Best Ever Horror Film

[Robin Davies]

I agree Noroi: The Curse is an excellent film.
The DVD is available here:
DDDHouse.com

A good one I saw recently is Absentia.

[Empty Socket]

I really enjoyed and was scared by Audition.

[When_MP_Attacks]

Good horror films are even more rare than good comedies. I'm not sure there are even 10 great horror films.The best for me would have to be The Thing or Session 9.

[MagnusTC]

I watched Låt den rätte komma in (Let the Right One In, 2008) yesterday. It's a strange, and strangely quiet and understated, film. At some points, I felt ready to dismiss it, yet I think it succeeds in being genuinely unsettling in its implications. Recommended!

[Michael]

Gotta go with the black and white "The Haunting", but it's gotta be watched in an actual theatre. Loses some of its most powerful punch when you're just watching it on your laptop.
Best horror film in the last 20 years, gets tied by "The Devil's Rejects" and "Cabin in the Woods".

[DoktorH]

I don't want there to be a Best Ever Horror Film, because then they will stop making them, and just show that one, over and over, and all the other Really Good Horror Films will be slowly forgotten.

Cabin in the woods is in my top 3 for Best So Far This Year, alongside Kill List and V/H/S, and there's still a few months left for something to depose one or the other of them (highly unlikely, but still)

for all time favorites, I have too many to narrow it down to just one. I can do a few big names per subcategory, like this:

• best slashers: Laid to Rest, Halloween (1978), The Strangers
• best haunted house/hotel/whatever: The Shining, Paranormal Activity 3.
• Best zombie outbreak: Zombieland, Shaun of the dead ( I know Romero is one of the founding fathers of the genre, but honestly, I like these better than anything he's done)
• best whole-town-is-in-on-it: Wicker Man (1973), kill list, cabin in the woods
• best evil doll/toy: Child's Play franchise, including Bride and Seed of Chucky.
• Best Torture movie (saw and similar): Saw, Hostel 3, The
  Butcher
  Butcher

[Nicole Cushing]

The best horror film is... *drum roll please*

the one that doesn't get made!

*rim shot*

(Yes, generally speaking, I don't care for horror movies...or movies, in general, really...except the really, really bad ones that work as unintentional comedies).

Still, there are a couple that I sorta dig...

For legitimate scares, I'll ditto the vote for Session 9. I also thought the original Asian version of The Ring...Ringu...was well-done. I'll also toss in the original black & white Carnival of Souls. All of these films frightened me when I first watched them.

My guilty pleasure is and will probably always be the Phantasm franchise. As a rule, these movies make no sense. The director clearly has film-making ambitions that exceed his budget. He wants to give us something along the lines of SF/horror...only it ends up all very small-scale...and he likes to punctuate his metaphysical epiphanies with action/adventure staples like car explosions and gun play. Brace yourself for ret-con upon ret-con, too. And yet, like a nutty aunt secluded in the attic, the franchise possesses an odd charm.

Along the same lines, I dig the original Hellraiser film. More for nostalgia than anything else, really...but it's not that bad.

[DoktorH]

Quote Originally Posted by Nicole Cushing

My guilty pleasure is and will probably always be the Phantasm franchise. As a rule, these movies make no sense. The director clearly has film-making ambitions that exceed his budget. He wants to give us something along the lines of SF/horror...only it ends up all very small-scale...and he likes to punctuate his metaphysical epiphanies with action/adventure staples like car explosions and gun play. Brace yourself for ret-con upon ret-con, too. And yet, like a nutty aunt secluded in the attic, the franchise possesses an odd charm.

I don't know about charm, but the franchise definitely... has balls ::cue CSI Miami theme::

when I watch the Phantasm movies, I see something that has come out almost exactly as intended. Maybe not as the filmmakers intended, but perhaps as the Tall Man himself willed it to be from wherever he is.

[DoktorH]

I couldn't leave this undone.

[DoktorH]

Quote Originally Posted by Julian Karswell

Yname the ONE horror film that you would like to be buried with.

Falling Down. it hits too much of a nerve for me to not be buried with it.