Entertainment Weekly's Top 20 Horror Movies....A Different Perspective

1. The Shining
2. The Exorcist
3. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
4. The Silence of the Lambs
5. Jaws
6. The Ring
7. Halloween
8. Psycho
9. Seven
10. Rosemary's Baby
11. Poltergeist
12. 28 Days Later
13. A Nightmare On Elm Street
14. The Thing
15. The Evil Dead
16. Carrie
17. Night of the Living Dead
18. The Omen
19. An American Werewolf in London
20. Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer

As a horror fan for over 20 years, I laugh at this list. Sure, some of them deserve to be on there like Poltergeist, Halloween and The Exorcist. But The Ring.....The Evil Dead....WTF? First off, this list completely ignores the real horror movies. It just pays attention to whatever brought in box office dollars and had hot Hollywood stars.

Even going back in time, putting myself in the shoes of people in the 60s and 70s who had The Omen, Rosemary's Baby and Psycho, it's still not that scary. The scary part of psycho is never seen until the end when we have a skeleton superimposed on Norman. The Omen.....creepy, yes, but hardly scary. Gregory Peck is a great actor, but horror actor he is not. Rosemary's Baby was the same movie as The Omen to me.

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre we go back to 1974 where this style of movie existed but wasn't well known, especially in America. Scary, no. This grossed out audiences. Why I don't know because the movie is intense, absolutely, but it's not gross. It's really not violent.

Jaws.....not horror. It's terrifying no doubts, even to this day where we know it's a piece of shit mechanical shark. Every time I see a body of water, I think of Jaws.
Henry and American Werewolf in London, to me, aren't that good. I'll admit it, I hate werewolf movies. The werewolf, to me, is the most unrealistic of most of the monsters and creatures. Great, great werewolf movies have been made and this was one of the first to really use effects to show the process. Scary...not quite.

Brings me to The Shining. When I was a kid, this movie was the scariest movie. The girls in the hallway, the elevator full of blood and of course, HEEEEEEERE'S Johnny. All of those will forever be burnt in my mind on how intense they were. I can honestly watch that movie now and still be scared. The human mind is a scary place and when you have something like this just diving into it, the end product will be loved for generations to come.

The Silence of the Lambs. This movie is always, like Jaws, debated on whether or not it's horror. Given "horror" is such a vague term, that conversation will never end but I think it does deserve to be on this list. The timid Clarice Starling, the deceptive cannibal, Hannibal Lecter and of course, the androgynous Buffalo Bill make this movie full of characters we want to love but never want to meet. I know I'll get yelled at for this, but this was ONE of the first movies to bring a reality based horror into the mainstream. After this, movies have evolved into a horrible label of "torture porn". Of course, this is not that. This movie has minimal violence in it. Start to finish, it's an eerie movie that leaves you with a pit in your stomach.

Night of the Living Dead and Carrie are ones on this list that I can live without. Dawn of the Dead is a much better zombie movie but it's nice to have something to say "this is where we came from". George A Romero is a genius and the way he captured society and mixed it with a new kind of horror will be loved, as I mentioned before, for the next few generations. Carrie is an infamous movie for the blood scene and nothing more. I watched this movie twice and was utterly bored both times. If we were making a list of horror movies that have 20 minutes of good to it, Stephen King would have a lot of movies on this list like Cujo, as well.

Seven......no. That should absolutely not be on this list. Mostly because it has Brad Pitt. I kid. This movie, especially the ending is probably the only reason why it's on this list. It's a cat and mouse game with eerie religious views thrown in. I will never own this movie because it builds and builds and when we finally reach the climax, it's good but once you've seen it, you're done.

The Ring and The Evil Dead. I'm in a minority that enjoyed The Ring and who doesn't love The Evil Dead. The Ring, in my opinion, is tarnished forever as the movie that started the Asian remake trend. We had a few before it but none had the success of The Ring. Which I'm sure Entertainment Weekly took that into consideration, the money it made. Money doesn't make a movie great, at least in horror world. The Ring depended SO much on that chick in the TV (I forgot her name Samara I think) that the actual speaking characters become blurs. The fact they made a second Ring just makes me lower my head in shame. The Evil Dead was fantastic. It's not a good movie though. Sam Raimi introduced most the world to Slapstick Horror. It's almost a mockery of horror but it's so unique, it will never be considered that. I think more deserving movies should be on this list. If we had a list "the 20 most beloved horror movies" no doubt this would be number 1.

Last but not least, 28 Days Later. You love this movie or you hate this movie. I'm in the category of Hate. I tried to like this movie and 28 Weeks Later, but I just couldn't sink my teeth into it. When it came out, we were on zombie overload. Since it came out, we have been on more zombie overload. This movie is just SO boring in the down time, which there is a lot of. When the characters are fighting or running from zombies, it's awesome. But then it sucks in between....enough to send this fan to a different movie. Danny Boyle should stick to his Slumdog Millionaires and leave the zombies to the king, Romero.

I know I forgot to talk about a few, but who doesn't know everything about the rest. Nightmare On Elm Street is awesome. The sequels make the series laughable, but the first one holds it together. The Thing is one of my favorite movies. To this day, I'm yet to see another movie like it do a better job. John Carpenter is the man.

Movies that should be on this list:
The Orphanage. NOTHING scarier than ghosts because that's one of few things in a horror movie that most people think are real.

Near Dark. Before Twilight ruined vampire movies forever, this 80s classic does the most realistic adaptation of a vampire. This is my all time favorite horror movie.

Dawn of the Dead (original or remake). Zombie movies at their best. There's no hope and there's no way out.

Hellraiser. The difference between a normal slasher villain and Pinhead, Pinhead is already dead and can control virtually everything. You're screwed if you see him.

My Bloody Valentine (original). For 1980, this has some of the best gore effects and still keeps together a good storyline...for a slasher.

Friday the 13th (original). Sure, the Jason movies became a joke as time went on, but the first one and the few that followed are just balls to the wall scary. A vengeful mother and a deranged half zombie half retarded kid killing everyone in their way.....freaks me out.

There you have it ladies and gentlemen. Garden's rant on why Entertainment Weekly should stick to Hollywood Hookups and leave the horror to the people who (at least think) they know something about it. Happy Halloween Everyone

Editors Note: This has been a guest editorial by one of our community members. Be sure to leave your comments

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