Halloween! What are some movies you like to watch during this time?

[DiscoBiscuit]

Finally rewatched it a few weeks ago, after years and years of not.
(I watched the Room 237 documentary around the same time as well; it might still be on NetFlix.)

My basic observations:

1. It's not nearly as faithful an adaptation in tone to King's book as the later TV series, which actually makes Jack a sympathetic character.

2. That aside, taken as a standalone, it's a really good movie. And everything is so stark, and controlled; anything in that movie is there because Kubrick wanted it to be, down to the pictures on the wall and the arrangement of the cannisters in the walk-in. Even the hotel layout is designed to disorient; there are one-take scenes where Danny is traveling on his Big Wheel and the layout is wrong and doesn't overlap where it should, and there are scenes where they walk out of the same door they entered a minute earlier and the hallway outside is different. Just crazy stuff.

I think The Shining is one of the only properly scary (not jump scare bullshit or needless gore) movies ever made.

Despite the crazy occurrences during the film, it's the plausibility of man's descent into madness that strikes me.

 

[Ginkgo]

I think The Shining is one of the only properly scary (not jump scare bullshit or needless gore) movies ever made.

Despite the crazy occurrences during the film, it's the plausibility of man's descent into madness that strikes me.

Forgot about that one^ Kubrick builds up tension like a mofo with hardly any devices.

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

Forgot about that one^ Kubrick builds up tension like a mofo with hardly any devices.

The thing about The Shining is that its as if someone never told Kubrick, that Horror movies were supposed to be campy gore fests instead of serious cinema.

 

[Ginkgo]

The thing about The Shining is that its as if someone never told Kubrick, that Horror movies were supposed to be campy gore fests instead of serious cinema.

yiss

 

[Totenkindly]

Lolz. The studio, looking to market schlock, was like, "Shit,Stanley, now what on earth are we supposed to do with THIS?"

 

[kquirk]

Alright, I finally had time to throw something together. Release dates are listed to help distinguish between different versions and to make them easier to find.

They're not all horror. Some thriller/suspense/other are thrown in. Also some of these have already been mentioned probably.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
Frankenstein (1931)
Freaks (1932)
The Thing From Another World (1951)
Village of the Damned (1960)
Psycho (1960)
The Innocents (1961)
Repulsion (1965)
Rosemary's Baby (1968)
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
The Exorcist (1973)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
Jaws (1975)
Halloween (1978)
Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Alien (1979)
The Shining (1980)
The Thing (1982)
The Dead Zone (1983)
The Terminator (1984)
Evil Dead 2 (1987)
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
28 Days Later (2002)
Shaun of the Dead (2004)
The Descent (2005)
Inside (2007)
Zombieland (2009)
Paranormal Activity (2009)
The House of the Devil (2009)
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2010)
Black Swan (2010)
Red State (2011)
Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011)
The Cabin in the Woods (2012)
The Innkeepers (2012)

 

[The Ü™]

I don't see Poltergeist mentioned yet.

Oh wait, there it is!

 

[Thalassa]

I am a huge horror fan so I watch these kinds of movies all year long.

Ironically I watched Black Christmas (1974) last night, bc its effing creepy. "Agnes, this is Billlllyyyyy."

I tend to like classics this time of year, like Halloween (derp), The Exorcist, Rosemary's Baby, and Night of the Demons (80s version, it was also called "Angela's Halloween Party").

Um, I don't always watch the same ones every year. A few days ago I saw the remake of Carrie in the theater...Alice Sweet Alice is another good oldie, and last year I watched a Friday the 13th marathon.

Really any of the old ones I like will do, though I can see House of the Devil maybe becoming a new classic because of its convincing late 70s early 80s vibe.

Susperia is another good classic.

For non horror, Bram Stokers Dracula and Sleepy Hollow are great.

I watched Snow White a Tale of Terror on Christmas day a few years ago, so I may not be the best person to ask, my love of creepy knows no season.

 

[Cellmold]

I think The Shining is one of the only properly scary (not jump scare bullshit or needless gore) movies ever made.

Despite the crazy occurrences during the film, it's the plausibility of man's descent into madness that strikes me.

I've had exactly the same thought about the Shining before.

 

[gromit]

Hocus Pocus
Nightmare Before Christmas (I know... I guess it's more of a Christmas movie, ah well)

 

[Lark]

Well I'm watching some movie called Axed about some guy who becomes an axe murderer when he's fired from his job, its pretty shite, I wouldnt recommend it to be honest.

 

[Udog]

I can't even watch that thing. It's one of my favorite King books, and I think Tim Curry is pretty amazing, but I've only ever made it about 30 minutes into it.

Oh man... I used to love IT, the movie! It was cheesy, yet genuinely creepy and had a great ending.

...Then I found out there was a Part II.

 

[Lark]

Watching a weird ass movie called Siren now, I thought it was going to be some really shit rip off of dead calm or one or some of that dross which I see every month in the supermarket, tons of "horror" flicks which are just weird killer flicks.

 

[Totenkindly]

I thought I'd toss this "25 horror flick" list out here, since it's got some interesting points about the films raised by the two reviewers, and while some of the films on the list are regular contenders for these kinds of rankings, there are some choices I haven't really heard much about before and now have added to my "must see" list.

The 25 Best Horror Movies Since The Shining -- Vulture

I agree with their thoughts of Donnie Darko. I wish the Director's Cut had just focused on production issues or small bits that wouldn't have clarified some of the story; I think the beauty of the theatrical release was the ambiguity of the film, in terms of whether Donnie actually IS this "hero" he writes of himself in his class poetry or whether he is actually in the early stages of a schizophrenic breakdown.

[As a side note, Kelly's "The Box" based on Sartre's "No Exit" was pretty unsettling in itself even with all the loose ends.]



----

Not sure what I'll be watching this season.
Maybe Wolf Creek, 28 Days Later (which I haven't seen for two years or more?), and... oh, I dunno. The Fly's a pretty short pic.

Or maybe I'll go back and watch Pan's Labyrinth or El Orfanato (The Orphanage) or El Espinazo del Diablo (The Devil's Backbone) -- hooray for Guillermo del Toro. Maybe the opening segment of V/H/S. Or the first Nightmare on Elm Street.

EDIT: Here's also an extensive list of scary movies and the scenes in those movies, with small thumbnails. Fair warning: It's uncensored (pics and text), so be prepared for anything on that list.

Scariest Movie Moments and Scenes

 

[Totenkindly]

Blah, pretty lame Halloween scene so far.

I did watch Alien the other night (Director's Cut). What I don't get about director cuts is when they add some decent stuff but also make some bad changes. Donnie Darko is a prime example of a Director's Cut that ruins one fo the better parts of the movie (the ambiguity of whether Donnie really is a "hero with powers" versus just a paranoid schizophrenic in a decline) while polishing things.

The Alien DC isn't TOO bad, it adds some nice stuff (including Lambert getting into a slapfest with Ripley when Ripley tries to lock them out on quarantine) but

it removes one scene I really liked where Dallas goes to talk to MU-TH-UR about what his chances are if he goes into the airlock. She keeps saying "insufficient information," although she's just BS'ing him and knows damn well what he wants; she spills it to Ripley when she asks the right questions and overrides orders. But it lends a kind of tension to things, especially because Dallas typically comes off as self-assured and here we see him anxious enough that he's trying to gauge whether he's doing the right thing.

There's also a cut somewhere out there of Brett getting his head crushed in the alien's grasp where blood is streaming down his face, but I can't figure out which cut that was since it didn't show up in either of mine. Maybe it was in a Deleted Scene. In this cut, they basically tell you that Brett gets dragged into an air vent, and in the DC he's been glued to the wall near Dallas to be used as fodder for alien transformation. (This is when they weren't really sure of the alien forms of evolution, so I think they had him evolving into an egg. In Aliens, we have a more "normal" approach where the Alien Queen lays eggs that then release the facehuggers.)

There's a quick cut in the DC shortly before Brett finds Jonesy of the rattling chains, shooting down from the top, where you can clearly recognize the alien hanging there... unfortunately I think the alien is a little too noticeable (not nearly as good as the alien in the space shuttle, where it's squirreled away in the pipes and completely resembles them and is very difficult to recognize unless you know it's there). The alien IMO in this movie works best when you imagine it's around but you don't see it. It's cooler just to see Jonesy ('little shit') the cat to freak out and the alien drop down behind him.

I still think the chest burster is a classic, especially back then when the film was made and nothing like what anyone had ever seen before. Nowadays we're used to gore, but in the late 70's that was pretty wild. And the response of the cast is great too, especially Lambert.

I was looking at ages of the cast out of curiosity. They were all actually pretty old. The two youngest were the two women, who were both about 30 at the time (and Weaver looks so young!). Meanwhile, Hurt and Kotto were around 40, Skerritt in his mid-40's, Holm pushing 50, and Stanton in his early/mid 50's. Pretty old cast for your first real "space/slasher/survivor" movie.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

I wouldn't consider Donnie Darko a horror film. It had elements of horror, but I'd either classify it as Psychological Drama/Thriller or very loosely as Science Fiction

Don't get me started on Alien. It holds a permanent spot in my top ten.

The Director's Cut is a strange animal because it doesn't extend the film (it's shorter), yet Scott changed so much around that it is almost a different film entirely.

I like the Aliens Special Edition as well. It better explains why Ripley becomes SO attached to Newt. Way longer than the theatrical, but I don't think it slows the film down as is the case with many directors cuts of other films.

 

[BadOctopus]

Or maybe I'll go back and watch Pan's Labyrinth or El Orfanato (The Orphanage) or El Espinazo del Diablo (The Devil's Backbone) -- hooray for Guillermo del Toro. Maybe the opening segment of V/H/S. Or the first Nightmare on Elm Street.

Man, I really need to watch Pan's Labyrinth again. What a depressingly beautiful movie.

I don't watch more horror films during the Halloween season, but I do watch a lot of The Twilight Zone. I also read more Hellboy and BPRD. (Anyone? Anyone?)

 

[prplchknz]

Oh man... I used to love IT, the movie! It was cheesy, yet genuinely creepy and had a great ending.

...Then I found out there was a Part II.

i think i was 11 when I first saw it, I had night mares, though not as many as schindler's list. schindler's list for whatever reason i couldn't sleep for days after that.

 

[BadOctopus]

schindler's list for whatever reason i couldn't sleep for days after that.

I'm just spitballing here, but could it have been the nauseatingly realistic violence and the child slaughtering and the piles of corpses?

 

[prplchknz]

I'm just spitballing here, but could it have been the nauseatingly realistic violence and the child slaughtering and the piles of corpses?

Oh no I have this fear of it happening again, but to christians. this was well before 9/11 and in one of my dreams arabs were rounding up christians (espeically the orthodox and catholics and putting them into camps like the nazi's did to the jews) (I was orthodox at the time, I still techinically am I just don't practice or believe the stuff). so it wasn't the corspes or anything it was the fear that it could happen again.(I think I was 12 so this would've been 98). In one point we hid in the base of a statue of the virgin mary. (I was also reading the diary of anne frank in school at the time). I didn't know any middle easterns or anything about muslims or jack shit about over there at the time, and now with ISIS and all the shit going on with that. I don't know if ISIS is a threat, any extremist group I have issues with cuz of ww11.