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handful_ofdust, who's waaaay better at this than I am.
Day 1 - Your first horror movie: Poltergeist. My mom was watching it on TV and I (apparently; I was three at the time) crouched behind the sofa for almost the entire movie, watching it, absolutely fucking terrified yet somehow too scared to get up and stop watching it. I suspect this is at least in some part responsible for my belief that clowns are fucking evil.
Day 2 - The last horror movie you saw in the theater: Final Destination 5. DON'T JUDGE ME OKAY.
Day 3- Favorite classic horror movie: I'm putting Seconds in here because the ending legit freaked me out when I saw it a few years ago, even though strictly speaking it's science fiction.
Day 4- A horror movie you thought you'd love and didn't: Eh. I don't--I didn't love Mother of Tears? But Argento movies tend to be hit or miss, and even when they're a miss, like this one, they still have moments that make you go "WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK", because for real: the villain is undone by having someone remove her tunic. And not, like, The Flash, either: at normal human speeds.
Or--no, you know what, a later question reminded me of this: Clive Barker's The Plague, which starts off with a genuinely creepy premise--all the kids in the world go into waking comas for a number of years, then suddenly turn into a hivemind of feral monsters that kill every adult they find--and end it with a half-hour of bullshit involving Dawson Leery pulling a Jesus. And I am not saying that to mock James Van Der Beek! I actually like the guy! Just--oh my God, I cannot see that movie listed, or a DVD of it, without my eye twitching. AVOID AT ALL COSTS.
Day 5 - Favorite horror remake: I'm torn between The Ring and The Grudge here. Verbinski did a much better job than anyone thought translating Ringu to an American setting and audience, but The Grudge works as well as it does because it's set in Japan, with most of the cast in unfamiliar territory.
Day 6 - Favorite vampire movie: From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter. NO, SERIOUSLY. I love the first one, but the tone of the third, for whatever reason, really resonates with me. (Also, Orlando Jones is fucking terrifying. No, for real.)
Day 7 - A horror movie you think no one has seen: For some reason, I don't think a lot of people have seen Dread; it's either because it was part of the 8 Films to Die For traveling film festival that After Dark did for a number of years, or because it's an adaptation of a Clive Barker story. (I can't blame anyone for being hinky; Clive Barker movies are like Stephen King movies. They come in two flavors: "fucking amazing" and "fucking terrible".) But they manage to take his only non-supernatural story and make a genuinely unsettling movie about fear, and how it drives us, and what we're willing to do when we're in horrible and untenable places.
Day 8 - Favorite foreign horror: Oh, man. This is a lot.
As far as Asia goes, I'd say Dumplings (from Korea) and 13: Game of Death (from Thailand); Dumplings is rife for a black comedy American remake, and 13: Game of Death is a scathing look at reality TV and what desperate people will do for money. (That one's already getting an American remake.) Also Uzumaki, which crosses the line into fantasy more than horror (though it crosses right back), Battle Royale (an old favorite), and Suicide Club (still my all-time Japanese favorite).
Most recently, Eden Lake proved several things to me: a) I pretty much always like Michael Fassbender; b) I fucking hate teenagers; and c) I hate camping. The whole thing's spot-on, right up to the bleak ending. (I watch a lot of things with bleak endings, come to think of it. Not intentionally.) Also: Red Riding, which is less "horror" than "crime thriller", but the plausibility is what makes it more horrifying than most movies I've seen in the last couple of years.
Day 9 - Favorite supernatural horror movie: I don't know about "favorite", but I think The Last Exorcism got a bad rap, at least in part because Eli Roth produced it. (Full disclosure: I fucking love Eli Roth.) And, okay, "fakeout ending", but--not really, when you look back on it. It should have gotten a closer look than it did, and I think everyone--especially Patrick Fabian and Ashley Bell--did an amazing job. (Also, XMFC fans: see this for Caleb Landry Jones being super fucking creepy in all three scenes he's in.)
Day 10 - Horror movie everyone loves but you don't: I have never seen The Exorcist. I've read the book, but I haven't seen the movie. I see no real reason to fix that anytime soon.
Day 11 - Favorite horror/ comedy: Return of the Living Dead 1 & 2. 1 is a classic, for very good reason; 2 has possibly my favorite exchange ever ("Who's president?" "...Harry Truman?" "Don't go to the hospital.") and manages to be both a sequel and a remake, thanks to fucking awesome casting and in-jokes. (I also legitimately love 3, but that's not a comedy as much as it is a tragedy.)
Day 12 - Your most disturbing horror film: I wouldn't say it's my favorite, because I've only watched it once, but there's a reason for that: the last act of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre feels like I'm watching a goddamn snuff movie.
Runner-up: Deadgirl, which asks the question "What would teenage boys do when confronted with a hot woman who can't die tied down to a bed somewhere no one else can find her?" and...takes it to its logical (and fucking horrifying) conclusion.
Day 13 - Favorite zombie movie: Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead remake or 28 Weeks Later, which is very different from 28 Days Later but got a lot of (unwarranted, IMHO) flack for being a sequel; it's more a logical continuation of the story.
Day 14 - Favorite indie horror movie: Session 9; Pontypool; Home Movie.
Day 15 - Favorite monster movie: For actual monsters, it is really hard to beat Cloverfield; for human monsters, it's really hard to beat Eden Lake.
Day 16 - Horror film with a great soundtrack: I'm not really a soundtrack person as far as horror movies go--I know, I know, slap me now--but I have Charlie Clouser's "Hello Zepp" from Saw on my iPod. Say what you will about the movies: that piece, and all the remixes in the rest of the series, works like a champ.
Day 17 - Favorite 80's horror: Brian Yunza's Society. Billy Warlock finds out his sister's "coming out" into society has nothing to do with a debutante ball. It's one of the classics of the body horror subgenre, and it's really fucking hard to find on DVD; I actually watched it on YouTube. More people need to watch this; it's unsettling, and features--well, no, we'll get to that in a later question.
Day 18 - Favorite horror movie filmed in black and white: The original Night of the Living Dead, which is still creepy as shit all these years later.
Day 19 - Best use of gore: One of my recent favorites is Neighbor, which features a scene where the main character gets a hold of the hero's girlfriend. The gore is just realistic enough to be unsettling, especially considering it's a low-budget movie that's been hit-or-miss in terms of gore thus far.
Day 20 - [One of your f]avorite horror character[s]: Pinhead. Do not speak to me of Hellraiser: Revelations. No, really, don't.
Day 21 - Best horror franchise: I'm not going with "best" here, I'm going with "favorite": Hellraiser. Yeah, there's nine of 'em, and yeah, most of them are dirt-boring if not outright awful, but even the boring ones have one or two moments that glue your eyes to the screen. I'm doubtful that this is gonna continue, since Doug Bradley isn't Pinhead anymore--and what the hell, like there aren't more Cenobites?--but for the first eight, hell yes.
Day 22 - Best death scene: In Society, one of Billy Warlock's friends is caught by the group and "shunted"--fed upon by the group of rubber-bodied shapeshifters. (They're humanoid, but clearly not human, or at least a specific offshoot of humanity. It's never really explained.) The local judge, one of the leaders of the group, shoves his fist up the guy's ass and out his mouth. It's clearly 80s-level prosthetics work, not CGI, and it is creepy as all hell. Seriously, just--I watch a lot of horror movies, and weird things stick with me.
Day 23 - A great quote from a horror movie: "I never really liked you, Dave--but oh God, hold me tight!" - Return of the Living Dead
Day 24 - Horror movie character that describes you: I'd like to think I'm Angela from Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon: smart, funny, clearly terrified at what she's gotten herself into but not so scared she can't try and fix it.
Day 25 - Favorite Christmas/ holiday horror movie: I have never been a holiday horror movie kind of person, but for sheer creepy, it's hard to beat "dead Margot Kidder with her head in Saran Wrap, propped into the attic window" from the original Black Christmas.
Day 26 - Horror movie for a chicken (subtle or non-gory horror?): Really, any of the Amicus productions from the 70s, but most notably Tales From the Crypt and The Vault of Horror. The versions available on DVD aren't really gory; they imply more than they show, but they still manage to be creepy. And they're anthologies, so if you hate one story, there's another three or four right behind it.
Day 27- Your guilty pleasure horror movie: From Within. Yeah, the "Christians are evil" metaphor gets reeeeeally heavy-handed, and I just pinched my nose at how "witchcraft" was portrayed, but they really hit the "Florida is actually kind of religiously conservative in VERY STRANGE WAYS" bit on the head, and the way they used doppelgangers was unsettlingly plausible. Also, it features an honestly unnerving stinger over the closing credits.
Day 28- Horror film you'd like to see remade/ rebooted: Uh, nothing? I'm sure there's something I can think of with enough time, but I am so goddamn tired of reboots anymore.
Day 29 - Worst horror movie: I don't really hate a lot of things! Or I do, but not enough to rank 'em. Seriously, I'm the US Ambassador of Shitty Movies; I'd rather something be terrible (and mockable) than just goddamn boring. That said, Pulse is just...man. Kristen Bell and Ian Somerhalder in a remake of a classic J-horror film, and they manage to make it boring. How do you *do* that?
Day 30 - [Three of y]our favorite all time horror movie[s]: Creepshow, Jeepers Creepers, Race with the Devil.
handful_ofdust, who's waaaay better at this than I am.Day 1 - Your first horror movie: Poltergeist. My mom was watching it on TV and I (apparently; I was three at the time) crouched behind the sofa for almost the entire movie, watching it, absolutely fucking terrified yet somehow too scared to get up and stop watching it. I suspect this is at least in some part responsible for my belief that clowns are fucking evil.
Day 2 - The last horror movie you saw in the theater: Final Destination 5. DON'T JUDGE ME OKAY.
Day 3- Favorite classic horror movie: I'm putting Seconds in here because the ending legit freaked me out when I saw it a few years ago, even though strictly speaking it's science fiction.
Day 4- A horror movie you thought you'd love and didn't: Eh. I don't--I didn't love Mother of Tears? But Argento movies tend to be hit or miss, and even when they're a miss, like this one, they still have moments that make you go "WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK", because for real: the villain is undone by having someone remove her tunic. And not, like, The Flash, either: at normal human speeds.
Or--no, you know what, a later question reminded me of this: Clive Barker's The Plague, which starts off with a genuinely creepy premise--all the kids in the world go into waking comas for a number of years, then suddenly turn into a hivemind of feral monsters that kill every adult they find--and end it with a half-hour of bullshit involving Dawson Leery pulling a Jesus. And I am not saying that to mock James Van Der Beek! I actually like the guy! Just--oh my God, I cannot see that movie listed, or a DVD of it, without my eye twitching. AVOID AT ALL COSTS.
Day 5 - Favorite horror remake: I'm torn between The Ring and The Grudge here. Verbinski did a much better job than anyone thought translating Ringu to an American setting and audience, but The Grudge works as well as it does because it's set in Japan, with most of the cast in unfamiliar territory.
Day 6 - Favorite vampire movie: From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter. NO, SERIOUSLY. I love the first one, but the tone of the third, for whatever reason, really resonates with me. (Also, Orlando Jones is fucking terrifying. No, for real.)
Day 7 - A horror movie you think no one has seen: For some reason, I don't think a lot of people have seen Dread; it's either because it was part of the 8 Films to Die For traveling film festival that After Dark did for a number of years, or because it's an adaptation of a Clive Barker story. (I can't blame anyone for being hinky; Clive Barker movies are like Stephen King movies. They come in two flavors: "fucking amazing" and "fucking terrible".) But they manage to take his only non-supernatural story and make a genuinely unsettling movie about fear, and how it drives us, and what we're willing to do when we're in horrible and untenable places.
Day 8 - Favorite foreign horror: Oh, man. This is a lot.
As far as Asia goes, I'd say Dumplings (from Korea) and 13: Game of Death (from Thailand); Dumplings is rife for a black comedy American remake, and 13: Game of Death is a scathing look at reality TV and what desperate people will do for money. (That one's already getting an American remake.) Also Uzumaki, which crosses the line into fantasy more than horror (though it crosses right back), Battle Royale (an old favorite), and Suicide Club (still my all-time Japanese favorite).
Most recently, Eden Lake proved several things to me: a) I pretty much always like Michael Fassbender; b) I fucking hate teenagers; and c) I hate camping. The whole thing's spot-on, right up to the bleak ending. (I watch a lot of things with bleak endings, come to think of it. Not intentionally.) Also: Red Riding, which is less "horror" than "crime thriller", but the plausibility is what makes it more horrifying than most movies I've seen in the last couple of years.
Day 9 - Favorite supernatural horror movie: I don't know about "favorite", but I think The Last Exorcism got a bad rap, at least in part because Eli Roth produced it. (Full disclosure: I fucking love Eli Roth.) And, okay, "fakeout ending", but--not really, when you look back on it. It should have gotten a closer look than it did, and I think everyone--especially Patrick Fabian and Ashley Bell--did an amazing job. (Also, XMFC fans: see this for Caleb Landry Jones being super fucking creepy in all three scenes he's in.)
Day 10 - Horror movie everyone loves but you don't: I have never seen The Exorcist. I've read the book, but I haven't seen the movie. I see no real reason to fix that anytime soon.
Day 11 - Favorite horror/ comedy: Return of the Living Dead 1 & 2. 1 is a classic, for very good reason; 2 has possibly my favorite exchange ever ("Who's president?" "...Harry Truman?" "Don't go to the hospital.") and manages to be both a sequel and a remake, thanks to fucking awesome casting and in-jokes. (I also legitimately love 3, but that's not a comedy as much as it is a tragedy.)
Day 12 - Your most disturbing horror film: I wouldn't say it's my favorite, because I've only watched it once, but there's a reason for that: the last act of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre feels like I'm watching a goddamn snuff movie.
Runner-up: Deadgirl, which asks the question "What would teenage boys do when confronted with a hot woman who can't die tied down to a bed somewhere no one else can find her?" and...takes it to its logical (and fucking horrifying) conclusion.
Day 13 - Favorite zombie movie: Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead remake or 28 Weeks Later, which is very different from 28 Days Later but got a lot of (unwarranted, IMHO) flack for being a sequel; it's more a logical continuation of the story.
Day 14 - Favorite indie horror movie: Session 9; Pontypool; Home Movie.
Day 15 - Favorite monster movie: For actual monsters, it is really hard to beat Cloverfield; for human monsters, it's really hard to beat Eden Lake.
Day 16 - Horror film with a great soundtrack: I'm not really a soundtrack person as far as horror movies go--I know, I know, slap me now--but I have Charlie Clouser's "Hello Zepp" from Saw on my iPod. Say what you will about the movies: that piece, and all the remixes in the rest of the series, works like a champ.
Day 17 - Favorite 80's horror: Brian Yunza's Society. Billy Warlock finds out his sister's "coming out" into society has nothing to do with a debutante ball. It's one of the classics of the body horror subgenre, and it's really fucking hard to find on DVD; I actually watched it on YouTube. More people need to watch this; it's unsettling, and features--well, no, we'll get to that in a later question.
Day 18 - Favorite horror movie filmed in black and white: The original Night of the Living Dead, which is still creepy as shit all these years later.
Day 19 - Best use of gore: One of my recent favorites is Neighbor, which features a scene where the main character gets a hold of the hero's girlfriend. The gore is just realistic enough to be unsettling, especially considering it's a low-budget movie that's been hit-or-miss in terms of gore thus far.
Day 20 - [One of your f]avorite horror character[s]: Pinhead. Do not speak to me of Hellraiser: Revelations. No, really, don't.
Day 21 - Best horror franchise: I'm not going with "best" here, I'm going with "favorite": Hellraiser. Yeah, there's nine of 'em, and yeah, most of them are dirt-boring if not outright awful, but even the boring ones have one or two moments that glue your eyes to the screen. I'm doubtful that this is gonna continue, since Doug Bradley isn't Pinhead anymore--and what the hell, like there aren't more Cenobites?--but for the first eight, hell yes.
Day 22 - Best death scene: In Society, one of Billy Warlock's friends is caught by the group and "shunted"--fed upon by the group of rubber-bodied shapeshifters. (They're humanoid, but clearly not human, or at least a specific offshoot of humanity. It's never really explained.) The local judge, one of the leaders of the group, shoves his fist up the guy's ass and out his mouth. It's clearly 80s-level prosthetics work, not CGI, and it is creepy as all hell. Seriously, just--I watch a lot of horror movies, and weird things stick with me.
Day 23 - A great quote from a horror movie: "I never really liked you, Dave--but oh God, hold me tight!" - Return of the Living Dead
Day 24 - Horror movie character that describes you: I'd like to think I'm Angela from Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon: smart, funny, clearly terrified at what she's gotten herself into but not so scared she can't try and fix it.
Day 25 - Favorite Christmas/ holiday horror movie: I have never been a holiday horror movie kind of person, but for sheer creepy, it's hard to beat "dead Margot Kidder with her head in Saran Wrap, propped into the attic window" from the original Black Christmas.
Day 26 - Horror movie for a chicken (subtle or non-gory horror?): Really, any of the Amicus productions from the 70s, but most notably Tales From the Crypt and The Vault of Horror. The versions available on DVD aren't really gory; they imply more than they show, but they still manage to be creepy. And they're anthologies, so if you hate one story, there's another three or four right behind it.
Day 27- Your guilty pleasure horror movie: From Within. Yeah, the "Christians are evil" metaphor gets reeeeeally heavy-handed, and I just pinched my nose at how "witchcraft" was portrayed, but they really hit the "Florida is actually kind of religiously conservative in VERY STRANGE WAYS" bit on the head, and the way they used doppelgangers was unsettlingly plausible. Also, it features an honestly unnerving stinger over the closing credits.
Day 28- Horror film you'd like to see remade/ rebooted: Uh, nothing? I'm sure there's something I can think of with enough time, but I am so goddamn tired of reboots anymore.
Day 29 - Worst horror movie: I don't really hate a lot of things! Or I do, but not enough to rank 'em. Seriously, I'm the US Ambassador of Shitty Movies; I'd rather something be terrible (and mockable) than just goddamn boring. That said, Pulse is just...man. Kristen Bell and Ian Somerhalder in a remake of a classic J-horror film, and they manage to make it boring. How do you *do* that?
Day 30 - [Three of y]our favorite all time horror movie[s]: Creepshow, Jeepers Creepers, Race with the Devil.
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