I do not share the common esteem for the original Dawn of the Dead. Otherwise, I’m fine with the top 10 placements.
posted by Lemkin at 3:06 PM on April 11

Spoilers!!!

Still a ways from the end. Back in a bit...
posted by Windopaene at 3:08 PM on April 11

I've always found Jaws to be a hilarious movie. Like in the end the shark has a personal vendetta against the guys in the boat.

I'm surprised no-one has ever made a movie where the evil sharks have specific enemies.

The Omen is my personal favorite horror movie. I think it's ranked a bit low, but overall it's fine.

Most of the older ones, I've never seen.

I also find most horror movies kind of silly, like every homicidal maniac spends all day getting buff to perform amazing acts of strength to make their killings cooler, including The Silence of the Lambs. Most horror movies don't really explore that either. Also blood has a really strong smell - like you can murder someone behind a door and no one notices.
posted by The_Vegetables at 3:08 PM on April 11 [2 favorites]

I think the top 10 is solid but there are a lot of problems with the higher up parts of the list. More on that later.

I recently watched the entire Omen series including the newest ones with a friend. We enjoyed every moment of it from beginning to end.
posted by supermedusa at 3:11 PM on April 11 [1 favorite]

The reason Rosemary's Baby is a fantastic horror story is because it would still be a horror story without the satanists. Rosemary's relationship is quite enough on its own. 🎀 𝒿𝓊𝓈𝓉 𝑔𝒾𝓇𝓁𝓎 𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓃𝑔𝓈 🎀

I think it was about 10 years ago that I realized Rosemary's Baby and Stepford Wives were written by the same guy, and I became such an Ira Levin stan after that. I know we were just talking about science fiction... the tv show Travelers was loosely based on his This Perfect Day, and The Boys from Brazil is quite good Nazi spec fic.
posted by phunniemee at 3:13 PM on April 11 [5 favorites]

I've always found Jaws to be a hilarious movie. Like in the end the shark has a personal vendetta against the guys in the boat.

maybe Bruce read the book
posted by phunniemee at 3:14 PM on April 11 [1 favorite]

(One of my hobbies is reading books that became movies, and if you have never had the pleasure yourself, you should just trust me that Jaws is an absolutely godawful book. For what became a movie that's nearly perfect. Incredible. Never seen another book get ratioed so hard, and I've read some real garbage.)
posted by phunniemee at 3:17 PM on April 11 [5 favorites]

That's ... not a terrible selection, actually. I think I've seen 98 of these (not The Old Dark House or The Devils, which is out of print in the U.S.). That said, I'm not convinced it's necessary to include both The Evil Dead and The Evil Dead II, and I'd be hard-pressed to overstate how much I hated Salo / 120 Days of Sodom (I nearly vomited twice--like, literally fighting my gorge and just-barely not vomiting, twice).

Also, and it pains me to say this because Silence of the Lambs is literally my problematic fave--the movie I have seen more than any other--but there are libraries' worth of debate about whether it's horror or thriller. Still, if quibbling like this is the worst I can say about a list ... good job?
posted by johnofjack at 3:18 PM on April 11 [1 favorite]

I’m surprised no-one has ever made a movie where the evil sharks have specific enemies.

That’s the plot of Jaws: The Revenge.
posted by macdara at 3:27 PM on April 11 [3 favorites]

I think Silence of the Lambs is both. There is a lot of horror in this film.
There is also a lot of thriller in this film.

It's a disturbing film as we get the horror and the thriller.

And as for the list, Well not a huge fan of The Shining, or, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, though see how the latter took horror in a different direction.

Very glad to see The Thing make the top 10...
(Just fucking terrifying)
posted by Windopaene at 3:28 PM on April 11

Number 1 is what you rightly expect it to be. And you won’t be surprised by which scene it calls the most upsetting. The scene that literally drove me from the room screaming on my first viewing attempt as a young teenager.
posted by Lemkin at 3:35 PM on April 11

Feels like there's some 60s/70s/80s movies in there that are sentimental nods and could be replaced with some of the amazing 2010s/20s movies (it's a good time for horror). No, I can't pull out specifics at the moment (though The Void, Beyond the Black Rainbow, and Mandy are all missing).
posted by kokaku at 3:35 PM on April 11 [1 favorite]

Although not classified as such, the film that filled me with the greatest feelings of horror and dread is Fail Safe.
posted by kinnakeet at 3:37 PM on April 11 [3 favorites]

No love for Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives? Bah!

But seriously, I can quibble and split all the hairs I want, but there are great films in this list that people may have never seen before so if this encourages them to watch, that’s great.
posted by macdara at 3:38 PM on April 11 [1 favorite]

(Also, I genuinely love Friday the 13th Part VI. It’s the best one.)
posted by macdara at 3:39 PM on April 11

Was the Vampires out in the desert with Salma Hayek in there? Bruce Campbell? Pretty good.
posted by Windopaene at 3:44 PM on April 11

Like the SF list, this one is way to heavily weighted towards English-language and "worthy" films.

Braindead? Eh, OK, fine.

All 3 Romero zombie films? Maybe they could have been given one slot. I'd have done the same with the two Invasion of the Body Snatchers and maybe added the new Candyman as a reworking of the original which treated the first one with affection and grace.

Susperia (1977) is too high and leaving the vastly more ambitious and successful Susperia (2018) off is a crime. Of course, Italian horror is a huge disappointment to me, although I realize a lot of people love it (although I think that is a nostalgia for a time when there wasn't much else to rent at the video store).

Scream, Lake Mungo, The Descent, and Session 9 are too low.

I think Hereditary totally lost its way in the last quarter, and thereby marred a brilliant performance by Toni Collette. Sixth Sense is not a best of anything.

Ju-On, The Borderlands/Final Prayer, and something by Ty West (probably House of the Devil, although I prefer The Innkeepers) belong on there.

As usual, they kind of blur "best," "worthy," and "influential" in a way that's not always helpful. There's very little on the list that's not worth watching, though, and they did include The Changeling, so the list could be worse.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:47 PM on April 11 [1 favorite]

I agree with a number of the choices, particularly in the top 20. However, it's missing Prince of Darkness, The Exorcist III, Wolf Creek, and Event Horizon. And Candyman should be much, much higher on the list (or at least higher than Scream).
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 3:47 PM on April 11 [4 favorites]

This is a pretty good list. I tend to differ on these because I generally rate English language possession and/or Satanic child movies a full grade or two lower than the consensus. I also think It is a reach for this list.

Train to Busan feels like a pretty big omission.

And unless I missed one, there are no Indonesian films on this list at all, which is somewhere between shameful and silly.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 3:48 PM on April 11 [3 favorites]

That's not a bad list. I appreciate the range, including older classics, giallo, thrillers, J-horror, science fiction, some new ones, etc.

What I would have added, displacing some:

Dracula (1931), both the English and Spanish language version. Obviously.

The Black Cat (1934). So, so good and strange. Karloff! Lugosi (who speaks Hungarian)! A Crowley parody! Scary modernist architecture and central European WWI trauma!

Onibaba (鬼婆) (1964). Utterly bleak and despairing, yet fiercely energetic. And the mask.

Se7en (1995). Forget the serial killer subgenre it kicked off, the memes, people copyright its credits style. This remains ferociously powerful.

One Cut of the Dead (2017). It's hard to pull off a combination of zombie film, play within a play, and comedy, but it does so splendidly.

Plus one Quatermass. Probably Quatermass and the Pit (also Five Million Years to Earth) (1967).
posted by doctornemo at 3:51 PM on April 11 [1 favorite]

Although not classified as such, the film that filled me with the greatest feelings of horror and dread is Fail Safe.

Yeah, that's a different and worthy topic. Add Threads, The Day After, Testament, Special Bulletin. And for me, the news reports about Jonestown.
posted by doctornemo at 3:54 PM on April 11 [3 favorites]

Threads is harrowing.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 3:55 PM on April 11

And, although I had issues with it, I think I saw the TV Glow probably should have a place on the list. It's very powerful.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:01 PM on April 11 [1 favorite]

I was happy to see the 40s Cat People on the list... that film is amazing. Agree with others that they should have opened some slots by combining Romero's Movies, the Bodies Snatchers, both Suspirias, the Frankenstein variants.

I will say that they chose the right 2 werewolf movies tho A Company of Wolves probably deserves to be in there too.
posted by kokaku at 4:02 PM on April 11 [3 favorites]

Not to be a spoilsport, but (though I haven't seen all 100) I actually ... agree with most of the list--leaving aside the notion that one film can be exactly four notches better or worse than another. Fun read, and now I have some movies to re-watch as well as some to watch for the first time.
posted by scratch at 4:02 PM on April 11 [1 favorite]

Of Jane Schoenbrun's movies, We're All Going to the World's Fair is the better pure horror movie. I don't really understand calling I Saw the TV Glow a horror movie (other than thematically in a trans existential sense), even tho it was definitely presented that way in the trailer.
posted by kokaku at 4:05 PM on April 11 [2 favorites]

Agreed on Prince of Darkness, which is so fine in its crack-brained, low budget way. You may not look at Mountain Dew the same way again.

And The Exorcist III is far better than one might expect.
posted by doctornemo at 4:07 PM on April 11 [4 favorites]

And The Exorcist III is far better than one might expect.

Greatest jump scare in film history, you ask me.
posted by Lemkin at 4:22 PM on April 11 [2 favorites]

The antithesis of a jump scare is the scene with the ball bouncing down the stairs in The Changeling. Not sudden, just sort of... inevitable.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:32 PM on April 11 [1 favorite]

And The Exorcist III is far better than one might expect.

Greatest jump scare in film history, you ask me.

And Brad Dourif automatically elevates any film that he is in.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 4:35 PM on April 11 [4 favorites]

Every frame of Exorcist III is crafted meticulously, to the point of exhaustion for the view (in my humble opinion). You keep going, "Wow... wow... WOW..." (and of course the greatest jump scare ever, yes) and you're wiped out after a bit.

And absolutely see Jaws: The Revenge, The_Vegetables. It is really something.

Okay, off to to actually rtfa now...
posted by queensissy at 4:41 PM on April 11 [1 favorite]

Train to Busan feels like a pretty big omission.

I am not a horror aficionado or even fan, in general, but there are some movies on this list I love very much—Jaws, Alien, The Thing. I also love Train to Busan, but wasn't sure I had the standing to say, "What about Train to Busan?" I've seen things on this list that are either classic movies, or that came out when I was a young thing in the 70s and 80s, watching tons and tons of movies and not really yet working out which genres I actually liked and which ones I'm not especially interested in. Every now and then I watch a horror movie because I hear a lot about how good it is, and I think this is how I found my way to Train to Busan. I've seen it several times and think it's an absolutely great movie, and I thank you for bringing it up in this thread because I wondered about its absence but would not have spoken up. I'd love to hear what other people think of it.
posted by Well I never at 4:43 PM on April 11 [2 favorites]

Exorcist III. 🚶✂️
posted by clavdivs at 4:46 PM on April 11 [3 favorites]

🤸
posted by clavdivs at 4:48 PM on April 11 [1 favorite]

That's a pretty solid list. A few recent things on there that I think are overrated and could have been replaced by superior foreign scaries, but really, not bad. I'm very happy to see The Old Dark House here (maybe the first horror comedy?).
posted by queensissy at 4:56 PM on April 11

I'm really stuck on them leaving out Indonesia.

If you're a horror fan and you aren't familiar with say, the films of Joko Anwar, consider that a huge blind spot you will want to correct right away.

My favorite is either Satan's Slaves 2 or Grave Torture. They've got their own vibe, with a strong sense of place, rich folklore, sharp filmmaking, and serious shocks.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 5:06 PM on April 11 [2 favorites]

I'm surprised no-one has ever made a movie where the evil sharks have specific enemies.

Not a shark, but an Orca.
posted by SPrintF at 5:19 PM on April 11 [2 favorites]

Jaws: The Revenge is about how even the great white sharks in the Bahamas have it in for the Brody family (from Massachusetts).
posted by DirtyOldTown at 5:34 PM on April 11 [1 favorite]

Good list! I would have put Night of the Living Dead at number 1. instead of number 2. But it's hard to argue with Lake Mungo as the top choice. (It's a shame Romero didn't go on to make any more movies.) I also would have swapped places between Impetigore and The Exorcist. But I agree with Ghosts of Mars being ranked higher than The Shining. Making Caveat and The Oddity share a spot in the top ten seemed a little unfair though. :(
posted by fruit on little sticks at 5:46 PM on April 11

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