Ratko writes:
“I've been
following your blog for a couple of years but I never quite got around to
e-mailing you before or even left a comment on your site. However, these Reader
Top 10 lists seem like a nice icebreaker and since horror is probably my
favorite movie genre I couldn't really pass this up!
I feel like I
should also apologize for any mistakes I might possibly be making in my writing
since English is not my mother tongue, but hopefully those are not too
numerous. I guess I should also mention that I'm writing to you from Croatia
(in Europe, just across the Adriatic Sea from Italy), which is probably a place
that you aren't getting too many e-mails from!
Having
said all that, here are my picks:
1.
Halloween (1978)
2. The
Wicker Man (1973)
3. Suspiria
(1977)
4. The
Shining (1980)
5. The
Thing (1982)
6. The
Innocents (1961)
7. Alien
(1979)
8. The
Exorcist III (1990)
9. Black
Christmas (1974)
10. Psycho
II (1983)
I
feel like I should perhaps point out that some of my more peculiar choices (Psycho
II and The Exorcist III) are there because those are the sequels that
I tend to re-watch far more frequently than the originals so I wouldn't feel
right sidestepping them in favor of the original films, as excellent as those
are. If this was a Top 20 list then there's no doubt that those movies would
have been included as well.
In
the end, I'd really like to thank you for all the wonderful work you've been
doing on your blog, especially when it comes to giving a more fair and balanced
assessment of much maligned movies such as John Carter, After Earth and many
others.”
Ratko:
I want to thank you for your affirmative words about my work, and say it is a
pleasure to meet you, and to read your top-ten selections. I didn’t see any errors in your English, so
don’t give that a second thought.
We share our #1
choice -- Halloween (1978) -- but I also find your other choices to be
very strong. Black Christmas (1974) is
often pointed to as one of the pre-Halloween originators of the slasher
format, and a deeply creepy film. Suspiria (1977) is also my favorite
Argento film, and an authentically terrifying movie.
Also, I am a
huge fan of Richard Franklin. He’s a
truly underrated talent, and has given the genre films such as Patrick
(1978), Road Games (1981), Psycho II (1983), and Link
(1986). He is a legitimate heir to Hitchcock in terms of both style and
mastery, and I’m thinking it’s time to do a retrospective of his work here on
the blog, so thank you -- through your selection of a Psycho sequel -- of
reminding me of a movie-maker I really admire.
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