Jeffrey Siniard,
writer and blogger extraordinaire at A Beachfront Cineaste contributes our
next Reader Top Ten list.
Jeffrey writes:
“In my opinion, any great horror
must subscribe to what I'd call the Craven Commandment: "The first monster
that an audience should be scared of is the filmmaker."
Here's the Honorable Mentions
Twitch of the Death Nerve
(1971)
Jaws
(1975)
Carrie (1976)
Dawn of the Dead
(1978)
Dressed to Kill
(1980)
The Fly
(1986)
Aliens
(1986)
Hellraiser (1988)
Se7en
(1995)
Scream (1996)
The Top 10
10. The Hitcher (1986) Robert Harmon's road
trip featuring C. Thomas Howell's Jim Halsey and Rutger Hauer's iconic John
Ryder in a duel of violent (and unspoken) sexual dominance. What I like best
about this film is the creepy unspoken attraction that Ryder has for Halsey,
the desolate desert roadscapes, and the lack of obvious motivation which forces
the viewer to seek out subtext. This film is also a textbook example of how
suggesting the unthinkable is often more terrible than seeing it (such as
Halsey's discovery of the abandoned station wagon, or the horrific fate of
Jennifer Jason Leigh's Nash). The
Hitcher is one of the absolute best at letting your mind do the
work for you.
9. The Last House on the Left (1972) Wes
Craven's terrible reimagining of Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring is
a rebuke to the notion that violence can be a fully justified and cathartic
experience. Craven shows us the barbaric torture, rape, humiliation, and murder
of two young women by a gang of thugs, who then have the misfortune of spending
the night with the parents of one of the victims. Instead of allowing the
audience to take pleasure in the parent's revenge, against monsters who
absolutely deserve what's coming, Craven rubs your face in the awful messy
squalor of death with no retreat, no compromise, and no happy ending.
8. Event Horizon (1997) Paul W.S. Anderson's finest
moment is one of the most criminally underrated horror films of the last 20
years. The experimental spacecraft 'Event Horizon' disappears in 2040, only to
reappear in 2047 in orbit around Neptune. The rescue ship 'Lewis and Clark' is
dispatched to investigate, and literally all Hell breaks loose. Event
Horizon features marvelous cinematography, stunning set design,
tremendous visual effects, and a marvelous ensemble cast who never camp up or
deaden the material. And in response to those who dismiss the film as bastard
child of Alien, The Shining, and Hellraiser (that's a bad thing?); thematically
the film is like a Bosch triptych of the dangers of forbidden knowledge, man's
technology attaining sentience and turning against him, and an examination of
how guilt tortures and destroys the soul.
7. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) Wes
Craven's deeply unsettling dream film is about the sins of the parents visited
upon the children. Under the guise of Robert Englund's great Freddy Kreuger, a
child murderer burned and killed by vengeful parents, who now seeks revenge by
torturing and murdering the teenaged children of his killers in their sleep. In
addition to carrying forward his themes of unjustifiable violence from The Last House on the Left,
Craven's great achievement is in the blurring of the real world and nightmare
world, which disorients the viewer and establishes a reality which has no
discernible rules. Also, the film features a strong social critique of family
life in the 1980s, with children left to their own devices by parents
distracting themselves with work, booze, and sex.
6. The Shining (1980) Stanley Kubrick's labyrinthine film
about the Torrance family's unfortunate term as caretakers of the Overlook
Hotel is a masterwork of set design, music, and camera work. As many others
have noted, the Hotel itself is an ever changing maze, which causes the viewer
to become disoriented. The immediately established sense of isolation and
loneliness, which makes the viewer feel completely cut off. The horrific images
that Danny Torrance's "shining" produce. The slowly building
suspense, which reaches a sustained fever pitch for the last 45 minutes. And of
course, four great performances by Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd
and Scatman Crothers. Best of all, the movie remains ambiguous to the end; Is
the film the delusion of a snowbound and alcoholic Jack Torrance? Is the
Overlook Hotel truly haunted? Has Jack always been the caretaker?
5. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) Tobe Hooper's low
budget shocker is a master class in black humor and horror. What's amazing is
how he manages to make you interested in a group of relatively uninteresting
teenagers, how he takes the character in a wheelchair and makes him the most
annoying person in the film, as well as the butt of every joke. And how he
makes you almost feel sympathy for a family of butchers who maintain the family
trade, even when there's humans to slaughter in place of livestock. Hooper has
a fine eye for details, like the nest of daddy longlegs, the scattering of
bones in the house, and the masks the family wears. Of course, he also is a
master of pitching an audience to the edge of panic, as he does with
Leatherface's arrival, Sally's flight following her brother's death, and with
the infamous dinner scene-which manages to be deeply disturbing and hysterically
funny at once.
4. The Evil Dead (1981) Sam Raimi broke through with one
simple idea. To assault his audience non-stop for 90 minutes. This film never
lets up. The opening moments of the friends arriving at a remote cabin in the
woods, the discovery of the Sumerian Book of the Dead, and the quick sprint to
nightfall are all the suspense Raimi needs. What follows may still be the
single greatest sustained stretch of horror ever committed to film. We have
girls being raped by trees, a camera which glides and zooms all over the forest
attacking the characters, the continual bloody dismembering of virtually every
single character we've come do know. Lastly, Raimi introduced audiences to one
of the great cult actors and characters of the last 40 years: Bruce Campbell as
Ash.
3. The Thing (1982) John Carpenter's version of
John W. Campbell's classic story is one of the best depictions of paranoia and
mistrust ever committed to celluloid. It features Carpenter's typically assured
(and underrated) command of craft, a wonderfully desolate snowbound location,
and ground breaking make-up effects from Rob Bottin. What makes this alien
different is it's ability to imitate any organism it comes into contact with,
and it's reluctance to show itself. Thus, we have long teasing sequences of
suspense and paranoia which are turned upside down into set-pieces of pure
madness. The essential questions of what makes us human, how to tell friend
from foe, and how to battle an (essentially) unseen foe serve as rich subtext.
Finally, there's no sense of victory, as Kurt Russell's MacReady battles the
creature to nothing more than a draw, in the freezing Antarctic night.
2. Halloween (1978) Speaking of command of craft,
John Carpenter's boogeyman classic may be the finest example of what a great
director can do with a small cast and limited budget. Halloween opens with one of the great reversals in
cinema, as the audience experiences the commission of murder through the eyes
of a child. Then, Carpenter's camera showing Michael Myers lurking on the edge
of the frame, behind bushes, and around the corner generates plenty of
suspense. Carpenter gleefully spends the entire film showing exactly where
Myers isn't, so that you jump out of your seat when he shows up out of nowhere.
Further, the lack of motivation for Myers' actions allows the audience plenty
of room for questions which have no answers, and the film is made all the more
terrifying for it. Lastly, if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Halloween stands nearly
alone as an influence on three decades worth of sequels, imitators, and
rip-offs. None, however, match the precision and artistry of this effort.
1. Alien (1979) Ridley Scott's film may have a hard
science fiction sheen, but at its heart, it’s a monster movie. For me, no film
ever has succeeded as quickly and completely at conveying the sense of total
isolation and loneliness. The extremely believable design of the 'Nostromo' and
her extremely believable crew eliminate any sense of artifice. Then there's the
decent to LV-426, and the discovery of an alien ship that is truly alien. Then
the discovery of a dead creature, and then the eggs. The creature in this film
may still be the most terrifying monster ever committed to film. There's the
subliminal fear of sexual attack, the constant feeling of being trapped in some
sort of biological maze, the numbing claustropobia, corporate malfeasance, the
evolving creature - all combining perfectly to leave the viewer shocked and
terrified. The tremendous camerawork, set design, art direction, music, and
editing. A phenomenal group of character actors bringing texture and wit to
what would otherwise be cardboard roles. Sigourney Weaver's first portrayal of
Ellen Ripley. Maybe the greatest shock scene in movie history, and for 25+
years, still the standard by which I judge all efforts to scare me witless.
Jeffrey:
Allow me to gush all over your list. I
loved it. I totally loved it. I adore your descriptions of the Craven films
-- Last
House on the Left, and A Nightmare on Elm Street -- and what
they mean on a sub-textual level. And I
completely agree with your analysis of both films.
I
was also thrilled to see The Hitcher on the list, and read your
description of the thinly-veiled sexual themes.
That’s my feeling about the film too.
There’s a strong, subversive sexual undercurrent to the film, and
involving the two lead characters. Too
often, reviewers seem to miss that fact, and thus misunderstand the film.
Finally, I would like
to say that, like you, I deeply admire Event Horizon (1997), and feel that
it is much better than many critics said.
Again, you absolutely nailed the reasons why.
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