Halloween is upon us, so it seems appropriate to put up a list of my favorite horror films. Horror can manifest in a multitude of ways. Anything from spine tingling psychological, to silly and fun, I have loved the genre since I was a kid. There is something cathartic about a great scare. It is the film equivalent of a roller coaster ride, that rush of fear followed by the post-jump giggle, the acknowledgement that something frightening has occurred. So let us laugh at how we just reacted to that moment. It is a way to challenge yourself to keep your eyes on the screen, even when the scene playing out makes you feel genuinely nervous. So, here are my 10 overall favorites. It was a difficult list to make since there were so many greats I had to leave out.

1. The Thing

John Carpenter’s The Thing is the perfect horror film. It has everything that makes the genre great: tension, psychological terror, intense drama, horrific gore, and brilliant creature designs, among many other great aspects. The setup is pure fear: an alien that can take over and emulate any living thing crash-lands on earth. Just that alone is such a fantastic scenario for a horror film. The ensemble cast brings these characters to life. They are all trapped in an Arctic research base, which heightens the tension and animosity between them. Kurt Russell is wonderful as MacReady, who becomes the central protagonist and voice of reason.

Even the smaller roles feel like real people because of how genuine the performances are and the nuance of how they’re written. Keith David is another standout performance as Childs. There are few people in Hollywood who can bring that level of gravitas to a role like he can. Much has been said about Rob Bottin’s creature effects for a good reason. There is a macabre beauty to their grotesque and twisted forms. They continue to be incredibly impressive and help cement the film as one of the greatest of its genre, and my personal favorite horror film.

2. Cemetery Man

This is an odd, more obscure gem from Italy. There is something uniquely bonkers about Italian horror films. They often have surreal gothic atmosphere, gorgeous visuals, wonderful music, borderline nonsensical storytelling, questionable acting and excessive gore and sex. Cemetery Man stands out from the others partially because of Rupert Evertt’s performance. He plays Francesco Dellamorte, a cemetery caretaker with a slight problem. 7 days after they die, the dead come back to life as Zombies, or Returners as the film calls them. If made by many other directors, this would be a pretty straightforward narrative. Michele Soavi turns it into a surreal existential and, dare I say, philosophical tale. Dellamorte falls in love with a widow whose husband just died. A woman who is given no name in the film, she is literally credited as “She”.

From there the film delves into his tortured psyche as he spends his days taking care of the cemetery, shooting Returners in the head and talking to his assistant Gnaghi, a mentally challenged man who only makes vague grunting noises. I won’t spoil the weird details; you really must experience it for yourselves. I remember discovering this brilliant film at a local video rental place in Los Angeles, Cinefile. It was sitting on a shelf, beckoning me to rent it. I had never heard of the film and back then was not familiar with Everett or the wonderful world of Italian horror. It started me on a magnificent journey to watch as many weird Italian horror films as possible. Anything from the godfather of the genre, Mario Bava, to the iconic Dario Argento. Cemetery Man, aka Dellamorte Dellamore, is still my favorite of them all.

***3. Dead Alive,* *aka Braindead***

One day I will write a retrospective on Peter Jackson’s early career. It is a magical and completely crazy collection of films. Dead Alive is my favorite of the bunch. It is a delightfully depraved horror comedy. That is a very difficult genre to do well. Often the comedy overrides the horror to the point where the film becomes too goofy. That can work well in films like Evil Dead 2 when it becomes a live action cartoon. Other times the balance can tip too far into goofy. Dead Alive is never scary, but it commits fully to its gore-soaked vision, mixing in twisted zombie horror, wacky comedy, and cheesy romance in the best possible way. Timothy Balme plays Lionel, a sheltered man who lives with his controlling mother. He is inches away from being like Norman Bates, but he is kept away from full-on insanity when he meets Paquita, a local girl played by Diana Penalvar. They both bring a lot of charm to their roles.

Of course, their romance is halted when his mother disapproves. Oh, and then the zombies happen. That is the point where the film shifts gears into bonkers mode. There is a zombie baby, a kung-fu priest, creative use of gardening tools and a full-on zombie infestation with ridiculous amounts of campy violence. The film is a bizarre mix of 1950’s style gee-whiz-goofy-romance and over-the-top horror. Jackson has a very twisted sense of humor that he brings to his early work. Despite the outlandishness of many of the scenes, he grounds the film with its very earnest characters. All the guts and blood are balanced with a sincere approach to the characters. They are exaggerated, but you can tell Jackson genuinely likes these people and doesn’t make fun of them. Well, a few characters are designed to be hated, but that’s part of the film’s ridiculous charm.

4. Let The Right One In

I saw this film with no knowledge of what it could be. I had a vague idea that it was a vampire film, but I wasn’t expecting it to be so emotionally engrossing. Let The Right One In is a coming-of-age vampire film about a lonely young boy Oskar in Sweden. He has a fractured family life with his father living elsewhere and no friends. The only kids who acknowledge him at school are local bullies who treat him like crap. Anybody who has been through a loner period in school would relate to his struggle. He finds a real connection with Eli, a new girl who just moved in nearby. She is mysterious and disconnected from other people. They meet in the courtyard playground when she is sitting by herself. Their initial interactions are some of the best parts of the film. They are so heartfelt and sweet.

He soon finds out she is not who she appears to be. The vampire scenes are brutal, especially her reveal to him when she becomes an animalistic creature. Despite their very obvious differences, their bond grows. She lives with an older man who helps her get blood. This is where the film deviates from the book. In the original novel it outright states he has an uh…fondness for children, let’s just say. In the film their dynamic is more ambiguous. To be honest I’m glad the film didn’t delve into their relationship in the way the book does. It’s a beautiful and touching story about two unlikely people finding each other and getting through their difficult lives together. Tomas Alfredson has created such a nuanced and emotional film, one that has stuck with me ever since I first saw it. There was an American remake a few years later which is surprisingly solid, but it’s nowhere near as great as the original.

5. Lake Mungo

Found footage films are a dime a dozen, most are mediocre at best. They try so hard to capture reality, but often end up being contrived and obnoxious. Lake Mungo came out of nowhere for me. It was part of the After Dark Horrorfest lineup. Most of those films are pretty forgettable, but this one is different. It is one of the few films that was genuinely unsettling. It’s about a family in Australia whose daughter dies under mysterious circumstances. They soon start experiencing paranormal phenomena… Or do they? Unlike many found footage films, these characters feel like real people. The many interviews throughout really connect us to them and their sorrow. This is not a typical spooky ghost film; it is a deeply emotional story about grief and coming to terms with loss.

We gain a real understanding of the parents, and the brother and how much the daughter’s death impacted them. The haunting scenes where her ghost appears in various photographs are some of the most eerie I can remember in modern horror. There is one scene in particular involving cell phone footage that genuinely scared me. Those who have seen Lake Mungo will know exactly what I mean. That one image from this scene has been burned into my brain ever since. There are plenty of ghost films today - too many, to be honest. Many of them blur together and show too much of the ghosts and ruin the scares. Mungo is different; it holds back and slowly draws you into the story. It lets the fear sink in, not with jump scares, but with genuine horror and emotion. Most horror films today can’t do that.

6. The Lighthouse

I go out of my way to annoy people into watching this. I left the theater in a daze when I first saw it. What the hell had I just seen? The Lighthouse certainly has inspirations from other works, notably H.P Lovecraft’s stories and Harold Pinter’s plays. It takes those influences and creates something completely unique. This is the kind of film I would love to write. A frenzied, hypnotic, and occasionally darkly comedic fever dream. There are just two main characters, both named Thomas played by Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe. They are Lighthouse keepers in the late 1890’s, two people with completely different personalities that constantly clash. Dafoe is a variation of the Captain Ahab trope, a supposed seafaring curmudgeon who spends the days telling tales of his adventures. Pattinson as the other Tom is more illusive and secretive. Their interactions are strained at first, but they start to a form an odd kind of bond that helps them get through the isolation, a bond that slowly turns to madness as they spend so much time away from civilization.

Being stuck on this rock and the inane tasks they must perform to keep the lighthouse going slowly chip away at their psyches until they are at each other’s throats. Pattinson and Dafoe are absolutely brilliant here, their dialect is difficult to get used to since they used an old-fashioned way of speaking, much like the director Robert Eggar’s first film The Witch. He really commits to having these people feel like they are of the era. I can’t imagine how difficult it was to write this script and The Witch while keeping with the way the people in those eras actually spoke. The Lighthouse is a strange and wonderful creation, one that I will continue to annoy people into seeing like it is my holy quest.

7. Return Of The Living Dead

Some films sneak under your skin, unnerving you to the core. Others are just pure absurd fun. Return Of The Living Dead is one of the most entertaining and gleefully anarchic horror films ever made. There is a profound sense of joy I get from watching this. The pitch-black comedy mixed with the gruesome violence and punk rock sensibilities are a perfect combination. This film is pure punk, not just the characters, but the general tone and its anti-authoritarian message. It was directed by the great Dan O’Bannon, the writer of Alien and many others. This was his filmmaking debut. Return Of The Living Dead takes place in a Medical Supply Warehouse where two employees Frank and Freddy, accidentally release a toxic gas into the air that causes the dead to rise.

These are not the shambling Zombies we are used to seeing in George Romero films; these are fast and intelligent. They are almost impossible to kill; they make plans and even communicate. It’s a fantastic combination of darkly comedic and horrific. There is one particular zombie, nicknamed The Tarman who is a magnificently disgusting creation. Frank and Freddy are the leads at first, but we are then introduced to Freddy’s punk friends. One in particular, Trash, played by the glorious Linnea Quigley, has quite a memorable scene in a cemetery. Return is pure distilled nihilism, absolutely nothing goes according to plan. The zombie outbreak just gets progressively more horrific as characters are killed off one by one. Like many successful 80’s horror films, Return had many terrible sequels. The 3rd film, directed by Brian Yuzna is actually pretty good, too. You can ignore the rest though, just see the original and the 3rd for a wild time.

8. REC

REC is the horror film equivalent of an anxiety attack; it never stops moving at breakneck pace. It throws you into the thick of things right at the start where a reporter, Angela, is being shown around a fire station. The firefighters are then called out to an emergency in an apartment building. From there, everything goes crazy. They are attacked by people who appear to be possessed or zombies. Lots of zombies in this list now that I think about it. REC is another found footage film, but it feels so real. My main issue with most found footage films is questioning why these people are still filming when they could just run. Here it actually makes sense since the character filming is doing so for journalistic purposes. Angela and the others are thrown into hell as they try to survive being attacked on all sides.

The creatures in REC are vicious and brutal, rushing the characters without pause. This is one of the most intense horror films I’ve ever seen, it is pure panic for the entire running time. Not many films can sustain that momentum for very long, they usually run out of steam at a certain point. REC never loses that energy; it is a constant struggle for survival. There was a remake called Quarantine which, while decent, does not measure up to the original. There are three other films in the series. 2 is solid, but the others are forgettable and not worth watching. REC is especially resonant today in Covid times when so many people were stuck inside for so long. The feeling of claustrophobia in the film put me in a constant state of dread, knowing the next attack was just around the corner.

9. Raw

Julia Ducournau’s feature debut hit me like a sledgehammer. The idea of a Coming-of-age cannibalism horror film with hints of a dark comedy is a tad daunting. That is a lot to digest, and I would understand if some found it a bit off putting. Raw is the kind of film that stays in your psyche, incubating in your mind somewhere. Every now and then you’ll drift back to it and wish you could watch it for the first time again. The film follows Justine, played brilliantly by Garance Marillier. She is a lifelong vegetarian starting her first year at veterinary school. Through her experiences, she develops a taste for human flesh. How she does that I will not spoil, it’s all part of the overall experience.

Raw can be quite uncomfortable to watch if you’re squeamish. Not only for the graphic violence, but the themes of sexuality and body image are incredibly, well, raw. The veterinary school Justine attends is not a fun and carefree environment like colleges in other films, it is an arduous and brutal frenzy to find who you are amongst the chaos. To Justine, this yearning for flesh is her way of fitting in with this cutthroat society. A place where your sense of self can be stripped away piece by piece in order to feel like you belong.

Full disclaimer: I do not recommend cannibalism to anybody trying to be cool. You won’t be cool; you’ll be gross and arrested.

10. The Tenant

Sometimes the most uncomfortable horrors are the quiet ones. The small glances from a stranger catching your eye on the street. That fear of being watched in your own home. The Tenant is about a shy unassuming bureaucrat, Trelkovsky, played surprisingly well by the film’s director, Roman Polanski. He is moving into a small apartment in Paris after the previous tenant, Simone, killed herself by jumping out the window. His neighbors are standoffish initially and never warm to him beyond reluctant acceptance of his existence. After a short while he becomes paranoid that they are watching him. Trelkovsky’s paranoia becomes so intense he starts to believe his neighbors are trying to literally turn him into Simone.

This is not a horror film of jump scares and blood, in fact there is very little violence in it compared to most. Instead, it is a slow burn dread-filled tale that creeps up on you. The fear that even in your own sanctuary, you are still not safe from the psychological torment your mind can create. The Tenant will resonate with anybody who feels lost in the constant hustle and bustle of the big city: you may live here, but you don’t feel at home and maybe never will. Trelkovsky, like Polanski is Polish and there is a subtle and disturbing feeling of xenophobia present in the film. Many characters treat a non-French tenant like an outsider, someone who shouldn’t be there. There is a strong sense of animosity from some people he interacts with, like he is polluting their sacred space. It adds an extra element that Polanski’s other apartment films, Repulsion and Rosemary’s Baby don’t have.

Oct 30 A spooky list of my favorite horror films