We're Back! A Horror Countdowns' story!

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:

10. Let the Right One In (2009) Rated 15
    Directed 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....

9. An American Werewolf in London (1981) Rated 18
   Directed 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!

8. Psycho (1960) Rated 15
   Directed 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!

7. Dawn of the Dead (1978) Rated 18
   Directed 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!