A Bloody Good Time 10.02.08: The 100 Greatest Horror Films Ever Made, Part 1 (#100-81)

Posted by Joseph Lee on 10.02.2008

The list to end all lists starts now.

Welcome to A Bloody Good Time. Last week I gave you what I thought were the worst ten horror films ever made. I want to thank you for the large number of comments and emails I've been sent in response to that column. I think it was the largest turn out for an edition of this column ever and it's kind of fitting seeing as how last week was ABGT's birthday.

I'd love to respond to them here, but we just don't have the time or space for that! Much bigger fish to fry this week.

This week, as promised, I'm giving you the first part of the top 100 horror films ever made. These are my personal choices. Chances are you're going to disagree with them. In fact, I know you will. As a horror fan, there are certain movies that I've always loved and some that I feel should get more love. There are even some that I feel are overrated. All will be presented here. There's a lot of horror out there, but I chose my personal 100 favorites. You'll forgive me if I simply copy and paste what I said if a movie appeared on a previous list..especially considering I just wrote about some of these not even a month ago.

I've made you wait for a month already, but no longer. Let's do this.

The 100 Greatest Horror Films Ever Made.



#100: Freddy vs Jason(2003)

Directed By: Ronny Yu

Starring: Robert Englund, Ken Kirzinger, Monica Keena

Plot: The classic 80's slashers come together for one epic brawl.

What better way to start a countdown this big than a showdown between two of the greatest movie monsters of all time? Freddy vs Jason had been in the works for ten years, and horror fans desperately wanted to see the two horror icons clash. Is it perfect? No. I would argue that not even the #1 film on this list is entirely perfect. However Freddy vs Jason is a lot of fun. You get typical Nightmare elements associated with Freddy movies, such as dream kills and Freddy's standard one-liners. You also get to see Jason create more bloody mayhem than I've seen in a while. Finally, the battle at the end lasts about fifteen minutes and is very bloody and violent. The blood is almost over-the-top, but it only helps. Freddy actually does a good job of fighting off Jason. The end result is also very conclusive, but it still is enough to make both Freddy and Jason fans happy.



#99: Willard (2003)

Directed By: Glen Morgan

Starring: Crispin Glover, R. Lee Ermey, Laura Elena Harring, Jackie Burroughs

Plot: A socially awkward man forms a bond with his rats, which would do anything for him.

I'll be honest, Willard isn't that scary. I don't have a rat phobia, so that may have played a part in it. But what Willard is, is a chance to see Crispin Glover play another off-beat, oddball character with ease and well. Willard Stiles is a man that you will immediately root for. He seems nice enough, just shut off from everyone. This is more of a drama than a true horror film, but it's a good drama. Everyone plays their roles well. Crispin essentially acts by himself for a majority of the scenes and does a good job holding the movie together. You may not be scared, but to see Glover at his best there's no better movie.



#98: Dog Soldiers(2002)

Directed By: Neil Marshall

Starring: Sean Pertwee, Kevin McKidd, Liam Cunningham

Plot: A routine military exercise turns into a nightmare in the Scotland wilderness.

Dog Soldiers like many of the movies on this list, is just really fun. It's a shoot-em-up action flick with some scary werewolves as the antagonists. It features homages to greats of the past like The Evil Dead. Kevin McKidd leads the cast as the star, but the supporting cast holds their own. There's lots of sweet battle scenes, particularly a hand-to-hand combat scene of soldier vs werewolf. It's the kind of movie that grabs you by the throat and doesn't let up. The quick pacing and special effects (featuring almost NO CGI!) are more reasons this movie is great.



#97: Wishmaster (1997)

Directed By: Robert Kurtzman,

Starring: Tammy Lauren, Andrew Divoff

Plot: A demonic djinn attempts to grant its owner three wishes, which will allow him to summon his brethren to earth.

Someone actually emailed me last week and mentioned this for the "worst" list. I don't think it's that bad. In fact, I find Wishmaster to be very entertaining, and you should too if you're a horror fan. Where else will you get The Tall Man(Angus Schrimm), Freddy(Robert Englund), Jason(Kane Hodder) and Candyman(Tony Todd) all in one place? You'll find them all here, either in a significant supporting role (Englund), becoming victims of the Djinn (Hodder and Todd) or just narrating the opening of the movie (Schrimm). The Djinn, played this time by Andrew Divoff, is actually a great villain in his own right. If you do not word your wish precisely (or even if you do), somehow he will twist it to kill you. Even if you're successful and get what you want, you've already given him the right to take your soul. It all comes down the one woman who released him deciding whether or not to save the life of her family or release a race of beings that would enslave us.



#96: Wrong Turn(2003)

Directed By: Rob Schmidt

Starring: Eliza Dushku, Desmond Harrington, Emannuelle Chriqui, Jeremy Sisto

Plot: Six people find themselves trapped in the woods of West Virginia, hunted down by "cannibalistic mountain men grossly disfigured through generations of in-breeding."

Wrong Turn, before the remake, is what The Hills Have Eyes should have been. There are some small laughs here and there, a likable cast and it's a very mean-spirited slasher. There are some nasty kills, good old-fashioned gore and even a gross decapitation scene. It has some suspenseful stalk sequences and nasty villains as well. These were some deformed baddies that loved to hurt people. Plus Jeremy Sisto is in this, and he is great. He gets all of the best lines too.



#95: The Sixth Sense(1999)

Directed By: M. Night Shyamalan

Starring: Bruce Willis, Haley Joel Osment, Toni Collette, Olivia Williams

Plot: A boy who communicates with spirits that don't know they're dead seeks the help of a disheartened child psychologist.

Yeah, this made my "overrated films" list. I even said it wasn't one of the best horror films ever. That may have been going overboard. I still feel it's overrated, but hey, it is a good movie, my complaints aside. It's Academy Award-nominated. It gave us the rise of M. Night Shyamalan and is probably his best film to date. It has an 84% on Rotten Tomatoes, which is really good for a horror film. It features some really good acting, even from child actor and (at the time) newcomer Haley Joel Osment. It's also well-known for it's twist, something M. Night would become famous for. The twist itself is one of the reasons to see the movie, and you'll be hitting yourself for not picking up on it.



#94: Jeepers Creepers (2001)

Directed By: Victor Salva

Starring: Justin Long, Gina Phillips, Jonathan Breck

Plot: A brother and sister driving home for spring break encounter a flesh-eating creature in the isolated countryside that is on the last day of its ritualistic eating spree.

It's Duel meets Alien with a little bit of a slasher thrown in. Two college students on their way home are harassed by a stranger in a giant truck. They soon discover the creature wants to eat one of them. But which one? It's never known until the end and this ups the suspense level of the movie. You don't know which person to be afraid for and which not to be. Gina Phillips and Justin Long are very great together as the siblings, and Johnathan Breck, covered in heavy makeup, is a formidable villain in the Creeper. The Creeper doesn't kill for fun or to gain anything, it does so for survival. This would make a monster scarier to me, actually. The concept of the creature eating body parts to regenerate those it lost is a fairly unique concept too. This movie is often forgotten, but it shouldn't be.



#93: May(2002)

Directed By: Lucky McKee

Starring: Angela Bettis, Anna Faris, Jeremy Sisto

Plot: Psychological horror about a lonely young woman traumatized by a difficult childhood, and her increasingly desperate attempts to connect with the people around her.

Angela Bettis plays a very similar character to Crispin Glover's Willard, in that she's a disturbed young woman with no friends. But the similarities end there. May is desperate for companionship of some kind, as she stalks and comes up with bizarre compliments to try and win others over. Bettis provides a very memorable performance and I immediately wanted someone, anyone, to be her friend. So by the time the end rolls around and May snaps, the audience expects it and demands it. The finale is also ambiguous and bizarre, but also sad and touching. Overall it's not standard horror fare as critics have said, but it is a good one.



#92: Carrie(1976)

Directed By: Brian De Palma

Starring: Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Betty Buckley, Amy Irving, William Katt, Nancy Allen, John Travolta

Plot: A mousy and abused girl with telekinetic powers gets pushed too far on one special night.

May likely would not have existed if it were not for Stephen King and Brian De Palma giving us Carrie in 1976. The novel was fairly popular on its own, but the film gave both Sissy Spacek and John Travolta fame, and while not very scary, it's a very interesting psychological look at this girl who's had enough. Carrie just wants to be liked, and just when you think she's going to be accepted, she gets tortured some more. In the same sense that you would root for Jason or Freddy to dispatch their victims, the audience is left rooting for Carrie to kill everyone. Not because she's cool (she's actually quite awkward), but because the assault on her is an assault on the audience, and this nice girl doesn't deserve to have pig's blood dumped on her. Carrie holds up as one of the ultimate revenge films.



#91: A Tale of Two Sisters(2003)

Directed By: Kim Ji-Woon

Starring: Im Soo Jung, Moon Geun-young, Yeom Jeong-ah, Kim Kap-su

Plot: Two sisters who, after spending time in a mental institution, return to the home of their father and cruel stepmother. Once there, in addition to dealing with their stepmother's obsessive and unbalanced ways, an interfering ghost also affects their recovery.

I actually just discovered this bizarre entry from South Korea a year ago. I wasn't quite sure what I was watching the first time around but I knew that it was very creepy. At no point in this film do you not feel a sense of foreboding dread. It manages to reign itself in sometimes but when it goes for shocking scare value, it succeeds. The atmosphere is what makes this movie rise above it's contemporaries and makes it a very effective ghost story. There is also a twist that while not entirely successful, is something M. Night Shyamalan wishes he could come up with. If you haven't seen this film, try to hunt it down before the remake (The Uninvited) arrives next year. It'll be well worth the cost.



#90: Dr. Giggles(1992)

Directed By: Manny Coto

Starring: Larry Drake, Holly Marie Combs, Cliff De Young, Glenn Quinn, Keith Diamond, Richard Bradford

Plot: The psychopathic son of a mass-murdering doctor, escapes from his mental institution to seek revenge on the town where his father was caught.

This barely got cut from my top horror comedy list awhile back. It's such a dark comedy that dared to spoof the slasher craze before the self-referential horror films came along four years later. Larry Drake gives a hilarious performance as the titular doctor, who dispatches his victims with a barrage of medical weaponry and equally harmful medical puns. Maybe puns aren't your thing, but clearly Dr. Giggles is not there if he can find humor (even if it's bad humor) at what he's doing. This also features one of the most disturbing scenes I've seen in a horror film. A younger Dr. Giggles, thought to be missing, emerges from the body of his dead mother (he had been sewn inside by his insane father), covered in blood and giggling. If that doesn't send chills up your spine I don't know what will.



#89: Haute Tension(2003)

Directed By: Alexandre Aja

Starring: Cecile de France, Maiwenn Le Besco

Plot: Two college friends, Marie and Alexa, encounter loads of trouble (and blood) while on vacation at Alexa's parents' country home when a mysterious killer invades their quiet getaway.

French filmmaker Alexandre Aja, before he became known for remaking other films, made his own in 2003. This film featured lots of tension (no pun intended) and scares, in addition to some nasty gore and visuals. The opening, featuring the killer getting oral sex, is made very disturbing when it's revealed how he's getting it. While there are some problems, such as the bad twist ending, the movie that leads up to that ending is a very good victim vs killer battle that ends rather viciously. Gorehounds will no doubt be pleased by the amount of blood present in this flick. Aja proves why he was the choice to remake The Hills Have Eyes as he gives us a very violent bloody assault on the audience. Slasher films can be good, and this is an example of that.



#88: Puppet Master(1989)

Directed By: David Schmoeller

Starring: Paul Le Mat, Irene Miracle, Barbara Crampton, William Hickey

Plot: Neil Gallagher found the secret to Toulon's puppets who come to life and then killed himself. Alex and his psychic friends come to investigate and are stalked by Toulon's puppets who have a variety of strange traits including a drill for a head and the ability to spit up leeches.

Possibly Full Moon Entertainment's most famous and best entry, Puppet Master introduces a collection of dolls that are too small to be scary, until you see them work together. Yes, these things are just as able to kill you as any of the others on this list. Blade, Pinhead, Tunneler, Leech Woman, and even the useless Jester (and he is useless) all form a nice little team that are able to dispatch the much bigger humans easier than you think. Unlike Chucky, these dolls don't have human disadvantages. If you pull Pinhead apart, he will just put himself back together and come at you. Yes he has the same name as the cenobite but let's ignore that. He doesn't have pins in his head, his head is just shaped like one. The dolls proved popular enough to have a long running series and even became the heroes, fighting bad guys in defense of the humans. Really, it's the Puppet Master you have to worry about (hence the title), as the puppets will do whatever he or she wants.



#87: Duel(1971)

Directed By: Steven Spielberg

Starring: Dennis Weaver, Carey Loftin

Plot: A business commuter is pursued and terrorized by a malevolent driver of a massive tractor-trailer.

Before Jaws, Spielberg had another predator monster terrorize someone. An unknown driver that we never see gets behind the wheel of a massive truck and relentlessly pursues one man down a stretch of highway. Whatever this man does, he can't get away or stop the driver. Making the truck driver invisible is a strong move. What's scarier than the unknown? The only thing we know is that the driver is a white guy with a hairy arm, who wears cowboy boots. That's all you see of him. It really works, and really plays up the notion that perhaps David Mann is against the truck itself. The truck is the monster here. They took an ordinary tanker truck, but it looks dirty, massive and evil. They also placed our hero in a small car with a weak engine(and a radiator hose in need of replacement) to heighten that fear. How will this every man who is being suddenly hunted survive when he can't even escape? This movie does play to it's strengths given that it's low budget. You won't see any large fiery explosions, or giant action set-pieces. I can understand that, because they couldn't afford it. I imagine even if they could Spielberg would have kept it where it's located. It once again adds to the story. He's alone fighting this thing, in the middle of Nowhere, California. It just wouldn't have been the same if he were driving through a city, where police could easily reach him, or he could hide. It's just two cars driving out in the desert.



#86: The Guardian(1990)

Directed By: William Friedkin

Starring: Jenny Seagrove, Dwier Brown, Carey Lowell

Plot: A family employs a nanny to take care of their child. The nanny turns out to really be a Druid-like tree spirit worshiper, who is into sacrificing new born babies to the tree deity.

While not as well-known as The Exorcist, The Guardian is a nice little horror film that seems to get overlooked. Is the plot a little hokey and bizarre? Sure. But its' a testament to the actors because they make it work. The audience gets to know this couple before they invite this horror into their homes (and we know right away what Camilla is) and when she's alone with the baby it provides an emotional impact. Get that strangely attractive woman away from the baby before she feeds it to a tree! The movie features enough gore and sex to keep those people happy but it's not about that. It's about a struggle between this evil force and a couple for the life of an infant that can't protect itself. Considering the dark nature of the script, there is some suspense because they are willing to kill babies. That's what Camilla does.



#85: Re-Animator(1985)

Directed By: Stuart Gordon

Starring: Jeffery Combs, Bruce Abbott, Barbara Crampton, David Gale

Plot: A dedicated student at a medical college and his girlfriend become involved in bizarre experiments centering around the re-animation of dead tissue when an odd new student arrives on campus.

Re-Animator is a very bloody, very funny film based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft. It's a perfect blend of horror and humor. It makes us laugh at the fact there is a disembodied head performing oral sex on a woman. Jeffery Combs made himself a star in the horror world with this one role of Dr. Herbert West. Another film that barely missed the mark on my horror comedy list, this just assaults the audience like any other horror film, but it does so with a lot of dark humor. Really, you have to be one sick puppy to laugh at some of the stuff presented here. Which is perfect, because horror audiences are looked at that way anyway.



#84: Dead Alive(1984)

Directed By: Peter Jackson

Starring: Timothy Balme, Diana Penalver, Elizabeth Moody, Ian Watkin

Plot: A young man's mother is bitten by a Sumatran rat-monkey. She gets sick and dies, at which time she comes back to life, killing and eating dogs, nurses, friends, and neighbors.

Dead Alive (also known as Braindead) is the darkest comedy out there, and it doesn't really care whether you get offended or not. The gore description basically would take up an entire review. That's how much there is. This movie is not for the squeamish at all. At the same time, the level it takes the gore is so out there and over-the-top, that it becomes gross and hilarious at the same time. You don't know whether or not you want to laugh or throw up. Peter Jackson turns the blood and guts into a comedic aid, making the violence very campy and slapstick, where in any other horror movie the intent would be to shock you. This movie shocks, but doesn't scare. It's horror because of the fact there are zombies and more gore than any I've ever seen before. Aside from the gore, I dug the acting by Timothy Balme as Lionel. Acting is by no means important in this film, but I honestly thought he was trying to bring something to the character, and he did. He goes from "pansy momma's boy" to "badass zombie killer" within the span of ninety minutes. A lot of the comedy is situational, morbid, dark humor, but it really works. I really enjoyed the zombie-fighting priest, who "kicks arse for the Lord!" Priceless!



#83: The Blob(1958)

Directed By: Irvin Yeaworth

Starring: Steve McQueen, Aneta Corsaut, Earl Rowe, Olin Howland

Plot: An alien lifeform consumes everything in its path as it grows and grows.

An unstoppable monster that consumes everything in it's path. Nothing you can do is going to slow it down. Put something in the way? It'll just eat it. Hide somewhere? It's a goo, it can get into really small crevices. As it eats it gets bigger, and as it gets bigger the more dangerous it is. This movie is pretty famous as it was one of the best monster movies of it's time. Really, it may seem like a silly concept, a giant pink goo eating people, but at the most basic level, it's quite terrifying. It also helps that the script is quite decent for a B-monster movie, and Steve McQueen gives one of his better performances. That's commitment. It was remade in the 80's, but I'll always have a soft spot for the original. It was one of the first horror movies I ever watched, and it's one of my favorites.



#82: Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood(1988)

Directed By: John Carl Buechler

Starring: Kane Hodder, Lar Park Lincoln, Kevin Blair, Terry Kiser, Susan Blu

Plot: Years after Tommy Jarvis chained him underwater at Camp Crystal Lake, the hulking killer Jason Voorhees returns to the camp grounds when he's released accidently by a teenager with psychic powers.

It's placement may seem questionable, but this is the opportunity to see Jason Voorhees at his very best. Jason's design here was so that he would reflect all of the damage he had taken in the five prior movies (he wasn't in Part V, remember?) and it works. Jason is a very large monster with lots of wear and tear. He's undead now and it seems as though nothing can stop him. Famously cut down by Paramount and the MPAA, the gory scenes are sought out by fans to be re-included in the film's print even now. As it is, the kills are still reasonably violent, as we get some nasty kills that Buechler snuck in. This also features the sleeping bag kill, as well as a awesome finale of "Carrie Jr" throwing everything at Jason but he WON'T STOP. Like The Blob above, Jason is a force that is barely defeated at the end, until he pops up again in the sequel.



#81: House on Haunted Hill(1959)

Directed By: William Castle

Starring: Vincent Price, Carolyn Craig, Elisha Cook Jr, Carol Ohmart, Alan Marshal, Julie Mitchum

Plot: Five diverse people are invited to a 'haunted house' party. They are offered $10,000 each by an eccentric millionaire and his wife to spend the night in a house with a murderous past.

It would be criminal not to include at least one Vincent Price film on this list, and this happens to be my favorite. William Castle was known for throwing gimmicks in his films, but this one was actually a decent ghost story. A group of people are in a house where bizarre things happen and ghosts begin trying to dispatch them one by one. There is also a mystery here as to why the ghosts are doing what they are doing, and who is responsible. The ending, while very silly, was effective thanks to Castle's gimmicks in the day. When the skeleton jumps from the acid, the theaters would have skeletons come down from the ceiling. If you haven't seen this, I recommend it. Thanks to being public domain, you can pretty much find this film anywhere. It's a cult classic and deservingly so.

That's it for Part 1. We have four parts left, and next week we will get to Part 2, #80-61. Next week there will be more sequels, some terrifying movies and a couple of comedies. Plus some iconic movie monsters. See you next week.