Favorite Horror Movies

Emm... my own life (anybody?).

 

And don't forget...

 

Me and @aura.

 

Speaking of favourite horror movies...

 

Check out "Pretty Poison" (1968) with Tuesday Weld and Anthony Perkins. A Sleeper when first released, it has attained the status of a Cult Film.

 

Halloween



with Mike Myers.

 

Check out "Bad Influence" (1990) with Rob Lowe and James Spader.

Lowe is excellent as a stone cold sociopath who befriends Spader and undertakes a series of escalating, horrifying crimes, allegedly on Spader's behalf.

 

Just watched The Fly (1986) last night. I forgot how grotesque it is! Highly recommend.

The Fly (1986) - Trailer in 1080p

 

I’m surprised no one has mentioned John Carpenter’s The Thing. Practical effects are still out of this world and Kurt Russell’s glorious hair can make any man feel lesser...

Scream 1 is still dope. Ghost face was my go to Halloween costume as a kid.

Happy Halloween everyone!

 

I rewatched The Thing a few times and each time it still gets better, and it was a phenomenal film to begin with. Probably the closest thing we ever get to a The Mountains of Madness film...

 

The Thing is a fantastic film and a perfect example of how 80's movies (for the most part) trump modern cinema in terms of pure substance.

Scream is a class slasher series, however, just too damn funny to be in the least bit suspenseful or frightening.

The most horrifying slasher-horror film series to this day is The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (although, that's kind of funny too; but in good measure, while still being disturbing as f*ck).

Honestly @ZFire, the only kids who ever wore those Ghost Face masks at Halloween here in London, were the delinquents looking for real trouble. They were the reason people wouldn't open their doors to me and my friends, because they were replicating the outfit so well, they even remembered to include the damn knife!

You letting us in on something here? Were you a gangbangin' thug @ZFire?

While I know it is, I've never really classed The Fly as a "horror"; it's just too goddamn sad.

The story draws it' inspiration from Kafka's "Metamorphosis" I believe; a story which all of us here, can unfortunately relate to, all too easily.

I've always liked the beginning, when just after his incorporation of the Fly's DNA, he essentially develops superpowers, and becomes FLY MAN. It parallels the whole Super-Hero trope of some medical accident (usually involving radiation) making the subject superior to how they once were, but then makes a sharp deviation by showcasing the negative consequence of screwing around with the genetic blueprint.

If you read much MARVEL, you'll see they have touched on this, but only briefly. In Spider-Man, there's a saga where his spider DNA starts becoming dominant and eventually he mutates into "Man-Spider". But the writers gloss over this issue by making everything repairable, so that he can go back to being your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man. The reason why this is, is because MARVEL I suspect, were effectively lobbying for Nuclear Power at a time when there was a strong suspicion of and opposition to, it. Kind of like how Super-Man is now a bi-sexual vaccine that can fly, and people who don't want to be saved by him are stupid, homophobic "anti-savers".

But yeah, the final third of The Fly always breaks my heart. I can hardly bear to watch it anymore when it's on.

@Deamon22, this is so true, and I had never thought of it this way before; but you're absolutely right.

The Thing is a very "Lovecraftian" misadventure.

I've never seen any film adaptation of At the Mountains of Madness, but if there is one and it's anything like every other movie based on a Lovecraft story written, then I'm sure it's a disappointment.

Also, had no idea you were a Lovecraft fan (?) One of my favourite writers (top 3, for sure).

 

My fave since I was a little kid is Night of the Living Dead with Tony Todd.

 

I don't think there is any adaptation, Guillermo del Toro planned to do a movie but it never happend.

I am a huge Lovecraft fan, I loved Mountains of Madness. The other stories I read were also pretty good, Cthulhu, Shadow Over Innsmouth and Case of Charles Dexter Ward. A bit hard to read for a non native speaker, but all in all pretty entertaining.

 

I saw Alien when I was 7 years old...

Still have problems from it

 

All fantastic stories.

He was such an intelligent writer; prophetic, I would even go so far as to say.

For a guy who was writing in the early 20th century, he was already exploring concepts like cloning and the invention of Humans by Aliens, which were both the basic premises of At the Mountains of Madness and The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.

That doesn't sound impressive, until you think that these ideas didn't make it into mainstream fiction and cinema until films like Jurassic Park in 1993 and Alien vs Predator in 2004.

Dude, the fact that you read Lovecraft as a non-native speaker is epic.

Even with English as my first language, I struggle with his writing; it's so archaic, that unlike modern literature, I often have to read a paragraph more than once, before I can read ahead.

Can you not get Italian translations?

 

Three outstanding "Sleeper" Noir / Thriller Films:
"Red Rock West"- 1993 - Nicholas Cage (it was very highly regarded at the Toronto Film Festival).

"Mortal Thoughts"- 1991 - Demi Moore, Bruce Willis, Harvey Keitel - An intelligently constructed thriller that did not receive sufficient acclaim when first released.

"Open Water"- 2003 - If you watch this, keep in mind that this received worldwide attention since it actually happened to a couple off the coast of Australia.

 

Absolutely the same opinion. While his writing style nowadays feels a bit old fashioned, the story itself could be totally brand new, at least it feels like it.

If you want to read something similar, but from a modern author, you should check out Blindsight from Peter Watts. A great cosmic horror novel.

Thank you Ah, archaic is the right word, it felt like that. Especially in the beginning when I also had to reread certain paragraphs a few time because I just couldn't grasp who was telling the story and what they were describing. After a while when you have a picture of the story and of the persons in your head, it got easier for me.

Of course I could get translations, but I hate reading translated books because I always feel like I am reading something different. I always try to stick to the original language

 

Thank you for the recommends @DaveFromChicago.

I love Open Water and all those survival (or not...) films like it, such as Frozen (2010). It's one of those rare few films too, in which the sequel Open Water: Adrift (2006) was as good as, if not better than the original.

There's a film very similar to it actually, called The Reef (2010), also a true story. I actually prefer this one, because it turns this idea of sharks being intelligent and harmless giant fish that occasionally mistake us for seals, on its head.

Sharks are giant fish, and if you've ever observed small carnivorous fish, you'll see their only interests are swimming, pooping, and eating anything that moves. They are aquatic killing machines, and the tree hugger scientists that keep trying to sell us this idea of some deep misunderstood intelligence are, in my opinion, out of their minds. But not so out of their minds that when they go out to sea to research them, they don't stay inside a boat and tag them using poles with harpoons on the end...

 

HELL HOUSE LLC (2015)

 

CREEP (2004)

 

Hands down the Exorcist!

 

I think we have a lot of things in common!

 

The Sound of Music