The Beast

Welcome to my 666th post, children.

I thought long and hard about today's topic.   666 is a milestone I never thought I would reach on this blog.  So for weeks and weeks I have been planning a super-spectacular, highly evil, knock-down, drag-out of a post.

Nah...not really.  I just noticed my number of posts yesterday so I thought I would mention it.   Still...fun, right?

In honor of my "Number of the Beast" post here on The Verdant Dude I thought I would bless you with my top 666 Horror Films of all-time.   Whoa...that's too many.  How about my scariest 6.66 Horror Films of all-time?  Yeah...that sounds better.

Earl's Scariest 6.66 Horror Films of All-Time

6.66 - Event Horizon (1997) - I'm putting this one last, er, first (descending order, y'all) on the list because I really don't even like it.  In fact, I kind of hate it.  But that doesn't take away from the fact that I won't watch it at 2AM on a dark and stormy Autumn night because it scares the living fuck out of me.  Okay?  So many things that bothered me about this film.  How do you hire an actor named Jack Noseworthy, fer instance.  That name is just plain silly.   But Sam Neill wandering around with his eyes gouged out, glimpses of some kind of Hell dimension that looks like it probably smells really bad?  That's creepy folks.  And note worthy.  No...I didn't say nose worthy.  Sheesh!

6 - The Devil's Rejects (2005) - Say what you will about Rob Zombie.  No...go head, say it.  But the man loves Horror.  And the true test of a true disciple is how well he can make a really good Horror Film on the cheap.  And that's kinda what Zombie did with TDR.  His first film, House of 1000 Corpses, was just too much.  Too much story, too much over-produced crappy film making.  Just too much.  So when it didn't do well at the box office, he had to cut back some on some of the bells and whistles for the sequel.  What emerged was a leaner, meaner, much more scary film than the first one.  Great music, great gags, lots of great performances and nobody named Noseworthy anywhere in the film.

5 - Halloween (1978) - Speaking of Rob Zombie.  No wait...this is the John Carpenter version.  The REAL fucking version.  Still the grand-daddy of all slasher flicks, in this reviewer's most humble opinion.  Sure, Black Christmas pre-dates and heaviliy influenced it, but this one was done right.  And really, nothing has come close since.  Just a madman with a mask and a knife killing teenagers for no apparent reason.  A classic tale of the boogeyman.  Nothing more and nothing less.  Forget all the crap about Laurie Strode being his sister or whatever the Druids or the Man in Black were doing in the sequels.  This is just pure terror...in William Shatner mask.

4 - Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (1973) - OK, don't judge me.  This, ahem...made-for-television film scared the bejeesus out of little Earl back in the day.  It was probably originally shown on a Sunday night and then replayed on local TV stations on Saturday afternoons all through my formative years.  And I had to watch it.  Every. Single. Time.  It's a little story about a woman who inherits the family homestead when someone or other bites it.  She finds a fireplace bricked up in the basement and thinks that it would be a good idea to open it up.  Guess she never saw a made-for-television Horror Film before, eh?  Well, she let's loose a bunch of pint-sized demons with wrinkly prune heads.  The hide in her plants and in her medicine cabinet and they really just wanna kill her.  So she can join them, ya see.  It would be sweet if it didn't haunt my nightmares for a decade or so.  I saw it again about ten years ago and it was pretty silly actually.  Until I turned the lights off that night.

3 - The Omen (1976) - Some people like Rosemary's Baby, and still others prefer The Exorcist when it comes to 1970's Horror.  Me?  Well, creepy little kids always scared me the most.  And the Rosemary's baby was just too young to be scary.  And Regan was a bit too old.  But little Damian?  He was just the right age to be the creepiest of the creepiest kids in those films.  Even with Gregory Peck chewing up the scenery all over the place.  I would imagine finding out that your son was really the Antichrist might have that effect on anyone.  I still get a little chill with that final shot of the film.  Damian, breaking the fourth wall and giving the audience a creepy little look.  This film is probably one of the main reasons why I never wanted kids.

2 - The Howling (1981) - You'll notice that there aren't a lot of vampires, zombies or werewolves on my list.  I've never really been scared by most of those kind of films.  I always thought they were more fun than scary, but I'm kind of a weirdo.  But this one is an exception to the rule.  Mostly.  There was a lot more camp in this one than I remembered, and the ending was just plain ridiculous.  But there are some awesome scenes of pure claustrophobic terror sandwiched in there as well.  This is another flick that has climbed my personal charts as the years tick on.  It's just so well done.  Except for the ending, of course.  Silly cutesy werewolves!

1 - The Shining (1980) - The more I see this one, the higher it moves up my list.  It's just so damn creepy and odd.  I used to be a pretty big fan of Stephen King when I was younger, but somehow that has faded over time.  But Stanley Kubrick's interpretation of King's haunted house novel (in many ways I thought Salem's Lot was a better haunted house novel, but that is neither here nor there) actually improved upon a very decent and frightening neo-classic in major ways.  The wide open spaces of the hotel and grounds only accentuate the ever encroaching madness embodied by Jack Torrance.  I really love this film.  And I love being scared by it even more.

What films, if any, scare you?

Note - I did a similar post back on Slyde's blog when I was first starting out with this blogging thing.  They haven't changed that much in the past few years. My descriptons of the films even sound the same.  Huh.

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Note: Remember to play the Bug-Eyed Trivia Challenge every day. You know what really scares me?  Your face.