Movies Capital
My Top Ten films- to watch from behind the settee…..
This article is about my favourite selection of scary or frightening films. This list has been compiled over decades and a lot of thought and deliberation went into it. Which scary film do I rate as the best?
..Read on,my friends
Number Ten down to Five of my favourite Scary films.
(This list contains Animals, Zombies, Animated objects and unearthly viruses….)
This compilation of films is by no means composed of all of my favourite films, this is just a list of the films that I find scary or strangely disturbing-some people may not find these scary at all! I also like thrillers and comedies and dramas, but to begin with, this is my scary list. I have omitted Threads, which was set in Sheffield about Nuclear war and was shocking at the time, however, I consider that more a terrifying drama than scary film. Enjoy perusing this list, and if you can watch the videos-you may be converted.
10-The Bat.
This movie stars Vincent Price as an all American goody-two-shoes chap who is really not all that he seems and in reality he is trying to harm a couple of ladies that live in a nearby house. One of the women is none other than the woman who played the harridan Mother-in -Law in ‘Bewitched’, the TV series, Agnes Moorhead. It is a black and white film and Vincent sports a glove with blades attached a la Freddy.
9-Phantasm.
This classic film scared me to bits when it was first released at the cinema. The Tall man scared me as did the small, cloaked figures in the netherworld scenes. For me, the most iconic scene in this film was the silver coloured metal ball which flew around the corridors of the mausoleum as a mechanical sort of security guard, only to spike a man in the forehead and spew his brains and blood out. Yuck.
8-City of the Dead.
I was introduced to this film by my partner. He’d seen it on TV many years ago and was thoroughly excited to find it being replayed late one night last year. It is another black and white film with ghouls going after the heros of the piece. Very atmospheric.
7-Dawn of the Dead.
Another classic. This colour film from the golden era of horrifying movies introduced zombies into the modern mall-type society for the first time and this made it all the more horrific. The audience had made a rapport with the characters in this piece, which made it all the more shocking when one favourite character was bitten by a zombie. The hero died and then his body rose up under the sheet covering his corpse, which was when his comrade had to kill him by destroying his brain with a gunshot. Aaahh.
6-Hellraiser.
I just love reading Clive Barkers books so I love how this film translated Pinheads look from words to visuals. I like the imagery of the big block of wood with hooks and chains on it -so creepy.
5-Rabid.
This iconic film gave former porn star Marilyn Chambers a lead role, which she excelled herself in. She and her boyfriend have a motorbike accident which infects her with a sort of knife like protruberence that can shoot out from her armpit (I know, it sounds ridiculous,but it does work!) and spike people which spreads whatever virus she has! There are a couple of scenes in this film that spring to mind quite freshly. The first memorable scene for me is the one where the doctor who has been attacked performing an operation and when the theatre sister passes him the scissors, he cuts off her finger and eats it! Then the final clip of the film is where Marilyn has died and is loaded into a dustbin lorry looking very stiff and very dead.
Number 4 to my number 1 in my favourite Scary films.
Things that go bump! in the night…..
4- The Incredible Melting Man.
A film that I haven’t seen since the seventies. I used to go to a cinema that was in Heanor, Derbyshire to see some movies and this was one of the last films that I remember seeing there. There used to be two tiers to this cinema and a lot of cat-calling from the local lads, which just added another dimension to the experience of movie-going, lost forever.
Anyway, the astronauts commanding a space mission catch some sort of virus and when the ship returns home all but one of the astronauts have died, melted. The survivor is hospitalised but manages to escape-not before causing a large nurse to run pell-mell along a corridor and straight through a plate-glass window! The surviving infected astronaut rampages around the countryside nibbling unsuspecting victims, all the while degenerating and melting. One scene that sticks in my mind quite vividly is where one of his ears falls off and sticks on a bush!
3-Nightbreed.
Another classic tale by Clive Barker transferred onto film. The book it is based upon is called Cabal. This is the hero who dies after receiving extremely dodgy psychiatric care from a psycopathic killer (another famous film director, David Cronenberg, who loves Barkers work) who makes our hero a scapegoat for some unsolved murders which in fact the psychiatrist has carried out. The hero attaches himself to the dead people living under a cemetary in Midian, one of whom provides us with a lovely face-cutting off scene in a hospital before dying and joining Midian.
2-Monster Club.
A classic Hammer Horror film starring the Prince of Horror, Vincent Price, as the host of a nightclub, who is showing his club off to a human and regaling him with tales of the creatures that one could meet there. Three stories are told,one of a whistling ghoul who reduces a thief pretending to want to marry him into a burned wreck .Another tale is that of a village of ghouls killing a humgoo ( the offspring of a human bred with a ghoul ) played by Lesley Dunlop, while trying to capture and eat a film director and having the police involved in ensnaring food (humans). Then there is a vampire based story in which Britt Ekland plays the wife of a vampire being stalked by a vampire hunting group headed by the ill-fated Donald Pleasance in order to despatch them, told from the viewpoint of the vampire and his wifes’ male child.
All this occurs to a background of unique clubbing with monsters and songs from BA Robertson ( whatever happened to him?!) and a stripper going all the way to her bones!!
1-Night of the Demon.
The best scary film in my opinion. I was introduced to this film by my Dad who also loved it. It’s a black and white affair starring heartthrob Dana Andrews as the sceptical hero. It is based on a story by MR James called casting of the runes. One of my favourite scenes is where Andrews is sceptical about the occultists’ powers and is treated to a hurricane in the middle of a childrens party at the occultists’ house as a display of his power.
Andrews is informed that his mentor has died in suspicious circumstances and investigates. He finds that while trying to discredit an occultist his mentor had a curse put upon him. This event recurs with Andrews and he finds that he has to give the curse written on a piece of paper back to the person who cast the spell. He does this and precipitates the scene in the film where the demon chases the occultist down a railway track to his death. Brilliantly atmospheric!
My Top Ten scary films.
All worth watching.
10-The Bat
9-Phantasm
8-City of the Dead
7-Dawn of the Dead
6-Hellraiser
5-Rabid
4-The Incredible Melting Man
3-Nightbreed
2-Monster Club
1-Night of the Demon
What films do you like?
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Tags: Films