142 Good, Bad and Ugly Horror and Slasher Films

With Halloween approaching I thought it timely to discuss Horror and Slasher Films. I've been shocked in the past twenty years at the plethora of these films that have graced our theatre and television screens. It seems nearly half of the movies made fit this genre.

The problem with lumping these two categories together, however, is that ‘horror’ is really nothing like ‘slasher’. True horror movies involve an aspect of the psychological: Psycho, House on Haunted Hill, Rose Red. They don’t produce scares just for the sake of making the viewer jump. Slasher films, on the other hand, are made just for that purpose. How many times can we make the viewer scream, cover their eyes, jump. For that reason I don’t attend slasher films. I only enjoy going to true horror movies. It’s upsetting to me that the majority of ‘horror’ movies these days are slashers. It’s demeaning to the audience for producers to think that viewers don’t want intelligent horror.

I’m going to age myself here, as though you couldn’t guess from my pictures anyway, but when I was about twelve-years-old The Birds by Alfred Hitchcock came out. I was babysitting my sister, five years younger, and we watched it. Alone. Just the two of us. BIG MISTAKE. We woke each other during the night for bathroom company (which was about three feet from our bedroom door) for at least two months afterward. That was the scariest movie I had ever seen.

I had my own children watch it about ten years ago. While they enjoyed the classic nature and awesome direction that was Hitchcock, they weren’t exactly scared. Although the younger ones searched the sky whenever traveling from house to car or vice versa.

That is what has happened to the current generation of teens and twenties. They are completely desensitized to horror, gore, violence. Don’t even get me started on video games!

 As with all movie genres there are good films and bad to awful films. While researching this I gave it some thought and have categorized the following Horror to A-little-Scary movies into GOOD or NOT SO GOOD according to MY subjective movie-goer senses. If a movie has some psychology behind the scare or is based on actual events, it gets my thumb up. But violence and gore for the sake of it – no go.

The following sites have good info on horror/slasher films:
http://www.best-horror-movies.com/horror-movie-on-dvd.html
http://www.onlygoodmovies.com/good/movies/horror/

GOOD SCARY MOVIES

• 1408
• 28 Days Later
• 28 Weeks Later
• 30 Days of Night
• Alien(s)
• Amityville Horror (original)
• Blair Witch Project 1
• Burnt Offerings
• Candyman
• Carrie (original)
• Coraline
• Cube
• Dawn of the Dead
• Deliverance
• Desperation
• Bram Stoker’s Dracula (original)
• Event Horizon
• Exorcism of Emily Rose
• Fallen
• Four Horsemen
• Frankenstein
• Haunting in Connecticut
• I Am Legend
• Interview With a Vampire
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers (original)
• Jaws
• Misery
• Mothman Prophecy
• Mouth of Madness
• Ninth Gate
• Nosferatu
• Panic Room
• Pan's Labyrinth
• Planet of the Apes
• Poltergeist
• Psycho
• Quarantine
• Resident Evil
• Ringu
• Rose Red
• Rosemary's Baby
• Salem's Lot
• Seven
• Shutter Island
• Silence of the Lambs
• Sleepy Hollow
• Stir of Echoes
• Storm of the Century
• Sweeney Todd
• Texas Chainsaw Massacre (original)
• The Birds
• The Blob
• The Descent
• The Devil’s Backbone
• The Exorcist
• The Fly (w/ Jeff Goldblum)
• The Howling
• The Langoliers
• The Legend of Hell House
• The Mummy
• The Omen
• The Orphanage
• The Other
• The Others
• The Ring 1
• The Serpent and the Rainbow
• The Shining
• The Stand
• The Thing
• The Unborn
• Underworld (series)
• Untraceable
• What Lies Beneath
• White Noise
• Zodiac Killer
• Zombieland

Some things to remember about these lists. They are subjective to the viewer - ME. I have seen most of the movies on the bad list and while I enjoyed them at the time or at least sat through them at least once, I didn't consider them worthy of being called GOOD. The plot was weak, the characterization was weak or non-existent, the ending was lame. You get the point. But there is no reason not to see them just because I put them on my bad list. I love B-rated movies, especially those on the SyFy Channel, but some of these don’t even stand up to my low standards.

NOT SO GOOD or TOO EVIL/DEMONIC SCARY MOVIES (doesn't mean I haven't watched them all)

• 13 Ghosts
• 2001 Maniacs
• Alien 3 & Resurrection
• Arachnophobia
• Black Christmas
• Cabin Fever
• Children of the Corn
• Chucky
• Cloverfield (made me nauseated)
• Drag Me to Hell
• Exorcist 2
• Final Destination (all)
• Friday the 13th (all)
• Ghost Ship
• Grindhouse (both)
• Halloween (all)
• Hellraiser
• Hostel
• House of Wax
• I Know What You Did Last Summer
• It!
• Jaws the Revenge
• Joy Ride (all)
• My Bloody Valentine
• Nightmare on Elm Street
• Pet Semetary
• Piranha
• Prom Night
• Pterodactyl
• Rest Stop
• Return of the Living Dead
• Saw (all)
• Scream
• Silent Hill
• Texas Chainsaw Massacre
• The Grudge (all)
• The Hills Have Eyes
• Wickerman
• Wrong Turn (all)

Here is a listing of Scary stories based on actual events. While I’m not saying these films are GOOD, they are at least interesting from that aspect.

• Mothman Prophecies (2002)
• Psycho (1960)
• Signs (2002)
• It (1990)
• The Ring(1972)
• Don't Look Now(1973)
• The Exorcist (1973)
• Halloween (1978)
• Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
• A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
• Jaws(1975)
• Audrey Rose(1977)
• Hills have Eyes(1977)
• The Amityville Horror(1977)
• The Entity(1981)
• Dead Ringers(1988)
• Gothic(1986)
• Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005)
• An American Haunting (2006)
• Primeval (2007)
• Them (Ils) (2007)
• The Haunting in Connecticut (2009)