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

[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".