The single Best Directed Horror film

Jaws plain and simple IMO. Whatever you think about Spielberg, this film good not have been done any better, especially what with the hugely troubled production. Second Tier for me would be Carpenter's The Thing or Romero's Day(that's right) of the Dead.

Agree with Jaws. And with The Thing and Alien. I'll throw in Suspiria as well.

this is one of those questions that make me have to think too hard to answer



so I go with the stand-by



Glitter

VIDEODROME!

For me personally, its a toss-up between John Carpenters The Thing and The Exorcist.

RD

The Thing

The Exorcist

Ghost Story

All very very high on my list. But for me, the best directed would have to be...

The Exorcist III: Legion

Brad Dourif, George C Scott, Jason Miller... pure freaking brilliance...

I'll end the debate right now.

The two best directed horror films are Robert Wise's THE HAUNTING and Alfred Hitchcock's PSYCHO.

Films like JAWS and THE EXORCIST are very near the top of the list, as well. As for Carpenter, I'll take HALLOWEEN as his best directorial effort, judging from what he was able to accomplish with the miniscule budget, the inexperienced actors, and the run of the mill story. In anyone else's hands, the film would've been pure shit. Carpenter turned it into a suspense masterpiece. I love THE THING as much as anyone, but he had a studio budget and a stable of seasoned pros on that one. HALLOWEEN impresses me much more; it was guerilla filmmaking at its finest.

I'd still go ahead and say The Exorcist as well.

a

Dude, don't ever insult Stanley Kubrick again. Just don't. He is Spielberg's father and mother.

Anyways,

Suspiria or Inferno from Dario Argento

FW Murnau's Nosferatu because of the use of expressionism and negative photography.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre...

And The Shining from Stanley Kubrick -- the Mozukin<spelling> effect is terrifying...

For very different reasons, my first thoughts go with Hitch's PSYCHO and Argento's SUSPIRIA ...

The film PSYCHO has such a great story behind it ... We have an internationally renound director returning to a low budget horror film that was shot in a few weeks with the crew from his television show ... We see the main character killed midway through the film, and we also are introduced to quite possibly the greatest villian ever ...

Alfred Hitchcock created a film that is as recognizable and beloved as any ever made, and he did it in black and white, with no budget to speak of ... The man was a true genius, and his passion and flair for filmaking is truly inspiring ...

Dario Argento created one of the few films that I consider a visual work of art in SUSPIRIA ... The painstaking length he went to to locate the near-extinct film stock to give SUSPIRIA its garish look is well documented ... The man had such unbelievable vision with this film, and in every aspect he nailed it as far as bringing the nightmare to live onscreen ... I have heard that he ever had the actors speak in such a deliberate and monotone way so to imitate the sound and beat of a human heart ...

These two films, while very different, are at the top of my list ....

a

Yeah dude, and music by Goblin..

Not remotely. See, Spielberg is a terrific technical director who ALSO knows how to get sterling performances out of actors. Kubrick...not so much-- and I'll join in on declaring THE SHINING as overrated. Nicholson hams it up outrageously, obviously insane from the very first frame and never really being much more than a cackling fiend, a one-dimensional Freddy Krueger-like spewer of one-liners. After all these years, it still amazes me that people find his performance effective. He's GOOFY.

Shelley Duvall is grating, blubbering her way through half the movie, and even the film's enthusiasts admit to cheering Jack on when he's about to brain her.

Hell, the entire storyline (changed from the book) is just a riff on old Twilight Zone eps, filled with pedestrian shocks and hammy scares. Sure, it has some nice cinematography and use of the steadicam, but there's also some seriously amateurish stuff at play here (the helicopter's shadow in the opening shot, for example).

Kubrick certainly did some phenomenal films, but I don't count THE SHINING as one of them.

it's halloween for me.

Actually I've got 3 films.........

1) Night Of The Living Dead

2) Dawn Of The Dead (1978) <--- How can anyone overlook this??

3) Texas Chainsaw Massacre (original)


Honorable mentions:

Cannibal Holocaust, Halloween, The Thing, Creepshow, Day Of The Dead, Suspiria, JAWS (I don't really consider it HORROR) Last House On The Left, Nightmare On Elm Street 1, Fright Night, Zombie and a few others I'm forgetting right now.

Texas chainsaw, Halloween and The haunting. They only work because they're so beautifully directed.

It's a five-way tie between THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, JAWS, HALLOWEEN, THE THING, and AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON.

My heart is tempted to go for LONDON, but if I'm honest, it's probably HALLOWEEN.

My three cents in on Best Directing:

1 - The Exorcist. Sure, Friedkin's more than a bit of a wacko, but what a beautiful wacko when it comes to a story like this. This is four-barrel, all the way in to the knuckle horror, with a side order of dread, loathing and Satanic evil, and I dig it.

2 - The Haunting (Robert Wise version). Almost the complete opposite of the first film, but like it in the way that it consumes the viewer in its own twisted logic and immerses them in its nightmare. I've never been so scared looking at a wall in my life.

3 - Halloween. The stylistic bridge between the first two, it beings a strong sense of dread and pays off. John Carpenter can make you jump, and he knows when to do it.

Cat People ? The Bride Of Frankenstein ?

I don't think there's an answer to this. Maybe twenty answers, but not one.

The Changeling is an extremely well directed picture.

But with a dash of maybe the sweetest irony, I'd say it was actually very Kubrickian in its style - its use of wide angle lenses, its use of fluid tracking shots, its use of sound, its personification of the house and the relation to the soul.

I haven't checked out the commentary on the Region 2 DVD to see what Medak has to say about his influences, but I'd be surprised if a European like Medak wasn't a Kubrick fan.

Not me, Sirrah.

Though he makes a good case. Why give a non-horror fan horror DVDs to review ? Ach, well...

It's a difficult question, but I think I'll opt for "Jaws". The other films mentioned scared me at the time, but none of them stayed with me, as either horror pieces or as cinema, in the same way that "Jaws" did. I still feel that lonely panic sometimes when I'm in water over my head. Of course that panic has doubtless always existed, but "Jaws" gave it specific form.

One of the things I really like about it (and this probably seems really obvious, considering the subject matter) is that "Jaws" captures the sensation of being in the water really well. The camera bobs vaguely somewhere below eye-level for a few shots when dealing with the humans, but from the shark's perspective things are much smoother and faster, and the sound and perspective all work together to give that sense of someone being in a different, invasive environment.

For the record, I also hate Kubrick's "The Shining" (I find it unwatchable, to be honest), though I do like other stuff he's done.

cool thread trip!

my *first* pick would be jc's "the thing" remake but i'm gonna put that in the sci-fi film catergory.

the single best directed horror film imho is "the amityville horror"
from Stuart Rosenberg.

i think alot of aspiring horror directors should study how stuart shot this movie.

i'm confident when i say his direction made that movie scary. sure it was a good screenplay but the direction of rosenberg brought it home.

Just piss Charlie off (but coming from a devoted Spielberg fan) I'd still maintain that Jaws was just astonishingly edited.

But since so much of that was dictated by the way in which it was shot (haphazard but undeniably rock solid), you have to figure direction goes hand in hand with Verna Fields' work here...

Just sayin'.

I definitely agree Verna's work is just stupifying in the movie. But so is Stevie's.

You're going to hate me for this though, but I've never been a huge fan of THE CHANGELING. I can see it's a good picture, but I've never been able to get into it.

Kudos on the BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN comment though. That movie is glorious...

Well I don't think it is on the same level with Jaws or The Thing, Kubrick's The Shining is a great fucking movie. Nicholson gives a great damn performance(albeit a little too crazy) and the whole atmosphere of the picture is just plain creepy. A brilliant film.

a

Spielberg? He's a sell out, no talent, mainstream sucka, who ruined AI, and who has no idea of how to make innovative films. He's a glorified made-for-tv candy ass. And because I just woke, I am not going to justify these remarks.

Please take this and buy a clue. It's a stance, but an incredibly facetious and woefully reactionary one, not really born of anything but subjective dislike.

Talk about what you don't like about Jaws, the picture someone bought up. Enlighten. Don't just have a kneejerk spasm of out-of-context Spielberg-diatribe.

I continue the love making for Dawn of the Dead and The Thing. Wow those are great movies. By the time I saw Dawn of the Dead I was at that completely desensitized point where it couldn't really shake me. Still loved it to bits. But The Thing scared me to the point I wasn't able to watch it when I was a kid. Still scares me. Started my complete devotion to horror movies.

Also, fuck The Shining. Again. I'm one of those Stephen King enthusiasts who think Kubrick fucked up a perfect opportunity. This could have been so fucking good, but all we get is shot after shot that shrieks "artistic" and a kid talking with his finger. This movie had one scary as shit scene. Take out the naked old woman and you've got nothing. NOTHING. I love Kubrick though. I used to think he was overrated, but 2001, Clockwork, and Strangelove are some of the best in their respective genres ever, if not the best. Which makes the failure of The Shining so much more disappointing, and the fact that everyone recognizes it as genius so fucking frustrating.

I don't know if they're the best shot ever, but this forum has a peculiar lack of "Evil Dead 2" and "Dead Alive" love.

Oh yeah, and fuck The Exorcist, too. I'm sorry, I'm sure it was shocking for the 70's. but that is the most overrated movie ever.

Ok, first I am no big King fan... i read Barker so King boors me to tears.

Second, I like Kubrick some, and I like Speilbergs older films. Both Jaws and A Clockwork orange are examples of film-making at its finest.

BUT......

The Shining was just OK for me, not bad. But certainly not great and in no way scary.

It was really A.I. that made me realize the elite early 70's duo of Speilberg and Lucas had finally crashed into a cesspool of mediocrity. You can watch A.I. and see whcih scenes and elements were Kubrick inspired (the robotic gigilo, cities that look like prone whores, friggen Ministry as the house band of doom!) and then you see the Steven elements... where he wants to turn it all soft and into a family movie or a moral tale.

If the movie had ended with him underwater looking at the blue faery it might have been at least decent... but then he went to his buddy George and borrowed the EXACT SAME alien animation used in his craptacular Episode I as cloners... to use for a sappy 'all is made right' alien ending. Blech.....

I would have LOVED to have seen a pure Kubrick version of this film.

Re: a

No.

Innovative films? Yep, plenty.

Let's try JAWS, Raiders and Close Encounters on for size.

You do know the ending to A.I. WAS/IS Kubricks!

JAWS isn't really considered horror is it? I've always thought it adventure. Eh?


My votes go to:
TEXAS CHAINSAW
THE THING
ALIEN
HALLOWEEN
DAWN OF THE DEAD
SILENCE OF THE LAMBS
THE EXORCIST
THE HOWLING



Also I have a soft spot for LIFEFORCE, nothing beats a naked vampire chick walking around flashing her goodies.

The Thing
Halloween
Alien
Aliens (scared the crap out of me as a kid, far more than the first)
Near Dark

I guess we will have no way to verify this unfortunately...

"You do know the ending to A.I. WAS/IS Kubricks! "

But I was under the distinct impression that after the undersea blue faery bit, it was entirely Spielberg. It doesn't even flow like a Kubrick piece at all.

The single Best Directed Horror film

I will put one vote in for Alien directed by James Cameron.
He made a potentially bad B- movie sci-fi/horror into a blockbuster because he knows how to get the right tone, effect and performance from his actors. The movie had it all, great lead performance, ensemble cast, amazing visual effects which added up to one tesion filled, gripping experience of the unknown.

If I had it my was this and Psycho would be a tie but I know Psycho will still be number 1- and you can check IMDB on that.

"The Thing" is one of my favorite films of all-time, and while it may not be the BEST horror film (still a lot I haven't seen) I think that there's no way you could leave it out of the top 5 of all time.

Does "Silence of the Lambs" count? I think it's a genre-defining example of psychological horror.

Re: Re: The single Best Directed Horror film

Thank you for the correction Eskimo- didn't realize I was getting the directors mixed up. This gives me more reason to love Ridley Scott. Once again, thanks!

I'm gonna vote for Psycho. Watch the begining as Janet Leigh makes her way out of the city and to the Bates motel. Hardly any dialogue but massive paranoid vibes. All accomplished through solid directing. A lesser director would have had speech after speech after speech.

Alien, hands down.

Alien, Suspira and The Exorcist do it for me.

Suspiria...a technicolor crayon colored "nightmare" come to life.

A wonderfully beautiful looking movie.

And just an awesome movie.

THE HAUNTING

PSYCHO

JAWS

THE SHINING

NOSFERATU

Ok it seems like some folks are just picking their favorite films here and not basing things on the actual direction...Essentially in my mind the best directed and beautifully shot stuff I've seen in a horror film is Argento's. Fulci also had some very beautiful scenes (sadly mixed with some really bad ones...the spiders in the beyond for instance). Speilberg WAS damn good...Jaws is and will always be for me one of the most perfect films ever. Close encounters has it's moments but get's sappy and frankly dumb in the end. On to Carpenter...the best part about him is that you know he directed it as soon as it begins...definitley has his own style but I agree it shines the most on The thing and Halloween, Although there's some parts of the fog that just kick ass. Movies mentioned that were not so well directed...
Last house on the left? Come on I love that film but it was certainly not well directed...

my two cents

this is hard : I like "Alien" and "Jaws" but man i love the look, feel, tempo, and mood of the 80's J.Carpenter films.

Can someone please explain to me what is so great about Halloween? I genuinely don't get it, and never have. Okay, it's a tightly directed low-budget thriller with pretty good performances, but I've never understood its standing as a horror classic.

Because it's about the boogie man baby.


Halloween's greatest strength is it's simplicity. The story, the acting, directing, lightning etc. No fancy stuff and no showing off. It's not a killfest or a gorefest. It doesn't get into complicated explanations or even detailed character history. It throws ordinary people that are at least marginally likable into an urban legend story. The best reaction you can get from an audience, in any story, is 'what happens next?' all the way through. Halloween accomplishes this. Thats what I like about it at least and that's why I think it's a classic.

Here, here moreguinness. My favourite horror movie would be Halloween but to be honest, the best DIRECTED horror movies for me would be Sam Raimi's Evil Dead and Dario Argento's Tenebrae.