Oh, the Horror

Image Cred: By 100% Soft via Mondo

For as long as I can remember I’ve loved horror movies. Maybe like a lot of kids the interest was born of morbid fascination — forbidden fruit as I walked down the video store isle and we as a family consistently walked briskly passed. I would occasionally take a detour back through the array of suggestive covers and imagine storylines based on the still sneak preview. So much to imagine and the 80’s were ripe with potential.

I can’t say how curiosity morphed into real interest and appreciation. And to be sure the majority of the scary movies I’ve seen are formulaic, poorly made, or borderline garbage, and under most circumstances should be a reliable repellant. I can’t say either that I particularly like being scared. Maybe it’s that it’s a genre that has so fully embraced it’s ridiculousness. Then when it’s done well I’m so surprised that I can’t help but love the results. In the end horror is always a winner, regardless of what track it takes. It is the art of extreme.

I gave myself the assignment to jot down a few favorites. These specimens are not ranked — I simply cannot stack them against one another. They are wholly wonderful on their own, each for a different reason, some decidedly less widely-acclaimed than others.

• Best Space Scream: Alien(s)

• Best Human Garden: Motel Hell

• Best Ghost Story: Poltergeist

• Best Gross-out (which bore the best tagline — “Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid”): The Fly

• Best Water Show: Jaws

• Best Zombie Run: 28 Days Later

• Best Body Snatcher: The Thing

• Best Movie to Randomly See By Yourself in London: Eyes without a Face

• Best Classic: Halloween

• Best New Classic: The Witch

• Best 80’s: Night of the Creeps

• Best Meta: Cabin in the Woods

• Best Blood Sucker (Light vs Dark): What We Do in the Shadows / Near Dark

• Best Disney Scare: Something Wicked This Way Comes

• Honorable Mention: Twilight Zone The Movie (scene)