Hollywood has produced cult classics like Exorcist, Evil dead etc. But there are other film makers worldwide who have produced even better works. From the land of the rising sun, from the land of prancing horses and Lamborghinis and from the land of raging bulls and broken walls come even better horror and slasher flicks.
Most of these movies are made in 1980’s which is considered the golden period for horror\slasher flicks. Not in any order though, I give you the list of 50 finest horror and slasher flicks ever made.
1) Silence of the lambs - Antony Hopkins in the greatest crime movie ever. Based on the novel by Thomas Harris, the transsexual Buffalo Bill is inspired by America’s most famous serial killers Ted Bundy, Ed Gein(who also inspired Texas chain saw massacre)
2) Psycho - Antony Perkins in this slasher flick kills people based on his dead mom's directions (he still thinks’ his mom's alive) watch part-1 and 2. Hold your breath; you can’t afford to miss the shower stabbing scene with the spine chilling screeching string score by Bernard Herrmann.
3) Exorcist - Based on the book by William Peter Blatty feat. the famous ‘spider walk’ and other scenes like the Regan shouting,”f*** me”, vomiting slime etc, making this one of the most interesting horror movies ever to watch. I really don’t know how horrifying it would have been in 1973 when it was released.
4) The Omen - Harvey Stephen’s outstanding performance as the devil’s child Damien, is the predecessor to all those child based horror and slasher flicks. While the background score itself haunts your memories, the kills themselves are chillingly frightening. Think about a cross being flung from the top of a spire or the baby sitter hanging herself from the window, I guess this is classic horror at its best.
5) Evil dead (only part -1) - This was the first movie by Sam Raimi (director of Spiderman trilogy) and one of the finest movies in the world of horror. Though the movie drew criticism for its extreme graphic gore and horror content, I guess this is the perfect horror movie of the century which is based on ambience or milieu. Watch it when you are all alone with lights turned out.
6) The shining - Stephen King’s adaptation and Stanley Kubrick’s finest directorial with the acting of the millennium by Jack Nicholson. Particularly Danny Lloyd shouting REDRUM and Jack Torrence typing “all work and no play make jack a dull boy” will freak you out.
7) Halloween - Both the films, by John Carpenter (1982) and by Rob Zombie (2007) are extremely good for an average slasher flick fan. But Rob Zombie’s 2007 flick makes Mike Myers even more psychopathic with the zoo sadism tendencies shown in his childhood. With his penchant for masks, Mike Myers is a better killing machine than before.
8) Friday the 13th - Who wouldn’t have read about Jason and his machete and the hockey mask? Though there are many sequels, a handful of them are very good.
9) A nightmare on Elm Street - Wes Craven’s beauty. You are stalked in your dreams and you wake up to find it all for real. What else can be more chilling? Just like Friday the 13th, many sequels have followed the original, but a few of them are good. There is a movie when both the antagonists fight with one another called, “Freddy vs Jason”
10) Pulp Fiction - Watch this for Travolta and Uma Thurman. Watch this for Quentin Tarantino’s directing style. Watch this to know what America was in late 80’s and early 90’s. Watch this cos this is one of the greatest movies on crime and pop culture ever directed.
11) Kill Bill I and II - Tarantino’s revenge sequels. A former assassin’s husband is shot dead infront of her at wedding time in a church. Now the bride craves for vengeance. This movie is so special, for it has Uma Thurman, Lucy Liu, Michael Madsen and above all David Carradine. Some billion gallons of artificial blood was used in part -1 which features one of the finest soundtracks of revenge “Battle Without Honor or Humanity" by Tomoyasu Hotei and the Pai Mei’s five point heart exploding technique in part-2 is an inspiration from Dim Mak of the far east and the Varma kalai or Varma ati of Kerala.
12) Godfather - Should we talk about Francis Ford Coppola or Marlon Brando or Al Pacino or Mario Puzo. Filmmakers all over the world have paid tributes to the 1972 original by scripting their own, but the sheen never even reached miles close to that of the original. Watch this for the drama and crime. Also feat. the beautiful star of yesteryears, Diane Keaton. And if you think this hasn’t satiated your senses, check out the sequels too. Top rated movie of the century. Crime will never be the same again.
13) Saw - Excellent movie. Watch all the four parts. I guess a serial killer can never get better than jig-saw. Very gross and very bloody. Now there is a real autopsying scene in Saw 3 which isn’t for the faintest of the hearts or the weakest of the stomachs. It will churn the contents from inside out. I rate this as the goriest movie\sequels of all times. And a good news for all you horror aficionados. The next two installments are gonna be coming soon.
14) The Ring - I haven’t seen the Japanese original. But this itself was freaky to a certain extent. At certain places it makes you jump over your seat. Watch this when you are alone. And the sequel is chillingly good too. You watch a video and you finish it when you get a call. A few minutes later you are dead. Now follow Naomi watts into the entwined mystery of Samara and the ring. But the original ring was said to be one of the most frightening movies ever made.
15) The shutter(thai) - I have never known that the movies from far east are so chilling and frightening until I saw this. Superb tale of love, rejection, murder and horror and finally vengeance. The language is thai, but the dvd comes with subtitles. And don’t miss the ending.
16) Seven - A deranged serial killer Kevin spacey kills one each for the seven sins. Now the last of the seventh sin has been committed and what will detective Mills, played by Brad Pitt do to stop it? Or rather...... One of the finest and darkest movies I have ever seen.
17) Identity - I wouldn’t call this horror or gore, though there are certain scenes like a man sitting dead on a chair with a baseball bat driven wide into his mouth. But this is the mother of all psychological thrillers of our time. I guess the best movie ever on split personality\alter ego and phenomenal performance by John Cussack. Another good one on the similar lines is “Session 9”
18) Last house on the left - The first and finest of Wes Craven. A chilling tale of revenge when two guys seek shelter in the last house on the left only to be tortured and killed by the owner and his wife as an act of revenge for raping and killing their daughter.
19) American Psycho - The best acting by Christian Bale (after his acting in Equilibrium). Too good a slasher and a psycho movie that you can’t afford to miss this. And believe me. This gory flick was written and directed by Mary Harron, yes a female.
20) Texas chainsaw massacre - Be it the Tobe Hooper’s original or the remake, both of them are equally chilling and gory. Watch the remake for the colour effects and the epilogue which shows a documentary kinda video almost making the story seem real. Ofcourse inspired by serial killer Ed Gein comes the sleazy ‘Leather Face’. In short, this guy kills women and skins them to stitch a mask for his disfigured face. The scene where he lifts a guy and hangs him to the hook when the guy suffers in pain is one of the most chilling scenes ever.
21) Hostel - Eli Roth’s macabre epic. The film has the worst moments of torture ever. Be it Jay Hernandez plucking off the half hanging eyeball from a girl and then some fluid oozes out (yuck) or be it the way in which they dispose the human parts, or even worse, the Slovakian kids hitting and killing a man by smashing his head with stones for some chocolates, gore to the core.
22) Suspiria - One of my favourites and Dario Argento’s best horror movie. This is about a girl who joins a college only to find that it’s run by witches. Revealing anything other than the tagline will remove the sheen, the tagline of which says, “The only thing more terrifying than the Last 12 minutes of this film are the first 92”. Another highlight of the film is the creepy music composed by Argento himself and the band Goblin.
23) Tenebrae - If you thought about super sports cars, beautiful women, great food and finest architecture, then you are thinking Italy. And here comes the god of serial killer movies. The only drawback, the language is Italian. Rumored to be based on Dario Argento’s real life incident when he was stalked, this is serial killer at his best. And the basic idea of this movie was stolen in other serial killer movies like seven, bone collector etc.
24) Fallen - Detective John Hobbes captures serial killer Edgar Reese and he’s executed too. But after his death start killings again with the same pattern. Reese seemingly killed people under the influence of the demonic possession by Azazel, who can move from one body to another just by a simple touch. I guess the five minute sequence of body hopping sneering Hobbes is just too awesome to be described in words. Whether evil wins over good forms the rest of the story. Denzel Washington as John Hobbes impresses after his acclaimed performance in Bone Collector.
25) Anatomie - This is a German film. But do watch it with the subtitles. A young medical student joins a hospital as an anatomist only to find that she’s amidst a brotherhood that conducts anatomies on live specimens. Pure slasher horror from Germany.
26) Kalifornia - One movie feat. Brad Pitt and David Duchovny (protagonist of X-Files). Duchovny is a psychology student who goes to a serial killer murder sites along with Pitt who hitches a ride, not knowing that Pitt himself is the serial killer. If you have loved Brad Pitt as detective Mills in Se7en, you will love him as serial killer, Early Grayce in Kalifornia.
27) Descent - A troubled woman whose husband’s dead in a car accident goes for a holiday trip with her five friends. And they descend down a cave. One of the girls has another thought in her mind; to discover a new cave formation where nobody else has dared to go. Will they survive the translucent humanoid creatures of the dark which start attacking them? Very much graphic and gory.
28) Memento - The entire movie is shot in reverse chronological sequence. Wonderful plot, short term amnesia, and Guy Pierce make this move one of the best sought after thrillers.
29) Zodiac - Perhaps the best movie ever based on a real serial killer who evaded the police of San Francisco and the unknown face that personified fear amongst the urban population in the 1970’s. The movie uncovers the murders, the possible suspects etc from the eyes of a journalist. This is crime drama at its best.
30) Ju-on - Remade as Grudge, this Japanese movie will put Hollywood remakes to shame. The original movie is even more frightening. And if you thought the Grudge itself was frightening, think again, think Japanese. I rate this second best to Ring in terms of Japanese horror.
31) Gin-gwai - Based on the concept of cellular memory and time warp, the original Japanese movie scores well beyond its Hollywood counterpart, The Eye(2008). This is a psychological horror at its best. Though remade in Hindi as Naina, I loved the Telugu movie release way back in 80’s called Kokila which freaked me out as a kid.
32) The hills have eyes - A perfect family holiday turns violently macabre when a cannibal group attacks them beyond the hills. If you love cannibalism and if you love graphic gore, this movie is a must for you. No other story creeps you more when the cannibals suddenly appear and start to prey on one by one from the family.
33) I know what you did last summer - A perfect urban legend kinda movie. Few friends after returning from a prom hit a man in an accident and they drown him in a nearby river thinking him to be dead. Very soon, each of them is stalked with a note saying I know what you did last summer. Watch it for the first time; it will be an edge of the seat thriller. I liked the sequel, I still know …., particularly the ending.
34) House of 1000 corpses - This is carnage at its best. Rom Zombie’s best ever horror film in which four friends pay their visit to a museum of madness and monsters next to a gas station. After a so called murder ride, a lady hikes a ride only to take them to her house where the family of lunatics wants them dead. Torture and gore at its best.
35) The Devil’s rejects - This is a sequel to house of 1000 corpses. Three members of the torturous firefly family(from the house of 1k corpses) escape when police raid the house. In the wake of the other murders they commit, the media describes them as the devil’s rejects and it’s up to the sheriff to stop them who is bent upon revenge for his brother’s murder.
36) Scream - A serial killer stalks people and kills them the way it was shown in the movie. The starting sequence of the movie itself when the masked serial killer kills people in the theatre is damn good. Now the serial killer is behind a girl whose mom was also supposedly killed by him. Good twists. Again, a film by Wes Craven that rewrote slasher flicks.
37) Brain dead - From the director of LOTR and King Kong comes this squeamish movie. Blood being splattered on the wall, zombies biting humans and they in turn turning into zombies etc and etc. The protagonist’s possessive mom is bitten by some rat monkey in a zoo when she turns into a zombie. And he hides the bitten people who in turn are zombies and his mother in his basement, when his uncle unleashes them all at a party.
38) Night of the living dead(1968) - Now this movie ushered the audience into a new era of horror genre. Zombies. Though this is a real practice in Haiti islands, I guess George A Romero made this world famous. Now the original black and white flick had all those gory and grotesque scenes which are copied and re-enacted in a variety of ways in all zombie\cannibal movies. If you are a fan of gore, then don’t miss any zombie movie of George A Romero. There will be atleast 3-4 scenes which are squirmiest to the core. Another must watch is ‘Dawn of the dead’ and the 2008 remake, ‘Day of the dead’
39) Haute Tension - This French movie by Alexandre Aja lives up to its name, the plot and the direction increase the tension as the story paces ahead.. There is a rotary chainsaw much akin to the Texas chainsaw massacre but the killings are far more gruesome by the malevolent killer.
40) Chakushin ari - This Japanese flick was remade in Hollywood as ‘one missed call’. I downloaded Chakushin ari cos it introduced new age horror to Japanese audience (though I had great difficulty in finding the movie). People start receiving phone calls from their future selves about how they are gonna be die. Excellent movie. Watch in Japanese with English subtitles.
41) Audition - Another Japanese extremely gruesome movie. Torture, terror, sadomasochism, macabre are a few words that can describe this. A widower arranges for an audition to select a bride when some one amongst the potential bride is a.... Classic one from Takashi Mike. The end is a lil’ shaky but the second part of the film contains most disturbing sequences ever filmed.
42) In the mouth of madness - Referencing Stephen king’s and H.P.Lovecraft’s short stories, this extreme horror flick from John Carpenter is about the thin line separating reality and insanity. Great acting by Sam Neill and Jurgen Prochnow. Lots of squirmish scenes.
43) Cannibal Holocaust - One movie worth mentioning. This is banned in more than a hundred countries for its despicable content. Nudity, gross, cannibalism and sleazy and abominable to the core. A jungle rat is poked into with a knife and the blood is poured out of it. This is one scene from the movie. The most sucking movie I have ever seen. Enjoyable, only for a true psychopath or a cannibal.
44) The Amityville horror - Based on the book by Jay Anson (the first ever novel I read), this is creepy movie based on the evil that haunt the house. “He slit his throat so that his presence would live forever” dialogue spooks me often. I guess the original 1978 movie was even better; nevertheless the remake is good too. There are doubts as to whether this incident really happened in America, because Anson says it based on real facts.
45) Pet Semetary - Adapted from Stephen king’s novel, this is again a classic tale of horror. Most of Stephen king’s stories move around animals, that too dogs and cats. This will give you real spooks.
List II
Now if you are not satisfied yet, there is a series going on in America called Masters of Horror. (They will never be aired in India for the highly disturbing gore and adult content. but u can get a DVD...) just watch these episodes
1) Dance of the dead - where dead are resuscitated to life and they are made to dance, when the owner earns money. Perfectly creepy
2) Jennifer - the face of Jennifer itself will haunt you. Her eyes and her animalized seductions are way too scary
3) Sounds like - super tale of horror when a man hears every minute possible sound cos of some disorder and finally cuts off his own ears
4) The Screw fly Solution - chaos regain when a hormone to control flies goes awry and men start attacking women, killing them.
5) The damned thing - supernatural horror and more....
Notable misses are Aliens, Jaws and such kinda movies, as I don’t consider animals or aliens being more frightening and horrifying than man himself. Also flicks like Poltergeist etc. are too kiddy kinda of movies at least for the present age. Other movies like Cube, Covenant etc are thrillers type.
But the movies that don’t make it to my list are white noise, what lies beneath, signs, dragon-fly etc. More of a psychological thriller than horror and gore. Sin city isn’t included cos of its adaptation from Frank Miller’s comics though its gory, the colours part prevent you from seeing the actual gore. John Carpenter’s ‘The thing’ is again an extraterrestrial horror and so it’s excluded.
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