The 100 Greatest Horror Movies of My Generation

Tis the season...

I've been working on this list for a LOOONG time, and finally, I can bring it to you. These are the 100 Greatest Horror Films Of My Generation, from the start of 1984 until today. I figure it's a great time to begin such a study, as 1984 was a pivotal year, one in which the release of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET changed the perception of horror films, and probably became one of the most commercially influential in the genre, and the most influential since. Is it the best of this time period? You'll have to wait and see.

And no, Devin, this is not up at my live journal.


But first, a list of those that I DIDN'T see...

THEY CAME BACK
WORLD APARTMENT HORROR
RINGU 2
RINGU 0
RASEN
AUGUST UNDERGROUND/MORDUM
THE GUINEA PIG SERIES
THE TOMIE SERIES
DOPPLEGANGER
SCARECROWS
THE WHISPERING CORRIDORS SERIES
THE WISHMASTER SERIES
DAGON
THE LAST HORROR MOVIE
GINGER SNAPS BACK: THE BEGINNING
PET SEMETARY
DEAD END
TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE: THE MOVIE
TALES FROM THE CRYPT PRESENTS: DEMON KNIGHT
MONKEY SHINES
TWO EVIL EYES
ENTRAILS OF A VIRGIN
ENTRAILS OF A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN
DEEP IN THE WOODS
CAT’S EYE
DOLLS
RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD 2
RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD 3
KING OF THE ANTS
MIMIC
A TALE OF TWO SISTERS
DEATH SPA
THE CRIMSON RIVERS
THE UGLY
SHOCKER
WAXWORK
WAXWORK II
THE WATCHERS
THE WATCHERS 2
EPIDEMIC
TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE 2
LEATHERFACE: TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE III
TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE: THE NEW GENERATION
DR. GIGGLES
KAIRO
TOOKBOX MURDERS
THE STENDHAL SYNDROME
JOHN CARPENTER’S VAMPIRES
JOHN CARPENTER’S GHOSTS ON MARS
OPERA
THE WARLOCK SERIES
SUB-SPECIES
A LIVING HELL
UNDEAD
THE DARK HALF
CHILDREN OF THE CORN
ANGEL HEART
LORD OF ILLUSIONS
RAZORBACK
THE GATE
BRAINSCAN
NADJA
STRANGELAND
TETSUO: THE IRON MAN
TETSUO 2: BODY HAMMER
MALEVOLENCE
LADY IN WHITE
STEPFATHER
PARANOIA 1.0
HIRUKO THE GOBLIN


And now a few that I decided, at the last minute, didn't fit the criteria I was looking for...

IRREVERSIBLE
THE VANISHING
ARMY OF DARKNESS
SINGLE WHITE FEMALE
FIRE IN THE SKY
DEAD RINGERS
FUNNY GAMES
IN MY SKIN
8 MM
ALIENS

100. TREMORS
Written by S.S. Wilson and Brent Maddock
Directed by Ron Underwood
USA
Chaos and bloodshed has come to the kindly people of Perfection, New Mexico, in the form of ground burrowing graboids bent on destroying all in it’s path. While TREMORS is an affectionate monster movie with it’s fair share of laughs, it’s greatest asset is the reliably solid lead performance by Kevin Bacon, who never betrays the story’s main threat with a playful nod or wink.

99. NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD
Written by George A. Romero
Directed by Tom Savini
USA
Once again, Hell runs out of room, and it’s time for the dead to find something delicious to chew on while passing the time wandering the earth in a state of neverending misery. Yep, zombies. This fairly unnecessary remake doesn’t add a whole lot to the original, aside from a reloaded female protagonist, but George Romero’s nihilistic spirit lives on through some fantastic genre performances and some solid gore courtesy of first-time director and gore maestro Tom Savini. Among zombie films, it rates as one of the better ones, derivative or not.

98. KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE

Written by Charles Chiodo, Stephen Chiodo and Edward Chiodo
Directed by Stephen Chiodo
USA
While clowns have always been a fear for many little children, the animatronics specialists the Chiodo Brothers may have ensured that the children slightly perturbed by the face-painted goofsters would absolutely never return to the circus after this film. Although there’s a heavy concentration of clown-centric gags that pad the film’s running time, the film’s eponymous antagonists are freakishly, unreasonably scary, solely dedicated to harvesting human victims in more-scary-than-they-should-be cocoons made of cotton candy. Unreasonably chilling and largely unwatchable for anyone genuinely terrified of clowns.

97. JEEPERS CREEPERS
Written and directed by Victor Salva
USA
Upon being sent to prison for child molestation charges, filmmaker Victor Salva entertained the germ of an idea that is JEEPERS CREEPERS, and in doing so, created a depraved onscreen doppleganger that would reign in horror lovers’ hearts as a favorite B-list boogeyman. It would be every 21st year, on the 21st day of the month when the mysterious, winged Creeper would emerge from it’s slumber to dine on the flesh of supple youngsters, and in this particular spring, the Creeper’s hunger would not go unsatiated.

96. DEATHWATCH
Written and directed by Michael J. Bassett
UK
A ghost story set within the trenches of World War I, DEATHWATCH arrests immediately with it’s cagey, original premise. When a British crew finds themselves getting the jump on a German POW camp during World War I, leaving isn’t nearly as easy, and soon all parties are suspect as the dead begin to exhibit surprising behavior. DEATHWATCH would be a horror also-ran were it not for the particularly sharp characterizations, notably from young BILLY ELLIOT lead Jamie Bell and supporting player Andy Serkis.

95. LEVIATHAN
Written by David Webb Peoples and Jeb Stuart
Directed by George P. Cosmatos
USA
An undersea crew finds a mysterious Russian ship sunk in the middle of the ocean. When they find no record of it’s existence, they foolishly steal from the abandoned vessel, only to have the ship’s contents attack en masse, as the ship starts to mutate into a living, breathing creature. Stan Winston’s creature effects are reliably gruesome, and the cast, featuring luminaries like Peter Weller, Ernie Hudson, Richard Crenna and Daniel Stern, effectively carry what, on paper, comes across as a more gooey ALIENS knockoff.

94. RAWHEAD REX

Written by Clive Barker
Directed by George Pavlou
IRELAND
When a freak accident leads to lightning striking a mysterious phallic structure on the Irish grasslands, an ancient creature of retribution emerges to complete its centuries-long deed in punishing the Irish Catholic through bodily dismemberment. Getting beyond the man-in-suit design of the creature is it’s own physicality, as there’s few things scarier than an eight foot man-beast running at you, ready to simply rip your head off your own shoulders. Clive Barker’s script touches on a few interesting concepts of Irish Catholicism, providing something to chew on besides the violent bloodlust.

93. THE EYE
Written and directed by The Pang Brothers
HONG KONG
Young Wong Kar Mun has been struck blind by the ravages of modern health, and eventually she opts for an eye transplant surgery that will give her full sight. Upon receiving the ability to finally observe the world around her, she cannot escape the sudden shroud of ghosts, invisible to all those around her. This Hong Kong import has been compared to THE SIXTH SENSE, but it’s much louder and bombastic, and is often carried by a few singular shocking moments involving the onslaught of the dead.

92. NIGHTWATCH
Written by Ole Bornedal and Stephen Soderbergh
Directed by Ole Bornedal
USA
Keeping fairly close to the source material (an eerie early nineties German frightfest), this American do-over doesn’t have much to add to the equation, but for those allergic to foreign cinema, NIGHTWATCH packs plenty of scares. As a security guard at a cavernous morgue, Ewan McGregor is an appealing everyman launched into a world of deceit, mystery and death when he becomes the prime suspect in a series of gruesome murders. Solid supporting work is offered from a cast that includes Josh Brolin, Patricia Arquette, Nick Nolte, Brad Dourif, Lauren Graham and John C. Reilly.

91. BODY SNATCHERS
Written by Stuart Gordon, Dennis Paoli and Nicolas St. John
Directed by Abel Ferrara
USA
Updating the classic once again, Ferrara re-imagines the classic alien attack story as a biting dissection of the pitch perfect suburban life the director has so openly disdained throughout his eclectic, independent filmography. Sticking fairly close to the subject matter, Ferrara’s re-telling also gets some good jabs in at the military, while utilizing excellent makeup and gore effects to create an impossible-to-forget visceral nightmare. Props to R. Lee Ermey, who plays a sinister army general with an axe to grind.

90. DOG SOLDIERS
Written and directed by Neil Marshall
UK
A British Squad sent on a training mission in the Scottish highlands find themselves in a deathtrap when they are hunted by a set of blood-hungry lycanthrope, itching to devour some limey flesh. Neil Marshall’s fun werewolf flick picks its inspirations from a number of likely sources, from AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON to THE EVIL DEAD, and creates a fun military-monster movie hybrid loaded with chunky gore and funny performances.

89. OPEN WATER
Written and directed by Chris Kentis
USA
Supposedly based on a true story, Kentis’ recreation of two self-centered divers lost amidst the cruel waves is far more complicated than given credit for. It’s not merely two souls versus the sea, or even humanity versus nature, but merely the ugly presumptuousness of white entitlement set against the unforgiving waves of the sea, when we wholly expect society and technology to be our saviors. As the couple bobs up and down a bit more sluggishly than before, we only await the inevitable with chilling acceptance.

88. THE DEVIL’S ADVOCATE
Written by Jonathan Lemkin and Tony Gilroy
Directed by Taylor Hackford
USA
Hotshot lawyer Kevin Lomax (Keanu Reeves) has it all: a high paying reputation as one of the country’s best lawyers, good looks, and a wife that looks like Charlize Theron. However, when he is invited to join a powerful big city firm headed by the mysterious John Milton (Al Pacino), he finally finds himself in a situation he can’t argue his way out of, and it’s not long before Milton reveals his Devilish plans for the law system and eventually, mankind. Al Pacino’s scenery-chewing turn is reliably over the top, and yet addictive and intensely watchable, buoying a Biblical struggle of wills within a corrupt law system.

87. FINAL DESTINATION
Written by Glen Morgan, James Wong and Jeffery Reddick
Directed by James Wong
USA
On a field trip, a student finds it impossible to ignore the clues that are suggesting fate will cause a commercial airliner to crash. While he is able to get a handful of classmates off the plane in time, it still explodes in a horrific accident, killing hundreds and setting off a chain of events in which death attempts to close the loophole left by the teens’ survival. Mass murder follows, as each character meets their end in elaborate and unpredictable ways, and unfortunately for the teens, there appears to be no end to the trail of carnage.

86. NIGHTBREED
Written and directed by Clive Barker
USA
When a dangerous drifter (Craig Sheffer) starts having dreams of a village for sinners named Midian, he begins telling the details to his diabolical psychiatrist, Dr. Decker (David Cronenberg), who capitalizes by staging a series of murders in order to frame him and send him to the mystical location. Once there, he becomes a figurehead in a centuries-long war between Midian’s populace, the Nightbreed, and humanity. While Barker’s horrific fantasy is a tad overambitious and largely underbudgeted, it still features a number of surprising visual touches, particularly the evocative design of the Nightbreed themselves, as well as an involving new mythology unlike anything in the modern horror genre. Worth noting is the surprisingly chilling performance from Cronenberg, who’s Dr. Decker is so closely similar to Cillan Murphy’s Scarecrow in BATMAN BEGINS that a lawsuit should be pending.

85. PUPPET MASTER

Written and directed by David Schmoeller
USA
Considered one of horror’s eighties lowlights, PUPPET MASTER is actually a fairly inspired, imaginative and blackly funny gem. Centered around the mysterious discovery of the ability to grant life to inanimate objects, the story follows a handful of psychics as they converge on the house of a dead friend, eager to learn his secrets as they explore their own powers in a number of character-based ways. It’s somewhat of a surprise, though, when they find themselves under siege from the remnants of those experiments, four diabolical dolls with a taste for blood.

84. MY LITTLE EYE
Written by David Hilton
Directed by Marc Evans
CANADA
The reality television device gets a remarkably potent usage in this underseen Canadian chiller. When a set of good looking but insecure twentysomethings agree to participate in a reality webcast they find themselves isolated in a gorgeous mansion in the snowy Canadian forest, closed off from every aspect of society. While a twelve month stay without ever leaving the house rewards each winner with one million dollars, things begin to get extremely suspicious, when food disappears, unexpected visitors arrive, and bodies being piling up, leading the crew to the truth about the nature of the very contest they are participating in. While the narrative device of a webcast sounds tiresome, the fresh-faced cast and solid tension-building of director Evans provides a number of sharp scares.

83. WILD ZERO
Written by Satoshi Takagi
Directed by Tetsuro Takeuchi
JAPAN
Join the Jet Generation with this insane rock ’n’ roll gorefest! When flying saucers arrive in a small town and begin turning everyone into flesh-eating zombies, the only thing saving weak-kneed rocker Ace and his transgendered lover Tobio is Guitar Wolf, the loudest, nosiest and most exciting rock band in history! Explosions, cannibalism, lasers, hotpants and leather set the tone for this ecstatically exciting horror adventure that proves that rock’n’roll will never die!

82. HOUSE
Written by Ethan Wiley
Directed by Steve Miner
USA
Normally, it’s an iron-clad rule: a film featuring two or more actors in central roles that are already in popular television shows used to be a mark of doom for a production. It would seem that the executives would be reasoning that some people were braindead enough to fork over the admission cost to see stars that can be caught at home for free, leading to a very diluted product. And yet HOUSE stars former “Great American Hero” William Katt, as well as “Cheers” mainstay George Wendt and “Night Court” ham Martin Mull. And get this, it’s both scary AND good. The story of a haunted house so vengeful it would ruin the life of a best-selling former Vietnam vet, HOUSE features some impressive special effects, and a fairly witty script. Boasting the pedigree of FRIDAY THE 13TH producer Sean Cunningham, it actually ends up as being even more successful at both comedy or horror that Cunningham’s hockey-mask franchise could ever pull off.

81. THE FACULTY

Written and directed by Robert Rodriguez
USA
Owing much to INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, Robert Rodriguez’s monster movie extravaganza finds a Texas High School beset by a sudden influx of aliens as students begin behaving robotically, their monotone mannerisms eerily spelling out doom for the human race. While the young cast acquits themselves well, particularly future Frodo Elijah Wood, Robert Patrick makes a horrifically menacing alien authority figure, the leader of a group of teachers determined to show the human students how to behave in class.

80. SPECIES

Written by Dennis Feldman
Directed by Roger Donaldson
USA
Procreation has it’s drawbacks. As the slithery, sadistic Sil, Natasha Henstridge is a memorably sexy alien fatale, dedicated to mating with as many hapless human males as her libido can accommodate, in search for a host for her sickeningly inhuman children. SPECIES earns points for both hinting and then actually delivering on the promise of a sexual role reversal within the familiar horror film formula, something many other would-be scare-fests cannot help but back away from. SPECIES is carried by a very creepy debut performance by Henstridge, but credit must also be given to a supporting cast that includes Michael Madsen, Marg Helgenberger, Ben Kingsley, Forest Whitaker and Alfred Molina.

79. THE BLOB
Written by Chuck Russell and Frank Darabont
Directed by Chuck Russell
USA
Another remake, this updating of the schlocky 1959 classic ups the ante in a similar vein to JOHN CARPENTER’S THE THING, laying on the gore thick and relentlessly. The special effect of the titular goo is memorably disgusting, and the deaths are more grotesque and unpredictable each time out. Few moments of chaste sexual exploration in horny teen eighties cinema are as terrifying as the youth who reaches into the shirt of his sleeping conquest only to be greeted with a faceful of blob.

78. GINGER SNAPS: UNLEASHED
Written by Megan Martin
Directed by Brett Sullivan
CANADA
Taking the franchise in an unpredictable new direction, this sequel finds Bridgette on the run from the law, avoiding the truth about her sister while being forced on severe forms of medication when placed into rehab by concerned law enforcement officials. She soon realizes her werewolf self is emerging through her interactions with fellow female rehab patients, under the constant sexual threat of the drug-happy guard. UNLEASHED is drastically different from the first film, tackling themes of overmedication and expanding on the trenchant sexual observations of the first film.

77. SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE

Written by Steven Katz
Directed by E. Elias Merhige
USA
Off the heels of Merhige’s long-forgotten chiaroscuro nightmare BEGOTTEN (another film I deemed ineligible for this list, despite its terrifying content), this straightforward narrative film playfully deals with the fictional history of NOSFERATU’s troubled production, which included Max Schreck actually devouring his co-stars. The vampire legends are tweaked quite cleverly, particularly in the hands of an unrecognizable Willem Dafoe, who is mesmerizing and creepy underneath very thick makeup.

76. THE GRUDGE
Written by Stephen Susco
Directed by Takeshi Shizimu
USA
While updating very little from the original Japanese model, this Sam Raimi-produced remake manages to keep as much as possible intact. Although there’s folly in adding chronology to the random shocks of the JU-ON series, Sarah Michelle Gellar acquits herself moderately well to the lead role, a woman at the center of a house overcome with death in the hands of an abominable rage. While many of the scares are similar, this American remake adds a layer of international horror to the premise by centering around Americans estranged in a foreign land.

75. APRIL FOOL’S DAY
Written by Danilo Bach
Directed by Fred Walton
USA
It’s time for the annual April Fool’s Day get-together. Everyone is set to salute the off-kilter occasion, as hosted by the suddenly-unhinged Muffy. But what of the bodies piling up? All this practical joking has gone too far, and ultimately, it’s all fun and games until somebody dies. At that point, it’s just bloody games. Fred Walton’s tense, kitschy thriller packs some legit scares, but mostly works as a lighthearted exploitation and dissection of the genre.

74. HABIT
Written and directed by Larry Fessenden
USA
When down-on-his-luck Sam finally meets the girl of his dreams, he finds salvation from a miserable life tainted by loneliness and alcoholism. However, when his girlfriend Anna turns out to be a vampire, Sam finds himself drawn into a deadly world of addiction and soon, he can’t discern between reality and debauchery. Fessenden’s moody, downbeat tone poem is an involving allegory about AIDS and drug abuse in modern-day New York City, given an immediacy by Fessenden’s frenetic low-tech style.

73. HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES

Written and directed by Rob Zombie
USA
Rob Zombie is one of horror’s biggest fans, and it definitely shows throughout this aggressively violent, colorful funhouse ride through the house that doesn’t allow for any escape, lest it’s victims scream for subterranean madman Doctor Satan. As a first time director, Zombie wears his influences on his sleeve but nevertheless allows his talented cast room to breathe, allowing for clear, lucid characterizations and a rogue’s gallery that proves both scary and funny.

72. THE HITCHER
Written by Eric Red
Directed by Robert Harmon
USA
C. Thomas Howell appears to be a young man with no direction or cause when he absentmindedly picks up a hitchhiker in the middle of the night. As rain hammers the car hood, the hitchhiker (Rutger Hauer) slowly begins to explain the details of a murder he has just committed, eventually implying that the driver will be next in line. So ends an utterly perfect ten minute opening to this road-set scare flick, in which the demonic Hitcher finds endless ways to torture his victim, daring the young innocent to kill him first. While action theatrics from car chase-fetishist Eric Red weigh down the film’s third act, the capable lead performances (particularly Hauer’s- a peerless display of teeth-gnashing malice) and overall moody tone accent this open road nightmare.

71. FRIGHT NIGHT
Written and directed by Tom Holland
USA
It’s not often a seductive male vampire moves next door and begins snacking on the local women. And it’s especially unprecedented when said bloodsucker makes eyes at your girlfriend, and I think we all know what happens next when a vamp makes eyes at a lady. So if you’re the hapless sap in this situation, what do you do? Why, call Roddy McDowell, vampire killer. In a role loaded with surprising quirks and character, McDowell plays a former horror movie veteran now hosting a late night horror film showcase who is called into action when a horror movie fan finds himself in the vamp-neighbor predicament, and is eventually in way over his head. Despite a jokey tone, there are some spectacular special effects and classic vampire imagery in this loving homage to horror film lovers.

You misread... those are the ones I didn't get to see for this list.

70. THESIS
Written by Alejandro Amenebar and Mateo Gil
Directed by Alejandro Amenebar
SPAIN
A young, pretty co-ed is eager to move up the ranks from college to big time reporting. A new case fascinates her, as she teams up with a quiet classmate to unravel the legend of the snuff film. Still, she can’t help but be entranced by the attractive young filmmaker suspiciously tailing her, which draws the ire of her quiet friend. Is she in the middle of a love triangle or a deadly game of cat and mouse? THESIS mines the popular snuff film threat to effective end, handled with a sharply serious, believable tone by then-first-timer Alejandro Amenebar.

69. THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW
Written by Richard Maxwell and Adam Rodman
Directed by Wes Craven
USA
Zombies get a more realistic interpretation in this fairly smart, truth-based tale of a researcher exploring Latin America for the secrets of life after death. Following voodoo legends, he discovers the dead being brought back to life for financial gain, but when he tries to stand in the way, the powers that be converge, and he ends up staring death in the face. Until the premise caves in to silly genre conventions at the film’s close, RAINBOW is a surprisingly adept, interesting and original horror film, buoyed by solid performances from Bill Pullman and genre vet Zakes Mokhae.

68. LITTLE OTIK

Written and directed by Jan Svankmajer
CZECH REPUBLIC
When a mother complains about her infertility, she gets a gift from her husband in the form of a mangled piece of wood he finds one day while chopping down trees. It’s not long before the lonely wife begins to pretend that the wood is an actual child, her own faith giving the bundle the ability to behave like a real boy. It’s not long before the bundle of wood grows, displaying first human attributes and then others, devouring larger amounts of food before setting it’s sights on people. Svankmajer’s devious eye for black humor and Grimm-inspired fairy tale touches elevates the source material to genuinely disturbing levels.

67. THE LOST BOYS
Written by Jeffery Boam, Janice Fischer and James Jeremias
Directed by Joel Schumacher
USA
Ah, to sleep all day and party all night. That’s young Michael’s (Jason Patric) dream, so naturally he’s bummed when his dowdy mother (Dianne Wiest) relocates him and his younger brother Sam (Corey Haim) to San Francisco to live with their kooky grandpa. However, he soon finds it to his liking, falling in with a group of night riders led by David (Kiefer Sutherland), dedicated to bringing Michael to the dark side. When Sam finds out that they’re all vampires, he realizes to save his brother he has to take a stand, and soon it’s a vampire free-for-all involving bloodsucking and stake-sharpening, particularly from the Frog brothers Edgar and Alan (Corey Feldman, Jamison Newlander). Joel Schumacher’s blood-soaked camp thriller has a nice number of startling shocks, mostly provided by Kiefer Sutherland’s completely nefarious and disgusting villain.

66. CABIN FEVER
Written and directed by Eli Roth
USA
With the support of David Lynch, writer-director Eli Roth toiled away every night as Howard Stern’s own living alarm clock, penning this shock-fest based on his own life experiences. In the end, however, no amount of name-dropping was needed as CABIN FEVER stands on its own. An unabashed throwback to seventies and eighties teen horror films, FEVER is in love with its genre conventions as much as it is in playing with your morbid expectations. A cautionary tale of city youth in rural backwoods, CABIN FEVER subverts it’s tired story with a healthy dose of gleeful black humor.

65. HELLBOUND: HELLRAISER II
Written by Peter Atkins
Directed by Tony Randel
UK
The rare sequel that builds effortlessly on the framework that’s been established by the series, HELLRAISER II is a more-than-solid successor to the chilling original. Picking off directly where the last one left off, this sequel has a more comfortable and likeable protagonist as she fights the spirits of the puzzle box, and exploring the deepest regions of Hell. HELLBOUND goes farther into the legends of this specific Hell, and in doing so provides some shockingly arresting and unforgettable imagery, particularly the inside-out corpse having scrawled messages on the wall in his own blood in a memorable psychiatric ward sequence. In the end, the plot of this installment makes little sense, but it’s still gory and shocking enough to be a worthy successor to the original.

64. SOCIETY
Written by Rick Fry and Woody Keith
Directed by Brian Yunza
USA
SOCIETY begins as a garden-variety eighties horror film, with an upper class young teen starting to catch on to the sinister goings-on within the high society that his parents are a part of. The creep factor escalates with the hint of incestual terror from the protagonist’s nubile teen sister. But it hits fever pitch during the last half horror, featuring some of the most unnerving, twisted body horror moments ever captured onscreen, as if an episode of “The OC” was written by Clive Barker and directed by Takashi Miike.

63. EVENT HORIZON
Written by Philip Eisner
Directed by Paul WS Anderson
USA
Borrowing liberally from SOLARIS (both the Stanislav Lem novel and the Tarkovsky film) EVENT HORIZON is an amped up, bloody take on similar ideas, dumbed down but boosted by a cast of reliably smart actors. When a ship in deep space sends out a distress signal, the Event Horizon comes to investigate, only to see their deepest fears come to horrifying life. Filled with truly disturbing, gross imagery, EVENT HORIZON’s main selling point might actually be the cast, featuring Lawrence Fishburne, Joley Richardson, Sam Neill and Jason Isaacs.

62. UZUMAKI

Written by Kenjo Kagi, Takao Nitta and Chika Yasuo
Directed by Higuchinsky
JAPAN
There’s nowhere to hide from the spiral in this demented Japanese bizarrofest. Loosely inspired by a series of manga, Higuchinsky’s surreal narrative follows a small town who, one by one, slowly become infatuated with the specter of a circular shape that bedevils the town itself, leading to unexplainable spherical phenomena. It’s hard to classify this film, which begins shyly playful and then dissolves into BEETLEJUICE-type heights of random absurdity, but by the film’s close, it will be hard to shake UZUMAKI out of your nightmares.

61. STIR OF ECHOES

Written and directed by David Koepp
USA
Kevin Bacon, in an underrated turn, stars as a family man who, upon a dare, agrees to be hypnotized by his sister at a party. However, this leads to a series of traumatizing hallucinations in which he learns the history of his new house, and why there might be murder in his near future. David Koepp’s underseen chiller was doomed upon it’s release, having come out in the wake of the inferior THE SIXTH SENSE, but it features a number of disorienting scares and rewarding work from Kevin Bacon.

60. BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA
Written by James V. Hart
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
USA
Devoted to the original text, Francis Ford Coppola’s ambitious, epic retelling of the legend of our ol’ Vlad is a massive production, with sumptuous sets, gorgeous costumes, and plenty of morbid scare scenes. While the casting hampers it (Keanu?), DRACULA is gorgeous and affecting despite not having much narrative forward momentum. Still, it’s carried by the lead performance from chameleon Gary Oldman, who provides the Dracula legend with a human side as well as a diabolical, bloodthirsty, vengeful manner that makes him utterly captivating.

59. NO TELLING
Written and directed by Larry Fessenden
USA
In another case of doctors’ experiments going awry, this topical drama features Fessenden tackling the morally troubling elements of genetic experimentation, in both notably disturbing and intellectual manners. Though filled with scenes of intense animal oddities, NO TELLING features just as many fascinating conversational sitdowns, yet still manages to be stomach-turning in it’s vivid moments of scientific experimentation.

58. DUST DEVIL
Written and directed by Richard Stanley
SOUTH AFRICA
Somewhere in the wispy sands of the west stands the Dust Devil, a vengeful spirit traveling from desert to desert, materializing within his victims and caving in their own humanity. The title character is brought to wonderful life by sinister Hal Hartley regular Robert John Burke, who brings a menacing edge to this body-hopping murderer, grounding this unusual ghost story with a terrifying gravity that, along with Richard Stanley’s direction, establish a certain sense of mythology and history to the gory details onscreen.


57. C.H.U.D!

Written by Parnell Hall
Directed by Douglas Cheek
USA
New York City’s sewers have been co-opted by the very poor, a destitute lot hanging onto the fringes of society, in a city that has forgotten them. But their numbers are being thinned: there’s a nasty collection of flesh-eating creatures, coined Cannibal Humanoid Underground Dwellers by a government eager to write-off an accidental genetic nightmare. An overeager photographer, a widowed police captain restricted by red tape, and a figurehead for the homeless are stuck in the middle of a horrific nightmare played straight, and its not long before they’re stuck between bureaucratic corruption and the visceral threat of fierce, bone-picking killers. C.H.U.D.’s social awareness combined with its somber tone contributes to a horror film that is still socially relevant today.

56. THE RE-ANIMATOR
Written by Stuart Gordon, Dennis Paouli and William Norris
Directed by Stuart Gordon
USA
Dr. Herbert West is in, and the corpses are out... of control! Performing life-altering experiments with the living dead, even he can’t resist the lure of playing god, and soon his experiments are up and walking on their own. RE-ANIMATOR settles less for scares than truly inspired over the top moments of gore and laughs, and scores thanks to the wonderfully bizarre work of Jeffery Combs as the lead.

55. THE OTHERS
Written and directed by Alejandro Amenebar
USA
Death permeates a terrifying, quiet home, where chilly matriarch Grace (Nicole Kidman) finds herself with her hands full when she and her children are haunted by an unseen force during World War II. Perhaps the new cleaning and maintenance staff has the answers. Utilizing suffocating atmosphere, Amenebar’s elegiac ghost story packs more than just an end-film twist, with one of Kidman’s best ever performances and a collecting dread from slow but seductively mysterious pacing.

54. DAWN OF THE DEAD
Written by James Gunn
Directed by Zack Snyder
USA
Remade from the classic George Romero original, this shoot-em-up probably owes more to ALIENS and RESIDENT EVIL than the social commentary and dread of the seventies classic. However, that’s not to say Zack Snyder’s directorial debut isn’t fairly satisfying. Depicting an overnight zombie apocalypse that swarms civilization in the blink of an eye, the film follows a collection of survivors holed up in a suburban mall who find themselves fighting for survival when the flesh-eaters come a-knockin’. Although fairly different from the original pacing undead, these zombies have been freakishly augmented to enhance the potential for bloody scares, and for the most part, it works.

53. MISERY
Written by William Goldman
Directed by Rob Reiner
USA
Hell hath no fury like a fan scorned. In a career-making and Oscar-winning turn, Kathy Bates stars as Annie Wilks, a diehard fan of the great Paul Sheldon (James Caan). Upon the release of his latest novel, he finds himself bedridden and at Annie’s beck and call, having suffered a nasty spill off a rocky cliff and losing the major functions of his legs. When Annie requests he re-write his latest novel, however, he balks, leading to a world of torture and pain. Most of what enlivens the scares in Rob Reiner’s wintery classic is the truly possessed, iconic performance from Bates, who has never been as unforgettable.

52. THE FRIGHTENERS
Written by Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh
Directed by Peter Jackson
USA
In a post-modern take on the concept of ghostbusters, con man Frank Bannister (Michael J. Fox) vows to eliminate spirits from houses, never once revealing that he’s in league with the spooky spirits. However, when the threat of a long-dead serial murderer begins to learn how to cross over into the real world, Frank finds himself needing to save himself from a fate worse than his co-workers. Opening with an audacious and confidently long special effects sequence, THE FRIGHTENERS is more than just Peter Jackson’s primer for LORD OF THE RINGS, packing a number of startling set pieces in addition to some very unconventional scares.

51. THE RING

Written by Ehren Krueger
Directed by Gore Verbinski
USA
One of the first films to bring J-horror tropes to American shores, this update retains a lot of the more effective elements of RINGU. While not being as scary as its predecessor, this story of a single mother’s struggle to protect her son from a vengeful videotape and the girl that lies inside it features a distinctly American message of parental shame as well as an interest in the permeation of mass media within our lives that was present but largely unexplored in Hideo Nakata’s original. One of the miracles of THE RING’s success is the suggestion that the studio executives whom many fans claim are ignorant were the ones that shaped this film, as last minute rewrites, re-shot scenes and completely eliminated subplots (Chris Cooper’s excised role as an assassin remains unavailable on the DVD’s) resulted in a mostly clear-headed studio horror movie.

50. DARK WATER

Written by Hideo Nakata and Takashige Ichise
Directed by Hideo Nakata
JAPAN
A single mother can’t begin to fight the system: with her young daughter, she moves into a rundown apartment, where she endures an inept building manager, threats from her ex, an ongoing custody battle, and her own repeated migraines caused from repressed childhood memories. Of course, there’s also the matter of a mysteriously missing girl from upstairs that seems to keep reappearing at unpredictable moments. Nakata has a definite eye, and DARK WATER is filled with unforgettable images stemming from the branch of maternity-derived horror that’s sure to scare as well as tug at the heartstrings. While inferior in the scare department, the recent American remake from director Walter Salles (THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES) is also worth recommending for upping the dramatic element.

49. HIGH TENSION
Written by Alexandre Aja and Gregory Levasseur
Directed by Alexandre Aja
FRANCE
Two girls vacationing in the French countryside get far more than they bargained for when a faceless murderer emerges from the night ready for mindless, random slaughter. What starts as a home invasion thriller turns into a cat and mouse gorefest before, through a somewhat improbable twist, HIGH TENSION shifts gears into something wholly, confidently misanthropic. Unrelentingly gruesome to it’s final caved-in face, HIGH TENSION is a high watermark for a sparse genre, that of the French-language bloodbath.

48. IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS
Written and directed by John Carpenter
USA
Taking its cue from H.P. Lovecraft and Stephen King, John Carpenter’s twisty thriller is a credible and often clever pastiche of genre staples. When legendary writer Sutter Cane goes missing, it’s up to a curious insurance investigator (Sam Neill) to dig up the truth, only to find that he’s becoming swallowed by a world that represents the landscape of Cane’s own novels. Carpenter’s typically no-frills storytelling and once again exemplary score highlight a fun Moebius-strip mystery.

47. DEMONS
Written by Dario Argento
Directed by Lamberto Bava
ITALY
Horror movies are bad for you, as your parents might have told you once. Maybe they’ve seen DEMONS, as this lightfooted giallo definitively (and with tongue in cheek) links horror films to violent behavior. When a group of unsuspecting audience members at a secret film premiere begin to exhibit strange behavior, it becomes clear that the horror movie on the big screen is turning them into bloodthirsty creatures of the night. This Bava/Argento collaboration never takes itself too seriously, but still maintains a hearty level of gore and has a few truly unsettling transformation scenes, culminating in one crowd-pleasing fight scene involving a katana and a motorcycle.

46. AMERICAN PSYCHO
Written by Mary Harron and Guinevere Turner
Directed by Mary Harron
USA
Based on the Bret Easton Ellis novel, director Mary Harron may have eliminated it’s gorier details, but retained the revolting horror that is Patrick Bateman. As brought to life by Christian Bale in one of the genre’s all-time great performances, Bateman is a shallow, self-absorbed Wall Street superstar dedicated towards making deals, dominating and degrading women and committing passionless murder, all in the name of emerging from a sea of lookalikes and wannabes in the self-absorbed 80's generation.

45. HARDWARE

Written and directed by Richard Stanley
UK
In a dusty, nightmarish future society in which humanity has been battling overpopulation problems, the government unleashes a set of killer robots dedicated to reigning in the rebellious human race. The man vs. machine subtext of this claustrophobic thriller is never once overshadowed by garish set pieces, and director Richard Stanley keeps things moving at a gorily satisfying pace.

44. THE EXORCIST III
Written and directed by William Peter Blatty
USA
Long after the events of the cataclysmic first film (and far removed from the ill-advised second), this sequel, from the pen of original novelist William Peter Blatty, finds a pious but hard-boiled detective (an excellent George C. Scott) tracking the murderous trail of a killer who may or may not be possessed by the devil. While it’s nothing like the first film in any way, EXORCIST III features a number of startling scares and takes full advantage of it’s claustrophobic hospital setting. Notable is the career-best work of genre stalwart Brad Dourif, who’s as memorably creepy as ever.

43. SCREAM
Written by Kevin Williamson
Directed by Wes Craven
USA
Was SCREAM good or bad for the genre? It’s hard to say, but it definitely was a strong film for the studio horror system, as SCREAM awoke the demand for more multiplex bloodlust, regardless of quality. That being said, SCREAM is a mostly clever riff off popular horror conventions, a poker-faced gag of a film with a delectable set of gruesome deaths anchored by Wes Craven’s reliably spartan direction.

42. PRINCE OF DARKNESS
Written and directed by John Carpenter
USA
Upping the ante in post-apocalyptic dread, Carpenter’s low-fi, offkilter modern Hell tale earns credibility for surprising originality. Initially a tired set-up, involving a group of psychology students spending time in an abandoned church, PRINCE OF DARKNESS pulls its veil back in illustrating a longstanding battle between God and Satan, two aliens from another planet! The spillover is memorably gruesome and typical Carpenter, highlighted by some surprising jump scares and, unforgettably, the video-like traecheon transmissions received in characters’ dreams illustrating a terrifying future world where Satan holds court.

41. RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD

Written and directed by Dan O’Bannon
USA
Unforgettable at the point when a zombie moans, “Send more cops,” ROTLD is a red-splashed funhouse of tongue-in-cheek zombie scares. Buoyed by the possibility that NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD was based on a true story, ROTLD was nonetheless a strong enough separate mythology to spawn four sequels. Funny and gruesome, it remains one of the most important, and enjoyable, zombie films within the genre.

40. GINGER SNAPS
Written by Karen Walton
Directed by John Fawcett
CANADA
As much as a rarity it is to see a non-Cronenberg Canadian horror film, it’s even more difficult to locate a good Canadian horror picture not helmed by the great “Scanners” helmsmen. THE HOWLING meets sadistically funny Afterschool Special, GINGER SNAPS serves as a never-boring tale of two young sisters moving apart through the aftereffects of puberty and lycanthropy. Subversively funny and reliably bloody, GINGER SNAPS is also a rarity of another kind: a damn good werewolf movie.

39. PHONE
Written and directed by Byeong-ki Ahn
SOUTH KOREA
The terror of cellular haunting manifests itself in this jarring supernatural thriller. A mild-mannered woman gets a new cell phone after dealing with a stalker, only to learn that the earlier owners of said number have died gruesome deaths. As she learns the story behind the phone’s first owner, a high school girl who died tragically, she starts to learn things that may put her in danger. PHONE never goes exactly where you think it might, and delves into emotionally distressing areas involving the woman’s relationship with her daughter.

38. LAND OF THE DEAD
Written and directed by George A. Romero
USA
Two decades after DAY OF THE DEAD, Romero’s latest entry in the shuffling zombie series finds the walking dead at the mercy of humanity. Reduced to sharing space with the lower class, the undead shuffle amidst towering skyscrapers, observing the haves in this new millenial post-apocalyptic future keep goods from the have-nots, reduced to infighting and rough-edged survival. But a revolution is brewing, and it won’t be long before the battle between the living and the dead becomes a conflict between multiple factions fighting

37. BODY PARTS

Written and directed by Eric Red
USA
From the demented mind of horror scribe Eric Red comes this twisted amputation exploitation film. Jeff Fahey stars as the victim of a horrific car crash which necessitates an entire arm transplant. However, when he finds that the arm previously belonged to a serial killer, it begins to take on a mind of it’s own, leaving a trail of bodies in it’s wake. Red uses this b-movie premise to stage serious philosophical discourse on the nature of self and how one’s identity is far from reliable, but also never strays from truly inspired set pieces.

36. 28 DAYS LATER
Written by Alex Garland
Directed by Danny Boyle
UK
When an infected monkey spreads a virus throughout London, rage-infested victims become mindless bloodthirsty flesh eaters dedicated to devouring the flesh. Boyle’s topical zombie movie brings plenty of scares to a plot structure that heavily recalls DAY OF THE DEAD and DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS, delivering a fresh new spin on the zombie film genre and cementing the sight of ravaged, depleted London within the minds of horror fans worldwide.

35. CHILD’S PLAY
Written by Don Mancini, John Lafia and Tom Holland
Directed by Tom Holland
USA
Before BRIDE and SEED OF CHUCKY drove this series into self-referential, jokey mayhem, the original chiller is startlingly subtle after all these years. Genre legend Brad Dourif is a two-bit killer who, upon dying, recites a chant that places his entity into the body of a best-selling young doll named Chucky. When a child becomes the sole owner of the particular doll, no one is spared once Chucky is taken out to play. The sight of a marauding doll grasping a knife and wandering down a dark hallway in pursuit of his prey could be comical, but thanks to the sickening, iconic voicework of Brad Dourif (that laugh!) it’s impossible to sleep off.

34. FRAILTY
Written by Brett Hanley
Directed by Bill Paxton
USA
Utterly unexpected in every way, Bill Paxton’s directorial debut is a surprisingly straightforward and often chilling tale of the Fenton brothers. As the film flashes back and forth, the younger Fenton brother spills the details about his murderous brother to an FBI agent (an excellent Powers Boothe) while the film flashes back to the two brothers as young kids, mesmerized by their possessed father (Paxton, in a measured, driven performance) who wants them to go on an unholy quest to rid the world of “demons” by murdering seeming innocents. On a surface level, it’s extremely spooky, but it also represents a delicate analysis of the myths we see in our parents and how they can shape our worldview for better or worse.

33. FROM DUSK TILL DAWN
Written by Quentin Tarantino
Directed by Robert Rodriguez
USA
The first in what looks to be many many collaborations between these two B-movie-loving cinematic brothers, FROM DUSK TILL DAWN is a wickedly fun genre-crossing bloodbath that begins with a ruthless kidnapping and ends with a grotesquely violent vampire slaughter at the Titty Twister. As the Gecko brothers, Quentin Tarantino and especially George Clooney are a winning duo, while Harvey Keitel lends excellent support as a pastor forced to severely question his faith when the group is attacked by bloodsucking beasts from another world. Loaded with cool familiar faces in bit roles, including Fred Williamson, gore god Tom Savini, Danny Trejo and Salma Hayek doing the sexiest non-nude striptease you’re likely to see.

32. CRONOS
Written and directed by Guillermo Del Toro
MEXICO
An unusual vampire story with an international flavor, Guillermo Del Toro’s directorial debut follows an elderly shop owner who uncovers a mysterious scarab that actually restores its owner to past youth. Still, of course, the deal is naturally Faustian in nature, and the addiction becomes lethal, specifically for his sweet daughter. Del Toro’s inaugural entry into the horror realm is an elegantly told fairy tale about a deal most sour and a device most mystical.

31. SUICIDE CIRCLE

Written and directed by Shion Sion
JAPAN
Yet another entry in the J-horror genre, this chiller bites off far more than its predecessors in establishing an urban milieu that’s at once believable and disturbingly effective in establishing themes that resonate within contemporary culture. When a number of suicides begin occurring all throughout Japan, authorities begin to investigate an underground ring of clubs dedicated towards tapping into the ennui of today’s disaffected citizens and convincing them to embrace the cold certainty of mass suicide. Darkly comic, this consistently surprising horror picture features a stunner of a first scene, in which eighty Japanese schoolgirls jump in front of a subway train and coat the straphangers with gallons of their blood.

29. SESSION 9
Written and directed by Brad Anderson
USA
Brad Anderson, fresh off two romantic comedies, HAPPY ACCIDENTS and NEXT STOP, WONDERLAND, delved into the dark side with this claustrophobic thriller. Shades of THE SHINING are seen in this tale of a group of asbestos workers assigned to an abandoned mental institution, working against a tight schedule and slowly losing their minds. While solid performances from Peter Mullan, Josh Lucas and David Caruso and the grainy DV look help establish atmosphere, the actual filming location, a real abandoned institution, may be one of the cinema’s all-time scariest sets.

28. THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT
Written and directed by Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick
USA
After the initial buzz and inevitable backlash, we can finally look back at this much-derided sensation that enthralled the world back in 1999 for a few brief months. Hiding behind a faulty veil of reality, this documentary-style film follows three film students who get lost in the woods in Pennsylvania en route to making a documentary about the elusive legend of the Blair Witch. The entire film is a jarring and surprising buildup to a denouement most chilling, as we know in our hearts there can be no happy ending.

27. JU-ON: THE GRUDGE

Written and directed by Takeshi Shinzimu
JAPAN
As skimpy as J-horror gets, this third and biggest budgeted installment in the JU-ON series (not counting the American remake, although it should) capitalizes on the ghostly fear of the central premise of the franchise, that a haunting is the only positive thing that can result from rage-inflicted death. The curse touches many people throughout the non-chronological narrative, and each frightful death is featured throughout a series of scare vignettes that illustrate the fear of collecting dread.

26. WENDIGO
Written and directed by Larry Fessenden
USA
When a family from the city heads into the snowy wilderness for a taste of the outdoors, they end up in the claws of a group of backwoods locals who merely want them to disappear. Little do they all know that they are under the watchful eye of local legend, in the form of the hulking animal-man known as the Wendigo. While WENDIGO has a few jarring scare sequences late in its run, it makes an impression through its tackling of the importance of folklore and tradition and its fairly in-depth interest in intellectual discourse that has been the specialty of New York-based Fessenden.

25. SEVEN
Written by Andrew Kevin Walker
Directed by David Fincher
USA
The seven deadly sins are behind this serial killer thriller which is still really the only one to properly define itself in the wake of SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman are a fire-and-ice duo forced to tackle a morbid murder case in which the killer is driven by his need to punish every single one of the sins on display in a lawless world. The faceless John Doe eventually makes an appearance late in the film (with the face of the stellar Kevin Spacey), and turns a disturbing thriller into a wholly different, emotionally taxing tragedy.


24. NEAR DARK

Written by Eric Red
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow
USA
Vampires went through a lot of cosmetic makeovers in the eighties. Few, however, were as influential as this road flick, Romeo and Juliet set amidst the backdrop of trucking bloodsuckers and wandering humans. Adrian Pasdar stars as the unwitting human Romeo, who is drawn into the seductive vampire world by a bloodsucking Juliet (Jenny Wright), a world featuring toothy vamps Lance Hennriksen and Bill Paxton in iconic roles.

23. SANTA SANGRE
Written and directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky
MEXICO
Heavily inspired by PSYCHO, Jodorowsky’s most mainstream film to date features no shortage of the genius filmmaker’s visual touches and trademark wide, busy vistas. SANTA SANGRE, championed by Roger Ebert during its otherwise quiet 1988 release, tells the story of a lonely, mute circus boy who grows up into a tortured soul due to the murder of his philandering father by his unhappy mother. Although she died armless on that fateful night, she returns to her son as he’s released from an institution and leads him on a mission to fully complete her vengeance. Not shy about the bloodshed and violence, SANTA SANGRE scores points for it’s stirring, nightmarish imagery and disturbed lead performance from Jodorowsky’s real life son, Axel.

22. CEMETERY MAN

Written and directed by Michele Soavi
ITALY
Poor Francisco Dellamorte (Rupert Everett) can’t get a break. With the intense desire to go to town, make friends and seduce the lovely Anna Falchi, he’s instead stuck protecting the cemetery, providing maintenance by day and, along with his hunchbacked friend Gnagi, blasting away the walking dead by night. He’s reduced to a life led in limbo, finding the dead and being ensured to do the devil’s work by keeping them below ground. CEMETARY MAN is occasionally glum, but has a playful sense of humor amidst the sea of bodies- it’s best envisioned as a cross between SIX FEET UNDER and DEAD ALIVE.

21. RINGU
Written and directed by Hideo Nakata
JAPAN
While Asian cinema has always been a source for different, exciting, invigorating films, it’s only recently that the continent has been pumping out a rather robust amount of skin-crawling horror pictures, and one can argue that the tradition started with Hideo Nakata’s unforgettable RINGU. Based on a series of successful novels, RINGU tells the torturous fable of forever-haunted little girl Sadako, and her desire to make others feel the pain she felt when she was unjustly murdered. As a cultural artifact, it’s a damning condemnation of multimedia pre-occupation and as a thrillfest, it’s deeply, viscerally unsettling.

20. THE COMPANY OF WOLVES

Written and directed by Neil Jordan
UK
The fairy tales of yesteryear get another spin in Neil Jordan’s sumptuous, absorbing re-telling of the legend of the Little Red Riding Hood. Capitalizing on that story’s underlining sexuality and threat of female assault, COMPANY glides by through affecting performances and startling set pieces, not to mention completely enthralling werewolf transformations and the pervading dread of sexual violation. Look out for Terence Stamp in a beguiling (and bewildering) cameo.

19. THE DEVIL’S REJECTS
Written and directed by Rob Zombie
USA
The Firefly family is in shambles, and the law is on their tails, led by the fiery right hand of vengeful Sheriff Wydell (William Forsythe), on a holy crusade to rid the world of the joy-killing clan. Formerly tormentors, the Firefly family now find themselves on the run from a lawman dedicated to bringing them to gory justice in this seventies-set murder-drenched fright flick, which takes it’s cues from Zombie’s first film HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES. Jettisoning that previous film’s more infernal and sillier trappings, the tone here is less fun and more uncomfortably violent- this is a party you DON’T want to go to.

18. MAY
Written and directed by Lucky McKee
USA
Always an outsider, curious and coquette-ish May (Angela Bettis) lives a quiet life working at a veterinarian’s clinic by day and coming home to share thoughts with her only friend, a plasticine figurine kept behind a glass covering. But when May meets the man of her dreams (Jeremy Sisto) she finds herself ill-equipped to deal with his eventual repellence to her unconventional interests. Needless to say, May doesn’t take rejection too well. Angela Bettis’ humanity and vulnerability in the role is heartbreaking; a scene in which her lover apprehensively shows her a bloody short film he made in college finishes with her critiquing that a single bite made by the film’s cannibal characters was “far-fetched”, a moment that’s spontaneously playful and speaks volumes of her character.

17. THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE
Written by Guillermo Del Toro, David Trashorras and David Munoz
Directed by Guillermo Del Toro
MEXICO
Set amidst the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War, this ghost fable revolving around long kept secrets may be the finest hour for Spanish auteur Guillermo Del Toro. An orphanage is the setting for a series of mysterious, macabre wrongdoings between the walls, where profiteers and murderers lie and a single, nameless boy wanders ghostly through the wreckage of the lost innocence of others.

16. CURE

Written and directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa
KOREA
When people start committing completely unmotivated acts of murder, left with amnesia and jumbled thoughts, it’s up to one intrepid detective to investigate. However, when he uncovers that it might be the work of a telepathic serial murderer, the plot thickens, and he realizes that he may be placing himself in jeopardy, not to mention his co-dependant wife. A mere synopsis does not do justice to the tragic twists in this stone-faced thriller, which features an ending you’ll be discussing for weeks.

15. RAVENOUS
Written by Ted Griffin
Directed by Antonia Bird
USA
“Eat to live,” intones Richard Carlyle’s nefarious villain, “don’t live to eat,” a quote borrowed for tongue-in-cheek purposes that underlines one of many uneasily comic moments throughout this underappreciated cannibalism polemic. Largely told as a metaphor for Manifest Destiny, RAVENOUS finds a cowardly war “hero” (a superb Guy Pearce) matching wits with the only remaining survivor of the tragically cannibalistic Donner Party, fed by the spirit of the ancient wendigo and hankering for some delicious human flesh. Director Bird never keeps things too heavy, and benefits from a colorful supporting cast, including David Arquette, Neal McDonough, Jeremy Davies and a never-better Jeffery Jones.

14. THE FLY
Written by David Cronenberg and Charles Edward Pogue
Directed by David Cronenberg
USA
Super scientist Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) gets more than he bargained for when he attempts to advance teleportation science only to fuse with the fly that accidently traveled through the portal with him. Mutations occur, much to the dismay of Brundle’s girlfriend (Geena Davis), and much to his own reptilian amazement, leading to a fatal conflict with his scientific curiosity and his newly primitive animal instincts. David Cronenberg’s unsettling updating of the Vincent Price schlock-fest should be a reminder to all those who speak ill of remakes that occasionally, the greatest of artists can bring a spirited (and in this case, excitingly grotesque) spin to a tired idea.

13. NIGHTWATCH
Written and directed by Ole Bornedal
GERMANY
When a young med student finds himself looking for cash, he ends up as a night watchman at a local morgue. While the night shift has the obligatory share of bumps and creaks in the night, he finds that things don’t get out of hand until a series of murders begin happening, and everyone he knows is a suspect, including himself. NIGHTWATCH effectively preys on the fear of what the night holds, while also maintaining a slick paranoia that effectively translates throughout this German thriller. An American remake from the same director was modestly effective.

12. SILENCE OF THE LAMBS
Written by Ted Tally
Directed by Jonathan Demme
USA
Yes, it’s been thirteen years since Johnathan Demme’s mercurial chiller took home the Academy Award for Best Picture, which some felt would help the horror genre to a more respectable stance in the mainstream public. Instead, however, it furthered the cause of more toothless “suspense thrillers” paving the way for the procedural films that took the macabre out of the details, leading to our very own deconstructionist obsession with the likes of CSI. No matter, as the original cannibalistic classic is fearsome in its own right, a cat and mouse thriller in which FBI agent Clarice Starling, in pursuit of vicious killer Buffalo Bill, must confront her own demons manifested within the charismatic killer helping her from within a cage. The situation would not be as terrifying were it not for Jodie Foster’s grounded lead performance, as well as the menace of Anthony Hopkins’ iconic turn as cultured cannibal Hannibal Lecter.

11. HELLRAISER
Written and directed by Clive Barker
UK
Toying with the pain-pleasure paradigm, HELLRAISER could have easily floated on the strength of it’s own iconic imagery. However, this evil concoction from the mind of Clive Barker, revolving around the trouble a puzzle box from Hell brings a woman, her parents and an uncomfortably dead uncle, manages to get right to the heart of sadomasochistic sexual boundaries, carving up many a corpse along the way. Doug Bradley’s Pinhead, never at any point overused, remains one of horror’s all-time scariest creations.

10. SHAUN OF THE DEAD

Written by Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg
Directed by Edgar Wright
UK
Shaun can’t get a break: work sucks, mum’s marrying a droll jerk, best friend Ed’s a terrible flatmate, girlfriend Liz is sick of his refusal to grow up, and there just happens to be a messy little zombie apocalypse going on. SHAUN OF THE DEAD never overplays it’s hand, it’s comedy coming from a very real, character-driven place, nor does it mock the dire circumstances the characters find themselves in. Loaded with reverent, loving references and in-jokes, this rom zom com still finds time to provide many stomach turning scenes of satisfyingly gruesome gore.

9. A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET
Written and directed by Wes Craven
USA
Sometimes, it takes a real monster to scare audiences, and in disturbed pedophile Freddy Krueger, horror fans found a reliable creature worthy of scorn. “The bastard son of 1000 maniacs” did not take kindly to being burned alive, and armed with his clawed hand, he returned to life, ready to infiltrate the one place that no one could save the young, nubile teens of Elm Street: their dreams. A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET remains, 21 years later, as inspired and bright as ever, it’s illustration of a haunted dreamworld most likely causing many sleepless nights for the eighties generation, thanks to Robert Englund, who would return to the character in seven more movies.

8. TROUBLE EVERY DAY

Written by Clare Denis and Jean-Pol Fargeau
Directed by Clare Denis
FRANCE
Not your typical horror fare, this bloody Clare Denis picture is still notorious enough to have been refused a stateside release. Surely the infamy of fame-parasite Vincent Gallo has something to do with the skittishness of distributors, but the truth is this gory slice of horrific life is a monumentally disturbing, affecting analysis of sex, love, and the hunger that fuels them. Shot in English and French but with sparse dialogue, TROUBLE features the nonlinear story of a couple driven to the outer reaches of science when a serum turns one of them into a cannibalistic recluse, further altering their confused, alien sex life. The challenging TROUBLE is also helped by a haunting original score from the Tindersticks.

7. DAY OF THE DEAD
Written and directed by George A. Romero
USA
The third film in George A. Romero’s landmark zombie saga gets a lot of flack for missing the playful social commentary of DAWN OF THE DEAD and the solid performances of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. Still, Romero’s third zombie film finds its strength is in it’s similarities to the later of many of our most combative, socially relevant filmmakers from Spike Lee to Sam Peckinpah: DAY OF THE DEAD is hopeless, angry, nihilistic filmmaking, showing such little faith in humanity as evidenced by the de-evolution in between characters in the occasionally blackly humorous DAWN and the morose, dire DAY. As the goriest and grisliest of the saga, DAY OF THE DEAD is relentlessly bleak, portraying the greatest horror as the dread of inevitability.

6. CANDYMAN
Written by Clive Barker and Bernard Rose
Directed by Bernard Rose
USA
The very nature of urban legends gets a workout in Clive Barker’s suffocating horror film that deals with the sobering ramifications of disrespecting the past. In the titular demon, a black slave doomed to eternity for philandering a white woman, Candyman is a terrifying creation, grandly haunted and graceful as he is villainous, equipped with a phallic, gristle-coated hook for a hand and a trenchcoat that underlines his tortured skin.

5. DEAD ALIVE

Written by Stephen Sinclair, Fran Walsh and Peter Jackson
Directed by Peter Jackson
NEW ZEALAND
Unquestionably the bloodiest film ever made, Peter Jackson’s zombie opus finds it’s hero Lionel knee-deep in the dead when he finds he must preserve his zombified mother elaborate slapstick secrecy. While the gruesome red threatens to overshadow the entire production, the blood-coated story keeps it’s heart in the right place, as Lionel attempts to find true love while wading through the re-animated souls of New Zealand, including the most righteous priest in the history of the Catholic Church.

4. HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER
Written by John McNaughton and Richard Fire
Directed by John McNaughton
USA
Buried for years and currently exhumed on DVD but still fairly unknown, HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER nonetheless feels unsettling and appropriately disturbing for a film that hasn’t been ignored as much as its been genuinely feared. Michael Rooker has carved a reasonable niche for himself as a topflight character actor, but he’s absolutely unforgettable here as a homicidal drifter who gets by while committing horrific acts of murder in the same manner in which people go shopping for groceries. Horror vet Tom Towles is particularly unnerving as Henry’s lesser friend.

3. OODISHON (AUDITION)
Written by Daisuke Tengan
Directed by Takashi Miike
JAPAN
When a widowed film producer is convinced by his teenage son to resume dating, he holds auditions in order to find his most compatible mate. However, it turns out that she is far more than he bargained for, and soon he is a victim of her tortured past. The best know of the multi-talented Miike’s body of work, AUDITION weaves a harrowing fable about dating in modern Japan and paints a sick portrait of the country’s sex roles.

2. EVIL DEAD 2: DEAD BY DAWN
Written by Scott Spiegel and Sam Raimi
Directed by Sam Raimi
USA
The sequel to the ultimate experience in grueling terror starts off right where we left our hero Ash. It’s not long before the Necronomicon gets a few more victims to dine on, as the Deadite-ravaged house is visited by the daughter of Professor Knowby. The second time around, Raimi’s frightfest is lighter on it’s feet and more technically proficient than it’s predecessor, with it’s monsters tearing through flesh in many Gran Guignol fashions.

How could you knock HARDWARE?

Sorry about number 30...

30. JOY RIDE
Written by JJ Abrams and Clay Tarver
Directed by John Dahl
USA
Usually Paul Walker is some sort of poison, a wood-thick screen presence with a complete lack of awareness and only a modicum of intelligence behind two otherwise lovely blue eyes. However, he’s perfectly alright in this John Dahl road thriller in which he and his brother (Steve Zahn, quite excellent) purchase a CB radio in the middle of a cross-country trip and begin to harass truckers with a series of pranks. When one prank gets out of hand and results in the death of an innocent bystander, the brothers find that the culprit, Rusty Nail, is on their tail and looking for revenge. JOY RIDE is packed with surprises and great scares, and is stirringly well shot by a game Dahl, who knows how to up the ante when the suspense reaches maximum height.


And I've been meaning to post number one, but time caught up with me, and I haven't been able to write the last one. Maybe someone can guess it. A clue is that it's not a FRIDAY THE 13TH film.

Although I am fairly fond of the FRIDAY series, viewing it as a BEOWULF parable (I once wrote a ten page paper on it).