Holy crap, the Top 30. How is it all almost over? SHOCKtober, I'm mourning you already.
Each of the following films received six votes:
30. Friday the 13th -- 1980, Sean S. Cunningham
29. 28 Days Later -- 2002, Danny Boyle
28. Martyrs -- 2008, Pascal Laugier
The following films received eight votes each:
27. Insidious -- 2010, James Wan
26. Night of the Living Dead -- 1968, George Romero
25. Suspiria -- 1977, Dario Argento
24. The Thing -- 1982, John Carpenter
23. The Omen -- 1976, Richard Donner
These received nine votes each:
22. Candyman -- 1992, Bernard Rose
21. Black Christmas -- 1974, Bob Clark
Oh look, what's the one lonely movie up there without a corresponding link, meaning I've never reviewed it, nor have I written anything much in depth about it? Martyrs. Damn you, Martyrs! I've been saying I'm going to write something about it for years now. Maybe it's just too much of a thing, I don't know. There's too much to say about it. I don't know! But it's one of my favorite horror movies. Sigh.
As I've said before, it's interesting to see how this list compares to SHOCKtober 2010, how "what's scared you" compares to your "favorites". Here we've got Suspiria at #25...it was #8 in 2010. And The Thing, #24 on your scaries list, came in second on your faves list. See? Interesting. It doesn't always take many actual frights to make a horror movie a favorite. THAT IS SO PROFOUND.
Oh, and speaking of Suspiria...it was a Film Club choice way back when and you should check out the post because Jessica fucking Harper left a comment on it and that is a very awesome thing.
Oh, and speaking of Suspiria...it was a Film Club choice way back when and you should check out the post because Jessica fucking Harper left a comment on it and that is a very awesome thing.
6 comments:
That was a moment of the purest geek delight when Ms. Harper chimed in. And although I'd love to hear your thoughts on Martyrs, I love even more the fact that YOU love it so and refuse to review it.
1. That's two movies on the list of Bob "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things" Clark.
2. To me, "The Thing" is much more about the dark humor than the sheer horror, though it does make me NEVER want to perform CPR on someone.
3. Night of the Living Dead is just a boring movie, and it's too talky, and what's up with the black-and-white, and Harry Cooper was RIGHT and should have been the hero, and what's up with the running zombie in the beginning because Romero would never do that in one of HIS movies and what shlump directed that movie anyway.
Martyrs messed me up.
This grouping has 3 of my choices. Martyrs, The Omen and The Thing. And the other seven are all awesome at some level. Fun, fun, fun!
I've considered watching Martyrs, but I suspect I'd end up regretting it.
Nice to see Candyman getting some love.
Martyrs is relentlessly brutal. Like, from the very beginning to the very end, without really giving you a chance to catch your breath, ever. Plenty of folks hate it and think it's simply another "torture porn" movie full of violence towards women. I get that view, but to me it doesn't apply. I think it's so much more than that.
It's certainly not an "invite some friends over for a fun movie night" flick, though.
I think MARTYRS is a remarkable movie for many reasons. But the brutality does make it easy to dismiss as just another one of 'those' movies, if you can't handle that kind of thing.
As for the 'violence towards women' issue, I think you could argue that the worst violence in the movie is actually perpetrated BY a woman.
I can't remember if INSIDE has made this list yet, but definitely hope it does. It's a lot less heady than MARTYRS but still ladles on the extreme violence in a much more stripped-back rollercoaster of a movie.
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