Best horror movie of all time?

[RubiconDecision]

Yes, Alien is in a very tiny category of sci-fi horror. It's really by film analysis either an updated demonic possession film, or about male rape. The deeply flawed Event Horizon also fits that category. It's Hellraiser in space.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

6.0

The microbudget film The Conspiracy is worth seeing dealing with Bohemian Grove.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

6.5

Watching the Faustean Bargain films Kill List (a terrifying end) vs Polanski's embrace of The Ninth Gate(a rewarding Hell) is something a film student would do.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

7.0
[Watching Kill List a 3rd time, you see tiny creepy details of conspiracy, and begin to doubt nearly everyone, pushing Jay to Hell. I'd love to talk about. Few directors have such a layered creative plan. It's cinematic genius seen in some of the 1st season of True Detective:easter eggs for film students.]

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

It's like a complex Umberto Eco book-puzzle, reminiscent of Foucault's Pendulum.
7.5

[conon394]

#1 Alien had me scared before I went to the movie.

That's because it had one of the best trailers ever made. Showed everything and nothing just scary crap happening.

[RubiconDecision]

When Alien came out, there were interviews, possibly in Starlog magazine, stating the cast were not shown the entire script, jump scares were used to get genuine reactions, and that pervaded the set. It's a brilliant film.

Shane Johnson ruined The Possession of Michael King by playing it as a Bugs Bunny wisecracker. The film itself is a decent flick.

6.0

Honeymoon is flawed mostly by setting it in Canada with an American couple, making it forced. If it was strictly a UK film, showing a couple in a remote place, removed the goofiness with serious sincere understated romance, it could have been hugely successful.

7.0

An excellent miniseries that should be remade: The Dark Secret of Harvest Home. It's similar in theme to Eye of the Devil(David Niven and Deborah Kerr). Bettie Davis playing a creepy matriarch of a pagan cult, where men are like drones in a hive of bees.

[Kyriakos]

Wow, that has Rose Leslie in it ^^

[RubiconDecision]

Wow, that has Rose Leslie in it ^^

She does a fine job. It's scifi-horror and gruesome at the conclusion. Ms. Leslie played in an episode of Utopia as well. She plays a thoroughly evil monster.

The famous Cabinet of Dr. Caligari


Robert Wise The Haunting (1963) is consistently rated 7.5 or higher

[RubiconDecision]

7.6
A Girl Walks Home at Night
A very fine black and white atmospheric vampire love story.


Shyamalan's early genius film The Sixth Sense. It is perfectly cast, Willis' best film, a wonderful vulnerable Olivia Williams. Why is Shyamalan making found footage drek like The Visit now? It isn't horror whatsoever. How the mighty have fallen.
7.8

[Killerbee]

The famous Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

Have you seen the 1989 spin-off (for lack of better word) Dr.Caligari ?

[RubiconDecision]

Have you seen the 1989 spin-off (for lack of better word) Dr.Caligari ?

I've never hard of it. Is it made somewhere other than America? It should be updated.
Eww saw the trailer. It looks awful like a near soft-core porn film.

[Killerbee]

I thought you were a film student ?

Shouldn't those not shy away from a bit of weirdness ?

[RubiconDecision]

I thought you were a film student ?

Shouldn't those not shy away from a bit of weirdness ?

Pure drek and torture porn are the mainstay of the horror genre. Why? The mass appeal of horror for cathartic roller coaster thrills means instant profits regardless of merit. As such, a good horror film is the exception, not the rule. You'd waste enormous time reviewing exploitation films such as Warhol's Frankenstein which got the dubious X rating. Horror cinema is as rare as orchids in the desert.

The Criterion Collection includes The Brood (1979)

Not my cup of tea.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Brood

The Brood was listed #88 on the "Chicago Film Critics Association's 100 Scariest Movies of All-Time".^[4] In 2004, one of its sequences was voted #78 among the "100 Scariest Movie Moments" by the Bravo Channel.^[5][6]

[Kyriakos]

^That was the film i alluded to in the OP

Pretty brutal indeed...

[RubiconDecision]

We could easily mention blockbuster horror film, but these usually are not horror cinema, merely ones that had mass appeal. Sadly, that's all that imdb.com has become: any doofus up or down voting, and skewing the scores.

The Returned(2013) is really social commentary on the responsibility of some epidemic contagion like AIDS, but masking as a zombie film. I'd keep an eye on Emily Hampshire.

7.0

Thirst(2009) on first glance is just another Asian horror film, but grabs you, no doubt due to naturally gifted Kang-ho Song (Snowpiercer, The Host). It won the Jury Prize at Cannes.

7.4

[RubiconDecision]

7.0
Let Us Prey
What might have been just another formulaic horror film... is made extraordinary by Liam Cunningham. This is a great Irish film only hampered by a low budget.

[Kyriakos]

^Going by the trailer, not even Davos can save such a script :o