Machinesworking wrote:oblique strategies wrote:Machinesworking wrote:The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. If you like horror movies, this one is amazing. I forgot how well it just keeps building tension.
"Look what your brother did to the damn door!!!"
Damn good film.
One of a small handful of milestone films that include:
Psycho
Night of The Living Dead
The Exorcist
The Shining
Each one just BLASTED the parameters of the horror film, & opened new doors into terror.
Just posted that EXACT list on another board.
You following me?
You could include Videodrome, The Thing, Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer, and the first Alien. Every non horror fan likes Aliens better, but the Alien costumes and sets weren't half as good, and it basically was an action movie.
Another movie often overlooked is Night of the Hunter. Freaky as hell!
I'm stalking you...
Good calls all the way around. I wanted to include a Cronenberg flick, but couldn't really put one of his movies in exactly the same league as the other movies I mentioned (even though I think Cronenberg is one of the very best directors working in the field). A particular Cronenberg fave is Dead Ringers (1988); dark as hell.
My reasoning is because the other flicks were also break out flicks, meaning they had a big influence on the mainstream as well as the horror genre (mainly because they were so frightening to almost everyone who saw them, horror fan or not). I guess you could argue that Cronenberg's break out flick was The Fly. Hee hee hee.
Texas Chainsaw may have actually had the least influence on the mainstream -regardless of it's absolutely epic impact on the horror genre. I don't really think it spawned all the slaher films -that was John Carpenter (imitating Dario Argento & Mario Bava).
I was very disappointed in Aliens; like you say: just an overblown action film. I actually like Alien 3 the best -so very bleak.
Night of The Hunter (the 1955 version) is an excellent film. It was actor Charles (Hunchback of Notre Dame) Laughton's only film as a director. Really scary stuff!
I was also thinking of adding The Haunting (1963), probably the biggest break out ghost story put on film.
As for vampires, I'm going to mention George Romero's Martin (1977). While hardly a break out film, quite the opposite in fact, it is probably the best re-visioning of the vampire from a gothic to a modern character.
