience.
It's not a very well appreciated film but I don't really see why. It's
apparently available really cheap on DVD but I can't say I've seen it about.
(For people in the UK with access to digital TV, it's also shown on the Horror
Channel along with a vast selection of crap you'd otherwise ignore!)
40 - An American Werewolf In London (1981)
Surprisingly the second film on this list to come from the year of my birth
1981. I bet you really weren't interested in that piece of irrelevant trivia.
Of course, back in '81 I wasn't able to watch this sort of film. If I had (not
that I'd remember it) I'm sure I'd have spent the rest of my life checking for
abnormal hair growth on every single part of my body just in case I had to
suffer that change. I can't think of another film which demonstrates a painful
and horrific supernatural change better. The way the bones twist and turn makes
me squirm just thinking about it. I'm not even going to tell you what it makes
me feel about rural England. Other than Straw Dogs, I can't think of a better
example of a film that'd put Americans off coming to the UK. (That being said I
can't really think of a better advert than the-apparently-allergic-to-clothes
Jenny Agutter.) According to the IMDb, this film also has one of the funniest
misleading taglines I've ever read in "From the director of Animal House
-- a different kind of animal" although come to think of it Flounder
would've made a great werewolf!
39 - The Others (2001)
This film probably won me over the moment the name "Eric Sykes"
unexpectedly appeared on screen. I remember turning to a friend in the cinema
and letting out a little "yeah!". Of course, the film was
unexpectedly good too. I really didn't expect the filmmakers to pull off an
successful old-fashioned ghost story. It's pretty predictable stuff especially
if you're familiar with the likes of M.R. James but it's the foreboding
atmosphere of the whole thing that makes it entertaining. I absolutely loved
the way the house was filmed with every corner hiding some dark secret from the
past that the barely glowing candlelight can't hope to illuminate. And it's got
Eric Sykes in it. (Also when you watch it the second time you get to giggle
slightly at the genius of the first line of the film.)
38 - The Invisible Man (1933)
What would you do if you were invisible? Every man and boy in the world knows
the answer to this question. Why? Well we're all just obsessed with the
hypothetical. The second thing I'd do is run around shouting "The Whole
World's My Hiding Place!" which would confuse everybody. Especially all
the people who I'd "haunt". I'd also try my hand at being an
invisible actor. I mean think about the jobs that would be on offer! There's
bound to be lots of work for the unemployed and bodiless. I'd also wrap myself
up in bandages just to see what the feels like. I'd stand behind everybody and
make faces at them. In fact, I'd do all sorts of immature things like that. I'd
put people off whilst they were counting. I'd go round doors at Halloween and
scare everybody. I wouldn't go near any experimental government buildings
because, as everybody who watches too many movies knows, governments perform
devious experiments on invisible people. I'm sure it goes on all the time. I'd
lift people up when they weren't expecting it. Oh, I know, I know, I would
pretend to be a poltergeist and see how many paranormal investigators I can
make a fool of. Being invisible would be cool. (Much cooler than Kevin Bacon in
the atrocious Hollow Man.)
37 - Young Frankenstein (1974)
"It's Fronkensteen!" I hear you shout. More an adoring homage than a
spoof, Young Frankenstein screams of too much time spent watching film. Every
detail is wonderfully recreated from the original James Whale/Boris Karloff
classic and every joke is a classic, especially from Marty Feldman's Igor
"Call it... a hunch. Ba-dum chi." Peter Boyle is also the second best
Frankenstein's Monster ever! Frau Blücher indeed!
36 - Event Horizon (1997)
Sci-fi horror was one of the areas of this list with which I did have a problem
truly classifying what was "horror". Sometimes I think when Science
fiction seeks to include horror elements it gets lost. Event Horizon was a film
I actually forgot about until right at the end of making this list not because
of its quality but due to the fact that much of the film is wrapped up in the
whole science fiction warp drives and computer technology stuff but the more I
thought about it, the more I remembered about the real horror at the heart of
the film. The beast sent back from hell as a something which is depicted in
many sci-fi films as a clinically sterile environment. The manipulation of weak
human psyches, through hallucination and fear, to perform its twisted bidding.
In many ways it's actually more horror than many other films on the list.
