The horror, the horror!

[caddyman]

God help me, but I can’t get "Something Tells Me (Something’s Gonna Happen Tonight)" by Cilla Black out of my head.

It’s Wogan’s fault, he played it on the radio this morning and it’s bored its way into my skull and stuck until something equally catchy pops up to dislodge it. That will be some hours at best as I do not have my walkman with me today. I probably shouldn’t mention that I even looked (out of idle curiosity, thank you) on Play.com to see if they had any “Best of” albums.

And they do. For £12.99 I could own a collection that runs from 1963 to 1978 and features 80-odd singles. I’ve even heard of many of them. I feel old.

To break me of this, I see that today’s Times has listed their movie critic’s top ten scariest horror movies:

The Exorcist (1973);
The Blair Witch Project (1999);
Psycho (1960);
Alien (1979);
Ringu (1998) – Nakata’s original, not the remake;
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974);
Hallowe’en (1978);
Dawn of the Dead (1978);
Don’t Look Now (1973);
The Sixth Sense (1999).

I have to confess that I have not seen either Ringu or Don’t Look Now. When I was 18, a heavily cut copy of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre put me off ham sandwiches for over a year. I was a tender flower in those days.

A lot of these films have lost their shock value these days, though I think Psycho and Alien would still grab the first-time viewer by the entrails at the appropriate moments.

What should have been on that list and is missing, what is on that list that shouldn’t be?

Entertain me with lively debate: I am bored and I still have Cilla Black rattling around my head. Now there’s a horror movie.

Edited to add: Two films that I particularly like and one, certainly, is very creey are: The Haunting (1963, dir. Robert Wise) and Night of the Demon (1957, dir. Jacques Tourneur) - despite the latter's cheesy demon effect toward the end of the movie.

Comments

[oldnick.livejournal.com]

As far as I can see, Cilla has never made a film, so there's nothing to add to the list.

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

The redoubtable Wikipedia tells me that she had a brief appearance in "Ferry Across the Mersey" and starred in something called "Work Is a Four-Letter Word", apparently a long forgotten psychedelic comedy.

She was, apparently, very nearly Michael Caine's girlfriend in "The Italian Job".

[ellefurtle.livejournal.com]

Interesting list. I expect some of those would make me jump out of my skin, although not sure if that is 'horror' as I like it i.e. scary and psycological. Having said that, Blair Witch wasn't remotely scary to me, just a bit dull - I was really looking forward to it as well.
Jaws is scary. It is!
Copycat scared me, sixth sense didn't really apart from not wanting to see the blown out head and the cyclist appearing in the window - that was scary.

The one with whatsher name who eventually dies in the bath is scary. It's quite famous. Bunny boiler one.

I've not seen any of the others. Maybe I should!

[mr-h-r-hughes.livejournal.com]

Yup, psych-horror the stuff that doesn't make you jump but leaves looking over your shoulder for days is what I 'enjoy' too.
Jumpy horror has no lasting effect. The less you see the scarier it is.
Best of all is when you go to a film having not much idea about and few expectations...I saw Ringu that way and I've never seen an audience freak like that film made them freak but sadly now it's so famous people's expectations are built up and so it sort of looses it's power.
Generally Japanese horror is pretty good because it's so far removed from the conventions of western horror that you can't predict where it's going as easily as you would normally.

[november-girl.livejournal.com]

I didn't find Sixth Sense to be scary at all. Or interesting, for that matter.

However, I did find Gothika to be scary in a kind of "ohmigod this could happen to anyone and noone would listen" kind of way.

I think one of the scariest films I have ever seen is "Pet Semetary". And I love "The Shining".

[snorkel-maiden.livejournal.com]

I don't know what should be on the list, as I hate horror movies, but I don't think that 6th Sense should be- it's not all that scary. A couple of jumpy parts yes, and overall a sense of IMPENDING DOOM, but not horror in the strictest sense. I don't think, anyway.

[mr-h-r-hughes.livejournal.com]

Well Ringu is ace as is Alien. Bits of Blair Witch can be and The Exorcist spooks me. The Shining is freaky (well if you remove captain panto Nicholson from it) but then Kubrik is often scary even when he's not trying to be.

I'd add a few more psych-horror things like David Lynch stuff EG: Fire Walk With Me, Mulholland Drive, Inland Empire, Blue Velvet, EraserHead and some Twin peaks. Cronenberg too.

I also find Onibaba (60's Japanese film) somewhat creepy in the right circumstances

[mr-h-r-hughes.livejournal.com]

Ugh, there are many more but my brain has frozen up.

[mr-h-r-hughes.livejournal.com]

On the subject of Cilla, while she has *many* crimes to her name, her version of 'Anyone Who Had A Heart' is wonderful and I'll fight anyone who says otherwise!

[november-girl.livejournal.com]

Oh Jeez - I've got that going round my head now too. I hate you Twine.

[bluesman.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you spoke up to say that. Agreed.

[ash1977law.livejournal.com]

Humming either Deep Purple's "Smoke on The Water" or Wagner's "Ride of The Valkeries" I find do wonders to dislodge other songs.

Pompety-pom-pom, pompety-pom-pom, pompety-pom-pom, Pompety-pom!

[binidj.livejournal.com]

Dump the "Carefully arranged sticks project" for a start.

Then there needs to be large doses of "An American Werewolf in London" and "Cube".

When I have tunes stuck in my head I sing (if that's the right word) the theme tune for "Roobarb and Custard" in my head and it all goes away.

[ash1977law.livejournal.com]

I couldn't agree less. The Blair Witch Project is a wonderful horror movie. It's not gory and relies upon psychological horror rather than shocks. It's a movie you either 'get' and shiver whenever you remember the last 5 seconds of the film, or it's Marmite-On-Twiglets.

[caffeine-fairy.livejournal.com]

Personally I thought Ringu was overrated, and I don't really think the Sixth Sense is a horror movie.

The Blair Witch Project, on the other hand, scared the bejeezus out of me and still does.

[mr-h-r-hughes.livejournal.com]

I agree about 6th Sense, good but not horror

[mr-h-r-hughes.livejournal.com]

I really think Ringu was sadly a victim of it's own success, it so got to the people who saw it early on that they frothed at their mates who then went a long expecting satan himself to erupt from the popcorn machine : )

I don't like the guy stading in the corner at the end of Blair Witch...I don't like him at all *shudder*

[caffeine-fairy.livejournal.com]

The stupid thing is I didn't get that bit until I was out for food a couple of days later. Hayden explained to me why he was in the corner and I got the shudders in the middle of pizza Hut.

[mr-h-r-hughes.livejournal.com]

I understand the original cut didn't have in the bit at the start that explained that image, freaky as the image is personally I'd have preferred that, random senselessness is spooky.

If you like that kind of thing and you haven't seen it already I'd recommend 'Mulholland Drive', Lynch makes broad daylight with nothing bloody happening scary, plus it's got Naomi Watts acting her arse off and a moment of horrible sadness that both makes total sense and none - i've never seen heartbreaking and scary done at the same time before and not only that but carried via such an odd medium (excuse deliberate vagueness)

[caffeine-fairy.livejournal.com]

I thin random senselessness can be spooky but you need a point at which you can buy into it, otherwise it's just ignorable. In Blair Witch for me it was the bit where they're running away and she starts screaming "My boots aren't laced!" which gave me LARP flashbacks...

I tend to avoid Lynch because sexual violence falls off the "horror" and into the "this isn't fun and is going to give me nightmares for weeks", which is a shame because I love what I have seen of his.

[mr-h-r-hughes.livejournal.com]

"In Blair Witch for me it was the bit where they're running away and she starts screaming "My boots aren't laced!"

Yes!

OK, Mulholland Drive isn't Blue Velvet it's more emotional nastiness between the two female leads but I dunno, you may wish to avoid it. What I like about his stuff is sometimes people acuse him of weirdness for weirdness' sake but I don't buy that, weirdness for it's only sake is amusing for a bit but mainly dull. When something leaves you feeling unsettled for weeks and freaked out by merely remembering, especially when it's something that on the surface is very innocuous then you know he's flown in under you radar and hit something that you weren't even aware was there and that's amazing.
But fair enough I know that other people also think he slips over the line sometimes.

[caddyman.livejournal.com]

Oddly enough, on the subject of feeling unsettled, last night we denizens of The Athenaeum Club sat down to watch Dexter on ITV.

We were pretty unanimous in finding the opening title sequence to be amongst the most unsettling things we'd ever seen on screen. And all it is, is Dexter making breakfast...

[failing-angel.livejournal.com]

And all it is, is Dexter making breakfast...
Yes, but with such terrible manners.

[failing-angel.livejournal.com]

What?
No Wicker Man?

[mr-h-r-hughes.livejournal.com]

Good point.

[failing-angel.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, I never really rated The Exorcist;
Haven't seen Psycho;

As for the others - Dawn of the Dead isn't that scary, I prefer Night of the Living Dead;
Sixth Sense is a nice film, but no-way is it scary.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre is very dated, and rather dull (aside from the farcical moment with grampaw trying to hold a hammer).
From what little I've seen of it, I quite like Nightmare on Elm St.
Blair Witch is a film that I feel is generally underrated (as well as being one of those 'Marmite' choices), but I like it.

As for what is scary - Curse of the Cat People, or other horror from the 1940s - sometime when the horror was with the mood and atmosphere rather than the sfx or red paint.


Mind you, define 'horror'?

[ash1977law.livejournal.com]

Horror is one of the 4 stages of fear: Unease, Foreboding, Horror and Terror.

Unease is when you hear that an axe-weilding maniac is loose in your town.
Foreboding is when you see a shadow on the front door, and you look but it is gone, and you sware that you didn't leave the backdoor open... you know something is wrong but you don't know what.
Horror is where you see the trail of blood on the carpet and follow it up the stairs...
Terror is when the blood-soacked axe-weilding maniac leaps out at you from behind the bedroom door.

So often movie makers, particually in the late 90s, forgot what Horror was and went for Terror instead. Terror is Horror's weaker cousin - in a way it's a release - you scream but then you are into the whole fight-or-flight thing. Terror is a punch in the face - over and done with - shocking and perhaps painful but ultimately a one-trick-pony, whereas Horror is a slow emotional thumbscrew - building and building until you just have to scream.

[ash1977law.livejournal.com]

Damn - my spellings bad today.

[failing-angel.livejournal.com]

That's a very good explanation :)

So often movie makers, particually in the late 90s, forgot what Horror was and went for Terror instead
You make some good points, but I think that Terror came in in a big way from the late 70s and through the 80s.

But there's also the issue of believability - I can imagine The Wicker Man happening, I can't say the same for Dawn of the Dead.

[lucyas.livejournal.com]

Night of the Demon is my favourite black and white horror movie, althought the special effects at the end are a bit of a let down.

[ash1977law.livejournal.com]

Special effects are always a let-down.
Nothing can ever compete with the imagination.

[chomper99.livejournal.com]

As quick as I often am to champion the power of imagination, may I direct you to John Carpenter's version of The Thing? Great movie, easily one of the best horror films ever made and quite simply the finest horror special effects ever put on film. The effort put in by effects guru Rob Bottin realise the horror in ways almost no other film has managed before or since.

If that doesn't at least compete with your imagination you might want to consider medication. :o)

[lucyas.livejournal.com]

I think Night of the Demon and The Passing of the Runes were the American and British titles for the same movie. I think Think The Night of the Demon was the UK title.

And yes, it is sampled on a Kate Bush album.

[agentinfinity.livejournal.com]

I really rate 'Eye', which is a Korean offering (Jamie tells me there is a remake, so not that). Very unsettling and also very beautiful at times.

I also like 'Ring'. I didn't find 'The Blair Witch Project' scary at all, I felt a bit scammed. 'The Exorcist' makes me laugh - I've probably seen it parodied too many times.

I saw 'Silent Hill' recently and thought that was very scary.

'The Devil's Backbone' is amazing, by the same guy as 'Pan's Labyrinth' and 'Hellboy'.

I seem to remember finding 'Brimstone and Treacle' by Dennis Potter deeply disturbing, though it is a long time since I saw it, and it's not technically a film.

[ash1977law.livejournal.com]

Silent Hill I can't watch alone. I have some very specific phobias and tyhat one seems to hit them all bar two.

[littleonionz.livejournal.com]

Guillermo Del Torro? the dir. of Pan's and Hellboy. I think he is very cool.

[mr-h-r-hughes.livejournal.com]

You'd love The Devil's Backbone

[littleonionz.livejournal.com]

'Black Christmas' is really scary if you have a loft.
Didn't get scared at Blair Witch, it's the other Blair that scares me more, no not Isla, I mean Tony.

[crazedgiggles.livejournal.com]

I suggest Pet Sematary.. looking back I guess it's not horrible but that movie scared nightmares back into me when I was younger.

[bluesman.livejournal.com]

My stepdaughter Karly tells me she likes to watch scary films with me, as I laugh at them, so she's not so likely to have nightmares. Maybe I've seen so many over the years that they are predictable.

I'm with Bry: the only film I've ever seen that genuinely scared me was The Haunting, and apparently the original book, The Haunting of Hill House is admirably creepy too.

Otherwise, Alien always grips me, but Blair Witch was a disappointment: all that build-up and a few blurred images in the last couple of shots. I still can't tell what happened.