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It's that time of the year again (well..nearly) that ghosts and ghouls are on the rampage, so what better way to spend your Halloween (other than T.P.ing galore) than watching some classic horror flicks! So tell us what your favorite is!

 

The Wicker Man

This controversial British cult classic, considered by its producer upon completion to be one of the worst films ever made, has been little seen since its brief theatrical release even though it is now regarded as a classic of British cinema. Edward Woodward ("The Equalizer") stars as Sergeant Howie, a naive young police officer sent to Summerisle, a secluded island off the coast of Scotland, to investigate the disappearance of a young girl named Rowan. When he arrives there, he finds a very tight knit community, one mistrustful and hostile to outsiders. None of them seem willing to even acknowledge the disappearance of young Rowan. Soon, however, Howie begins to realize that the town belongs to some sort of a pagan cult, one given to unbridled sexuality and possibly human sacrifice. Seeking an audience with the oddly civilized Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee), Howie hopes to get to the bottom of the mystery, but instead finds something more shocking than he could have ever imagined.

 

A true cult classic that paints a disturbing portrait of an almost prehistoric, multi-deity worshipping society given to Bacchanalian excess and bizarre rituals, THE WICKER MAN is a truly unsettling experience. Erotic and mysterious, the film evokes the primal urges that underlay modern society through its unforgettable imagery and story. This is one that if you have never seen you gotta check out.

 

An American Werewolf in London

In this grisly black comedy, David Kessler and Jack Goodman (David Naughton and Griffin Dunne, respectively) are two American students on a backpacking tour of Europe. Wandering the backroads of gloomy East Proctor, England, they find a pub where the unhelpful locals act suspiciously strange. The unsuspecting boys flee the pub in search of lodging after being warned to avoid the moors. Lost in the dark countryside, the pair is attacked by a werewolf. Only David survives, waking up three weeks later in a London hospital. As David begins to regain his memory he is tormented by nightmares and is visited by his dead friend Jack, who warns David that he will turn into a werewolf with the next full moon--and that the only way to lift the curse is to kill himself. Because the town of East Proctor has covered up the real cause of the murder, David is forced to face the truth alone. Finally, he is discharged and taken in by his nubile nurse, Alex Price (Jenny Agutter). As Alex and David begin their steamy love affair, it is only a matter of time before the next full moon comes--when the truth will be revealed. Director John Landis has crafted an entertaining, funny horror story, featuring the terrific combination of Naughton and Dunne and a score in which every song includes the word "moon.".

 

I've loved this movie since I was a kid, and even to this day it probably has the best looking werewolf ever seen in the movies. The final face off between David and the London police has Landis once again creating some great automobile havoc (like he did in "Animal House" and "The Blues Brothers"). This is there with The Howling as one of the greatest werewolf flicks.

 

Society

In "Society" we meet young Bill Whitney, although popular with his peers as high school football hero and all round clean cut nice guy he has some seemingly worrying mental problems.Paranoid and feeling distant from his own social climbing family he struggles to remain in touch with his care free demeanor. This paranoia isn't helped one bit when he starts to not only have disturbing minor hallucinations but his world is turned upside down when one of his friends plays him a secretly recorded tape of his parents and his sister indulging in what sounds like full blown sleazefest orgy.

 

As he realises that no one will listen to him his feelings of alienation grow. Things start to get weirder by the minute as everyone around him seems to be creepily consumed by their over obsession with society life and the undercurrent of sexual perversion grows, Bill realises that he has to make a choice either dismiss his paranoia and conform to society or face his fears and fight back!

 

'Society' is without doubt one of the finest genre movies of the 1980's, and the reasons for this are double fold. Firstly, the film itself is one of the most mischievously devious and perverse films of that period. Hiding under the façade of yet another straight teen horror movie, 'Society' it lulls viewers into a false sense of security with expectations of a standard template (clean cut teens have fun, same teens get killed, killer unmasked) but straight after offering up your amiable teen lead you're perceptions are grabbed firmly and shaken until you're just as uneasy with the environment as our lead Bill Whitney. There's a sense of dread and foreboding while you wonder were the hell this devious little gem is going and when you get to the finale it's a massive suckerpunch of visual mayhem that will have any horror fan rubbing their hands in absolute glee.

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Wow...you know, ive kinda been in the mood for one of these lately, too.

Was lookin to see if anyone thought the new Chainsaw Massacre was any good, and several board members mentioned "Audition", been meanin to look into that one too...

 

But both of these sound pretty interestin from your reviews, 2T - Wicker Man sounds almost like Silent Hill, and Edward Woodward was brilliant in Breaker Morant (you ever see that one?) so im down.

 

The second one...never heard of that 'n, but sounds damn creepy. If anybody out this way has em & is down for watching, let me know. I'm gonna go hit up :D 's netflix account & see what i can find. Good thread tho man!

 

Oh, and if we ever get around to seeing Ringu 2 (japanese sequel to "The Ring"), ill post about it here too.

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  • 2 weeks later...

this should be a thread for horror movie recommendations.

 

i'll throw one of my favs in....

Event Horizon. There's just something about this movie that gets under my skin and combines jumpy scary, gross scary, and science fiction cool plot all in one. The sound also was done very well just enough to get anyone jumpy.

 

***SPOILERS****

i forgot all their names, but sam neil's scenes with his wife are all terrifying. The boy who flew from the airlock scene was disgusting, the doctor who got gutted, and also the tape from the previous crew was all almost unbearable. the banging on the door and the blood liquid was a little on the silly side though.

 

****SPOILERS END*****

 

The Shining

 

We're talking abou the classic jack nicholson one. terribly freaky and a spiral to insanity, this one is nothing but classic. There's no stuff that just jumps scares you, but there's a lot of just plain crazy and then some.

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Not quite, it's "inspired" by a guy named Ed Gein, he's also the basis for a lot of the stuff in Silence of the Lambs and Psycho. Texas chainsaw massacre isn't too close to what actually happened at all except for use of human body parts. Actually, the original director swears he never heard of the guy, and when he did hear about Ed Gein, he was sickened that he thought about that shit all by himself. I don't know how true that is.

 

I'd check out the new one, the trailer looks cool, and if you read Ebert's negative review, it's like an advertisement for the fuckin thing, makes me really want to see it. The original is really fucked up. I reccomend it for something pretty disturbing. Real cheap tho, it goes for that "documentary" look.

 

As far as other stuff, I'm a fan of the first Halloween. The way you just see Meyers in the background and in the shadows is pretty freaky, and it stays with ya when you're at home at night and the lights are off. I also love the way he kills this one guy and just kind of tilts his head to admire his handiwork. Good stuff.

 

And I agree wholeheartedly with WIckerman and American Werewolf in london, cool calls 2T, I'll check out that other one for sure.

 

Oh, and for some of the true ed gain stuff here's a pretty good arcticle.

http://www.crimelibrary.com/gein/geinmain.htm

 

Might have killed less people than ya think, but boy, he was one sick puppy.

Edited by JunkerSeed
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But boy did he love his mother...

 

I actually rented out "Ed Gein" a while back for the chuckle-value. Not a great movie, but worth it just to see how fun it is to dress up in a "woman-suit" and bang a drum made of flesh (something that everyone has to try at least once).

 

Back to the horror recomendations, working in a video store ya get allotta people asking for 'em, and my latest "What's a good horror movie" answer is "Dog Soldiers". Ya should be able to pick it up at any Blockbuster (still a new release although it's old enough). The jist is a bunch of soldiers out on a training mission get in a brawl with a bunch of werewolves. It's a British movie and it's tongue is placed firmly in it's cheek. Well worth a rent. It's definitly one of the best horror flicks in recent memory.

 

I don't really wanna say too much, but it's basically a seige movie, think "Night of the Living Dead" with werewolves. And with a character called Corporal Bruce Campbell, ya can't go wrong!

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Hell yeah, i just saw Alien on the big screen, and man, I forgot how much of a fuckin difference it makes. I know lots of people are like "bah, I have a big screen" or "it doesn't make that much of a difference", but you go and see this on the big screen with a bit of an audience, and tell me if you've ever enjoyed the movie nearly as much. Fuckin awesome, definately reccomend shellin out the 7 bucks. Oh, and as for the AvP teaser.... badasss. I'm still skeptical cause the resident evil guy si doin it (not sayin resident evil was bad, but it certainly wasn't amazing... and AvP is an idea that could be amazing), but the teaser really made it look cool.

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  • 2 years later...

i admit, i too was scared shitless of Blair Witch on opening night, that was cool. Good list, man - few i always heard about but never saw, like Serpent & The Rainbow, People under the stairs, and this Mickey Rourke one, something heart? anyway, lemme know if theyre at all scary, too.

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I agree with FireDownBelow, The Shining deserves to be up there. Not often that a movie is better than the book it's based upon. And then there's my all-time favorite horror flick, Videodrome.

 

Still, nice list MM, only entries I disagree with are Pet Semetary and Poltergeist...blech.

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yeah, The Thing is definitely up there. it used to scare the crap out of me (especially the scene where they have to give the one guy the paddles :2T: ). my parents used to rent it during christmas time when my brother and i were in elementary school. aside from a christmas story, i still have yet to see a christmas movie during that season.

 

anyway, some others:

-the omen...you can never go wrong with gregory peck vs. devil spawn.

-i agree with creepshow and i'm also adding creepshow 2. from part 2, the swimmers getting eaten by that giant sludge thing used to scare me and i think also from part two, the animated interludes with the little kid leading all the other kids into a giant patch of venus fly traps where they get eaten (and rightfully so) freaked me out too.

-house on haunted hill scared the crap out of me because it was set in an asylem for the criminally insane and they had what i like to call "shakey people." i still won't fucking watch that movie because of that. i still hate that camera effect because of that movie

-lost boys...80s vampires. 'nuff said.

-any of the nightmare of elm street movies

-although it was more fun than horror, i really love tales from the crypt's demon night

- i don't know if anyone saw it but my friend and i used to rent Hello mary lou, prom night 2 a lot. i would love to see it again now that im older but i can't find it in the video store anymore.

- ju-on: the curse fucked me up pretty badly. i bow to japanese horror. :pimp:

- there were a few moments in The Eye" that scared the shit out me more than most horror films did as a whole

- i really liked the dawn of the dead remake. i like how they didn't mess around. you don't have to wait long for shit to hit the fan.

- hostel was good

- killer clowns from outer space!!! come on!!

- the puppet master movies were great

- and last but definitely scared-the-crap-out-of-me-the-most were the hellraiser movies.

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The best horror movie of all tim for me is Dogsoldiers. It's a great werewolf movie.

 

What happens is a group of british soldiers end up in the woods on a training exceruss. They get attack by a group of werewolves. The soldiers end up in an old farmhouse for last ditch showdown. Awsome action. Awsome blood and guts. Check it out.

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The best horror movie of all tim for me is Dogsoldiers. It's a great werewolf movie.

 

What happens is a group of british soldiers end up in the woods on a training exceruss. They get attack by a group of werewolves. The soldiers end up in an old farmhouse for last ditch showdown. Awsome action. Awsome blood and guts. Check it out.

That was gonna be my post, Dog Soldiers kicks ass (and The Descent too but slightly less so), it's definitely one that needs to be checked out.

 

"We are now up against live, hostile targets. So, if Little Red Riding Hood should show up with a bazooka and a bad attitude, I expect you to chin the bitch!"

 

dogsoldiers.jpg

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