Corliss's perverse "Top 25 Horror Movies" list

One childhood scare that Corliss doesn't mention is the frankness of the coming of age scenes. The sequence where Bambi watches his pals become "twitterpated" and abandon him one by one for a mate, behaving differently than he's ever seen them before for reasons he can't understand, leaving him alone only for the same to effect to work on him, punctuated by newfound violence on a competitive suitor. Those scenes topped off with the ending of Faline, Thumper, and Flower with the fruit of their loins reenacting the beginning of the movie. Haunting stuff for a kid.

Interesting list, though I don't really agree with it. Oddly enough, I saw Bambi when I was 7 and I must say that it made the least impression of the three classic Disney movies on me. I actually recall being bored by it. By contrast, seeing the queen turn into an evil hag, that was frightening to me at 6 years old. Or watching Lampwick turn into a donkey when I was 11. Had I seen Fantasia at that time, I probably would have been traumatized by "Night on Bald Mountain." (Hearing the music as a child certainly upset me.)

One problem with "Psycho" is that by the time I saw it I knew the plot for 20 years. By contrast I saw "Halloween" last year, and "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" last week for the first time. I would agree that the latter movie is more horrifying: we don't know why this Texas family is randomly killing and eating people, while the absence of Michael Myers motivation struck me as irritating. "Carrie" by contrast struck me as rather amateurish, "The Shining" is a much better movie.

The "Frankenstein" movies struck me as odd when I saw them. On the one hand Frankenstein appears relatively modern, with electrical instruments and a co-ed college, which suggests the movie is sometime in the 20th century. But then there are the horde of peasants which suddenly shifts the movie back a century.

Personally, as a sheer producer of tension, I prefer "Rope" to "Psycho," and think "Vampyr" is superior to all thirties Hollywood films. I prefer "Aliens" to "Alien," since it's much more exciting and more intelligent (our spaceship is larger than the Titanic, but it can't hold half a dozen people!) and Sigourney Weaver actually acts in the second movie. I prefer "Rosemary's Baby" to "Night of the Living Dead," partly because of the way events subtly drip one after the other, as they do in "Chinatown," "Tess,"
"The Tenant" and "The Pianist." Also, being betrayed by your husband, and by everyone around you is more real than being eaten by people. And of course being betrayed by everyone around you is a trauma Polanski actually faced. "The Night of the Hunter" (Dr. Seuss does film noir!), the original "The Vanishing," "Jacob's Ladder" would be high on my list. And no movie has horrified me as much as "Angel Heart" which to be fair I haven't seen in 19 years. Mickey Rourke is a pathetic detective, but to find out that he can't even claim his own soul is a special sort of horror.

How the hell can "Don't Look Now" not be on the list? That's one of the greatest, creepiest movies ever made. Not to mention that Corliss doesn't have (in my opinion) the greatest horror movie of all in "The Shining". It's one of only 3 Kubrick movies that I like, but it gets to me every time. I don't consider "Silence of the Lambs" to be a horror movie, but if you do its got to go on the list. I'm surprised to see "Night of the Living Dead" as opposed to "Dawn of the Dead" and "Frankenstein" instead of "Bride of Frankenstein" (though I don't care for either). And if you're going to throw in some unconvential horror movies, why not go for Scorsese's "After Hours" or "King of Comedy"?

As much as i like "Shaun of the Dead", i can't agree that a parody belongs on a Top 25 Horror List. That's like having "The Naked Gun" as one of the top crime dramas, or "Top Secret" as a great war movie. And I understand that he's making an argument for argument's sake, and that these lists are created just to get people talking, but c'mon: "Red Dragon!?!?" REALLY!?!? I find it hard to believe that he was seriously scared or creeped out when watching that movie. Why is it that so often critics put films on these lists that make them look different or hip or what have you, instead of just listing movies that truly give them the chills? Jim, if you were going to make a list of the Top 25 Horror movies, would it really include "Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat?" I'm probably thinking about all this too much.

As a horror geek (you may remember my enthusiastic defense of Eli Roth from a while back), I'm pleased with the list. The little perverse touches are juuust right for a genre that's all about being trangressive (or at least pretending to be). Bambi is a great choice.....I'd actually replace it with the Little Mermaid. Think about it, it's about an innocent hot girl fantasy object chick in danger from a perverted old witch. It's "Black Sunday" with animations and clamshell pasties. Maybe that's an ideosyncratic response to the film. Maybe I should change the subject. *ahem*

Lists like this are particularly fun because they spark geeky conversations in my head...."Dead Alive"? Great Choice, but it wasn't as unsettling as Peter Jackson's other early masterpiece, "Meet the Feebles".....sure "Blood Feast" was the classic, but "The Gore-Gore Girls" was H.G. Lewis's best/worst, sleaziest film......"Red Dragon"? I guess that WAS the scariest of those......Why isn't "The Descent" on the list?......I'm glad the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" beat "The Exoricist"......I'm glad to see "Men Behind the Sun" get what it's due. It's a better choice than "Cannibal Holocaust," a film that would otherwise have to make the list....

Ahhh. Good times.

Tried watching that Lumiere film and couldn't get the sound to work ... ... ...

...

Actually what's more interesting to me in the Lumiere film is the, perhaps, first time film was reversed - the look of shock on people's faces would have been fun to watch.

I found "Manhunter" to be an overall more effective film than "Red Dragon", or maybe that doesn't exist on his cannon of what makes a good Thomas Harris adaptation. Bryan Cox just doesn't cut it. I actually thought he was just as creepy as or creepier than Hopkins in the sequel and prequel to "Silence", which thrives on it's performances more than on it's film making.

"Alien" is a brilliant film, better than the machismo adrenaline 80's induced sequel (which is also great.)

But me, "The Shining" didn't scare me until I was of an adult age, and I saw it when I was a kid first. Whereas "Pet Cemetery" scared the bejeezus out of me as I snuck downstairs to watch it on HBO; last time I saw it, it made me laugh.

"Nosferatu": I've tried making it through that film on three separate occasions (a different musical score each time) and have fallen asleep each time. I even tried the Herzog remake and the same happened. Maybe when it came out it was frightening, but Renfield's laugh in the original "Dracula" when they discovery him on the ship creeps me out more than anything in "Nosferatu".

Films that really scare me these days are ones that make me feel unsafe in my environment (though it's been a long time since I've seen anything remotely as frightening as "The Exorcist", etc.): "Seven" or "Zodiac" frighten me (loooove to see Fincher delve into horror), the concepts behind "Hostel" and "Saw" are scary, but the movies can't quite hold up to their ideas. It seems like now-a-days scares have been replaced by thrills, and those are two different things. The new "Saw" film (which I talk in greater length at my own humble blog) is put together more like a trailer of a horror film, and as it turns out the trailer of the film is more disturbing than the movie itself. The five minutes in Spielberg's "War of the Worlds", when everyone is fighting over the van, was frightening to me. "Lord of the Flies", the Peter Brook's version has some awfully scary moments, notably the death of Piggy. "The Sixth Sense" got under my skin; that was a good old fashioned scary movie. The first 15 minutes of the new "Dawn of the Dead" was pretty intense. Seeing the face in the window in "The Innocents" gives me the shudders. "The Hitcher" with Rutger Hauer scared me when I was younger.

But it's difficult to find a completely scary film these days. "The Hills Have Eyes" was just disturbing and grotesque. "Thrills" beats "chills" these days. A quick cut and bit of gore is more profound these days than a long hallway and creepy music.

Oh, and besides all the running around at the end, "Event Horizon" got under my skin quite good. A lot of things you couldn't quite see - glimpses into hell. One thing I will never do is go in and slow down the flashes. The last thing I need is to be more scarred by that movie.

To push Bambi even higher up on the list: just today I heard a californian friend talk about the fires, and how he saw huge flames literally leap over an 8-lane highway. He said the flames seemed to come straight out of Bambi.

geez, why the hate? I agree with Jim. Its a great, suprising, ridiculous list, with some inspired choices..and it may help to actually read Corliss' piece with his explanations for each choice. It feels far more like a 'personal fav's' list more than a definitive greatest-list.
And ShaunoftheDead, even as a comedy, was a better zombie/horror flick then most of the crap passing as 'horror' put out in the past 10-15 years.

If I remember correctly, RC once put a baseball game (I hope it wasn't a football game) on his 10 best list when he was editor of Film Comment. If you think "outside the box" (sorry) for a second, you can see the game as a genre movie, and the genre movie as a game (with structure, rules, etc.). I like the way his mind works...

J. Hoberman put a baseball game on his top 10 once, too: game six of the 1986 World Series.

Somebody sent me this list and as soon as I saw the laughably bad "Red Dragon" on it, I thought to myself: "Sounds like some 20-year old punk who calls himself a critic made this one up." I guess I should have kept reading. :)

For the record, I'm no fan of "Silence" either, and I think Hannibal Lechter is a pretty ridiculous character. The only decent Lechter movie is "Manhunter."

But he gets points back for putting Peter Jackson's best film "Dead Alive" on the list. In all sincerity, I think it's a masterpiece. "I kick ass for the Lord!"

I think there needs to be room for Romero's "Dawn of the Dead" on the list - I'd take it over "Night" but I'd put both films on it. And, for that matter, I'd give "Land of the Dead" serious consideration too.

Gotta get "Evil Dead" or "Evil Dead 2" in there as well.

If we're gonna pick "horror" documentaries, Farrokzhad's "The House is Black" is numero uno.

"The Shining" is easily my pick for #1. It remains the only film I have seen that genuinely scared me. I don't think movies are very good at being scary - shocking, yes - scary, no.

Is "Jeanne Dielman" a horror film?

I know David Thomson used to regularly include sporting events on his Film Comment Top 10 lists. But, of course, David Thomson hates movies.

I have no idea if Corliss ever did the same thing.

Just finished watching the original "The Omen", and that has got to be on a lot of critic's top horror lists.

The Shining is a horror film that's full of irony. It's both funny and scary throughout. One of the things I like about Kubrick's films is that almost all of them can be seen as both drama or comedy. But I'm not sure if it belongs on a list of straight-up "scary" movies.

Good list, though I must admit horror is not my favorite genre. I was glad to see someone mention Jacob's Ladder, one of my favorite films. I think it's criminally underated. The original version of The Vanishing is a good call as well- creepiest ending to a movie I ever saw (of course ruined in the American remake with Jeff Bridges).

I would also add the original "When a Stranger Calls" with Carol Kane, which scared the crap out of me as a kid. I'm also surprised nobody has mentioned the original Friday the 13th, which I think is very effective in it's own way.

Interesting to me how most (if not all) of these movies have POV shots from the killer, which Fincher riffed on in the opening of Zodiac as previously discussed.

And I think the inclusion of Bambi opens it's own can of worms. Nobody would think of taking a young child to any of these other films, but Bambi was made and marketed as a kids movie. The Death of a parent in animated films has never made sense to me. My son saw Finding Nemo in the theater when he was 3, and it still haunts him as a six year old. ("I don't want to watch it because of what happens to the Mommy fish)". These films probably do more to truly "scare" kids then any non-animated film has ever scared an adult.

This is why I love the movie CARS so much. Great fun, great message, no characters die. Now that's a kid movie!

No, that's a myth about the Lumière film. They were astonished, shocked maybe, but not really frightened. They didn't for a second actually think the train was going to hit them.

I never quite got what the major criticism of RED DRAGON was (other than that it's directed by Brett Ratner and that it's not MANHUNTER.) Wouldn't call it one of the best films in its genre, but still, a solid thriller with great acting.

The list is interesting enough, though I think it makes the mistake of conflating "horror movie" with "scary movie"- DAWN OF THE DEAD isn't really that terrifying a picture (to me, anyway), but it's incredibly well made.

Phillip Kelly: Yeah, the face at the window in "The Innocents" is chilling, partly because it's expression says so many different things. And then (the late) Deborah Kerr immediately runs out onto the terrace!

Ok, I’m a horror geek, too, so bear with me here:

1) First off, I enjoyed the list for the most part. It’s quite provocative and it’s hard to argue with most of the choices.

2) I think Jaws is a wonderful, thrilling joyride of a film, but I just have never seen it as a horror movie. I have always considered it more an action thriller, more in tune with Raiders of the Lost Ark than Halloween or Frankenstein or any of the pure horror films that make up most of the list.

3) It’s time Uncle Walt got the credit (or blame) for perhaps scaring the shit out of more people in this world than just about any other filmmaker. However, I will argue that Bambi is not the one to be seen as a horror film. Instead, I think Snow White (the poisoned apple, the transformation of the Wicked Queen into an old hag), Sleeping Beauty (the fearsome dragon at the end) and especially Pinocchio (Lampwick’s scary transformation into a donkey, Pleasure Island, the chase with Monstro the whale) are closer to horror films than is Bambi.

4) Shaun of the Dead was enjoyable, but I feel the best mix of comedy and horror is An American Werewolf in London, followed by the fun, underrated Fright Night.

5) I appreciate Corliss thinking outside the box, but, like Jaws and Bambi, I think Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat is stretching it just a bit too much. If you want to go outside the box, what about The Wizard of Oz?

6) If supposed documentaries such as Men Behind the Sun are to be included, I would instead substitute these two: The Act of Seeing with One’s Own Eyes (Brakhage)or The Thin Blue Line (Morris). The Thin Blue Line in particular scared me: hearing Texas officials casually explain why a clearly innocent man should die, all accompanied by an eerie, spooky score by Phillip Glass, will keep you up nights.

7) I agree that The Shining and Don’t Look Now are quite glaring omissions. I’m sort of not surprised The Shining was omitted, though, because I don’t think Corliss is a fan of Kubrick. Still, I feel omitting them is akin to making a list of the 25 best Westerns and not including The Searchers or The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

8) Also glaring: No Argento! Both Suspiria and Deep Red would make my personal Top 10 and are growing in respect. Tenebrae, The Bird With the Crystal Plumage and Inferno also have strong merits as well.

9) Ten other omissions I’d recommend Netflixing:

1) The Thing (I know some people hate this movie, but c’mon, it’s great! The gruesome special effects are still amazing)
2) The Night of the Hunter (one of the scariest movie villains ever)
3) The Mephisto Waltz (a spooky little early 70s gem)
4) Rosemary’s Baby (the best of Polanski’s apartment-horror movies)
5) The Omen (maybe the scariest score ever-and best on screen beheading ever)
6) Who Saw Her Die? (a VERY creepy giallo about a child murderer loose in Venice, a’la Don’t Look Now, with a chilling score by Ennio Morricone)
7) Black Christmas (the original only-I’m afraid that the absolutely worthless mess of a remake ruined any chance of Bob Clark’s original getting the respect it deserves)
8) Night of the Demon (Jacques Tourneur’s film has a jolt at the start, slows down, then steadily revs up to a very suspenseful climax; very well done for a low budget 50s movie)
9) Masque of the Red Death (the best of the Corman-Price Poe adaptations; beautifully photographed by Nicholas Roeg)
10) Eraserhead (allow me to think outside the box here; Lynch’s masterpiece [yes, masterpiece] probably doesn’t fit into any genre, but if it was shoehorned into one, it would have to be horror; leave it to Lynch to turn one man’s daily routine [man walks home from work; gets a call from his girlfriend; meets her at her parent’s house for dinner; finds out she’s pregnant] into a nightmare)

I'm glad that "Don't Look Now" isn't on the list. As an avid fan of horror/mystery, and someone with a fondness for Daphne du Maurier, I liked little about the film adaptation. I suppose the sex scene is well-done, but the film struck me as a flaccid, thin affair with a horribly awkward ending.

I'm also glad Corliss omitted "The Shining." "The Shining," by electing to keep out the emotional core of King's story, is little more than a sequence of good images. I've read many, many arguments from people who find it a "great" movie. Hell, even Ebert defends it as a Great Movie, although his rationale seems like he's grasping at smoke. "Dude, what if, like, none of them are really there? Whoa!"

Both films, in my view, suffer from the same problem: an excess of technical craft, coming at the expense of narrative involvement. Compare these films' forced elegance to the ease of a genius like Val Lewton or James Whale, who fused their Gothic mastery with stories I actually gave a damn about.

Kinda off topic, but what the hay? I dunno about you Jim, but I find it depressing when people always seem to talk about and remember the "shocks." The shower scene in Psycho. The chest-burster in Alien. Pea Soup in the Exorcist. Everyday people, and especially Hollywood, seems to forget that there's more to these films than said shocks (and by the time I got around to these films, I knew about them long in advanced. No shocks for me.)

The horror movies that stay with me I remember for much more subtle moments. Hitch's shooting/cutting of the shower scene is undeniable genius -- don't get me wrong. But I think my favorite moment in Psycho is when Loomis is searching for the missing Arbaghast, calling his name. Cut to Norman Bates at the swamp, and the Camera moves in on Bates as he looks on. No bells, no whistles, no shocks, but I adore Hitch's rhythm, the mood, and the image itself. Or when the camera ascends the stairs and positions itself above looking down while Norman talks to mother and takes her down to the fruit cellar. Hell, when I got my Hitchcock box set and popped in Psycho, I made the depressing observation that the opening credits with Saul Bass's design and Bernard Herrmann's music had me more excited than many a thriller's epic climax.

In Alien, I love the patience -- God I wish horror was that patient today -- and the agonizing slow pace as the story unravels while we're allowed to absorb this world of an abandoned space station. "Yes, look around -- take a good long look -- we're really out here alone, and no one can hear us scream."

In the Exorcist, I savor the moment Chris McNeil asks Karas about an exorcism and he pauses like she's lost her mind then suggests a time machine. And again, the patience of the film.

All of these subtlies, this command of the screen, is what gives these films their power. I know every frame of Psycho, but even today when I watch it Hitchcock brings me to the edge of my seat. The thrill is still there. Not necessarly "scared", but "anxious" to see some of my favorite visuals again.

Sad Hollywood hasn't caught on, even though numerous people have explained, and perhaps Hitch said it best, "there is no terror in the bang, only the anticipation of it."