This week Entertainment Weekly is "Counting Down the New Movie Classics," listing the best films made in the past 25 years. The magazine claims that all 100 are good enough to be considered alongside the usual classics (you know, like Citizen Kane, Casablanca, etc.), but I guess that's relative. I wouldn't consider #99, The Blair Witch Project, to be equated with Poltergeist III, let alone Psycho. But isn't that the fun of these lists? They fuel our excitement about cinema while also angering us that our favorites aren't higher up, or more commonly, that the films we hate most are included on any list, ever.

On the first day of the countdown, EW shows us the bottom 25, which includes such masterpieces as Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Breaking the Waves, In the Mood for Love and Full Metal Jacket. When I saw that the last of these was only at #94, I got really excited, wondering what 93 films could possibly be better. And then I was shocked to see that so-so comedies like Swingers and Waiting for Guffman and the fine but poorly aged Moonstruck placed higher. I almost didn't even see those titles, though, because I almost threw my computer when I saw that Napoleon Dynamite was just ahead of Back to the Future. Just another reason to hate Napoleon Dynamite, I guess. Even the Back to the Future sequels are better than ND, but I'm going to now assume they don't even make it on this list.

#s 75-51 will be revealed tomorrow. I wonder what kind of delights and blasphemies will meet us then.

In her latest column for Variety, Anne Thompson details the production histories of Cloverfield (due for release from Paramount Pictures on January 18) and Paranormal Activity (pictured; screening soon at Slamdance and looking for a distributor). She says that both "borrow admiringly from the 'Blair Witch' playbook," which she defines as: (1) "casting unknowns who can improvise," (2) "scare [audiences] with a homevideo documentary style," (3) "build suspense by not showing everything." The entire article is well worth reading, but raises the question: Does the "playbook" for The Blair Witch Project deserve imitation?

I know some people were genuinely spooked by The Blair Witch Project, believing it to be "real" found footage, but according to my admittedly unscientific investigations, for every person that was scared there were three people who were irritated by the horrible "improvised" performances and/or nauseated by the 'shaky cam' photography. The film's incredible financial success -- especially compared to its tiny budget -- spawned dozens of (creatively) cheap imitations, like a copy of a copy (with apologies to Multiplicity). Frankly, if I never see another poorly-made 'shaky cam' horror film I will be quite happy. And I reserve a special place in Cinematic Hell for crap masquerading as "the real thing" just to try and shake a few coins loose from horror junkies like myself.

The third point -- "not showing everything" -- actually hearkens back to "pure classical horror," as acknowledged by Paranormal Activity co-producer Steven Jay Schneider. He doesn't list titles, but the classics must include the Universal Studios monster flicks of the 1930s and the superb, atmospheric pictures Val Lewton produced for RKO in the 1940s. Of course, Steven Spielberg's Jaws is probably a bigger influence on today's younger filmmakers as far as creating suspense without showing everything (right away); Cloverfield director Matt Reeves directly references him in the article.

I admire filmmakers who try to be inventive, so I hope Cloverfield and Paranormal Activity turn out to be good, suspenseful pictures. But an interesting story, characters I care about, and a dark atmosphere are what make things genuinely creepy in my ideal horror playbook, not big-budget studio productions pretending to be homemade indies or homemade indies pretending to be "real."

For those that did not see Beowulf this past weekend and have been patiently awaiting the internet debut of the new crystal clear Cloverfield trailer, I'm happy to say that Apple has scored your first look and are hosting it as we speak, in several formats. As we expected, some sort of monster (or, from the looks of it, monsters) attack New York City and a bunch of good-looking kids decide to record the whole experience in case -- ya know -- they survive and Hollywood comes calling. Actually, that's not the reason they give -- "people are gonna wanna know how it all went down" -- but if I were filming, I'd be thinking dollar signs.

The film itself looks pretty wild; picture The Blair Witch Project, but with a steadier camera and a lot more special effects. I also like the ways in which they go about hiding the monsters in the trailer, and I hope they do the same in the film -- I, personally, wouldn't want to see the actual monsters until close to the end. It's a great idea, one that definitely adds some originality to the old school monster flick, and after watching the trailer, I will indeed show up to watch the entire film up on the big screen. Why not? Sure, none of the kids appear to have New York accents, but do they ever? I mean, take a look at Peter Parker; for a kid who grew up in Queens, he has absolutely no accent whatsoever. So be it. Cloverfield. Looks cool enough. Are you in?

UPDATE: A new website for Clovefield has launched, though all it does at this time is link to the Apple trailer.

As we approach Halloween, we're not the only ones shelling out all types of scary movie-related content. Which reminds me, have you checked out the 25 days worth of Halloween madness we've already written? It's good stuff. Read up, get scared. Boo. Anyway, those freaky folks from Cracked have put together a list of the top seven most easily escapable movie monsters. For example, both Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees aren't very fast when it comes to following their intended victims. In order to avoid being killed by one of them, all you really need to do is find an open field and run ... fast. Of course, according to our Friday the 13th death count, this didn't work out so well for 153 people.

Among the different movie monsters on their list are Samara Morgan from The Ring. In that film, there's a tape, there's a time of death and she crawls out of the television. Easily avoidable, says Cracked: "One would think the obvious thing to do would be to step outside and leave the TV behind. Co camping maybe." Or how about The Blair Witch, who apparently likes to stick people in the corner as push them over. Here's what Cracked suggests: "The Blair Witch is, however, old, dead and picks on children. If you are reading this distinctly adult-oriented site, you should be old enough to just punch her in the face and stroll away, possibly walking on her lawn in the process." I've always thought Chuckie would be pretty easy to get away from -- after all, he's a friggin' doll. How hard could it be to escape from a doll? Or what about zombies? I always loved that scene in Shaun of the Dead where they just pretend to be fellow zombies and cruise through the crowd. That's not too hard, just go a day without caffeine and most of us automatically turn into zombies. In your opinion, which movie monsters do you think are the most easily escapable?

It's been awhile since we all got together and complained about Spider-Man 3, and although the topic is a tad old, I came across an animated video today that's worth a watch. It's from the same peeps who put out all those How It Should've Ended videos; I'm not sure if you've watched any of their stuff, but some of it's pretty damn funny. Their latest takes a look at Spider-Man 3, and offers up suggestions on how it should've ended. But it's not just the ending; they actually go through most of the film, in brief snippets, and give their take on how certain scenes would've played better. Keep in mind it's supposed to be comedic in tone -- so when Spidey drops down to find a little kid who's pissed off about all the narration, don't take it seriously. (Although a scene like that in the actual film would've rocked.)

Apart from the Spidey 3 video, they also tackle films like Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Superman ("Villain's are stupid"), Lord of the Rings, The Matrix Revolutions, Star Wars Episode IV, The Blair Witch Project (one of the funnier ones) and a fake trailer for Ocean's 40, featuring cartoon images of the 40 actors they'd need for the film. If you're looking to waste some time on Friday afternoon, might I suggest heading over to their YouTube page -- there's plenty of content to check out, and a good majority of it will have you LOL'ing all day long. For those interested, I've included the Spider-Man 3 video up top.

Whether you liked it or not, The Blair Witch Project was a pretty remarkable exercise in pop culture. Rabid debates of its ingenuity or lack thereof, numerous "Josh!!!" jokes, nausea from the less-than-steady cam work and the all too familiar "snotty camcorder confession". Even if you didn't like the movie, you had to admire how it managed to seep into the mainstream. Director Eduardo Sanchez was supposed to be the new genius of independent horror. Fast-forward a few years and every scrap of dignity the original film had was stripped away with an abomination known as The Blair Witch Project 2: The Book of Shadows -- now to be fair Sanchez had nothing to do with the sequel, but the die was cast.

After 6 years, Sanchez finally has a new movie coming out, good news right? Or maybe not, the movie is going straight to DVD. I know lots of good films have found their market with DVD but there is something about a "direct-to-video" horror movie that fills me with images of bad b-movies – Rabid Grannies, Killer Clowns from Outer Space, that sort of thing. Sanchez's Altered is a revenge flick about a group of friends abducted by aliens who get the chance for a little payback for the probing, as it were. Plus, it looks like old habits die-hard because just like The Blair Witch Project there is a character blog and a website already. There isn't much content on either yet, but there are promises of updates to come. Altered is being released on DVD December 19th, any takers?

[via Film Junk]

While I am in no way looking to get into any sort of religious debate here, I would like to note that I can't help but find this story slightly amusing. Variety reports faith-based media company Good News Holdings is partnering up with Tyndale House Publishers (known for publishing the bestselling Holy Bible) on a brand-new horror franchise based on a series of teen-oriented novels. Good News just recently smacked the stamp down on their first film deal, a Biblical epic based on a book written by gothic horror novelist Anne Rice (Interview with a Vampire).

The partnership sure does sound interesting, however these teen-oriented novels haven't even been written yet. See, the goal here is to publish the books around the same time each film comes out, or at least that's the plan with the first one. Personally, wouldn't it be better to throw the books out there sooner and gain buzz for the film? Seriously, I assume they've heard of a little wizard kid named Harry Potter -- why not go that route?

The books, which are being written by Bodie Ingelvie, revolve around the mysterious town of Dudleytown, Connecticut. Following a series of disappearances and murders, the town was deserted for years until a private group bought 1,000 acres and put up "no trespassing" signs.Supposedly, this same area was used as inspiration for The Blair Witch Project. Series will begin with the book, Dudleytown: Voice, and will be written from the perspective of a 17-year-old. Right now, the book and film plan to debut sometime in 2007.