• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Name your fave modern horror movies and why

Fools idol

Banned
Since I was a kid, I have had an intense passion for horror films and games. As I near my 35th birthday I have seen just about every western horror film ever released, from great to terrible, as well as thousands of asian masterpieces and duds to boot.

I spent my youth renting every one I could from our local videostore, spending all my weekends looking for obscure imports from Japan and lusting after something new and frightening. I had the type of parents that would be strict about age restricted content, so my hobby here was entirely in secret in the attic via a refurbished VHS and DVD player I stole from a neighbours garage one time.

For me, my top 5 is easy. By modern, I simply mean post black and white era. Other then the top spot these are not it any particular order, just my personal favourites.

1. Alien

It goes without saying, I love this film as many others do. It was the first one I saw, and it put my young mind into a state of terror at 9 years old. The sense of a truly destructive and evil entity of unknown origin, ancient and primal motives to kill, and the general uneasy setting of a claustrophobic spaceship was masterfully done by Ridley Scott.

2. Rosemary's baby

Secret cults, intruging plot, and a dark undertone that immerses the viewer in the mind of a vulnerable person being gaslighted and preyed upon. Whilst this film isn't remotely scary to me any more, and nothing compared to others on my list, it is a masterfully made film with a simple yet great plot.

3. Hereditary.

Ahhh, Ari Aster. I realise this one is quite marmite in nature, but a true modern masterwork in my eyes. The ties to it's inspirations are thinly veiled, and it reminds me a lot of Rosemary's baby again, but I say that in a positive way. I am a huge fan of mystery in horror, and this movie has subtle cults and folklore to boot.

Incredibly dark and intense subject matter, brilliantly acted, disturbing body horror and a thick atmosphere that filled me with dread from the first half an hour. The ending buildup and eerie clues throughout the film are excellently done. This one is worth multiple watches to catch all the clues you missed as Ari Aster laid them on plain sight.

4. Texas Chainsaw Massacre (original)

Imho the greatest of it's era, a secluded farmhouse in the middle of nowhere and a deeply disturbed family of fucking nutjobs and a chainsaw, and a bunch of hapless idiot teenagers. It spawned a whole culture, and many tried to mimic it's harrowing nature and brutal scenes.

5. Noroi: The Curse

For me, Japanese horror is all at it's best when it's psychological. The delicious fear of the unknown and the often bizarre execution asian horror films have. Many will name the obvious choices like Grudge, Ring, and all the other-decent-yet samey ghost stories.

Noroi on the other hand took my expectations for Japanese horror flicks and kurbstomped it into dust. This film is horrendously intense, slow burning, and psychologically disturbing.

You never quite know what the fuck is going on, what the characters are hiding and even better, what the curse actually is until the devastating final scenes... and enough is left to the imagination that you feel isolated and alone while watching the events play out. I often found myself pausing the film and rewinding it looking for clues or to better understand what was going on.

There is a ton of symbology in here, and excellent (slow) pacing.

So GAF, what are yours and why?
 
Last edited:
The Void. An absolutely glorious return to practical FX body horror the likes of which we haven't seen since Carpenter's The Thing or Cronenberg's The Fly, with a nice topping of Lovecraftian monstrosities. A fun ride for sure.
Also, Mad God which just came out on Shudder. A stop motion animation 30 years in the making, it's a no-brainer if you love stop motion stuff.
 

Fools idol

Banned
The Void. An absolutely glorious return to practical FX body horror the likes of which we haven't seen since Carpenter's The Thing or Cronenberg's The Fly, with a nice topping of Lovecraftian monstrosities. A fun ride for sure.
Also, Mad God which just came out on Shudder. A stop motion animation 30 years in the making, it's a no-brainer if you love stop motion stuff.

holy shit Phil Tippet? I'm in.
 

SpiceRacz

Member
At work and can't go in depth ATM, but my list would be

  1. The Shining
  2. A Nightmare on Elm Street
  3. Cemetery Man
  4. Fright Night (1985)
  5. Dead Alive
 

kondorBonk

Member
Not a bad list. There are just so many tiny categories that it's hard to choose a single one. You got one for every occasion. All Time I think would have to also be "The Thing".

There is one horror movie that really stuck with me lately though. That's the German version of "Funny Games". Just the simplicity of it and potential real world evil left you feeling very gross.

Adventures like Alien, Pandorum, Jaws, IT,
Slashers like Halloween, Scream, The Fog.
Psychological/Unsettling: Cape Fear, Silence of the Lambs, The Shining
Fun: They Live, Evil Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Turker and Dale, Drag me to Hell, Cabin in the Woods
Cult: Midsomer, Hereditary, Serpant and the Rainbow
Symbolism: It Follows, Get Out
Demonic: Exorsist, Conjuring, Jeepers Creepers, Poltergeist,
Western: Bone Tomahawk
Snuff: Hostel, Martyrs, Green Inferno, House that Jack Built
Hillbilly: Texas Chainsaw, House of 1000 Corpses, Hills Have Eyes
Lovecraftian: The Void, Event Horizon, From Beyond
Fantasy: Pans Labyrinth, Let the Right one In, the Majority of Stephen King properties.
Monster: Hellraiser, Gozilla, ...Kind of an outdated lost category.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
Good job OP allows going back 40+ years, cos modern horror movies are mostly so mediocre.

Not surprising really as you can't really do proper, balls-out horror in an era of micro-aggressions! When the demand is to be PC, how can you even credibly threaten transgression and danger? Its funny really because there's more gore than ever in mainstream stuff, but its mostly weightless, empty spectacle.
 

k_trout

Member
not sure about what is defined as horror but my favourite is
Ru7ASTj.jpg
 

Bartski

Gold Member
Most modern horror is pure garbage. I'm not talking about the unintentionally funny / deliberately shit B horror, that's different. I mean the real deal stuff that is supposed to be scary.

Ari Aster saves the genre for me with Hereditary (probably best one in a decade+) and Midsommar which is not exactly horror but excellent nonetheless.

Sinister (2012) comes to mind, is rather good. Avoid the sequel at all costs.

The Void. An absolutely glorious return to practical FX body horror the likes of which we haven't seen since Carpenter's The Thing or Cronenberg's The Fly, with a nice topping of Lovecraftian monstrosities. A fun ride for sure.
Also, Mad God which just came out on Shudder. A stop motion animation 30 years in the making, it's a no-brainer if you love stop motion stuff.

wow never heard of it. I just watched the trailer and I'm streaming it tonight thanks.
 
I came into the thread thinking about seeing a list of "modern" horror movies, and instead there's 40 year old movies here.

As for modern horror movies:

Enjoyed The Conjuring series
The Insidious series
Cabin in the Woods (not sure if horror or comedy)
It (recent one, although I enjoyed the original too)
Evil Dead (2013)-movie was horrific compared to the campy original with Bruce, which I also enjoy
Spit on Your Grave 2- Somehow more fucked up than the original and the remake.
 

Aesius

Member
The Witch and The Conjuring are great. I also thought a few episodes of Haunting of Hill House were excellent. The Top Hat Man features in one of the greatest horror scenes I've watched in a very long time.
 
Last edited:

poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
The Collector and the sequel The Collection were fun gore/torture porn fests.
The Midnight Meat Train was as gross and disturbing as the title suggests but was also an actual movie.
Vacancy was not bad, creepy and claustrophobic.
 

sCHOCOLATE

Member
The Void. An absolutely glorious return to practical FX body horror the likes of which we haven't seen since Carpenter's The Thing or Cronenberg's The Fly, with a nice topping of Lovecraftian monstrosities. A fun ride for sure.
Also, Mad God which just came out on Shudder. A stop motion animation 30 years in the making, it's a no-brainer if you love stop motion stuff.
Intrigued. Will watch The Void tonight.
 

DGrayson

Mod Team and Bat Team
Staff Member
I dont have any lists. I would say I am a horror fan but not a HUGE fan, tons I still havent seen.

Some good ones that jump out

Alien
The VVitch
Suspiria (1977) (dat soundtrack)
The Omen
Evil Dead (OG)
Hellraiser
In the Mouth of Madness


Tons more I cant even think of right now lol
 

FunkMiller

Member
The Thing is the top example of how to do atmosphere and SFX in horror
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre started an entire genre of movie making that is still aped to this day.
The Exorcist made horror bankable to the general public at the cinema.
The Evil Dead was a kinetic masterpiece that proved good horror could be done on a miniscule budget.
A Nightmare On Elm Street was the pinnacle of creative, 80s horror that exemplified the popularity of multiple sequels.

They are the five most important horror movies ever made.

But my actual personal top five are:

Hellraiser
A Nightmare On Elm Street
The Evil Dead
Saw
The Thing
 
Last edited:

Kssio_Aug

Member
I have not watched many horror movies, but the ones I enjoyed the most were REC and Dawn of the Dead (2004).

rec-cover.jpg
dawn-of-the-dead-dvd-movie-cover.jpg


Very close behind:
- Alien
- The Shinning
- Get Out
- Pan's Labyrinth

I know they're not that scary, and also that Pan's Labyrinth is not actually considered a horror movie (but it totally felt like it to me), but they were all very awesome and tense movies to watch! I had a great experience with them!

And some honorable mentions:
- The VVitch (was super scary)
- The Lighthouse
- Prometheus

Btw, for those who never watched REC, I highly recommend it... such a great movie! The sequels are trash though.
 
Last edited:

spawn

Member
I'm seeing a lot of old 40 year old movies being mentioned in here.

1. Evil Dead (2013)- I loved the blood and brutality of it
2. The Green Inferno- Not a good movie to watch while eating. It is absolutely disgusting and made me sick to my stomach. It makes the list because of how brutal and taboo it is.
3. Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)- Great moments in here. Just a fun movie to watch
4. Conjuring series- Good jump scares and creepy
5. IT (2017)- Pennywise is creepy and just a good horror movie villain
 
Last edited:

BlvckFox

Gold Member
There hasn’t been a single horror movie that has affected me quite like Hereditary, that movie lived with me for weeks.

The Witch, fucking brilliant and equally horrifying. It made me completely understand the stupid shit people did during the Salem Trials.

As I type this I am realizing how relatively grounded both films were. While they were supernatural, they never felt overly whimsical or out of the realm of possibility. I felt like I was watching real events torture real families.
 

Fools idol

Banned
Hereditary is the only modern horror movie that scared the shit out of me as an adult. Very unsettling experience.

Indeed, me too. It's a primary reason for it's place on my top 5.

There is a lot to be said for Midsommar as well, his work is fantastic. I just felt like Hereditary captured a world that was full of truly horrible things, people and events.

My particular favourite scenes were the fishing wire scene, the burning man, and the entire ending sequence. It was just such a mesmerising and unsettling film from start to finish, something that I hadn't seen the likes of in at least 20 years. Aster has a way of using very 'normal' looking actors to plat characters that we all know and can relate to and I think that is why it resonated so much with me. The child actress had a very distinct face that I believe he deliberately looked for so that she stood out from your typical horror movie cast of 'generic white family kids' if you know what I mean.

I felt like I saw that horrible little kids severed head burned in my mind for months. On the way out my wife, who is usually completely numb to all scary movies, turned to me and said 'that made me feel so uneasy'. I just remember driving home feeling slightly nauseous and in awe of what I just watched, I hadn't even seen a trailer so went in blind.

the way the 'scare' scenes were filmed just felt so natural and WTF - especially the attic scene and the sounds you hear without seeing thinking 'what the fuck is that noise' and the gut punching dread I realised what I was actually hearing. So fucked up!

The lore of Paimon and the book of demons was truly disturbing as well, I find a lot of occult themes really well done in Asters work.

I don't quite understand how it isn't much higher rated by critics and what not. Baffling.
 
Last edited:

dr_octagon

Banned
Heredity plays on a lot of the fears on not being part of the family, illness, loss and the emotional burden.

There are the usual horror elements but it keeps the uneasy tone. The indifference, weird interactions and normally mundane activities turned into something dark.

The dinner scene dealing with the aftermath is really well done just as a piece of drama. It sets a lot of context and add to the tone.

#tock #peanuts
 
The Thing is the top example of how to do atmosphere and SFX in horror
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre started an entire genre of movie making that is still aped to this day.
The Exorcist made horror bankable to the general public at the cinema.
The Evil Dead was a kinetic masterpiece that proved good horror could be done on a miniscule budget.
A Nightmare On Elm Street was the pinnacle of creative, 80s horror that exemplified the popularity of multiple sequels.

They are the five most important horror movies ever made.

But my actual personal top five are:

Hellraiser
A Nightmare On Elm Street
The Evil Dead
Saw
The Thing

The Thing Practical effects have AGED. I seen better. Still a good movie though
 

haxan7

Volunteered as Tribute
I don't know what I was expecting, but I went in on release day and watched this all the way through from beginning to end. It's so bad in parts I actually choked on a little bit of vomit that came up at one point. I was so genuinely traumatized that I ended up talking through it with a therapist a few times. I am doing a lot better now.

ghostbusters.jpg
 

SafeOrAlone

Banned
Good job OP allows going back 40+ years, cos modern horror movies are mostly so mediocre.

Not surprising really as you can't really do proper, balls-out horror in an era of micro-aggressions! When the demand is to be PC, how can you even credibly threaten transgression and danger? Its funny really because there's more gore than ever in mainstream stuff, but its mostly weightless, empty spectacle.
Modern horror has been great though. Hereditary, Midsommar, The Witch, to name a few.
 

Days like these...

Have a Blessed Day
There are lots of good modern horror films but people are lazy and would rather complain than seek them out. Just off the top of my head in the past few years.
1. Caveat
2. Saint Maud
3. Posessor
4. You Are Not My Mother
5. The Night House
6. The Maid
 

Represent.

Represent(ative) of bad opinions
You liked that ending?
Loved it.

The Demon is just fucking with them because it can, he's evil. Evil does what evil does. The daughter dies, the father has his soul taken, the demon wins. Nothing else to it.
 
Last edited:

Days like these...

Have a Blessed Day
Loved it.

The Demon is just fucking with them because it can, he's evil. Evil does what evil does. The daughter dies, the husband has his soul taken, the demon wins. Nothing else to it.
Don't get me wrong I loved it till the very last scene. I thought it was goofy and ruined the tone of the film.
 
Last edited:

Represent.

Represent(ative) of bad opinions
Just that goofy jump scare at the end was corny. Like I said I loved the film but that last scene ruined it.
I see. I dont even remember a jump scare in the entire film. Sure there was probably 1 or 2 though.
I thought the one in shower with the father was expertly done
 
Top Bottom