EW's 20 Top Horror Films of the Past 20 Years

[The Apatow Crew]

20. DEAD-ALIVE (1992)

Before he became a respectable filmmaker, Peter Jackson directed this slapstick carnival of gore. It starts as a neo-Psycho spoof about a nebbish and his awful mum, but Jackson soon pulls out all the stops and keeps them out. The movie is one outrageously gruesome set piece after another, with limbs, eyeballs, and — especially — intestinal tracts taking on an exuberant life of their own.

19. DARKMAN (1990)

In Sam Raimi's thrillingly demented horror-pop spectacular, Liam Neeson plays a mad scientist whose face gets dunked in acid; he then perfects a recipe for synthetic skin. Raimi jams together the most masochistic elements of The Phantom of the Opera, Batman, Eyes Without a Face, The Toxic Avenger, the 1958 version of The Fly, and what-have-you, and his images have a spectral, kinetic beauty.

18. EVENT HORIZON (1997)

In 2046, a spaceship voyages beyond Neptune to find out what became of the Event Horizon, an exploratory vessel that vanished into the cosmic void. Laurence Fishburne plays the captain as a soldier of stoic cool, but he's finally staring into the face of hell — a De Sadeian theater of violated flesh, served up in razory shock cuts that dig into your subconscious.

17. THE KINGDOM (1994)

Made for Danish television (but released here as a feature), Lars von Trier's sinister soap opera about the hidden goings on in the neurosurgical ward of a hospital in Copenhagen is a cheeky gothic medical bad trip: It's like a twisted ER crossed with The Shining. Stephen King liked it enough to develop an American-TV remake in 2004.

16. THE DESCENT (2005)

This British shocker about a group of women who go spelunking — that is, exploring caves — features encounters with a batch of humanoid beasties, but that isn't what's most terrifying about it. What's memorably unsettling is the movie's icy claustrophobia: It's a nightmare of damp rocky crawl spaces you would never want to be wedged into.

15. SHAUN OF THE DEAD (2004)

Alert! The dead have risen and are feasting on the living — but in the lumpish working-class Britian of Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg's zombie satire, everyone is so blitzed and jaded and drunk that it's hard to tell the difference. The movie is so rambunctiously over-the-top that it works beautifully as the very sort of head-splatter spectacle it's parodying.

14. HOSTEL 2 (2007)

In Eli Roth's splatter sequel, wealthy businessmen make bids to travel to Slovakia, where, in a network of dungeons hidden inside an abandoned factory, the top bidder will murder the victim he has bought. Calling up echoes of the sex-trafficking industry, Roth isn't just whipping up a blood-smeared megaplex hellhole. He's asking: In a world of global depravity, where anyone can buy anything, is homicide-for-kicks-for-the-right-price really such a huge leap?

13. MISERY (1990)

Stephen King's cabin-fever nightmare about the dark side of fan worship only looks more prophetic in the era of all-celebrity-all-the-time mania. As a mousy, vengeful nurse who kidnaps a romance novelist (James Caan) and tortures him into keeping her favorite character going, Kathy Bates (who won an Oscar for her performance) has a homicidal gleam under her hilariously sunny, apple-pie earnestness.

12. FROM HELL (2001)

The Hughes brothers' elegant and sensational Jack the Ripper thriller takes full, violent advantage of the license opened up by several decades of extravagantly bloody popcorn horror films. Johnny Depp plays a Sherlockian police inspector on the trail of the world's legendary first serial killer. The movie gives us flickering vérité flashes of the human soul turned inside out.

11. PLANET TERROR (2007)

The Robert Rodriguez half of Grindhouse is a deliciously bottom-of-the-barrel living-dead thriller, set in a present day that feels just like 1974, with zombies that get shot and spurt raspberry Jell-O blood. Rodriguez captures a particular mood of desultory, badly lit gross-out ghoulishness, and he does it with such heightened fanboy exactitude that it's as if he'd made the Far From Heaven of schlock.

10. RINGU (1998)

Still the greatest of all J-horror films, Hideo Nakata's shivery tale of a videotape that kills whoever watches it is a movie that gets under your skin by indelibly fusing mossy Victorian return-of-the-repressed imagery with the twitchy, staticky jolts of 21st-century technology. The 2002 American remake was surprisingly good — but not as freaky-good as the original.

9. ALIEN 3 (1992)

David Fincher made his directorial debut with this criminally underrated sequel, which resurrects the fear-sick mood and squishy-obsidian look of the original Alien (1979). As a monster stalks the prisoners of a distant planet, another one, still unborn, is growing — inside Sigourney Weaver's Ripley. It's a terrifically queasy conceit, played by Weaver in a Joan of Arc shaved head that's the taking-off point for her supple and anguished performance.

8. DRAG ME TO HELL (2009)

In his candy-colored ghouls-gone-wild nightmare, Sam Raimi surrounds a comely blond lass (Alison Lohman) with demons that seem to be erupting right out of her head. Lohman plays a loan officer who refuses to renew the mortgage of a one-eyed, rotten-toothed old gypsy woman (Lorna Raver). She then spends the rest of the film assaulted by flash-cut visions of baroquely grotesque and evil things, which unite the audience in a collective moan-laugh-shriek.

7. THE SIXTH SENSE (1999)

Before he became famous as a creator of big-budget synthetic horror fables with fearfully contrived twist endings, M. Night Shyamalan made this elegantly spooky and original modern ghost story, with a twist that earns every inch of its ''Whoa!'' factor. Haley Joel Osment is innocently creepy as a kid who sees dead people, and Bruce Willis is touching as the lost soul he befriends.

6. WHAT LIES BENEATH (2000)

Though it's never gotten the respect it deserves, Robert Zemeckis's terrifying gothic-feminist ghost chiller may be his most satisfying movie since Back to the Future. Michelle Pfeiffer lends screamy and heartfelt conviction to this tale of a housewife who discovers that her husband...well, just watch the movie and see why Harrison Ford's logy underacting is, for once, perfection. The final bathtub scene is sheer shivery bliss.

5. 28 WEEKS LATER (2007)

Richer, darker, crazier, and even scarier than 28 Days Later (the movie it's a sequel to), Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's jittery shocker is a piece of visionary apocalyptic zombie pulp. It's set six months after the rage virus first annihilated London. The U.S. army has restored ''order,'' but behind the paramilitary victory an even more lurid and unholy breakdown awaits. Among the struggling survivors: Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker) and Idris Elba (The Wire).

4. SCREAM (1996)

Poised on the knife's edge between parody and homage, Wes Craven's mock thriller revived the slasher films of the '80s in all their gruesomely ritualized glory. Except that the teenagers in Scream have been raised on endless replays of those films, so the sudden appearance of a mad killer becomes a case of life imitating schlock. The killer's mask suggests a plastic version of Edvard Munch's The Scream, and it has the eerie effect of reflecting the audience's fear right back at it.

3. THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999)

This ingenious mock-documentary jumps off from the premise that three young filmmakers, journeying into the Maryland woods in search of the legendary Blair Witch, have mysteriously disappeared. What we're seeing is the recovered footage they shot — a raggedy home-movie descent into hell that plays like MTV's Road Rules crossed with Rosemary's Baby. The Blair Witch Project became the ultimate indie crossover hit because some believed it was real, but also because it dips into primordial terror — not just ''darkness'' but genuine, godforsaken night.

2. THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991

Nearly two decades after its release, Jonathan Demme's dark-as-midnight thriller might be described as the modern movie masterpiece of serial-killer culture. It would be a mistake to call Hannibal Lecter, Anthony Hopkins' jovially homicidal cannibal shrink, a ''villain'' — he's more like a devil with twisted ethics. And Jodie Foster, as FBI agent Clarice Starling, makes one woman's pursuit of evil at once stirring and terrifying.

1. AUDITION (1999)

In a movie world saturated by routine horror, how does one create...true horror? The Japanese director Takashi Miike achieved it in this great, primal nightmare, which is no J-horror genre film; it's more like Psycho for the age of feminine empowerment. A lonely widower (Ryo Ishibashi) arranges to ''audition'' women for a movie (he's really looking for a wife). He meets Asami (Eihi Shiina), a passive and seductive mystery girl, who acts out her damage by putting men through the tortures of the damned. To watch Audition is to be afraid, very afraid.

http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20284496_20284497_20295591,00.html

Do you agree with alot of the films he said or not?

Here's another perspective from another side who's not biased.
EW's '20 Top Horror Films of the Past 20 Years', Shyeah....

Editor's note: This is NOT a list of MY PICKS, these are suggestions of films that should have been included in EW's list. Any of them would have been better than some of the films they picked. Read the article before you make idiotic comments.
Update: You also might enjoy this read over at The Vault of Horror where they compiled the Top 25 Horror Films of the Modern Era, as compiled by the "Cyber-Horror Elite"

I have a lot of work to do and yet I'm so angry, I feel I need to respond. Entertainment Weekly just posted their "20 Top Horror Films of the Past 20 Years," a new list obviously being used to drive them some traffic through Digg. Written by Owen Gleiberman, the list is clearly written by someone whose love for film doesn't resonate in the horror genre. As a horror fan I find this list beyond insulting, in fact, it's straight up blasphemy.

What horror fan would ever, and I mean ever list films like DARK MAN, ALIEN 3, FROM HELL, WHAT LIES BENEATH or even Lars von Trier's painfully slow TV series THE KINDGOM as in their list of top 20 films in the past 20 years? For real? I'm shaken up, stirred and cringing in anger. Instead of sitting around and whining, I decided to compile a list of films - off the top of my head (very important to note) - that are better than a few of the flicks Mr. Gleiberman has given this (undeserved ) prestigious honor to.

While Gleiberman's list does carry a few obvious films that deserve the honor of being on the list, it's INSANE to me that DARK MAN, ALIEN 3, FROM HELL, WHAT LIES BENEATH and THE KINGDOM are even mentioned. Beyond that, there are some other picks that, while appear to be noble, had me shaking my head.

Below you'll find some movies I felt could have replaced the aforementioned "gems" that soiled EW's list. Also note, this is a list I compiled off the top of my head, I'm sure there are even MORE that deserve a mention. Drop your thoughts below.

SAW (2004)

How can you talk about the past 20 years without mentioning Lionsgate's SAW, James Wan and Leigh Whannell's film that opened up the doors of horror to an entire new generation of fans. The film was so potent that a seventh film is already being worked on in just seven years. The first film has grossed over $500m in its life and the franchise is worth billions. There are theme parks, rides, toys, games and Jigsaw's games are about to be played in 3-D. Just leaving SAW off the list immediately makes the entire line-up a joke.

CABIN FEVER (2003)

Ask anyone on the street to name the top directors in horror today and I guarantee most will say Eli Roth and Rob Zombie. CABIN FEVER is not only a masterpiece of indie low-budget cinema, but it was a breakthrough for the genre. This film is one of the few that revived bloody horror cinema and helped get dozens of new horror movies greenlit.

HOSTEL (2006)

Fine, you don't like CABIN FEVER? Maybe you like Eli Roth's HOSTEL. While I'm not sure I would include this film on my list, I would say that the first film deserves to be on the list way before the sequel. EW's list includes HOSTEL: PART II, which they refer to as HOSTEL 2 (not the title, an obvious tell that we're dealing with a non-horror fan here). While both film are solid on their own merits, the first film was yet another groundbreaker that pushed the MPAA's limits and terrified audiences across the nation. I couldn't go ANYWHERE in my neighborhood without someone talking about how much they loved that movie.

FINAL DESTINATION (2000)

Before the teen-horror of the 90's died and went to hell, one gem shined out of the bunch swamped by SCREAM, and that was FINAL DESTINATION. This stylish pic was one of the most suspenseful horror films to come out that decade preceding and is widely recognized as a classic among horror fans. The franchise is so popular the fourth film comes out in theaters this month.

PANS LABYRINTH (2006)

Some might not call this horror, but I feel it's a fantasy film with horror elements for adults. Guillermo del Toro's film would easily be considered by some to be one of the BEST FILMS (in all genres) from the past 20 years. Yet, it's nowhere on this EW list.

THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE (2001)

Speaking of Guillermo del Toro, his dream project, THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE, was loaded with heart. It's a beautiful ghost story that is del Toro at his best. Without BACKBONE there would be no LABYRINTH. While BACKBONE didn't receive a wide theatrical release, it's recognized at a cinematic masterpiece.

SEVEN (1995)/ZODIAC (2007)

Gleiberman puts ALIEN 3 on his list, yet leaves off David Fincher's masterpiece SE7EN and even ZODIAC. Need I say more?

CANDYMAN (1992)

While the Clive Barker adaptation is slightly dated today, CANDYMAN is hands down one of the scariest movies ever made. The adaptation combined the terror of Cabrini-Green in Chicago with the fairytale of a man with a hook for a hand, who terrorizes a reporter in order to revitalize his street cred. It sounds silly, but it's just plain terrifying - and well shot for that matter.

THE RING (2002)

The original RING, aka RINGU, is a straight up rip-off of Peter Medak's THE CHANGELING, a fine movie if you ask me. Worthy of the list? I think not, but Vertigo's 2002 remake, directed by Gore Verbinski, is chilling, terrifying and to this day one of the scariest movies of all-time. Both times I saw this in the theater the entire audience left their seats screaming when Samara comes out of the TV. I have never witnessed an audience reaction like that in all my life.

AMERICAN PSYCHO (2000)

Christian Bale's breakthrough performance that is carried fully on this madman's shoulders. Exposition heavy, minimal blood, but tons of tons of kickin’ 80's tunes and hilarious dialogue to go along, PSYCHO is a film that will hook you in no matter what point you start watching. Infinite replay value and an obvious choice over film's like DARKMAN.

REC (2009)

If you saw REC before you saw it's remake, QUARANTINE, you would have found yourself caught in first-person terror as a group of building attendees are quarantined after being exposed to a virus. The BLAIR WITCH-esque filming style is rejuvenated in a brand new way that created quite possibly one of the scariest films of our time.

FRENCH HORROR: HIGH TENSION (2005) INSIDE (2008) MARYRS (2009)

Flip a coin, any of these three films could replace garbage such as WHAT LIES BENEATH on EW's top 20 list. Alex Aja's HIGH TENSION (HAUTE TENSION) opened up America to a whole new world of uber-violence, blood and terror, something that had been lacking since the 80's. These films can be classified as all-too-real and bring terror based (somewhat) in reality. Sure they go a bit over-the-top, but as a horror fan that's what I want.

Without spending my entire day working on this list, some would even say ARMY OF DARKNESS, GREMLINS 2, NEW NIGHTMARE, IN THE MPUTH OF MADNESS, THE FRIGHTENERS, JEEPERS CREEPERS, JOY RIDE, THE EYE (Thai), DOG SOLDIERS, STIR OF ECHOES and even THE MIST could deserve to be on the list.

While some of the films EW mentions you might enjoy, can you really call them one of the best in the past 20 years? Seriously, who would say 28 WEEKS LATER is better than 28 DAYS LATER? Who would put the original RINGU over the remake THE RING? ALIEN 3 over SE7EN? It just makes no sense. What do you think?
http://www.bloody-disgusting.com/blog/entry.php?id=587

 

[Nivek]

God, I hate Entertainment Weekly...

 

[The Apatow Crew]

God, I hate Entertainment Weekly...

I know. and here is a response from the guy defending his choices.


http://popwatch.ew.com/2009/08/07/c...bermans-not-afraid-to-defend-his-horror-list/

http://popwatch.ew.com/2009/08/07/c...bermans-not-afraid-to-defend-his-horror-list/

 

[Dark Victory]

:facepalm

 

[Nivek]

I absolutely despise people & critics who put suspense thrillers under "horror films". It has it's own genre for a damn reason.

 

[Figs]

I agree with a few of those but only a few, the majority I don't think deserve to be on that list.

What the hell is Darkman doing on there?? I enjoy that film but in no way do I qualify that as horror.

 

[dark_b]

did you watch audition?
i thought it was a really f.... up movie . but i dont a lot watch japanese horror movies. but that was some crazy s....


p.s. Silence of the lambs was a horror movie?

 

[The Apatow Crew]

did you watch audition?
i thought it was one of the f.... up movies that i saw in my live. but i dont a lot watch japanese horror movies. but that was some crazy s....


p.s. Silence of the lambs was a horror movie?

I've never seen it myselg but i heard it a truly messed up movie. I was surprised that movie was on the list and at number 1 considering the rest of his list.


I guess since he eats people call it a horror movie, until it gets nominated for a Oscar then its called a psychological thriller.

 

[OctaviusINC]

Darkman? From Hell? Planet Terror? Shaun of the Dead?

Seriously? Horror?

Horror elements, yes, but not full fledged horror.

 

[Dark Victory]

Audition is a great film, but I wouldn't call it the best in the last 20 years.

 

[The Apatow Crew]

I agree with a few of those but only a few, the majority I don't think deserve to be on that list.

What the hell is Darkman doing on there?? I enjoy that film but in no way do I qualify that as horror.

I agree also there are some good choices on there he mentioned. But What lies beneath? Is that a horror? I guess since the guy changes faces its horror to him.

I absolutely despise people & critics who put suspense thrillers under "horror films". It has it's own genre for a damn reason.

I know, but I guess some people just don't know the difference, or try to be cool and call it a horror when its really not.

Here is what he had to say about movies when he was asked where were they.

Okay, but now we get to the good stuff — the movies you thought should have been on there. In almost every case, my honest response comes down to one word: Really? Let’s look at a few of those proposed alternate choices:
Wolf Creek
It’s cleverly staged, with a villain who’s like “Crocodile” Dundee with a loose screw. But really, it’s nothing more than another textbook Chainsaw ripoff.
The films of Rob Zombie
No doubt about it, he’s a very bad boy, who revels in the shock theatrics of killers he treats like rock stars. But House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil’s Rejects are derivative, hit-or-miss in-your-face bloodbaths. I like their squeamish freak-out atmosphere. But Top 20? That’s too much love for a still-promising headbanger-turned-goremeister.
High Tension
Illogical twists, and much brutal mayhem — but it’s French, so this tale of two young women stuck in a country house with a big, fat, grunting brute who’s got a thing for decapitation looks fancier than it is.
The Hills Have Eyes
The 2006 version? Are you friggin’ kidding me? It’s a lavishly photographed gross-out message movie with very little of the skeezy, innovative rawness that gave the original its bad vibes.
Session 9
Brad Anderson’s mental-asylum thriller begins well, and it’s visually startling, but the story melts into half-hearted ghostly vagueness.

 

[dark_b]

I've never seen it myselg but i heard it a truly messed up movie. I was surprised that movie was on the list and at number 1 considering the rest of his list.


I guess since he eats people call it a horror movie, until it gets nominated for a Oscar then its called a psychological thriller.

if you dotn have a good stomach dont watch it. i didnt even know what i was going to get.

let me just say that there is a cute girl inside(as always)

 

[redhawk23]

I gave up on the list as soon as I saw it listed 28 weeks instead of days, as far as scare factor goes thats just a rediculous choice.

 

[The Apatow Crew]

if you dotn have a good stomach dont watch it. i didnt even know what i was going to get.

let me just say that there is a cute girl inside(as always)

I know what kind of stuff happens in it. I heard Eli Roth talking about it on that 100 horror moments show that they play every year on bravo.

 

[Nivek]

Someone mentioned Eli Roth,... why the hell is a torture flick listed as a horror Film?

 

[The Apatow Crew]

Someone mentioned Eli Roth,... why the hell is a torture flick listed as a horror Film?

Because they prolly think its scary.

And for the record even know prolly no one really cares, but I prefer Hostel to Hostel Part II.

 

[thedeadite]

The first time I watched Audition I had trouble falling asleep next to my girlfriend that night.

 

[Figs]

Someone mentioned Eli Roth,... why the hell is a torture flick listed as a horror Film?

It's listed because regardless if you like them or hate them it's still a horror film. You have to remember there are many different themes that make horror what it is. I thought the first Hostel was alright but not worth watching a second time or the sequel, but they still are horror films. Some people think that the term 'horror' should only be used for a few and select types but truthfully it covers a range of situations/themes.

 

[Doctor Jones]

I still can't see what people find so great about Blair Witch.

 

[Figs]

I still can't see what people find so great about Blair Witch.

I don't have any urge to ever watch it again but for it's time it was something new and fresh, and more importantly it was a simple concept that worked. Sometimes horror films fail because they try too hard, something that has been plaguing a lot of recent ones.

 

[dark_b]

I still can't see what people find so great about Blair Witch.

it was teh best if you wached it when it was realesed. the promotion and everything. it helped if you was young.

 

[The Apatow Crew]

I still can't see what people find so great about Blair Witch.

I think cause it was something sorta new at the time and the shakiness of the camera maybe made it scarier for some people.

I don't know.

 

[Motown Marvel]

i never got al all the fuss over audition. i thought it was pretty boring.

 

[-Arya-]

Never seen Audition. Any good?

 

[Nivek]

It's more unsettling than scary, seen it once a couple years ago.