Horror Hounds, Report!

[Dark Angel]

Any horror movie fans out there in He-Man World? I'm a lifelong Horror Hound myself, starting with Universal (like pretty much all horror fans of a certain age) and then 60's-70's Hammer and Asylum films (TV edits that, when I was a lad, were shown on UHF channels pretty regularly. Won't mean much to younger people, but I am really dating myself, here).

Pretty much the only horror subgenre I don't care for at all is torture porn. Other than that, I'm open to almost anything at least once. I love Mario Bava's films, pretty much anything with Vincent Price, and for for a more modern example, I dig the Hatchet series. Some of my all-time favorites include:

The Wicker Man (original version)
Carnival of Souls (original version)
American Mary
Cemetary Man AKA Dellamorte Dellamore
Black Sunday (Mario Bava)
Lisa and the Devil
Witchfinder General
Straight-Jacket
The Evil Dead series (but who doesn't love those!?)
The Hellraiser series (well, OK, the first and second. The rest are...fine. I suppose.)
Cat People (original version)
I Walked With A Zombie
The Friday the 13th series
Ravenous
The Haunting (original version)
Spider Baby, or The Maddest Story Ever Told

...and that's just off the top of my head. I have way too many favorites to even try to list - last I counted, I had over 300 movies in my collection.

So, back the the original question: Any other Horror Hounds hereabouts?

[Barbecue17]

Yes, right here.

I watch and review a ton of them. Right now I'm watching through many of the films from a Fangoria book I got a few years back called "101 Best Horror Movies You've Never seen."

I guess some of my favorites right off the top of my head are:

Halloween
The Legend of Hell House
The Evil Dead Series
Dead Alive
Basically anything by John Carpenter
Lots of silent films
Rosemary's Baby
The Phantasm series
Paranormal Activity (I still enjoy them)
The Man they could not hang
The Abominable Dr. Phibes
The Romero Dead films
Anything splatstick, really.
The conjuring
Poltergeist
28 Days Later


Gosh, I could go on all day.

[Dark Angel]

Awesome! Are your reviews online? Link(s)?

I should have mentioned horror comedies - I love them all, even the bad ones! Some recent faves have been Tucker and Dale, Stitches, and the re-release of Elvira's Haunted Hills with the cast commentary. Oh, and finally just saw Fido a couple of days ago! Fun movie.

Your list is great - love Rosemary's Baby, Phibes, and Carpenter's early work. Looks like you enjoy ghosts/haunting stories a bit more than I do as a rule. I haven't really gotten into this latest wave of ghost/haunting movies, though I did like The Innkeepers quite a bit.

[Barbecue17]

They are. They're all on my site: www.thepicreview.com. Look at the movie vault at the top of the page.

I definitely do prefer ghost stories and hauntings over many other subgenres. I loved the Innkeepers. That was a very fun, low key, interesting movie.

[Dark Angel]

That's you? I read your site all the time! Great resource. Thanks for all you do!

[GREP-A-TOR]

The Hatchet series is just artificial hype, I hate it.
I am a lifelong fan of zombies, I read or listen to at least1-2 books a month, sometimes I run through many more.
Saw Friday the 13th accidentally, on Beta Max on Christmas Eve when I was 4 and have been hooked ever since.
Prince of Darkness
Event Horizon
Cube I-III
Poltergeist - had a wooden jest on my door and a storm knocked down a huge on our neighbor's car a day later. Last time I slept in parents bed.
The Gate
Feast
Insidious
Demons
Puppet Master series.

[Barbecue17]

I'm glad someone else likes Prince of Darkness! I like it too. Not the best Carpenter work, but still pretty interesting and a bit creepy.

I just watched Event Horizon again about two or three weeks ago. Hadn't seen it since it was released when I was in 8th or 9th grade. That's a fantastic, well done film. It holds up really, really well.

[GREP-A-TOR]

I had trouble looking at mirrors for like 3 weeks after that movie. Prince of Darkness will scare you.

[Dark Angel]

I know a lot of people feel the same way about Hatchet. Somehow it flew under my radar, so I wasn't subjected to the hype. I've urged all my friends to try to watch it as just dumb fun (and great kills) rather than as "the savior of the slasher genre". As dumb fun, they are great - IMO only.

On the other hand, I gotta say, I did not like Cube at all, and haven't seen the sequels. For some reason it just made me unreasonably angry? Weird reaction to a movie, I know, but even now thinking about it grates my nerves. I'm a little weird like that sometimes. By which I mean a lot of the time.

...most of the time.

[Jyrki]

Bit surprised to see none of these yet listed:
A Nightmare on Elm Street original series
Alien
John Carpenter's The Thing
Dawn of the Dead - Remake
Frankenstein - Original
Hellraiser

[Captain Atkin]

The first ALIEN film is a fantastic horror film. My personal favourite.

[GREP-A-TOR]

Another movie my parents took me too. If I heard dripping water for like a year after that, I was scared.

[Dark Angel]

I did not see any of the Alien or Predator series until I was in my twenties, believe it or not. And by then they honestly just couldn't measure up to the hype that surrounds them. I liked them, don't get me wrong, but all the really great moments were spoiled, and lost some effectiveness. Among a few others, I really regret not seeing them earlier in life...

[barrasco]

There's nothing creepier than waking up one day and realizing you're Scott Neitlich.

[Dark Angel]

That would not be so much "creepy" as "utterly horrifying," but this thread is about horror movies, not the current brand manager. Thanks!

[barrasco]

Yeah, you're right. But still I couldn't resist!

[Guest]

I was a huge horror movie buff as a kid, and into my early teens. I've probably seen more Western Horror films released from 1980 to 1990, from zombies, to vampires to werewolves than most people. I remember horror seemed to take a nose dive between 1995 to 2005 with some real stinkers (thanks to the advent of CGI, and moving away from practical effects), then in the late 2000s and onward this "gore torture porn" franchise was birthed.

Movies like Saw, Hostel, Human Centipede and all these torture films just turned my stomach, and for a long time turned me away from horror. As an ex avid fan, I do my best to put them in a different sub-genre, but I felt that filling my head with this shit, coupled with the filth of real world strife was just too much, so I've taken a break from all things horror. I seek out films that are a little more cerebral, or containing subject matter thats more light-hearted and fun, such as documentary, adventure and sci-fi saving horror for Halloween night only.

Some of my favorite horror films from when I actively watched horror the following:

1. A Nightmare on Elm Street series
2. Poltergeist series
3. The Thing
4. Pumpkinhead
5. Creepshow

Most of Stephen King's films were fantastic. I'm a sucker for films in which humans battle the supernatural, win or lose, its always a good time. While I used to like the Friday The 13th films (because Jason was portrayed as a supernatural killer, not just as a backwater hick that killed people like in Texas Chainsaw Massacre) re-watching them for me has become less enjoyable. Most likely due to my aversion to intense gore brought on by gore/torture porn filth.

PS: Trick 'R' Treat, Hocus Pocus, Monster Squad and Fright Night are on my Halloween watch list. If you haven't seen Trick R Treat, you don't know what you're missing

[Robarr The Morbid]

Right here!! I've been a Horror fan a good portion of my life. I'm very particular about it, though, as years of viewing both good and bad horror have made me very selective indeed. I'm of the opinion that a good horror movie should leave you with a feeling of numbing dread and make you afraid to turn the lights off at night. A happy ending is usually the hallmark of a bad horror movie in this fan's opinion. I'm mostly into supernatural horror and ghost stories (but only if they're genuinely CREEPY).

I also love good Sci-Fi/Horror like the original Alien movie, The Blob remake and Night of The Creeps. I love a good zombie flick, but they're getting so overdone these days and sometimes people really cheap out on the FX in those.

I don't mind a good Horror/Comedy once in a while, but it has to be exceptionally well done and fun, otherwise I find them annoying. Comedy and horror aren't usually two things I like to see mixed together. I'm definitely NOT a fan of torture-porn masquerading as horror, such as the Hostel or Saw flicks, although I will say I've seen both Human Centipede movies (mainly out of curiousity) and found them extremely disturbing. Slasher flicks are another sub-genre I'm getting pretty sick of as well. It's been so over-done, it's almost impossible to be original, although I do find a good cannibal story somewhat compelling.

I'm also getting pretty sick of the "Found-footage documentary style" movies ala The Blair Witch Project. So very, very overdone these days.

I also love good old fashioned monster movies; vampires and werewolves still hold a lot of sway with me but only if they're good and not some vile teen romance CRAP like Twilight, etc.

Anyway, in no particular order, here's some of my favorites:

Near Dark
30 Days of Night
The Howling
The Blob (remake)
The Hills Have Eyes (remake)
Dawn of The Dead (both the original and remake)
Creepshow 1 and 2
The Thing (1982 remake)
Return of The Living Dead (any of the sequels past part 3 are crap)
The Ring (American version with Naomi Watts)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
Hellraiser
The Evil Dead 1 and 2
A Haunting In Conneticut
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

and far, far too many to remember right now.

[Robarr The Morbid]

I think you got mixed up there. When I said 1982 re-make, I meant the John Carpenter film from 1982. That was an awesome movie! Scared the be-jeezus outta me when I was 12. The 1982 version is actually a re-make of the 1951 film "The Thing From Another World" starring James Arness (anyone remember that old TV show "Gunsmoke"?) as the creature. Instead of the wickedly cool shape changing alien from the 1982 flick, Arness kinda looked like a tall Frankensten monster in a jumpsuit. The 2011 version I liked for the most part. The biggest problems I had with it were 1) The title. To call a film meant to be a prequel to the 1982 film by the same title is confusing. They should've give it a different name like "The Thing:____________" (insert anything else to differentiate it from the 80's film). 2) I really disliked the ending. It was far too CGI'd for my liking. I also think they should've made the alien a creature that stowed away on the alien craft and killed off the crew. That, to me, would've been far more sinister than what they did. They made the creature far too intelligent. Just my two cents. But YES!! I love "Near Dark"! It's my favorite vampire flick of all time! Bill Paxton was brilliant as "Severin". A cool, badass vampire. Haven't seen anything like him since.

[GREP-A-TOR]

Word, I understand now. NOW we are really on the same page!

[Robarr The Morbid]

That we are! Cheers!

[GREP-A-TOR]

I just watched a mediocre Zombie movie (aren't most of them now a days?), but was amazed that a few actors were in it.
Darryl Hannah
Anthony Michael Hall
Alan Ruck (aka Cameron Frye from Ferris Bueller).

I just can't believe these people did this movie together. It was not the worst one I have seen in the past 3 years.
Zombie Night 2013, available on Netflix.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2978716/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

[Captain Atkin]

If you want to see a weird creepy movie, check out Scarlett Johansson's new alien film, Under the Skin.

I saw it yesterday at the show. Not a traditional horror film, but very creepy.

[GREP-A-TOR]

That is on my radar, I heard the synopsis on some podcast and it sounds up my alley.