Horror Marathon 2016 wrap-up

Ok, this year I went above and beyond the call of duty, I watched 36 horror films in the month of October,  more than I have ever before.  Out of those, only seven of those I had seen before, and you will note that many of those are at the top of my list, for good reason.

Each year this gets harder to do, yeah there’s still plenty of horror movies out there, but they are either really  awful movies, like some of them that endured or I can’t get a hold of the films.  I watched all of these films through Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and Shudder.  I miss the video stores.  I miss going in to a place where I can look around at VHS covers and pick a strange horror film.  So accessibility is a major problem now and a total bummer.  There are a bunch of films (all genres) that I would love to see, but you either can’t find, or I have to purchase them for a considerable amount.

That all said, here is my list, as it stands today of the films I saw in RANKING.  Yeah, it’s crazy, I will totally change it at some point, and I’m sure people will argue why this one or that should be higher.

1.  The Thing
2. Alien
3. Exorcist
4. Poltergeist
5. Blair Witch Project
6. The Entity
7. Day of the Dead
8. The Witch
9. Monsters
10. 1984
11. Cannibal Holocaust
12. Invitation
13. Night Train to Terror
14. The Taking of Deborah Logan
15. Faces of Death
16. Santa Sangre
17. We are Still Here
18. The Blob
19. Re-animator
20. Theater of Blood
21. American Werewolf in London
22. House on Haunted Hill
23. Conjuring 2
24. Pontypool
25. House
26. Hell Night
27. Phantasm 2
28. The Circle
29. The Fury
30. Brain Damaged
31. Poor Pretty Eddie
32. Willow Creek
33. The Missionary
34. Green Inferno
35. Sharknado
36. Knock, Knock

Now time for my analysis.  The first ones were easy, the last films were easy and everything in the middle is a mess, really hard to say.   Is Night Train to Terror really that much better than Theater of Blood?  Well, it’s hard to say, but I liked it more, felt it had more moments and would recommend it.  It’s subjective.

I’m also not saying that Blair Witch Project is the #5 greatest horror movie of all time, but out of THIS list, I think it has the most horror moments and theme that the others, although that could be debated, surely.  Positions #5-10 is tricky, all of those are pretty good, but not amazing.  The bottom 10 is not a surprise, but I would say ALL these films should be seen as a horror fan, except for Knock, Knock, Green Inferno and Sharkado, just skip those.

The Thing barely beats out Alien, mainly because I consider it much more of a horror film, while Alien has more sci-fi elements but has the best production and art direction of any film.  If the Shining was on my list it would be #1.  Jaws would be #2 probably.  Exorcist and Poltergeist are brilliant and one is barely better than the other.  Blair Witch is in a strange spot, but I couldn’t find a place for it, and as I looked on the list, it kept going higher and higher.

I was really surprised by how much I liked The Entity.  That is a film you should definitely see.  Some might not like that it is higher than Day of the Dead, but I don’t think Day of the Dead is the best of Romero’s films.  The Witch is high I know, but I really liked it.  Cannibal Holocaust is high too, and most probably haven’t seen it, but it struct a cord in me for some reason and I like the ideas that they were trying to go for, plus they filmed in the Amazon, extra points for that.  Night Train to Terror is another must see recommendation from me.  It’s crazy.  Even though Brain Damaged and Pretty Poor Eddie are low on the list, I kinda want to recommend them for you to watch.  There’s also a good handful of forgettable ones, House on Haunted Hill, Theater of Blood, House, Hell Night, Phantasm 2, these are good and have their fans but I wouldn’t say you gotta see them, unless you are a big fan.

That’s it for me.  I’m taking a break from the blood and guts for a while.

Andres

Andres Salazar is the author of the horror western comics www.pariahmissouri.com