My Top 10 Horror Movies... and Other Stuff!

Horror movies, and the horror of newsletter management...

Happy Halloween, everyone!

I hope you’re all doing well this holiday season.

We’re taking a break from storytime on this newsletter because I’m doing some restructuring of this whole production, and also because IT’S HALLOWEEN! Yeah!

Even though I’m not the type to dress up in a costume anymore (too many embarrassing stories from my misspent youth), I still enjoy the season and the holiday very much.

To that end, since I’ve spent the last week or so arguing with some deluded souls over which movies deserve to be the top 10 best horror movies of all time, I decided to put my list here.

Actually, “deluded” is uncharitable. They are simply mistaken :)

That list will appear below, but first…

CH-CH-CH-CH-CH-CH-CH-CH-CH-CH-CH-CH-CH-CH-CH-CH-CH-CHANGES

(hey, how many “CH’s” are supposed to be used in this situation?

It is a mystery…)

Judging by the stats on some of my recent posts, not everyone is here for my non-Life-Taker stories, and that’s ok.

I want this to be an email that people want to open and look forward to, so the stuff that people don’t respond to will be either removed or curtailed.

Luckily, I discovered that Substack (the host for this newsletter), allows you to create sections for your publications, and thus segment your various categories.

What this means for you is that I’m going to be breaking up different topics and splitting them into separate sections.

This will allow you to simply unsubscribe from the stuff you don’t want to read about.

I’m going to keep this main section as my quick updates, trials, tribulations and fun offbeat stuff I’m doing. And I’ve created sections for stories, comics, The Life-Taker, and there may be more to come.

So if you receive a “story” email and you’re not really looking for that, you can unsubscribe from that particular email section and yet still get my updates.

Thanks, Substack, this is pretty awesome!

But enough work stuff. It’s time for movies, man. MOVIES!

Specifically…

JG’s TOP 10 HORROR MOVIES

So, just so you guys know, this is the definitive list of horror movies. Any other list is simply wrong.

I say this with no ill-will toward others. They probably haven’t seen my list, so they don’t know any better :)

These are movies that actually made me feel fear, if not outright terror, when I first watched them.

So with that said, let’s start from the bottom…

10. Candyman (1992)

“Candyman, Candyman, Candyman, Candyman… NOPE!”

This one is an updated, urban riff on the old ‘Bloody Mary’ legend.

I’ll tell you this much: I was scared enough that I would not look in the mirror and say his name 5 times.

No,sir! Not I!

9. Poltergeist (1982)

“They’re heeeeeeeere!”

I saw this one as a child, and boy did my parents mess up that time. I never should have seen 5 seconds of this movie!

It scared the crap out of me, and I worried that it might happen to me and my family.

Although I will admit that as scary as it was, it was kinda cool that the little girl was inside the tv.

8. Halloween II (1981)

The first of three John Carpenter films on this list.

I was never really one for Michael Myers, but this movie (since deprecated by the new modern films) was the one that really got to me.

The way it was shot it just seemed as if Laurie Strode was damn near alone in that hospital, and Michael’s creepy walking disturbed me.

It’s too bad this film isn’t canon anymore, it was the best one they ever did.

7. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

I was just in 7th grade when this came out, and again probably should not have been allowed to see this.

This one upset me since there seemed to be no escape from the killer. He existed in your dreams, and you had to sleep sometime.

Another parenting fail! Thanks Mom and Dad :P

6. The Exorcist (1973)

So I was a young kid and probably shouldn’t have been allowed blah blah blah you can see where this is going…

Back then, it was a BIG DEAL when this movie came out for TV.

Guys, I really thought it was inevitable that you would be possessed by a demon if you didn’t say enough prayers!

What I took from the movie was that it was a natural consequence of too little praying. Like leaving the milk out and thus having it spoil.

That rocket-puke scene was pretty awesome, though :)

5. The Blair Witch Project (1999)

Ahh, finally one where I was an adult and thus immune from scares.

WRONG.

This one started off tepid and a little boring, but as time went on the true horror of the characters’ situation began to set in.

The sheer randomness and malevolence of what was happening to them was something I hadn’t seen in a movie up to this point.

What really sucked with this one was I was on a first date when I saw this movie, and thus I was forced to show this girl that I wasn’t no punk, so I couldn’t close my eyes, turn away, or pretend I had to go to the bathroom in order to avoid the scares.

You better believe I never took a girl to a horror movie on a first date again after that!

They really broke the mold on this movie, and the “found footage” device has yet to be repeated with the same level of success.

4. Prince of Darkness (1987)

The second of three John Carpenter films on this list.

This is a smaller, claustrophobic movie in which desperate messages sent back in time from the future force the characters to acknowledge, with growing horror, that not only is Satan’s son resurrecting himself, but he’s planning on bringing his father along for the ride.

The horror and violence grows until a traumatic showdown that stuck with me for years.

You won’t look at a mirror the same way again.

3. It Follows (2014)

A more modern movie, the premise of which is that there is a creature out there. A creature that can look like anyone you know, or people you don’t know.

This creature’s job is to kill you. As such it walks, never runs, only walks after you, ceaselessly, until it can get close to you and kill you.

What causes the creature to want to kill you?

Sex.

It is “passed on” like an STD. If the creature is targeting someone, and you have sex with that person, you then become the primary target.

If it kills you, then it will re-target the person you slept with until it kills them, and so on and so forth down the line.

So once you’re targeted, even if you then slept with a thousand people and moved across the planet, you’re never truly safe from the creature.

I found that to be he scariest movie I had seen in a long time.

2. Alien (1979)

“In Space, No One Can Hear You Scream.”

Boy, you all know the situation with this one.

It’s not even that you’re killed by the terrifying creature.

It’s more that you’re painfully violated and used by the creature(s) merely for it to propagate its species.

To me that was even more horrifying than just being killed outright.

They terrified crew asked the android “how do we kill it?”

It’s answer:

“You can’t.”

Then it tells them:

“You have my sympathies.”

Man, that gave me the creeps.

It doesn’t matter what’s become of the franchise now, that first one was scary.

1. The Thing (1982)

The final John Carpenter film on this list.

This one is my all-time favorite horror movie. It is pretty much PERFECT. The slowly mounting fear, the paranoia, dawning realization that this could mean the end of Humanity.

The premise: Antarctic researchers discover a newly awakened alien creature which had been frozen in the ice for thousands, maybe millions of years… until now.

Much like Alien before it, the horror of the situation comes from the method of the creature’s propagation.

Again, you are violated as the creature violently absorbs and copies you down to the cellular level, leaving the characters unsure of who is still human and who is a… THING.

If you haven’t seen it you gotta check this one out, and let me know what you thought when you do. I rewatch this movie at least once a year.

Side note: This movie was the first of John Carpenter’s “End of the World” trilogy, in which the movies were linked thematically, but not by their actual stories.

The second was Prince of Darkness (listed above), but I did not care for the final film which was called In the Mouth of Madness, from 1994.

That one never gave me the same sense of dread and horror as the first two in the trilogy, but you should check that out for yourself if you haven’t seen it, maybe you’ll feel differently.

But with that said, remember: this list is definitive, and all other lists are therefore wrong, although I’m sure they mean well :)

So Happy Halloween everyone, and I will see you guys on the other side!

-John G