Mark Z's Top 10 Horror Films Of All Time
Here’s a list of ten films, some obviously horror, others more subversive, that I consider my personal favorites – divorced from critical opinion in some cases, but more than often predictable.
Matt here... Last year I asked all of the WhatCulture! (then Obsessed With Film) writers to come up with their own Top 10 favourite horror film lists as part of our 31 Days of Horror celebration to the genre but for some reason our New York based writer Mark Zhuravsky's got lost in the fold. I was reminded this past week that we never did publish Mark's and so here it is for your reading pleasure today, a particularly eclectic and intriguing list. Also be sure to check our other authors lists at the end of this post.I am not loath to say horror is not my choice genre that honor goes to crime dramas, occasionally to my chagrin. That said, I love a good chiller as much as any other goodfella. Heres a list of ten films, some obviously horror, others more subversive, that I consider my personal favorites divorced from critical opinion in some cases, but more than often predictable.
Dead Birds (2004)
What is Dead Birds? A trip to IMDB wont clue you in on the scope of this film. Director Alex Turners post-Civil War horror film shows its low-budget roots very early on but dont let that dissuade you. After a robbery gone bloody, a band of criminals retires to a former plantation to wait out the authorities. From that point on, Dead Birds uses a disquieting location to maximum effect in telling a tale of torture, hate and good ol demonic possession. What makes Dead Birds so damn effective is the unhurried pacing and the work of a cast that plants their feet surely in the material, dedicating emotionally affecting work. Steve Yedlins (May, Brick, and the vibrant Brothers Bloom) cinematography is another star of the film, bringing the aging plantation house to disturbing life try to watching the crew pacing along a auburn highway lit only by candlelight and not think, hmm, something is seriously creepy about this house. The Blair Witch Project (1999)
I see no point in adding any more personal accolades in the defense of this landmark film. Its that good, by chance or by structure, it works and it disturbs you. For those that argue Paranormal Activity is only formula, you might be right, but you can only catch lightning in a bottle once and this was it. Also, the ending is possibly the most memorable shot I have ever seen in my short life its not pretty, it doesnt wrap up a thing but the amount of discussion and pure dread it inspires in the moment and long after puts it, and the film, at the top of the heap. The Shining (1980)
Kubrick, Shining, Nicholson, Duvall, moving on. But honestly, what else can be said? Do you want me to talk about the perfect framing, the immaculately unhinged Jack Nicholson performance or Shelley Duvalls grating but sympathetic soon-to-be-battered wife? Or maybe the score? The editing? Scatman Crothers? Or perhaps youd like to read about the final frame, which suggests a whole nother dimension of terror. The Shining iswell, The Shining. See it! Hausu (1977)
Criterion Collection released Nobuhiko Obayashis 1977 magnum opus freak out last year on Blu-ray and you should seriously go and buy it immediately. Hausu or the more quant House is the strangest film Ive seen made within perfectly normal parameters. Theres nothing unusual about a group of schoolgirl friends going to see the lead female Gorgeous aunt at the titular house. But when the piano gobbles up one of the girls while squiggles dance around on screen and the recently diseased piano food girls head pops up on screen and comments on the visibility of her pantieswell, maybe something is just a bit off kilter. Hausu is an operatic freakout, a hallucinatory trip into the unknown, the silly and the very, very strange. Obayashis straight up weird sensibilities blur the reality of almost every scene in the film and the production design and acting only heighten the idea that youre watching something alien. To say any more would be to spoil a definite guilty pleasure in its glee, Hausu taps into those inexplicable terrors that we voice only in dreams. The Thing (1982)
John Carpenter remade the 1951 original with enough vigor and visual to fill several films. What everyone remembers about this one is the monster work, which is undeniably unforgettable Rob Bottin and Stan Winstons exemplary work is one reason this film continues to captivate decades down the road. Carpenter hits the horror sweet spot with this baby an isolated location, a gruff action-ready cast and a hidden terror that tears the group apart and slowly escalates the stakes until the men are ready to incinerate their comrades in search of the thing. The appearances made by The Thing are among the most unsettling scenes in cinema and for good reason the way it transforms the bodies of men (and the occasional dog) just like us is grotesque, bending limbs and sprouting spidery legs from disembodies heads. Carpenter and crew know it and milk it for all its worth for sheer body contortion horror, The Thing is hard to top. 28 Days Later (2001)
Danny Boyle is one of my favorite directors and probably the most accolade-endowed English director working today he is beloved by fans of the various genres hes touched on in more than 15 years of work and now by the American Academy, which honored him for Slumdog Millionaire. In 28 Days Later, Boyle imagines something stale a zombie outbreak. Sigh, weve all seen where this is going except we havent. Boyles artistry is to blame for the success and engagement of 28 Days Later his use of grainy digital video, the decision to make the zombies jogging predators instead of lumbering pieces of dead flesh and Cillian Murphy as the so, so unfortunate Jim, awaking from a coma to witness a London post-infection, devoid of life, with a few survivors scrambling by to make a living in the land of the dead. Murphys work makes us genuinely care for Jims constantly lowered odds of survival while a cast that includes Naomie Harris and Brendan Gleeson elevates the genres standard rag tag group to a new emotional high. 28 Days Later is a surrogate family drama that happens to have zombies in it a record of mans inhumanity to man, dead or alive. Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
Tobe Hooper never topped himself after riding high out of the gate with this sickening film, full of heat and dread, young bodies and bones on display. The artifice of Leatherface is borne of this film and his intimate pursuit of victim after victim, chainsaw in hand, is absurd and personally unforgettable. The inimitable climate of the American South almost leaps off the screen and the chase between Sally (Marilyn Burns) and Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen) is not only scary but just plain exhausting, hindered by tree branches and unsteady ground. Without Leatherface, this film would be nothing short of snuff, but with this near-mythical creature in tow, Hooper creates a horror monolith, a thing without a past that ekes out a future by blood and bone. Irreversible (2002)
Enter The Void may be his most ambitious film but Irreversible will forever be Gaspar Noé clain to cinematic immortality. Far from a classic film, this is a triumph in form and content, or rather an emotionally battering experience that threatens to never leave you. With a prowling camera that goes just about anywhere, Noé begins his story at the end, which opens at a cavernous homosexual nightclub and punctuates with a bracing act of violence. He then takes us back and back again, showing how Marcus (Vincent Cassel) and Pierre (Albert Dupontel) and most importantly Alex (Monica Bellucci) ended up in their respective states. It is an old concept but the descent into violence that Noé orchestrates builds to unfathomably tragic proportions as we move from the darkest event of the characters lives to happier, more carefree days. Controversial but rarely deemed trashy, Irreversible is akin to seeing a future and knowing you cant avoid it, to recall the blessed times before an upcoming, unavoidable evil. 
