
I'm a film critic and I love horror movies. According to the studios, I do not exist. This year they have decided that horror movies (among other types) don't need reviews, and they have opened some dozen of them without press screenings, the latest batch being Pulse, Snakes on a Plane and The Wicker Man. Now, it may be that these movies are terrible. Or perhaps they just require a certain sensibility to understand them. In any case, they deserve a shot, and to show the studios that we critics are capable of getting horror movies, I worked on a list of the seven best from the past seven years. Surprisingly, my master list came out to more than 30 titles, which I painfully pared down to this final seven (I even had to leave out Saw and Ravenous!). Significantly, each of these films was made available to the press prior to their openings.
1. Pulse (2001, Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
This, the scariest movie I've seen in years, gave me the creeping tingles. Like Lynch or Bunuel, Kurosawa has the power to tap right into our most nightmarish fears, but does it subtly, normally, like something lurking just outside the periphery of our everyday existence. Released in the U.S. in 2005.
2. Land of the Dead (2005, George A. Romero)
Romero adds another chapter to his legendary, brilliantly masterful zombie series, evoking all manner of classical imagery to build a harrowing portrait of the way we live today. And that's really scary.
3. Audition (2001, Takashi Miike)
Three words: watch the bag.
4. The Blair Witch Project (1999, Eduardo Sanchez, Daniel Myrick)
Pushing through the hype, the money, the buildup and the backlash, one can find at the rocky center a really good, quite imaginative and gripping film done with an eye on the unseen and the unknown.
5. The Descent (2006, Neil Marshall)
The second-scariest movie I've seen in years features incredible use of total darkness as well as a surprising look at the darkness of the soul.
6. Session 9 (2001, Brad Anderson)
This underrated, barely noticed film is perhaps the most intelligent haunted house (or rather haunted hospital) movie I've ever seen.
7. The Devil's Backbone (2001, Guillermo Del Toro)
This creepy flick, improbably set in an adobe school smack in the middle of the bright Spanish desert, may be Del Toro's finest hour.













Reader Comments (Page 1 of 11)
8-17-2006 @ 1:38AM
Scott Weinberg said...
Great list. I'm a huge fan of Saw, Ravenous, BWP, Descent, Session 9, and Devil's Backbone. But my list would also have to include May and Frailty.
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8-17-2006 @ 3:02PM
Peter said...
Not a bad list, but mine would probably be closer to Scott's, and with 1 and 2 at a near dead tie:
7. Shutter (I'm a sucker)
6. Ravenous
5. May
4. Session 9
3. Dawn of the Dead (2004)
2. Frailty
1. American Psycho
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8-17-2006 @ 3:04PM
Peter said...
Actually, scratch that. Shutter is most certainly bumped back by that silly ole man standing in the corner. Gotta love the Blair Witch.
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8-17-2006 @ 3:14PM
bgdc said...
Descent was fun. Love that girl pictured on this story...
Devil's Backdone is prime for all movies, not just horror. It's gorgeous film.
I'd add Ravenous, Frailty and 28 Days Later.
Blair Witch didn't work for me mostly because I saw nothing interesting or scary about it.
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8-17-2006 @ 3:15PM
EO said...
Pulse is barely a horror movie; it's closer to a work of philosophy, elusive and disturbing. Land of the Dead is plain awful. Audition is fine if you like that sort of thing. Blair Witch Project bit the big one. Haven't seen The Descent or Session 9. The Devil's Backbone I thought was fantastic.
Where's A Tale of Two Sisters?
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8-17-2006 @ 3:32PM
Chuck Bowen said...
I love the majority of these movies but I really just do not get the acclaim of "Land of the Dead" and this is coming from someone who loves Night and Dawn and feels relatively indifferent to Day. "Land" has Showtime production values, terrible acting and writing and an annoying pretension that is new to the series. Romero's political points used to be subtle and funny, but Land drowns in overt preachiness.
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8-17-2006 @ 3:49PM
krivochein said...
Great list, Jeffrey - and it's really cool to see someone giving Kurosawa's "Pulse" the proper love. However, I'm with the guys who don't get the "Land of the dead" love and I miss stuff like "A tale of two sisters", "Antartic Journal" and specially The Pang Brothers' "The Eye" - the elevator scene is one of the best the genre's ever seen.
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8-17-2006 @ 4:25PM
Peter Nellhaus said...
If I could only list one film by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, it would be "Cure". I just wrote about a couple of his films in my blog.
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8-17-2006 @ 4:53PM
MosquitoControl said...
Chuck stole my post, entirely.
I'm an enormous fan of Night, Dawn and Day. Each are wonderful pieces of filmmaking.
But Land? Land was awful. Land would be ranked as one of the worst films I've seen.
- The parallels to the war in the middle east were far too heavy handed. John Leguizamo, who almost single-handedly ruins the movie with his presence alone, actually uses the term jihad. Dennis Hopper quotes Bush and dies via oil. C'mon.
- The zombies only attack rich people. C'mon.
- John Leguizamo dies and becomes a zombie about 30 seconds later (or, arguably, half an hour later, you see him in the shadows so it's hard to tell.) Yet he somehow looks more decayed than Big Daddy, who had been a zombie for 30 years. How did Leguizamo decay so much in such a short time?
I could rant on the failed potential of this movie for hours. The bottom line is that it was just poorly made, poorly written, poorly acted, poorly conceived, and flat-out insulting. With the last line being an insult not only to intelligence, but to the zombie fans that helped Romero get the damn movie greenlighted in the first place.
#2 horror movie of the past 7 years? No. Worse than The Grudge? Probably.
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8-17-2006 @ 4:59PM
Rami said...
Enjoyed the list (especially glad to see Devil's Backbone get some love, can't wait for Pan's Labyrinth). Here's some additions or alternates or whatever you'd like to call them.
May-The Carrie of our generation
Slither-Made by a horror fan FOR horror fans (and anyone willing t give it a chance)
The Devil's Rejects-Incredibly well crafted alternative to slasher clap-trap like When a Stranger Calls
Shaun of the Dead-The horror movie you can watch with a loved one
Bubba Ho-Tep-Not just for the obvious scary mummy but for the horror of being obsolete and forgtten
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8-17-2006 @ 6:51PM
Michael Perosi said...
great to see Devils Backbone on the list but "Land of the Dead " was a horrible movie...why not replace it with "House of Wax"....yeah that sucked too, but worth the price of admission alone to see Paris Hilton get a pipe through the head....:)
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8-17-2006 @ 8:06PM
jake said...
Sorry but as soon as you put Blair Witch -- you lost me -- immensely overrated and difficult to watch == not because it's scary but because of the camera juggle. Silence of the Lambs, Scream?
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8-17-2006 @ 8:44PM
nikescream said...
Session 9? And no The Ring?
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8-18-2006 @ 6:41AM
Devron said...
Come on, now. No 28 Days Later? That would have to be number one. And I also agree that The Ring has to be there somewhere too.
I've been told that I'm crazy, but I thought that the Dawn of the Dead remake was significantly scarrier than Land of the Dead.
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8-18-2006 @ 8:27AM
Vasi said...
Normally I hate horror movies they don't scare me and often have a stupid plot and charcters. Basically I hate them because it's all just ridiclously stupid. However I did like Saw and Saw 2. They were diffrent, they weren't the typical horror crap, it wasn't too much of a horror movie, but they were defitnally good movies, the plot was great, the charcters were great and everything fit perfectly.
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8-18-2006 @ 9:32AM
Vejadu said...
Great list. Bravo for including Session 9 and Blair Witch. Far too many horror movies play it safe in being either a mindless slasher, a gross-out gorefest or a cashgrab remake. Both of those movies stray from the formula to tap into something deeper.
I'd probably swap out Land of the Dead for Slither, which was criminally overlooked earlier this year. Both Frailty and May are both quite good too.
"Silence of the Lambs, Scream?" The list only included films from the past seven years. Scream is ten years old and Silence of the Lambs is fifteen.
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8-21-2006 @ 3:53AM
B.W. said...
I'm not head-over-heels in love with all of the Jap/Asian stuff,as the latest trend goes,some of it has been brilliant(Fruit Chan's "Dumplings","Ringu"),some pretty assinine("Wild Zero","Stacy").The Dawn remake could stand alone as a fairly decent zombie flick if it wasn't cursed with the "Dawn of the Dead" title,which it doesn't come close to living up to.My seven of the last seven years would probably go as follows,in no particular order,of course:
Dog Soldiers
28 Days Later
Land of the Dead(Romero stuttered a little here,but he's STILL Romero.)
Hostel
Haute Tension
The Devil's Rejects(not original,still enjoyable)
Shaun of the Dead(very funny)
That's about it.I may come back with an all-time list at some point if asked,but you'd have to have a week to spare.Ciao!
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8-23-2006 @ 8:08PM
sus said...
Blair did not have one scary moment in the entire film. So I doubt I will like any of the movies on this dude's list.
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8-23-2006 @ 8:08PM
Adrianna said...
I love how audition and the japanese film Pulse is on the list. =)
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8-23-2006 @ 8:16PM
Wendy said...
What? No love for my cousin Eli? Okay, Hostel was gross but Cabin Fever was funny AND horrific!
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