Horror Films I Have Seen (under construction)

Nice list, will take time to scrutinize it later :p

Ok, let's start with Freaks and King Kong... Personally, I would switch the ratings you gave to these two movies... But that's probably because we have different sets of criteria to rate movies... Why Freaks is a superior movie in my opinion is because it's highly more durable than King Kong... As I write that I realize it sounds silly especially when the myth of KK has just been transposed to the screen once again in Peter Jackson's revisiting of the story... But still, what I mean is that when you watch Shoedshack's movie today, it is really just an old piece of cinema history to be kept in dryness-controlled vaults and cherished for the breakthrough it was 75 years ago but seriously, none of the visuals really stand up to what our 21st century is about... Freaks on the other hand remains as fresh as it was because, firstly, it is highly original and highly disturbing in its subject and the way it tackles it... The world in the 30's was a small euro-centred colonial prejudiced society and that Tod Browning would approach his Freaks with such humanity, kindness and yet realism leads to the timelessness of the movie... Yes, you are right in pointing out that Freaks is not a horror movie per se... basically it's a metaphor about life in groups, more than a movie, it's a piece of art, it's moving and thought-provoking, qualities that can't be found in King Kong or only on a shallow moralistic level... Tod Browning's influence is even more subtle but deep upon today's moviemaking than Shoedshack's... King Kong was, after all, a prototype popcorn movie and I'm not sure it shhould be commended for that... Tim Burton, John Waters and of course David Lynch ca Eraserhead and The Elephant Man all owe a lot to Tod Browning's pioneer vision.

Next time: Gojira and why it might just be one of the top 10 best movies ever...

The Night and the Hunter and Psycho obviously deserve the high rating you gave them so I won't go deeper into these two all-time & timeless classics... What I'd like to point out now, but I'm quite sure you know that already, is that you have seen two remakes far far worse than their original movies so please, find time someday to see The Village of the Damned and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre... Village of the Damned as most horror/thriller movies from that time makes the most of the black and white format (I'm thinking about Robert Wise's The Haunting here, too which probably wouldn't get a ! from you if it had been shot in color, but I digress) because, after all, its topic, and that's cruelly absent from the version revisited by Carpenter, is all about B&W, good and evil, earthlings and aliens, "free men" and communists... The whole atmosphere is weird and simply making you feel uneasy because after all, and I believe this was the first time in horror movies, the bad guys are cute clever kids... Chainsaw Massacre, on the other hand, the masterpiece from Tobe Hooper, will be hard for me to convey in words because this movie is simply in my humble opinion one of the craziest, scariest movies and apart from possibly Romero's zombies works, the pure horror movie with the most enduring social content... I hope I won't become too annoying with hyperbole but I truly believe Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a turning point in the history of movies, one of the semantic and formal importance of Melies' Voyage dans la Lune, Bunuel's Un Chien Andalou, Citizen Kane or Deep Throat. The Chainsaw Massacre was the first movie of its kind, a low-budget high-shock value horror movie and that would have been enough to warrant it a psecial place in the grander scheme of movies but Massacre was also the first movie ever with no moralization from mainstream society and even more redemption for the villain than the victims... The Night of the Hunter initially ended without the moralizing speech but still it wouldn't have made it what Massacre is: the first "countersocial" movie in history. And even if the slaughtering scenes don't seem quite shocking now that we've seen rivers of blood even in PG-13 movies, the content is still there... Massacre could very well be the most dangerous movie of all time because more than any other it shows by example and in a subtle way that living by society's rules isn't necessarily the best path to follow. Ah ah

I think there are movies on this list that don't belong, and it's because you don't distinguish between horror movies and movies in which horrifying things happen.

Examples: A Clockwork Orange, Deliverance, Jaws, Manhunter, Apt Pupil, American Psycho, From Hell, and several others. Sure, these movies have horrifying themes, but are not primarily 'horror movies'. That is, the horror in them is only secondary to their primary theme. A bona fide horror movie has horror as its reason for being - to horrify is what it's for.

I know you've indicated titles that only 'have horror scenes', but even so, they belong on a different list - a list of movies that are not 'horror movies' but have horrifying aspects.

That's my opinion, for what it's worth.

Otherwise, an excellent list (which needs to be two lists :-)

Gremlins rules!

This is an awesome list.