Psycho (1960) is probably the greatest horror movie but it is psychological horror, for a monster movie I would go for the original Frankenstein (1931).

I am sure any number of you would classify the original Alien (1979) as science fiction, but it scared the crap out of me so I think that qualifies it as a horror movie and it gets my vote.

H

I agree that it depends on what is classified as "Horror" - out of all those films, I would also pick Psycho as the best - technically and emotionally - of these films. But I don't know if I ever think of Psycho or even the outstanding Cabinet of Dr. Calligari as typical horror movies. So I put "The Bride of Frankenstein" which perhaps fits more of the mold and adds the emotional emptiness and isolation that the Monster is experiencing.

"We Belong Dead"


In desribing the creepiest horror films the other day to my daughter, I found the examples that all came up had a Satanic link to them - The Exorcist, The Omen, and Rosemary's Baby - there's something about the spectre of evil that does it. Jaws - also not a typical horror film - certainly is both an excellent film and one that has affected people viscerally over the years.

Well, I've just voted in your poll, and my pick is King Kong -- the original 1933 version, of course.

All of the original 12 picks are excellent, of course. I saw Psycho (1960) when it was new and in the theaters, and consequently didn't know anything about it... yet I guessed from the start that the Tony Perkins character was the killer. That's probably why the famous "shower stabbing" scene didn't make such a big impression on me. Also, I'm male, and it seems that over the years, the ones who confess to being scared witless from that scene are all females.

But King Kong has such a great, other-worldly feel to it, it comes across as much more "entertaining" horror than the Hitchcock classic. Kong has so much going for it, not only as a symbol of menace and doom, but it is also a love story of sorts... meaning that the monster obviously has an impossible, and ultimately fatal, crush on the leading lady. "It was Beauty killed the Beast."

There's that other thing, too. Assume for a moment that Ann Darrow -- the Fay Wray character -- were to acquiesce to being loved by Kong, exactly HOW would that work? Maybe size DOES matter, after all.

Dan N.

Very funny, Dan! ;)

My vote goes to Bride of Frankenstein. As in King Kong, the monster is actually more sympathetic than the so-called good guys. You care about the monster and don't want anything bad to happen to him. There are so many unforgettable scenes, both funny and poignant, such as the smoking scene with the blind hermit. ("Fire bad!") And finally, Elsa Lanchester was marvelous in her dual role as Mary Shelley and the Bride.

Psycho comes in a close second. It was, and is, a monumental, groundbreaking achievement in the genre. It shocked the living daylights out of me when I first saw it. On subsequent viewings, however, and this is true of all Hitchcock's thrillers, I become increasingly aware of the clever techniques the director is using to manipulate the audience. For me, this awareness dilutes the entertainment value. On the other hand, Bride of Frankenstein is a pure joy to watch, every time.

I would rate King Kong third because it's a rip-roaring adventure story combined with the timeless theme of Beauty and the Beast. The special effects are still thrilling, crude as they are by today's standards. I have to subtract points for the acting, however, especially the leading man. What a stiff! Imagine Clark Gable as Carl Denham. That would have been something <sigh>.

Midge

The greatest is obviously Nigh of the demon by Jacques Tourneur

Welcome to the board frenchman.

God that was a hard decision... Went for King Kong in the end for sheer action, hard work, and excitement, not to mention Fay Wray...

Hi everyone,

I had to vote for "other" because I think that the 1934 THE BLACK CAT, directed by Edgar G. Ulmer, and starring Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, the two kings of horror, in relatively equal roles, is the best of the best. :) The moodiness of this film, set design, soundtrack, acting, and overall story (even though it's a bit chopped up due to censorship) makes this one first and foremost my absolute fave!

After that, it's a toss up between a whole bunch of flicks. I love the 30's Universal cycle the best, and then while I still enjoy their films in the 40's they are more for the kiddies, while RKO and Val Lewton did some awesome horror flicks during that decade, more psychological in tone.

Mark

I voted for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, but Nosferatu is a very very close second for me. German Expressionism is just one of my most absolute favorite genres to watch. The Golem, Wie Er in die Welt Kam, is also a fine example of a horror movie of this same genre, though not as good as the former two, IMO. The remarkable thing about films in this vein is that they manage to be subtly frightening, macabre, and unsettling without any sound, but merely by the camera angles and set design. I love The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari just because it delves into the dark recesses of the human mind with no easy answers. The whole film is just a visual feast, IMO.

I'm with you Angel, and have voted for Caligari. The style of that genre is extraordinary. However, I agree with Homunculus, that Alien in some respects could be classified as a horror film and a very good one at that. After all, the line they used to promote Alien was: "in space, noone can hear you scream". Although Caligari would still get my vote.

I also think Psycho is very good. I've never really appreciated the "love story" behind King Kong :unsure: . (rofl @ Dan's "size matters" remark. hehehe).

I agree. That makes it all the more menacing to me.

Hi and welcome frenchman :wave1: . I've not seen the film you mentioned, but will look out for it with interest. As well as the other films Angel mentioned, which I don't believe I've seen yet.

BTW, my parents watched Psycho on the tv when I was very young. I was allowed to watch the beginning, which I thought was fairly inoccuous. Then I was sent to bed. They had the best intentions, of course, but the shrill tones of the score accompanying the shower scene were more horrific to me than what I ended up seeing when I finally watched the film. :laugh:

I picked The Birds...this totally on personal connection for the film..maybe not the scariest..I was trying to stay in the mode of this board and in the classic area..I can think of more scary films but was trying to stay in the 60's or earlier so just ended up picking my favorite film on the list. I actually spent a weekend in Bodega Bay and took pics of the school house and had my ex-wife(maybe that's why she is an ex..lol)..drive the car down the road with me on the hood video taping while we drove the road Tippi Hedren drives into Bodega Bay...lol..sad but true.

No it's not sad. I think it's brilliant! I'd love to be able to go sightseeing on many locations where older films were shot. Brilliant!

If you want to watch The Golem and you can't find it anywhere (or Nosferatu, for that matter), you could always go to the Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org/). They've got a copy of both there (and also The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari). I would advise that you use it as a last resort, though, only if you can't find it any other way, b/c watching a movie on the small Quicktime Player screen on your computer isn't always the best way to see it, but it's just fine if you can't find it any other way.

well I went with King Kong just because it was such an incredible achievement for its time. Psycho and The Exorcist are great as well as is Frankenstein.

The original Nosferatu is also very spooky and influential.

Nothing since The Exorcist has been any good (my opnion) as far as horror... all slashers and stupid stuff. The Scream series was more clever than scary yet very enjoyable.....

I voted for King Kong even though it is really more Science Fiction than horror. Otherwise, I would have voted for Phantom of the Opera (25), but you omitted some great options like Invasion of the Body Snatchers (50), the Val Lewton classics, The Invisible Man, and some others.

Welcome to the board Hazekel. :) I'm Derek and I started the group. Why not introduce yourself in the Introductions Forum and tells a little more about your fave films/stars. :)

Much as I love most of the movies already mentioned, I voted Other. For me one of the finest horror movies of all time is Jacques Tourneur's Cat People. I love this movie for many reasons, one of them being its subtlety and the "poetry" emanating from otherwise menacing and frightening moments.

Out of the listed options I chose BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, which runs only a close second as my all time favourite picture. The enduring and creative Rouben Mamoulian-Fredric March DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE is top, a film I can return to again and again. Third would be a toss up between the Karloff-Lugosi THE BLACK CAT and the awesomely creepy NOSFERATU.

But back to BRIDE. It's so overhyped (and for me, so often viewed) that it's become easy to underestimate its power and wonder. But everything clicked in this one. The magnificent, densely Gothic set dressings, built to perfection by Charles D. Hall... The impressionistic Franz Waxman score, arguably the best of the decade... The marvellous, acid-tongued script, packing in as many quotables one-liners as eighty minutes would allow... James Whale's sly direction, incorporating religious imagery to the ire of the production code... Best of all is the marvellous, eccentric cast, many of them expertly reprising parts from Whale's previous horror extravagnazas; FRANKENSTEIN, THE OLD DARK HOUSE, and THE INVISIBLE MAN. Ernest Thesiger, Elsa Lanchester, Colin Clive, and the ominously-billed "KARLOFF" are especially good.

I saw CAT PEOPLE for the first time last night, and whilst I agree on the marvellous psychological horror in a few scenes (the park, the swimming pool), this really doesn't make up for rest of the film, which is overly-talky and pretentious (a bit like the 1931 DRACULA). I still have high hopes for THE BODY SNATCHER, which I really want to see.

Doesn't horror mean horrible ??? I mean really deathly horrible ... ???
"King Kong" seems like a romantic adventure film. "The Invisible Man" is simply too funny to be horrified by it ... Great films, all of them, don't get me wrong.

But I went with other this time and voted "Island of Lost Souls". Because when that ending came, and those beastly things started cutting up Laughton with those blood-curdling screams and cries of agony ... oh, that one really horrified me ... The idea of transforming various animals into men by means of bloody surgery ... I mean, that's horrible ...

Hey, what was the name of that fifties or sixties flick where there's a severed ladies' head on the lab table but she's still alive and looking around and her arms and legs are on the wall and she can still control them ??? I barely recall it, but at the same time will never forget it ... That was horrible too ... !!!
What was that ... ???

Yoawzah ... !!!

Borrowing this from another website that deals with Horror Fiction I am going to revise it and apply to film.

So... I would say limiting the definition to what is "horrible" would not be called for or even appropriate. Not to mention that the word Horror in relation to films is associated with a genre, even if Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi refused to call their films Horror, but films of the "theater of fantastique" or Thrillers. Today Thrillers are more often associated with crime films or spy stories etc.

King Kong may not seem to be much of a horror story by today's standards but believe me when it debuted many people were terrified. Especially women. I'm not sure that audiences would have found the Invisible Man humorous as you do today. In any case these films are "classics" of the genre we call Horror. Although King Kong may be more appropriately identified as a Fantasy Film or even Science Fiction.

Kevin

Point well taken, Ktrek, and I do understand the "Horror Genre", believe me, just having a little fun with it ... Yeah, I guess "romantic adventure" is a bit slight for "King Kong". I noticed you said women were especially frightened ...
I love the dialogue from the audience in the movie ...

"I hear it's a kind of a big gorilla" ...
"Yeah?, Ain't we gotta 'nough of them in New York" ...

Yoawzah ... !!!

Hi there, precoder!! :wave1:

I'm so glad you brought up ISLAND OF LOST SOULS. I really think that one is very underrated, and one of the better non-Universal horror films from the early 30's. Charles Laughton is creepily magnificent as the mad scientist, and the film has a stark, quite dark tone throughout. Very chilling stuff. And a cameo by a barely recognizable Bela Lugosi, who gets to recite a line that the New Wave group Devo made hay on several decades later. :point:

Some of my favourite horror films have humour in them---you cited THE INVISIBLE MAN, then I'd add THE OLD DARK HOUSE, and even THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (all by James Whale, notably! He had that satirical thing going on!) I also love spoofs such as A&C MEET FRANKENSTEIN, YOU'LL FIND OUT, GHOST BREAKERS, to name a few. :)

Horror will always have a special place in my heart, as it's what brought me into classic films in the first place! :dance:

Mark

Same with me! :thumb:

Well, here I go shaking the hornet's nest again.

For me the scarest movies are ones in which I believe can really happen. I saw a movie about ten years ago that has never left me. Wow, what power!

I really can't explain why this movie scared/scares me so...but it did/does. I am way too tired to continue to type this...but I must stay awake...stay awake.................stay...awake. Beware! Beware! THE...INVASION...OF.......THE.........BODY...Sna....SNATCHERS...zzzzzz (the original version).

Sorry that we are keeping you awake bogieman! I also love Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The original is just so atmospheric and creepy. I might have to pull out my DVD copy now! :D

Kevin

Invasion of the Body Snatchers! Yes, but I am still waiting for the "director's cut." Seriously, the studios were so horrified they ordered them to add a "happy ending" in which the FBI shows up and says everything is okay!!! Eekkk. I just turn off the tape after he starts running into the car lights. That is how it was SUPPOSE to end! I also heard that they cut out some material as well. Would LOVE to see the movie as originally intended.

I don't like horror all that much, so I went with the only
horror that I can think of that I like. That is Hush...Hush
Sweet Charlotte.

Modern horror is easy to define, it's even been parodied by SCREAM and that ilk: lots of hapless victims, plenty of blood and gore, with attackers being mainly serial killers. The older horror film is tougher to pin down, because these dealed in suggestive images and words, not overt violence. PSYCHO is the best of the latter-day horror flicks--the ultimate drive-in film, I would argue--but starting with CALIGARI, and then NESFERATU, you have the template for what would come for several decades.

Obviously, the Dracula and Frankenstein movies are horror of sorts, though tame by today's standards...Browning's FREAKS is horror of a kind, too, though I've never really thought of it as such. The original BODY SNATCHERS, mutilated or not, is the ultimate '50s paranoid fantasy, and it gave way to the dark likes of THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE, which teeters closer to horror than thriller more often than you might think, although its dark comedy and political subject matter tend to obscure that.

The most subversive of horror films is Godard's remarkable WEEKEND, which few have seen but is essential viewing: a bitter, droll critique of western society filtered through the lens of a neo-Marxist(well, that's how I few Godard, anyway; he'd probably disagree). The demented tracking shot of highway carnage, to the eventual act of cannibalism, is as horrible a vision of modern civilization as has been produced in the cinema, all the more disturbing for how surreal it is, yet at the same time, oddly familiar.

Even films that aren't horror in the strictest sense mingle some in: think 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, where Hal goes bonkers and decides to take over the Jupiter mission, and proceeds to kill all the crew except for Bowman. And when you think about it, that space station is a kind of fluorescent purgatory of its own, a bland vision of the 21st century. And while we haven't gotten THAT bad yet, the lack of personality and vision we see all around us today is chilling. That Howard Johnson's didn't survive to space seems a blessing, somehow, but you knew the Hiltons would make it, and at least two of them have...;)

ED B)

In my opinion the finest horror film is William Castle's 1960 film "13 Ghosts"
I saw this film as a child in a movie theatre with 3D-glasses on a saturday
afternoon matinee it scared the popcorn out of my mouth ! My eyeballs
went big throughout the film. I slept with the lights on for a whole month!..
I made everyone and i mean everyone look under the bed and in the closets before bedtime. You see, i have fond memories ! :laugh: When i got older & realized how good William Castle was in this type of film. I was
appreciative for his efforts of scaring me :P By the way the second feature
film on that frightful saturday matinee was the vincent Price film: "The House on Haunted Hill " my second favorite to this day!... :clap:
"Happy Halloween" to all :tip:

I'm not big on horror movies (so I haven't voted in this poll), except those starring Lon Chaney (and even at that I haven't watched The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Phantom of the Opera). But one of the scariest movies I ever watched was It (1990) based on the Stephen King novel and starring Tim Curry as Pennywise. Of course that could be because I was a kid (11) and it's about a clown that eats kids. :P

The only movie that has made me really uncomfortable was a more recent film...and I almost fear to mention it here...but I nearly lost my popcorn while it played. I like to mention it because it was fairly well panned when it first came-out.

"Beloved" - the film Oprah made from the Toni Morrison novel... I had not read the novel, and saw the film when I could not get in to see another. The "ghost story" of "Beloved" involves so many subplots and resolution to these subplots that I could not look away from the gruesomeness of the living ghost of a grown, dead, infant.

The acting was of a deeper style than I was prepaired to see, as was the theme of slavery and it's true horror, and the evil consequences. I find stories of horror involving children the most uncomfortable, and my second choice in the horror genre would be "The Innocents" (1961) which I believe was based on Wilkes' "Turn of the Screw"?

Just had to share...and I too will look for Frenchman's film. Is it foreign?

-Doodles

Ya know, I have been studying this poll for such a long time, because I have had such a difficult time making a choice. There are so many horror movies I like, because that is my favorite genre, anyway. But I finally just decided to "wing it" and I voted for Psycho.

It has a great cinematic affect; a tremendous appeal; a superb following; and wonderfully scripted, acted, and of course, directed!

It's based on Henry James' novella The Turn of the Screw, and it is indeed an excellent movie. There's a thread about it kicking around here somewhere. :)

Thanks Melly! :tip:

Sorry, cant leave it at one.
My Faves:
1) ALIEN

2) THEM

Most of the really great horror movies aren't even on that list. Cat People. The Innocents. I Walked With a Zombie. Dead of Night. The Haunting. Eye of the Devil. Shadow of the Vampire. The Shining. Witchfinder General. Black Sunday. Suspiria. Herzog's Nosferatu. The Wicker Man (the original 1973 movie of course). Don't Look Now. Lisa and the Devil. Repulsion. Rosemary's Baby. The Tenant. Daughters of Darkness. Venus in Furs. Masque of the Red Death. Carnival of Souls. Kwaidan. The Seventh Victim. Peeping Tom (if Psycho is a horror movie then so is this one). The Black Cat.

I actually agree with dfordoom. "Dead of Night" would have
to be one of the great horror films of all time. "The Innocents",
"The Wicker Man" and for sheer horror "Peeping Tom".

[QUOTE=diane,Sep 16 2007, 06:31 AM] I actually agree with dfordoom. "Dead of Night" would have
to be one of the great horror films of all time. /QUOTE

If not for that God-awful golf story. I understand the need to inject a lighter tone to provide contrast and give the audience a breather, but couldn't someone have picked something better? It was mean and unfunny, and the plot's resolution went against the entire bet's premise! Nevertheless, the final sequence is one of the creepiest I have ever seen, brilliantly fusing all that had come before, with the inescapable dread of deja vu at it's most nightmarish...
For what it's worth, Bunuel once listed it as his 8th favorite film of all time.

Here is my top 10:

1. Psycho
2. Rosemary's Bay (Surprised more people haven't mentioned this one. The mundane, nebbish nature of Rosemary's neighbors make the horror even more pronounced, and darkly funny)
3. Cat People
4. Vampyr
5. Peeping Tom
5. The Innocents
6. Les Yeux sans visage
7. Night of the Living Dead
8. Faust (Murnau)
9. Don't Look Now
10. I Walked with a Zombie

and 11-20:

11. Frankenstein (Whale)
12. Suspiria
13. Curse of the Demon
14. The Wicker Man
15. Martin
16. The Haunting
17. The Shining
18. Nosferatu (Herzog)
19. Carnival of Souls
20. A Nightmare on Elm Street