For Halloween, I usually pull out the bats and, accordingly, decorate the blog, but, this year, I guess something distracted me from that usual course. So, this lame-ass, quasi-confessional list will just have to do, bitches. This is, of course, a list that will haunt me because it provides plenty of ammunition for future teasing, but, hell, at a certain point and after writing online for long enough in certain venues, one develops immunity against that sort of thing. Soooo, out of the countless horror films that I’ve viewed, these are the Top Ten that have actually caused such a visceral reaction that I’ve lost sleep as a result. Of course, a few of these are childhood carryovers, but, like I said above, this is one of those rare sharing occasions. It is also worth mentioning that three of the ten are based upon writings by Stephen King. So, let’s do this:

1. The Strangers (2008): This is my favourite film, so far, of this year, and I’ve already gushed quite a lot in a “Thrills, Spills, and Chills” sort of review. Bryan Bertino is one director to pay v. close attention to, for he is an extremely adept screenwriter and talented, old-school director that can craft a stunningly lean, teasingly mean film that can instinctively know when the a film’s money shot should and will arrive. Bertino is tauntingly merciless and cautiously controlled in his execution. Instinctively, he realizes how much character development his audience requires to feel empathy for his main characters, and Bertino does not dwell upon the unnecessary masturbatory tendencies of certain directors who are completely enamored with their own cleverness. Instead, this film is all about the realism of this particular story, and, fuck me, what a story it turns out to be.

2. The Shining (1980): This film’s scares have stood up well over the decades, for when Stephen King writes a novel, and Stanley Kubrick adapts and directs, the results are iconically frightening. There’s also something inherently creepy about the concept of an isolated hotel that’s awash in souls from an Indian burial ground. This hotel, and in particular, Room 237, is clearly, pretty fucking evil and drives its winter caretakers insane. Its latest victims are Jack and Wendy, along with their son, Danny. Between Jack’s newfound craziness and a ghost that puts him back on the liquor, the family is doomed, and his son’s premonitions soon come to fruition. In addition, a pair of freakish twins, a frozen maze, “redrum,” and the Jack’s jacked-up manuscript that consists only of variations of “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” only a cyborg would fail to become at least a little bit scared.

3. Night of the Living Dead (1968): Oh, George Romero, if it weren’t for you, we’d still be stuck with those lame-ass Haitian voodoo sorts of zombies that don’t do anything even remotely fucked up, such as feeding upon human flesh and whatnot. The chills generated by this film are heightened by the starkness of its atmosphere, the fear of the unknown, and the realism of the “home movie” effect, which was created through handheld camera work, awful lighting, crappy acting, banal language, and a real-time chain of events. As I stated in a classic review, “[T]he more volatile suspense results from the interaction of the human characters. In time, their fear, ignorance, and paranoia pulls them apart and functions as the true danger to the humans’ lives… [T]he external threat of the zombies pales in comparison to the internal conflicts within the group of survivors.” Basically, it’s not the inexplicable “other” that will eventually destroy us all, “but the greatest enemy within a so-called zombie apocalypse are the humans within.”

4. Cabin Fever (2002): This is another film in which, once fear and paranoia settle in, the protagonists start to do each other in. Of course, this is an Eli Roth project, so there’s an extra “ick” factor at work here with a flesh-eating virus. When five recent college grads head out for a weekend in the woods, any hopes for a relaxing session of sex, drugs, and shooting squirrels are dashed away when a party-crashing hermit, who is clearly missing a lot of skin, shows up. In a panic, the friends kill the hermit, who seems to make a point of strategically falling into the nearest water reservoir. When one of the girls becomes ill, the others lock her in a shed, and as they each become ill in turn, their treatment of each other, well, it isn’t pretty. Thankfully, this is a horror comedy, so much of the unease in watching the characters lose their shit is alleviated by fits of laughter. However, after this film, you’ll find that tap and bottled will equally freak you out, and, if you’re already harboring some OCD, well, you’re basically fucked here. Happy viewing!

5. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) Oh, shut the fuck up — to me, this is a horror film. Forget about that remade saccharine version with Johnny Depp, for the original film was horrific to behold. Honestly, I still cannot believe that this children’s film isn’t more widely known as some sort of bad acid trip. In particular, the fate of Violet, who defiantly samples an experimental, three-course meal piece of blueberry-flavoured bubble gum, is extremely frightening to any unsuspecting child. Poor Violet learns her lesson when she turns an alarming shade of blue and swells up into the shape of a balloon-shaped blueberry filled with juice. When Violet becomes so rounded that she cannot even walk, she completely loses her shit, and then Willy Wonka finally grants her mercy by having those damned Oompa Loompas haul Violet off to the juicing machine. Holy fuck!

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