My new favorite horror movie is Doctor Sleep. I know I won't be able to to start a movie discussion about Doctor Sleep alone. I hope I'm not overhyping it. There is no such thing as a perfect movie. But there is such thing as a perfect sequel. Doctor Sleep is a perfect sequel to The Shining. It hit the right beats that made The Shining great and it expanded the setting, exploring the wider universe of the Shining more. I cannot go really deeper without spoiling it. Other horror movies I really liked are The Others, Sixth Sense, and Crimson Peak.
Does Alien count as a horror film? If so, I'd nominate that. Otherwise, I would say 'The Mummy' with Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz - Tomb Kings!
I don't really know what to say as I think my personal definition of Horror movie might be terribly off. I am not a fan of Horror movies at all so I haven't seen a lot. Regardless of that, here are some movies I like but that will send shivers down my spine: - The Visit (reading the plot summary on Wikipedia is already enough) - Event Horizon (that one is great) - The Shining (I liked the book and even the three part TV version which is quite a bit more accurate to the source material than the well-known version) - The Sixth Sense (probably my favourite) - The Silence of the Lambs (not sure if Horror) - The Ring (pretty scary) - The Exorcist (just jarring) - The Birds (a bit dusty) - Alien (this is Horror, right?) Honorable mentions despite not being really good. I was just...intrigued by them or what they could have been, or they are just a tad too old: - The Astronaut's wife (don't know why) - Nosferatu (very old, 1922, and a Dracula ripoff basically) - Signs (overall not that good, but a few scenes are brilliantly executed) - The Ghost Ship (the old movie)
If Alien counts as horror, that might actually take my top spot. The Mummy does not count as a horror, that is a adventure-comedy.
The first Allien, Predator, and Terminator movies were definitely Scifi Horror. They all spun off to sequels that were less focused on their original horror aspects.
I would still say the later Alien and Predator films are Sci-fi Horror, but you're right in that Terminator has moved on from that now.
Haven't seen that one, I thought I knew what you were talking about but the movie I was thinking about was made way before The Orphanage (2007). Have you seen The Devil's Backbone (2001). Guillermo del Toro directed it. The movie was set in the Spanish Civil War, (as I'd guess at least half of all Spanish historical movies are set in). And it involves a haunted orphanage. The Devil's Backbone is my favorite Spanish language film with the caveat that I have seen very few (seven or eight) Spanish language films.
You beat me to it/\ I wouldn't call The Mummy a horror movie. It has horror elements in it though. I would add that The Terminator (1984) is the only slasher style horror movie that I actually like. Good point. This is one is great too. It certainly makes my list of underappreciated gems. One problem is that you need to have a physical media for it to watch it. If it's put on television, the rough edges are smoothed over which is bad. Speaking of which, I saw a video talking about the making of Event Horizon, the original cut was considered too brutal, for release, so the theatrical version was toned down a lot from the director's cut. The directors cut was locked in vault. The storage area with the director's cut flooded, so it's lost forever. One of my favorite subgenres of horror is a haunted location, and Event Horizon is great at that.
And man, I just noticed that I have three movies on my list made by M. Night Shyamalan... ...who also made some really crappy stuff.
Personally I don't ever want to watch a horror movie, but I still think it's nice to have it as a genre for more variety. The problem for me is that I think too much about the horror stuff, and the thoughts kinda linger and the gore is not pleasant to watch at all, since I instantly think something along the lines of: How'd that feel to experience yourself and the answer is always: Not very funny at all. I have played some horror games though, but somehow they feel different to me, though still they are very far from my favorite genre and I've never picked one up on my own. All that said I have seen at least 1 horror movie, for me Harry Potter was kinda horror when I was younger but that's not actually horror and I could kinda say the same thing about Jurassic Park as I saw that the first time when I was around 10, but what I have seen is a movie about a Boogeyman, very possibly called 'Boogeyman' though I'm not sure; I don't remember it as being a good movie, but it's the only true horror movie I remember seeing so it wins by default.
The Neil Gaiman quote applies to horror movies too. “Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” That said, there are horror movies and stories where the metaphorical dragons win. Those I'm not a fan of.