The Horror Movie Thread
I've loved horror movies since I was a little kid. I remember I started watching them when I was really young, probably too young to even understand what I was watching. My half-sister introduced me to them, probably as a joke, thinking that I was going to be scared shitless. It had quite the opposite effect lol. I remember my favourite movie when I was 4 or 5 years old was A Nightmare on Elm Street (I still love it).
I have fond memories of going to a video rental place that was very close to my home all the time and spending hours just looking at all those beautiful VHS horror tapes before actually choosing which one I wanted to watch. The cover art was beautiful back then. I feel like it's a lost art.
A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, Halloween, Alien, The Exorcist, I could probably write down names for hours, both mainstream and B-movies. You name it, I've probably watched it (and if you name one that I haven't, I most definitely will!
).
I specially love slasher flicks. There's not a single type of movie in the world that's more entertaining than an 80s slasher full of boobs and blood.
I've been a bit out of touch with the newer horror movies in recent years, mostly because, well... They're all the same. I actually had to start an IMDB list just so I actually know which ones I've watched and which ones I haven't, because trailers and descriptions alone weren't enough anymore. Long gone is the age of original horror movies. Seems like they come in waves... Classical monsters in the 30s and 40s, then aliens in the 50s and 60s, then the supernatural in the 70s, then the slashers in the 80s, then the self-aware horror movies that were barely horror at all of the 90s, then the torture-porn movies of the 00s, aaaand we're back to the supernatural now in the 2010s...
Anyways, friday the 13th is coming soon. It's a personal tradition of mine to (almost) always watch a slasher flick on friday the 13th and on halloween, though I sometimes watch a non-slasher horror movie instead.
Do you guys enjoy horror movies? Tell me about your favourites and share your stories.
Any recomendations for the coming friday?
I have fond memories of going to a video rental place that was very close to my home all the time and spending hours just looking at all those beautiful VHS horror tapes before actually choosing which one I wanted to watch. The cover art was beautiful back then. I feel like it's a lost art.
A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, Halloween, Alien, The Exorcist, I could probably write down names for hours, both mainstream and B-movies. You name it, I've probably watched it (and if you name one that I haven't, I most definitely will!
).I specially love slasher flicks. There's not a single type of movie in the world that's more entertaining than an 80s slasher full of boobs and blood.
I've been a bit out of touch with the newer horror movies in recent years, mostly because, well... They're all the same. I actually had to start an IMDB list just so I actually know which ones I've watched and which ones I haven't, because trailers and descriptions alone weren't enough anymore. Long gone is the age of original horror movies. Seems like they come in waves... Classical monsters in the 30s and 40s, then aliens in the 50s and 60s, then the supernatural in the 70s, then the slashers in the 80s, then the self-aware horror movies that were barely horror at all of the 90s, then the torture-porn movies of the 00s, aaaand we're back to the supernatural now in the 2010s...
Anyways, friday the 13th is coming soon. It's a personal tradition of mine to (almost) always watch a slasher flick on friday the 13th and on halloween, though I sometimes watch a non-slasher horror movie instead.
Do you guys enjoy horror movies? Tell me about your favourites and share your stories.
Any recomendations for the coming friday?
4
Comments
I'm not a fan of slahers or "torture porn", being grossed out is not the same as being scared. I LOVE monster movies though. People put out some really creative designs and scenarios in these things. The Thing is easily my favorite horror movie. So many amazing monster designs and convincing practical effetcs, with a good does of psychological manipulation.
You forgot one "wave" of horror movies by the way. In addition to aliens in the 50's and 60's "Attack of the Giant x". Them, the Black Scorpian, etc. Give me a good campy giant monster movie any day.
@SethDavis Was Jeepers Creepers 3 still made with the same director of 1 and 2? I refuse to support that guy.
I love The Thing too. It had amazing monster designs, and the fact it's all practical effects just makes it better. Practical >CGI as far as horror goes, which is one of the reasons The Other Thing isn't nearly as good as the original.
You're right of course about the giant monsters, I forgot about them because I never thought of those movies as horror, though they can certainly be classified as such. American giant monsters movies aren't really my thing though, I much prefer japanese kaiju movies. Gojira is a masterpiece.
@SethDavis Funny thing, Jeepers Creepers has been on my to-watch list for years... Haven't got to it yet. I heard the 3rd one is very very weird, like you just said.
@FinneousPJ I hadn't heard about Hereditary before. I just watched the trailer and it, hmm... Well it looks exactly like every other horror movie made in the past 10 years.
I'll watch it eventually but I won't expect much.
I think a lot of it is because the characters are so vivid and real. They're not disposable teenagers who get slashed up just to splatter some blood on the camera; they're people you like and care about. It makes the horror feel much more immediate and meaningful.
My brother is a huge fan of horror movies (he's seen basically everything), but I have some complicated feelings about the genre. I don't like being scared--that part of the genre doesn't appeal to me--but the cinematography is so much better in horror movies than in other genres, even fantasy. Horror directors invest heavily in visuals and audio quality, and the result is a macabre kind of beauty. It's cooler to look at and more immersive than most movies. Annihilation is a good example of a science fiction/horror movie that manages to be both incredibly beautiful and incredibly disturbing.
I've been anxious for the next IT movie to come out. As a fan of the original movies, I waited over 10 years for the remake, and I was not disappointed by the new version. Pennywise has an overwhelming presence all through the movie, and he comes off as much more dangerous than in the original movie.
And if you want an original horror movie, there's always House. This trailer is actually a very accurate preview of a movie that made me wonder if it was all just a weird fever dream.
But also more recent like Scream or Saw (I like the first two or three, the ones after are too gore). One from the Friday the 13th franchise
@lefreut I did a Friday the 13th marathon a year or two ago where I watched them all, so they're still fresh in my mind.
If you like the franchise, give Never Hike Alone a try. It's a fan movie, but don't let that scare you away. It has great production value and could easily be an official movie.
https://imdb.com/title/tt2885364/?ref_=nv_sr_1
I had high hopes for a big foot movie written and directed by Bobcat Goldthwait, but it turned out to just be the the Blair Bigfoot project.
Anybody else been enjoying the Evil Dead TV series? It's as much comedy and poking fun at the genre.
Are there any Hitchcock fans here? My avatar's Christopher Lee from the episode of the Alfred Hitchcock Hour, The Sign of Satan, where he plays a high priest of Satan, recruited by a Hollywood studio to make a movie. There's some really random actors in those old shows, like Leslie Nielson even shows up in one ep. My favorite episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents was The Blessington Method, starring Dick York, who's charming and smiling the whole time he's murdering old people.
Wild Surge got @Nonnahswriter to review a horror movie recently, Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead (2006), for our Chicken Issue. She abhorred it, but a well written review none the less.
Last horror movie I watched was the aforementioned Jeepers Creepers 3. It was on Netflix. It mas meh. Didn't see the first two or hear about the underage, sex offending director.
I think, one of my most favourite horror/thriller movies is What Lies Beneath starring Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer. I remember watching it in the theatre and falling for a lot of the jump scares. My girlfriend at the time had bruises on her leg from where I grabbed her so hard that it took a while to get out of the dog house.
I'll check out May, it sounds like it could be interesting.
I've been a horror fan since I was a kid, both as a reader and a movie viewer. A lot of the older movies I loved don't hold up anymore, IMO, but I have fond memories of them (Haunting of Hill House, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, etc.). Of more modern movies, "The Ring" stands out as one of my favourites. Genuinely creepy...
The most impact, though, was Dawn of the Dead. I was a teenager when I first saw it in 1985. I went to a party and while the drinking and shenanigans were going on upstairs, the host was playing movies down in the basement. My friends and I had just discovered cannabis so we went down there to lay low. We had just smoked up and were toasted out of our eyeballs when he put on Dawn of the Dead. Man, oh man that was fantastic. Not only did I dig the whole zombie thing, but the protagonists' escape from society and holing up in that mall. As a teenager who, like most teenagers, was desperately seeking freedom and independence, it was like watching my fantasy revealed before my eyes. To this day, if I'm in a mall I look around and imagine what I'd do with the place, should it ever come to that...
For me, John Carpenter's version of The Thing is the scariest movie I've seen. It still gives me creeps and shivers even on repeated replays.
@ThacoBell Do you also enjoy modern giant monster movies?
Because the new Godzilla trailer is freaking beautiful and I'm ridiculously hyped.
Now back to horror y'all.
Okay, that trailer was pretty great. Its about time a modern Godzilla movie had some of the classic monsters in it. Though I miss Gigan. Hilariously, the plot sounds like something straight out of the endgame of FFVII. Its pretty sweet to see 11's actress from Stranger Things. I thought she was great in that.
Disney really did some nightmare fuel back in the day. Like The Mad Doctor from 1933. I have at least one friend who found this short so disturbing that she refuses to watch it again.
@Dev6 If horror shorts are too far off the intent of this thread, let me know.