My top 20 favorite horror movies of all time - Part II: 10-1

October = horror movie time. Let me continue the list for my top 20 favorite horror movies of all time. In Part I of the list, I talked about number 20 to 11. In Part II, I will be discussing my top 10. So hang on tight, for we are about to descend even deeper into the world of high strangeness.

Number 10: Psycho (1960)

Alfred Hitchcock is an iconic director, and Psycho is among his finest works, where he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Director. These days there are a lot of movies about psychotic killers, but Psycho is arguably the grandfather of the genre, and it is often considered one of the greatest films ever made. Psycho is shot in black and white. The story has tension and suspense, and it is a fascinating journey into the mind of a psychotic killer. You cannot call yourself a movie buff until you have seen this one. I mean, what sort of movie buff hasn't seen the iconic "shower scene" from Psycho?

P.S. Psycho is also the first American movie to show a flushing toilet on screen.

Number 9: Hereditary (2018)

I love A24 movies, their films often feel a bit Indie and arthouse, but still mainstream enough to keep the audiences entertained and grounded. While A24 is also famous for movies such as Room, Ex Machina, and The Disaster Artist, but I think they do horror movies especially well.

Indeed, horror, oh horror! Hereditary sent a shiver down my neck. The director of this film has a very good understanding of fear and what it means to be terrified. This movie doesn't use jump scares, instead it uses the psychological effects of "seen" and "unseen" to terrify the audience. Often it is not what you can see that terrifies you, but it is when you are unsure if you just saw what you think you saw, that terrifies you. So many scenes in this movie made me wonder if I saw something at the corner of the screen, or if my eyes were playing tricks on me. And it was a scary experience! The acting in Hereditary is superb, and the story is very clever. This movie has a very strong opening chapter, but it is not ranked higher on my list because I think the cleverness of the first half forced the 2^nd half into answering too many questions. In other words, Hereditary is a horror masterpiece, but it is a bit too clever for its own good. Some critics compare this movie to The Exorcist, and I think this is a bad comparison, because Hereditary is NOTHING like The Exorcist. So you are bound to disappointment if you walk into this movie and expecting to see something like The Exorcist. No, instead just watch Hereditary for what it is, don't even watch the trailers, and I promise it will terrify and surprise you for two hours.

Number 8: The Shining (1980)

At my number 8 is another Stephen King adaptation, The Shining. This movie is directed by the famous Stanley Kubrick, and it has had an enormous influence on pop and movie culture. But this movie is even more controversial since Stephen King famously hated the movie adaptation; "a creator who hated his own creation" (quoting Ready Player One). I haven't read the novel, so I can't comment on the difference between the book and the film, but I have seen this film a couple of times and I love it because it is unsettling and disturbing. The horror in The Shining is strangely effective, because it makes you wonder whose perception of the events you should trust. One cannot help but walk away from this film with a sense of uncertainty, about what is real and what is not.

Number 7: Jaws (1975)

Sharks probably don't act like they do in Jaws, but the movie is a symbol of the cinematic history nevertheless. Steven Spielberg directed Jaws, and he build tension and suspense into the film by famously refraining from showing the whole shark until the very end. Many monster movies have since borrowed from this method, but none are as effective at producing this sort of elevated horror. This movie is very, very, re-watchable, and more than 40 years after its release, the special effects, especially the shark, still looks great, and at time it looks even more realistic than modern-day CGI. But the strengths in Jaws is not just the shark, but it is also the characters. The audiences will root for the characters because they are very well-written, and this makes the final showdown, between the shark and the three heroes, really intense. Jaws is not just a great horror movie, but it is an all-round great movie.

Number 6: The Exorcist (1973)

Almost every religion in the world has stories about demonic possessions and exorcisms. When you read the religious texts, you get the feeling in the old days the strange and the macabre were the daily norm. However, if you talk to modern-day religious folks, the chances you will find them believing in the supernatural activities in the scriptures, without applying scientific skepticism. However, you will also find them disbelieving a present day supernatural claim when they encounter one, because they will suddenly examine the modern-day claims with scientific skepticism. It is easy to see the inconsistency there; it is almost as if modern-day religious people are finding it hard to reconcile their faith with reason, or, just how far, they should trust reason. Some religious people would even assert that believe in a god makes reason more accountable, without realizing they are shooting themselves in the foot because the supernatural activities, residing at the core of their beliefs, are not necessarily explainable by reason.

It looks like some modern-day religious people would love think their beliefs can be completely rationalized, such that their belief can appear more acceptable and up-to-date in the age of science and technology. But is that attainable? Well, William Blatty's best-selling novel, The Exorcist, explores this question. Blatty is a Catholic, and he wrote the novel with the intention to "bring people back to the church". It suffices to say the novel was great, and its movie adaptation became so famous it is almost synonymous to the horror genre itself. The story in The Exorcist presents an ironic situation, where an atheist was ready to believe and seeking out a priest's help because she experienced demonic activities, but the church priest, highly attuned to scientific skepticism, palmed her back to the doctors instead because he was skeptical about her experiences. Ha! What has the world come to! So if the devil is real, and his power is deception, then I wonder who was deceived by the devil? And may I suggest that is the real horror in The Exorcist. Anyway, I am a skeptic of religion and paranormal activities, but I wholeheartedly agree with what William Blatty was saying in The Exorcist. What a thought-provoking story!

Number 5: The Devil's Backbone (2001)

Guillermo del Toro is most famous for movies like Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy, and The Shape of Water. But my favorite movie from him is a Spanish language horror film called The Devil's Backbone. This movie is a real gem and I am surprised it is not more widely known. The story took place during the Spanish Civil War, in an orphanage. The protagonists in this movie are the orphans, and the movie itself is as much a period drama as a horror film. This is a ghost movie, but unlike the many ghost movies out there, the ghost here is a metaphor to emotions and memories of people and places. There is a quiet beauty and a profound sadness about this movie. I have re-watched this movie many times and I never get tired of it. 

Number 4: A Quiet Place (2018)

A Quiet Place treads a fine line between horror and thriller, and it is currently my favorite movie of 2018. This movie, as its name suggests, is almost a silent film. It has a simple premise about a family trying to survive a monster apocalypse. A Quiet Place is the most action-packed movie on this list, but it is more of a family drama than a monster flick. This movie also explores how "making sound" is essential to our humanity; in our daily lives we make sounds to express ourselves and our range of emotions, and this movie investigates an interest concept, of how, the inability to make sound can affect our very being. This movie has an original story and it provides movie goers with a breath of fresh air from movie franchises and cinematic universes.

Number 3: Let the Right One In (2008)

What do you get when you mix vampires with romance? I can see raised eyebrows already because you are thinking of Twilight. Well, unfortunately the cheese known as Twilight has become the symbol for vampire romance movies, but there are some excellent romantic horror movies if you know where to look. Take, Let the Right One In, for example. This movie is number 3 on my list. This is a Swedish movie and it is critically acclaimed. The story's premise involves a teenage boy falling in love with a vampire girl, but the movie was really about dealing with bullies, exclusion, and isolation, as an outsider. This movie is slow moving, and it is more arthouse than mainstream, but it is beautiful rendition of story, sound, and cinematography.

P.S. I heard there is an American remake of the film. I haven't seen the remake yet but I am skeptical of movie remakes. So I am sticking to the original.

Number 2: The Thing (1982)

The Thing, directed by John Carpenter, is in my opinion the most suspenseful horror movie of all time. This is because even when the credit rolls you are still wondering who was the "thing". I believe this movie took some inspirations from H.P. Lovecraft's horror novella, "At the Mountain of Madness", and the story is set in the frozen tundra of Antarctica, where an unknown organism, one capable of absorbing another's DNA and then replicating its appearance, threatened to replace the entire research crew with itself. This movie will keep you guessing at who is "the thing" for 2 hours, and it is a fun ride. Out of all horror movies on this list I rewatch The Thing the most, and every time I watch it I get the same thrill and suspense. This one is a timeless classic.

Number 1: The Witch (2015)

At the very top of my list is The Witch, and it is also the least mainstream horror movie out of the lots. This movie is arthouse horror, and it is (again) distributed by A24. The Witch is a slow burn and it does not employ jump scare tactics. Instead, the horror resides in the mounting dread and tension. The story is set in New England, and the year was 1630. A very religious family, who were in exile, found a new land and they settled on it. However, strange happenings led them to believe the devil was at works. Everything in this movie feels real; the characters spoke like from the King James bible, the huts were built with real mud and bricks, and the costumes were hand-woven. The authenticity is in the details. The feature has a humble runtime of 90 minutes. The movie briefly showed one or two scenes of supernatural stuff, but the atmosphere became more suspenseful and dreadful as the movie went on. It kept me guessing if the family's ordeals were from the external or self-inflicted.

However, the most horrifying aspect in The Witch isn't the witch. No, the horror is where the audience, watching on in shock and horror, at this family's tragic descent into madness and despair because of their obsession with the idea of sin, which caused them to unleash this religious terror upon themselves. This is even more horrifying considering the sort of belief shown in the film is an accurate depiction of the deeply Calvinistic belief at the time. This is a multi-layered, and powerful story, unsettling and dreadful. Furthermore, this movie is shot in a very interesting aspect ration at 1.66:1, where most images are greyish or with strong contrasts between black and white. The movie sets a dreadful and hopeless tone and the cinematography enhances it. The Witch may not be everyone's cup of tea because it is arthouse and not action packed, but I love it for the eerie atmosphere, realism, and the thought-provoking story. This is why The Witch grabs the top spot as my favorite horror movie of all time.

This brings me to the conclusion of the list. Thank you for reading. I hope you discovered some new movies. What are your favorite horrors? You are welcomed to comment below and let me know.