Hello everyone, firstly apologies for it being so long since my last blog I have been incredibly busy. Secondly thank you to everyone who made the free promotion on my books such a success last month.
This week I wanted to share with you my top ten favourite horror movies of all time, and the reasons I am so fond of them. So let's start at number ten and work our way down to the top spot.
10. PROFONDO ROSSO
(1975) director: Dario Argento
This film by Italian horror maestro, Argento, is possibly the greatest example of the giallo sub genre. These were pretty much exclusive to Italy, they took the form of extremely violent 'whodunits'. The killer was always dressed in the same way, long dark coat, gloves, hat, and the reason for their crimes was usually founded in some long passed secret. They would form the inspiration for the 90's teen slasher revival like Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer.
This film, known also as Deep Red, contained all of the classics elements of the giallo, but tied together with Argento's artistic sensibility. The music, the cinematography and everything about this film is beautiful and elegant, and extremely brutal.
9. PAN'S LABYRINTH
(2006) director: Guillermo Del Toro
Set in fascist Spain in 1944 this dark fantasy centres on a young girl who goes to live with her new stepfather, a vicious captain in Franco's army. Her pregnant mother is too ill to spend much time with her and the girl finds a fantasy world within the grounds, presided over by a faun, who tells her that she is a princess of his kingdom, and in order to return there she has to complete a series of tasks.
The real beauty of this film is that no matter how sinister and grotesque the fantasy world, and its inhabitants are, the real horror exists in the real world of fascist Spain, and the evil of the stepfather.
8. INSIDIOUS
(2010) director: James Wan
The most recent film in this list Insidious is a film that starts out as a haunted house film, then becomes an exorcism movie, and finally a film about astral projection. There are those who thought that this movie was average at best, but I really enjoyed it. Director James Wan’s love of theatricality sits very well to create a film that is incredibly creepy. The cast are all very likable, and it has hands down the best jump scare of recent years.
7. HALLOWEEN
(1978) director: John Carpenter
The first of three Carpenter films in this list, and the grandaddy of the slasher movie. Though debate has raged long and hard that Psycho was the first slasher movie, and Last House on The Left and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre both predated Halloween, but it was Carpenter film that set out many of the conventions and rules of the sub genre.
Shot on a modest budget, Halloween is stylistically marvelous. The opening steadycam shot has gone down in cinema history. Though the film may seem tame in comparison to the slew of imitators that came after, Halloween has aged far better. Partly down to Carpenters direction and partly due to its narrative simplicity. The story is so straightforward that it is almost mythic.
6.THE FOG
(1980) director: John Carpenter
This film is the story of a coastal town, celebrating its 100th birthday, that is engulfed in a sinister fog containing the vengeful spirits of a ship load of lepers, betrayed by the towns people a hundred years earlier.
When I was teaching film studies I used tell my students that if they wanted to learn how to make a horror movie, all they had to do was watch The Fog as it is as near to perfect as you can get. It is like a masterclass in tension and suspense. The jump scares in the film are executed with the kind of precision that only a master like Carpenter could achieve.
5. POLTERGEIST
(1982) director: Tobe Hooper
Written and produced by Steven Spielberg, this film was directed by Tobe Hooper, as Spielberg was to busy with another 1982 film about a certain little brown alien. Hooper was at the time most famous for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the TV adaptation of Stephen King’s vampire tale ‘Salem’s Lot.
The film tells the story of a family who begin to experience supernatural happenings within their home. What starts out as fun and exciting soon becomes terrifying as the youngest daughter is kidnapped into the spirit world. The family seek the help of professional ghost hunters and the best movie psychic ever.
Though the film now feels a little dated, it is very much of its time, it still has a huge charm, a film that manages to be sweet, funny and frightening. The true genius of the film is putting the supernatural into the most mundane surroundings. An ordinary 80’s home and family.
4. THE THING
(1982) director: John Carpenter
A loose remake of The Thing From Outerspace, this film is about a group at a scientific research station in Antarctica who find themselves attacked by a shape shifting alien life form.
This is my favourite Carpenter film. Firstly the special effects are amazing. Practical effects that still stand up today, creating some of the most horrific body horror ever seen. Also though the atmosphere of the film is brilliant. There is a real sense of claustrophobia and paranoia that permeate the whole film.
3. ALIEN
(1979) director: Ridley Scott
The original script of this film was titled Star Beast, and could have just become yet another bad space set monster movie, if it wasn’t for the hiring of Ridley Scott to direct. Scott wanted to bring a realism to the world of the humans in the film. Not unlike Star Wars (two years earlier) this film showed a used world. Space ships were not all clean and gleaming, they were dirty, lived in and beaten up.
The next stroke of genius was bringing in H.R. Geiger to design the alien creature. Taking inspiration from the Nazi’s, insects, machines and human reproduction, Geiger created a bio-mechanical, psycho-sexual nightmare. A monster like nothing that had been seen before.
2. THE EXORCIST
(1973) director: William Friedkin
The classic story of a young girl possessed by the devil is really the ultimate tale of good versus evil. This film is so exceptionally well made that even despite it’s 70’s fashions it still stands up today. The film has a slow burn feel, it takes a long time for the possession to be in full force, and we as the audience get to see all of the subtle changes the girl goes through as the devil takes hold. The film has some of the most frightening make up ever seen, and sound design that really heightens the terror.
Though not as fast paced, or in your face as most modern horror movies, The Exorcist is much scarier, a film that slowly creeps into your mind so you don’t realise until too late just how scared you are.
1. A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET
(1984) director: Wes Craven
In the number one spot is the film that introduced the world to Freddy Krueger. Craven had already made some great horror movies, Last House on The Left and The Hills Have Eyes to name but two, yet he had trouble getting this film made. He had taken the script all over Hollywood before New Line took it on.
The film tells the story of a group of teenagers being stalked and killed in their dreams by a burnt maniac with razor fingers. The dream demon was the spirit of a serial killer who had been murdered by a group of vigilante parents after getting off on a technicality.
Craven’s story is perfect, blurring the lines between dreams and reality until they are virtually indistinguishable. Robert Englund as Freddy Krueger created a character who was truly terrifying, a gleefully sadistic monster.
So there you have it. My top ten horror films of all time.
