My (Unlucky) 13 Favorite Horror Films by Suzidoll

1. The Black Cat (1934). Though only 65 minutes, BC offers an imaginative Expressionist-inspired set design, devil worship, an anti-war theme, skinning someone alive, suggestions of incest and necrophilia, and the best pairing of Lugosi and Karloff.

2. I Walked with a Zombie (1943). Atmosphere and exquisite lighting trump gore and special effects every time. Set in an exotic Caribbean Island, this poor-man’s Jane Eyre is my favorite Val Lewton film.

3. Curse of the Werewolf (1961). I like this example of Hammer horror largely because of Oliver Reed, who seemed born to play a werewolf. Also, at the end a father sacrifices his son for the good of the community; you wouldn’t find that kind of ending today.

4. Carnival of Souls (1962). I saw Herk Harvey’s low-budget masterpiece on tv when I was a kid, and I never got the images of the dead out of my mind. Shot on location, the film makes the mundane Midwest seem creepy, even eerie — which perhaps is not that difficult!.

5. The Night Stalker (1972). This made-for-tv film features an old-school vampire being tracked down by a modern-day investigative journalist. The attacks by the vampire are rendered like modern crimes, and the movie captures urban paranoia quite well — that is, what it’s like to live in a big city with crime in the streets. The film was the pilot for one of my favorite tv series, which starred Darren McGavin as Karl Kolchak.   

6. Halloween (1978). The opening shot in subjective camera is done so well that it remains frightening even today, while subsequent films using this type of camerawork look hopelessly dated.

7. Black Christmas (1974). This precursor to Halloween is much scarier, because nothing is resolved and nothing explained. Can’t believe it was directed by the man who gave us A Christmas Story.

8. The Exorcist (1973). Am I the only one who prefers the original cut – without Regan spider-walking down the stairs? Though a creepy effect, the shot took the horror out of her bedroom, which killed the whole idea that there really are monsters waiting for you in your room–every kid’s nightmare.

9. Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975). Australian director Peter Weir’s masterpiece of light and atmosphere is like a painting – an eerie painting. Virtually nothing happens, and none of the familiar conventions of the horror film are used, but this film is still scary, albeit in a different way.  

10. Salem’s Lot (1979). Tobe Hooper’s made-for-tv adaptation of Stephen King’s book is one of the best film versions of a King novel. Kids who turn into vampires are about the scariest monsters on earth.

11. Near Dark (1987). Hip and stylish, this film by Kathryn Bigelow almost makes you want to be a vampire because the lifestyle is just so liberating. Beats everyday life by a mile. Bigelow is a terrific director who works in genres traditionally dominated by males, and this is a stellar example.

12. Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992). If you could apply the word “baroque” to movies, this one would be the crowning example. I liked the artificiality of it and Gary Oldman’s interpretation of the Count. Can you tell I like vampire movies?    

13. The Gift (2000). Billy Bob Thornton cowrote this Gothic Southern horror tale with Cate Blanchett as a psychic who gets involved in a murder case. Billy Bob can bring out the peculiarities of the South without resorting to caricature. Sam Raimi directed with subtlety and maturity. Makes me forgive him for Spiderman 3.

THIRTEEN from RICHARD HARLAND SMITH:

1. NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968).  I know, I know, you’re probably sick of hearing me beat this drum but this is the be-all, end-all spook-a-matic.

2. LET’S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH (1971).  A quietly devastating descent into the maelstrom intertwined with one woman’s gradual loss of sanity.

3. THE WOMAN WHO CAME BACK (1945).  This creepy little Republic cheapie has some fantastic Halloween imagery.  Not lost, just under-appreciated.

4.  SESSION 9 (2001).  The rare modern horror movie to truly unnerve and rarer still for setting its symphony of terrors among the working class.

5.  THE RAVEN (1935).  Just an amazingly sadistic bon-bon from Universal and the rare pairing of the Kings of Horror that finds Lugosi kicking Karloff’s ass.

6.  VAMPYR (1932).  Watching this again last week I was riveted by the slow accumulation of dread.  The closest to seeing a dream preserved on film that I have ever seen.

7.  THE LIVING DEAD AT MANCHESTER MORGUE (1974).  A grim and gruesome ripoff of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD that is very much its own animal.  See it with someone you love… but keep an eye on them.

Valerie and Her Weeks of Wonders soundtrack album

8.  VALERIE AND HER WEEK OF WONDERS (1970).  Another expressionist horror movie built around a woman, this time a young girl coming-of-age during a time of great superstition and fear.  The incredible soundtrack is available on CD.

9.  BLOOD ON SATAN’S CLAW (1971).  Produced in the wake of the smash success of WITCHFINDER GENERAL, this is, I think, the better movie, as sadly haunting in its depiction of innocence corrupted as it is frequently chilling.

10.  THE OLD DARK HOUSE (1932).  James Whale’s adaptation of J. B. Priestly’s novel Benighted is just a hoot and a holler and possibly the greatest “the bridge is out, you’ll have to spend the night” horror movie ever made.  Sure, it’s cool to have Karloff in the house but the movie belongs to Ernest Thesiger, as the delightfully named Horace Femm.

11.  BLACK SABBATH (1963).  Mario Bava’s three-part anthology horror movie is a master class on cinematic horror and a prime example of old school fear-making.

12.  THE BRIDES OF DRACULA (1960).  My favorite Hammer horror and a wonderful memory box of Gothic tropes.

13. THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999). So virulent was the backlash from the horror community against this unexpected crossoverhit that I got into a nasty online argument with another critic who contended the movie couldn’t be as successful as it was reported to be. Personally, I don’t care about its box office because it was a glorious return of the genre to first principles of Things Half Heard/Things Half Seen, a modern magic lantern show that got people talking and kept them talking.

MorlockJeff’s 13-Course Meal for All Hallows Eve

Kaneto Shindo's Onibaba (1964)

1. ISLAND OF LOST SOULS (1932) – “Are we not men?” You sometimes have to question that when you tune into local and international news feeds. This early – and easily the best – film adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel explores our bestial nature in a story about a doctor who tries to alter and control it and loses his humanity in the process. The howls and groans coming from the “house of pain” in the night will chill your bones and so will the ending when the doctor gets a dose of his own medicine without the aid of anesthesia. Not for the kiddies. Look for Bela Lugosi as one of the hairy ones.

2. MURDERS IN THE ZOO (1933) – One of the lesser known Pre-Code horror films that will amaze you with its perverse and sadistic protagonist (Lionel Atwill), a wealthy zookeeper whose jealousy knows no bounds when it comes to his sexy wife (Kathleen Burke, the panther girl in the above ISLAND OF LOST SOULS). Any potential romantic rival comes to a grisly end – one is thrown into a snake pit with his lips sewn shut (a detail Luis Bunuel would flirt with in This Strange Passion [1953, aka El]). It has elements of The Most Dangerous Game and would inspire later films such as Black Zoo but remains a genuine curio.

3. DRACULA’S DAUGHTER (1936) – Truly great horror films are really Greek tragedies in monster drag with an extra dose of sturm und Drang. Gloria Holden, mostly forgotten now but magnificent in the title role, arouses such pity and compassion as this tormented creature that your sympathies are equally divided between her and her victims and how twisted is that? The unanswered question is what does she really feel toward her infamous father (we only see a brief scene where she burns his coffin) who handed her a fate worse than death. An elegant, atmospheric B-movie.

4. JIGOKU (1960) – Without a doubt the wildest and most surreal film in this list. From the provocative title credits which unroll like an avant-garde pink film to the dark, moralist narrative – a theology student is involved in a hit-and-run accident and his life completely unravels – to the Bosch-like imagery of hell where the sinner ends up, it’s an unforgettable visual trip with shocking images galore (people are cut in half, skulls are crushed, spikes driven through necks, and heads chopped off in eerie color schemes).

5. EYES WITHOUT A FACE (1960, aka Les Yeux sans visage) – What could be a more contemporary horror theme than the loss of one’s identity? While it’s been explored brilliantly in such films as John Frankenheimer’s Seconds (1966), Hiroshi Teshigahara’s The Face of Another (1966), and Scott McGehee & David Siegel’s Suture (1993), it becomes pure poetry in the hands of director Georges Franju who brings a Jean Cocteau quality to this austere tale about a doctor’s desperate attempts to repair his daughter’s ruined face. He fails repeatedly (it’s a horror film, after all) while she flees from but eventually embraces the stranger she has become.

6. THE INNOCENTS (1961) – This is still my favorite ghost story – based on Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw – and the scariest aspect of it is that the heroine Miss Giddens (Deborah Kerr), a sexually repressed governess who is much too curious about her young charges’ previously deceased governess and manservant, may be imagining it all while trying to force two impressionable children to accept her unfounded ravings. There is a hide-and-seek scene that ends with a startling confrontation between Miss Giddens and the malevolent Peter Quint (Peter Wyngarde). Stunning black and white cinematography by Freddie Francis.

7. ONIBABA (1964) – Despite the 14^th century setting, this grim Japanese horror classic feels completely contemporary in its view of the devastating effects of war on people. A woman and her daughter live a feral existence in a swamp, ambushing and killing solo soldiers and stragglers for their belongings. The dynamics change when the daughter begins an affair with a neighbor who’s returned from the war and the mother attempts to break it up with some unconventional scare tactics. Ever put on a mask and had trouble getting it off? This nightmare scenario is played out on an operatic scale here.

8. ROSEMARY’S BABY (1968) – The worst pregnancy on record is how one critic described it. It’s much more than that, of course, and is subtly chilling and much more thought-provoking than the film version of The Exorcist on the subject of his Satanic Majesty. It also has quite a lot to say about ruthless ambition. Beware of what you wish for – and choose your husband carefully. One of those rare films that was both a boxoffice smash and an artistic masterpiece.

9. A BELL FROM HELL (1973, aka La Campana del infierno) – A bizarre and unsettling psychodrama not for the faint of heart. Juan (Renaud Verley), a young man recently released from a mental institution, appears to be plotting some kind of revenge for the aunt (Viveca Lindfors) who put him there and possibly his three female cousins, all of whom were subject to his cruel pranks when they played together as children. When Juan takes a job in a slaughterhouse, the tension begins to build in an almost unbearable way.

10. THE LEGEND OF LIZZIE BORDEN (1975) – One of the more famous unsolved murder cases in American history, this made-for-television movie is unusually intelligent and haunting in its recreation of the 1892 ax murders of Andrew Jackson Borden and his wife Abby by Borden’s daughter Lizzie in Fall River, Massachusetts. Elizabeth Montgomery (as Lizzie) was nominated for an Emmy for her performance (and should have won) and she keeps the truth at bay right up to that great final shot – and beyond.

11. WOULD YOU KILL A CHILD? (1976, aka Quien puede matar a un nino?) – A creepy little sleeper which deserves its growing cult. A vacationing couple in Spain journey to an isolated resort island and find it almost completely vacant of any other adults but there appear to be a few children around at first…and then lots of them. And some grisly evidence strongly suggests they are not up to anything good. As for the title, I think you’ll agree after the jaw-dropping finale that the answer is YES! You should also check out director Narcisco Ibanez Serrador’s THE HOUSE THAT SCREAMED (1969, aka La Residencia).

12. STRANGE BEHAVIOR (1981, aka Dead Kids) – Is it possible for a horror movie to also be playful, quirky, even charming at times while still delivering the shivers? Genre films with abrupt shifts in tone and mood rarely work but this one does because eccentricity is the guiding force here. Teenagers become unwitting guinea pigs in a scientific experiment conducted at a local university and a rash of bloody, unexplained murders begin to occur. One minute you’re laughing as cop Michael Murphy harangues his slacker son Dan Shor about clipping his toenails at the breakfast table, the next you’re cringing as nurse Fiona Lewis jabs a long hypodermic needle into Shor’s eyeball. You gotta love a movie where one of the demented killers wears a Tor Johnson mask and the soundtrack includes Lou Christie’s “Lightning Strikes Again.”

13. MIMIC (1997) – After the success of Pan’s Labyrinth, Miramax should have re-released this earlier horror effort from Guillermo del Toro. I still don’t know why it wasn’t a hit. It had everything a great horror film needs – a genuinely creepy premise (a genetic experiment run amok creates a new breed of cockroaches who can mimic human form), strong, sympathetic performances (we want everyone to survive), brilliant special effects and art direction and plenty of smashed genre expectations – little kids can die too in this one!

I’d like to cheat like Keelsetter and thrown in some more such as Dario Argento’s DEEP RED (1975, aka Profondo rosso) or THE RELIC (1997, a fast-paced rollercoaster ride of a monster flick directed by the usually uninspiring Peter Hyams) or another thumbs up for 1928′s THE MAN WHO LAUGHS (eat you heart out, Mr. Sardonicus)….but I’ll stop here.