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

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?

If that's correct, I totally missed that!

I had a few issues with the film--mainly in line with the criticisms Tarantino had re: the inconsistent parameters around which the "monster" is defined--but yeah, the plaudits are mainly justified.

I didn't think it worked as a horror movie but I liked it a lot as a doomed coming-of-age movie.

Dad only shown in photos but thats what it looked like to me - also would explain why she didnt want to tell the others what she saw.

Yeah. Also fits in the other kid being killed by his mother, the Evangelion-style parentless town, etc.

Curse of Chucky was fine, if a bit of a letdown after Bride and Seed. It's still better than the first three. Probably the closest the series has come to a straight horror film, competently directed, pretty decent cast (Brad Dourif's daughter is solid as the lead actress). It feels very contemporary and almost seems like a reboot until the ending makes it clear that it's a continuation from previous installments. If you go in with zero in the way of expectations, it's a fun and forgettably-middling horror flick.

trying to decide whether or not it's advisable to watch it with one's significant other

would lean no, but obv depends

just a few days ago I was nearly going to suggest to my gf we watch "Going Places" ('74 Bertrand blier) cuz I knew it was expiring from Netflix and that it was French and she knows a bit of the language -- dodged a bullet there lmao, its not horror but it is like extreme nasty French misogyny/nihilism. its hard to be convincing and be like I swear I had no idea this was the subject matter! even when that is 100% true ~

watched Demon Seed (1977) last night, man that is not a good film. There are decent ideas and elements in it but it just doesn't cohere or have the tension required to really make it work. Too much exposition, too many sub-2001/Star Trek TMP visual interludes (which are amusing at first but become tiresome the more they are used). Watched it because I find Cammell kind of a fascinating figure and Fritz Weaver is always reliably creepy but it just doesn't work. Big "reveal" at the end is also sadly comical. Whole thing feels sub-Cronenberg even if it's before Cronenberg was a thing, but while watching it I couldn't help thinking how much better a film it would've been if Cronenberg had done it.

Huh, I never posted a top 10 in this thread.

Pretty sure my horror poll ballot still holds, more or less.

I watched the entire 1931 Dracula for the first time last night. What a weirdly-paced and disjointed affair that was. It gets a ton of leeway, though, as it's maybe, what, the second?? talkie horror film ever made. I get that there were still some kinks to work out and formulae to codify at that point.

Bela Lugosi and Dwight Frye are total weirdoes, in completely different ways. The latter's laugh is one for the ages. The hissy ambient noise and absence of a score was effectively creepy. The set design was pretty great. The movie was borderline incoherent but I'll give it points as a mood piece.

(After accidentally posting this in the 2015 politics thread.)

Was paging through this book and (spoiler alert):

http://www.brendanhalpin.com/.a/6a00d8341cae6453ef0133f2cd4900970b-pi

They picked as their #1 horror movie the Hammer Horror of Dracula ('58), which seems not only unorthodox but downright bizarre. I know Hammer has a devoted following, but I wasn't aware that any one of their films stood out from the pack enough to merit a #1 placement on an overall list.

While I still don't think I've actually seen any of the Hammer films (partially because their DVD slate in the US is super patchy), reviews and commentary I've read suggest that Horror Of Dracula (followed by their first two Frankenstein movies) is at the head of the pack, and many seem to think it's the best film version of Dracula. It is a strange choice for all-time greatest, though, for sure.

I've tried to sit through some Hammer stuff before and they're just too boring for me, sorry.

very curious about Horror Express though, really wanna see that one

I think the book's reasoning was that vampires are the #1 greatest horror characters, Dracula is the #1 greatest vampire, and this movie is the #1 greatest Dracula movie, so this has to be #1. They also mentioned the library scene being second only to the shower scene from Psycho which, again, news to me.

I've been reading M.R. James on the train. When he isn't engaged in exposition diarrhea, he's effectively creepy for his era. But seriously: the exposition. He expounded for two pages about every nook and cranny of a church's interior before describing the ostensible antagonist of the story as "an almost phenomenally ugly man". Come on, M.R.

While I wouldn't place Hammer Dracula anywhere near #1, it's a good one

read that as "when he isn't engaged in explosive diarrhea..."

I guess that's "Count Magnus"? I love that one.
There is a bunch of annoyances in classic quiet horror fiction, like lots of mannered blathering, far too many antiquarian loners and detective uncovering of mysteries and not enough payoff but it's preferable to the mass market tropes (mostly 70s onwards) like family orientated sentimentality, ridiculous bloat and constant shoehorned in dominating focus on characters who aren't nearly interesting enough.

I don't like Hammer's Dracula much. The best Hammer film I've seen by a long way is Curse Of The Werewolf (Oliver Reed). Gorgon, Reptile, Brides Of Dracula and Curse Of Frankenstein are fairly enjoyable in places.

I rewatched C.H.U.D. last night. It was mildly diverting. Reading up afterwards, I was surprised to learn that it was a one-off film for both the director and the screenwriter, so not bad as a first-and-only effort. It would work well as the middle on a 'grungy NYC horror' triple bill with, say, Q The Winged Serpent and Brain Damage. This, however, is the only scene that you really need to see from the film:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvZN9t5HDAw

Always mix that one up in my mind with C.H.O.M.P.S.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDKNZmwm6hI

lol @ CHUD scene wtf is that

It makes roughly the same amount of sense within the context of the movie.