If you checked out this week’s podcast already, you may have been mulling that question over. The boys brought some solid choices, from the best horror series to the scariest horror villain to Rick Moranis. But there were a few movies that immediately leap to my mind when I think “scary movies” that were left out. And as horror flicks are wont to be, 4/5 of them are really, really bad.
The Midnight Meat TrainNow I don’t know how anyone could think this movie would be anything less than stellar, just from the name alone. But let me set you straight. It is not stellar.
The premise of this movie involves a mute butcher who secretly hangs people by giant meat hooks on subway trains at night. This in itself seems like it would make an excellent gorefest, doesn’t it? I suppose it does. There’s not much of a plot beyond this, which is why my friend and I wound up watching the last half of the movie on fast-forward—we didn’t miss anything. OR DID WE? There’s some super-weird supernatural twist at the end that made no sense even once we rewound. I couldn’t spoil it if I tried. Don’t bother seeing for yourself.
The HitcherStarring that girl from One Tree Hill (I don’t watch it, folks, I just know my teen soaps), this is your standard, makes-no-sense-why-that-dude’s-trying-to-kill-these-people movie that takes forever. Just when you think he’s caught—or dead, as the case may be—he’s not. Is it over yet?
I watched this with a couple of girlfriends back in college, all the lights out, intentionally trying to scare ourselves. It worked well enough—I mean, a dude stalking you and your boyfriend all over the desert (was it the desert? It’s been awhile, but I seem to remember an awful lot of sand) would be pretty creepy in real life. But the flying cockroach we discovered crawling across the wall after finishing the movie and turning the lights back on (there was much standing on couches and flailing about with a broom) was by far the scariest part of the evening.
TeethTeeth could never be omitted, and it actually wasn’t—but neither Mikey nor Mattie have seen this modern classic. I have had that privilege.
This one I can recommend, if only because it’s the self-aware kind of bad. This movie isn’t trying to be amazing. It’s so campy and ridiculous that it’s incredible—particularly when watched at midnight after a few drinks with friends, which is how it happened for my first time.
My first time watching Teeth.
And anyway, even if you don’t enjoy the movie, c’mon, isn’t “vagina dentata” fun to say? DENTATAAAAA.
Death SentenceEverybody’s got their go-to answer when somebody brings up “worst movie of all time.” This is mine, only it’s so generically awful that I went years without remembering what it was called, beyond “that Kevin Bacon movie about revenge.” A podcast I listened to recently brought it back to my attention, and boy am I glad.
I thought Kevin Bacon had hit a new low when I saw Hollow Man at an ill-begotten birthday party in 9th grade, but no. He had this gem just waiting in the wings.
To be fair, this movie was billed as a thriller, not a horror movie. But I can’t help but bring it to mind when thinking about awful scary movies, so its atrociousness actually helps it escape a lifetime of obscurity. Any press is good press, right?
Don’t see this movie.
The OrphanageProduced by Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth), this subtitled Spanish film isn’t a standard horror movie—you may not even be able to neatly lump it into that genre. But it doesn’t get much scarier than this, to me. There are images in this film that I can’t picture in the dark without needing to burrow underneath the covers or turn on all the lights in my house.
This is the slow burn kind of scary. The kind that creeps up on you. It’s easy to get absorbed in the story—an impossible feat for many movies hell-bent on making you scream. And maybe you won’t scream. But I’m pretty sure all the lights remained on in my bedroom the night that I saw this one.
The Orphanage aside, I'm not sure I'd wish those first four on anyone. But that being said, horror movies are one of the only film genres where sometimes, worse is better. So I don't regret seeing any of these.
Well. Maybe that Kevin Bacon one. Seriously guys? Don't do it.
When pressed to come up with a movie that really, truly scared me, the first thing that leaps to mind is a movie called Nothing But Trouble.
ReplyDeleteThis is ostensibly a (really shitty) comedy, with Chevy Chase and John Candy and everything, but the indelible image of Dan Aykroyd pulling his own nose off was the scariest thing I, at six years old, had ever seen or would ever see -- until the following year when Batman Returns came out.
Speaking of ridiculous things that scared us as children, I remember accidentally watching an episode of the show Picket Fences when I was 8 or 9 that involved teenagers shooting each other with potato guns at my grandmother's house that terrified me so much I cried myself to sleep that night. Potato guns. The horror.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of weird, slightly bad, and kind of WTF scary movies, I recommend Horsemen
ReplyDelete