Not a Chainsaw in Sight (Top Ten Horror Movies)

Member Name: marandina

Product:	Top Ten Horror Movies
Date:	11/07/06 (377 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Probably my favourite genre

Disadvantages: I could list so many more

There aren’t many top 10 categories that would call me like this one. If I’m honest (and I am….mostly), the top 10 review thingies involve a lot of work and so I avoid them because…erm…well, they’re a lot of work. Y’know, thinking of a top 10, then writing something on each one whilst trying to stay reasonably entertaining, starting out with a whole side of A4 on the first movie and then just 3 words on choice 10 as you’ve lost the will to live by the time you climax (oops, wrong opinion). Anyway, goddamit, I’m goany write about me top 10 and here they are in no order. At the risk of digressing one final time, the reason I love horror flicks is that I got into them at quite a young age. I was brought up on a diet of Hammer Horrors (you know, Christopher Lee as Dracula and all that) and always remember a movie called “The Tingler” with Vincent Price scaring the crapola out of me. It’s a real shot of adrenaline though, being scared, innit?

Sooooo……

Hellraiser would be in there like a shot. Based on the novella “The Hellbound Heart”, this movie tells the tale of the evil Uncle Frank and his girlfriend Julia. Ripped to shreds after a rather unfortunate meeting with the Cenobites (creatures who lurk around the corridors of Hell), Julia starts luring men back to a house where she ruthlessly murders them. As their blood seeps into the floorboards, Uncle Frank re-generates and eventually returns having originally paid the price for meddling with the puzzle box, which opens the gateway to Hell. Written by my favourite horror/fantasy author Clive Barker, it’s a classic movie with a great story and, unusually, a decent sequel to follow.

Francis Ford Coppola’s version of Dracula from 1992 with Gary Oldman would be a choice of mine too. What I loved about the movie is the grandiose scale of the sets and the breadth and vision of this classic Gothic tale. I’ve lost count of how many other Dracula films I’ve seen over the years and whether anyone can ever usurp Christopher Lee and those burning red eyes is another matter but this version is reasonably faithful to the original Bram Stoker book and the latent sexuality of the Victorian pot-boiler is nicely evident in some of the sexier scenes of vampirism. There have been many experiments done with the Dracula myth over the years including tales of female Dracula equivalents and bang up to date, 21st century Draculas but this one is a huge, glossy effort even if it looks rushed at the end.

The re-made “Dawn of the Dead” from 2004 rocked my boat. With fast running zombies for the first time and a breakneck pace throughout, I thought that this movie was an absolute triumph. All the elements are there where you expect them to be. Y’know, group of survivors/shopping mall/backs to the wall struggle but the tension is so well done and the closing scenes of carnage is so brilliantly done. From the opening scenes including a rather vicious young girl who turns on her parents to the grim scenes in the underground car park, this movie oozes class and stands anyone’s quality test when it comes to zombie flicks. George A Romero did more than most to establish the zombie factor within the horror genre with a succession of movies going back to the 1960's but Zack Snyder's update took the concept to a new, scarier level.

“Hellbound: Hellraiser 2” is a great movie. Clare Higgins and Ashley Laurence reprise their roles from the first movie but Kenneth Cranham is on top form as the insane Dr Channard. Needless to say, the Cenobites feature again and they, together with Pinhead, had by now become iconic. There are some great scenes including the patient in his padded cell who is continually crying out. This appears to be for no reason at all but on closer examination, the evil doctor has maggots crawling all over an open flesh wound covered up by his straight jacket. The labyrinthian vision of Hell takes this movie into unchartered territory in terms of creating a visual image of Hades and it's these dreamlike sequences that mark this film out from so many others. At times, it’s nasty, it’s evil but it’s inspired stuff in a highly superior sequel.

Roger Corman is a legend amongst directors, not least for his infamously low budget and rapidly made horror movies. Perhaps the most famous would be the immortal “Masque of the Red Death”. Based on a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, the film is about the plague and how it meets an Italian prince, Prospero. The movie expands on the original story in a big way but it’s so beautifully put together with a vision of the hooded devil something of a cliché now but this takes nothing away from a breathtaking finale and a gloriously shot, final sequence. I've seen the movie a few times and always marvel at the way in which some of the scenes were filmed (I'm a sad anorak like that). If you like this then "The Pit and the Pendulum" and "The Fall of the House of Usher" are also notable adaptations of the works of Poe.

One of the worst horror movies I’ve seen in a while is “Creep” directed by Christopher Smith. Set in the London Underground, the acting is lamentable as the female victim escapes being raped on a deserted tube train only to run into shadowy monsters roaming about a locked down Underground late at night. For the most part, I kept wondering just how bad the movie could get but when a certain scene came together later on in the movie, I kinda sat back on thought...ooh...now that’s inspired. I won’t spoil it for anyone but it may put you off childbirth for a while!

Having mentioned it earlier, I’m gonna have to include the 1959 epic “The Tingler”. It’s black and white and very dated now but it scared me as a kid which is a watershed moment in my horror flick existence. Testing out some strange theory about an evil entity that lurks in all of us (somewhere in the spine); I can just remember a scene where something shadowy escapes from a man’s spinal column in the bath. It all sounds terribly naff now but it was big deal for me when I saw it originally (long *after* 1959 I hasten to add) and Vincent Price was always the doyen of the horror movie world.

When I first saw “An American Werewolf in London” circa 1981 I kinda thought it was just a trendy updating of an old wives’ tale and sort of dismissed it. Watching it a few years after release again, it suddenly dawned on me as to what a brilliantly made movie it was. With the rather dishy Jenny Agutter looking the business and some fantastic special effects, American Werewolf brought a gore factor that hadn’t been seen before in such a classy way. The scenes of decomposing cadavers talking to the lead in the cinema are just the tops whilst the fact that they are trying to convince him to commit suicide add a real edge to the story. Who can forget the scenes on the moor where, having been given the cold shoulder in a remote pub, the two American teens are tracked down in the mist by the ethereal werewolf? One dies, one lives to become a werewolf and the story is born.

Frankenstein’s monster will always be Mary Shelley’s ultimate creation and it has seen many incarnations over the years. I’m not sure anyone ever did improve on the Boris Karloff black and white vision from 1931. Those old Universal movies had a gloss all of their own and the site of old Frankie lurching about with those bolts in his neck stands the test of time for all eternity. Incidentally, the book is well worth a read even if it’s not particularly horrific and more of an allegory for the most part.

Last but not least has to be “A Nightmare on Elm Street”. Directed by Wes Craven, the creation of Freddie Kreuger as the razor-fingered, child murderer fulfilled all the promise shown by Craven from earlier works like “The Hills Have Eyes”. Just the notion of falling asleep only to be attacked by this vicious killer in his red and black hooped jumper is such a work of genius. I remember the scene where one of the teenagers gets raised from a bed and then ripped to shreds sending a cold shiver down most people’s spines and, of course, the original 1984 movie spawned a whole franchise that got successively weaker and more watered down.

Oh well, there you have it. I could probably list so many more (original "Texas Chainsaw Massacre", "Wrong Turn", "Evil Dead") and it’s a genre I’ve loved for a very long time now. As for where the boundary between horror ends and fantasy starts would be a debate for another day. For now, just being scared is probably enough.

Thanks for the read.

Mara.

Summary: A top 10