Hey it's halloween, everybody should shit their pants - ilx horror crew top tens.

I hated Drag Me To Hell but you can't fuck with the first two Evil Dead movies

I do love A Simple Plan but I never got the impression that it had much in common with his earlier stuff.

It is different but it has some of his humour.

One thing I miss about early Raimi is the visuals. His later films look less distinct. Within The Woods short film is good too.

Alison Lohman really is a lot of my enjoyment of Drag Me To Hell. She is astonishingly cute. I thought she was really funny when she talked like Ash "I'm gonna get some! Yeah!"

Actually, speaking of A Simple Plan, I'm also kinda looking out for more straightforward thrillers to watch this year. I have a jones to see junk like The Hand That Rocks The Cradle and The Good Son again. And I just got an enormous Hitchcock set for my birthday. Any recommendations along those lines would be most welcome.

If you haven't seen The Conversation, go for that. I hadn't heard of it until a few years ago but I think it's probably a standard for some people.

A Simple Plan has a great unique score btw, elfman relying on detuned/microtonal pianos in perhaps partial homage to what Mancini did for Wait Until Dark

This is more mid 80s and not necessarily good but have you seen Spellbinder?
No, I don't think so? I'm interested in that late 70s-early 80s lady interzone before the 80s were the 80s
like I'm Dancing As Fast As I Can only with more blood (plenty of screaming in that movie)

Evil Dead II is like a 3-Stooges horror movie, it's really awesome.

nyuk nyuk nyuk

Aha I get what yr talking about now LL

A Simple Plan has a great unique score btw, elfman relying on detuned/microtonal pianos in perhaps partial homage to what Mancini did for Wait Until Dark

Good call, and WUD is easily one my top 5 horror scores ever.

Eric you have Mancini's Lifeforce right? Couldn't be more different from WUD (other than in its dark affect) but just as staggering an achievement.

Whoa, didn't realize Mancini was behind that score

It's been so long since I saw that movie, I can't remember the score. (I think I saw a list where Mancini said that was one of his all-time toughest movies to score, alongside Ghost Dad and Mommie Dearest.)

The movie was pretty alienating already, the score just added another layer to it

Watched The Serpent and the Rainbow and Lords of Salem for the first time this week. The former will likely be in rotation for Halloweens to come (probably the best Wes Craven movie I've seen!), while the latter might've made it in if Rob Zombie had fought a little harder against his compulsion to cobble together an absurdly OTT ending that managed to totally undo the masterfully-understated and spooky tone he'd maintained for most of the flick. Still dug at least 3/4 of it.

I'm usually pretty on board whenever Zombie goes all baroque.

lords of salem was so dope

I might have to rewatch for halloween this year

Every year a local rep theater does a 12 HOURS OF TERROR marathon for Halloween, and they just announced this year's slate. I am STOKED.

The Thing (1982)
Texas Chain Saw Massacre 2
The Blob (1988)
Sleepaway Camp
Friday the 13th Part 4
The Mad Magician (1954)
. . . plus a surprise screening!

Nice lineup!

Serpent + Rainbow is pretty awesome. I just saw it for the first time last year. It is legit frightening at many points. I think it's back on NF Streaming again. If you want to make it seem even better, try watching The Believers (feat Martin Sheen and Jimmy Smits, dir Schlesinger) afterward. Unbearable NYC-set voodoo horror which I could not finish.

How do ppl rate Ppl Under the Stairs?

It undoes itself with over the top comedy, quite disappointing.

Ha, my girlfriend suggested The Believers after we finished Serpent. I vaguely remember seeing it in the '80s but everything I've read seems to suggest that I should avoid seeing it again.

Totally disagree with that take on people under the stairs - it's way bleaker than people remember

Now that I've gotten a taste of latter-day Zombie (only ever saw House of 1000 Corpses before, which was fine if not really my thing), I kinda want to watch his Halloween remakes. Especially since I keep hearing good things (about 2, at least). And the little bit of that I saw of the first remake seemed somewhat richer than the original (which I'm not a huge fan of).

People Under the Stairs is p good but I think it suffers from having a child as the lead/protagonist

on the plus side, the delivery of "so that's where all the money in the ghetto went" kinda makes up for it

I like the humour in People Under the Stairs - aren't the creepy couple in it meant to by Ron and Nancy?

It was over a decade ago I saw it but I think maybe most of the disappointment was with it not being as creepy as I wanted.

I'm watching the old Twilight Zones. Live television, esp in b & w is creepy late at night, esp with the wind blowing through the trees etc

Wanted to add that for the past few years nothing has been more haunting for me than watching old tv, like where the entire cast is dead.

Grrr i wish Thriller was still on NF streaming, I could do some damage to those rn

Any opinions on Sssssss? It's the odd man out from a 4-pack that I bought (also containing Serpent & The Rainbow, Phantasm II, and The Funhouse...$6 well spent). A movie about a man turning into a snake certainly seems like it could be a masterpiece on the face of it, but somehow I suspect that it is not.

And yeah, anthologies! Man, I so want to have every single one of those series on hand and just pick through random episodes. I don't know why the '80s Alfred Hitchcock Presents or season two of Amazing Stories never made it to DVD, but with the recent release of the Monsters set, just about every other major horror/thriller/sci-fi/fantasy anthology series I can think of is currently available. What a world.

A good anthology film that doesn't get a lot of play is "From a Whisper to a Scream."

And if you're into bad-good horror movies, the 8mm opus "The Basement" is a wonderful experience.

Xpost Haha what if you watched all the b&w anthology shows in collated broadcast order like your crazy Marvel project

Oh god, that's totally something I would do and that actually sounds amazing. As evidenced by my crazy Marvel project, yes.

I just bought the hugely-discounted first five seasons of Alfred Hitchcock Presents via an Amazon deal of the day, so I may be well on my way down that inadvisable road.

So we're halfway through the month and I still haven't watched a single film from my initial list. But I did manage to pack in all three Basket Case movies (stupid, increasingly-campy fun, liberally sprinkled with "wth am I watching?"-ness, e.g.:)

PROBABLY NSFW
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hp-jnw5l4QA

...and Nightmares on Elm St. 2-7 (still maintaining that the first four are worthy of a recommendation and the subsequent three (possibly including Freddy Vs. Jason, which I haven't seen since it was released) are worthy of a landfill). And the first Amityville which, while not exactly great, was definitely better than I'd been led to believe. I bought the box set though (because it cost just as much as the first film on its own), so I'm looking forward to the inevitable descent into mediocrity with the subsequent installments.

the last movies are absolutely mediocre, but even those have some fun goofy setpieces

after you finish all the Nightmares watch "Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy"! 4 hour documentary that goes though the making of every movie, tracks down almost every major player, test footage, behind the scenes footage-and it's put together really well. i found it riveting and i don't even give a shit about those movies.

I really should. Some lovely people have uploaded the Stephen King's This Is Horror videos from the '80s as well as a Tom Savini special that I also used to watch all the time back in the day, and I'm realizing how instrumental that behind the scenes stuff was at getting me into horror. Oh, the making of Thriller, too!

I never expected to be endorsing an ITV (UK set of channels not known for quality) physical gameshow but Release The Hounds caught my attention on another forum. It's kinda like Fort Boyard and Crystal Maze but with a surprisingly extreme horror theme.

There is quite a few annoyances but it's worth it just to see some cool settings, monsters (including a clown with a chainsaw) and it's sometimes quite hilarious how terrified some contestants get.
I've heard that there is going to be different versions across the world, I'd like to see how far some countries take it.

This is the best clip I can find. This guy is put in a genuinely terrifying situation. (hope this clip isn't geographically restricted.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMVJkdTajCE

In the episode I saw, the contestants claimed not to know they were coming on this show, as if they were just being taken to any old gameshow; but that's difficult to believe considering what the tasks puts them through. I wonder what precautions they take for the dog chases.

BA-BUMP

I've blown through the first five Child's Play movies this week. The first three (the only ones I'd seen previously) are meh-to-mediocre, but Bride of Chucky is pretty solidly goofy, and Seed of Chucky is campily batshit. I get why it was panned, and it certainly isn't great cinema, but I feel that it's easily on the same level as Henenlotter or Larry Cohen's better efforts. I have the box set, so I'll report back on the surprisingly well-reviewed Curse of Chucky once I've seen it.

Also watching lots of Tales From The Darkside lately. Working my way through the first season, and for every semi-solid episode there are two or three loose stool installments. I hope it picks up. I recently got the complete classic Outer Limits so I'm kinda itching to move onto that.

Stuff I'm hoping to watch/rewatch this season:
Freaks
at least one thing from the Val Lewton box
at least one thing from the Universal monsters box
You're Next
Rob Zombie's Halloween reboots
Kwaidan
Evil Dead 1&2 (still have never seen any of these)
God Told Me To
Possession (just got the less special version of Mondo Vision's bluray release, trying to decide whether or not it's advisable to watch it with one's significant other)
and I kinda want to watch all of the Paranormal Activity movies (never before seen) and then see the new one theatrically (assuming the first five aren't all shit, although I have it on good authority that at least the last two are exactly that)

I've also ordered short story collections from M.R. James and Clark Ashton Smith and Ramsey Campbell (none of whom I've read before) to help spook up my autumnal commute.

The first three (the only ones I'd seen previously) are meh-to-mediocre, but Bride of Chucky is pretty solidly goofy, and Seed of Chucky is campily batshit.

agree w this assessment altho I have a soft spot for the first one. Saw Bride of Chucky in the theater and laughed my ass off.

now that we switched from cable to streaming I can finally see some of the recent things unavailable from my local video store. So far that means I've put the following on my list:

The Tall Man
American Mary

gonna scan this thread for others...

ah yes have been waiting for years to see Homebodies! def on the list this year

Impulse bought a Vincent Price DVD set with Witchfinder General in it after noticing that the first volume of Shout! Factory's VP blu ray collections had suddenly gone out of print. So that's on the docket now.

any decent horror comedies recently?

Not super recent, but Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil is recommended if you haven't seen it.

yeah that was okay. I think it's a tough trick to pull off but when it works - Slither, Cabin in the Woods, the Evil Dead movies, etc. - it's one of my favorite subgenres ever

Wow @ It Follows, deserved all the hype.

Spoilidad: at the end, when they're at the pool, the monster appears as her dad, yeah?