Friday, October 28, 2011

Best Scary / Horror Movies



With Halloween on Monday and the weekend upon us, I thought I'd talk about some of the great classic scary/horror movies for this time of year.  When I was growing up in the early 80s the main movies that I remember being on TV this time of year were all of the Friday the 13th movies, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween, Poltergeist and Nightmare on Elm Street.  To a lesser extent I recall some of the classics being on as well, like The Omen, Rosemary's Baby, Carrie, Cujo, The Shining, The Exorcist and Amityville Horror. 


 
Some of the most memorable for me were Poltergeist, Nightmare on Elm Street and Amityville Horror.  I'd say over the years, I've probably seen Poltergeist at least 5 times all the way through.  It really was a very elaborate movie special effect wise and was pretty ground breaking for the time.  Who can forget the melting faces part, creepy monster coming out of the closet and of course the phrases "They're here" or "Go into the light Carole Ann". 




How about "1, 2, Freddy's coming for you 3, 4 better lock your door...9, 10 never sleep again" from Nightmare on Elm Street and the noise of his claw scraping against metal. 



And one specific thing from Amityville Horror has stuck with me to this day.  All the bad things that happened in the house were all at exactly 3:15am in the morning.  Anytime I wake up and look at the alarm clock in the middle of the night, I'm hoping it's not 3:15am, but many times it has been exactly 3:15am.  Fortunately for me, nothing bad has happened...yet. 




I like scary/horror movies and I watched a bunch growing up.  Some of the ones I enjoyed from that time frame that are not mentioned above were The Wraith, Maximum Overdrive, C.H.U.D., Alien, Re-Animator, Dr. Giggles, Leviathan, They Live, Candyman, CreepShow and Evil Dead.  My favorite from that time frame was Evil Dead 2!  Bruce Campbell, the main character, was/is one of my favorite actors and that movie was a great mix of over the top scary/gore effects along with hilarious one liners from the king of one liners. 




Another one of my favorites was Pet Cemetery, but that was more in college.  The college TV station always had this dial-in voting to get your favorite movie played and after coming back from the bars, everyone on the 5th floor in our dorm always used to vote for that one and we probably watched that one, or parts of it over 20 times.  Gage, the little boy coming back from the dead was one creepy little dude. 




In the 90s we seemed to have a bit of a lull.  We had a bunch of movies like Scream and I Know What you Did Last Summer, but overall I don't recall a lot of great scary/horror movies from that time.  House on Haunted Hill was pretty good.  1999 brought The Blair Witch Project and while that one was tough to watch with all the jumpy camera movement and all the pre-hype, that kinda ushered in a rebirth in horror films. 

What really got things going for me was the Ring in 2002.  That is one of my favorite scary movies.  The 2000s also brought the Saw series, Hostel, The Grudge and a funny instant classic, Zombieland.  I haven't seen any of the Paranormal Activity movies, but I hear 3 is getting some good reviews. 

What movies do you remember watching around Halloween growing up and what are some of your favorite scary movies?  Planning to watch any this weekend?

2 comments :

Jen said...

The ones that stand out to me are Scream (you didn't give that one enough credit, maybe it was just my age bracket), The Ring (def. freakin scary when she comes out of the well), and how about The Shining (redrum) and What Lies Beneath (all I remember is the bath tub). All the Saw Movies are really scary in a gross way. Poltergeist is a classic.

Chris said...

I remember Scream being good, but it doesn't stick out in my mind like Nightmare on Elm Street or Poltergeist and stuff like that. Hmm...What Lies Beneath, oh yeah, the tub thing, just looked it up. Yeah, not real great but I saw it.

 
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