It’s always difficult to put together lists of the best horror films. Truth be told,
there’s a finite amount of really excellent horror movies, and the same films
tend to make everybody’s list–so much so that writers will intentionally omit
obvious classics in favor of lesser, more obscure films.Films from the 1920s and 30s are taken for granted, so Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein, Dracula, and certain silent greats like Nosferatu, The Phantom of the Opera, and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari are already assumed to have been seen, so historians might fill out a top ten exclusively with Val Lewton productions of the 1940s (particularly, but not limited to, those directed by Jacques Tourneur): I Walked With a Zombie, Cat People, The Body Snatcher, and Isle of the Dead.
It’s been said that modern music magazines almost never reference anybody
before The Beatles except for maybe Elvis, and modern film clickbait would have
you believe that horror films didn’t really get scary until the 1960s and hit
their peak in the 80s. Which is why Peeping Tom (1959) is
routinely left off these lists in favor of the film it inspired Alfred
Hitchcock to make a year later. It all but goes without saying that no dirty
dozen list of modern horror films is complete without the oft-cited Psycho, Rosemary’s
Baby, Night of the Living Dead, The Exorcist, The
Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Omen, Suspiria, Halloween, Alien, The
Shining, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and The Silence of
the Lambs. And so it is likely that anyone who would seek out a list like this has already seen these movies.
Then there was the boom of horror films in the 90s by filmmakers who grew up
watching a new slasher film almost every week in the 80s. Some of their
films followed the Friday the 13th formula as an
ironic, post-modern cliché (as best utilized in Scream), and like
their predecessors were built around gory prosthetics instead of actual scares.
The obvious hilarity of witnessing multiple, creative, teen homicides at the
hands (and hooks) of deformed maniacs in the 80s bred the comedy-horror hybrid,
which yielded some real gems (like Fright Night, Return of
the Living Dead, Evil Dead 2, Re-animator, and Night
of the Creeps). But the lack of genuine scares makes it hard for the purist
in me to really consider them true horror movies.
While the genre had clearly been revitalized, the formula that gave us cerebral
procedural thrillers like Se7en and Saw had
turned to the “torture porn” extremism of Hostel and Martyrs by
the mid-to-late-oughts. The success of The Blair Witch Project (which
functioned so much better as a clandestine videotape traded by bootleggers
prior to its theatrical release) would eventually launch the “found footage”
horrors of Paranormal Activity, which became a veritable cottage
industry. As a subgenre, the ghost hunting POV films have had a better track
record than most in terms of delivering real scares, with the Spanish
film [Rec] being a particular and spectacular highlight, but
none would have the success of the PG-13 rated The Sixth Sense,
which had become one of the top ten all-time box-office champs by the end of
its release.So in an effort to expose people who love movies as much as I do to some overlooked gems, I’ve put together this list of horror films that I think deserve to be held in as high esteem as any of the aforementioned classics. I like atmosphere, and all of these have that in spades. Most unjaded viewers will find something frightening about my selections because they tend to have a pervasive sense of dread. I’ll also go out on a limb and say that these all feature award-worthy performances. I’m not going to rank them because each is in many ways the best film of its particular sub-genre. If you are a die-hard horror fan, you likely already have seen most (if not all) of these. This is not a list of the most disturbing films, and I’ve not given any consideration to gore. If you’re looking for that, you can refer to a different list. This is a list of titles that I consider to be well-made horror films according to the following criteria: each is well shot, well written, well acted, and either delivers a good scare or completely creeps me out. Here’s a list of thirteen films in chronological order (and one bonus selection):
BLACK SABBATH (1963) – As much as I
love the popcorn fangs of The Lost Boys and the southern-fried
blood suckers of Near Dark, those movies just aren’t scary. But the
Russian vampires of the Wurdalak episode in this Mario Bava anthology are fully, fucking frightening. How influential is this movie? Bava’s use of color
reflection inspired Dario Argento’s Suspira and Nobuhiko
Obayashi’s Hausu. Tobe Hooper’s Salem’s Lot and
Roman Polanski’s The Tenant both borrow scenes from it. Babadook features
a character actually watching it on television, and the three-story plot
structure in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction was a direct tribute
to Black Sabbath. AIP made a lot of
fun and campy, gothic horror movies, but Bava’s films are genuinely
nightmarish. Many critics prefer the director’s previous film, Black
Sunday, and that film is also stunning (due in large part to Barbara
Steele), but this film is much more likely to scare the bejesus out of you.
THE NORLISS TAPES (1973) – This made-for-TV movie from Dan Curtis, (the man
behind Dark Shadows) is basically The X Files, but twenty
years earlier. A skeptical occult investigator (Roy Thinnes, the titular David
Norliss) embarks on a case for Angie Dickinson that reveals reanimated corpses,
vampires, and demon worship. This pilot never went to series, but the set-up
allowed for each episode to explore a new subject as one of the missing
Norliss’ investigation tapes is played back, revealing clues to his ultimate
whereabouts. It may have been deemed too similar to Curtis’ earlier The
Night Stalker, but this lacked all of the goofy humor and schlocky acting
of its predecessor–resulting in one of the scariest things ever broadcast on
network television, which includes Bad Ronald, Trilogy of Terror,
and Salem’s Lot. Like those other 70s programs, this is intense.
The muted color palette predates (by 35 years) the gloomy look of the
American Ring remake, and the whole production seems high-value for the time. I have an indelible memory of the vampire/animated corpse
mixing blood into clay to sculpt a statue of the demon Sargoth, which comes to
life. It froze me in fear as a child, and having seen it a few years ago, I was
happy to see that this wasn’t a case of nostalgic recollection. Dickinson and
Thinnes are excellent, the William F. Nolan script is damned good, and the film
holds up 40 years later.
THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE (1973) – Richard Matheson’s take on the similarly
titled Shirley Jackson novel must have laid a lot of the groundwork for Stanley
Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining.
The music isn’t quite Bartok or Penderecki, but there are shrill violins and
short staccato riffs that perfectly complement the scariest mansion I’ve set
eyes upon. Roddy McDowall plays the sole survivor of a previous expedition
called back to assist Clive Revell, Gayle Hunnicutt and young psychic Pamela
Franklin. The results are (of course) disastrous, and the same creeping sense of
dread that infects Black Sabbath permeates every square inch of
Hell House. This is the haunted house movie against which all others must be
compared: the ghost gold standard, if you will. It’s the bridge between the
gothic horror of Hammer and AIP and the modern scares of the Carpenter and
Cronenberg films that were to come. It was completely overshadowed by the also
excellent Don’t Look Now, released earlier that year, probably due
to Nicholas Roeg’s virtuoso direction. Hell House director John Hough chose a
more straightforward approach to better service the mood of his film, and while
there’s no need to pick one over the other, I confess that I find The
Legend of Hell House better suited to repeat viewings.
THE FUNHOUSE (1981) – Tobe Hooper is best known as the director of The
Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and slightly lesser known for directing the Steven
Spielberg produced Poltergeist, which is a probably the best PG rated
horror film of all time. In between the two, he directed The Funhouse.
Hooper opens with a shot-for-shot tribute to his friend John Carpenter’s Halloween (complete
with Carpenteresque theme music) which is quickly revealed as a bratty
brother-on-sister prank. Though clearly presented as a high school student (and
the singular character of virtue by slasher film standards), Tobe chooses to show her completely nude in the shower, setting the tone that nothing is likely
to cater to expectation. At its core, Funhouse has a standard high-concept
premise: teens hide inside the funhouse and inadvertently witness a murder then
try to escape, but most don’t. Masterful performances by Kevin Conaway as (literally) all of the carnival barkers, and two-time Oscar nominee Sylvia Miles
as Madame Zena, the fortune teller, elevate this from the usual murder mill,
and there are enough red herrings for an Italian Gialli. It is the uneasy
innocence that Elizabeth Berridge (from Amadeus) brings to the lead role of Amy
that excels even that of Jaime Lee Curtis in the aforementioned Halloween.
She is the only actual teen in the film, and while the other actors capture the
essence of rebellious youth, she maintains an awkwardness that surely clicked
with girls her age in the audience, who likely went to the movie with the same
curious intent that drew Amy and her friends to the funhouse. And while some
are less innocent then others, you don’t really want any of these kids to come
to any harm. Even the movie’s central monster is deserving of our pity. We see
the young man in the Frankenstein mask twice mistreated before he is revealed
as severely deformed (via iconic Rick Baker creature fx). The parallels between
he and the original movie monster whose face he wears are not accidental, and
the carnival is itself a character in the film. John Beal’s score is on par
with the best of Jerry Goldsmith and suits the travelling amusement show well.
While it’s easy to recognize The Texas Chainsaw Massacre as
Tobe’s masterpiece, The Funhouse has
long been my favorite of his films. It is a dichotomous success of slick and
dirty that owes just a bit more to Edgar G. Ulmer than to Sean Cunningham. It
was the last of the director’s films to retain the sleazy, impolite underbelly
of his early independent films–albeit with a shiny, Hollywood
polish. That he managed to walk that division without falling on either
side is an achievement unto itself.
THE THING (1982) – John Carpenter’s remake of Howard Hawke’s The Thing
From Another World is not only scarier than the original, it may be an
even better allegory for the Cold War that was still in effect between the USA
and USSR in the span of time between the two films. Rob Bottin’s FX work was
groundbreaking for 1982, and it’s still terrifying. Carpenter’s minimalist,
electronic score achieves a coldness that reflects both the mood and the
Antarctic setting. Performances are strong and the premise believable–so much
so that it’s been recycled about a dozen times since then. When spider legs
sprout out of a severed head that then scuttles off screen, the characters in
the foreground react exactly as you would: with stunned disbelief followed by
frantic, defensive aggression. If you want to have a double feature of great fright flics that take place in the snow, you can follow The Thing with the somewhat cheerier 30 Days of Night.
HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER (1986) – Audiences now probably know Michael Rooker for his frequent collaborations with director James Gunn, but before Guardians
of the Galaxy and Slither, and even before his
scene-stealing performance in Mississippi Burning, Rooker was Henry Lee
Lucas in the absolute best serial killer movie ever made. The opening montage
features a succession of post-crime-scene visuals accompanied by the audio
footage of those crimes being committed earlier. These are in turn intercut
with mundane, almost innocuous scenes of the killer using his day job to gain
access to his victims’ houses. The lingering and panning camera angles that
show the results of his rampage are primal and chilling–as is the lead
performance. Rooker should have been Oscar nominated.
ANGEL HEART (1987) – Mostly remembered as the film that got Lisa Bonet fired
from The Cosby Show (for what was at the time considered a
graphic sex scene), this noir-horror hybrid from Alan Parker based on a Stoker
Award Winning novel is moody like Se7en but more abstractly
scary with the ominous presence of Vodou. The cinematography by Michael Seresin
and score by Trevor Jones and Courtney Pine (channeling Robert Johnson and Al
Bowlly) combine with Brian Morris’ production design to make the darkest
corners of 1950s New Orleans ring true. Mickey Rourke was at the top of his
game, and the support cast all overshadow Robert Deniro–which was not easy to
do back in 1987. Most importantly, the supernatural dressing in this movie
feels real. Vodou was big in ‘87 & ’88: The Believers certainly
had bigger box office, but never felt as intimate or genuine; The
Serpent and the Rainbow had authenticity, but the visceral moments of
all-out terror were cheapened by spotty performances and poor FX in the final
reel. Initial criticism has (over time) yielded to latter day praise, and now Angel Heart is widely considered to be the best Vodou movie since I Walked
With a Zombie.
WHITE OF THE EYE (1987) – Donald Cammell was an experimental, filmmaking mystic
who only got to complete four movies in a career that spanned thirty years. His
first film, Performance (shot in 1968, released in 1970), was made
in collaboration with Nicholas Roeg, and it’s a masterpiece in its own right.
The only other film on the director’s resume that replicates that standard is
1987’s White of the Eye. Cathy Moriarty gives an Oscar caliber performance as
the wife of a carpenter (David Keith) suspected in a murder investigation amid
accusations by her former lover–who might have an axe of his own to grind. Rare
for a horror film, it’s shot almost entirely in daylight with a sumptuous Mario
Testino meets David Lynch look. Rarer still, Native American animism is central
to the plot. Marlon Brando, who dropped out of a Cammell project (causing it to
languish for years unmade), took out a two-page apology ad in Variety, praising
White of the Eye as an American classic.
EXORCIST III: LEGION (1990) – It is impossible to compare any film to the
original Exorcist, including and maybe especially a sequel. But this film, both
written and directed by the original film’s author, William Peter Blatty, was
conceived independently from the previous films’ mythos. The reaction to
the Legion script was so positive that Blatty was asked to add
elements that would tie it to the franchise. Instead, he completely incorporated
both Father Karras and Det. Kinderman and made one of the scariest films of the
90s. Legion was dropped from the title, and it was released
as Exorcist III. With actor Lee J. Cobb dead, Oscar winner George
C. Scott took on the role of Kinderman, and Emmy winner Ed Flanders assumed the
priestly robes of Father Dyer. Jason Miller reprised the role he made famous. I had
the pleasure of meeting Scott on the set of 12 Angry Men and I
recited a pivotal speech from the coda of the film, which prompted him to shake
my hand with a grip that could have crippled me (as he expressed surprise that
I didn’t hit him with a line from Dr. Strangelove or Patton).
Pause here and think about how powerful a speech would have to be to inspire
you to memorize it. The imagery that accompanies it is hellacious on par with a
Bruegel painting, and that’s not even the biggest scare! Melting ice in a glass
tumbler is brought to uncharted zeniths of terror in the hands of the very
capable Blatty, who populates this film with some of the most macabre imagery
this side of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which in the context of
religion is somehow more spiritually disheartening.
JACOB’S LADDER (1990) – Adrian Lynne’s psychedelic mind-fuck of an
anti-war movie utilized some of the most ground-breaking, nightmarish imagery
in the modern, collective consciousness while establishing Tim Robbins as a
serious leading man. A soldier returns home after the Vietnam War with more
than the usual readjustment problems: he sees demons everywhere, giving him the
impression that he is either losing his mind or fighting for his soul. The key
to unraveling this mystery lies in his connections with the people around him:
his fellow vets, his girlfriend, his ex-wife and son, and his chiropractor.
Sounds fairly innocuous, right? It’s anything but. Like Angel Heart, this is a modern, period film from an award-winning
director, featuring Oscar caliber performances from the entire cast and shot as
perfectly as a coffee table book. Jacob’s
Ladder is the more metaphysical of the two, and is in many ways the polar
opposite. This is yang to Angel Heart’s
yin. It is a terrifying journey that also manages to be uplifting, which is
incredibly rare in a horror film. This film made the year’s best lists of
almost every critic, but earned not a single nomination among the major
competitive awards. That just goes to show what an amazing year 1990 was for horror
films. This is everything that Tarsem Singh wished The Cell was: a masterpiece of substance, style and technique that
remained coherent, consistent and gripping. In the case of Jacob’s Ladder, casting (and Bruce Joel Rubin’s incredible
script) made the difference. 
MISERY (1990) – I didn’t know when I started compiling this list that Rob
Reiner’s adaptation of Stephen King’s novel would be on it. And then I realized
that not only is Misery the ultimate
writer/stalker movie, it is exponentially more frightening in the age of
anonymous, internet fandom. It easily excels on the criteria that I’ve laid
out. It’s a classic high-concept pitch: writer who gets in accident is saved by
his biggest fan, but nobody knows he’s alive and she imprisons and tries to
kill him. Kathy Bates won an Oscar for her portrayal of deranged fan, Annie
Wilkes, and James Caan staged a late-career comeback on the back of his
performance as author Paul Sheldon. The script adapted by screenwriting legend
William Goldman boils the novel down to its essence, and nobody who’s seen this
film can hear the word “hobbling” without wincing. Most of this film takes
place in a single bedroom, but Reiner keeps the tension as high as if it were
shot in a car teetering off the side of a mountain. It’s not often that one can
describe a viewing experience as both stressful and rewarding. And in the
cannon of Stephen King adaptations, this is right up there with Shawshank
Redemption, and miles above almost everything else (though I have a soft
spot for Cujo, which really does take place almost entirely in a
car). I love The Shining, but it is among the least faithful King
adaptations.
THE DESCENT (2005) – A spelunking adventure goes horribly awry in one of the
very few post-feminist horror films. In the most basic sense, director Neil
Marshall has laid out the Archetypes of the Hero’s Journey and steered them
through elements of Jeepers Creepers, The Hills Have Eyes, Texas
Chainsaw Massacre, and Picnic At Hanging Rock without
resorting to clichés. The essentially all-female-cast is not a sample set of
stereotypes nor are they mere stand-ins for male scripted characters. The story
is informed and enriched by multi-faceted performances that never ring false.
The scope shifts from epic to claustrophobic but leaves room for
interpretation. This film died at the box office but gained such a following on
home media that a (lackluster) sequel was produced. Stick with the original.
It’s fresh and it’s hardcore.
KILL LIST (2011) – This gem of an independent UK thriller completely changes genre half-way through the film. It starts out like a British Goodfellas, and then becomes Race With the Devil with a little bit of The Krays, Hostel and Wicker Man thrown in. The working class setting is immediately reminiscent of Alan Clarke or Ken Loach, and the actors seem like gifted unprofessionals to the point that you forget you’re watching a movie. Ben Wheatley directed the excellent and allegorical A Field In England, and Kill List is somehow less tethered to the norm. While a mash-up of gangster vérité and horror, it suffers no dilution on either side and delivers quite a wallop when motives are finally revealed.
*PVC-1 (2007) – Speaking of Cinema Vérité, PVC-1
is not a horror film, per sé (the same way that Jaws is not a
horror film). It’s a thriller, but probably more easily classified as an 85-minute
act of terrorism. Here’s the premise: During a home invasion, instead of
killing the residents, the invaders strap a plastic pipe bomb to a woman’s head
as a form of ransom. Did I mention that the entire film was shot in real time
in a single take? When I screened this film as part of my Disturbing Movie
Night series, this more than any other film caused panic. That series
included Cannibal Holocaust, In My Skin, Irreversible, Martyrs, Men
Behind the Sun, Mermaid in a Manhole, A Serbian Film, Singapore
Sling, and many other very unpleasant films. The level of tension is high
as you watch this poor woman seeking help, wondering if the bomb is going to go
off or not. Not recommended for anyone suffering from any form of PTSD. Every
louder-than-normal noise will cause you to flinch–and there are lots of them. I’ve heard films described as emotional rollercoasters, but this is
like an emotional DMT trip.
