Fabrizio del Wrongo writes:
David Edelstein and Bilge Ebiri discuss their fave horror films since 1980 here.
It’s a pretty good list. But since such lists seem intended to inspire competing lists, I’ve included my own below.
1. Audition (Miike, 1999)
2. Lake Mungo (Anderson, 2008)
3. Irreversible (Noe, 2002)
4. Candyman (Rose, 1992)
5. Lady in White (LaLoggia, 1988)
6. Cemetery Man (Soavi, 1994)
7. Braindead (Jackson, 1992)
8. Hellraiser (Barker, 1987)
9. Tenebre (Argento, 1982)
11. The Stepfather (Ruben, 1987)
12. The Others (Amenabar, 2001)
13. Sister My Sister (Meckler, 1994)
14. Cronos (del Toro, 1993)
15. Re-Animator (Gordon, 1985)
16. The Fly (Cronenberg, 1987)
17. Near Dark (Bigelow, 1987)
18. Paperhouse (Rose, 1988)
19. Stagefright (Soavi, 1987)
20. Nightmare at 20,000 Feet (Miller, 1983)
21. The Descent (Marshall, 2005)
22. Wolf Creek (Mclean, 2005)
23. Pin . . . (Stern, 1988)
24. Sleepaway Camp (Hiltzik, 1983)
25. The Orphanage (Bayona, 2007)
Movies I might have included if I didn’t consider them to be either thrillers or fantasies: “Blue Velvet,” “Mulholland Dr.,” “demonlover,” “OldBoy,” “Red Eye,” “Donnie Darko,” “What Lies Beneath,” “Body Double,” “Blow Out,” “Dressed to Kill,” “The Hitcher,” “Anguish,” “Tremors,” “Raising Cain,” “Nothing Underneath.”
This raises (but does not beg) an interesting question: What makes a film a horror?
What do you think? And what are your favorite horror movies of the last 33 years?
Blowhard, Esq.
Callowman
Sherbrooke
Eddie Pensier
Enzo Nakamura
Epaminondas
Fabrizio del Wrongo
Fenster
Brundle Guy
Glynn Marshes
Paleo Retiree
Atypical Neurotic
Question Lady
Sax von Stroheim
Sir Barken Hyena
The Mistaken
Uncouth Reflections 
A personal favorite that has yet to be mentioned: the Canadian radio-drama-turned-feature Pontypool, which is both a zombie movie and an exploration of Canda’s language politics. It’s also really scary, and gets it’s scares in a very Val Lewton-y, lo-fi manner.
LikeLike
Thanks. Will check it out.
LikeLike
Fun list. For someone who’s not much of a horror fan, I’ve even seen a decent number of these. Huge fan of a lot of them too, and great to see “Lady in White” get some love. The “what’s horror and what’s not?” is an intriguing question, isn’t it? It used to be simple: the evil in horror had to involve the supernatural. Otherwise you had a thriller. But the line between thrillers and horror pix has gotten mighty smudged in recent years.
LikeLike
Not many movies filmed in that part of upstate NY …
LikeLike
No foolin’. I can only think of one or two others. Too bad — there’s a lot of potential there: color, legends, beauty, character …
I once had a long phone conversation with Frank LaLoggia, the writer/director of “Lady In White.” We discovered that we grew up about five miles from each other and may even have competed in junior high soccer.
LikeLike
What’s your rationale for considering “Irreversible” a horror pic, btw? God knows it’s nothing if not horrifying …
LikeLike
I don’t know, really. I thought it was odd when I sorted my list and saw it turn up under “horror.” Then I thought about it and I couldn’t come up with a better genre for it. I think I ended up classifying it as horror because, as you say, it’s horrifying. It’s like a fever dream of a rotten Europe.
I think you’re right that, traditionally, horror has to have a supernatural component. Though isn’t it interesting that so many early movie horrors resolve themselves with the “it was all a hoax” cliche? I guess thats’ the legacy of “The Cat and the Canary.”
For me, horrors are horrifying, spooky, or deepy unsettling. Either that or they employ traditional horror tropes, including the presence of the supernatural. I think the thriller is often more related to comedy.
I love “Lady in White” as well. What a memorable little movie.
LikeLike
Wes Craven’s New Nightmare. Came out in ’94, well after the franchise had been run into the ground, so most people never saw it. But this time Craven is back to write and direct. The tension comes from the horror/fantasy world invading our own: the cast and crew of the Nightmare movies play themselves, and they’re targeted by Freddie Krueger, who was awoken for real during the creation of the original movies. Now the real-life folks involved in making those movies must find a way to seal the breach between the real and the fantastic.
It’s more clever and sophisticated than it sounds. And it’s a bit more toward the psychological thriller side, as Heather Langenkamp slides in and out of reality.
Craven would develop this self-referential take on the “horror movie as mass phenomenon” with Scream, but there the evil is entirely mundane. Here it’s still supernatural, and in the vein of Candyman, Bloody Mary, and other urban legends where even speaking some evil spirit’s name draws them closer into our world.
LikeLike
Thanks for the tip. I don’t think I ever saw “New Nightmare.”
LikeLike
There was a re-make of Night of the Living Dead in 1990, from the team that did the original. Tom Savini’s visual effects have matured and give the zombies a life-like look. The cinematography is in color and not Expressionist. The actors also do a better job at portraying panic and the attempt to stay cool and work together. Probably because actors in the late ’60s had only experienced the first glimpses of the rise in violent crime, serial killers, Satanic cults, and so on. The actors of the late ’80s and early ’90s didn’t need much Method training to get into the role.
It’s the beginning of the shift toward realism and away from stylization in horror movies, and it gives it an immediacy that the more fantastic look-and-feel of the original one did not.
It didn’t hit me as hard as the original one did, but then my first contact with the original was checking it out every week from the library in kindergarten. It definitely overcame the campiness of Day of the Dead from ’85. Nothing’s played for yuks, and the panic feels real.
And it’s still better than 99% of the horror movies of the past 20 years, where everyone shows either flat affect or over-the-top kabuki shrieking. Both are way too extreme to be believable in context, and it deflates the movie of that edge-of-your-seat tension.
LikeLike
Dead Ringers.
LikeLike
That’s a memorable one, no doubt. Are you a big Cronenberg fan? He’s a real talent. I’ve always had trouble with him, though. I love “The Fly,” however, probably because it’s so funny (it’s like a disgusting romantic comedy), as well as “The Dead Zone.”
LikeLike
No love for “The Shining”? I’d put that at the top of my list. I’ve seen it dozens of times and it’s still creepy.
I used to love to browse the horror section at the video store when I was a kid. The shelves were stuffed with slasher films. The VHS covers were almost always better than the actual movies, though.
LikeLike
Oh, the Edelstein/Ebiri piece is meant to look at the post-“Shining” period. I changed it to post-1980 so people would be more aware of the years involved.
I kind of enjoy “The Shining.” It’s a one-of-a-kind thing, that’s for sure. But it’s not really my cup of tea in a number of ways.
LikeLike
I just read the novel which is close to the film but also very different. (How’s THAT for a laser-sharp observation?!) I’ve been meaning to do a compare/contrast post for the blog. I’ve only seen the movie once, need to watch it again.
LikeLike
I read the novel in my teens. I remember the scariest bit being the one with the topiary animals — which of course isn’t in the movie.
That new doc about the Kubrick film is pretty amusing.
LikeLike
I’m a complete wuss, because, with rare exceptions, I never watch horror. When I was six or seven, I saw an episode of “Science Fiction Theatre” on t.v. that involved the villain arranging everything metal in someone’s home (including the doorknobs) so it would deliver an electric shock, a shock that killed. I didn’t touch a doorknob for a month, and my mother would back me up on that. Of course, I saw “Blue Velvet” (that’s horror, to me) and I confess that I wish it had never gotten into my head. It has given me pure misery.
I was fine, though, with “King Kong,” the first movie I ever saw (at 3 or 4!), and with Whale’s “Frankenstein.” But to me, those are tragedies, with the catharsis that I need.
LikeLike
Not even silent horror?!
LikeLike
Oh yes, silent horror! Of course! I suppose their stylization makes the subject matter easier for me to absorb and cope with, in my wuss-like little way.
LikeLike
Pingback: “The Shining”: Stephen King v. Stanley Kubrick v. Conspiracy Theorists | Uncouth Reflections
Mothman Prophecies, Chasing Sleep, the Others, Cure(Japan), Session 9.
LikeLike
I haven’t seen a couple of those. Thanks for the tip.
LikeLike