Listmania: Top 20 Scariest Films (#20-11)

Like all good horror films, Living Dead uses a potentially ludicrous scenario — slow-moving but determined zombies are popping up everywhere, eating human flesh — as an allegory for the dangers and anxieties of everyday life. Not that anyone agrees on what those precisely are: audiences and critics have identified everything from capitalism to the civil rights movement to the generation gap as the ”real horror” at the core of the movie’s plot. There’s something, or rather someone, for everyone in the abandoned farmhouse where the characters converge to escape the zombie onslaught: corny newlyweds, squabbling parents, a blonde ingÁ©nue… and Ben, a resourceful guy who just happens to be the only black person in the cast. Romero insists that his leading man’s race had nothing to do with politics, but rather, that Duane Jones was simply the best actor he auditioned; that may be true, but even today, the image of a ”Negro” hero taking charge and butting heads with a group of scared, angry white people adds a layer of tension to the proceedings.

What really sets Ben apart from the others, however, is his commitment to survival at any cost, his lack of sentimentality or wishful thinking. What leads everyone else to his or her painful, bloody downfall is a foolish — or perhaps all too human — choice made in the grip of emotion. But this is a world in which our loved ones no longer recognize us, where our familial loyalties only lead to the most gruesome fate imaginable. No relationship is sacred; your own flesh and blood sees you as nothing more than, well, flesh and blood. And Ben, the lone wolf, the bad-ass survivor, the one best equipped to ride out the undead apocalypse? His fate reminds us that human psychology is much scarier than any movie monster…and that’s no laughing matter. — Robin Monica Alexander

But it’s the screenplay by Alex Garland that gives the film its lingering power. Garland delivers the genre thrills, the simmering tensions and bloody showdowns, while also asking some tough questions about dehumanization, xenophobia, community, and the nature of monsters. The true villains are ”normal” humans who have chosen to behave inhumanly; Garland’s zombies may be inhuman, almost a force of nature, but they retain sparks of sentience. There’s a hint that they may represent the emergence of a new species, although the film never tips its hand. Unlike the later I Am Legend, which tackles many of the same themes, 28 Days Later never foregrounds its ”message.” It prefers to insinuate, to suggest, to tease. To disturb.

When the film was released, much praise was heaped on the opening section, with its eerie, mournful vistas of the abandoned city, while the conclusion was largely written off as a descent into genre conventions. But for me, the film pivots on a scene near the halfway point — the moment when the little zombie boy speaks. I could write 5,000 words about that scene and its aftermath — the build-up to it, and the way the rest of the film explodes and reverses the expectations of the first half in ways both overt and subtle. I could write those five thousand words right now, at the drop of a hat, because this film is still kicking around my head — and I haven’t seen it in five years or more. There’s been a permanent disturbance in my noggin. 28 Days Later is a great horror movie . — Jack Feerick

Argento is known for his cinematography and for his ability to make horrific death scenes look incredibly gorgeous and the first death scene in Suspiria is the ultimate beautiful, Argento death scene. The first time I saw this film, I was struck more by his use of vivid colors to create a decidedly creepy and otherworldly atmosphere — I later learned that he achieved this affect by using a particular Technicolor process known as imbibition, which is the same process that was used on The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind. By using this process, the film is drenched in phenomenally bright color and allows the viewer to feel like he or she might be having a vivid nightmare rather than watching a horror film. But besides the fact that the kills are beautifully shot, this movie is pretty damned scary. It grabs you by the throat right away and doesn’t let go. Definitely worthy of being considered one of the best, and one of the scariest, horror movies of all time. — Kelly Stitzel

But forget all that, if you can, and focus on the brilliance of this highbrow classic of macabre suspense. Polanski’s subtle direction toes a very thin line, allowing us to recognize the creepiness of Rosemary’s new surroundings while still holding out a suspicion that the mother-to-be is merely imagining things. (Compare this with Taylor Hackford’s use of the camera as a bludgeon in the similarly themed The Devil’s Advocate 30 years later.) There are no scenes that truly shock as Rosemary’s Baby unfolds, just a general sense of unease that evolves into dread as we realize, with Rosemary, that something awful awaits at the end of her pregnancy. For a suspense/horror film that concerns the devil incarnate, perhaps its biggest shock is its realism. Polanski makes it easy to place ourselves in Rosemary’s shoes, with her paranoia about pregnancy pains and her annoyance at her nebbishy, bizarre new neighbors. And as evil looms over the Upper West Side, Rosemary’s Baby becomes as much an allegory for the crumbling social structure of New York City as would Midnight Cowboy a year later, or Taxi Driver in 1976.

It’s a film that, at its heart, asks the eternal question, ”What if all my paranoia and neuroses turn out to be justified?” That’s why I love Rosemary’s Baby — and why I also love the idea that it could have been made a decade later with the same cast, the same setting, and the same basic story … as a Woody Allen comedy. — Jon Cummings

I am not ashamed to say that this movie scared the shit out of me the first time I saw it and still creeps me out to this day (the same goes for the book). Two of the creepiest, most horrifying things I’ve ever seen on film come from this movie — Rachel’s sister, Zelda and Hughes’s performance as Gage. After seeing the film for the first time — even at the age of 12 — I was convinced that Hughes was going to turn out to be traumatized from playing this role at such a young age. Then I saw him in Kindergarten Cop, released a year after Pet Sematary and realized that movie might have had a more terrifying effect on the kid. — KS

That’s why the most disturbing thing about Takashi Miike’s Audition — more than the squicky body horror, the rush of sadomasochistic imagery, the slow tonal shift from pitch-black sociological satire to depraved gynophobia — is how gleefully it disregards that convention. During the final third of Audition, you’re never quite sure what’s ”real” and what’s not. There are unexplained shifts in location; people turn into other people; utterly implausible motivations and methods have an terrible immediacy, an inexorable dream-logic. No matter how many times you watch the film, it doesn’t all come sensibly together in the end. There’s no comfortable closure. There’s no comfort, period.

Miike shatters the assumed covenant between filmmaker and audience, filtering virtually the entire film through the consciousness of his main character. The unreliable narrator is a well-known trope of modern literature, but it’s extraordinarily difficult to pull off in film, which is why most movies don’t even try. Audition dares, and succeeds brilliantly. Its peculiar genius places the viewer in the position of victim; with no solid ”objective” frame of reference to cling to, the viewer is put entirely at Miike’s mercy — and he has none, ratcheting up the intensity to levels that are nearly physically unbearable.

Relentlessly prolific and aesthetically restless, director Takashi Miike has worked across many genres. The results, perhaps predictably, have been hit-or-miss. For all their visual and formal ambition, his films sometimes feel clinical. Audition, though, comes from a place of visceral terror and outrage — a feverish trip inside a mind at the end of its tether, into sublimated sexual guilt and fear of woman. It’s the closest thing I’ve ever seen to a cinematic rendering of the dream state, and like all the worst nightmares, it will haunt you for days afterward. — JF

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen the film, both at home and on the big screen. It’s hard to put myself in the place of those audience members who went into the theater in 1960 having no clue what they were about to see, but for me, knowing Psycho’s big secrets beforehand didn’t prevent the movie from weaving a serious web of dread around my psyche. After all, this is a film that shows no signs of even being a ”horror” movie until a third of the way in, until…well, on the off chance that there are some youngsters out there who have managed never to have the world’s most spoiled movie spoiled for them, I’ll simply say: Psycho’s frights are all the more potent for being, shall we say, so domestic.

They’re also enhanced by what might have seemed at the time like a drawback—the fact that Hitchcock had to shoot the film on what was, for him, a miniscule budget, using the crew from his TV series. But a great artist makes art no matter what his tools, and the grainy black-and-white cinematography, limited locations, and lack of mega-stars (not to mention another of Bernard Herrmann’s genius scores) proved to be the perfect combination. Anthony Perkins’ performance is one for the ages, and Janet Leigh’s eyes are a dissertation topic all by themselves. Psycho is the ideal scary movie for scaredy-cats like me: if I’m going to give myself nightmares, the source better be not just a good scare, but a damn good film. Mother will be very disappointed if it’s not. — RMA

The spiritual fathers of the 1979 original, though, are more diverse — and a hell of a lot more interesting. There’s an echo of John W. Campbell’s ”Who Goes There?” in the plot; the interactions of the crew have the shaggy, improvisational dynamic of a Robert Altman movie; and H.R. Giger’s uniquely hideous designs connect the film to Lovecraft’s cosmic horrors, especially during the rescue mission that sets the nightmare in motion — the weirdly organic architecture of the ship (or is it a temple?), the fossilized giant upon his vasty throne, the eggs in rank upon rank, in the outer darkness of a dying sun; all of it inexplicable, arranged to specifics unknowable by the human mind, by an intelligence that can only be, well, alien.

What the films have in common — besides the towering presence of Sigourney Weaver, in the role that made her a star — is a certain practicality, a working-class griminess. The crewmates of Alien are less interested in scientific discovery than in renegotiating their shares of the mining haul; Cameron’s Marines are quick to remind us that they Didn’t Sign On For This Shit; and the Company is always eager to fuck people over for the potential of profit. This a pair of movies about how working people can get in over their heads very, very quickly, when left on their own out there, in the dark. — JF

While effectively exploring the vampire element, the focus of the story is on the relationship between Oskar and Eli and that is what makes it so special. You feel sympathy for Eli and her situation, which is what makes her actions — and Oskar’s eventual accepting of them — that much more terrifying. Let the Right One In is one of the most highly acclaimed Swedish films of the past decade and has won numerous awards and the love of horror — and vampire — film fans the world over. This year an American version of the film was released and, while it has also received positive reviews, I think I’m going to stick with the original. — KS