Preamble

Happy Halloween everyone! I could not leave October behind before acknowledging one of my favourite periods of the year. For the longest time, I was intending to finally write about my top ten horror movies. However, there’s still some films I’m revisiting for it, so it would have felt like a rushed post. But in its place is a post that does have a lot of weight insofar as acknowledgement of the scary season and my love of the sub-genre. These films are not necessarily my favourite but they’re important in either cementing my appreciation of horror cinema or have changed how I look at the sub-genre. What are some of your formative horror movies? Let me know in the comments below.

And if you like my ramblings on horror, then you can find more at my second home, Horror Obsessive. My recent post is a review of Mike Flanagan’s Netflix adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher.

5) Audition

I only saw Audition for the first time (earlier this year). However, it’s lingered for me in a way that so few Japanese horror films have in the past. Despite knowing one of the twists going in and the reputation of the film, it still surprised me in many ways. Unlike movies such as A Serbian Film and The Human Centipede, there’s a point to the extreme and alarming violence. It feels like a savage punctuation mark to the main character (for the treatment of women via the audition process) that feels in keeping with the genre. The fact that the main character grapples with his feelings of the audition process makes the movie thoughtful and engaging. Also the film’s heavy ratio of drama to the creeping sense of horror was quite eye-opening in illustrating how a horror movie can be constructed and made.

4) Lisa and the Devil

At this point, I’ve seen many Mario Bava horror movies. But the one that stands out to me is Lisa and the Devil. It’s akin to watching a glacially paced dream in which the audience is made to feel like they don’t have a fixed grasp on reality. In this way, the movie showed me how subtle a horror movie can be in evoking a sense of terror. It can be inherently experiential, which comes from a firm command over mood, atmosphere and direction.

3) Don’t Look Now

At a formative age, Don’t Look Now showed me that horror movies can be inherently melancholic and tap into some quite potent and tough subject matters. I also see it as a foundational film in understanding the appeal of “elevated horror movies” in the last decade or so. The supernatural aspects in the movie can be read as a manifestation of grieving parents who wish to see their daughter again. This same thematic concern has been a lingering shadow over the trend whereby the elements of a horror movie we take for granted have an air of ambiguity.

2) The Exorcist

At this point, talking about The Exorcist and how formative it was for my love of cinema seems to be beating the proverbial dead horse. However, without it, I don’t think I would have gotten into horror cinema. I don’t know where I first heard of its existence or premise, but it’s one of those stories that I had an acute awareness of (for a considerable amount of time). In fact, it could be argued that it’s the first scary story I ever heard. So, in a sense, the movie’s existence was akin to a tall tale that would eventually unlock an entire genre for me.

1) Friday the 13th (1980)

It seems like an odd choice for sure, but the original Friday the 13th was my gateway drug into horror cinema. I think this was due to how palatable it was. It was also thrilling at the time seeing the characters get picked of one by one. But in a larger sense, I do think this film was a stepping stone into the genre (for a number of people). At the time, a film like it would play at indie places or grindhouse theatres. However, the fact, a movie like it was screened at large and mainstream cinemas made it feel transgressive and special. And as an 18-year old who was getting into the genre (via Cinemassacre) that release history appealed to me a lot at the time.