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Marcos' Top Ten Greatest Halloween Movies of All Time: part 2: 4 - 1 Posted by Marcos on October 31st 2005 Happy Halloweiner Lethalites! I’m back with 4-1 of Marcos’ top ten Halloween Movies of all time! Last article saw some Japanese horror movies, some more Japanese horror movies, and adaptations of Japanese horror movies. Most noted was the total absence of zombie movies. I think the horror movie industry is so saturated with zombie movies at the moment each new one seems like a new take on the same idea. The zombie is a metaphor of consumer society, blah blah blah. I’m not saying these movies aren’t well-made (I especially enjoyed the Dawn of the Dead remake), I’m just saying that there’s better, more original movies out there that take some fairly unique angles on pulling in the audience to a horrific experience. So without further delay, here’s the top 4 of the list: 4. Angel Heart Pre-blacklist Mickey Rourke plays private detective Harry Angel who is hired by Robert DeNiro’s Louis Cyphre to find a singer named Johnny Favorite. Set in the 1930s, this film takes us along with Harry to New Orleans and its voodoo practices. As Harry delves deeper in to the case, he finds that every person he encounters who has known Johnny Favorite ends up mercilessly slaughtered. DeNiro is especially jarring in his performance, which is a bit restrained yet still effective – the mark of a master actor, even though the man is clearly just having fun making silly movies at this point in his career. Angel heart moves at a slower pace than the slam-bam formula of slasher films and most modern horror, but the conclusion is horrifying enough to disturb the viewer tenfold of those films. A disconcerting film that will leave even horror and gore aficionados shaken up by just the ambience and tone of the film, Angel Heart is truly one of the greats. 3. In The Mouth of Madness When typing up this list and finding that In the Mouth of Madness appeared in my top 5, I had some trouble remembering the basic plot, only recalling the horrifying visuals with abrupt cuts this John Carpenter masterpiece provided me. The plot is as implausible as most horror films go, but is truly effective in the end mostly because of Carpenter’s direction. Carpenter is as hit-and-miss and fellow horror master Wes Craven, but I think we can mostly agree that when he’s good, he’s great. ITMOM is further proof of this hypothesis. ITMOM is effective in blurring the line between fiction and reality as it follows insurance investigator John Trent in his search for the vanished horror author Sutter Cane. Slowly, the film’s sense of time, space, and reality are all dissolved as Trent finds himself in Hobb’s End, a town previously thought strictly fictional creation of Sutter Cane’s writings. Where ITMOM is most efficient is in its ability to make the audience question their own sense of reality. Loss of the conscious, sane mind is truly horrifying to the human being as the senses of time and space are the most base of givens in the world and not subject to chaos and disorder. That and the film’s questioning of the true origin of the universe as being incited not as the work of the big bang or a kind and loving god, but rather as the work of cruel, alien beings are the things that make ITMOM a true standout of the horror genre. 2. Nightmare on Elm Street part 1 & Wes Craven’s New Nightmare (tie) The only two movies in the Elm Street franchise that saw Freddy Kruger as a ruthless murdering monster and not a joking clown massacring more puns than teens find their way at the top of this list. The Elm Street series and Freddy Krueger are ingrained in the American media consciousness just as fellow slasher franchises Halloween and Friday the 13th – so I don’t really have to explain to you the core of the plot. Murdered child killer Freddy Kruger comes back as a supernatural force that haunts the dreams of the teenagers on Elm Street. There’s too many great sequences and too many memorable murders in these two films to name every one – standouts are Johnny Depp’s first screen death (swallowed by bed and entire supply of blood spat back up to the ceiling!) in Nightmare 1, and the slow invisible murder of the babysitter in New Nightmare where she’s dragged up the wall and across the ceiling being slashed by invisible claws (this is actually a copy death of one in Nightmare 1). Things that make the Elm Street franchise stronger than its peers in Halloween and Friday the 13th are plentiful. First (and this will start a fanboy internet war!) is its villain, Freddy Kruger, the greatest in all slasher films as long as he’s being written well. He has a definite origin and a bold personality in contrast to the mute killing machines in Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees. The audience is given a clear idea of why he’s doing these horrible things. Freddy is supernatural compared to the tangible, physical Jason and Mike; plus, he strikes in your dreams, in your own mind – an inescapable space. I can go on and on as to why Freddy’s such a great character, but I don’t have all day to write this article. Instead I’ll just move on to the NUMBER 1 most horrifying movie of all time. 1. The Exorcist Come on, like you hadn’t seen this one coming. You know you saw this and it scared the shit out of you. Hey, I don’t blame you – the loss of control of your own self is one of the most terrifying things imaginable; and what better villain than the devil himself? Most everyone I know has grown up with the devil as their permanent invisible boogeyman. Now, I hate the Exorcist. I hate this movie and I will never watch it again, or any movie that has anything to do with the subject of demonic possession. That’s how you know how effective this movie was – it scared me to the point that I won’t go near it ever again. In fact, I don’t like even writing about it. I watched it in 8th grade. It stayed with me and scared me just thinking about it up until very recently. I don’t want to start that decade-long spout of terrifying internal dialogue again, which is why I will not take this any further. The Exorcist was the scariest movie I ever saw: that’s it. Have a happy and safe Halloween everyone! Marcos Just kidding. I hope you all eat a razor-infested popcorn ball and die. LOL |
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