74 (huh?) Top Horror Movies part III: A New Beginning, sort of.
To the way-back machine!
In 2010 I posted a list of my 74 favorite horror movies. Decent list. I gussied it up a few years later but today, I will issue the updated, definitive list. Well, not really. The same list, plus additions, oversights, and retractions.
ADDITIONS (movies I’ve seen post 2010)
Lake Mungo. Sad, creepy, smart. Goes in my top 10
Martha Marcy May Marlene: Very well done, personal film on attempting to survive a cult. Genuinely disturbing
The Canal. Manages a slow build beginning that continually builds to a crazed ending. Visually stunning at times.
It Follows. Believe the hype. The movie instantly drops you in its dreamy, murky, terrifying world. I (unlike some) love the ending and it’s implications as well. Goes in the top 20
The Babadook. Believe the hype part 2. Like It Follows the fairy-tale-gone-wrong world is mesmerizing. A very brave movie about the perils of parenting. Goes in the top 20 as well (I think I need more than 20 in my top 20)
Take Shelter. Is Michael Shannon’s character having a psychotic break or is he really having visions of the end of the world? I wish I wrote this movie. Top 15
Kill List. Such a menacing, nasty, flick. Mix of hitman noir with occult horror. Gets under your skin and stays there.
Sauna. Like Kill List, brutal and disturbing. Nightmarish descent into a regret-fueled hell for two brothers caught in the Russo-Sweeden war from hundreds of years ago
The Snowtown Murders. Based on real life murders. Sad, brutal, terrifying. You will be changed by this movie.
Room 237. yeah, I know. Not a horror movie but a documentary about people watching a horror movie. I still love it and it goes on my list. So there.
Cropsey: Another documentary, but one as scary as any horror movie about kids going missing on Staten Island, an abandoned mental hospital, and satanic panic.
OVERSIGHTS (ie. movies I saw pre-2010 I should’ve included on the list.)
Ginger Snaps, The Host, and The Brood should be there. Don’t know what I was thinking in 2010
Quatermass and the Pit needs to be moved up. Way up. Session 9 is top ten as well.
RETRACTIONS
Dog Soldiers is good and a lot of fun, but not top-list worthy after a recent viewing. Pontypool, Paranormal Activity, Omega Man, The Birds, Cemetery Man get bumped too. Sorry, tough choices have to be made.
