The Book of Lists: Horror

by Wallace, Amy

  10. Suicide is Painful

  The mondo film eventually morphed into the underground homemade compilation tape of atrocities, the most successful of which was the Amok Assault Video (1989). A staple of these détourné shock tapes was the live suicide of R. Budd Dwyer, who had been convicted of corruption and at a press conference called afterwards blew his brains out—live on American TV. The long version of this incident, including his speech comparing the U.S. to a gulag, is one of the most graphic and upsetting sequences in media history. It is arguably worse on second viewing, knowing what is to come. Amok guru Stuart Swezey has noted that the horror of the mondo film was (unlike the slasher movie) “truly an experiment in terror.” Sometimes reality is more horrific than fantasy.

  NANCY HOLDER’S THIRTEEN MOVIES SHE WISHES

  SHE’D NEVER SEEN BECAUSE THEY’RE TOO SCARY

  (YET CONTINUES TO WATCH REPEATEDLY.

  WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH HER?)

  Nancy Holder is a USA Today bestselling author and former Trustee of the Horror Writers Association. She has received four Bram Stoker Awards, and her work has appeared on recommended reading lists by the New York Public Library; the American Reading Association; and the American Library Association. She has written many tie-in novels and authorized episode guides for shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Smallville, and others. She also writes spookiness for children and young adults, most notably as Chris P. Flesh and Carolyn Keene.

  1. The Haunting (1963, directed by Robert Wise)

  2. Hush . . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964, directed by Robert Aldrich)

  3. The Ring (2002, directed by Gore Verbinski)*

  4. I Walked With a Zombie (1943, directed by Jacques Tourneur)

  5. The Body Snatcher (1945, directed by Robert Wise)

  6. Rosemary’s Baby (1968, directed by Roman Polanski)

  7. The Others (2001, directed by Alejandro Amenábar)

  8. The Innocents (1962, directed by Jack Clayton)

  10. Alien (1979, directed by Ridley Scott)

  11. Tale of Two Sisters (2003, directed by Kim Ji-woon)

  12. Suspiria (1977, directed by Dario Argento)

  13. Curse of the Demon (1957, directed by Jacques Tourneur)

  * (I know, there’s no explaining it.)

  CERINA VINCENT’S TOP TEN HORROR MOVIES

  TOO SCARY FOR LITTLE GIRLS

  Actress Cerina Vincent is best known to horror fans for her role as Marcy in Eli Roth’s Cabin Fever (for which she was nominated for the Saturn Awards’ “Best Face of the Future”). Her other credits include the Power Rangers Lost Galaxy series (as Maya, the Yellow Power Ranger), Not Another Teen Movie, David Lynch’s short film Darkened Room, and guest-starring roles on the TV shows Malcolm in the Middle, Ally McBeal, and CSI. She is also the coauthor (with Jodi Lipper) of the2007diet book How to Eat Like a Hot Chick (Collins Books). Her Web site is www.cerinavincent.net.

  Though I’m madly in love with the horror genre now, I have to admit that I was not always a horror fan. Unfortunately, between the tender ages of five and nine, I was exposed to horror films that terrified me until I was twenty. Maybe I had an overactive imagination, or maybe I just wasn’t as cool as some other kids, but these movies screwed with my young brain; I worried and obsessed about these films daily, and spent too many nights falling asleep with the light on or sleeping in my parents’ bed. It wasn’t my parents who showed me these films too early—it was my friends’ parents. These adults were renting frightening films for their daughters’ slumber parties and had no clue of the terrible effect that these films had on our innocent little lives. I now realize what a compliment that is to these brilliant horror filmmakers, but I feel I wasted too many years thinking I hated horror, when what I really hated was my friends’ parents. So, to stop turning chicks away from horror, and to ensure more female horror fans, here is a list of films that little girls should not watch until they are old enough to appreciate them.

  1. Poltergeist: Anytime the TV went fuzzy, I thought I was going to die.

  2. Poltergeist II: The Other Side: I prayed that my teeth would straighten out so my own braces wouldn’t attack me.

  3. Poltergeist III: That little girl died. Enough said.

  4. The Shining: This made me fear my own father, and I was scared to ride my tricycle.

  5. The Exorcist: I just saw pieces of this and . . . wow . . . bad, bad, bad stuff for little girls. I still won’t eat pea soup.

  6. Alien: Well, I knew for a fact that I didn’t want to be an astronaut.

  7. Rosemary’s Baby: I was one of those little girls who wanted a baby when I was still a baby. Until I realized that it was possible to have Satan’s baby. I was also really scared for my mom when she was pregnant with my sister.

  8. Child’s Play: Like many little girls, I was obsessed with dolls, and had fifty of them displayed in my bedroom. After this film, I’d lie in my bed and wonder which one was going to come to life and torment me. . . .

  9. A Nightmare on Elm Street: I didn’t sleep peacefully for many, many years.

  10. Jaws: This ended up being my favorite movie by the time I was 12, but you can’t make a little girl watch this and then throw her in the ocean and expect her to go snorkeling. I also was convinced that Jaws could get me in the bathtub, was under the drain in my swimming pool, and lived in Lake Mead.

  JOE LYNCH’S TEN MOVIES MY MOTHER SHOULD HAVE

  NEVER LET ME WATCH (BUT THANKFULLY DID!)

  Joe Lynch was born in Long Island, raised on a steady diet of horror films, novels, comics, and dirty-water hotdogs. Upon graduating from Syracuse University, Lynch was named “Filmmaker of the Year” in The Village Voice’s Best of Long Island issue for his short films and his first real first film job was as a grip/actor/third unit director/writer on the Troma cult classic Terror Firmer, which led to an in-house writing position at “The House that Toxie Built.” Lynch created the hit show Uranium for Fuse TV, and directed many a music video for artists like 311, Sugarcult, Devil Driver, and Strapping Young Lad. Wrong Turn 2 (2007) was Joe’s first feature film and a dream come true for a die-hard horror fanatic. He currently resides in L.A. with his lovely (and tolerant) wife, Briana, and their manic pooch “Buckaroo” Banzai.

  My mother, Marina, will not be so keen on me exposing this list, but no matter. See, my mom, herself a horror nut as a teenager, is the red-handed culprit who passed on the virus of horror to me (as well as my two younger brothers) at a very susceptible age. It was that early exposure to the ghoulish that made me fall in love with horror, be it good, bad, or ugly. Yet, it was watching these movies that first clamped my eyes open like a reformed droog to the power of manipulative cinema and visual storytelling, and to how profoundly the medium had its grip on an audience.

  So, this is the epitome of a “subjective list”—it’s not for you to agree or disagree with . . . frankly, it’s a chance for me to possibly embarrass my mom, but also thank her for giving me the gift of appreciating great genre filmmaking, both by watching and appreciating it, and now by making it.

  Thanks for scaring the shit out of me, Mom . . . I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

  1. Dawn of the Dead (seen in theaters?): aka . . . THE MOST WATCHED VIDEO IN THE LYNCH HOUSEHOLD. No lie. With Star Wars and Ghostbusters coming in at a close #2 & #3, it was Romero’s second zombie epic that made the top of the list, the default film my mom would bring home if they didn’t have copies of Dead Heat, Deadly Friend, or Aliens in stock. At the very least she knew we’d be just as happy to watch some pasty green undead stroll through the Monroeville mall and get their melons sliced off by some bikers and flyboys. What’s funny is that my first recollection of seeing Dawn was supposedly in theaters on my mom’s lap, innocently watching scenes like the one where the Afro’d Zombo takes a nice chunk out of his lover’s arm, and I was thinking “wow, the stuff under the skin is white?” I recall asking my mother later when I was a little older if I did in fact see Romero’s classic in the cin
emas, which would mean it was arguably my first film! I remember she admitted it to me then; however, now that her tastes and parenting skills are under the microscope, I doubt she’ll fess up, and when I recently asked, she said she didn’t recall . . . was it Popeye? I think she’s bullshitting me . . . I think it was Dawn!

  I can hypothesize that the reason she brought me was that no babysitter was available, or so I’m assuming, and my mom needed her zombie fix, and by God and gore, was I to stop her? Never! Besides, what toddler would be able to understand what was going on up there anyway, right? I don’t remember if I was “that baby” in the theater, the one screaming and hollering and making people whisper, “Who takes a baby into this movie?” (a sentiment shared between my wife and me while watching The Mist a few weeks back). I do remember barely being able to see over the seats at all those wide, dead eyes as they shuffled across the mall grounds to the delightful strains of Goblin’s Muzak score. Somehow seeing that film at such an early age gave it a special importance to me, and multiple (and I mean multiple) viewings on VHS have secured it a place in my top films of all time, not just for nostalgic purposes, but because it is truly a masterpiece in horror cinema and art cinema as well. It’s horror with meaning, with resonance. My mom’s exposing me to good horror early on made me carefully develop my taste buds for the genre, giving me an early taste of what’s to offer while injecting me with a love to scare, shock, and affect people which has been coursing through my veins ever since.

  So while the truth might never be revealed, and I dare you to ask her one day without getting shot (yes, she carries a gun . . . but that’s another story). But it was this film that made me fall in love with the horror genre, and the one I thank my mother every day for showing me.

  2. The Exorcist (seen on VHS): One of my earliest memories is watching this film from the staircase of my parents’ second house, not being able to move. So it was more my fault for sneaking an off-limits peek of this truly unsettling horror masterpiece from daring filmmaker William Friedkin, one of my childhood cinematic heroes (what kid references Sorcerer in social studies class?), than it was my mother’s. But I couldn’t believe what I had seen that first time I white-knuckled the banisters of the staircase as Regan ravaged her thingy with a crucifix, an image that no six-year-old should be absorbing. I needed to see it again, and one night, my mom rented the video and we planned on watching it over a huge bowl of Velveeta mac-n-cheese. My mother had told me that night that she got the chance to see the film at Radio City Music Hall when it premiered in 1974, when the bodies were hitting the floor/aisles and the vomit was flying, and not just on screen. Even she was unnerved seeing it then, saying it was scary because it felt so real, from the acting to the scenes in the hospital, and with my communion coming up soon that year, it made me think that this film was a lot more dangerous that I realized. It was because Friedkin kept the scares and the drama on a very grounded, human level that the film works, and being a just few years younger than Regan when I saw it again that night made me think I too could be next on Pazuzu’s list of young nubile kids to visit. Seeing the film as a kid made me want to grow up real fast and skip that whole “pissing on the carpet” phase.

  3. The Toxic Avenger (seen on VHS): This movie’s a little Molotov cocktail of sickness, and I caught the bug very early. It had such a cheerful demeanor, like a child molester at a mall with a smile and a red balloon, who will pull his Dockers down to poke you with his pork. I remember my mother actually expressing real anger after watching this movie with us on a snow day home from school, as our jaws were floating in our hot cocoas, watching the Tromatic depravity on display with such reckless abandon. I was fascinated by how this tongue-in-cheek movie about New Jersey’s first and only mutant superhero could offend her so much! Well, aside from the gratuitous head-crushing, the rape, dismemberment, nudity, mutant intercourse, and, of course, obese evil-doer gut-crushing worthy of a Chas. Balun magazine cover, the movie was also very sweet and even good-natured in its message of peace and love amid barrels of toxic waste. It was the comedy that almost made the film more offensive, that it was having such a good time showing all this depravity, and I guess that was where my mom drew the line, but it was enough for me to be a Tromatic fan for life. I later had the honor to work as a writer for Troma and have a hand in the creation of the fourth installment in the Toxie saga (Citizen Toxie), and it was working with gonzo genius Lloyd Kaufman that I learned that you can make films no matter what the cost, what the risk, what the taste. Troma is true independent cinema, blood, boobs, and all, and it was that punk attitude that I guess just didn’t agree with the madre at the time . . . which only made it cooler to love.

  4. Stephen King’s Silver Bullet (seen in theaters): One of the few films I got to see in the theater with both my mother and my grandfather (her father), who was a Big Gulp of a man (at least to a tyke like me, he was a skyscraper at 6'4'') and at the time was dealing with the complications of ALS. It was a school night, so seeing a movie on a night homework needed to be completed (and barely was anyway), was already a no-no, but since my mom and I were big King fans, we said “screw it!” and dragged her father out for a night at the movies at this new thing called the “multiplex” that just opened up on the Long Island Expressway. Couldn’t get in there (some strict policy of not letting anyone in after the lights go down), so we ended up in a small one-screen theater closer to town, and that night, even bookended with two people I felt secure with, I was terrified of this goddamned werewolf and the cycle of terror he wrought on the small town. The casting genius of pairing up Corey Haim and Gary Busey aside, this film started off with a gratuitous head-ripping, and by the end I remember clutching my grandfather’s side as they fought off the holy Lycan for dear life, my mom smiling the whole time. The film is deceptive in its almost “teen movie” tone with the kid scenes, yet when it comes to the scenes of murder and wolfy mayhem, the film gets dark and even nihilistic, like the scene when the fat guy gets pulled under his own shack or when the kid is killed on the veranda. Tough stuff, but a great night at the movies nonetheless. . . .

  5. Fangoria’s Scream Greats, Volume 1: Tom Savini, Master of Horror Effects (seen on VHS): I don’t remember how this ended up in our cheapo Zenith VTR (sorry, no recording for us on the first machine) but this hour-long documentary on the FX master and his rise to splatter stardom was one the few films from the library that we rented on a regular basis, second only to Dawnofthe Dead, which was like the grand thesis of Savini’s handiwork. It was this documentary that made me first appreciate the intricate details an FX artist like Savini or Rick Baker would strive to achieve, a realism behind the latex and Karo syrup, and it only made me appreciate practical effects more in my own career. It also showed me how to stage an effective razor-blade slash (used in George Romero’s Martin), which much to my mother’s insanity and chagrin, gave her six heart attacks when I pulled it off one day in the kitchen. It was hilarious. But Savini’s infectious, kid-like demeanor in the documentary made moviemaking seem like so much fun, and his job was the best on set. That’s where I wanted to be . . . next to the buckets of blood!

  6. Maximum Overdrive (seen on bootleg VHS): My mom’s cousin/BFF, Donna, had somehow obtained a bootleg copy of this film to cheer me up after the death of my grandfather, whom I was very close with. What a twisted kid, huh? So to keep me and my cousins busy while they prepared food for the wake, she gave us Robocop and this Stephen King–directed organ-grinder that even today feels underappreciated. My mother told Donna that I really wanted it after traveling with her to New York City one day and seeing posters with a looming, bearded King on it, daring us “I’m gonna scare you to death.” Being a “Constant Reader” even as a child, I was pumped to see MO and disappointed it never came to our town. So when I finally saw it on a scratchy and poorly pan-and-scanned bootleg, I was shocked to discover that the film, while having its own forgivable flaws and unique charms as a slice of unfiltered King (for better or worse), had sucker-punc
hed me by gleefully breaking a cinema taboo. The movie showed a little boy getting killed. Even when I was a kid, I remember thinking that it was a concept that was never approached or imagined to be broken, and that there was some rulebook in the mystical land of Hollywood that everyone abided by that stipulated that killing a young child, especially in a horribly sick, twisted, and deplorable way, like, oh, I dunno, say. . . . rolling over them with a frickin’ steamroller, was strictly forbidden. This almost felt like King was saying, “Yeah? Well, fuck you and the horse you rode in on!” and the next thing I know, I’m watching a loving close-up of a Little Leaguer’s dome being crushed. But what I remember more is how that one moment scared the shit out of me and filled me in a little bit about Death; he don’t care ’bout no body. Adults, kids, dogs, Emilio Estevez . . . no one is safe from the trucks. But between my grandfather’s wake and King’s cinematic wake-up call to my senses, I got a little more up-close and personal with Death that day, which only makes one appreciate life more.

  7. Videodrome (seen on VHS): Okay . . . honestly, of all the movies on this list, this is the most complex, the most sexually intense and the ickiest of the bunch . . . so why in God’s good green gonads would any well-adjusted mother let her son watch this ambitious and perverted thriller? I had seen The Fly in theaters with my dad, which was a hoot, but my mother was the guilty party for renting VD (how fitting) from the library and subjecting me to James Woods pulling a VHS out of what I later discovered was a giant vagina in his stomach. Hey, my mom was usually fine with the gore; it was the “making whoopee” stuff and the chick from Blondie burning her tits that prompted a fast-forwarding. Even then, I remember thinking how the film was so forwardthinking, that it felt like a real peek into the future, and it opened my eyes to how horror films could both sicken and provoke a deeper thinking. Plus it had an entrail-exploding television, and is what prompted my asking what the word “intestine” meant after watching the final scene with the “Sausage Vision” on TV. See kids? Learning can be fun!