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Horror movies - most essential movies. (1 Viewer)

KarmaPolice

KarmaPolice

Footballguy
I know we have a horror movie thread, but thought I would try a wider net.     A lot of us have kids and have probably done a similar thing without making a list or putting a ton of thought into, but I was thinking about this simple sounding idea, but I was having trouble narrowing it down:

Pretend you are introducing horror movies to somebody who hasn't seen any, or maybe you are teaching a class - what horror movies would you narrow down to show and why?    Try to keep the list to around 15-20 max.   

Do you just do favorites or factor in importance?     Are you focused on one era to start?   How conscious are you of having a variety of subgenres? 

:popcorn:

 
There should be several subgenre categories.

Psychological horror: Psychological horror films rely on mental and emotional fear, rather than violence or monsters, focusing on characters’ states of mind throughout the story. Examples of psychological horror include The Shining, The Silence of the Lambs, and Psycho.

Slasher: Slasher films usually focus on a serial killer (think Michael Myers or Freddy Krueger) as they go after a group of people. Classic slasher films include Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Gore: Gore films, also called splatter films, zero in on the vulnerability of the human body, often with frequent close-ups. Examples of gore films include The Evil Dead and Saw.

Body horror: Closely related to gore, films in the body horror subgenre may feature scenes of the human body that has been severely altered. Filmmaker David Cronenberg is considered a pioneer in the body horror subgenre. Horror films that feature body horror include The Fly, The Thing, and The Exorcist.

Found footage: Found footage is a horror genre in which the film is portrayed as if it were “discovered” by the filmmakers rather than created by them. For instance, main characters finding footage of an unknown evil on an old video recorder. Examples of found footage films include The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield.

Monster horror: Many horror films capitalize on the fear of the unknown by featuring frightening monsters from science fiction and dark fantasy. Werewolves, vampires, aliens are often the main antagonists of this horror subgenre. Most recently, undead and zombie films have been an especially popular form of the classic monster movie. Examples of monster horror films include Night of the Living Dead, Resident Evil, Dawn of the Dead, Jaws, Godzilla, Frankenstein, Dracula, The Mummy, and Alien.

Paranormal horror: The paranormal horror subgenre is similar to monster horror, but rather than featuring corporeal beings, paranormal horror focuses on the monsters we can’t touch—supernatural entities like ghosts, spirits, and demons. Paranormal films often feature haunted houses, possession, exorcism, or occult worship. Examples of paranormal horror include The Exorcist, Paranormal Activity, The Conjuring, The Amityville Horror, The Omen, Carrie, and Poltergeist.

Comedy horror: Horror doesn’t always have to leave your skin crawling—there is an entire subset of horror movies that aims to make you laugh at the same time. Examples of comedy horror include Scream, The Cabin in the Woods, Shaun of the Dead, and Tucker and Dale vs. Evil.

 
I'd probably try to get evolution in film history, and sprinkling in genres throughout. Start with early silents, like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Nosferatu. Move on to the monster movies of the 1930s, and show the Bride of Frankenstein and The Mummy. Then more golden age of cinema: Hitchcock and Psycho, as well as Peeping Tom.  70s flicks, like The Exorcist and Young Frankenstein (comedy, but I don't care). 80s slasher (not my cup of tea, but I guess it would be essential). Move on to more modern stuff, like Let the Right One In (which I think was an FBG movie club selection).

 
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Don Quixote said:
I'd probably try to get evolution in film history, and sprinkling in genres throughout. Start with early silents, like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Nosferatu. Move on to the monster movies of the 1930s, and show the Bride of Frankenstein and The Mummy. Then more golden age of cinema: Hitchcock and Psycho, as well as Peeping Tom.  70s flicks, like The Exorcist and Young Frankenstein (comedy, but I don't care). 80s slasher (not my cup of tea, but I guess it would be essential). Move on to more modern stuff, like Let the Right One In (which I think was an FBG movie club selection).
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This is where I overthink it.  I think for too many people, you might lose them if you go back much farther than the 70s.   Same maybe for foreign movies? 

 
KarmaPolice said:
This is where I overthink it.  I think for too many people, you might lose them if you go back much farther than the 70s.   Same maybe for foreign movies? 
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Probably. I love a lot of the older stuff and more into film history, but I'm probably more the exception than the norm. I guess if I'm "teaching", I'd want something that I'd be excited about.  Caligari changed my entire perception of movies from that era, and I'd probably show it on the off-chance that it gives someone a similar reaction and a greater appreciation from the film history side.

 
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I gravitated to the idea of movie pairs (I've had the movie club on my mind the last couple weeks) .  Sometimes new/old, sometimes by category, sometimes foreign.    My list started with:

Night of the Living Dead/28 Days Later   - Zombies!    

Alien/The Thing  - Themes of isolation, paranoia, and "sci-fi or horror?" 

The Exorcist/The Conjuring   -  Possessions/hauntings

Scream/Cabin in the Woods  -  meta, comedy/horror

Halloween/Friday the 13th  -  Slashers 

The Blair Witch Project/[Rec]  -  found footage

American Werewolf in London/Let the Right One In  -  monsters 

TCM/Get Out  -  this is an odd pairing, but IMO great examples of ####ed up families, and both have a lot of themes bubbling under the surface to get into. 

 
Don Quixote said:
Probably. I love a lot of the older stuff and more into film history, but I'm probably more the exception than the norm. I guess if I'm "teaching", I'd want something that I'd be excited about.  Caligari changed my entire perspective of movies from that era, and I'd probably show it on the off-chance that it gives someone a similar reaction and a greater appreciation from the film history side.
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Great point!  

I've never seen Caligari, and have seen very few silent movies in general.   I probably should change that.  

 
Teaching vs introducing a kid would probably generate different lists. Good question and I’ll have a more lengthy response a little later, just finishing some BS for work.

 
For me you need to cover it by decade and these are the essentials(I have a narrow definition of horror)

60s

Rosemary's Baby

70s

The Exorcist

Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Halloween

80s

The Shining

Friday the 13th

A Nightmare on Elm Street

90s

Candyman

Scream

Post 2000

The Conjuring

The Purge

Saw

 
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Movies that are absolutely not horror.

Jaws

Alien franchise

Zombie movies

Don't @me

 
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I can go back and forth with the other ones, but not sure why zombie movies aren't horror.   

IMO the Alien franchise isn't horror, but Alien is.  

 
Ilov80s said:
Teaching vs introducing a kid would probably generate different lists. Good question and I’ll have a more lengthy response a little later, just finishing some BS for work.
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You are right, but mostly just using that as examples to try to get my intention across.  

 
KarmaPolice said:
I can go back and forth with the other ones, but not sure why zombie movies aren't horror.   
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It's such a specific genre and the genre is generally more about apocalypse vs. being scary IMHO.  None of them scare me.

My list of horror essentials has one purpose, to scare the #### out of you.

 
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I can see the case for Jaws or Alien not being horror but Night of the Living Dead? For sure horror. It might not scare you now but it scared the everloving #### out of people when it came out. Ebert's review is classic:

There were maybe two dozen people in the audience who were over 16 years old. The rest were kids, the kind you expect at a Saturday afternoon kiddie matinee. This was in a typical neighborhood theater, and the kids started filing in 15 minutes early to get good seats up front. The name of the movie was "The Night of the Living Dead."

....

I don't think the younger kids really knew what hit them. They were used to going to movies, sure, and they'd seen some horror movies before, sure, but this was something else. This was ghouls eating people up -- and you could actually see what they were eating. This was little girls killing their mothers. This was being set on fire. Worst of all, even the hero got killed.

It's hard to remember what sort of effect this movie might have had on you when you were six or seven. But try to remember. At that age, kids take the events on the screen seriously, and they identify fiercely with the hero. When the hero is killed, that's not an unhappy ending but a tragic one: Nobody got out alive. It's just over, that's all.

I felt real terror in that neighborhood theater last Saturday afternoon. I saw kids who had no resources they could draw upon to protect themselves from the dread and fear they felt.
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The most horrific part of the review though is that Ebert only refers to the lead actor of the movie as "the Negro". He didn't mean anything by it and didn't use any of the actor or character names in his review but it was jarring for sure reading through it. 

 
TripItUp said:
It's such a specific genre and the genre is generally more about apocalypse vs. being scary IMHO.  None of them scare me.

My list of horror essentials has one purpose, to scare the #### out of you.
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Yeah I for sure don't think horror = scary.   

There were scenes in 28Days Later I thought were effective and creepy.  

 
Essential Horror if I am aiming for education

20s: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Nosferatu, Haxan, The Hunchback of Notre Dame 

30s: Freaks, Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, Dracula, Vampyr, King Kong

40s: Cat People, Dead of Night, Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein

50s: Diabolique, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Curse of the Demon, Godzilla, The Curse of Frankenstein

60s: Psycho, Rosemary's Baby, Peeping Tom, Eyes Without a Face, Night of the Living Dead, Kwaidan, Carnival of Souls 

70s: The Exorcist, Halloween, Carrie, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Don't Look Now, Alien, Young Frankenstein, Suspiria 

80s: Aliens, The Thing,  The Evil Dead 2, Poltergeist, The Fly, The Shining, Nightmare on Elm Street 3: The Dream Warriors

90s: Silence of the Lambs, Scream, Candyman, The Witches, Blair Witch Project 

You can take it from there, I am not nearly as well versed on the last 20 years 

 
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Some of these are pretty obvious -- they've held up really well and it's hard to tell the story of the horror genre without them.  For example, The Exorcist, Night of the Living Dead, Halloween, The Thing, The Shining, Alien (absolutely horror), and Texas Chainsaw Massacre all seem to fall into that category to me.  

Among more modern films, some of which aren't really that new, I would include Scream (for the same reason as KP), Blair Witch Project, and Hereditary.  

Personally, I would lobby against Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street.  I know they're iconic, but those films are mostly dreck IMO.  

A few that haven't been mentioned that I think are part of the conversation (in no particular order): Nosferatu, Frankenstein (the 1930s one), The Lost Boys, and Creep (probably alone on that one).

 
IvanKaramazov said:
Some of these are pretty obvious -- they've held up really well and it's hard to tell the story of the horror genre without them.  For example, The Exorcist, Night of the Living Dead, Halloween, The Thing, The Shining, Alien (absolutely horror), and Texas Chainsaw Massacre all seem to fall into that category to me.  

Among more modern films, some of which aren't really that new, I would include Scream (for the same reason as KP), Blair Witch Project, and Hereditary.  

Personally, I would lobby against Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street.  I know they're iconic, but those films are mostly dreck IMO.  

A few that haven't been mentioned that I think are part of the conversation (in no particular order): Nosferatu, Frankenstein (the 1930s one), The Lost Boys, and Creep (probably alone on that one).
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Seems like we were on a similar wavelength. I really thought about Lost Boys but maybe it's just my nostalgia. I showed it to my wife for the first time a couple weeks ago and she thought it was terrible (and she generally likes populist popcorn movies). I agree that F13 and Elm kind of suck overall. If I were to include them, it would be just to highlight the role of sequels in modern horror. Dream Warriors would be Elm Street choice (only decent one) and VI Jason Lives (my top choice of that series). 

 
Everyone should see these

creepshow

creepshow 2

poltergeist

troll

troll 2

critters

dead alive

toxic avenger

hellraiser

puppetmaster

the thing

 
Dan Lambskin said:
off topic but I used to love browsing the horror section at the video store as a kid
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Absolutely. The covers were often so crazy, just screaming for a kid/teen's attention. My friends and I spent a many evenings at Blockbuster picking out a bunch of horror movies so we could spend the night and binge watch them. 

 
KarmaPolice said:
:yes:

ETA:  I think it was Carrie/LtROI ? 
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Yes it was, your pick for an October pairing. The streaming options are so good right now with HBO Max on the scene. Shame that movie club isn't around anymore. 

 
Ilov80s said:
Yes it was, your pick for an October pairing. The streaming options are so good right now with HBO Max on the scene. Shame that movie club isn't around anymore. 
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I've been thinking about it a lot lately....   I do miss the discussions, but I guess even those dropped off a bit.  

 
KarmaPolice said:
I've been thinking about it a lot lately....   I do miss the discussions, but I guess even those dropped off a bit.  
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It was also peak COVID, that might have worn on people. I know I wasn't myself and was pretty moody for about 6 months there. 

 
Leroy Hoard said:
I myself can't think of many things more horrible than a zombie eating my brain. But that's just me.
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We were talking at work about what scares us - in general or in the context of horror movies.   

This idea is scary for me, but moreso as far as zombies go would be the idea of seeing a loved one turn and having to do something about it or I've seen in a couple movies the idea that they have a mild memory, and hover around where their home is.  :scared:   (again, tying into loved ones as zombies) 

 
KarmaPolice said:
I have been trying to think of any I've seen besides Nosferatu.  
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If you only have a limited time or just want a shortened version, check out 10 Minute Classics, something I started a while ago.

I'm putting together a list to add more soon.

 
Didn’t see Martyrs listed yet. How would it be categorized? Gore? Body Horror? I have only seen this film once and I’ll never watch it again. 

 
KarmaPolice said:
Very fair.   Maybe we need to brainstorm, PM, and resurrect the club! 
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You got to see Dr. Caligari too. It's so well restored, it looks incredible for being over 100 years old. It's so Tim Burton that it is crazy to think how long it took to get a Tim Burton. 

 
Gonna try to watch something more interesting than Don’t Breathe 2 tomorrow. I need to shake that POS off.

 
Osaurus said:
Didn’t see Martyrs listed yet. How would it be categorized? Gore? Body Horror? I have only seen this film once and I’ll never watch it again. 
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extreme horror?  French extreme? 

It's one that I will watch again one of these years.  I can't think of any movie I wouldn't watch again (that I thought was good) 

 
Not real big into the serious "horror" genre, just not my thing but I do love some well made Comedy Horror movies, to me, those are fun to watch.  With that in mind, off the top of my head, these are my go to Comedy Horror flicks :

Hot Fuzz

Shaun of the Dead 

Zombieland

Army of Darkness

Tucker and Dale vs Evil was not at all what I was expecting, I remember when this movie was out, I saw the previews and I thought it looked really stupid and predictable, it was not,  it was really very good, once again, absolutely nothing like what I was expecting.

Zombieland Double Tap was good, I liked it, it was cool to see them get together again. . . the first one is still the best one but this one was still good.

 
i've yet to see the words "Phibes" or "Motel" in this thread, so it's not for me.

mof, i'd pay $14 cash money to anyone who can show me anything that would make my heart race or blood boil. anybody else like that? i'm also immune to cartoon heroics, the height of the effects affecting only the height of my eyeroll. is there a connection?

 
Has anyone watched Near Dark recently?  I remember really liking it, but I'm afraid it probably hasn't aged well.

And who added Cujo? 

That movie is awful.  "Nothing Wrong Here"

 
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