Well, kind of sort of, really it's the last twenty minutes that'll scar you(viewer warning: the last twenty minutes contain extremely graphic portrayals of murder and rape). The rest of the movie is creepy in that PA way, meaning you have to turn up the volume and watch very closely, especially the background. It is a tad slow in the middle, but I'd still advise it, but if movies with portrayals of sexual assault disturb you (like 'last house on the left') I'd skip the last 20, although those last 20 minutes will slam the point they were trying to make home.
As for my 10 favorite horror movies. Now that's a tough one, see i'm a bit into the old school horror. Movies like Nosferatu, The Mummy (1932), the hammer horror movies, stuff like that still gives me chills, so do movies like Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm street (the original for both, not the remakes or sequels). So narrowing it down to top 10 is tough. But here goes:
10: Megan is missing - It has it's flaws (a lot of them, mostly the performances) but is still a pretty chilling movie story wise. However while I don't place it that high in my list, it's still pretty creepy and worthy of a spot in my top 10.
9: The Shining: I loved Kubrick's whole play on the psychosis angle, is John really being haunted or is he just going insane. Although I think the psychic child angle was for the birds, it does allow for some creepy visuals.
8: Friday the 13th part one: It's a slasher, but it was a good slasher. Nothing really supernatural, the characters while being the usual slasher victims by today's standards weren't common in big theater releases of the time. Usually you'd have to go to a small time theater that played the old Z-grade slasher films. The attacker isn't a supernatural monster either but a vengeful mother, that's what really helped it stand out from the pack of slashers that would come later.
7: Misery - another Stephen King adaptation, what really stood out for me was Kathy Bates's performance. While her psychotic moments were, well, crazy, it's really her calm moments that really drive up the tension. This is because you know she has a hair trigger and at any moment, anything can set her off. You don't know what will set her off and that's what keeps you on the edge of your seat.
6: Paranormal Activity - Now granted paranormal activity wasn't the first to do found footage idea. You could say that goes to Blair Witch or even further back than that if you kept up with older films. But this is a case of taking an idea and fixing what was wrong. The atmosphere is creepy, there's very little shaky cam which was a huge complaint from audiences of BW. But the best thing they did that the sequels seemed to forget more and more as they continued. The scary isn't happening front and center, for the most part it's off camera and you know it's happening, but you can't see it, playing on the fear of the unknown. Now after the first time it's like a spook house, you already know what the scares are going to be. But that first time you go through, every scare is like an event and you're waiting for the next one.
5: Ringu/Ju-on - No that's not a typo, and yes they both hold the same spot. I can't decide between these two Japanese horror movies. Both were scary in their own way, although the ghost is essentially the same (you know the long haired woman/girl in a white dress). I guess it's really the atmosphere, they did all the scares at the right moment with the right timing. It's hard to explain, but if you watched the remakes then go watch these two you can quickly see why the common complaint is that the remake didn't hold a candle to the originals.
4: Carved - God damn is Kuchisake-onna scary as hell! I don't even know why, after all the horror movies I've seen every time I watch this movie I get chills. If I had to pin it down, it's because of the victims. In most horror movies it's always adults or teenagers getting the ax. This is one of the few movies where kids are the vicims. You can't help but be scared for these kids under attack from a vengeful spirit. Beware: if you're in Japan and a woman wearing a trench coat and surgical mask asks you "Am I pretty?" choose your next words wisely or you might face the wrath of Kuchisake-onna.
3: The Exorcist - What do I have to say about this one that hasn't been said before. The atmosphere, performances, story all truly equal one movie horrifying enough to have audiences run out of the theater screaming.
2: 2001: a space odyssey - "Now wait a minute, that's science fiction right." I hear others saying. True, but hear me out, just because it's not in the horror genre doesn't mean it can't hold a horrifying character or concept. In both those categories HAL is scary as hell. First, unlike all the monsters we know and love, HAL is a machine, completely logical, 0 emotions, or weakness's (save for it's mainframe), the pinnacle of mankinds technological advancements. That is until it determines that the human's onboard the ship are a hindrance to the mission. Then it uses everything it's equipped with to terminate the hindrances. That's what makes HAL scary, you don't know what's going on behind the glowing, ominous, ever present, red dot, all you know is that whatever it's up to can't be good for the crew.
1: Psycho - Man, here's another that I have nothing to say that hasn't been said a hundred times. The story is absolutely nerve chilling, Norman Bates is down right horrifying, the ending is (or was) truly terrifying mostly because this was during the era of the "Hollywood ending". For those unaware, a "Hollywood ending" is a term for the mandate put out that at the end of a movie the monster must be destroyed. So to see a film where not only is it heavily implied that the Monster (Bates) will get off scott free, but may well live on to murder others was an absolutely horrifying idea to leave audiences with. But the Norman Bates character as a whole is absolutely terrifying. His dissociative identity disorder was portrayed so well that you really are left guessing right to the end if he's the killer or if he's just a helpless pawn in someone more sadistic's plot. Even rewatching it, you just get nervous watching Norman because you know how unstable and crazy he really is. Everything in this movie left me just absolutely horrified every time I watch it. Well I guess I did have something to say.
Well there's my top 10, now while I did say that I liked the old universal and hammer horror films, some of the effects and cinematography ends up being humourous and keeps me from putting it above 10. Just consider them my 11 - 15 slots.
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