"I was walking along a path with two friends - the sun was setting - suddenly the sky turned blood red - I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence - there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city - my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety - and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature." |
Horror films have been dismissed as violent, low budget B movies and exploitation films. Nonetheless, all the major studios and many respected directors, including Alfred Hitchcock, Roman Polanski, Stanley Kubrick, John Carpenter, William Friedkin, Sam Raimi, Richard Donner, and Francis Ford Coppola have made forays into the genre. Serious critics have analyzed horror films through the prisms of genre theory and the auteur theory. Some horror films incorporate elements of other genres such as science fiction, fantasy, mockumentary, black comedy, and thrillers.
The greatest horror film of all time
Army of Darkness
Friday the 13th (1980)
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
The next day, she finds out that her friend Nancy Thompson experienced the same dream. That night, Tina, Nancy and her boyfriend Glenn Lantz have a sleep-over to make a distraught Tina feel better. Tina's rebellious boyfriend, Rod Lane, crashes the party and goes to bed with Tina in her mother's bedroom. However, Tina has another nightmare, and this time the killer catches her and brutally murders her. Rod wakes up to find Tina being cut open by invisible knives and then dragged across the ceiling. Rod, being the only other person in the room at the time, is suspected of the killing and is arrested the next day...
Jaws
Based on Peter Benchley's best-selling novel inspired by the Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916. The police chief of Amity Island, a summer resort town, tries to protect beachgoers from a great white shark by closing the beach, only to be overruled by the town council, which wants the beach to remain open to draw a profit from tourists. After several attacks, the police chief enlists the help of a marine biologist and a professional shark hunter. Roy Scheider stars as police chief Martin Brody, Richard Dreyfuss as marine biologist Matt Hooper, Robert Shaw as shark hunter Quint, Lorraine Gary as Brody's wife Ellen and Murray Hamilton as Mayor Vaughn.
Bram Stoker's Dracula
Four centuries later, Jonathan Harker (Keanu Reeves), an assistant real estate agent, travels to Transylvania to arrange the transfer of Carfax Abbey in London, Count Dracula's (Gary Oldman) newest real estate acquisition. At the castle, full of bizarre, unnatural features and shadows that move by themselves, Harker meets Dracula, a wrinkled, pale old man in brilliant red robes. During the final signing of the real estate papers, the Count caresses a picture of Harker's fiancée Wilhelmina "Mina" Murray (Winona Ryder), the reincarnation of his long dead wife, Elisabeta. Dracula then sets sail on the ship Demeter to England, leaving Harker captive by Dracula's insatiable and bloodthirsty Brides, who systematically drink his blood, leaving him weak and unable to escape.
Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles
In present time San Francisco a reporter, Daniel, is sitting in a room with a man named Louis, who claims to be a vampire. Daniel is unconvinced until Louis turns on the light and instantly appears in front of him using extremely fast movement. Daniel agrees to interview Louis, who recalls his previous life and his turn to darkness.
Poltergeist 1982
Halloween 1978
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 1974
This is the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre film and it revolves primarily around a group of friends on a road trip in rural Texas. The purpose of the road trip is to visit the hometown of Sally and Franklin's father in order to check on their grandfather's grave after reports of grave robbing. After their van runs low on gas, the group of friends visits the childhood home of Sally and Franklin's father where they are attacked by a family of cannibalistic men, including the chainsaw-wielding Leatherface.
From Dusk Till Dawn
Fugitive Gecko brothers Seth (George Clooney) and Richie (Quentin Tarantino) fleeing the F.B.I. and Texas police after Richie has broken Seth out of prison in a bloody shootout. Seth Gecko is a cold, tough anti-hero, while his younger brother Richie is a delusional, homicidal serial rapist.
Kalifornia
Carrie
Carrie White is a shy young girl who doesn't make friends easily. After her class mates taunt her about her horrified reaction to her totally unexpected first period one of them takes pity on her and gets Tommy Ross, her boyfriend and class hunk to invite Carrie to the senior prom. Meanwhile another girl who has been banned from the prom for her continued aggressive behaviour is not as forgiving and plans a trick to embarrass Carrie in front of the whole school. What she doesn't realise is that Carrie is ... gifted, and you really don't want to get her angry.
The Omen 1976
The premise of The Omen comes from the end times prophecies of Christianity. The story, set in Fulham, England, tells of the childhood of Damien Thorn, who was switched at birth with the supposedly stillborn child of a wealthy American diplomat with only the husband's knowledge, in order to keep it from affecting his wife. Damien's family is unaware that he is actually the offspring of Satan and destined to become the Antichrist. His father, Robert Thorn (named Jeremy Thorn in the original book), eventually begins to realize this with the help of a photographer named Keith Jennings, after numerous people connected to Damien die in tragic accidents. After Damien's first nanny hangs herself at Damien's fifth birthday party, a new nanny, Mrs. Baylock, arrives to tend to him. A priest who knows about Damien begins stalking Robert, and is eventually the one to first point out that Damien is the Antichrist, and that he intends to kill everyone in his way. The priest later dies in a bizarre accident (he is impaled by a church spire hit by lightning), and Katherine Thorn, Damien's mother, suffers a fall after being knocked over a railing by Damien.
The Shining
Misery
The Fly
Psycho
The film depicts the encounter between a secretary, Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), who is in hiding at a motel after embezzling from her employer, and the motel's owner, Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), and the aftermath of their encounter.
White Zombie
Mimic
Leprechaun
When a single father, his daughter, and three painters discover a pot of gold hidden near a house that the family is moving into, a vengefully violent leprechaun stalks them and uses his magical powers to frighten them into returning his gold. Although they are more than willing to meet his desires, one of the painters, while biting it to determine its authenticity, accidentally swallows it, complicating matters and leading to a night of terror.
Cannibal Girls
The Exorcist
Candyman
King Kong 1933
Cape Fear
The Crow
Alligator
The alligator begins picking off humans in the sewer, and the resulting flow of body parts draws in world-weary police officer David Madison who, after a horribly botched case in St. Louis, has gained a reputation for being lethally unlucky for his assigned partners. As Madison works on this new case, his boss Chief Clark brings him into contact with reptile expert Marisa Kendall, who years earlier was the girl who bought the alligator. The two of them edge into a prickly romantic relationship, and during a visit to Kendall's house, Madison bonds with her motormouthed mother.
Madison's reputation as a partner-killer is "confirmed" when the gator snags the young cop who accompanies Madison into the sewer searching for clues. No one believes Madison's story, partly due to a lack of a body, and partly because of Slade, the influential local tycoon who sponsored the illegal growth experiments and therefore doesn't want the truth to come out. This changes when an obnoxious tabloid reporter, Thomas Kemp, goes snooping in the sewers and supplies graphic and indisputable photographic evidence of the beast at the cost of his own life. Ironically, Kemp had, up until that point, been one of the banes of Madison's existence.
An attempt by the police to flush out Ramón comes up empty, and Madison is put on suspension, but then the gator literally smashes his own way out of the sewers and comes to the surface, killing a young boy who gets tossed into a swimming pool during a party. The ensuing city-wide hunt turns into a media circus, including the hiring of pompous big-game hunter Colonel Brock to track the animal. Once again, the effort fails: Brock is killed, the police trip over each other in confusion and Ramón goes on a rampage through a high-society wedding party; among his victims is the tycoon who helped to create him. The alligator also devours the groom. With only Kendall to help him, Madison finally lures the alligator into a trap back in the sewers and destroys the beast with a massive charge of explosives, barely escaping with his own life. As the film ends with Madison and Kendall walking away after the explosion, a drain in the sewer spits out another baby alligator.