50. Re-Animator (1985)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0089885/
Stupid, gory, and fun. Don't watch this if you have a weak stomach and no sense of humor. It's allegedly based on an H.P. Lovecraft story, but it doesn't even approach the mystery and creepiness of Lovecraft, and, well, it doesn't even try to -- it just borrows the premise of the story as a framework for a lot of sick, in-your-face visual ideas.
49. The Lost Boys (1987)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0093437/
Fun with vampires. Features the two youngest and most earnest vampire hunters ever shown on film . . . . Doesn't do the "Oh, horrors, I'm slowly turning into a vampire"-schtick nearly as well as Near Dark, but worth watching anyway. Very cool.
48. Candyman 2: Farewell to the Flesh (1995)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0112625/
Sequels don't usually do much for me, although I usually see them just in case they manage to live up to the original idea; and this time, I'm especially glad I did. They managed to make a more expensive, more mainstream film, and probe into the origins of the title character -- all without losing any of the unique appeal of the first film. This movie also kept up a creepy, claustrophobic feeling by putting mirrors everywhere. (Confession time; I realize it's ridiculous, superstitious, and stupid, but it took me years to work up the nerve to bring myself to look in a mirror and say "Candyman" five times . . . . Nothing happened, in case you're curious. Not yet, anyway.)
47. Friday the 13th (1980)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0080761/
Surprisingly good. As the progenitor of the "mad slasher goes around killing teenagers who were about to have sex" genre, I thought this film would be as bad as the countless imitators that followed. I was wrong. Some fairly decent acting, good pacing, and a few real surprises.
46. John Carpenter's Vampires (1998)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0120877/
I've been a big fan for years of John Carpenter's action films, like Escape from New York, and his horror films, like the wonderfully creepy Prince of Darkness, and now it finally seems like the two sides of Carpenter's personality have released a collaboration. This film just doesn't stop moving. Okay, on the face of it, it's a macho, posturing, male-bonding buddy flick with a really juvenile sense of humor, but it's a really good one. And I can't remember the last time that one single vampire was portrayed as a real threat. I hope you saw this one in the theatres -- it deserves to be seen full-size and bigger than life.
45. The Dark Half (1993)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0106664/
This film -- there's no other way to put this -- just simply got to me, for various reasons too personal to get into here. It also has some nice performances, is well-directed, and frankly just looks good. This is a fine example of an extremely rare breed of film; a good movie based on a Stephen King novel.
44. Creepshow (1982)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0083767/
If you're tired of horror films with pretensions of being serious and artistic, here's your cure. It manages to be frequently campy without losing the edge of horror. (Okay, maybe during the animated sequences.) But this is just plain fun. It's an homage to the horror comics of the fifties, especially the offerings from EC Comics. (The sequel wasn't quite as good, so I can't wholeheartedly recommend it, but if you really enjoy this film, check out the second one.
43. Cemetary Man (1994)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0109592/
I always think of this movie as Dellamorte, Dellamore, it's Italian title, but I've listed it under it's American release title so you can find it at your local video store. It's a strange one, but I liked it a lot. It's moody, creepy, gory, hysterically funny, and strangely romantic. Don't expect it to make much sense, but it's fun to watch.
42. The Fly (1986)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0091064/
The first Cronenberg film I ever saw, this one is fairly typical of his work. Not that this movie is typical by other standards; where Dead Ringers gives us a slow deterioration of a relationship, The Fly gives us a slow deterioration of a human body, as we watch a man slowly devolve into a monster. Worth watching just for Jeff Goldblum as the lead character; no one is better at being naturally creepy than Goldblum, and Cronenberg gets an excellent performance out of him.
41. Misery (1990)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0100157/
When I start getting published, I hope I'll someday have devoted fans -- but maybe not quite as devoted as Kathy Bates' character in this film. Yikes. The scariest part of this movie to me was not the widely-touted scene where she breaks his ankle, but when she makes him set fire to his -- well, that would be telling, but if you've seen the movie, you know what I'm talking about. And why it bugs me so much.
40. The Thing (1982)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0084787/
Usually, when someone makes a remake of a "classic" film, they completely ruin it. This couldn't be farther from the truth here. The original version of The Thing is, in my opinion, totally boring. This film went back to the original source material, a short story entitled "Who Goes There?" that the first film was based on, and brought back into the plot all the elements that had made the story work that the first film had just completely ignored. Lots of action, a claustrophobic setting, and a wonderfully ambiguous ending make this one memorable.
39. Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0111686/
If you see just one of the Nightmare on Elm Street sequels, make it this one. Really. Lots of fun, and neatly manages to get away from the wisecracking, one-liner nonsense that was making Freddy Kruger seem like less of a credible threat with each film. It cleverly takes place in the "real" world, having actors from the first film play themselves, and it plays on the mythology the films have built up. With its reality-bending themes, it would make a good double-feature with In the Mouth of Madness. Go rent both of them.
38. The Crow (1994)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0109506/
I'm almost reluctant to call this a horror film; it's more like a revenge film dressed up in funeral cerements. But it works. Maybe not on an intellectual level, perhaps -- this film succeeds on a purely visceral level, relentlessly dark, brooding, urban visuals and a driving soundtrack. There's also something a little bit unsettling about watching Brandon Lee, who died during the production of this movie, playing a man who comes back from the dead. Art imitating death.
37. The Return of the Living Dead (1985)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0089907/
I wasn't really expecting much from this movie -- it looked like a cheap knockoff of Night of the Living Dead, and that's essentially true . . . . But if I'm not mistaken, the writer from NotLD actually had some involvement in this movie, and in some respects, was able to improve on his original ideas. These zombies really are (almost) unstoppable -- and it's fun watching the characters try anyway. It's dumb, it wants you to laugh at it, but so much of what it does with the concept is so darn clever that you just have to stop and appreciate the ideas while you're laughing. Also, it's got a really great 80's soundtrack.
36. Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0103874/
Advance publicity for this movie touted it as the first faithful adaptation of Stoker's novel. If that's really what they were trying to do, they failed miserably. I only wish everyone's failures were this interesting to watch. Possibly the most compelling aspect of the film, the love story between Mina and Dracula is completely the invention of the screenwriter. Despite a nondescript performance by Keanu Reaves, the film manages to be beautifully dark and tragic. I also enjoyed the special effects; the filmmakers confined themselves to using only effects that had been in use by early filmmaking pioneers at the time that the novel was written.
35. Dance of the Damned (1988)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0094942/
A fairly different vampire film. To be perfectly honest, I'm not entirely certain just why I like this movie so much; it looks like it was shot for less than the price of a used car, the special effects aren't very, and the acting is occasionally a little off, and the pacing isn't always very good . . . . But despite all these bad points, the movie somehow pulls together to form an entertaining and cohesive whole. (Compare this to all the movies you've seen where there were good effects, crisp dialogue, and the occasional wonderful scene -- but it just didn't add up to make a movie.) I think the best thing about this film is that it presents us with just two characters, and gradually makes us genuinely care about what will happen to them. It also presents an interesting and fairly novel view of what vampires are. There's a movie called To Sleep With A Vampire that, as near as I can tell, is a remake of this film, and it's very clear its makers didn't understand what made this film work; it's about as bad as the title makes it sound. If you're standing around in the horror section at your local Lackluster Video trying to decide between these two seemingly identical films, pick Dance of the Damned.
34. Nomads (1986)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0091647/
Unsettling and original, this movie really conveys the feeling of a world both darker and larger than our own. Rather than tapping into the same well of old stories that most horror films use, with their demons and vampires and werewolves, this story creates a threat that feels unmistakably urban and modern and real. The movie's slow breakdown of linear logic echoes the mental breakdown of the lead character. And the ending still really haunts me.
33. Return of the Living Dead 3 (1993)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0107953/
My expectations for the original may have been low, but my expectations for this one were even lower -- the first film was cheesy enough, but sequels are always even worse, right? Wrong. This movie is hip, creepy, and clever, and takes the idea of zombie movies and makes it personal as we watch the deteriorating relationship between a woman who is slowly giving into her undead hunger and the man who brought her back from the dead. This movie is perfectly aware of both the real horror and the real absurdity of its premise, and sets tense, dramatic scenes against colorfully-lit, EC-comics-like backgrounds, giving the whole film a surreal and dreamlike feeling.
32. Last House on the Left (1972)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0068833/
Wes Craven's first film, and easily his single most disturbing. I think this one works so well because he didn't know what he was doing -- it doesn't fall into any safe, predictable patterns -- you never know what's going to happen to any of the characters at any moment. This is not light, fluffy, kiddie-fare -- don't toss this one in the VCR at your next Halloween party if you still want all your friends speaking to you afterward. This one is brutal and nasty, and shot in such a cheap, flat way that it looks like a documentary, or a snuff film; the cheapness actually enhances the realism, just as the badly-placed and -executed comic relief enhances the real horror of the rest of the film -- you find yourself staring slack-jawed at the "funny" scenes as you would at someone who brought a whoopie cushion to a funeral.
31. The Company of Wolves (1984)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0087075/
I've heard this film described as a "fairy tale for adults," and that's pretty dead-on. There's a lot of creepy, bloody, sexual, chaotic material boiling around under the skin of our culture's fairy tales, and this movie takes that skin and peels it back. This film makes much more sense on an emotional level than it does on an intellectual level; sit back and watch it, wide-eyed and open and receptive as a child, and get ready for nightmares.
30. In the Mouth of Madness (1995)
Imdb:
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0113409/
The best John Carpenter film in years. Not that he'd been slacking, or anything, but he really outdid himself this time. This one's a nice homage, partly to Steven King, but mainly to H.P. Lovecraft.
29. Gothic (1987)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0091142/
Eye candy. I'll admit it. This movie is definitely hip-deep in its pretensions that Something Deep and Important is going on, but as long as you can ignore that -- and not expect the movie to make any damn sense -- it's a great deal of fun, has some nice imagery, a great soundtrack by Thomas Dolby (of all people), and is an account, albeit highly fictionalized, of one of the most interesting evenings in the history of literature, the evening that would lead Mary Shelley to write Frankenstein.
28. Interview with the Vampire (1994)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0110148/
Okay, confession time, again; Interview with the Vampire was the novel that got me interested in horror in the first place. It was something I read just because I was tired of not understanding what everyone else around me was talking about, but I really found it appealing. Now, I'm not quite as -- attached to the book as some people seem to get, so I didn't completely freak when I heard that Tom Cruise was going to play Lestat, but I did have my doubts. They weren't justified. He pulled it off. And the filmmakers managed to pull off realizing the lush, rich, sensual world I always imagined the characters inhabiting. They totally screwed around with the ending, but I think this is well worth seeing anyway.
27. Scream (1996)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0117571/
Okay, maybe this one isn't really all that scary -- the first five minutes or so had me on the edge of my seat, but the rest of it doesn't really live up to the opening -- but if you're a fan of horror movies, you've got to see this one; it's made with such obvious fondness and affection for the whole horror film genre, and with such style, that it just picks you up and carries you along. It's a lot of fun.
26. The Exorcist (1973)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0070047/
It's a little hard to judge this movie on its own merits -- its images and ideas have become so firmly entrenched in our culture, and it's been parodied and referenced so many times that's it's hard to separate the film itself from this idea of the film. Although it almost works better as an archetype than as a movie, The Exorcist still has the power to shock and horrify, even by today's jaded standards; and I have to give it proper credit for not going with a "Hollywood" ending.
25. Cat People (1942)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0034587/
You'd think that a movie this old would seem too dated to scare a modern audience, but this one still really shines. The characters are intriguing and well-acted, and the story and the direction both refuse to give you release from the tension they build up right until the final frames. The film is also beautifully lit and shot, using the black-and-white medium to its full advantage. There was a remake in 1982, that had a great performance from Malcolm McDowell and music by David Bowie and Giorgio Moroder, that still couldn't touch the original.
24. Videodrome (1983)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0086541/
Yeee-ikes. Creepy, icky, weird, and makes no linear sense. But should a film that shows someone's gradual mental deterioration really have to make linear sense? It's hard to tell, as the film progresses, how much of the action is "really" happening, and how much only takes place inside the protagonist's mind -- but it doesn't really matter.
23. Nightbreed (1990)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0100260/
I always feel a little sad when I see this now, knowing that it should have been better -- apparently, the studio really cut this one to ribbons, and it shows, with the occasional jump in the plot or gap in logic. But what's left really makes me yearn for the long-rumored director's cut to be released. Nightbreed is the film that finally realizes that the most compelling and even sympathetic characters in horror films aren't the victims -- they're the monsters. And this film provides an entire nightmarish hidden city of them.
22. Martin (1978)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0077914/
Okay, sure, this is another vampire movie. But I guarantee you that this is not like any other vampire movie you've ever seen. For one thing, you can never really be sure whether the title character really is a vampire, or whether he's just horrifically delusional . . . . One of the creepiest horror movies I've seen, since aside from the flashbacks (which could just be fantasies), there's nothing in this film that couldn't actually happen. This isn't one of George Romero's better known films -- but it should be, dammit.
21. The Ugly (1997)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0120401/
Disturbing, entrancing, and beautifully shot in a very modern, jerky, and disorienting style, this movie is the life story of a serial killer with a supernatural edge to it. While having an "unreliable narrator" is a common enough technique in prose fiction, I can't remember another film that uses the same technique so well; we're left uncertain whether the events we're seeing are real memories, imagined memories, or simple lies. This movie also has a very distinctive visual style; for example, the blood in this movie isn't red, it's oil-black. That might sound almost cartoonish, but it's incredibly effective -- it draws your attention to the blood in a way that a normal portrayal wouldn't, and underlines the horror of the situation. Simon's victims look soiled and unclean by his acts.
20. Pumpkinhead (1988)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0095925/
I avoided this film for years, thanks to a pretty stupid title and an unimaginative and cheap looking video cover design. I finally rented it out of desperation one night, when I couldn't find anything else that looked appealing -- and I was blown away by it. Great creature effects from Stan Winston, the man who made the creatures in Alien. An interesting story. And a compelling performance from Lance Henriksen, whom I loved in Near Dark.
19. Near Dark (1987)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0093605/
Best damn vampire movie ever made. No question. (Even though it never uses the word "vampire" once -- the characters in it don't seem sure what they are.) It's the story of a young man's descent into darkness, and his redemption. Features Lance Henriksen as the lead vampire; he's better known now as the star of television's wonderfully creepy Millenium. Great soundtrack by Tangerine Dream.
18. An American Werewolf in London (1981)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0082010/
This is a difficult movie to categorize -- it's hard to tell what kind of film you're watching, even from one moment to the next. It manages to be very genuinely creepy, occasionally hysterically funny, and sometimes even both at once. I'm not sure if this movie succeeds, because, quite frankly, I don't know what the hell it was trying to do. But I found it fairly intriguing, even though it's inconsistently paced. Definitely worth seeing just for Rick Baker's werewolf transformation effects, which really pushed the envelope of what was possible to put on the screen. And it has a perfect ending. Personally, I really enjoyed the long-overdue sequel, An American Werewolf in Paris, but I can't honestly say it was a good movie.
17. Phantasm (1979)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0079714/
This is a very . . . weird little movie. I didn't like it until about halfway through it, when I stopped trying to make sense of it. It has a very creepy, dreamlike feel and structure to it, there are parts of the film that are laughably bad and other parts that are really terrifying, and it doesn't really add up to a cohesive whole -- but you get the feeling that it wasn't trying to, that it was just trying to tow you along as it drifted through a nightmare for a while. And I think it succeeds at that. Also, despite the overall cheapness of the movie, the makers had a good sense of visual style, and the Ball and the Tall Man are compelling images.
16. Candyman (1992)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0103919/
It's based on a Clive Barker short story, so naturally I had to love this one. It strays a little far afield of the story it's based on, but it does so fairly gracefully. This movie does an excellent job at creating an original supernatural menace, while grounding it so firmly in the context of urban legends that you'd be convinced the character has been spoken of in whispers for years. This movie has a quiet, low-budget look and feel to it that actually helps to enhance the unsettling mood it creates.
15. Jacob's Ladder (1990)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0099871/
This is, well, a pretty strange movie. I'm not entirely certain I understand what happened in this film, although I have some ideas -- but that's all right, because the main character doesn't understand what's happened to the world around him, either. It's not often I enjoy feeling as confused as the characters I'm watching, but considering some of the themes this movie deals with -- the very nature of life and death -- I suppose a little confusion might be justified.
14. Prince of Darkness (1987)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0093777/
This one's really unsettling. It's not much like John Carpenter's other work. It's slow and careful and nightmare-like, and takes time to set up really disturbing images and a sense of dread.
13. Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0095294/
Almost as unheard-of as a good Steven King movie, we have here another another rarity: a well-done sequel. Even though it has a different writer and different director, this movie still dovetails fairly seamlessly onto the end of the first; one can cheerfully watch them back-to-back, if you're willing to ignore the fact that the main character's house seems to un-burn-down between films. Hellbound manages to delve even farther into the mythology established by the first film while still remaining true to the spirit of it. (Just a side note: Don't make the mistake of assuming that because the first two films were so good, the third one will be as well. It's excruciatingly bad. And it's not even bad in an entertaining way.)
12. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0087800/
Do you really need a recommendation for this one? Well, maybe you do; maybe you'd just as soon avoid any film that spawned a franchise of endless sequels. But, really, the first one was groundbreaking and fun, and really manages to convey the strange logic that nightmares operate under. If you've never seen it, you need to.
11. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0072271/
I know what you're thinking. But really, this is not that kind of movie; despite the title, there have been many, many movies that have gone much farther out of their way to splatter blood, gore and intestines up on the screen than this one. This may have been visually shocking in the early seventies, but it's awfully tame to today's jaded thrillseekers, such as myself. It's not tame, however, in its plot and direction; after slowly building up the atmosphere, nearly the last half of the movie is one, long, extended chase sequence. It may sound boring put that way, but it's not. The viewer is made to feel tense, claustrophobic and trapped along with our heroine. Very creepy and unsettling.
10. The Hitcher (1986)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0091209/
This one is really creepy and unsettling, too, but in a much more cinematic way, so it's a little easier to take. But not much. The perfect movie for people who always thought there was something just a little sinister about Rutger Hauer.
9. The Blair Witch Project (1999)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0185937/
Yeah, okay, this movie received a lot of hype. And it deserves it. How effective you find the film may depend on how likely your imagination is to work against you; if you're like me, you'll find that this movie lodges itself in your brain and ruins your sleep for days. The aftereffects of the film are more unsettling than the actual experience. Kudos to Haxan Films for trying something daring and unusual instead of cranking out yet another slasher flick, and for convincing so many people that their invented legend was real.
8. Carnival of Souls (1962)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0055830/
I rented this movie on the strength of the recommendations on alt.horror, and now I have to add my own. I love this movie. It's very slow-paced by today's standards, but it's very creepy and effective. (There's a so-called "remake" out there that doesn't seem to have anything to do with the original. Skip it and rent this instead.)
7. Angel Heart (1987)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0092563/
Written and directed by Alan Parker, who directed my favorite non-horror movie (Pink Floyd: The Wall). It has the voodoo-laden, jazzy, hard-boiled feel that I wish Lord Of Illusions had managed to pull off.
6. Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1990)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0099763/
Yeeeesh. When you think you've become jaded, when you think you've seen it all, and that nothing you could possibly see in a movie could bother you -- please, by all means, watch this movie. After seeing hours of stylized, glossy, slicked-up violence dished out by the Jasons and Freddy's of the silver screen, this movie is a real fucking wake-up call. Disturbingly realistic in a flat, stark, almost documentary-like style, there is absolutely nothing glamorous about this movie. It will mess you up bad. Worth seeing, but really, really, unsetlling. See it with a friend who won't hate you for making them watch it.
5. Dead Ringers (1988)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0094964/
Easily one of the best films by David Cronenberg, the most twisted and messed-up director I know (I love his work). I almost hesitate to call this a horror film; it doesn't have the trappings of a traditional horror film, doesn't have the pacing of one. What it does do is slowly unfold the unsettling, disturbing breakdown of two identical twins, both expertly played by Jeremy Irons with the aid of some flawless split-screen work.
4. Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0063350/
I saw the 1990 remake long before I ever saw the original, and for quite a while, I honestly thought I prefered the remake, at least partly because it has the talents of the incomparable Tony Todd and Babylon 5's Patricia Tallman behind it. But when it came time to compile this list, I realized that only one of the two had really managed to burn its images into my brain, and that was the original. The original may feel a little stilted and dated in some ways compared to the remake, but it's got a power to it that just can't be denied.
3. The Haunting (1963)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0057129/
What can I possibly say about this movie that could convey the creepy feeling it provides? In some ways, this movie is a little stilted and dated, but no other film has ever really matched its atmosphere of oppression and dread. The characters are well-drawn, neurotic and compelling; the house really feels haunted, with shifting perspectives and weird trappings; and the writers and directors had the sense to know that what we don't see is much, much worse than anything they could put on the screen. (Too bad the makers of the 1999 remake couldn't figure that out. Avoid the remake as if your life depended on it.)
2. Cube (1997)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0123755/
Damn. I made the mistake of seeing this movie alone when I saw it for the first time, and I couldn't sleep afterwards. Claustrophobic and terrifying, this movie keeps setting up your expectations and knocking them down. Extremely nihilistic in its outlook, this film has a lot to say about the nature of life. Shot on an extremely low budget with amazing special effects provided entirely free of charge by volunteers, this movie proves what you can do with just a handful of actors and one set.
1. Hellraiser (1987)
Imdb: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0093177/
Nothing else comes close. The directing debut of my favorite author, Clive Barker, Hellraiser is a charming little tale of passions taken too far; it's a movie that isn't afraid to show gore, but does so for a reason. Hellraiser is an intelligent, thoughtful film, that sets up its own logic, its own reality, and its own mythology. Strikingly innovative, it raised the bar for horror films.
). in my opinion, along with The Thing, which is very different but awesome none the less.
Shutup. How bout that? 
