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From previous threads, Jeepers Creepers 2 and Freddy Vs. Jason,it seems that horror films are not liked so well on the message board.
So what ARE YOUR Top Ten Horror films?
In no particular order here are mine...well this week any way.
1. Texas Chainsaw Massacre
2.Evil Dead
3. The Exorcist
4. Day Of The Dead
5.Alien
6.Jaws
7.Nightmare On Elm Street
8.Hellraiser
9. The Thing
10. Suspiria

Most of them, yeah.

Also Se7en & Halloween

"From previous threads, Jeepers Creepers 2 and Freddy Vs. Jason,it seems that horror films are not liked so well on the message board..."

I think that would probably be more accurate if you said that "bad horror films are not liked so well..." ;-)

Anyway, my personal top ten (this week):

1. Night of the Living Dead
2. Frankenstein (Universal)
3. Nosferatu
4. Suspiria
5. Texas Chainsaw Massacre
6. Halloween
7. Ringu
8. The Mummy (Universal)
9. The Birds
10. Return of the Living Dead

1. Ring(Japanese)
2. Alien
3. Evil Dead II
4. Army of Darkness
5. Dog Soldiers
6. Evil Dead

Meh cant think of ten. Not really a massive horror fan tbh.

Heres my top ten horror movies

1. King Kong (1933)
2. Alien
3. Hellraiser
4. Nightbreed
5. The Thing
6. The Thing from Another World
7. War of the Worlds
8. Invaision of the Body Snatchers (1956)
9. Bride of Frankenstien (1932)
10 The Bride

I recently finished my degree in film and my final disatation was on the horror genre something I love very much.

Marc

Link: Dredd Times

As you completed your Final Dissertation did you inadvertantly knock over a mug, which rolled across the floor and scared the cat, which leapt onto the ironing board, which tipped up flinging the iron into the kitchen, where it tipped over the draining rack, causing a carving knife to spin through the air towards the back of your head... ?

Blimey, far too many to pick. The Thing and Alien count more as SF in my book. Anyhoo, ten in no order that should be on anyone's list...

An American Werewolf In London (81)
The Haunting (62)
Night Of The Demon (57)
Nosferatu (22)
Witchfinder General (68)
The Evil Dead II (87)
Dead Of Night (45)
Horror Express (72)
Death Line (73)
The Abominable Doctor Phibes (70)

No Tremors?

Despite not liking horror movies and thinking the people who watch them are stupid* here are mine.

I've included movies which aren't labelled horror but provoke the sense of horror (Ooo catch Brian Sewell) and horror movies which aren't horrific at all, but are really just gore/shlock movies.  In fact the term horror movie often doesn't really mean much to me and this is more ten films I like as opposed to a top ten, theres lots more I could add.

The Wicker Man
The Thing
Witchfinder General (and other Michael Reeves movies)
The Haunting
The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue
Dawn of the Dead
Christine
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (50's)
Nosferatu
Twins of Evil


*Entirely innacurate information (c)2003 unamed killfiled retarded source

Haven't seen Christine yet - what's it like, PVS?

I did enjoy the novel, even though it is - IMO - one of King's poorest, suffering especially from his tendency to overwrite.

Is the movie worth tracking down? Bear in mind, I'm a John Carpenter & Stephen King fan who watched both Maximum Overdrive & Ghost of Mars - I have a high tolerance for shlock ;-)

But... but... but... Ghosts of Mars isn;t even good schlock! You must have freakishly high schlock endurance.

Christine is quite frankly a cracking movie.  John Carpenter isn't very fond of it I've heard, but I love it, one of his best.  Great cast, great music, great car.  Basically teen coming of age movie combined with a killer car crush.

I later read the book and found it to be a confused heap of shite with little in common with the movie beyond some basic plot points.

I recently got Ghosts of Mars on DVD (?3 Region one boot fair find) and enjoyed it more the second time round, though it's still not great.  I was bitterly dissapointed when I first saw it, all the elements of a classic Carpenter movie, but there was just no heart to the movie.  I can't help but think what would have happened if they'd swapped Ice Cube (or which ever Ice he was) for Kurt Russel.  I reckon this movie could have been as good as Assault or The Thing if a bit more thought had been put into it.

I'm very fond of Maximum overdrive.  It's a fun movie with some rocking good ACDC and gave us arguably one of ACDC's best albums and tracks in Who Made Who.

In fact I've had to put it on now.

"The videos you play me..."

"The video games you play me..."

Forgive me Angus!

Art - Ghost of Mars tested me to the limit (the fake Pam Grier head nearly blew my shlock-control circuits) but I survived ;-)

Thanks for the reply PVS - I'll keep an eye out for Christine in the local video stores. Maximum Overdrive is kind of fun, but it's not a patch on the short story that it grew out of, "Trucks".

I'd love to see an anthology movie of King's short stories - done carefully, paying attention to keeping some kind of thematic link and with Bill Goldman doing the adaptations, it could be quite fun. Better that than trying to stretch two-dozen page stories into 2-hour movies.

Cats Eye?

IMO, Cats Eye was a disaster. It was never intended to be an anthology feature, and the final result reflects this. That the two tales chosen to accompany the Drew Barrymore episode were in themselves fairly slight didn't help. Again, having King on writing duties seems to have harmed the project more than it helped - for someone with such insight into storytelling, it's amazing how blind he can be when it comes to adapting his own work for the big- or small-screen.

Better that than trying to stretch two-dozen page stories into 2-hour movies.

Have to disagree with you there. Theres a fair argument that short storys make better movies than novels because they have a similar structure -- certainly in the case of Steven King some of the best adaptations have been from short stories.

Not sure about that Art - IMO, the best - that is, both faithful and good in their own right - King adaptations have been:

The Shawshank Redemption
The Green Mile
Misery

The only one of those that really qualifies as a short story - and even then, only by a stretch - is the Shawshank Redemption, which was adapted from King's "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption". King has had many of his short stories adapted ("The Night Flier", "The Langoliers", "The Ledge", "Quitting Inc." etc...) with varying degrees of success, but I can't think of one that I would put on a par with the three adaptations listed above.

I am, as always, open to a good argument otherwise... :-)

I want to give a mention to "Sleepy Hollow"

Tim burton created a kind of fairy tale with sleepy hollow. Christina Ricci and Johnny Depp portray brilliant characters and Christopher walkens horseman is the ultimate in EVIL!

Now, this is more like it. If strange to find on this board after all the buttock-flurry that's been said of late.

A top ten is extremely hard, but if pressed I'd have to go for:

1. An American Werewolf In London
2. The Wicker Man
3. The Fog
4. The Blair Witch Project
5. Ghostwatch
6. Exorcist III
7. Day Of The Dead
8. The Thing (Carpenter's version)
9. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
10. Wendigo

This is based upon the movies that have affected me in the most profound ways, over the years. Bubbling under would be Halloween, Opera, Martin, Nightbreed, Texas Chainsaw 2, Evil Dead and ED2, Nosferatu, Dracula's Daughter, The Brainiac, Dog Soldiers, Deathwatch, ReAnimator, Dagon, Prince of Darkness, Hammer's Dracula, Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell, Asylum, Dr Terror's House of Horrors, From Beyond The Grave, Addio Ultimo Uomo, The Monster Club, Basket Case, Peeping Tom, Witchfinder General, Them! and Salem's Lot. Not necessarily all GREAT (or even good) movies/ tv, but my favourites.

Steev

Hey Steev a man after my own heart, classics all...nearly.
Wendigo that good then?

Mmmm. Good point.And you avoided mentioning The Shining which I would have had discounted due to Kings awful version of it. However there a lot of quite successful King short stiry films Stand By Me, Apt Pupil, The Running Man, hell, I'd even make a sort of argument for Children of the Corn  and Maximum Overdrive. They may not hit the top 3, but I;d say theres at least an equal number of decent short story adaptations to novel adaptations, especially if you include things that might more properly called "novellas" (poncy term for SHort Stroy double-length special, if you ask me). I guess I should stop short of including Kings shorter novels like Carrie on my list.

...oh, and The Mangler . Though possibly I'm the only person who enjoyed that film quite as much as I did

I think that with the amount of stephen king adaptations, it's just a case of probability that some of them will be any good.  I would never watch a movie because it was based on a stephen king book, in fact unless I'd heard anything good about it, I'd stay well clear.

Hard to pin it down but I'll go for
1.the Thing
2.Dawn of the Dead
3.Alien
4.Halloween
5.American Werewolf in London
6.The Howling
7.Phantasm
8.The Omen
9.Poltergeist
10.Scream

recent films bubbling under are 28 Days Later,
Wrong Turn and The Ring.
Plus anybody seen 'Versus' deeply cool and not exactly what you expect.Ghosts of Mars is ok but
the flashbacks within flashback structure grates a bit.

Cap'n:

Wendigo good enough for me to order the Canadian version of the DVD (complete with upsidey downey English/ French box). Yes, well, I like it anyway. I have a hard time describing this particular movie to people because on the one hand I want to say "it's unlike anything I've ever seen". And on the other "It's like Fargo meets Deliverence with Herne the Hunter from Robin of Sherwood thrown in".

Played completely straight, with great performances, lowest-budget effects that do exactly what effects should- deceive the eye into making you think you've seen something impossible *and giving you an emotional jolt with it*, a deeply engrossing script and a Deliverence-like trepidation for the future, Wendigo is bloody fantastic.

Cue voice of dissent popping up to say "no, it's shit, and you must be a prick".

Steev

I seem to be the only person who was utterly underwelmed by Versus, though thats posibly because I was having a mini-spree of watching Taakashi Miike films before it and it pales by comparison.

Of course, merely mentioning Top Ten horror films means that certain films drop out of my brain. I am therefore ashamed not to have mentioned:

The Legend of Hell House
The Haunting (do I really have to write "orginal version" here?)
Francis Ford Coppola's Kenneth Branagh's Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
Interview With The Vampire
Bram Stoker's Dracula
The Bird With The Crystal Plumage
Suspiria
Tenebrae
Inferno
Deep Red
Demons
Demons2
and the sublime 'Two Orphan Vampires'. Jean Rollin, you are criminally underrated and a true auteur.

Steev

Aah - I'd forgotten "Stand By Me", another one of the "Different Seasons" shorts (this book seems to have spawned most of the classy King adaptations)

I'd argue that Running Man isn't strictly an adaptation; after all, it ditches virtually everything about the Bachman/King original but the idea of the "hunters".

Children of the Corn is pretty faithful (though it ditches "He Who Walks Amongst The Rows", one of the more striking ideas in the original short story).

As for Maximum Overdrive, I'd say it makes my point about "two-dozen page stories stretched to two hours" perfectly, as well as standing as a shining example of why King shouldn't be let near adapting his own work.

I'm leaning toward the conclusion that there've been a decent number of King short stories adapted competently, but I can only pick one - Stand By Me/The Body - as being of a kind with Misery/Shawshank/Green Mile.

...And I'm glad someone else hates the King version of The Shining - faithful to the original novel, but heartless, overlong and utterly overshadowed by Kubrick's version (whatever the merits of that film). To be honest, King's appearance as leader of The Overlook house band was one of the few points that I really enjoyed :-)

BTW - what did you think of Creepshow? I thoroughly enjoyed the King/Wrightson comic, and I've got kind of a soft spot for the movie. Too much EC horror probably ;-)

Nah, there really isn't such a thing as "too much EC horror", at least not af far as I'm concerned, so I really liked Creepshow.

Hmmm, i'll go with:

Nosferatu
Carpenters Thing
Captain Kronos
Whale's Frankenstien
Exorcist
Howling
Near Dark
King Kong
Blair Witch Project
Alien

The Fly was on telly last night, it's dated a bit (crappy 'computer' graphics) but it's still a crackin film. Blew me away when I first seen it.

Anyway my top ten (if I can think of that many) is, in no particular order:

The Thing
Hellraiser
The Fly
Exorcist III
Halloween
The Burning
Return of the Living Dead
Night of the Living Dead
Dawn of the Dead
Day of the Dead
(those last three should really count as one)
Alien
The Haunting

Loads more, but you get the idea.

"Nah, there really isn't such a thing as "too much EC horror", at least not af far as I'm concerned, so I really liked Creepshow."

BTW - have you seen the gorgeous Cochran collections of the EC library? They've produced three 5-volume sets reprinting all of the Tales From The Crypt/Haunt of Fear/Vault of Horror issues, with colour inserts for each cover. Absolutely magnificent.

IIRC, there are similar volumes reprinting Saddle Justice, Gunfighter, Modern Romance, Crime Patrol, Frontline Combat etc...

They're about ?100 each, but well worth it if you're into EC.

In no particular order:
- Alien
- Blair Witch Project
- Jason X
- Predator
- The Shining
- The Crow
- Quatermass And The Pit
- Sleepy Hollow
- King Kong
- Judge Dredd

Steev, I like your thinking man!

Can I just add The Others to the communal list?

Ahh... Captain Kronos.  Now THERE was a film.

Anyone seen Blood on Satan's Claw?

God thats a bad film.

Also The Baby about a grown man who is kept in a infant like state by his mother.

Very poor.

The Others is brilliant, scared the shit out of me.

What about Two Evil Eyes, the Argento/Romero movie?
The Romero story was great.

Please somebody agree with me....

Hmm... in no particular order

1. Hellraiser
2. Alien
3. The Devil Rides Out
4. Nightmare on Elm Street
5. The Omen
6. Jacob's Ladder
7. Nightbreed
8. Evil Dead (all of them)
9. Bad Taste
10. Chitty chitty bang bang *shudder*

If there's a communal list going, whack Martin on there - a fantastic little Romero flick.

hey, where's Threatre of Blood and Asylum... and all those other great Amicus anthologies...

Here's my tuppence worth:

1. The Thing
2. Dead of Night (1945)
3. Dawn of The Dead
4. Halloween
5. The Fog
6. Bad Taste
7. 28 Days Later
8. Ringu
9. They Live
10. Scream

But I'll watch most horror films to be honest, Hammer and Amicus stuff is great, crazed filth like Zombie 90- Extreme Pestilence ( which features a zombified Jimi Hendrix) right through to utter shit like Jeepers Creepers and Thirteen Ghosts.

If only the Simpsons pisstake The Bloodening really existed...
"I hope thats shepherds pie in my knickers" : )

Dead of Night
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark
Blair Witch Project
Psycho
Halloween
Salem's Lot
Evil Dead
The Wicker Man
Night of the Living Dead (original)
The Haunting


Worth mentioning...

The Omen
The Shining
The Haunting of Hill House
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
Frankenstein (karloff)
The Exorcist
Poltergeist
Carrie
Alien
Nosferatu (original)
Ghost Story
Jacob's Ladder
The Others
A Chinese Ghost Story
Battle Royale
Ringu (remake. although there's too many flashy FX)
Scream
Wolfen
Les Diaboliques


Plus a load of campy stuff like Theatre of Blood, and Amicus anthologies from the 70s.

Oh, and Jeepers Creepers was definately crap after the first superb 20 minutes or so.

doh!
'The Haunting of Hill House' ??
I, of course, meant 'Legend of Hill House'.

True, the first 20 minutes of Jeepers Creepers were rather good, its the spectacular way the film pisses on its chips after that that makes me dislike it so much. Roadkill was a far better horror film without all the supernatural mollocks.

Oh, I also forgot to mention Freaks, a real horror film and no mistake.
"one of us,one of us"... creepy.

May as well get in on this one. Films that have scared the shit out of me at one time or another in my life are...

Jaws
Alien
Halloween
Evil Dead
Dracula Prince of Darkness
Snowbeast (It's mean and it snarls and it's attacking the people attending a winter carnival at a ski resort. How can you stop the monstrous Snowbeast? Not from behind a sofa I'll tell you that!)

Has anyone else has seen the last one? I had sleepless nights for ages after watching that as a kid.

Carnivore- You mean The Legend Of HELL House! (Slight confusion methinks with Shirley Jackson's HofHillHse) or are you referring to Robert Wise's The Haunting? Or maybe you mean 'The Legend of The House on Haunted Hell Hill'... then we can all be happy.

All this knocking of Jeepers Creepers is interesting. For the record, I loved it. But I have found it to be one of only a handful of films that really do divide genre audiences- another being From Dusk Til Dawn, and for similar reasons. The trouble being that it, like FDTD, is essentially two movies- there's the incredibly well-written and directed first half, which could serve as a textbook template of how to build tension... and then there is the second half, with its monster mayhem. Those who enjoyed the first tend to hate the second- in exactly the same way that if it had started out as a monster movie and had a second half where the monster didn't appear and just drove the truck in a big chase, it wouldn't matter how great that chase was, we'd be pissed off.

Personally, I didn't care too hoots that JeepCreep turned into a monster flick- the monster looked great, did really quite horrible things and caused some genuinely shuddery moments. But then I love monster movies, so I was actually quite pleased to have not paid to see a road-based thriller. Equally, I was pissed off that RoadKill was a lame attempt to cash in on the tension that Jeepers wrangled out of it's first half, with no monster pay-off.

As I said, it's similar to From Dusk Til Dawn. I'm still damn sure the world can be divided into two groups of people (he says, at the risk of sounding like Norman Tebitt)- those who sat gripped through the first half in a Tarantino-wank mist and got REALLY annoyed when a "cool-ass crims road movie" turned into one of the most extreme vampire films on record... and those, like me, who were bored rigid and then lept from the seats in glee when the vamps turned up.

Oh, three groups of people- those who don't give a toss or haven't seen it, I guess.

(and maybe four groups- those who actually kind of preferred the first sequel, on the grounds that it had no pretensions and did what it said on the box.)

Steev

I quite enjoyed From Dusk Til Dawn, but I have sympathy with people who found the second half quite out-of-place (or vice-versa). IMO, the film would have worked better with some cuts to the beginning of the movie, moving the action to the vamp bar with a bit more haste.

I don't know if you've ever read Stephen King talking about his writing, Steev, but he talks about the feeling of "slipping through the cracks" in his fiction, something I think applies to From Dusk...

Up until the grand unveiling, this is just another heist movie. It's when they sit down for celebratory drinks in the Titty Twister that everything takes a step sideways and the movie asks: "Well, what if the strange, threatening place you just walked into turned out to be *really* weird?"

*This* isn't the problem with the movie though - the problem is that the movie takes too damn long to get to this point and gives too much time to the setup (heist, kidnap etc...)
If you're going to tell a tale that asks "what if?", don't spend so bloody long getting to that point that you convince everyone you're actually telling another story!

re: Jeepers Creepers. I quite enjoyed this movie, and I had no problem when it became obvious that these kids had gotten mixed up with a *real* monster. My disappointment was more to do with the revealing of the creature - it just wasn't as good/terrifying as it had been built up to be.

That's always going to be a problem in a monster movie; at some point, you've got to unveil the creature and there's bound to be a feeling of "oh, it's only a ten-foot bug - I was expecting a *fifty-foot* bug" (to paraphrase badly :-)), but it was particularly damaging in Jeepers Creepers because the monster was, IMO, rather pedestrian.

Anyway, I've rambled long enough - time for coffee...

Has anyone else has seen the last one?

Yeah. Same time as yourself, probably. Every time the camera pans across the trees and the howl starts up... classic. It was on a Channel 5 weekday afternoon a short while back and I missed taping it because of bastard work! (Along with other stuff like the 70's pilot for Invisible Man. Bah!) For the best probably, nothing more depressing than re-watching stuff like that as a more cynical adult...

"I don't know if you've ever read Stephen King talking about his writing, Steev"

(Steev slips his Stephen King nerd hat on)

Excellent. Another King fan, I hope. Yes, I think I may well have read every single damn word the man has ever committed to paper. Though possibly the most frightening thing he has ever written is "I may be retiring soon". I have no idea what we will do without him- as books like 'Black House' and 'From A Buick Eight' have demonstrated he's still absolutely the master. Albeit the master of an ever-so-slightly-different type of fiction to the one he was writing twenty years ago. The "slipping through the cracks" thing succinctly sums up King's later work- which, though on one level seems patchier than his "golden age", I for one find all the more disturbing for his insistence upon finding those cracks in Americana, rather than going for high-concept horror as in his earlier stories and novels. Unsettling Americana, not vampires and haunted hotels, has become his trademark latterly and I think he's all the better for it. Though I don't think we're ever going to get another 'Bag of Bones' out of him, I live in hope that he at least finishes The Dark Tower.

Easily the best genre novelist writing today- and possibly, arguably, ever.

So yes, Mr King, he be good.

Steev

Snowbeast! It's one of those films you had to be scared of as a kid to appreciate I think, like the Disney film The Watcher In The Woods, Ring is like the Rugrats compared to that one!
I've got Snowbeast taped off the telly if you or Smiley are interested, e-mail me.
From Dusk till Dawn I really enjoyed, the plot twist works because George Clooney makes it work, It's a fantastic performance. I've got nothing against that kind of thing at all, but Jeepers Creepers just doesn't work nearly as well.And it's a rip-off of Duel.

"Excellent. Another King fan, I hope."

Oh, yes - I came to his writing late, but I made up for lost time *very* quickly.

I'd agree with your comments on his recent work; "From A Buick Eight" was a delight to read and I'm looking forward to having time free to read "Black House".

re: The Dark Tower

In the last interview I read with King, he was quoted as saying that the series was written. At the moment, only the fifth book - Wolves of the Calla - is ready for publication, but both book six - The Song of Susannah - and seven - The Dark Tower - are in the bag, ready for editing/rewriting and set for release within the next two years. I've yet to pick up the revised edition of "The Gunslinger" - have you read it?

Though I suspect the final books of The Dark Tower may be among his best, I hope he sticks around to prove me wrong - and given what he's said previously about his feeling toward writing, it may be that he's not able to call it quits!

++ I'd argue that Running Man isn't strictly an adaptation; after all, it ditches virtually everything about the Bachman/King original but the idea of the "hunters".  ++

In total agreement here.

SPOILer follows-



The fact that the protagonist flys the aircraft into the television station with, IIRC one hand on the yoke and the other holding his guts in- a far superior ending.



My ten, in no particular order are:

The Shining
Rosemary's Baby
The Others (even though I sussed out the plot twist about halfway through)
Sleepy Hollow
Angel Heart
Jaws
Carpenter's The Thing
The Omen
Man Bites Dog (Maybe not 'horror' but 'horrific' played for laughs)
The Dead Zone






Christopher Walken rocks!

B.

++ Also The Baby about a grown man who is kept in a infant like state by his mother.  ++

Not seen it but reminds me of the start of an Australian flick I saw a while back- Bad Boy Bubby.

Great film though not strictly horror.

B.

Link: He's been in his room for thirty five years . It's

I've just been to the Bad Boy Bubby site.. and just remembered how twisted this flick is- It's a must see.

"Bubby love pizzzah!"

B.

1. Brain Dead (Peter Jackson, 1992)
2. Close Encounters of the Spooky Kind (Sammo Hung, 1980)
3. Dawn of the Dead (George A. Romero, 1978)
4. The Wicker Man (Robin Hardy, 1973)
5. Ringu (Hideo Nakata, 1998)
6. The Thing (John Carpenter, 1982)
7. The Sixth Sense (M. Night Shylaman, 1999)
8. Halloween (John Carpenter, 1978)
9. Peeping Tom (Michael Powell, 1960)
10. The Delinquents (Chris Thomson, 1989)

Warning: at least one of the above is too horrible to be watched by anyone over the age of 6...

J-Boo!-1

"I've yet to pick up the revised edition of "The Gunslinger" - have you read it?"

Ah- that explains the trade-size shiny new editions that I saw in Ottaka's the other day. You must forgive me- we had a baby six weeks ago, and therefore I'm a little behind!

Without being arsed to go and check for myself- is it substantially different, or just a new introduction? Not that it matters either way- I tend to buy new King editions if they have so much as a word changed anyway.

Steev
Eagrely awaiting The Wolves of Calla

The Baby



Directed by Ted Post
Written by Abe Polsky
Starring Anjanette Comer, Ruth Roman, Suzanne Zenor, David Manzy

Its hard to keep track of the layers of perversity that run through this 1973 film but as a whole, the movie pays bizarre homage to a psychological affliction called infantilism. Webster's New World Dictionary defines this mental aberration as 'an abnormal state in which infantile behavior persists into adult life; it is marked by retarded mental and physical growth and by failure to mature sexually'.

From the somber, childlike, strains of composer Gerald Fried's opening music for "The Baby", to obscured snapshots of an adult male in a diaper, we know we're in for something a little off.

"The Baby" is one of those films that's easily ridiculed (and has been in countless internet reviews) but by its very nature, with its high production values, stellar acting, and crisp direction, its hard to pigeonhole the film into the realm of camp - yet at times it plays like camp and judging by its unjustified conclusion, its no wonder critics and audiences baste this film.

You certainly can't watch "The Baby" as if watching, say, Ed Wood's "Glen or Glenda" (another film that addresses psychological abberation) because not only do the actors involved take it seriously, so does prolific director Ted Post. Where Wood's film comes off as a joke, Post's story is just plain bizarre. "The Baby" is almost too raw to laugh at although there are moments of twisted humor.

Almost British in scope, "The Baby" approaches Grand Guignol as Ruth Roman, who plays Baby's (David Manzy) mother, Mrs. Wadsworth, zeroes in on Bette Davis territory a la "Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte" or "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" Roman plays the wacked mother with over-the-edge, dyke splendor leading her wicked daughters into a suburban perdition - both girls losing their souls as payment for their syphillitic, if not inbred, lineage. The Wadsworth brood makes the Merrye family in Jack Hill's "Spider Baby" seem positively Brady Bunch.

But the son, Baby, pays the biggest price of all as he's never allowed to go beyond the infant's stage. The question obviously begs - is Baby truly afflicted psychologically or is he a victim of his mother's warped incestual sadism?

The Wadsworth family, who lives off welfare, is being investigated by a social worker named Ann Gentry (Anjanette Comer) who has taken a special interest in Baby. Gentry's over-involvement with the Wadsworth clan, particularly with Baby, causes her to drop her other cases and Mrs. Wadsworth gets suspicious of the social worker's motivations.

However, Gentry's motivations for paying so much attention to Baby are obscured by a series of strange events that happen to the child-man as the movie rolls on.

The first bizarre event is when his older sister, Germaine (Marianna Hill), climbs into his crib and seduces him. The second event happens the next morning when, in a fit of rage, his other sister, Alba (Susanne Zenor), disciplines Baby with an electric cattle prod, sending his body into epileptic spasms and seizures. Post's static camera lingers on this torturous scene forever, as Baby dances in electric jolts across his bedroom until his mother comes in and hugs and kisses the boy - an action, not at all comforting but disturbing - more so than the electric abuse.

The third odd happening is two fold in itself. While his mother and sisters are out, Baby is left alone with a babysitter. While talking dirty on the phone to her boyfriend, the sitter is interrupted by Baby's constant crying and his need to have his diaper changed. Inexplicably, after changing Baby, the sitter lifts her sweater to breast feed the boy. Of course, his mother and sisters walk in while she's doing this and they beat the babysitter almost crushing her head in.

Post approaches the subject matter of "The Baby" seriously but its lack of psychological credence pushes the film resolutely into exploitation territory. If Post intended to garner audience sympathy for Baby's malady and his obviously tormented family - the director backed down as the film all too easily shifted its focus onto Ann Gentry, the social worker. By the film's cliched and bloody finale, Gentry unleashes her own bizarre psychosexual feelings toward the man/child and allows herself to spiral downward, resulting in obligatory madness.


So now you know.

>is it substantially different, or just a new
>introduction?

   I've not read, it, but according to a friend it has 32 extra pages, some of which are a new introduction and others are additions/revisions to the story.

Hmmm, 'Maximum Overdrive'.. Didn't Alan Moore rewrite that as 'All of Them Were Empty' in prog 251?

    Steve

Almost British in scope

Heh, like that.

"Without being arsed to go and check for myself- is it substantially different, or just a new introduction? Not that it matters either way- I tend to buy new King editions if they have so much as a word changed anyway."

Storywise, I believe there are only a few substantial changes, intended to correct what King thought were inconsistencies or to more closely link The Gunslinger in with the later novels.
As Pyroxian said, there's a new introduction that goes some way to explaining why King thought it necessary to revisit & revise the book.
The rest of the alterations change and correct some of the language used.

It's not an expanded edition on the scale of The Stand, but it's certainly worth a look, especially with the new novels coming soon.

I'm glad to find other people who have read The Dark Tower series, which I rate as King's best stuff.

I haven't been to his website for a while, but I'm pretty sure the new one is out this autumn, and the next one in the spring or something.

And Blackhouse is bloody awesome.

" I'm pretty sure the new one is out this autumn, and the next one in the spring or something."

The hardback edition of Wolves of the Calla is due on Nov 4th, with illustrations by Berni Wrightson (hurrah!). Book six & seven should be out in summer & autumn 2004.

If any DT fans are looking for an interesting read, have a look for Stephen King's The Dark Tower: A Concordance. It's a reference to the DT series that King used while writing & it contains his notes on places, characters, plot points, history, language... think of it as his personal encyclopaedia of The Dark Tower.

Is he planning a longer version of The Stand?

Its possibly you may also enjoy this Dark Tower-esque story I wrote aaaages ago (94, I believe), which was going to be part of this huge epic occult western with postmodern touches that never really got past the early stages. Bits of it I still like, others, less so.

Link: http://www.arthurwyatt.co.uk/comics/trump13-1.html

"Is he planning a longer version of The Stand?"

He's already written it: it was released in 1990 as "The Stand: Complete & Uncut. The original edition of The Stand was released in 1978 and weighed in at around 800 pages; the revised and expanded edition was about 300 pages longer. The revised edition is pretty much the definitive work, and I suspect - unless you read The Stand during the 80s - it'll be the version you've encountered.

No, I wondered if he had some more left in him.

PVS, did you get that page 6 jpeg I sent the other day?

I did, I thought I'd e-mailed you about it, I shall go do so now.

Dark Tower: I am really enjoying the way he is tying loads of his existing catalogue into this. Apparently in wolves of Calla we get to meet cast from Jerusalems lot and the bloke from Everythings eventual.

Been reading King new since IT, and apart from a few gaps recently, own the lot!

Fave dark Tower: Drawing of the three. Worst: Blaine (shazam, can you feel the magic baby?) the mono.

Blackhouse is also involved with the tower, as well as being a sequel to the amazing Talisman.

Rotts

Rotts:

I'm enjoying the tie-ins as well - I just hope King doesn't take it as far as some fans have suggested, linking *everything* into one "Dark Tower" mythos.

I'm looking forward to finding out what happened to the damned minister from 'Salem's Lot, especially with the revelation that:

SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER


...he's been a vampire hunter since disappearing from the town.

SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER

Rio, thanks for the synopsis- I think you should reallywatch Bad Boy Bubby- won't say anymore don 't want to spo il it for you.


B.

was night of the living dead the one with the zombie repeating.

 WERE GOIN TO GET YA!

over and over for ages. if it was that was SCARRY. i was 11 years old i think at the time so please make allowances for that.
 

Of the top of my head, in no particular order and not even reaching ten:

Ring(Japanese)

Ring(US) worth a mention on it's own for the ferry scene and the inclusion of Brian Cox, one of the most intimading actors alive(which reminds me, I've never seen Manhunter)

Session 9. why havn't I seen this movie on anyone's list yet? An excelent movie, especially if you find out a little about Danver's hoispital before hand. And when we hear "Simon" speak for the first time... heeby jeebies!

Silence of the Lambs. Perhaps too popular to merit cult status, and weakened by a dissmal sequel (wich reminds me, I've never seen Manhunter)

Mulholand Drive, no I don't yet quite understand the plot, but I do understand that the face that controls everything should not be fucked with.

The Gift. Sam Rami, Cate Blanchet and an evil jump scene involving a fiddle. What more could you want?

>>jont

Naked Lunch is getting a DVD release. I'm not sure if it qualifies as horror but its certainly very strange and a little disturbing.

And there is The Kingdom... fucked up horror hospital (with the odd deeply sick Scandinavian humorous interlude)

It's like Holby City on Acid!!!

Requiem For A Dream: Not actuyally horror at all, but I needed a hug afterwards.

(bit out of sync here but...)

Bart-Bad Boy Bubby is one feckin cracker!Me and Mrs Mikey are the only people I know who've seen it!
"me clingwrap killah"
"cat be dead"
What swung me to rent it was it said on the back"The bastard son of Forrest Gump" which says it all really.

Everyone must now watch it.OK.

I'll be off now...

M.

I've seen Bad Boy Bubby! Cracker that is!

One of the sickest premisis for a movie ever... but ends up strangly moving.

And the singing!

"Requiem For A Dream"

Heh, I was going to put that one on my list too! That's one damn harrowing film all right. Bloody masterpiece that'll leave you practically whimpering under the duvet :o)

Also, Bad Boy Bubby is indeed another masterpiece.

JAWS
The Wicker Man
JAWS
Witchfinder General
JAWS
Aliens
JAWS
Death Line
JAWS
City Of The Dead (fairly recent addition)


Ed

"City Of The Dead (fairly recent addition)"

Not City of the Living Dead, by one of those italian duffmeisters?

"It's not an expanded edition on the scale of The Stand, but it's certainly worth a look, especially with the new novels coming soon."

Many thanks for that- I'll be picking it up at the weekend. Always thought The Gunslinger was a little short to be a first part of the saga.

And that is possibly the most vacuous peice of literary criticism I've ever written, so I'll quite while I'm behind.

Steev

"was night of the living dead the one with the zombie repeating.

WERE GOIN TO GET YA!

over and over for ages. if it was that was SCARRY. i was 11 years old i think at the time so please make allowances for that."

Nope, that was Sam Raimi's classic 'The Evil Dead'. Ash and three buddies go to the woods to stay in a cabin and cop off, play a tape recording, summon Kandarian demons and get offed in a variety of ingenious ways.

'Night of the Living Dead' is George A Romero's oft-imitated classic wherein, for no reason whatsoever, the recently deceased return to life and start munching down on the living. Eventually a few survivors hole up in a farmhouse and secure the doors and windows against the hordes of the dead. It has one of the most unexpected and deeply distressing endings (in it's pitch black cynicism) in cinema history. The line most quoted from NotLD is "They're coming to get you Barbara! Look! There's one of them now...".

Steev

Ahck no, I have seen City of the Living Dead which was by goremaster general Lucio Fulci,
CITY OF THE DEAD is a creepy old black and white witchcraft tale from the 60's, ace!

Ed

Almost forgot,

The Wickerman, and Carnival of Souls(the late sixties origional, i believe there is a contempory remake that makes a mockery of the story.)

Ooh, Carnival of Souls, thats a great film, the only film the brilliantly named Herk Harvey ever made. Supposedly its one of David Lynch's favourite films. There is a shite remake, I think it's a "Wes Craven Presents", which isn't a sign of quality in my experience.

I'm a bit slow posing this one but here is a new entry in my top ten guaranteed to get you horror film haters slavering like mad dogs.
It's Rob Zombies House of 1000 Corpses.
If ever a film has been made with cult writtwen all over it it's this.
Folk either love it or hate it, I wasn't sure on my first veiwing but now I can't stop watching it.
A cross between Texas Chainsaw, Natural Born Killers and, well God knows what this movie rocks and that's not just the soundtrack which is superb.
Check out the website for more.

Website athttp://www.houseof1000corpses.com/;

Link: http://www.houseof1000corpses.com/

A work friend lent me a copy of Bad Boy Bubby a few years ago... his instructions were... 'just watch it all' which turned out to be everything I needed to know.

The films starts off totally fucked up, and a more discerning viewer could easily have threw in the towel at any point during the first 20 mins or so..

I urge everyone to track this film down and of course 'just watch it all'..



Call me pop!

Richard Scarry did a zombie flick? Holy shit.

Hahahahahahaha. Thanks, Gareth. My monitor's now covered in tea. :)

Re: House of 1000 Corpses.

Agree entirely. Saw this a couple of days after dvd release and was, if nor blown away, then nudged by gusts towards hiding in the scary cupboard.

While it tries to hard to be Texas Chainsaw- amusingly rendering the ill-advised New Line remake (out later this year) even more redundant- and the humour generally completely misses the mark, it's got an air of such depravity and full-on nastiness, that it reminded me why I love this genre so much. Easily one of the most disturbing films I've seen all year. Highly reccommended.

Steev

House of 2000 corpses starts shooting October.
Look for the UNCUT DVD of the first film coming soon. Que new popular franchise to rip us all off with.

"That thread which is dead cannot eternal lie,
For with strange aeon, even death may die..."

I have resurrected the Horror movie thread as I have 5 copies of The Night of the Living Dead Special Edition to give away on DVD.

All are welcome to enter, tell your fiends!

Also, this was one of my favourite threads, anyone fancy a re-match almost 5 years later?

2003
The Wicker Man
The Thing
Witchfinder General (and other Michael Reeves movies)
The Haunting
The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue
Dawn of the Dead
Christine
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (50's)
Nosferatu
Twins of Evil

2008
The Wicker Man
The Thing
Witchfinder General
The Haunting
The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue
Dawn of the Dead
Captain Kronos, Vampire Hunter
American Werewolf in London - it. just. gets. better.
Night of the Demon
Bitch Killer (or any Garth Marenghi adpatation)

Why don't I have any new films in here.  Hmmm, maybe that should be a new thread.  Best horror films of the last ten years...

Link: They're Coming to get you, Barbara!

In no particular order:

Evil Dead 2
Rosemary's Baby
Asylum (the Amicus one)
The Wicker Man (original, natch)
Braindead
The Thing (Carpenter's)
Twins of Evil
Nosferatu (original)
Dracula Prince of Darkness
Prince of Evil

Choosing only ten is hard. :-(

I can only think of two horror films that genuinely creeped me out, and those are The Wicker Man and Carrie.

Both of them built up unbearable tension throughout, before delivering a spine-chilling shock to the system. In the case of Carrrie, two of them!

Other horrors I enjoyed include The Thing (remake), Hell Hotel, Evil Dead 2 and Romero's Dead trilogy. What? No. It's a trilogy. Definitely a trilogy.

Doubt I'll have anything new in here, but...

Rosemary's Baby
The Wicker Man
Don't Look Now
Picnic At Hanging Rock
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
The Shining
Dawn of the Dead (1978)
Freaks

Most of my favourites are already listed

A more recent one I liked was "The Others" despite Nicole Kidman being involved

None of these are the remakes, re-imagining, or just the shit versions of the films.

1. The Wicker Man
2. Rosemary's Baby
3. Witchfinder General
4. Aliens
5. Evil Dead 2
6. Silence of the Lambs
7. Halloween
8. Dawn of the Dead
9. The Shining
10. Hellraiser

Why, why, why do you have 5 copies to give away - are you know stealing these blinking things for the purpose of re-distribution via competitions???

"A more recent one I liked was "The Others" despite Nicole Kidman being involved"

 That was a fantastic film and i wont say a bad word about Nicole Kidman after her acting in that film.

 Wonderfully atmospheric.


 In no order:

 The Descent

 The Others

 The people under the stairs.

 The Omen 1  especially the graveyard scene with The Rottweillers

 28 weeks later

 Dawn of the dead

 Texas Chainsaw Massacre [original and remake]

 The Shining

 The Relic

 Last one is a tie between The Wicker man and Psycho.

Not sure I could pull 10 out of the bag.

I liked;
House
Nightmare on Elm Street
Evil Dead
Night of the Comet
Lost Boys

When I was a nipper.  These days I don't tend to get to watch much scary stuff.