A crash course in Horror.

I would say stay away from the Tremors series, Blair Witch, and Freddy is too much a slasher. But some of the others may help. If the film is going with supernatural, ther have to be a lot of good older movies That learned to build suspense and hooror without the aide of computer animation and heavy gore. Gore is great, but I see a lot of the gory films that stink because they never developed any sense of suspense. Some of the old Poe adaptations that have little gore but give natural events (The plague in Masque of the Red Death, for example) an almost supernatural life of their own could be a good way to appreciate the suspense portion of a movie. Other movies I personally enjoyed with the supernatural;
The fall of the house of usher
the legend of hell house
The Omen (first one)
Les diaboliques
The Uninvited (40"s version)
many more that would be more recent with supernatural themes

Why no Universals?

Ringuu is a most for an example of truly great modern ghost story telling... and if you want Evocative images then Event Horizon is pretty cool.

While not a horror persay the original freaks shares a lot thematically with modern horror films and should be a good view...

Yeah, both RINGU and A TALE OF TWO SISTERS should be there.

What's wrong with Blair Witch? If the guy wants to make a shitload of money from an indie film then that's the perfect example of how to go about doing it.

Fett's suggestions for japanese horror will give a good showcase of what will be considered 'cutting edge' horror for the next few years.
You should watch any of those modern horrors like Boogeyman, 13 ghosts, ghosts ship and the like for what NOT to do.

If you want exercises in building tension then Shyamalan's films are great, or hitchcock's, if you want to go to the source.

Scanners, The Fly, Hellraiser, and The Thing for what the limits and strengths of body horror are.

then get him thinking hard about what he wants to make a horror movie for. there are death-scene film like Final Destination that are pure exercises in anticipateing and appreciating iminigative deaths. the deaths are kind of like punchlines. the moviesa are almost comedies.

some movies use the horror genre as metaphors. alien is about sexual fear, exorcist is about the fear of a girl becoming a woman, and the various iterations of Body Snatchers are about paranoia, identity and conformity. Romero's 'Dead' movies are the most blatant in their social statements.

And if it's just about low budget film-making then Holloween with its small corridors, hand held camera and non CGI monster is a master class in wringing scares for nothing. Blair Witch too, though that film's style will still be too recognisable if you try to copy it.

He has to know why he's doing it. Are his ambitions no more than creating a sequence of scary scenes? is he aiming it at the independant scene, or at teenagers who will watch anything if there's some decent grue?
We could give him advice an recommedations for ever, but he's the one who has to answer that question.

Also, it's not supernatural, but THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE is a masterpiece of 70s horror. If you want to make a horror film and ignore that, well, that's pretty insane.

Also, AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON. One of the tightest, and best written movies I've seen, which has been hugely influential to myself as a writer/screenwriter.

some good supernatural movies you should look at are:

The Amityville Horror first film
Thirteen Ghosts orgianl (new if you want)
House on Haunted Hill orginal (new too)
Ghost Ship
Dark Half
Ghost Story
Ghost (it's a chick flick but you can get ideas to make it scary from it)

to add a few there

The only movies I could add would be Carnival of Souls, Phantasm and Carrie.

Just, please, if you make a movie, keep the warp speed editing to a minimum.

Thank you in advance.

I guess I agree then that Blair Witch, which I really enjoyed when it came out, is good for an example of building up the fear factor without really having to actually show any special effects or makeup. I was more against it because, like someone pointed out, the style would be easily recognized and maybe turn people off as a copy.
I think The Village did a good job at building up fear and anxiety, with no real special effects at first, and later with minimal costume. I know a lot of people were dissapointed with the movie, but there were really tense moments and some good ideas in it. I personally like this one a lot, despite it not being the "horror" movie I expected when I went.
Other good ones, to me anyway;
The Changeling
the Shining
The People Under the Stairs
The Innocents
The House by the Cemetary
The Devil's Backbone
The Fog

I know I would say this but HELLRAISER.

It isn't a slasher but it is supernatural. It helped bring the whole S&M sub-culture into existance and effected popular culture profoundly. Add to that it displays the power of horror to be a scathing and intelligent social drama whilst involving deeper ideas and meanings. It's got elements of body horror, haunted house genre, tiny hints of slasher, demonism and also shows that sex and gore CAN be a vital elemnt of the plot and not just cheap window dressing.

- Scarecrow

Vine rape!