The first name in
terror returns....
Well you'll have seen how my Top 25 favourite Horror Movies list is
shaping up so far, and you heard a bunch about my current fun life in the last installment... so far you've seen from Number 25 all the way through to Number 11... so
clearly it's time for the top ten of this list, the best of the best and the most
smashing of creepy classics. You don't need much waffle about my current events... from a load of great films and TV through to various parties and fun, it's business as per usual. So we start with Numbers 10- 7, and then the next blog will go from there into the top five.... anyway I don't really need to waffle too much,
let's get into it straight away then:
- Let the Right One In (2009) Rated 15Directed by Tomas Alfredson
Thanks in no small part to the insane popularity of Twilight and
those damn sparkly fiends... the vampire genre, not just of movies
but television and books and all sorts, is now more popular than ever
before. Thankfully some good can come from that (heck knows that a
majority of the movies coming out on this wave of popularity are
frankly a pile of poo) in the form of Tomas Alfredson (who later went
on to direct the rather terrific Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) and his
adaptation of acclaimed novel Let the Right One In. In the
traditional Hollywood fashion, yes there did wind up being an
American remake.... the good news about that is it was actually
pretty solid, not least thanks to the inclusion of Richard Jenkins
and Chloe Grace Moretz amongst the cast as well as Cloverfield and
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes director Matt Reeves at the helm....
sure it doesn't quite match the powerful original but it managed to
be solid enough.... but that's not the film we're here to discuss....
Important fact out of the way first, yes this film is from Sweden and
yes it's in Swedish. Just read the subtitles and be done with it.....
job done. Anyway.... the film focuses on a young boy, Oscar, in small
town Sweden in the 1980s... struggling to fit in, being bullied and
being a general loner. That is, until he meets Eli... a peculiar
young girl who he immediately clicks with and they become best
friends... but is it more than that, and is Eli all she seems? With
mysterious disappearances occuring around the village and Eli
displaying peculiar behaviour.... anything is possible
What impresses most about this modern masterpiece is it's
subtlety.... whereas the remake does tend to go for some most obvious
shocks and effects, outside of a terrible cat sequence and a few well
placed thrills, this is a much more low key affair than your typical
horror film at points, while still chilling and providing a jolt when
it needs to. It's helped a lot by the performances of the two
leads.... both very natural and very mature, and one big twist that
isn't even a twist more something you need to decide for yourself,
makes the performances that much more interesting. Beautifully
directed and shot.... this is one friendship and romance story with a
big twist that works oh so very well....
- An American Werewolf in London (1981) Rated 18Directed by John Landis
When people talk about this movie, they always talk about and cite
the incredible make up effects and transformation scene and rightly
so, because it's extraordinary.... most werewolf movies since and
before fail to really match how visceral and painful and well
realised it is.... and the make up effects are so incredible that you
believe every second as David transforms into the beast. But there's
so much else that's great about this 80's classic.... a superb mix of
creepy horror with dark humour and crazy satire. But what else could
you expect from John Landis, he deals all the time with crazy comedy,
a lot of the time imbuing it with a sinister edge.... and this is no
different, except this time, the horror side is the main course with
the comedy edge being the extra treat.... you have your scary wolves
and crazy scares but you also have a naked man with balloons and a
cameo from the Muppets....
Two hapless American tourists David and Jack are on a hiking trip in
the Yorkshire moors, and they stop off at a peculiar pub called The
Slaughtered Lamb.... and the locals are very odd and warn of strange
things afoot. They warn them to stay off the moors... but that
doesn't last long. They soon find themselves off the beaten path and
on the misty moors when suddenly something attacks them.... Jack is
ripped to shreds and David is severely wounded. Soon afterwards, very
odd things begin to happen.... David is visited by ghostly
apparitions of a very messy looking Jack who warns of change to come,
and he also has very strange visions and dreams including an
memorably terrifying episode in which his family is besieged by an
army of Nazi werewolves whilst watching The Muppet Show.
Soon enough, David undergoes 'that' change, the infamous
transformation scene and the chaos begins.... he wakes up in strange
places with no memory and has to steal balloons to protect his
modesty in a very funny moment. The only true friend (apart from the
ghostly Jack who keeps appearing in funny fashion) is the kindly
nurse he befriends while recovering, Alex (Jenny Agutter) who soon
seems to be the only one to try and help him.... with even the
doctors stumped, including the great Frank Oz in a fun cameo....
One of the many wonderful movies that John Landis brought the world
during the 1980s (Animal House, Trading Places, Blues Brothers, the
Thriller video, Three Amigos, Spies like Us, Coming to America) like
previously said, this is a great mix of true spooky horror with some
very witty dark humour and knockabout comedy moments.... a really
great example of the horror comedy genre (later also perfected by
Shaun of the Dead and Ghostbusters) and a bonafide classic not just
in the patheon of 80s movies but also the horror genre itself....
it's defined make up artist Rick Bakers career as well as the careers
of its stars who later went on to mixed success with the movies....
Spooky, visceral, creepy but also funny... this is a true piece of
great 80's popcorn entertainment.... just keep off those moors!
- Psycho (1960) Rated 15Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
In the history of movies, the history of horror movies, suspense,
thrillers... you name it, it's bound to be something the late, great
and amazing Alfred Hitchcock pioneered and mastered in his time...
with movies like Vertigo, North by Northwest, Frenzy, Rear Window and
The Birds amongst many others... he revitalised genres and set
templates for years to come, and none more than the jaw-dropping
thriller Psycho, which back in its time, maybe even today... is
shocking, twisty and never quite obvious in where it's heading...
it's big twist amongst many was a pioneer for movie twists ever since
but there's so much more to this than that.... it's a brutally
effective exercise in tension and mis-direction....
The story leads as such.... the beautiful Marion Crane (Janet Leigh)
steals from the place where she works, she steals $40, 000 and skips
town with it. After this, the police are on the search for her... she
stops at a motel run by a creepy fellow by the name of Norman
Bates.... she goes to take a shower and then... well if you don't
know by now! The sudden shocking incident only partway through the
movie shifts everything to the side so much that you don't know what
to expect.... never mind the shocking revelations that occur even
later on.... safe to say you're never sure if it's Norman who is at
fault or whether someone else is doing the deeds... and the way it
all comes together is just ingenious and a real wonder of narrative
and tension....
It's a classic for a reason, from the inspired cast of characters to
it's beautifully textured plot and the way it plays out... it's
shocks are memorable and well orchestrated, a good few of them
defining of the genre, whether the horror genre or just the standard
genre of movie twists if you can call that a genre. The character of
Norman Bates is fairly and very iconic, from the story arc the
character takes to the legacy he left in numerous sequels through to
the pretty terrific prequel TV show Bates Motel, currently about to
enter a third season. It's one of those films, like Soylent Green,
The Sixth Sense, Planet of the Apes, Usual Suspects, Crying Game, or
Empire Strikes Back that you still don't want to give the game away,
even though the big reveal is pretty famous and well known.... to a
massive degree. Now, please be quiet... don't want to wake mother!
- Dawn of the Dead (1978) Rated 18Directed by George.A.Romero
The zombie genre is so big, it's gigantic... from Walking Dead to
Zombeavers via 28 Days Later, it's going as strong now as it has been
since at least the 70s, and the guy who started all this off was one
George.A.Romero with his 60s classic Night of the Living Dead, which
still endures to this day. Following on from such an iconic debut,
Dawn wasn't his next film directly (that would be Season of the
Witch) but it was his next dabble into the world of the Zombies (a
term coined in West Africa and related to Voodoo and later re-defined
by Romeros' movies) was this ultra classic from the 70s.
Whereas the original Dead movie dealt with the initial outbreak and a
rag tag bunch of survivors holing up in a small farm house and
dealing with the inevitable onslaught of the undead... this 70s'
sequel ups the ante and the location, by following a group of
survivors amid the outbreak as they seek refuge in a shopping mall
and the chaos that follows. This being a Romero movie, it deals with
many issues as well as simply being a tense Zombie movie. It deals
with the need for consumerism as we head time and time again to the
shopping malls to shop away... the vision of zombies mindlessly
flocking to the mall a big satirical slant on the way things were
going in the late 1970s, and is still particularly pertinent today,
some things are always relevant.
One thing Romero does particularly well in this case too is mixing
the tension, the horror and the gore with a rather jovial bent,
there's humour aplenty and some slapstick too to lighten the mood
without ever jarring... sure it's slightly dated but its still a good
relief from the mounting tension and helps you be at ease. The one
thing this does fantastically well though that is definetly a
template for future movies of this genre and even something Night of
the Living Dead did beautifully is creating chemistry between its
cast so you get to know and care about them before everything goes
wrong... it helps the drama move along fantastically and places real
stakes on events. It's a major key to making this film works and it
pays off beautifully in plenty of scenes as it moves towards it
climax....
Between the mixture of terror and satire and daft humour, and between
the great mix of character development and a simple structure...
there's plenty of great reasons this remains a classic to this day
despite a silliness that can date it at times. Zach Snyder did a bang
up job of rebooting it for a new generation in 2004, with the fast
zombies and modern culture making it a forever prevelant tale that
worked as well now as it did then.... the follow up Day of the Dead
proved fruitful in pervaying further messages about the 80s, but it
never quite stands above what Dawn pulls off in spades....
That's your lot for now, until then...
You stay classy planet earth!
