There are some more explicit key scenes – a potential nighttime rape and a chilling climax – that serve to get right under our skin without making the whole premise seem ridiculous. This is the intelligent, subtle face of horror, as Polanski limits the specifics to a minimum and keeps us guessing as to how much is going on merely in the mind of Mia Farrow’s character as she comes to believe she’s been impregnated by a creepy bunch of well-to-do Manhattanites with a connection to the occult. It’s hard enough moving into a flat and trying to start a family without having to wrestle with the enveloping suspicion that your new neighbours might be satanists dead-set on parenting a demon child via you. And make no mistake: The Exorcist is most definitely a horror film: though it may be filled with rigorously examined ideas and wonderfully observed character moments, its primary concern is with shocking, scaring and, yes, horrifying its audience out of their wits – does mainstream cinema contain a more upsetting image than the crucifix scene? That it still succeeds, almost four decades later, is testament to Friedkin’s remarkable vision.Ĭast: Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon In cutting from the clanging bazaars of Iraq to the quiet streets of Georgetown, in blending dizzying dream sequences with starkly believable human drama, Friedkin created a horror movie like no other – both brutal and beautiful, artful and exploitative, exploring wacked-out religious concepts with the clinical precision of an agnostic scientist. The first to achieve that blend with absolute certainty was The Exorcist – which perhaps explains its position as the unassailable winner of this poll. The first film to attempt to bring the two together was Rosemary’s Baby, but Polanski’s heart clearly belonged to the surreal. On the other, there were the more outrageous dream-horrors popular in Europe, the work of Hammer Studios in the UK and Mario Bava and Dario Argento in Italy, films that prized artistry, oddity and explicit gore over narrative logic. □ The 15 scariest horror movies based on true storiesĬast: Ellen Burstyn, Linda Blair, Jason Miller, Max von Sydowīy the ’70s, horror had divided into two camps: on one hand, there were the ‘real life’ terrors of Psycho and Night of the Living Dead, films that brought horror into the realm of the everyday, making it all the more shocking. □ Cinema’s creepiest anthology horror movies Written by Tom Huddleston, Cath Clarke, Dave Calhoun, Nigel Floyd, Phil de Semlyen, David Ehrlich, Joshua Rothkopf, Nigel Floyd, Andy Kryza, Alim Kheraj and Matthew Singer There is, after all, more than one way to scare someone – and these movies do it better than all others. Some stretch the boundaries of what can be shown on screen, but others can raise the hairs on your arms through mere suggestion. After all, every film exists to make an audience feel something – and what makes you feel more than a good horror movie? Among our picks, you’ll find films that mine universal human fears, whether it’s the fear of death and disease or more specific phobias. But let this list of the greatest horror movies ever made repudiate the idea that the genre has ever been of lesser value than others. Visionary auteurs like Ari Aster and Jordan Peele, and leftfield hits like A Quiet Place, It Follows and Get Out have brought horror to a higher standing in the cinematic universe. Only recently has that started to change. But that phenomenon had a generational trickle-down effect, staining even the smarter, more artful entries with the taint of schlock. Particularly in the 1970s and ’80s, the genre became a magnet for hacks and hucksters looking to make a quick buck via the burgeoning VHS video by crapping out a script and dousing horny teens in gallons of stage blood. Horror movies have rarely got the respect they deserve.
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