Top Ten Horror Movies

You got lucky, Blogorium readers: the Cap'n was thinking of taking the night off, what with a wedding to attend tomorrow, but a social network-related message from an old co-worker prompted your fearless leader to spend far more time than should be necessary to put together a list.

His message, in its entirety, read "top ten horror films..."

So you try that. Try to do it quickly. Maybe you can, maybe you can't. Do you go for the easy answers? The best known favorites? Do you throw in something that you love but you know others aren't as familiar with? Is that why he asked the Cap'n in the first place? Am I supposed to go unorthodox?

After mulling it over, I put in the first two without hesitation. Here's the entire list (which is technically twelve movies, so sue me):


The Haunting (1963)
The Evil Dead
Let the Right One In
Re-Animator / From Beyond
The Wicker Man (1978)
Night of the Living Dead
In the Mouth of Madness
Hellbound: Hellraiser II
Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter
From Beyond the Grave / Tales from the Crypt



Notice I left out the entirety of the Universal "Classic Horror" films, in part because as much as I love Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, The Mummy, The Invisible Man, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, and Dracula, I feel like everybody's seen them at one point or another in their life. The same cannot always be said of The Evil Dead and Night of the Living Dead, which are recognized more for having popular sequels than are seen.

I left off A Nightmare on Elm Street... well, I'm not sure why. Most of you (I'd imagine all of you reading this) have seen the first Nightmare over and over again, and maybe I just wanted to branch out a little bit. Even rabid fans of Re-Animator haven't necessarily seen From Beyond, which is as good if not better. I remain an ardent supporter of John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness, in part because it's construction replicates the experience of reading H.P. Lovecraft in a way most direct Lovecraft adaptations don't.

As sequels go, Hellbound and The Final Chapter are on par with the original film and in many ways both more successful. From Beyond the Grave and Tales from the Crypt are two of my favorite anthology films, a sub-genre in horror that doesn't get enough love from my perspective.

Oh, and The Haunting and The Wicker Man just creep me out. Put them on late at night, in the dark, right before bed. Good luck sleeping.

One thing I'd like to point out is until the very last second Terrovision was in the "top ten" list, and then I replaced it with Let the Right One In, which is a hard - but fair - substitution. Slashers films didn't get much of a showing there, and neither did "true story" movies like Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Horror comedies went largely unrepresented, but what can you do? I had ten spots to fill and no more.

As I challenged him, so too do I challenge you to provide me with your top ten horror films. Would you include Near Dark? Return of the Living Dead? Black Christmas? Ginger Snaps? An American Werewolf in London? The Fall of the House of Usher? Suspiria? The Hills have Eyes? The Horror of Dracula? Nosferatu? The Exorcist? Martin? The Thing? Phantasm? [REC]? Cat People?

You have ten slots to fill. You can push it to twelve, but they'd better be closely linked, and no more. Good luck.