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Greatest Horror of All Time - where to begin?


RIPPA

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9 hours ago, Control said:

I really need to check out SOCIETY with Billy Warlock, which I'm sure is a real game changer.

Society is one of the lost gems of body horror and i have not seen it in ages.

I'll definitely be revisiting it before making a ballot, but it could be a hard watch since it is a cultural indictment of the late 80's so it is bound to tied to the times in some not so good ways....

....like guys with designer mullets wearing muscle shirts, work out pants, and fanny packs. 

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So it'll be like watching '80s pro wrestling! No problem! 

I too need to revisit that one. Haven't seen it since I was what... 11? There are gonna be so many films we are gonna forget about. Thinking of Society reminds me of the video store I rented it from, which reminds me of the '70s version of The Children they had for rent there which I saw later on TV and was so messed up. 

EDIT: It's 1980 actually. And the "The" just reminded me of The Baby. We need to keep this from getting into a total sleaze fest... I am so tempted

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12 hours ago, brocklock said:

Where do we stand on what David Lynch films count as horror? I'd say Eraserhead and Lost Highway count. Though most of his other movies are borderline horror as well.

Lynch films have a very surreal quality, but few of them have ever struck me as being particularly frightening. 

The only thing that Lynch has created that actually felt like classic horror was the "last episode" of Twin Peaks.  Nightmares for days.

If we're using the "if IMDB / RT says it's horror, then it's horror" rule then the door is open for Eraserhead and Lost Highway.

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I get the feeling the semantics discussions coming up are going to be March Madness-esque in the debate of minutiae.

Someone mentioned Witchfinder General and the like, are giallo and exploitation films going to count?  Four Flies on Grey Velvet isn't something I'd consider horror, but Tenebrae definitely would.

I'm also assuming mondo stuff like Traces of Death and Guinea Pig films are out. 

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That is why we need a tangible standard not the "if the viewer was scared" standard

So with that in mind - I will officially say that if IMDB or RT has horror as one of the genres for a film it counts 

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Makes perfect sense, otherwise you might have someone that like, uh, hates clowns for example, nominate something like "Shakes the Clown", which isn't horror at all, despite some of the revolting goings on. ;-)

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Stephen King's argument for Wait Until Dark as horror is becoming very palpable right now in the conversation. The Guinea Pig films aren't mondo and are definitely horror (some even bordering on horror-comedy for that matter) but yeah, I can't say Mondo Cane, Mondo Pazzo, etc. People putting Cannibal Holocaust on their 100 are gonna have hell to go through, haha... not from me, but from everyone else. 

EDIT: Wait Until Dark is listed as "Horror - Thriller" on iMDB so it's def. going on my list. And isn't it funny that Charlie Sheen, Mr. Tiger Blood himself, was the one that dropped a dime to the FBI about the first Guinea Pig movie? Which, BTW, shouldn't be on anyone's list, no matter how good the effects are, ya sickos. Same thing for anyone wanting to do Faces of Death -- does that really crack any kind of top 100 of any genre?

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On ‎05‎/‎04‎/‎2017 at 4:54 PM, RIPPA said:

1) Definition of Horror

This list was posted in the Horror Thread 1000 Greatest Horror Movies of All Time

It basically takes a giant batch of best of lists and mashes them together (read the intro - it explains)

My gut feeling is that if you think something is Horror you can vote for it but know that if it is borderline - you better make sure to pimp it as to remind people otherwise your low vote won't make much difference

As per usual - I am assuming where the blurred lines will occur is the usual Horror/Suspense/Thriller area

I guess for an example: I would have never considered Silence of the Lambs "horror" but there it is at #29 on that List so now I am like "Well I guess I can vote for it then"

Or Shaun of the Dead (also on that list) - where I guess zombies automatically equals horror?

Anyway - you get what I am trying to say and I figured would should try to nail down at least some basic guidelines

Sounds good.

On ‎05‎/‎04‎/‎2017 at 4:56 PM, RIPPA said:

2) Ballot Length

I figured for this I would use what I used for the earlier decades polls

Mix Length - 50

Max Length - 100

Maybe to just make life easier say 75 as a mid point

So turn in either a ballot with 50 movies, 75 movies or 100 movies

Thoughts???

Sounds good with a minimum and a maximum giving voters the choice of ballot size.

On ‎05‎/‎04‎/‎2017 at 11:45 PM, odessasteps said:

Horror comedy? Yea or nay?

 

 

On ‎06‎/‎04‎/‎2017 at 4:38 PM, RIPPA said:

While I am not disagreeing with your general point - Shaun of the Dead is coded as Horror on both IMDB and RT and appears on many "best of" lists and is eligible here

I think I am leaning towards that being the standard: If either IMDB or RT puts a movie in the "horror" genre it counts

Definite yes, can't exclude Shaun of the Dead!

I'm on the library computer instead of my own so it be interesting to see my ballot when smarkschoice ran their horror poll.

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On ‎07‎/‎04‎/‎2017 at 6:03 AM, caley said:

Last time I voted in a horror film poll, I ended up with 'Requiem For A Dream' on my list.  And, no, I did not use the line "the horrors of drug abuse"!  I probably wouldn't vote for it again, but I thought I had some very compelling arguments that backed up my pick back then.

I think you have to include horror-comedies, though.  I mean, something like 'Evil Dead' is a far bit silly but also you can't really not include it in a horror poll.

Horror is not really my jam.  Though I have watched and enjoyed a fair amount of horror films.  So I might make a list.  I might not.

 

 

On ‎07‎/‎04‎/‎2017 at 6:12 AM, J.T. said:

I personally don't consider Requiem to be a horror film prima facea, but I can see why the argument would be made and it is not a far fetched one.

It definitely falls into that black netherworld of surreal scared straight material like Unedited Footage Of A Bear that is designed to educate and inform you about something disconcerting by terrifying the living shit out of you with a cautionary tale.

Not terribly unlike the old school Grimm's Fairy Tales where the kid that didn't obey his parents died a grisly death.

Requiem for a Dream is a horror to me. The film has stayed in my memory. You know TV schedules can be good or bad? When I watched Requiem for the first time years ago it was in December close to Christmas time!

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On ‎07‎/‎04‎/‎2017 at 7:38 AM, J.T. said:

As for the "are movies with crazy murderers in them considered to be horror movies?" thing goes, I'm inclined to include most of those films as I tend to agree with Roger Ebert's logic about what makes Halloween a horror film, in that Halloween is effective because you cannot chose to disbelieve in the "monster."

You can laugh off werewolves and ghosts and vampires as superstitious nonsense, but there is no waving off the existence of the insane cannibal killer as a figment of folk lore because Ed mother fucking Gein and Jeffrey Dahmer were very real people.

Human beings will always be scarier than any monster out there and are capable of things more disturbing than you can even begin to imagine so yeah, Silence of the Lambs will be somewhere on my ballot.

This. Channel 4 did a great show years ago called something like "Making a great horror movie" with the required elements, the type of murderer, mixed with clips from films and interviews with horror legends: Robert Englund, John Carpenter, Tobe Hooper, Gunnar Hansen etc. I'm with you, JT about human beings as the scariest there is for the reasons you provided.

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While from a literary standpoint, I tend to prefer the Doug Winter  definition, "horror is an emotional reaction to something as opposed to a genre", herein, we're clearly trying to approach it as a genre, and were Doug here, I wouldn't want to be the one arguing against him  (he's a trial lawyer, and a damn good one at that.) And of course there are different streaks for different freaks, what might terrify me might cause you to laugh and so on. 

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I also have a discerning enough palate for horror so that movies that I feel are horror movies will be on my ballot and movies that merely creeped me the fuck out probably won't.

So yes to Halloween and Silence of the Lambs and no to mondo-ish stuff like Salo or ideologically disturbing movies like Jesus Camp.

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TCM has shown Asylum aka House of Crazies at least once a week for the past three weeks.

Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde comes on at noon and I am quite angry about it.

At least I'll be home from my kid's soccer game to watch The Invisible Man for the millionth time.

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16 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said:

Trivia: That movie scared the crap out of my dad as a kid and was always a focus of kidding in my grandma's household.

To this day, my mother is afraid to sleep in a canopy bed thanks to the smothering scene in the original 13 Ghosts.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Dumb but legit question.  Are we only counting theatrical releases?

It dawned on me today that DUEL, the original Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark, This House Possessed, Don't Go To Sleep, Gargoyles, and Dark Night Of The Scarecrow were made for television.

I am trying to give Mark some leeway so that he can submit a ballot which will undoubtedly include The Night Stalker, Trilogy of Terror, and The Night Strangler.

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4 minutes ago, J.T. said:

Dumb but legit question.  Are we only counting theatrical releases?

It dawned on me today that Duel, the originlal Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark, This House Possessed, Don't Go To Sleep, Gargoyles, and Dark Night Of The Scarecrow were made for television.

I am trying to give Mark some leeway so that he can submit a ballot which will undoubtedly include The Night Stalker and The Night Strangler.

Tim Curry version of "It" was made for TV, right? 

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