domino harvey: I think I may have spotted another error. There are two orphan listings for both "Death Line" and "Raw Meat / Deathline". If this isn't an error on your part writing out the list, then it bumps it up to also-ran status.
My top 10:
1. Dawn of the Dead (George A. Romero, 1978)
There was never any doubt this was going to top my list: if some of the films below seem to be higher artistic achievements, this is nonetheless what I wish for everytime I go to horror films. From its ability to achieve an epic feel from the most modest of means to its knack for juggling so many different tones and genre-elements, this is a film that has so much to offer beyond the pure viscera that invigorates its fanboy constituency. Above all, there's an effortless, accidental poetry to the whole, its zombies being the ultimate embodiment of the pessimism and hopelessness that chips away at us in our daily lives. Romero doesn't pretend to alleviate it, but he gives it a full, frightening catharsis, and maybe that's all we can hope for from art.
2. Vampyr (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1932)
3. The Fall of the House of Usher (Jean Epstein, 1928)
If Romero's film is what I realistically wish for from the Horror film, these are what I'd like to wish for, but know all to well very few films can achieve.
Dawn of the Dead is a nightmare turned reality, these are the nightmare-as-nightmare, the pulsation of primal dread obfuscated behind fog and shadow. Nothing accidental here: this is poetry of the highest order, cinema at its purest state. Analysis may not be futile, but it seems unwanted: the last thing I want to do is unravel the beautiful mystery engulfing these two films.
4. Carrie (Brian de Palma, 1976)
A choice perhaps bolstered by nostalgia, but a choice not very hard to justify. De Palma's technique at its least chaotic and most emotionally potent. Anyone whose been a disaffected adolescent should be able to relate; the intrusion of the supernatural is almost the least horrific thing on display here. I'm simply surprised it didn't place higher.
5. Night of the Living Dead (George A. Romero, 1968)
I originally was going to bump this out of my top 10 because... TWO Romero films! I'm not even sure he's all that innately talented a filmmaker! But the results speak for themselves: this doesn't have the breadth of
Dawn..., but as pure, unadulterated, unrelenting terror goes, this is the benchmark by which all other films model themselves.
Psycho may have opened the door for a more raw and extreme experience in a movie theater, but this is the film that stormed it, raided the house, then razed it to the fucking ground.
6. The Unknown (Tod Browning, 1927)
Tod Browning's legacy is an unusual one: perhaps no one outside of the German Expressionists had a greater influence in creating the Horror genre. But here's the rub: Browning's films are rarely actually Horror films. Oh, there's
Dracula, but I've always felt that it was one of his least -and least characteristic- films, and both as a kid and adult, I've felt it's undone by a lousy and sloppy middle section.
Freaks? Fantastic film, but lose the last few minutes and it's a rather textbook melodrama, save for its unusual setting.
Devil-Doll? A fun film, but it's ultimately a minor entry in the genre in term of lasting impact. Even the famed
London After Midnight and its remake aren't
actually Horror. So what is it about the Browning legacy that makes his films so singular and potent to the genre? It's his unwavering fixation on the grotesque and the sadistic, his ability to look at all that is frightening and strange about life and not turn away. I don't know that this film is any more convincing as a horror - I prefer to swipe a term from Auguste Villiers and call his films Cruel Films - but there was no way I was making a list without paying the man proper homage.
7. Suspiria (Dario Argento, 1977)
One of the most successful attempts at achieving what my #2 and 3 accomplish in the "present", not through slavish imitation of technique, but forging forward down new paths. A candy-colored nightmare, it's one that exploits the voyeuristic pleasure of the genre, deigning to find great beauty in the depths of menacing shadows and the crimson glow of blood. Forget logic or narrative harmony: the film's chief pleasure comes from its self-aware glee in constructing its own macabre and twisted scenarios. The film's chief flaw is that its ending can't match its opening, but it's a forgivable one: dreams rarely end where want them to, also, and the best ones always leave us wishing we could fall back asleep and pick up where we left off.
8. I Walked With a Zombie (Jacques Tourneur, 1943)
Another of those "beautiful mysteries" that I love, Tourneur and Lewton take what could have been an absolutely traditional and archetypical horror film (Don't believe me? Go watch 1934's
Black Moon, which this film is damn near a remake of), and complicates the course of the narrative and the motivations of characters until all we're left with is unnavigable ambiguity. This will drive some viewers up the wall, but I absolutely love it. Above all, the films communicates an unspeakable sense of loss, sadness and desolation, linking it with its successor
The Seventh Victim (which is NOT a horror film!), perhaps the two most unlikeliest masterpieces to be made by a war-time studio. In a land whose very history is one of pain and death, what can be expected from the future? This isn't a film you watch so much as you wander around in.
9. Possession (Andrzej Zulawski, 1981)
Perhaps the most iconoclastic choice in my top 10, this is a movie that simply has to be experienced. Like
Suspiria, this is a film that can only work as an absolute assault on the senses, but unlike that film, this can't simply hide behind painterly beauty. This is raw, wounded stuff, with all the restraint of a Diamanda Galás record. And with its uninhibited psycho-sexual trauma, it's something a capstone to the 70s Horror experience. See it with someone you hate.
10. Black Christmas (Bob Clark, 1974)
No one is going to confuse Bob Clark with a Brian De Palma or a Dario Argento, but here he gives the two a run for their money. He may not have their operatic flamboyance, but his attention to detail in constructing and stringing together set-piece makes this perhaps the perfect slasher film. There are smarter, more startling and more potent Horror films, but for pure craftsmanship (and from the most unlikeliest of directors!) it's hard to relate how pleasurable this film is every step of the way. That ending will haunt you for life. I long for the day this and
Die Hard knock
Miracle on 34th Street and
It's a Wonderful Life out of regular rotation on television.
Orphans:
12. Docteur Jekyll et les femmes [aka 'The Bloodbath of Dr. Jekyll'] (Walerian Borowczyk, 1981)
A great director whose still neglected by a critical establishment that has a hard time accepting erotica as art, this makes him perfect for this classic tale of man's darker side taking over. In true carnival barker fashion, he tried selling this film as being based of Stevenson's infamous first manuscript, the one that so shocked his wife, he destroyed it and started anew. For his trouble, he got a lawsuit from the Stevenson estate. But that's the only exploitative touch here: for its running time, this is one of the most poetic, erotic and haunting of all horror films. You missed your chance now, but the 80s list awaits.
22. Who Can Kill a Child? (Narciso Ibàñez Serrador, 1976)
The "evil child" motif taken to its menacing conclusion. A would-be sleaz-o exploitation film, its saved by an absolute taut sense of suspense and dread. An unpleasant premise, for certain, but it never stops taking the question posed by its title seriously. Grim, unapologetic, this is the flipside to something like
Battle Royale or
Hunger Games, even if it surprisingly comes to some of the same dystopian conclusions.
24. The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (Dario Argento, 1970)
W.T.F? Bava may have invented the
giallo, but it's Argento who truly busted it wide open with this
Blow-Up influenced shocker. I don't understand why I have to defend this... it should have easily made the list.
28. Mill of the Stone Women (Giorgio Ferroni, 1960)
Am I wrong, but didn't this use to be a forum cult favorite? An Italian gothic horror that almost out-Bavas Bava, with an eye-popping palette that almost anticipates
Blood and Black Lace FOUR years later! Equal parts pulpy and poetic, this is an absolute must-see for those who think this kind of film begins and ends with Bava, Corman and Fisher.
29. Arrebato (Iván Zulueta, 1980)
While I am tickled for the high placing of
City of Pirates, I couldn't bring myself to classify it as a horror film. Which is odd, considering I had no problem with this similarly-unclassifiable experience. A fever-dream ode to celluloid and drugs (although not necesarily in that order), it's perhaps THE
film maudit of Post-Franco Spanish cinema. Drunk on experimental cinema as much as it is on Horror iconography, this is a psychedelic, fetishistic exploration of the power of cinema, powers that can be destructive as much as they can be affirmative (the flipside to the cinema-as-therapy of
Vidas en sombras?). Destined to be revived as a "lost masterpiece" somewhere down the line, be the first on your block to see it.
31. White of the Eye (Donald Cammell, 1987)
The great slasher film of the 1980s???? Okay, calling it a slasher is a stretch, and its finale is more Peckinpah than
Texas Chainsaw Massace, but Cammell always used genre as a launching point. The results are a chilling, unflinching examination of sanity, violence and, most surprising of all, love and commitment. If you believe the mythology of Cammell as a director so obsessed with death and violence he committed suicide just to watch himself die, this strikes one as his most personal film. Lord knows there aren't many to choose from.
33. A Quiet Place in the Country (Elio Petri, 1968)
Mostly known for his politically-charged dramas and satires, this is, as far as I know, his only foray into horror. Starring real-life couple Franco Nero and Vanessa Redgrave, it's a claustrophobic study of madness in the Polanski vein. Frankly, I like it more than
Repulsion. Formally ravishing, multilayered and anchored by a brilliant performance from Nero, this is the sort of art-house Horror this forum should gobble up. When Petri's varied filmography finally gets the recognition it deserves, one hopes this gem won't be lost in the shuffle. The missing link between
The Shining and
Performance.
34. The Ghost of Yotsuya (Nobuo Nakagawa, 1959)
Another puzzling omission: Nakagawa's career hardly begins and ends with
Jigoku, and this strikes me as the most impressively haunting of all his films. An oft-fimed tale, Nakagawa finds the perfect balance between the lurid and the classical, the atmospheric and the visceral. Once that Eclipse set comes out, you'll probably agree.
35. The Fifth Cord (Luigi Bazzoni, 1971)
I don't think all
gialli are ipso-facto horror -
Le Donna del Lago was the most impressive spotlight I saw for this project, but I knew immediately it didn't stand a chance making my list due to its classification. As such, I almost kept this off my list. But, alas, when in Rome... This is one of the most dazzling and paranoid of all the
gialli I've seen, powered by Vittorio Storaro's masterful cinematography, and after seeing the earlier film, I'm convinced Bazzoni may be one of the unsung auteurs of the genre. If you want to know where to go next after Argento and Bava, this is really a great next step.
36. Tower of the Seven Hunchbacks (Edgar Neville, 1944)
Already written about here. An odd mix of ghost story, mystery film and Feuilladian pulp, this is a film that turns out both charmingly effervescent and unexpectedly haunting. The joy of a raconteur spinning his tale from/into knots.
38. Horrors of Malformed Men (Teruo Ishii, 1969)
Already written about here. Another labyrinthine concoction whose pleasure comes from witnessing its gears spinning into overtime to untangle/tangle its narrative. However, this is considerably darker and more perverse than the above. An ero-guro classic that skirts close to schlock, but comes out an uniquely bewildering chinese-box of a film.
39. Rituals [aka ‘The Creeper’] (Peter Carter, 1977)
As fine as
Deliverance is, I feel John Boorman's film was bested by two of its "imitators". Walter Hill's
Southern Comfort remolded the film into a superior Vietnam War allegory. Carter's Canadian shocker instead, perhaps picking up a hint of
The Hills Have Eyes, pushes it straight into Horror territory. The man vs wild-and-a-hostile-populace have been done before and since, but rarely this good.
46. Le moine [aka 'The Monk'] (Adonis Kyrou, 1972)
Like
Johnny Got His Gun, this is a Buñuel-scripted dream-project he ultimately abandoned and gave to another director. Unlike Trumbo's film, this is clearly the work of L.B.'s cruel wit. This is Matthew Lewis's classic Gothic novel reimagined as a surrealist fever-dream of blasphemy and perversity. I can't understand it, but somehow Franco Nero made it on my list more than veritable horror icons like Karloff, Lugosi, Lee, Cushing, Price, etc. Say what you will, but he knew how to pick em.
49. Psycho II (Richard Franklin, 1983)
I'll just come out and say it: I'd choose this over its more famous predecessor any day of the week. The continued valorization of Hitchcock's film as one of his masterpieces is somewhat puzzling to me, as it never struck me as top-shelf Hitch. I ain't pretending this is some towering masterpiece, but along with
The Stepfather, it's one of the more delightful, well-made and entertaining slashers of the decade. Pretend it's non-canon if you must, but if you haven't seen this sequel yet, you're missing out.
50. The Flesh Eaters (Jack Curtis, 1964)
I knew my final choice
had to be a sleazy, trashy drive-in flick from the era before b-horror started meaning pure unpleasantness. There were a few contenders - the famed perversity of
The Brain that Wouldn't Die, the utterly demented
The Woman Eater. Ultimately, it came down to this landmark "splatter" classic. This could easily be just another worthless piece of shlock, but under the guiding hand of screenwriter
Arnold Drake, it plays like a comic book made celluloid. Mixed with its then-shocking, go-for-broke attitude, it's a classic of psychotronic horror.
