What Are My Five Favorite Horror Movies of All Time? (as of 2024)
Let me think...
Dear Moviegoers,
Yes, I have a listicle for y’all. And yes, it’s perfectly timed.
Please note that I find ranking all-time films to be very fun if also very stressful. After all, what are the best of the best? This changes every year, every month, every day, every moment. So, I always put in the extra bit of such rankings to be my “favorites” at a given time.
A cop out sure.
With that, in the interest of celebrating Halloween, here are my five favorite horror films, in no particular order—as of 2024.
Enjoy:
I started watching David Lynch films during my college years in the mid-2000s, and haven’t stopped since. There’s a tinge of anxiety in each of the ones I’ve seen (a recurring element that I like in my movie watching) and yet a rewarded feeling of hope and victory by the end. Rewarded for getting through the film? For endurance? Out of generosity from the filmmaker?
His last feature film - unless you “count” his recent Showtime mini-series Twin Peaks: The Return - works as both a bookend to his first flick Eraserhead and the end to a trilogy that includes Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive. Any of the referenced three could’ve made this countdown, but I chose Lynch’s consumer-grade digital nightmare-scape instead.
Inland Empire is a movie that’s been memed online quite a bit, and not for its content but rather the eccentricity of David Lynch, when he promoted his star Laura Dern for a Best Actress Academy Award…with a Cow and a Lawn Chair. Acts like that make for his legendary personality and this film’s everlasting stay.
He was in the middle of a very creative period, uploading video projects to his website such as a series about people in rabbit costumes - also memed online. What came out of this almost word-salad exploration into an artist’s mind was Inland Empire, a tale set in Hollywood, and a journey through multiple stories and dreams and realities. Laura Dern goes through stages of hell filled with devils and screwdrivers, and comes out of it to unseen applause.
Throughout this trip are many scenes of visual terror, the best being a slow run toward the camera by Dern, whose face quickly contorts with a scream-like smile and wide-open eyes, directly into the camera. The film can be seen as an acid-tragedy, but can’t be ignored as a straight horror. It confuses, it confounds, it creeps.
Only recently did I build up the nerve to watch The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, for the first time, and in a theater. I knew the production stories, I read up on the sequels, and had some second-hand whiff of its general story, but had always avoided the full presentation.
Avoided.
I’m not certain why. For me, horror flicks with catholic iconography and “blasphemy” do damage to my psyche and courage more than monsters chasing girls around—and I’m not even all that religious. But this Massacre? Maybe it’s in the final shot of Leatherface twirling around with his weapon as the sun rises behind him. It’s unnerving to think about such next-door evil, such real-world behavior, and very intense aggression.
These people exist, in fits and bursts. That radio news blast about atrocities and murder at the beginning? We hear it and see it every damn day all over mass media.
Too timeless for words.
Once, I projected the original silent Nosferatu on a lecture room wall in college. Alone with my thoughts, reflecting on this public-domain DVD, I chuckled often at the brashness of the vampire’s dialogue and behavior. He just openly says how a man’s wife has a beautiful neck before hungrily staring at a slightly bloody cut.
This takes place during a contract signing for a real-estate deal.
It all would be such a loose comedy of scares if it weren’t for Max Schreck’s brilliant, grotesque, and dedicated performance as Count Orlock. The man under the makeup knows how to walk, how to gesture, and how to stare. He stalks souls, he seeks blood, and he longs for love. Ascending some stairs, his shadowy silhouette stuns one into breathlessness.
All it takes is one moment, one look, or one shot to put a movie over the top. This one has many.
I’ll never forget its viral marketing. Its first trailer. My anxiety before the film played.
This, The Blair Witch Project, represented my fears of a post-OCD exposure-therapy future and the coming of maturity. I panicked in the theater, I upset my Mom and brother, but then would calm myself down out of guilt.
Afterward, I was most relaxed. The film was so impressive and creative, showing me a new way of making movies on the cheap and in the backyard. Or anywhere. As a kid videographer, this and MTV’s Jackass inspired my friends and I to do some crazy things in front of my Super-VHS camera.
Has the film remained scary? In many ways, yes. Terrifying even. I reflect on it differently now, but it still impacts me ever so, each time I think about it.
Another Lynch? You bet.
I picked Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me out of a Wal-Mart discount bin based on name recognition alone. When my friends and I finally watched it in an Uptown New Orleans loft, huddled together in awe, was when I knew how real nightmares had always been for everyone.
Trauma. Torture. Abuse. No rest for the innocent or the young. Ever.
Every scene is a portrait, filled with heroes and villains. With dreamers and their dreams. With monsters and their victims.
Why was this so unappreciated for so long? I read that it was booed at its premiere, with people expecting a sequel/conclusion to the famous television series that it was based on.
It’s a shame. Nothing ends. Ever.
Happy Halloween! (and vote for Harris/Walz)
These are all great choices! Happy Halloween, Bill!