10. Bunny Lake is Missing (1965) - A single mother's daughter goes missing. Not only that, but she seems not to have existed at all.
9. Scarecrows (1988) - Little seen gorefest has military deserters parachuting into a field of scarecrows. The scarecrows then play games with them.
8. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) - Those little girls jumping rope to that rhyme. The bloody girl in the body bag sitting next to you in class. It's the little details that count.
7. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) - The closing fifteen minutes is such pure, mad intensity, nothing has topped it in 34 years.
6. Hour of the Wolf (1968) - Igmar Bergman's shocker about an artist troubled by demons. When the little boy attacks Max von Sydow while fishing, prepare to be shocked.
5. Alien (1979) - The scene where Tom Skerritt explores those air ducts is a master's class in drawing out suspense. So is the entire movie.
4. The Wicker Man (1973) - A Christian cop searches for a missing girl on a Scottish island full of Pagans. Queer atmosphere from beginning to end.
3. Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) - Blair Witch before there was Blair Witch. Three girls go missing on a strange geographical rock formation in turn of the century Australia.
2. Jacob's Ladder (1990) - Demons on trains, demons in cars, demons at parties. It might be a dream, it might be real, you might already be dead. A waking nightmare.
1. Halloween (1978) - From the creepy subjective camerawork to the hair-raising score, this is the defining horror film. The scenes that take place during the daylight are the scariest.
MORE LISTS:
Bree: Oops I Crapped My Pants . . . Watching These Horror Flicks
John: John's Top Ten Most Effective Horror-ish Films
Nilay: Ten Ways to Scare Yourself S**tless
2 comments:
That Halloween special they do every year on Bravo featured the Wicker Man, and it looked pretty interesting. Did you see the remake with Nicolas Cage? We haven't seen either, but Bree loves pagans, and I love female nudity, so I think it would be right up our alley.
By the way, what do you think of "The Last House on the Left"? I've heard that it is a classic.
Last House on the Left is a grimy, disgusting low budget riff on Igmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring. It is effective in the same way Irreversible is effective, and is just about as unpleasant to watch. There is a fight with a chainsaw at the end that is pretty nerve wracking.
I actually just watched the Nicholas Cage version of The Wicker Man. It is a hilarious so-bad-it's-good remake. He beats the shit out of several women, and karate kicks Leelee Sobieski all the way across the room into a wall of pictures.
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