Top 100 Horror Films

As it's October it seemed an appropriate time to post a list of my top 100 (or so) Horror films. Here's a link to the same list which I posted on Letterboxd.

Unsurprisingly, a lot of classics are on here. My own personal favourites from within the list are marked with an asterisk (*). There's still so much to explore. I feel like lists such as these are better at highlighting gaps in my knowledge of the genre rather than being an authoritative selection. I remember as a teenager seeing the appendix to Stephen King's 'Danse Macabre' where he highlighted outstanding titles in the genre from the 1950 to 1980 period and seeking out as many as possible. It gave me a pretty good grounding in Horror flicks and over the next decade or so I became more familiar with the genres landmarks, franchises, disgraces, oddities and outliers. It seems to be a field that fires the imagination of certain filmmakers, an outlet for a darker, mischievous side that other types of film don't allow.

Limiting my selection to 100 films was surprisingly difficult. I've had to exclude many essential films from here simply because there wasn't enough space for all of them. Various films on here could be seen as a representative for other titles. Night of the Living Dead spawned several excellent sequels but none of them could quite match the impact that the original had on me. Likewise Roger Corman's cycle of Poe adaptations produced several genre classics but I decided to settle for just one on here as a gateway to a remarkable series. Whistle and I'll Come to You was the first of numerous superb ghost story adaptations that were made for British television from the late 1960s to the end of the 1970s. The Stalls of Barchester, A Warning to the Curious, The Signalman, Casting the Runes and Schalcken the Painter would also merit inclusion here. As much as I love Dario Argento's Suspiria, I like the 1980 sequel Inferno even more, which allowed for another compromise on my part. For the sake of variety I had to resist the urge to include more titles by my favourite filmmakers who have worked in the field such as Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Tobe Hooper, Jacques Tourneur and Mario Bava. Only two Hammer Horror titles appear in this selection, which fails to do justice to the studio's many great achievements including its remarkable series of Frankenstein films by director Terence Fisher and star Peter Cushing. One hundred titles sounds like a lot but I was surprised by how many cherished movies I had to exclude to produce a list that was emblematic of both the genre and my own personal tastes.

One of the fun aspects of Horror films is the sheer range and diversity that the genre encompasses with its trash/art dichotomy. I don't think there's a definitive way to describe just what exactly constitutes a Horror film. For me it comes down to a personal feeling and responses to a film rather than a broad set of criteria. A lot of my frustration with contemporary genre fare is its inability or unwillingness to explore the boundaries of Horror and its tired replaying of familiar tropes. My interest has waned from the peak fandom of 15 to 20 years ago but I'm always open to the possibility of interesting new titles and exciting developments in the field. There are modern titles on here but I wanted it to be representative of a broad spread of film history, going all the way back to the silent era.

As with my year by year top ten database the idea is for this list to evolve over time so there will be additions and removals.

 The Addiction (Abel Ferrara, 1995)
 All the Colours of the Dark (Sergio Martino, 1972)

 Audition (Takashi Miike, 1999)

*The Avenging Conscience (D.W. Griffith, 1914)

 The Beyond (Lucio Fulci, 1981)

 The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock, 1963)
*The Black Cat (Edgar G. Ulmer, 1934)

 Black Christmas (Bob Clark, 1974)

 Black Moon (Roy William Neill, 1934)

 Black Sabbath (Mario Bava, 1963)

*Black Sunday (Mario Bava, 1960)

*Bluebeard (Edgar G. Ulmer, 1944)

 The Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale, 1935)

*The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920)
*Carnival of Souls (Herk Harvey, 1962)
 Carrie (Brian De Palma, 1976)
 Il caso Valdemar (Gianni Hoepli & Ubaldo Magnaghi, 1936)
*Cat People (Jacques Tourneur, 1942)
*Chime (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2024)

 Corridors of Blood (Robert Day, 1958)
 Creature from the Black Lagoon (Jack Arnold, 1954)
 Creepy (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2016) 

 Cure (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 1997)

 The Curse of the Cat People (Robert Wise, Gunther von Fritsch, 1944)
*Dagon (Stuart Gordon, 2001)

*Dead of Night (Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden & Robert Hamer, 1945)

 Der Todesking/The Death King (Jorg Buttgereit, 1990)
 The Demon (Brunello Rondi, 1963)
 Les Diaboliques (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1955)

 Dracula (Tod Browning, 1931)

*Dreams in the Witch House (Stuart Gordon, 2005)

 Exorcist II: The Heretic (John Boorman, 1977)
 The Exorcist III (William Peter Blatty, 1990)

 Eyes Without a Face (Georges Franju, 1960)
 The Fall of the House of Usher (Jean Epstein, 1928)

 The Fog (John Carpenter, 1980)

*Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931)

*Freaks (Tod Browning, 1932)
 The Ghost of Yotsuya (Nobuo Nakagawa, 1959)
 God Told Me To (Larry Cohen, 1976)
 The Gorgon (Terence Fisher, 1964)
 Halloween III: Season of the Witch (Tommy Lee Wallace, 1982)
 The Haunting (Robert Wise, 1963)

*Hour of the Wolf (Ingmar Bergman, 1968)

 House (Nobuhiko Ôbayashi, 1977)

*I Walked with a Zombie (Jacques Tourneur, 1943)

 In the Mouth of Madness (John Carpenter, 1994)
*Inferno (Dario Argento, 1980)
 The Invisible Man (James Whale, 1933)

*Island of Lost Souls (Erle C. Kenton, 1932)
*Isle of the Dead (1945, Mark Robson, 1945)
*Kill, Baby... Kill! (Mario Bava, 1966)
*Kotoko (Shinya Tsukamoto, 2011)
 Let's Scare Jessica to Death (John Hancock, 1971)

*Loft (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2005)

 Love Massacre (Patrick Tam, 1981)
 Martin (George A. Romero, 1977) 
*The Masque of the Red Death (Roger Corman, 1964)

 Matango (Ishiro Honda, 1963)

*Mother Joan of the Angels (Jerzy Kawalerowicz, 1961)

 Murders in the Rue Morgue (Robert Florey, 1932)

 Near Dark (Kathryn Bigelow, 1987)

*Night of the Demon (Jacques Tourneur, 1957)

 Night of the Eagle (Sidney Hayers, 1962)

 Night of the Living Dead (George A. Romero, 1968)

*Nosferatu (F.W. Murnau, 1922)

*Nosferatu, Phantom Der Nacht (Werner Herzog, 1979)
*An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (Robert Enrico, 1961)
 The Old Dark House (James Whale, 1932)
 Opera (Dario Argento, 1987)

 A Page of Madness (Teinosuke Kinugasa, 1926)
 Phenomena (Dario Argento, 1985)

 The Plague of the Zombies (John Gilling, 1966)

 Possession (Andrzej Zulawski, 1981)
*Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
 Pulse (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2001)
*Repulsion (Roman Polanski, 1965)
*Rosemary's Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968)

 Salem's Lot (Tobe Hooper, 1979)

*Séance (Kiyoshi Kurosawa, 2000)

 The Snow Woman (Tokuzo Tanaka, 1968)

 Sombre (Philippe Grandrieux, 1998)

 Splatter: Naked Blood (Hisayasu Sato, 1996)
*Spontaneous Combustion (Tobe Hooper, 1990)
*The Tenant (Roman Polanski, 1976)
 The Testament of Doctor Cordelier (Jean Renoir, 1959)

 The Thing from Another World (Christian Nyby, 1951)

*Toby Dammit (Federico Fellini, 1968)

 Two Orphan Vampires (Jean Rollin, 1997)

*The Uninvited (Lewis Allen, 1944)
*The Unknown (Tod Browning, 1927)

*Vampyr (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1932)

*Videodrome (David Cronenberg, 1983)

 Village of the Damned (Wolf Rilla, 1960)

 Viy (Konstantin Ershov & Georgiy Kropachyov, 1967)

 The Whip and the Body (Mario Bava, 1963)
*Whistle and I'll Come to You (Jonathan Miller, 1968)

 The White Reindeer (Erik Blomberg, 1952)

*White Zombie (Victor Halperin, 1932)

*X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes (Roger Corman, 1963)

Vampyr (1932, Carl Theodor Dreyer)