Horror fans?

[Ninja Arnold]

I can count on one hand I've seen all of 2 horror movies. Psycho from the 1960's and that Freddy remake from 2010. Any recommendations for me? I'm a newbie on horror, so go easy on me. Was watchign some of Fredy vs Jason, but it was moving kidn of slow. Didn't help that there was ad breaks on AMC.

[Wesley]

I haven't watched much horror movies either, but I recommend Scream, Alien, The Excorist, The Fly, Jaws and The Omen.

[Powder]

There's a Megaman fan-film that is pretty horrifying.

[Ninja Arnold]

Originally Posted by Wesley

I haven't watched much horror movies either, but I recommend Scream, Alien, The Excorist, The Fly, Jaws and The Omen.

Thanks for the recommendations. I have seen Jaws, it is a good one. I guess Jurassic Park would count too come to think of it. There's one scene in Jurassic World that is pretty horrifying. If it is animals as the bad guys, I tend to think of them as creature features, but yes they are horror movies too.

Haven't seen Megaman, but fan films are probably running on a low budget.

[turtle1237]

I always seem to get drawn into the early 1930's horror films, like Dracula, the Mummy, or the Wolfman.

[Ninja Arnold]

I like the older films too. Although I haven't seen any old horror, but I know of the characters like Mummy, Wolfman, and Dracula.

Anybody seen The Grudge? The Grudge previews used to freak me out when I was younger. Maybe I will watch it sometime.

[MsMarvelDuckie]

You called? Hahaha, sorry, couldn't resist.

Yeah, he Grudge is pretty good for a horror film. My recs- let's see.... So many.

Nightmare On Elm Street series. (I'm sorry, but ONLY the Craven films are worth seeing- I wouldn't wipe Freddy's butt with the remake.)

Wolf. Jack Nicholson makes a GREAT werewolf!

The Evil Dead trilogy. Because, y'know, it's Evil Dead! And they are hilarious, so if you're easily scared, this will take some of the sting out of it.

Sleepy Hollow. The Depp movie was really good, and it's perfect for Halloween.

Speaking of- the Halloween series. I mean the originals, please leave the remake alone.

The Serpent and the Rainbow. Another Craven gem, and based on "true" events (though somewhat exaggerated, I believe.)

Fright Night. Either the campy original, or the remake. Both are pretty good.

House and House 2. Just because they are so weird and creepy, if a bit goofy at times.

That's just a few for starters. I'll add that the earlier recommendations are also all good, but I figure you might want some additional choices.

[Autbot_Benz]

I love the Halloween Franchise and The Evil Dead ones

[Slade]

I'm a Halloween, Friday the 13th, Elm street kind of guy.

How bout Amityville.

Hellraiser

Texas Chainsaw Massacre

There's a new one called the Gallows, looks interesting.

Candyman.

[Ninja Arnold]

Looks like I have some good stuff to watch now, thanks all.

[Leo656]

As someone firmly in the "They were going to do it anyway" camp as far as the Freddy and Jason remakes, I'm honestly still waiting for someone to tell me why the remakes were allegedly "So Horrible".

Please leave "Unnecessary" out of it because I've already explained my position on that; remakes are an inevitability, especially in horror, so anyone using "There Was No Point" immediately loses their entire argument. I'm looking for Actual Reasons.

Frankly I didn't have any problem with either remake. People like to pretend that every "Nightmare" film was a "classic", or that even one "Friday the 13th" was even any good, but they're not. They're all fun; every movie in both series is pretty entertaining on some level. They're all also mostly indefensibly bad. The entire Freddy series is cheesy and awful other than the first one, parts of the third one, and New Nightmare. And there has never, ever, been "good" Jason movie in any objective sense.

Since they're all bad movies anyway, and factoring in the "Remakes Are Inevitable" variable... I honestly think both the Nightmare and Friday remakes were Just Fine, and actually a lot better than most of the earlier movies IF we're judging a movie as a movie and not a "do-over". Like, I'd never pick the modern Nightmare over the original to just go ahead and watch, but I'd easily watch it before 2, 4, 5, or Freddy's Dead. It's just plan a better horror movie than those are. And the modern "Friday..." basically just condensed a half dozen awful movies into one half-decent one, so I really don't see the problem there, either.

So, there's some homework that I doubt anyone can actually complete: Explain to me WHY the Freddy and Jason remakes are "Awful", and you CAN NOT use "There Was No Point In Doing A Remake" as an argument. Show your work and try and use a little objectivity. Because personally I think they're fine.

I've heard lots of people bemoan New Freddy's "lack of style and pizzazz" compared to Englund's take, but those people are kind of silly in not realizing that you're not supposed to be cheering for the pedophile/child murderer character, and that Englund inadvertantly ruined his own character through turning Freddy into Fred Astaire over the sequels. If you go back to the original, he was never a clown nor was intended to be, so I'm also going to throw out any "Freddy isn't fun anymore" arguments because they're by definition insipid.

My rules, I make 'em up. Don't forget to show your work.

[PangolinFeets]

There are a bunch of good suggestions, but it's all about what you're looking for. Saying you like horror is like saying you like art; that's a pretty broad field to navigate. Exactly what do you look for in a horror movie? Do you like humor? Do you like gore? Are you into supernatural horror? Realistic horror? Thrillers? Dark comedies? Do you mind reading subtitles? How gruesome do you go?

[Candy Kappa]

Originally Posted by Leo656

I've heard lots of people bemoan New Freddy's "lack of style and pizzazz" compared to Englund's take, but those people are kind of silly in not realizing that you're not supposed to be cheering for the pedophile/child murderer character, and that Englund inadvertantly ruined his own character through turning Freddy into Fred Astaire over the sequels. If you go back to the original, he was never a clown nor was intended to be, so I'm also going to throw out any "Freddy isn't fun anymore" arguments because they're by definition insipid.

My rules, I make 'em up. Don't forget to show your work.

Okay, I'll bite.

The Nightmare remake, while it looks fantastic and Haley was a superb fit, his make-up was stunning and eerily realistic. The movie for me falls flat. It's toothless and makes Freddy a very whiny and boring villain. He's not scary with his lines and his line delivery is flat, nor is he in anyway engaging or entertaining.

The 13th remake was okay. Nothing new to the table, it played it super safe by-the-numbers and did drag a bit. But it's the run of the mill cheer for the slasher flick, and looked visually fine being a PD movie after all.

[Leo656]

All fine. Pretty much the only thing I can say actively "bothered' me about the Nightmare remake was that it is kind of "flat", maybe a little too conventional. Like as awful as all the Jason movies and half of the Freddy movies are, what makes them each stand out is those one or two really memorable scenes, and Nightmare was a little lacking in that specific area. It seemed more like they were more concerned with getting everything "down on paper" for the new characters, setting, etc., and less with making anything specifically "big" or memorable.

I agree with you that Haley was pretty great overall and that the effects and the deaths and everything were Just Fine, and they did a good job creating an atmosphere, and I liked the more sophisticated take on the "Dreamscapes" and whatever. It's definitely not my favorite in the series but I honestly think it's fine and has a right to exist, and I think it gets a lot of undue hate just because it's constantly compared to stuff that came before, not all of which was actually all that great IF people are being honest with themselves. There was not anything in the old ones, nor in the new one, that invites comments like the new one is "worthless" or "horrible"; it's fine. There's stuff wrong with it but It's Fine. Same with the Jason remake, which I honestly think is a hell of a lot better than pretty much the entire rest of the series. Like I'm a "fan" of the Jason movies but c'mon, they're terrible, and anyone trying to update or remake them is simply doing everyone a favor, they're hardly "timeless classics", they're just fun little pieces of sh*t.

The only thing I really thought was stupid in the Freddy remake, was how they spent a third of the movie pretending he was innocent when we all had to have known better. And that's really just a huge problem I have with modern storytelling in general, this constant need to make villains sympathetic and "human". You can't root for the f*cking heel, you break the story into a million pieces; even in a horror movie the bad guy has to be The Bad Guy, not just someone who had a few bad breaks or whatever. I didn't like that at all, but it wasn't enough to break the movie for me. I just wish they didn't do it, especially since it was all a fake tease anyways, but I guess they figured they had to do SOMEthing different, after all. Eh.

[pennydreadful]

As far as horror recs go, I'd have to point the OP in the direction of anything that Clive Barker has had a hand in, or the old Universal and Hammer Horror stuff.

As far as the Freddy remake is concerned, Haley can't hold a candle to Englund's Freddy, and I'll fight any fella who says otherwise. Let the topless mud-wrestling commence!

[Leo656]

Despite the fact that Englund's Freddy was only "scary" in two out of 50 movies and that Haley actually did a pretty good reimagining - not of the "Krusty the Clown" Freddy of the sequels but the original villain as the character was intended to be?

I don't know man. I think they're about even square, at least if the viewer prefers Freddy as an actual Bad Guy and not a cartoon. Everything people like about Goofy Freddy is everything that makes the sequels so horrible, after all. Someone's got to be a complete mark for the franchise to say otherwise. By the time the guy had his own TV show we can go ahead and say they weren't even trying to be "horror" anymore.

I'm not comparing Haley's Freddy to the merry prankster of the Englund sequels, just objectively recognizing that he did a great job with his portrayal of the character as a creep and a murderer as he was designed to be.

Sometimes, I feel like the only person alive with the ability to judge something As It Is, not, "As It Is When Graded Against Something Else According To Arbitrary And Personally Subjective Criteria."

[pennydreadful]

I just wanted an excuse for topless mud-wrestling.

[Leo656]

I think topless mud wrestling justifies itself just fine.

[Candy Kappa]

I kinda hoped for Freddy actually being innocent in the remake, that the kids made it all up. And when Freddy died such a violent death, his spirit became the monster the children had made up. Basically like a Japanese Onryo, as the Ju-On (The Grudge) movies.

Could have shaken things up and made the movie more memorable.

[Leo656]

See but then the movie has zero sympathetic characters aside from the goddamn villain, and I don't like that. You're rooting for everyone to get killed because they deserve it at that point, more or less. I don't care if we're a "shades of gray" society now, I think any approach where the mass-murderer is the audience's sympathetic character by default is a mistaken approach.

I mean, yeah, different, but you still end up with a story where the audience is implicitly encouraging someone to revenge-murder a bunch of teenagers. I can't really get down with that.