The 100 Greatest Horror Movies Ever, according to this one annoying guy
The world's most idiosyncratically unhelpful list, just in time for Halloween
Greatest x lists are stupid. Which isn’t to say I’m not addicted to reading and compiling them, but they are stupid. Whether the listmakers simply collate the votes of a bunch of august experts or subject the selectioning to some sort of baroque editorial process, you’ll still end up faced with lunatic sequences like: 86. On the Road, 85. The Metamorphoses of Ovid 84. Parable of the Sower or whatever. Given a sufficiently long time-span (as we have with literature, or painting, or atrocities), you’re bound to end up with at least one hundred examples of “greatness” that are more or less in the same tier, such that you could just as easily shuffle their order and then write your justifications after the fact. But doing so would deny the list compilers the opportunity to make some statements: I elected not to scream and piss myself over Pitchfork’s latest 100 rap albums list because it’s ultimately a list of mostly really excellent records, some of which a lot of people have never reached for, but it is larded with obvious bait and provocations.
Anyway, my list of the 100 greatest horror movies of all time is different because it’s just the favs of a guy who has watched a lot of horror movies and it doesn’t claim to be anything else. I started it several years ago under the title “40 Date Substitutes or Enhancements,” and it grew metastatically until I drew a hard line at the century mark. I haven’t watched every horror movie, and as this is not my job1 I did not rewatch say, Us, to verify that it is an overwrought and underthought mess before continuing to omit it from my list. It has been described by friends as both “the world’s most idiosyncratically unhelpful list” and “an important service to the ghoul community.”
The justifications for what is ranked where are arbitrary even by the standards of “favouriteness”: some of these films made me laugh my head off; others awed me with the demonstrable power of great art; a few genuinely scared me, and since I like when all of those things happen to me at the movies, I treated them all as equally valid criteria and more or less ranked them according to the intensity of fascination they exerted upon me.
The list is probably still best enjoyed (on desktop at least) in its original spreadsheet format, where it will continue to be updated over time. By scrolling to the right, you can see additional columns with “tasting notes” on whether the movie is scary, gory, funny, campy, horny, “original,” or arty, and there are tabs that include some films that were pushed out of the bottom of the top 100 over time, or that I never felt were good enough to merit inclusion. However, I decided to write little capsule reviews of every movie on the list for this post and uh… let’s just say you’re going to want to open this one in your browser.
With that said, enough said. Let’s get on with it.
100 Date Substitutes or Enhancements
UNRANKED: Cannibal Holocaust (1980, Ruggero Deodato, Italy)
A visionary gonzo exploitation film that is among the most original and subversive of its kind, and also the product of such revolting on-set behaviour by its director that I have never felt comfortable ranking it on this list. But I would also feel dishonest about omitting it entirely.
Scary? No
Gory? Legitimately, unforgivably vile unsimulated animal cruelty, and also not very nice to the humans
Funny (on purpose)? A few zingers
Campy? A bit
Sexy? No dude2
Original or Traditional? O
Arty? Groundbreaking and racist as hell: The Birth of a Nation of grotesque grind movies
100. Disgusting Spaceworms Eat Everyone!!! (1989, George Keller, USA)
Say what you will about Chuck Klosterman, but his assertion that Van Halen’s “…And the Cradle Will Rock” is the most average song in history (every song worse than it is ‘bad’, every song better is ‘good’) is very funny, and I’ve had a few films cycle (Phantasm; Folies meurtrières) through this spot as essentially the Mendoza Line of quality. DSEE is a perfect punk movie because it looks like something a bunch of dudes in a squat would make if you gave them a 16 mm camera. The soundtrack of primitive synth-punk and various LA never-weres kicks ass, which is good because it’s mixed so loud the dialogue’s basically inaudible in a lot of scenes. I watched it loaded at like 3 a.m. on CathodeTV, which put me in the exact same state the filmmakers were in. The shitty worm effects rule.
Scary? Not remotely
Gory? Extremely
Funny (on purpose)? Hell yeah
Campy? The campiest!
Sexy? Hell yeah, worms aside, but I think punks are intrinsically hot so
Original or Traditional? O
Arty? Like fingerpainting after sniffing glue
99. You Won’t Be Alone (2022, Goran Stolevski, Australia)
A young witch hops (rather gorily) from body to body by stuffing their guts into a unique orifice on her chest, learns lessons along the way. A movie about becoming, however you want to frame it: as a feminist parable, or a trans one, or simply about the young struggling against the boxes built by the old.
Scary? No
Gory? So many innards
Funny (on purpose)? No
Campy? No
Sexy? The way they eat apples!
Original or Traditional? O
Arty? Terrence Malick and Robert Eggers Present Freaky Friday
98. The Testament of Caleb Meeke (1968, Roy Spence, UK)
The tunnel scene in I Am Legend where all those baldies are standing around jerking it has nothing on this one. A really great, moody short about a young man discovering his vanished uncle’s occult proclivities by Northern Irish director Roy Spence, available to watch free from the IFI Archive.
Scary? Quite eerie
Gory? No
Funny (on purpose)? No
Campy? No
Sexy? No
Original or Traditional? T—Old school occult
Arty? Yes—Dreamy near silent film with Vampyr-ish energy
97. The Devil Rides Out (1968, Terence Fisher, UK)
Hammer horror occult movie starring Christopher Lee and some sick black mass scenes. You will be exposed to horrors beyond the imagination of H.P. Lovecraft, such as a tarantula and a Black guy.
Scary? No
Gory? No
Funny (on purpose)? No
Campy? Yes
Sexy? No
Original or Traditional? T
Arty? No
96. High Tension (Haute Tension) (2003, Alexandre Aja, France)
This movie is fucking nonsense, but the first half really is a masterclass in, well, tension, and don’t let your eyes roll so hard they lodge in your sinuses or you’ll miss a true splatterfest finale. (Oddly though, the shot I remember most vividly is a simple, beautifully-composed image of the protagonist drinking water directly from the faucet instead of using a cup. One of those cinematic moments where you start mentally clapping like a seal because you recognize one of your own mannerisms on the big screen.)
Scary? Does what it says on the tin
Gory? Yikes!
Funny (on purpose)? No
Campy? Somewhat
Sexy? It’s French
Original or Traditional? T (but French)
Arty? Just stupid (but French)
95. Two Thousand Maniacs (1964, Herschell Gordon Lewis, USA)
Dixieland folk horror. I was tipped to this movie by the inclusion of its iconic (to trash bluegrass heads) theme song “Robert E. Lee Broke His Musket on His Knee” from the Rhino compilation The Golden Turkey Album: The Best Songs From the Worst Movies. I won’t do any better than Letterboxd titan pd187’s one-line review: “i bet the confederate ghosts would hate to find out the name of this movie...they probably think its called ‘two thousand normal guys.’” As with many of the worst movies, this owns.
Scary? No
Gory? Deliciously
Funny (on purpose)? It’s a hoot
Campy? The campiest
Sexy? There is a lady with lovely shoulders
Original or Traditional? O—Dixieland folk horror, from before folk horror was a genre
Arty? Nooo
94. Skinamarink (2022, Kyle Edward Ball, Canada)
I had to wait more than a year to see this one after stumbling across its absolutely superb trailer—unfortunately, I wasn’t quite able to connect with it in the theatre, though it might be more frightening at home (or if you have children). Still, it scores points for its commitment to the simple terror of things clattering in the darkness and moving when they shouldn’t.
Scary? Opiated
Gory? Some quite disturbingly implied
Funny (on purpose)? No
Campy? No
Sexy? No
Original or Traditional? Avant-garde, House of Leaves-style
Arty? Borderline video art
93. Lifeforce (1985, Tobe Hooper, USA)
Written by the same guy who wrote Alien, and at first you think you’re getting a camp retread of that movie, but then it ends up both campier and more pretentious. Sort of ambles along like a replacement-level dumb sci-fi actioner, except approximately every 90 seconds something absolutely insane goes down, often for no other reason than, “We have the technology” or “Well, Patrick Stewart says he’ll do it.” Tone-wise, it plays everything with an oddly straight face, sometimes a bit to its detriment, but as a film of Moments it really has to be seen to be believed.
Scary? No
Gory? Practical goop city
Funny (on purpose)? Yes, but could be funnier
Campy? Yes
Sexy? Strangely not at all, despite copious nudity
Original or Traditional? T, I guess, but kind of a bizarre mishmash of ideas
Arty? No
92. Basket Case (1982, Frank Henenlotter, USA)
From about the late ‘60s on, horror was injected with an elephant-syringe of Freudianism to vaccinate it against, I dunno, Catholicism or something, and results definitely varied. But Henenlotter’s creature feature debut rests on a demented family romance plot that is both sidesplitting and genuinely kind of pitiable.
Scary? No
Gory? Hell yeah
Funny (on purpose)? Very
Campy? Very very
Sexy? No
Original or Traditional? O—never met a monster like this before
Arty? You know weirdly a bit
91. Child’s Play (1988, Tom Holland, USA)
A nasty, meanspirited little picture that gets by on its awesome effects and a sublime vocal performance from the greatest actor of our time, Brad Dourif.
Scary? Not really, no
Gory? For sure
Funny (on purpose)? Yeah
Campy? It’s a killer doll movie
Sexy? No
Original or Traditional? Traditional slasher, with a gimmick
Arty? Not even a little
90. Frankenhooker (1990, Frank Henenlotter, USA)
You and I, for the purposes of this review, are going to forget the word “whorephobia” for a minute and just agree that the concept of a scientist trying to resurrect his virginal fiancée out of dead sex worker parts only for her to autonomically return to the streets to start turning tricks is extremely funny.
Scary? Only in terms of its sexual politics
Gory? Yes
Funny (on purpose)? Yes
Campy? Yes
Sexy? Pure exploitation
Original or Traditional? O, as a high concept joke
Arty? Nooo
89. Under the Blossoming Cherry Trees (桜の森の満開の下) (1975, Masahiro Shinoda, Japan)
Only loosely a horror movie, this story of a Bluebeard-type getting tamed into a frustrated simp by a mysterious woman nevertheless has an unearthly quality that lingers, even turning the beauty of falling cherry blossoms into an emblem of simmering, supernatural disquiet.
Scary? No
Gory? No
Funny (on purpose)? Ish
Campy? No
Sexy? If you’re a macho sub
Original or Traditional? O
Arty? Yup
88. Mad God (2021, Phil Tippett, USA)
A stop motion passion project that took practical effects genius Phil Tippett 30 years to complete. There’s that notion that symbolic works like the Book of Revelation or Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights would have been perfectly legible to their contemporary audiences, only we no longer understand the references so they’ve become a hallucinagenic field of abstract signifiers that people will argue about till worlds’ end. Mad God suggests they might simply have been the work of hermetic artisans observing a hidden and opposite sun known only to themselves, and that the proper way to experience such works is equally personal and inscrutable.
Scary? No
Gory? Yes (graphic clay-on-clay violence)
Funny (on purpose)? Yes
Campy? Mostly no
Sexy? No
Original or Traditional? O
Arty? Yes
87. Kiss of the Damned (2012, Xan Cassavettes, USA)
More fun, much sexier, and less obsessed with diverting hapless tourists to Third Man Records than The Only Lovers Left Alive, this vampy melodrama takes some good shots at the undead bourgeoisie, but we’re mostly here for the pupil-dilating fabulousness of it all.
Scary? No
Gory? No
Funny (on purpose)? Yes
Campy? Yes
Sexy? [runs around with head glowing red and smoking looking for a bucket to plunge it into]
Original or Traditional? O
Arty? In an Anne Rice-y softcore kinda way
86. Midsommar (2019, Ari Aster, USA)
A perfectly good take on folk horror for the The Body Keeps the Score era in its theatrical cut that loses both pace and subtlety in the leaden director’s cut. In its original cut, one is inclined to side with the grieving, traumatized protagonist over her somewhat insensitive boyfriend—who knows it is “wrong” (or “looks bad”) to leave someone when they are at their lowest but who cannot admit he has already checked out and is therefore making matters worse by staying—but he is presented sympathetically enough for us to feel complicated about him. That gives the dynamics between the characters vitality, and also keeps us invested in their fates. In the director’s cut, Aster underlines that this guy is basically a total prick, and wouldn’t it be nice if something bad were to happen to him? Part of the release trashy horror movies give us is seeing people exaggeratedly punished for minor social crimes: being a jock, a wet blanket, an annoying guy, a lawyer (well that one’s less minor). But if you’re going to do “elevated” horror, hold yourself to an elevated standard, damn you. (Music’s cool though.)
Scary? No
Gory? Pretty brutal
Funny (on purpose)? Yes
Campy? No
Sexy? A bit
Original or Traditional? Gritty Wicker Man reboot
Arty? In a mainstream way
85. The People Under the Stairs (1991, Wes Craven, USA)
102 minutes, feels like 145 somehow, probably due to the sheer number of batshit ideas Craven stuffs into it, including some Metal Gear Solid-level backtracking. That said, when it’s cooking, it’s a genuinely funny, upsetting, and thrilling reverse-home-invasion movie—Wikipedia calls it a “surprise commercial hit,” and if you’ve seen it you’ll know why there was no citation needed.
Scary? No
Gory? Yes
Funny (on purpose)? Yes
Campy? Yes
Sexy? No
Original or Traditional? Home Alone remake by an absolute freak
Arty? No
84. Jigoku (1960, Nobuo Nakagawa, Japan)
AKA Hell AKA The Sinners of Hell, Jigoku surveys humanity and decides we’re all pieces of shit before demonstrating the appropriately balls-out in-camera effect-heavy punishments that await us. It takes its sweet time getting to the freak out portion of the evening, but there’s a seedy strangeness to the earthbound exposition that’ll have you grimacing around the spoiled, fishy taste of it all.
Scary? Bizarre
Gory? Yes
Funny (on purpose)? Gnomically
Campy? Ish
Sexy? Ish
Original or Traditional? Very O
Arty? Yes
83. Creepshow (1982, George A. Romero, USA)
An anthology collab between Romero and Stephen King that isn’t all bangers, but has a Goosebumps-y / EC Comics-y vibe that’ll put a smile on any freak’s face. The standout is of course Leslie Nielsen and Ted Danson’s beachfront duel “On the Beach.”
Scary? No
Gory? Haha yeah
Funny (on purpose)? Totally
Campy? Yeslie Nielsen
Sexy? No
Original or Traditional? T
Arty? No
82. It: Chapter 1 (2017, Andy Muschietti, USA)
It is just Stranger Things with more gore and a better villain, which makes sense because Stranger Things is just It with less gore, a worse villain, and the banality of Netflix production design. Unfortunately, as with the book and the previous miniseries, Chapter 2 is pretty much total shit, so if you seek closure just don’t bother watching this. I enjoyed this as one of the better screen evocations of King’s general vibe, but goddamn if the taboo on showing awful things happening to children hasn’t been thoroughly (and it seems to me pointlessly) broken in the past decade or so.
Scary? Like a rollercoaster
Gory? Yes
Funny (on purpose)? Yes
Campy? Will be in a few years
Sexy? No sewer tween gangbang, thank the lord
Original or Traditional? O but in an IP retread way
Arty? Basic cable
81. The Pied Piper (Krysař) (1986, Jiří Barta, Czechoslovakia)
You know the Pied Piper of Hamlin story originates in an actual historical event from 800 years ago that no one can quite agree on the particulars of? Spooky as hell, as is this short film that mixes terrifying stop-motion-animated wooden puppets, representing the gluttonous petit bourgeois of Hamlin, and real rats, representing the uh rats, who menace their earthly possessions. A beautiful and severe little movie, and a strong reminder to always pay buskers.
Scary? Eerie
Gory? No, yet not for the squeamish
Funny (on purpose)? In its own sly way
Campy? No
Sexy? It’s puppets man
Original or Traditional? Traditional
Arty? Yes
80. Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers (1988, Fred Olen Ray, USA)
I laughed myself hoarse watching this alone and sober as a judge, so I can imagine how much it would bang to throw on housed with some friends. Kind of a junior Naked Gun in terms of humour with a surprisingly good hit rate on its gags, and both the smut and the gore are primo. Happy to join the cult of Olen Ray for this one, or the Egyptian chainsaw hooker death cult for that matter, I’m easy.
Scary? No
Gory? Sprinklers of tomato soup
Funny (on purpose)? Hysterical
Campy? 1000%
Sexy? [honks car horn like a doofus]
Original or Traditional? O (noir parody slash cheesecake slasher movie)
Arty? My friend, it is not
79. Black Christmas (1974, Bob Clark, Canada)
A nasty, violent shocker. This is one of the great slashers about the absolute failure of authority figures (parental, totally-sozzled-parental-surrogate, and police alike) and it also has some of the hysterical procedural haze of living through a real life crime spree. Plus the phone calls are weird as hell.
Scary? Yes
Gory? Yes
Funny (on purpose)? Yes
Campy? Yes
Sexy? Margot Kidder making dick sucking jokes
Original or Traditional? T, slasher—but one of the originators of its style
Arty? No
78. The Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971, Piers Haggard, UK)
Simultaneously very goofy (the invasive, accursed furry patches are Dollar Store quality) and extremely involving and cool (the scenery! the Satanic rituals! the creepy teens!), this will be deeply satisfying for anyone into the whole folk horror thing, provided you can get around its blazing dirty old man streak.
Scary? No
Gory? No
Funny (on purpose)? No
Campy? Yes
Sexy? Extremely ephebophile-coded
Original or Traditional? T, folk horror—but among the originators of the form
Arty? No
77. Flesh for Frankenstein (1973, Paul Morrissey, Italy/France)
Gore Vidal once said of Andy Warhol that he was “the only genius I ever met with an I.Q. of 60.” Warhol didn’t really have anything to do with this movie, despite it having his name appended to its title for the US, but it’s definitely brilliant in an extremely cognitively impaired way. Lots of disembowelments, sex with holes that aren’t intended for that purpose, and lots of beautiful men and women who were very much not chosen for their ability to recite dialogue (with apologies to Udo Kier) reciting dialogue like ABBA learning to sing English phonetically. Sporadically hilarious.
Scary? No
Gory? It gets everywhere
Funny (on purpose)? Yes
Campy? Fabulously
Sexy? Louchely
Original or Traditional? T
Arty? Yes, dahling
76. The Old Dark House (1932, James Whale, USA)
Effortlessly dapper parody of the prevailing horror style of the time, but the third act reveal is (and I use this word sparingly) unhinged in the best way, teeth-gnashing physicality you didn’t see much during the era.
Scary? No
Gory? No
Funny (on purpose)? Yes, in a very 1932 way
Campy? Yes
Sexy? Pre-Code, baby
Original or Traditional? T
Arty? No
75. The Devil’s Backbone (2001, Guillermo del Toro, Spain/Mexico)
I’ll be honest with you partner, I saw this movie six years ago, put it on the list, and I don’t remember a thing about it other than for some reason I’d decided Pan’s Labyrinth (which is great) did not count as a horror movie, but this one did. So I guess it’s probably good based on the evidence available.
Scary? Spooky
Gory? Yes
Funny (on purpose)? No
Campy? No
Sexy? No
Original or Traditional? T
Arty? Yes
74. From Beyond (1986, Stuart Gordon, USA)
The surlier, grimmer, less overtly comedic cousin to Re-Animator, Stuart Gordon’s second-best Lovecraft adaptation has it all: writhing oversized pineal glands, BDSM from beyond the grave, unfathomable and extremely greasy things of eldritch origin, Jeffrey Combs gradually morphing into a Hare Krishna. It’s just not quite as fun.
Scary? No
Gory? Fuck yeah dude!
Funny (on purpose)? Yes
Campy? Yes
Sexy? Barbara gd Crampton
Original or Traditional? O
Arty? No
73. Lake Mungo (2008, Joel Anderson, Australia)
An understated found footage horror film that may or may not captivate you. But it leaves a kind of grey stain on the soul, and you may find yourself thinking about the implications of its conclusion at random times, and feel a little chill run through you.
Scary? Philosophically troubling
Gory? No
Funny (on purpose)? No
Campy? No
Sexy? No
Original or Traditional? T—found footage
Arty? Somewhat
72. Society (1989, Brian Yuzna, USA)
Opens and closes with some absolutely first-class Weird Shit, while the middle is mostly enjoyable for its campy doofiness. I enjoyed it throughout, but even if you don’t yet know what The Shunting is, trust me: you’re here for The Shunting.
Scary? No
Gory? Chef’s kiss
Funny (on purpose)? Very
Campy? Hoo boy
Sexy? Fuck it, sure
Original or Traditional? O
Arty? Goosebumps-ass satire
71. Viy (1967, Konstantin Yershov & Georgi Kropachyov, USSR)
Based on a Gogol short story, this rare Soviet horror story has a bonkers, almost Hausu quality to it. It zips along like a cartoon, and the ghouls and ghosts are delightful to watch.
Scary? Nyet
Gory? Nyet
Funny (on purpose)? Hard to say
Campy? Da
Sexy? Nyet
Original or Traditional? T—but wild!
Arty? Nyet but very strange
70. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984, Wes Craven, USA)
You hearda this picture? It’s like Inception, but Jeffrey Epstein. It’s gold! We can’t miss!
Scary? Yes
Gory? Buckets
Funny (on purpose)? Oh that Freddy
Campy? Yes
Sexy? Smoochin’ teens
Original or Traditional? O
Arty? In its way
69. Messiah of Evil (1973, William Huyck & Gloria Katz, USA)
Pure undiluted camphetamines. Notable straight man Michael Greer plays a louche aristocrat. No one else can act a goddamn. There’s cop on cop violence, evil pilgrims, zombies, pop art paintings, vomiting up creepy crawlies, Lovecraft shit, cult activity… I could go on, but you should just watch it.
Scary? No
Gory? No
Funny (on purpose)? Yes
Campy? So campy!
Sexy? Groovy baby
Original or Traditional? O
Arty? In that it involves paintings
68. Hereditary (2018, Ari Aster, USA)
The terms “arthouse” and “efficiency” don’t typically go together, but it’s kind of the A24 brand, and Aster’s Hereditary remains a monument of the style. At times it feels a bit like Aster has sort of gamed the system to make the optimal critic-bait horror movie—but I suspect my own fatigue with our endlessly meta cultural moment is seeping into my appraisal of a sturdy film with some effective shocks, strong acting, and a few images that linger. Still, a revision of a revisionist horror (Rosemary’s Baby) leaves us a few rather estranged steps from the source.
Scary? Yes
Gory? Yes
Funny (on purpose)? No
Campy? No
Sexy? God no
Original or Traditional? Rosemary’s Baby gritty reboot
Arty? A24
67. The Bride of Frankenstein (1935, James Whale, USA)
If you can’t watch this film with a modicum of sincere tenderness, you have less soul than that stitched-together incel who just wants to hit a stogie in peace.
Scary? No
Gory? No
Funny (on purpose)? No
Campy? C’est classique
Sexy? The Bride’s not really into that
Original or Traditional? T—but the original
Arty? No
66. The Evil Dead (1981, Sam Raimi, USA)
First as tragedy…
Scary? Yes
Gory? Yuck
Funny (on purpose)? No that’s the sequels
Campy? Yes
Sexy? If you’re into hentai
Original or Traditional? T
Arty? No
65. The Driller Killer (1979, Abel Ferrara, USA)
Abel Ferrara arguably made a lateral move going from shooting porno to grindhouse horror here, but The Driller Killer is an absolute blast. You get the impression Ferrara would’ve loved to take a power tool to every annoying artist, gallery owner, and dreadful punk band in Manhattan circa 1979, and decided that making them look like idiots and then dowsing them with corn syrup would have to do.
Scary? No
Gory? It’s called The Driller Killer
Funny (on purpose)? Yes
Campy? Yes
Sexy? Yes
Original or Traditional? T—slasher
Arty? Abel Ferrara
64. Frailty (2001, Bill Paxton, USA)
I grew up without a dad, but I assume it’s like this for everyone. I haven’t looked, but I assume every review with 700 likes is some variation on the “men will do x instead of going to therapy” joke. A legitimately excellent rumination on fanaticism and the lonely determination of a true believer, anchored by extremely fine acting and directing by genre legend Bill Paxton.
Scary? Unsettling
Gory? Yes
Funny (on purpose)? No
Campy? No
Sexy? No
Original or Traditional? O
Arty? No
63. The Conjuring (2013, James Wan, USA)
Blumhouse has chunked out way more bad horror movies than good (including in this very franchise), but The Conjuring stands as one of the most effective, give-it-to-me-straight haunted house movies of the past 20 years. Basically from the drop, it raised the hairs on my forearms, and sustained its thrills practically to the very end. I’ll take this over bloated sadcore like The Babadook any day because it isn’t wringing a metaphor by the throat until it expires and then beating you with the corpse: it’s just a proper scary movie. I’ll even forgive it turning real-life grifters Ed and Lorraine Warren into superheroes.
Scary? Yes
Gory? Yes
Funny (on purpose)? No
Campy? No
Sexy? No
Original or Traditional? T
Arty? No
62. Shivers (1975, David Cronenberg, Canada)
The inevitable fate of any closed condominium ecosystem: A fatal outbreak of Swinging. Effectively Cronenberg’s first feature, don’t sleep on his early work: it’s both fascinating as a prelude to his masterpieces, and has a direct hilarity to it that he’s more cagey about later on.
Scary? Emotionally
Gory? Blech
Funny (on purpose)? Yes
Campy? Somewhat
Sexy? Name your fetish, it’s here
Original or Traditional? O (but zombie)
Arty? Faintly
61. Cure (Kyua) (1997, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Japan)
The late ‘90s and early ‘00s J-horror thing was never really my bag, but Kurosawa’s bleak outlook on society and the sinister patience with which he peels away any sense of hopefulness have a way of making you understand Japanese celibacy syndrome. Reminiscent of E.M. Forster’s quote in Aspects of the Novel about prophecy being a tone of voice rather than evidence of true occult vision, Cure doesn’t really forecast the future so much as finger something unpleasant about the present. It is so rich in its doomer style that you might think it contains great secrets indeed.
Scary? Troubling
Gory? Yes
Funny (on purpose)? No
Campy? No
Sexy? There is a somewhat smouldering homoeroticism
Original or Traditional? O
Arty? Yes
60. Jennifer’s Body (2009, Karyn Kusama, USA)
The critical response and box office section for this $16 million movie on Wikipedia is 2,300 words long. That’s longer than the entire page for Agnès Varda’s Cléo de 5 à 7. 2009 needed to shut up. You don’t need to watch this movie to make any great moral or political point, you should watch it because it’s a spiky, funny piece of teenage black comedy in the vein of Heathers and Mean Girls that has a lot of fun with the horrors of girlworld.
Scary? No!
Gory? Yeah!
Funny (on purpose)? Yeah!
Campy? Yeah!
Sexy? Yeah!
Original or Traditional? T but O!
Arty? No!
59. House (Hausu) (1977, Nobuhiko Obayashi, Japan)
I remember when Hausu got the Criterion treatment in 2010, and suddenly that fantastically orange ghost cat cover was absolutely everywhere. It was somehow even goofier (and girlier) than I expected when I watched it, and as a prematurely greying chinstroker it wasn’t really my bag. But as I continue to lead my Benjamin Button-ass life en route to being returned to the womb like an overfull black plastic bag being stuffed down a garbage chute, I now love how absolutely to the nines everything in this movie is. “No bad ideas!” I imagine Obayashi screaming at himself in the mirror then slamming his forehead into it, causing cartoon blood to spray all over the place.
Scary? No
Gory? iykyk
Funny (on purpose)? Yes
Campy? 9000
Sexy? No
Original or Traditional? WTF classic
Arty? Yes
58. Dawn of the Dead (1978, George A. Romero, USA/Italy)
[takes huge drag of CBD pre-roll from the government weed store] Zombies are just like, consumers too, man.
Scary? No
Gory? Yes
Funny (on purpose)? Yes
Campy? Yes
Sexy? No
Original or Traditional? T but in a mall
Arty? A bit
57. The Changeling (1980, Peter Medak, Canada)
Nothing fancy here. There are ghosts. They’re spooky. George C. Scott acts his ass off. There’s a cool séance. One for a quilt and a hot cocoa.
Scary? Spooky
Gory? No
Funny (on purpose)? No
Campy? No
Sexy? No
Original or Traditional? T
Arty? No
56. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014, Ana Lily Amirpour, USA)
Increased acceptance in the 21st century of simping as a lifestyle can be directly correlated with the rising number of “Cute Renfields” in cinema. Most troubling. A total love letter to early ‘90s independent cinema—meaning it is so transcendently cool and stylish you forgive that long sections have the pacing of a snail wearing Ray Bans and smoking a cigarette.
Scary? No
Gory? No
Funny (on purpose)? Drily
Campy? Yes
Sexy? Yes
Original or Traditional? Yes
Arty? Yes
55. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986, Tobe Hooper, USA)
A massively underrated sequel pilloried for the minor crimes of “being a complete tonal and stylistic departure from its legendary predecessor” and “being silly as all hell,” but feh, don’t be a churl! You can certainly read the text for its satire of American culture (the inbred cannibal family has moved from a grimy shack to a literal amusement park) but on the merits of its leering superficial pleasures alone, TCM2 is a riot.
Scary? No
Gory? Yes
Funny (on purpose)? As hell
Campy? YUP
Sexy? Nah
Original or Traditional? One of a kind
Arty? Only in the sense of how much of a troll it is
54. Ginger Snaps (2000, John Fawcett, Canada)
God, when I was 14 I thought Katharine Isabelle was basically the hottest woman I’d ever seen. That’s not really relevant, but I’m trying to write all of these capsule descriptions in one marathon session, and I’m starting to lose it. “No bad ideas!” I scream at the mirror and then slam my forehead in it, causing cartoon blood to spray all over the place. Which reminds me that I should say something about this movie being about menstruation and having endearingly janky special effects, and basically being what a great episode of Buffy might’ve been like without the constraints of network TV censorship.
Scary? No
Gory? Yes
Funny (on purpose)? Yes
Campy? Yes
Sexy? Yes
Original or Traditional? T, w/ feminist twist
Arty? No
53. Black Sunday (La maschera del demonio) (1960, Mario Bava, Italy)
Hanging between classic black and white gothic horror and the Technicolor Grand Guignol of giallo3 like a rope of saliva is Bava’s Black Sunday. It opens with one of the most brutal scenes that had been thus far committed to celluloid, and there is a delirious eroticism running throughout the picture, but it still maintains a low key power of suggestion that latter Italian splatter pics would largely eschew. (It’s also based on the same Gogol story as Viy, #71 on this list.)
Scary? Weird dream
Gory? No
Funny (on purpose)? No
Campy? Yes
Sexy? No
Original or Traditional? O
Arty? Italian
52. The Beyond (…E tu vivrai nel terrore! L’aldilà) (1981, Luigi Fulci, Italy)
Fuck it, I’d read the Book of Eibon. I’ve seen enough. If you like your horror histrionic, demonic, and perplexing, there are few more fun flicks than The Beyond.
Scary? No
Gory? Yes
Funny (on purpose)? No
Campy? Yes
Sexy? Italian
Original or Traditional? T (giallo-ish)
Arty? Italian
51. Roar (1981, Noel Marshall, USA)
Noel Marshall (producer of The Exorcist) and wife Tippi Hedron (survivor of Alfred Hitchcock) attempt to make basically a bouncy family comedy along the lines of The Swiss Family Robinson using the over 100 big cats (lions, tigers, jaguars etc.) illegally housed at their family home in Los Angeles. Instead they make one of the most legitimately alarming movies ever made, as the terrified actors (including their own children) battle to make it through so much as a line of dialogue without being pounced and gnawed upon by their apex predator co-stars. The story of the film’s production, which saw 70 to 100 crew members injured (including when cinematographer Jan de Bont, pictured above, was scalped by a lion), has been told a million times…but you really do have to sit down and watch the thing one of these days because it is downright harrowing.
Scary? Unintentionally terrifying
Gory? Legit blood
Funny (on purpose)? N, yet it is a comedy
Campy? Yes
Sexy? For the last time, I am not a furry
Original or Traditional? No one else would’ve thought to live like this
Arty? No
50. The Living Dead Girl (La morte vivante) (1982, Jean Rollin, France)
I was expecting bright red Euro horror blood, heavy lesbian themes, clunky acting, and many nude French babes, and got all of the above. But I was not expecting the film to be genuinely sad, which it is. It slurps from a deeper vein than you’d think looking at that poster (and also chews on it, then slurps, and chews some more).
Scary? No
Gory? Yikes
Funny (on purpose)? No
Campy? Yes
Sexy? The all-stars of small-breasted French women align
Original or Traditional? T
Arty? In that it’s European softcore
49. Evil Dead II (1987, Sam Raimi, USA)
(cont’d from #66)…then as farce.
Scary? No you’re thinking of the first one
Gory? YOU BET
Funny (on purpose)? Yes
Campy? Yes
Sexy? No
Original or Traditional? T
Arty? No
48. The Witch (2015, Robert Eggers, USA)
No living American director would more readily put a naked 13-year-old girl in his movie if it were legal. Maybe Woody Allen.
Scary? Yes
Gory? When it counts
Funny (on purpose)? No
Campy? No
Sexy? Yes
Original or Traditional? T
Arty? Yes
47. Häxan (1922, Benjamin Christensen, Sweden/Denmark)
Take any clip of the various coveny hoedowns from this marvelous silent “essay” on Witchcraft Through the Ages and throw a beat behind it and you’ll find the result totally knocks—like the promo video I made for a long ago show you see above. Kind of an ideal visual backdrop etc. for a Halloween party, but [pours self a massive glass of sherry] there is great pleasure to be had in examining the exquisite craaawwwwftmanship of its sets and compositions mmhm you see yessss.
Scary? No
Gory? No
Funny (on purpose)? Yes
Campy? Yes
Sexy? Kiss the butt of Satan
Original or Traditional? O
Arty? Yes
46. The Exorcist (1973, William Friedkin, USA)
I have nothing to say about the film that remains many people’s gold standard for terror, but I will mention that a friend recently observed that William Friedkin’s voice sounds a lot like Donald Trump’s and it’s very difficult to unhear.
Scary? Yes
Gory? Yes
Funny (on purpose)? No
Campy? No
Sexy? Go to jail
Original or Traditional? T (but the original)
Arty? Somewhat
45. Hour of the Wolf (Vargtimmen) (1968, Ingmar Bergman, Sweden)
Ingmar Bergman making a horror movie sounds like a thought experiment (next up, Ozu’s The Creature From the Black Lagoon), but he made Hour of the Wolf4 and so we have the chance to sit with one of Bergman’s typical somber, reflective contemplations on the impossibility (or the annihilating risk) of complete intimacy, only this time with the addition of some demons. The clock has struck: it’s time to yearn and burn.
Scary? Weird dream
Gory? No
Funny (on purpose)? No
Campy? No
Sexy? YEARNING
Original or Traditional? Original
Arty? Det är Bergman
44. The Third Part of the Night (Trzecia część nocy) (1971, Andrzej Żuławski, Poland)
Żuławski’s Possession is far and away his best-known film in the anglosphere, with That Most Important Thing: Love and the unfinished sci-fi masterwork On the Silver Globe trailing quite a bit behind, but make an effort to track down this debut—one of the most psychologically devastating movies I’ve ever seen. Superimposing the literal Apocalypse atop the Nazi occupation of Poland, Żuławski mixes surreal Biblical imagery and poetic monologues with the lucid real life horrors of life under occupation—most memorably in its depiction of the lice feeders, “fortunate” citizens of Lvov who, in exchange for certificates of protection, consented to allowing lice used for the development of a typhus vaccine to feast on their blood.
Scary? Drains will to live
Gory? Grim
Funny (on purpose)? No
Campy? No
Sexy? No sex in the underworld
Original or Traditional? O
Arty? Extremely
43. Ravenous (1999, Antonia Bird, Czechia/UK/US/Slovakia)
A box office bomb with a notoriously troubled production history, Ravenous is a hilarious sendup of America’s cannibalistic doctrine of manifest destiny that ends up being part Highlander, part Donner Party. The cast, including Guy Pearce, Robert Carlyle, and Jeffrey Jones, is impeccable, the gore has superb terroir, and even the music (by the improbable pairing of regular Peter Greenaway collaborator Michael Nyman and Damon Albarn) intrigues.
Scary? No
Gory? Yes
Funny (on purpose)? Uproarious
Campy? Mmm… no
Sexy? If you’re going to be into men just once a year, you could do worse than having it be during your annual screening of Ravenous
Original or Traditional? O
Arty? No
42. Pulse (2001, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Japan)
If there’s one movie I really wanted to watch again before doing this post (but didn’t because this post has stolen my life) it was Pulse. My memories of the film are diffuse: the awesome dread of a spectre’s slow approach down a hallway; a dude in a desolate office surrounded by more paper junk than even I am right now; a darkness so thick and grainy it feels like it would adhere to your skin like wet coffee grinds if it touched you. I bet it’s even better than this ranking suggests.
Scary? Yes
Gory? No
Funny (on purpose)? No
Campy? No
Sexy? No
Original or Traditional? O
Arty? Yes
41. Antichrist (2009, Lars von Trier, Denmark)
I have a friend who watches this and Possession as her, like, comfort-food movies. It’s like being soothed by powerviolence maybe, or going to subspace I guess? Or evening out her internal state of constant anxiety by watching extremely upset/upsetting people? I don’t know. It is a lot of intimately-inflicted writhing and screaming, and a director sort of whispering thoughts in your ear that would undo the Enlightenment (or at least women’s lib) if true. I watch the end of Inside Out when I need to cry?
Scary? Well, I sure don’t feel very good
Gory? HAHAHA FUCK
Funny (on purpose)? Morbidly
Campy? No
Sexy? …but at what cost?
Original or Traditional? O
Arty? The most
40. Nosferatu (1922, F.W. Murnau, Germany)
The Eggers version (visually accomplished; ultimately clangorous and hollow as a churchbell) hung around the lower reaches of this list for a while before being bumped off; the Herzog version demands a rewatch I haven’t found time for; but the original Murnau version remains a splendid, austere vision of pale Death—even though the version of it I’ve watched most often is a cheapo DVD my mom brought home for Halloween one year that has a soundtrack by fucking Type O Negative.
Scary? Weird dream
Gory? No
Funny (on purpose)? No
Campy? Transcends that I think
Sexy? Beautiful
Original or Traditional? T (but the original in cinematic terms)
Arty? Yes
39. Audition (Ōdishon) (1999, Takashi Miike, Japan)
Like many great, unprecedentedly weird movies, Audition was greenlit following the success of Ring, a film it bears no resemblance to whatsoever. (See also House being made after the financiers wanted something like Jaws, or Ganja & Hess being the result of a guy who didn’t give a shit about vampires being given money to make a Black vampire movie.) Audition is suggestive enough to support a bevy of interpretations, but in order to have your own, you need to watch it. Good luck with that!
Scary? No, until
Gory? No, UNTIL
Funny (on purpose)? Yes
Campy? No
Sexy? Ish, UNTIL
Original or Traditional? O
Arty? Yes
38. Get Out (2017, Jordan Peele, USA)
The brilliance of Get Out is not that it’s a massive departure from Jordan Peele’s Key & Peele work, but rather that it feels like an idea for a K&P sketch about some absurd foible of American racism that has been elaborated on to the point it contains a world. As Eris has pointed out a number of times on this blog, the idea that consuming certain supposedly morally nutritive media is a substitute for, like, political engagement is diabolical white liberal cope—but there is something to be said for a film that uses horror conventions to force that audience to take on the subject position of a Black guy surrounded by white people with less-than benevolent intentions toward him. That uncanniness drives some of the films funniest gags and most effective shocks, and the movie remains a remarkable debut.
Scary? Bump in the night
Gory? Somewhat
Funny (on purpose)? Yes
Campy? Knowingly
Sexy? No
Original or Traditional? O
Arty? Sorta
37. Martyrs (2008, Pascal Laugier, France/Canada)
I once saw a DVD of this for sale for $5 at my local Jean Coutu (Queb chain pharmacy a la CVS) and nearly fell over. You can’t just sell this to pharmacy people! They’re there for Pepto and air fresheners, not this! Anyway, as with “torture porn” films in general and the New French Extremity in particular, the philosophy bro trappings these movies tend to adopt as a pretext for their grinding, clinical depictions of physical torment wear thin for me pretty quickly. But Martyrs is among the most creditable of the bunch because of its alignment of form and content. From the drop it exudes a vile miasma because you sense just how far the filmmakers are willing to go, which leaves you practically begging them to just bring the hammer down, whatever the psychological price may be. Eventually it gets worse, but you numb out, and that hollow dissociated feeling dovetails neatly with the film’s final observations about existence. Since I’m never watching this again, that’s the impression that lingers with me.
Scary? Horrible
Gory? Horrible
Funny (on purpose)? FEEL BAD
Campy? FEEL BAD
Sexy? NO
Original or Traditional? hOrrible
Arty? Burn all film schools
36. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974, Tobe Hooper, USA)
Haaaaave you seen this one? It’s great!
Scary? Yes
Gory? Yes
Funny (on purpose)? No
Campy? Mmm… no
Sexy? No
Original or Traditional? T (but the original)
Arty? Sorta
35. Psycho (1960, Alfred Hitchcock, USA)
What about this one? Super obscure!
Scary? Yes
Gory? By the standards of the time
Funny (on purpose)? Yes
Campy? No/Yes
Sexy? In a Hitchcock way
Original or Traditional? T (but the original)
Arty? Yes
34. Night of the Living Dead (1968, George A. Romero, USA)
I usually don’t tip people off to real hidden gems like this one, but I like the cut o’ your jib! Jib? Is it gib? I dunno it’s something I heard Tony Soprano say once.
Scary? Creepy
Gory? Yes
Funny (on purpose)? Yes
Campy? Yes
Sexy? No
Original or Traditional? T (but the original)
Arty? Actually kinda
33. Suspiria (1977, Dario Argento, Italy)
Hey, how’d you get in here? This one’s even more secret, there’s only one copy and I buried the film cannister in the heart of a volcano, so don’t even try to watch it!
Scary? LOUD MUSIC
Gory? Y(ikes)
Funny (on purpose)? No
Campy? Yes
Sexy? Italian
Original or Traditional? T (giallo)
Arty? Yes
32. Ganja & Hess (1973, Bill Gunn, USA)
“To the Black male children: Philosophy is a prison. It disregards the uncustomary things about you. The result of individual thought is applicable only to itself. There is a dreadful need in man to teach. It destroys the pure instinct to learn. The navigator learns from the stars, the stars teach nothing. The sun opens the mind and sheds light on the flowers. The eyes shame the pages of any book. Gesture destroys concept. Involvement mortifies vanity. You are the despised of the earth. It is as if you were water in the desert. To be adored on this planet is to be a symbol of success. And you must not succeed on any terms. Because life is endless. You are nameless like the flower. You are the child of Venus and her natural affection is lust. She will touch your belly with her tongue, but you must not suffer in it. For love is all there is and you are cannon fodder in its defense.”
Writer and director Bill Gunn, who also acts in the film, delivers this monologue immediately following a scene in which a guy is repeatedly stabbed with a ceremonial bone blade, and immediately prior to a scene where a guy slurps ultravivid ‘70s blood from a tile bathroom floor. And that’s Ganja & Hess in a nutshell, an arthouse Blaxploitation vampire movie that veers from profound poetic reflections on the Black experience to jazz-funk-fueled freakouts to a comedy of manners with total abandon.
Scary? Uneasy
Gory? A real ‘70s bloodbath
Funny (on purpose)? A few gags
Campy? Blaxploitation-adjacent
Sexy? Quite
Original or Traditional? O
Arty? Very
31. Sleepaway Camp (1983, Robert Hiltzik, USA)
Some of the most deeply satisfying vulgarity in any movie ever. I love the way these kids curse like grunts going through basic training. When this film isn’t serving up bewildering new innovations in homophobia it’s simply gleefully amoral. Bad people get what’s coming to them, but so do good people; the beautiful mean girl camp counsellor wants to hook up with the old man who runs the place and looks like Watto in high socks; the cook is a known pedophile and also not a very good cook. Way, way better than any Friday the 13th.
Scary? No
Gory? Yes
Funny (on purpose)? Hysterical
Campy? Yes
Sexy? This movie’s so fucked up
Original or Traditional? T but made by psychopaths
Arty? Nooooo
30. Titane (2021, Julia Ducournau, France/Belgium)
I saw this one in theatres and my jaw was dropped the entire time. It is an audacious, completely uninhibited movie that is constantly forcing the audience to reckon with heretofore unimaginable phrases like “murderous car model,” “motor oil tampon,” “sex with a fire truck,” “detransmission baby” etc. It is impossibly sexy, revolting, completely alive, and on an entirely different level from any other horror film of the current decade.
Scary? No
Gory? Jesus ahh
Funny (on purpose)? Yes
Campy? No
Sexy? Jesus ahh (oof, yes)
Original or Traditional? O—Boy-tches want to fuck my car, and my dad, and the fire department
Arty? Yes
29. Rabid (1977, David Cronenberg, Canada)
I see the Montreal metro and a vintage Pharmaprix and that’s five snowflakes from me. I see a hot blonde with an evil penis stinger in her armpit, well…
Scary? No
Gory? Yes
Funny (on purpose)? Yes
Campy? In a Cronenberg way
Sexy? Yes
Original or Traditional? T (but demented)
Arty? No
28. Raw (Grave) (2016, Julia Ducournau, France/Belgium)
Not half the free associative assault that her next film, Titane, would prove to be, Raw has its own (somewhat) more modest depravities. Various hot, queer-coded European college kids take their first baby steps into adulthood, some of whom happen to be cannibals, all of which is handled with dry understatement even as the gore becomes increasingly, captivatingly lurid.
Scary? No
Gory? Yes
Funny (on purpose)? Yes
Campy? No
Sexy? As hell
Original or Traditional? O
Arty? Yes
27. Carrie (1976, Brian de Palma, USA)
The first time I watched this movie it was with my mother, and I was probably 12. During the opening shower scene she decided it was time to try to explain what menstruation was. With us both being incredibly repressed people (at the time! I’m so heroically vulnerable now!), this felt like nearly as nightmarish an experience for me as being pelted with tampons by her classmates was for dear Carrie. Now able to watch the film without my mother’s commentary (you have to buy the deluxe anniversary Blu-Ray for that), it kinda hits home how much of Carrie I had in me, how much of a synecdoche she’s been to nearly 50 years of kids suffering the agonies of adolescence. It’d be a worse movie if everyone had been nicer to her, but I almost wish that dull, gentle alternative existed.
Scary? Weird dream
Gory? Famously
Funny (on purpose)? No
Campy? No
Sexy? Stifled, sad
Original or Traditional? O
Arty? Yes
26. Bride of Re-Animator (1989, Brian Yuzna, USA)
The most underrated movie on this entire list. No one ever talks about Bride, but it is every bit as fun as the original film, with a climactic Boschean orgy of practical effects freaks that must be seen to be believed.
Scary? No
Gory? Hahahahaha
Funny (on purpose)? Yes
Campy? Yes
Sexy? Gross
Original or Traditional? O
Arty? No
25. Eraserhead (1977, David Lynch, USA)
Considering doing a bunch of speed and trying to create a mashup of Eraserhead and The Straight Story. I’ve blown three deadlines for this blog already and Halloween is in 15 minutes. I’m fucked.
Scary? Unsettling
Gory? Yes
Funny (on purpose)? Yes
Campy? No
Sexy? I feel sick
Original or Traditional? O
Arty? Yes
24. Halloween (1978, John Carpenter, USA)
Halloween also is right here, on this list. I spent a lot of time arguing with my childhood friend Logan about whether Michael Myers or Jason Vorhees is the better boogieman, which feels a lot like arguing with someone insisting Coldplay’s Parachutes is better than The Bends. Anyway, you’ve seen fucking Halloween I take it?
Scary? Yes
Gory? Somewhat
Funny (on purpose)? Yes
Campy? Ish
Sexy? Somewhat
Original or Traditional? T—slasher, though one of the originals
Arty? No
23. 28 Days Later (2002, Danny Boyle, UK)
28 Days Later did not create “fast zombies” (the ones in the next film on this list are pretty swift, for one) though Boyle’s barreling, crimson faced marauders did make them pants-shittingly scary after years of shambling indifference. More than that though, 28 Days Later is a complete aesthetic statement rare in a genre that relies on formula: its guerilla-style DV cam footage, eerie urban desolation, majestic post-rock soundtrack, and spiky anti-authoritarian streak give it an instantly identifiable style, and mark it as one of the definitive Y2K-era horror flicks.
Scary? Yes
Gory? Yes
Funny (on purpose)? No
Campy? No
Sexy? No
Original or Traditional? T
Arty? No
22. Return of the Living Dead (1985, Dan O’Bannon, USA)
There are two kinds of Horror Guy (Joe Biden would say at least three): the ones who will watch any horror movie with pleasure, and the picky ones. I’m a picky one, and the only way to explain the difference to a neophyte is to show them a trash horror movie that works. And whatever you want to say about Return of the Living Dead, you can’t say a damn thing about its pacing, the genuine personality it accords to every speaking role in the film, and the howling, flesh-sloughing skull that is its sense of humour. This movie fucking rocks.
Scary? No
Gory? Yes, hahaha, yes!
Funny (on purpose)? Very
Campy? Yes
Sexy? In a trashy way (which is the only way to fly, really)
Original or Traditional? T
Arty? Nooo
21. The Fly (1986, David Cronenberg, USA)
Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis are the sexiest couple in an ‘80s Cronenberg movie this side of Jeremy Irons and Jeremy Irons. As with any Cronenberg movie shot in Canada, I can’t help but squeal happily whenever I notice they’re in Kensington Market or whatever, but even when they’re completely indoors with no visible geographic reference points this movie flat-out entertains without skimping any of the Cronenator’s usual fixations on the mutability and permeability of the flesh. Something like A Dangerous Method is fun and all, but you don’t find this to be ol’ Crone-bone’s definitive era, I think we’ve gotta go our separate ways.
Scary? No
Gory? Yes
Funny (on purpose)? Yes
Campy? In a Cronenberg way
Sexy? Yes Goldblum
Original or Traditional? T (body horror, but again it’s DC)
Arty? Sorta
20. Inside (À l’intérieur) (2007, Julien Maury & Alexandre Bustillo, France)
Now that we’re 80 films in, we can really start talking about the big picture, right? Really get into it eh? Well we’re already 10,000 words in, so why not. Anyway: if horror films are purpose-built engines to shock and disturb, the impact of a first viewing should be weighted more heavily in our appraisal than is the case with other genres. To whit, I never want to see this movie again, not because I am frightened of it, though it is one of the last movies to truly scare me, but because I don’t want to subject it to a more critical evaluation. Like nearly every film of the New French Extremity movement, I found Inside on first watch (as a then-recent university graduate) to be philosophically vacuous, cruel for the sake of cruelty, seeking to draw an equivalency between the perpetrator and witness of violence—to shame us for our desire to see transgression as a thin pretext for getting away with carrying it out. But as a contraption for inflicting terror on the viewer, and for engaging our sympathies for a protagonist, it goes beyond anything else I had seen to that point. And yet, as hideous as its violence becomes in the end, the most haunting thing about it remains the nightmarish irrationality of its basic premise: a pregnant woman alone at home, at night, is visited by a woman she’s never met who insists that she is the real mother of the unborn child.
Scary? Christ yes
Gory? I feel sick
Funny (on purpose)? We don’t do that here
Campy? Non
Sexy? Non
Original or Traditional? T (slasher)
Arty? Wants to be
19. Sauna (2008, Antti-Jussi Annila, Finland)
At the conclusion of the Russo-Swedish War of 1590–1595, a delegation from each side meet up to mark the new Eastern border between the belligerents in what is today Finland. Haunted by their respective war crimes, the delegation members find themselves squabbling over a godawful marsh no one wants, and a village within it that seems to have something very off about it. There aren’t nearly enough horror movies out there that make use of the bleakness of the Nordic forest or the haunting iconography of the Orthodox Church. Sauna has a sense of doom and foreboding to it that few modern genre flicks can match—perhaps because it has the courage to take itself intensely seriously.
Scary? Yes
Gory? Somewhat
Funny (on purpose)? SERIOUS
Campy? FINNISH
Sexy? No
Original or Traditional? O—J-horror meets Black Metal
Arty? SERIOUSLY FINNISH
18. The Innocents (1961, Jack Clayton, UK/USA)
The quintessential “second half of a Saturday Night at the Movies matinee on TVO” that I would fall asleep to as a child while my mother watched on; upon viewing it as an adult stray images struck me with the force of deja vu. Somehow not having read The Turn of the Screw I was kept guessing till the last frame, which never happens to me anymore. Just a masterpiece of horror by every measure. Word to Elwy Yost.
Scary? Eerie
Gory? No
Funny (on purpose)? No
Campy? No
Sexy? Bit Freudian
Original or Traditional? T (but the original)
Arty? Subtly
17. Pontypool (2008, Bruce McDonald, Canada)
Bruce McDonald’s face should be on a fucking postage stamp. His three classic early films (Roadkill, Highway 61, and Hard Core Logo) established him as something like a hoser cross between Jim Jarmusch and Christopher Guest, an indie god in a country that badly needed more of its own cult cinema. After making a bunch of movies that I haven’t seen but frankly sound pretty bad, he bounced back with Pontypool, one of the most original horror films of its era. Set in an isolated rural radio station enduring a bitter winter morning, charming shithead DJ Grant Mazzy (played by pantheon character actor Stephen McHattie) and his put-upon production crew begin receiving troubling transmissions from town as a mysterious emergency spreads throughout the region. The nature of what’s actually going on makes for a fascinating (and fairly heady) reveal that I won’t spoil, but what makes the film cook is both its radio drama-esque minimalism (a lot of the story consists of watching the station’s characters faces while they listen to transmissions) and the film’s dedication to making you fully give a shit about these people.
Scary? Creepy
Gory? Somewhat
Funny (on purpose)? Yes
Campy? In a Canadian way
Sexy? No
Original or Traditional? O
Arty? Sorta
16. Vampyr (1932, Carl Th. Dreyer, Denmark)
It’s funny to think of this film having been shot at basically the same time the Lugosi Dracula and Karloff Frankenstein movies were being made, and that in Germany at least this was considered the same sort of flick. Vampyr is of an entirely different order, drifting along like a fog through a gothic village inhabited by shadows and necromancers, a last glimpse of the full flowering of the art of silent film before it was snuffed out by the talkies.5
Scary? Weird dream
Gory? No
Funny (on purpose)? No
Campy? No
Sexy? Beautiful
Original or Traditional? T
Arty? Yes
15. Freaks (1932, Tod Browning, USA)
That Browning’s film offers up the bodies of people with deformities for the audience to gawk at means it would probably generate complaints from the sort of undergraduates who have meticulously cultivated their own zealousness as compensation for their moral self-doubt.6 That it ultimately shows them as full members of the human race, with interiority, complex emotional relationships, and a vibrant community of their own makes its ultimate judgement of the film’s shithead normies all the more revolutionary. Let us all be freaks, if they’re the alternative.
Scary? Creepy
Gory? No
Funny (on purpose)? No
Campy? No
Sexy? No
Original or Traditional? O
Arty? Yes
14. Onibaba (1964, Kaneto Shindō, Japan)
The essence of cinema is being allowed to temporarily reside in the eye socket of a master visual artist as they observe the world. I could watch reeds flutter through Shindō’s eye for eons. Onibaba is a tale of predatory women, vengeful spirits, the way desperation corrupts the human soul… but what I remember most are the silver and black reeds dancing crazily in the wind.
Scary? No
Gory? No
Funny (on purpose)? No
Campy? No
Sexy? Abstractly
Original or Traditional? T (Japanese ghost story)
Arty? Yes
13. It Follows (2014, David Robert Mitchell, USA)
I feel like I’m being followed by this blog, only doing this is as close to the opposite of “having sex” as anything I can imagine.
Scary? Yes
Gory? Somewhat
Funny (on purpose)? No
Campy? No
Sexy? In a sad way
Original or Traditional? O
Arty? Yes
12. A Page of Madness (Kurutta Ichipēji) (1926, Teinosuke Kinugasa, Japan)
An impossible film. As a technical and visual accomplishment, A Page of Madness exceeds all of the avant garde touchstones of its age, Battleship Potemkin, Le sang d’un poète, or Un chien andalou, all of ‘em, most of which it predates and none of which it influenced because none of the makers of those movies saw it—and, for the 45 years its reels spent forgotten in a rice barrel after its initial release, neither did anyone else. So, instead of rhapsodizing about its “influence,” as history-minded fans like to do when they want to rave about art in an empirical way, one’s forced to grapple with the existence of a transcendent work that has been snipped out of its own time and pasted in our own, with the untapped secrets its kept to itself. A Page of Madness is a roiling black seed from which no tree grew—yet one can almost glimpse the ghost of the tree that might’ve been, as though its roots still found their way into subsequent artists’ dreams. Archivists dream that “hidden” works of art are still out there, awaiting discovery: it seems unlikely any remaining are of this quality.
The film as we have it is also essentially “unreadable” without recourse to outside materials: a third of it is missing, and the live narration which was intended to accompany the film is missing. I made no attempt to interpret the film’s plot as I watched it for the first time; scenarist Yasunari Kawabata (best known as a major novelist) is a famously subtle writer, and I have less context for Japanese culture than the average asthmatic Death Note fan. But as a purely visual work of horror, and a trove of symbol, I was spellbound. Its dark magnetism alone makes it one of the greatest films of any era.
Scary? Reality eroding
Gory? No
Funny (on purpose)? No
Campy? No
Sexy? No
Original or Traditional? O
Arty? Yes
11. The Shining (1980, Stanley Kubrick, USA)
All blog and no play makes Sire a dullboy. All blog and no play makes Sire a dull boy.
All blog and no play makes Sire a dull boy. All blog and no play makes Sire a dull boy.
All blog and no play makes Sire a dull boy. All blog and no play makes Sire a dull boy.
All blog and no play makes Sire a dull boy. All blog and no play makesSire a dull boy.
All blog and no play makes Sire a dull boy. All blog and no play makes Sire a dull boy. All
blog and no play makes Sire a dull boy. All blog and no play makes Sire a paid by the word jumpscare.
Scary? Yes
Gory? Yes
Funny (on purpose)? Yes
Campy? No
Sexy? No
Original or Traditional? O/T
Arty? Yes
10. Videodrome (1983, David Cronenberg, Canada)
I like to think the satellite they were using to pick up all those weird snuff film channels was the same one Conan used on Late Night. It probably would’ve been smarter to start writing these reviews from the top of the list down so I’d have more to say about the ones I really like. This blog is allegedly now a 50-minute read. There’s no way Eris is copyediting this one.
Scary? Upsetting
Gory? Yes
Funny (on purpose)? Yes
Campy? In a Cronenberg way
Sexy? Yuuuup
Original or Traditional? O—My fursona is a VCR
Arty? Oh ayuh
9. Let the Right One In (Låt den rätte komma in) (2008, Tomas Alfredson, Sweden)
It’s a measure of how much I enjoyed this film that I’m willing to forgive Tomas Alfredson for his adaptation of John Le Carré’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, a real “look what they’ve done to my beautiful boy” situation if I’ve ever seen one. Right One’s greatest artistic strength is in its ambiguities: What can friendship mean to an immortal? Is being turned into a Renfield by a being capable of sweetness any different in the final analysis than by a Mephistophelian Transylvanian?
Scary? No
Gory? Somewhat
Funny (on purpose)? No
Campy? No
Sexy? No, but it is romantic
Original or Traditional? O—My Life as a Dog meets The Hunger
Arty? Yes
8. Re-Animator (1985, Stuart Gordon, USA)
I am off and on “the apps” (mostly off), but I’ll usually throw a mention of The Spreadsheet on my profile, and it’s absolutely the most common icebreaker people choose to start a conversation. Observations of the results to date appear to indicate a growing consensus across a variety of genders that Re-Animator is 1. Extremely cool and 2. Pretty hot. So feel free to finally come out of the shadows, all ye Head Guys. Where we’re going, we won’t need limbs.
Scary? No
Gory? Hahahahaha
Funny (on purpose)? Very
Campy? Very
Sexy? Plead the Fifth
Original or Traditional? O—Weird Science meets Dahmer
Arty? No
7. The Wicker Man (1973, Robin Hardy, UK)
Once I realized that The Wicker Man is effectively a sexy musical about a man who is absolutely irate about the fact he is trapped in a sexy musical it became twice as funny to me. This and Wake In Fright are the two peak examples of movies about some urban blunderer enduring the soul-shattering trauma of Being Shown a Good Time by the Locals. I cannot recommend either film highly enough.
Scary? No
Gory? No
Funny (on purpose)? Yes
Campy? Yes
Sexy? Yes
Original or Traditional? O
Arty? Yes
6. Hellraiser (1987, Clive Barker, UK)
There’s a notion that in order to find someone sexually appealing those qualities and body parts that normally provoke revulsion (quick: imagine licking the asshole of the next person you pass on the sidewalk!) go through a process of inversion which results in desire. Hellraiser is all about those admixtures of pain and pleasure, romance and rape, penetration and penetration-by-metal-hook, a hellish fantasy of BDSM. It is a shockingly well-written, -directed, and -acted film considering Barker’s inexperience in cinema—firmly a genre film, and with its share of goofiness (notably the Engineer chase sequence), but also easily as great a slice of goth culture as any Cure record.
Scary? Yes
Gory? Such sights to show you
Funny (on purpose)? Yes
Campy? In a goth way
Sexy? Eww (Yeah)
Original or Traditional? O—Kink.com Presents ‘Edward Scissorhands’
Arty? Yes
5. The Thing (1982, John Carpenter, USA)
It would apparently take you 1h16min28secs to read this entire piece so far out loud, but Substack does assume all of its users do the Slingblade voice, so bear that in mind.
Scary? Yes
Gory? Good lord yes
Funny (on purpose)? Yes
Campy? No
Sexy? No
Original or Traditional? O—Hell (isn’t) other people
Arty? Nah
4. Possession (1981, Andrzej Żuławski, France/West Germany)
I came across a capsule review by TJ Lemanski of Żuławski’s film of Mussorgsky’s opera Boris Godunov the other day that really resonated:
“Seeing this, the lavish and elaborate sets and costuming, the operatic drama of it all, sweeping cameras, the casual anachronisms and fourth wall breaking, it all clicked. Żuławski made opera, almost exclusively, even when he didn’t.”
If there’s a reason Possession really clicks with people over and above Żuławski’s other work it’s that that operatic mode of expression—the way people are constantly in motion, rambling and gesticulating as the camera is in motion, rambling and gesticulating in its own mode, like a group of meth heads pacing and plotting their next overelaborate score—really clicks with the folie à deux that is a death-spiraling marriage. Every woman in his previous film The Devil does some variation of the Isabelle Adjani Freak Out™, but it doesn’t really hit the same because we cannot as easily relate to what’s pushed them there. In this context though, we (and women in particular) primally understand what’s driving this film’s showstopping subway tunnel sequence.
Possession also finds Żuławski flashing a sense of humour: the arguments between Sam Neill’s Mark and Isabelle Adjani’s Anne constantly teeter-totter between viscerally upsetting domestic abuse and helpless, delirious laughter; Anne’s sidepiece Heinrich, a kung fu-trained psychoanalyst, is a sublime comic creation; even the film’s centerpiece special effect has a distinctly I can’t believe they’re doing this vibe to it. It leavens the sheer arthouseness of it all, and leaves more room for you to find your way into [wobbles around flailing arms, gurns teeth and grunts, spills groceries on the ground] of it all.
Scary? Yes
Gory? Yes
Funny (on purpose)? Yes
Campy? In a Euro way
Sexy? Yep
Original or Traditional? O—Divorce, Francis Bacon style
Arty? Oh yes
3. Alien (1979, Ridley Scott, USA)
Oh sorry, I guess that clip’s from the wrong one? Well whatever, these movies are all kind of the same to me.
Scary? Yes
Gory? Yes
Funny (on purpose)? Yes
Campy? No
Sexy? Dick monster meets cinema’s greatest tank top
Original or Traditional? T (slasher)—Evil genitals attack non-union shop
Arty? Sorta
2. Rosemary’s Baby (1968, Roman Polanski, USA)
There’s a scene about two-thirds of the way through Polanski’s gaslighting classic where Rosemary, emaciated and socially isolated, finally sees some of her old friends at a party who immediately clock that something has gone wrong. They instinctively block the door when one of the menfolk tries to interrupt, and you see how something in Rosemary starts to come alive again in the presence of friends, of other women, who hear her and also check some of the bizarre beliefs she’s had impressed upon her in her isolation. It’s a tiny scene, maybe two minutes I think, but it’s as good a depiction of why those who make a point of cutting off their victims from support—be they abusive partners or religious grifters or the bastards in ICE—do it. The scene makes a great shorthand for the remarkable grasp of the human psyche that suffuses Rosemary’s Baby as a whole. It’s what fuels its humour and its horror, this sense of relatable pathos that persists even as hints begin to pile up that something unthinkable might be taking place behind the scenes.
Scary? Upsetting
Gory? No
Funny (on purpose)? Yes
Campy? No
Sexy? No
Original or Traditional? O—The ur-gaslighting parable
Arty? Yes
1. Brain Damage (1988, Frank Henenlotter, USA)
It is 3:53 a.m. Y’know, the original concept here was to do like five short reviews and just give the link to the spreadsheet? The fuck am I… man. Alright. I can do one more, because it’s Brain Damage.
My elevator pitch for Brain Damage goes something like this: Movies classically need some kind of license to get away with giving audiences what they really want: gore, tits, making the President sit on a whoopee cushion, whatever. That’s why gangster movies required the gangster to die, everybody needed to settle down and get married after an anarchic comedy, and whatever social issue was being hinted at by the horror movie monster needed to be seamlessly resolved by the end of the picture. [at this point I start surreptitiously pushing random buttons to slow the elevator’s progress] Well, Brain Damage is basically an anti-drug horror movie that doesn’t give a shit if you do drugs. The monster is a stop motion animated worm that looks like a glistening indigo turd with tiny humanoid blue eyes. It injects an addictive mind control drug that is basically part heroin, part acid, and makes you absolutely trip balls. Right, and the worm talks (and sings) in the voice of 1950s Philadelphia DJ and scary TV presenter (think Vampira) John Zacherle. Oh, you get off on the next floor? [jams the Emergency button]
Like Henenlotter’s previous and better known film Basket Case (#92 on this list), Brain Damage takes place in some of the grimiest sections of 1980s NYC, and the protagonist tumbles from scene to scene like a guy hitting every branch as he falls through a tree. By the time he ends up trying to sweat out his addiction in The Worst Rooming House in Manhattan, you’ve seen him go through a smorgasbord of gleefully inventive debasements, many of which leave him waking up covered in blood. Besides Zacherle’s performance as the worm, which is probably the single funniest bit I have ever seen in a horror movie, there’s not really one thing I can easily describe in text that separates Brain Damage from the likes of say, Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers or The Blob or whatever. It’s just something about its sensibility and timing that truly glows for me, this feeling of a movie that really doesn’t waste a second on a scene that isn’t giving you exactly what B-horror should be. It’s rare to find a filmmaker with that level of intelligence and understanding of the genre who doesn’t immediately try to go ahead and transcend it. All Henenlotter wanted to do was perfect it, and with Brain Damage that’s exactly what he did. [bell rings] I think that’s our stop!
Scary? No
Gory? Yes
Funny (on purpose)? Hysterical
Campy? Very
Sexy? No
Original or Traditional? O—Your (singing) brain (parasite) on drugs
Arty? Sorta
MORE FROM OUR BURGEONING HORROR VERTICAL
My profession is, of course, working an email job so I can put aside enough money to provide for Eris’s family when he is inevitably jailed for accusing Heather O’Neill of paying more than $1,500 a month in rent.
In fact I learned today that Argento’s Suspiria was among the last films printed on Technicolor!
And, Wes Craven might argue, The Virgin Spring.
Yes, I’m aware that Vampyr is a sound film, but the film is largely free of dialogue and is consistent with the style of Dreyer’s silent work.
A paraphrase of a Robertson Davies line from Fifth Business.
I have donned the armor of God (slept five hours) and I am here to fight you in the comments.
I cannot believe you did all 100 wtf is wrong with you lmao