Best Horror Movie Ever

[Anonymous]

Dark Water, directed by Hideo Nagata. It made me scream in a move theatre for the first time ever.

Steve.

[hix]

Bah! That was me, posting while not logged in. And now I've double posted.
<staggers away to get more beer>
Well, while I'm here, I'll toss in the Blair Witch Project for its final sequence vs Scream 2 which has the finest, more consistent Act 2 of any slasher film I've ever scene.

Now I'll lumber away into that dark hallway over there. I'll be right back.

Steve.

[hardcoremoose]

Heh...

Well, I did say I was a horror movie snob, did I not?

Iroonically, my favorite horror movie isn't particularly scary, nor especially obscure.  It's Re-animator.  Simple, beautiful, and hilarious.

- Scott

[Dav]

There's a Wu-Tang movie with hopping zombies.  I'm trying to recall the title.  I don't think it's the Five Deadly Venoms... but it's one of them.  I love that movie.

As for just plain horror... I'd have to say The Omen.  But for just "a good time with the genre", I'd go with In the Mouth of Madness or Exorcist (or Event Horizon or Dawn of the Dead or...)

Dav

[GreatWolf]

Event Horizon is one of the few movies that has scared me as an adult.

Blair Witch Project was good as an immersive experience (i.e. you are essentially put behind the eyes of the victims).

In the Mouth of Madness was just...weird.

Silence of the Lambs was good for the non-supernatural horror, especially how it suggested much more than it showed.  The intensity of the relationship between Clarice and Lecter was gripping.

And, I thought that 28 Days Later was really quite good, although I wished that they had stuck with the original ending (where Jim dies).

Seth Ben-Ezra
Great Wolf

[Ron Edwards]

Hey,

If you are talking plain scary - real horror - then I'm with Dav. The Omen is a terrifying movie.

For pure mastery albeit a certain amount of "gee look it's horror," then Dario Argento's Suspiria and Mario Bava's (terribly mistitled) Kill Baby Kill are both way, way up there.

Best,
Ron

[Walt Freitag]

I just don't get scared by motion pictures, so I look for atmosphere, deeply cool twists, and thought-provoking presentation of the supernatural. Above all: show me what it means to be damned.

Something Wicked This Way Comes is a first runner-up.

My favorite, though, is The Other, made (for TV!) in 1972 and based on a Thomas Tryon novel. (Not to be confused with the much more recent The Others.) A case study in Transgression, revealed (layer after layer...) at the pace of a New England summer.

- Walt

[Scourge108]

Evil Dead II.  No film can be better or worse than this one.

[Rich Forest]

I'm gonna side with the local horror movie snob and echo Re-Animator, which also gets the prize for inspiring the best Jeffrey Combs rip-off PC to ever put a whole new spin on playing Kult.

Rich

[C. Edwards]

Hey Dav,

I think that's Tsui Hark's Vampire Hunters that you're recalling.

-Chris

[Dav]

Is that the one with the hopping zombie (or vampire) family?  The monk puts the kanji of control on the foreheads of some spawn and makes them do a line dance to Day-O?

Because that's the one I'm talking about.  The whole movie revolves around the fact that the little kid hopper hops away, so mommy and daddy go on a killing rampage to find him.  Kind of a cute take on "Legendary Journey" with killing and hopping zombies.

Dav

And, if we are talking about two different movies, then I need to see yours.

[C. Edwards]

Two different movies. Who woulda thought?

There are crazy Chinese vampires and hopping zombies (well, they're dead hopping people at any rate) in Tsui Hark's Vampire Hunters.

-Chris

[Dav]

I'm gonna watch all up in that bitch!

I go for schlock horror (especially poorly translated schlock horror).

Dav

[talysman]

the move that really gave me nightmares as a child was "the Andromeda Strain", for some reason. although it's not quite as scary now. "Trilogy of Terror", specifically the part about the murderous african fetish doll, also kept me alert a couple nights.

best creepy music is either "Incubus" (the one where Shatner screams "this is a pencil!" in esperanto while being raped by a goat) or "Carnival of Souls", or maybe "Burnt Offerings", but none of those is really very scary aside from their music.

best-looking horror movie is probably "Masque of the Red Death" with Vincent Price. proof positive that Roger Corman is not *necessarily* a bad director. the movie's scarier than "Incubus", but still not *really* scary.

"2001" is actually pretty scary in the HAL 9000 sequence, because there's *no* incidental music, no emotion in HAL's voice, and nowhere for Dave to turn in the end.

creepiest ending: "Being John Malkovich".

[Christopher Kubasik]

I have a feeling I'm about to go all over the place here, because "horror" wasn't really defined... But:

I'm gonna add another vote for The Others.  Really, really great.

And I'll make a bid for Se7en.  Not a supernatural horror movie, I know (unless you're into Christianity)... But it is horrific.  And it had the best the "bad guy wins" endings I've ever seen in a movie.  It may not be graphically horrific at the end (we've already been down that road in the second act), but the implications of the ending are astounding.

And I loved Blair Witch for much the same reason... The ending really, really worked as true horror.

But my favorite of favorites: An American Werewolf in London.  The mix of horror and comedy complimented each other like reds and deep greens.  And I saw it opening night, without any reviews beforehand, so the whole question of, "Is he really a werewolf or a guilt ridden lost soul?" was actually in play for a solid chunk of the movie.

Christopher