Gauntlet Crew Ranks 90s Horror Movies

40. Demonic Toys

KBM: 30 Karo: 33 Genny: 35 JONA: 36 Inviso: 38 Charon: 39 Johnbobb: 40 Scarlet: 40 Snake: 40

KBM - ''Almost every positive thing you can say about Demonic Toys must be qualified with the phrase “for a direct-to-video movie.” This is some pretty fun gory horror schlock, for a direct-to-video movie. There are some pretty good performances, for a direct-to-video movie. The fact that it all takes place in more-or-less real time is an interesting gimmick that's pulled off fairly well, for a direct-to-video movie. You get the picture. It is pretty fun to see the underrated Tracy Scoggins get a legit leading role, even if it is in something pretty stupid like this. The production values also definitely do not do this movie any favors – I understand a movie like this is gonna have some pretty cheap effects, but it's also pretty incompetently filmed a lot of the time and has a really bad, grating musical score that gave me a headache for awhile. And as surprisingly decent as most of the characters are, the girl from the air vents was quite annoying and managed to offset some of the goodwill the movie had built up with me before her arrival.''

Karo - ''Some people get trapped in a toy warehouse for various arbitrary reasons, and unfortunately Satan lives there and has animated the toys to do his bidding. Everyone has a bizarre, unnatural way of speaking like they are Yu-Gi-Oh characters, and they fucking say the fucking word fuck at least fucking twice in every fucking sentence for fucks sake. The toys themselves lack any sort of presence or fear, most of them are literally just puppets straight out of Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood and can't be taken seriously in the slightest. Hmm, at least we have never had a movie about evil toys that come to life before! Oh, wait. It is just a cheap, unoriginal piece of direct-to-video dreck that is amusing at first but soon gets very old and very boring.''

Genny - ''Demonic Toys is one of few movies on this list that made me question "Snakes... why?" aloud. That said I enjoyed it on some level. I mean the movie is hella dumb, but the titular characters were kind of cool. 4.7/10''

JONA - While the movie has its so-bad-it’s-good moments, a good chunk of the movie is just straight-up bad.

Inviso - ''This movie was so fucking stupid. It felt like a direct attempt to capitalize on the…success? I guess? Of Child’s Play. You can definitely see the influence in having a baby doll with a knife who swears a lot. But yeah, everything about this movie is cheesy and bad, but not in a “so bad it’s good” sort of way. The movie fucking STARTS with a couple finding out that the woman is pregnant, only to then reveal that they’re both cops, undergoing a sting operation. The male cop is killed, and for whatever dumb reason, the film shifts into a toy warehouse, where apparently a demonic presence has taken control of some toys. Then a cast of random misfits gets involved (psycho criminal, asshole chicken delivery boy, fat guard, random homeless girl), most of whom ONLY exist to be killed off. It’s really dumb, and it gets dumber when it turns out that the demon wants to take over her unborn baby’s body. Who the FUCK thought this was a good idea? This was fucking TERRIBLE''

Charon - ''An unnecessary B-Movie that stands apart from the crowd, in all the wrong ways. While not as offensive as I expected, but still very much so in terms of plot originality and acting. Very poor acting by basically the entire cast of this film, sans the toys which are saved by the fact they just have to be voiced. The baby was funny and times, I liked him. That's about it though. The main villain is a laughable joke and is never interesting or threatening in the least way; speaking of laughable joke, his laugh is a joke indeed. It just seemed like the type of film that didn't need to be on this list. It felt like including one of the DVD sequels on the Disney canon list. While I didn't rank it dead last, it feels wrong to have to rank it at all.''

Johnbobb - oh fuck off

Scarlet - ''This, in fact, may be the worst film we’ve ever watched for a list. When people say a movie is “so bad it’s good”, they are lying. It’s a way for them to make themselves feel better about liking something that they know is objectively awful. It’s an attempt to deflect judgment away from them, absolving themselves of having bad taste because they know, deep down, that their opinions suck. I met someone who said that this movie was an example of that “so bad it’s good mentality”. It is, in fact, not. This is the most fundamentally broken piece of shit travesty that has ever been forced onto a list for Gauntlet Crew that I’ve ever seen. And I include every single one of Karo’s pawfuckery TV torture sessions in that. Snake has gone out and said, “Let me do my level worst to demonstrate that there is nothing good and true about the notion of films as art. Let me present to all of you the perfect representation of why horror will always be seen as a fourth-rate money grubbing carny genre that drags the greater aspirations of filmmaking into the gutter, proving that there are things so utterly without merit that they by themselves force horror as an entire genre to capitulate to even the toilet humor of straight-to-DVD National Lampoon early-2000s college humor films as the better man.” Snake handed us a film with no quality camerawork, no quality effects work, no quality script, no quality acting. This is the definition of no quality. Much like Snake, apparently. Worst user picking worst film. Right here. You can’t teach that. Only a lucky few are born with the ability to dig up such base excrement and pass it off as anything other than the most worthless piece of shit imaginable. Rating: 2/100''

Snake - Why I Chose It - ''Demonic Toys is one of the flagship franchises of Full Moon Entertainment, and one of their biggest hits early on in their formation. It has spawned many sequels and crossovers and has helped paved the modern way for b-movie horror icons like Gingerdead Man and Evil Bong. It was also an early writing credit for David S. Goyer, who would go on to help write the Dark Knight trilogy with Christopher Nolan.''

My thoughts - ''I fucking DESPISE Demonic Toys. I'm humiliated that I own this crapper on DVD. It is downright one of the most boring, slow-paced, horribly acted, terribly shot, cheesy as hell films I've ever had the displeasure of seeing. It takes everything I adore and hold dear about horror, puts in it it's filthy, money-hungry, brain-dead hands,and squeezes it until no life or joy remains. There isn't an original bone in this film's body, and Full Moon is more than eager to rip-off even it's own GOD DAMN PUPPET MASTER FRANCHISE because they've never even heard of the words creativity, or originality, or independent thought. Holy crap. This is deeper than bargain bin trash. There's only a certain place in hell a film like this could ever be made.''

39. Leprechaun

Genny - 16 Charon - 32 Inviso - 35 Karo - 37 Johnbobb - 38 JONA - 39 KBM - 39 Scarlet - 39 Snake - 39

Genny - ''I grew up with the Leprechaun movies- all of them so suffice it to say I've seen them at their "best", and I've seen them at their worst. I may be more than a bit biased here, but I found the antagonist hilarious. While sometimes very cheesy, the deaths he deals his victims are often ironic and clever. The real issue herein is the side characters. I can't remember the daughter's name, but she is such a brat it's impossible for me to root for her survival, or for the guy who's so dim he swallows a coin made of gold checking its authenticity. There's probably something to be said about the film exploiting little people, but I'm not gonna be the one to say it. Hell, Flitwick looked like he was having a ball playing this role anyway. 7.6/10''

Charon - ''Quietly one of the least violent films on the list, while Leprechaun isn't for kids its plot will kinda make you believe that maybe it really is. It has a sort of odd charm but at the same time you never really forget that this isn't a very good film. It's complete with a strange romance of course. Aniston's character is introduced as this snobby city girl but she quickly becomes whatever she thinks this dude wants her to be because he's so hot or whatever. It's a little hard to take the villain seriously of course, but that's aided by the fact he basically never really kills anyone. I guess you can count the old dude from the intro later in the movie? I don't know. I think the fact that he isn't much of a threat and gets his ass handed to him a few different times while never getting one over on the protagonists brings this down a bit for me.''

Inviso - ''I WANTED to enjoy this as a cheesy slasher film, but Leprechaun just kinda failed on multiple levels. For starters, the titular leprechaun is a killer who has a motive at least: he wants his gold back. And that’s fine…but if his sole motive is wanting his gold (and he’s generally content to just leave people be when he has it), the fact that he’s so insistent on being needlessly obtuse gets a bit frustrating (and it also makes him fail as a horror killer). There’s a scene where like, four people are just whacking him with random objects, and it comes off as goofy when he’s clearly supposed to be a threat. Same goes for the whack-a-mole sequence in the kitchen, or any scene in which his movements are sped up for comedic effect. He just doesn’t feel scary.

It also doesn’t help that the body count is SO low in the film. IIRC, only four people actually die, and one of those is a woman who falls down some stairs. There’s one kill that actually feels somewhat interesting: the pogo stick. It’s completely unnecessary, and I feel bad for the victim, because he didn’t deserve that. But it’s wacky and interesting, and feels like it fits the tone the film SHOULD have been going for. Instead, everything else is just “lady falls down some stairs”, “cop, whose role in the film is almost COMPLETELY contrived and superfluous, gets his neck snapped”, and “guy from the opening scene shows up all bloodied in an elevator”. Four kills in a slasher movie. Whole lot of biting and unnecessary injuries…but seriously? Only four kills? That’s just dumb.''

Karo - ''A father and daughter buy a run down country home only to find out that someone packed a goddamn leprechaun into a crate in the basement and he only just now decides to try and escape instead of just calling out to the real estate agent or something and just fuck it.

The little green munchkin then proceeds to mete out bloody justice to those who took his pot o' gold. Man, if Lucky behaved this way he wouldn't always have those damn kids trying to steal his shitty breakfast cereal.

All the characters are terrible and unrealistic, none moreso than the little boy, who just might be the most stupidly written child character in the history of cinema. The leprechaun himself is not actually scary, but rather just some gross reject from the Garbage Pail Kids.

Not that any of this would really matter, given how every part of the movie is already completely idiotic. Four-leaf clovers are apparently now the bane of leprechauns, when has this ever been a thing? That's like saying the only way to kill Santa Claus is to pound a candy cane through his heart.

Add in a bunch of writers who can't decide whether they want this to be looney tunes or a horror flick and the result is a disastrous mismash of poorly compatible ideas with no direction, no tension, and absolutely no reason for existing.''

Johnbobb - ''"*open on the bedroom from Friends* Rachel: Hey, look at this gold I found Ross: *enters, dressed as a Leprechaun* Rachel: Ross! Leprechauns aren't real! Ross: Gimme that gold, Rachel. Ross: *stabs Rachel, takes gold* Rachel: Oh, Ross!
 * audience laughs*
 * audience cheers*

I don't watch Friends and also I hate this movie"''

JONA - If you want a not scary and unfunny experience dealing with a short person, you should just rather talk to me than watch this movie.

KBM - ''There are very few things that are more painful to sit through than a bad comedy – and fuck me if this isn't one of the worst horror comedies I've ever seen. I felt sorry for Warwick Davis for being associated with this franchise, even though it seemed like he was having fun with the schlocky material. He may have been the only one. Jennifer Aniston is relegated to playing very broad “early '90s feminist” gags that are so stereotypical and dated it hurts. There's a Precocious Ten-Year-Old who truly scrapes the bottom of the child acting barrel, and seemingly just to add to the bang-your-head-against-the-wall factor, his best friend is a mentally challenged guy where the whole joke is that he's mentally challenged. You would think a movie where an evil leprechaun graphically kills a guy with a pogo stick would have at least something going for it, but it's all so incompetently done that by the time we reach the more... let's say “creative”... deaths, the movie has had a mind-numbing effect and you're just waiting for it to please be over so you can move on to doing something, anything else.''

Scarlet - ''Bad. 6/100''

Snake - Why I Chose It - ''Though maybe not as big or recognizable as Halloween or Friday the 13th, Leprechaun is a stalwart horror franchise with 5 sequels and a reboot. Lubdan the Leprechaun is arguably Warwick Davis' most well-known role, and Leprechaun also launched the film career of Jennifer Aniston. It has also become a minor part of St. Patrick's Day culture.''

My Thoughts - Leprechauns are not funny, and they are definitely not scary. So, what is this movie then? It's a boring slog where practically nothing happens, and this really is one of the most stupid premises for a horror movie. Davis is decent I suppose, but the rest of the performances could be replaced with cardboard cut-outs and I wouldn't know the difference. There's a strange lack of killing here, which could've salvaged it a little. That wouldn't have saved it however from a startling lack of depth though.

38. Anaconda

Iniviso - 18 Johnbobb - 26 Karo - 31 Genny - 34 KBM - 34 Charon - 35 Scarlet - 35 Snake - 36 JONA - 37

Inviso - ''This movie just BARELY manages to creep over that “so bad it’s good” line, but barely counts in this case, and I enjoyed the film overall. The setting feels so isolated and amps up the tension…which it needs to do, since the titular anaconda is not the most frightening slasher villain imaginable. But yeah, the anaconda itself is pretty…it’s hard to enjoy a killer when it shows up, wraps around a victim, kills them, next scene. This happens to four people I believe? And only Jon Voight is interesting about it…mainly because he gets vomited back up after getting swallowed in the first place.

But that brings us to the cast, and this is where the movie manages to shine despite its abysmal pedigree. Jon Voight is fucking AMAZING in this, because he’s hamming it up and chewing the scenery almost every time he’s on-screen. And even better, it’s hilarious how HE’S acting like a one-note caricature, but in the context of the movie, his CHARACTER also has moments of completely phoning in the friendly survivalist act. Beyond Voight though, Ice Cube is your standard fish out of water thug in the jungle archetype, and Owen Wilson is a complete doofus who gets turned to the dark side faster and more unnecessarily than Anakin Skywalker. Oh yeah, and Jonathan Hyde is great as a stuffy, out-of-touch British guy who’s thrust into a strange action movie role. Really, it’s the one-note performances that sell this film and manage to make it entertaining, even though it’s objectively awful.''

Johnbobb - ''Anaconda is a lot like Arachnophobia, in that it really expects you to already have a fear of snakes in order to really be scary. Otherwise you're just watching a green mechanical tube wave back and forth while people scream. In fact, almost all of my thoughts about Arachnophobia could pretty much be applied here, with one exception. Anaconda has a single memorable character, which already sets it ahead. I'd almost rather just watch a compilation of Jon Voight's scenes than the whole movie. It's not outright bad (mostly) but does little to make itself stand out otherwise.''

Karo - ''A documentary film crew turns into a snake hunting expedition after some stupid circumstances and many long sinuous reptiles must feed. So some people capture other people and tie them up. The snake eats someone. But what a twist, they get free and capture their captor! Ice Cube spits out mumbley unprofessional lines about being a gangsta from LA. The snake eats some more people. Haha never mind we were just kidding they get recaptured. But wait they get free AGAIN. Guess what the snake does. We've got snakes in a rain, snakes in the water, snakes on a boat, and even snakes on fire. But if only we didn’t have snakes in hollywood taking everyone’s money with this dreck.''

Genny - ''My brain just don't want none of these dumb snake puns. 5/10''

KBM - ''Jon Voight hamming it up as much as he possibly can saves this from being a complete train wreck; the Amazon rainforest scenery porn also has its moments and the Randy Edelman score is good. Everything else about this is pretty much disastrous. The effects are stupid-looking and remarkably inconsistent. J-Lo is utterly horrible in the lead role (how she got nominated for a Saturn award for her performance is beyond me). Really none of the acting or characters are any good – Jon Voight is just entertaining and self-aware enough to be forgiven because it's clear he knows what kind of movie he's in. Even at 89 minutes, the screenplay manages to feel padded, with a particularly slow first act before the killing starts. It's good for a few laughs, but not enough to the point that I'd actually recommend it to anybody apart from avowed bad-movie enthusiasts.''

Charon - ''Any sense of fright was squeezed out of this film long ago. Definitely a film that has aged extremely poorly, Anaconda's graphics and story, but especially those effects, just don't hold up very well. The part where the snake consumed one of the characters and you can see his form within it during a badly edited shot as the snake swims by is cause for raucous laughter. Then you've got the famed backwards waterfall scene that you won't unsee if you know it's there. The acting is good or passable, outside of Ice Cube. I'm not sure whose idea this was but I feel like when it happened and he asked was his character was, the director was just like, "Hey man, I love your music. I really liked Friday. Can you do that guy?" and that was it. It felt really out of place to me. The 90's were guilty of using black characters as comic relief a ton here, and I'll probably note it every time it happens because it's kinda shameful and should be put through the ringer.''

Scarlet - ''My anaconda don’t My anaconda don’t My anaconda don’t hunt bums after it’s blown up some. Rating: 13/100''

Snake - Why I chose It - Anaconda is the face of 90s monster movies, becoming a huge box office success and spawning a franchise consisting of 4 sequels.

My Thoughts - ''Though it may get some favorable snake points from me, Anaconda is incredibly dated from its effects to its script to its cliche cast of characters. Jon Voight provides a bit of fun, but all of the deaths just look some like thick green pipe cleaner faffing about until a character eventually bites the dust.''

JONA - ''M̶y̶ ̶A̶n̶a̶c̶o̶n̶d̶a̶ ̶d̶o̶n̶'̶t̶

Jon Voight can be fun at times, but this just ended up being mostly forgettable for me''

37. The Blair Witch Project

Charon - 20 Inviso - 21 Johnbobb - 21 Snake - 27 JONA - 34 KBM - 35 Scarlet - 36 Genny - 40 Karo - 40

Charon - ''The grandfather of a genre, for better or worse, The Blair Witch Project excels at creating a tense atmosphere, realistic portrayals of confusion and hopelessness, even if there's never any grand payoff at the end. Before rewatching this film, I had a low opinion of it and found footage style horror films in general. This was the one that really popularized the subgenre and would go on to spawn multiple copiers in movies and even video gaming. While yes, the film really pales in comparison to others in terms of "scary monsters", it does in my opinion show the most realistic portrayal of a real-life scenario of being lost in the woods. The actors here are very believable and I found their interactions with one another pretty great as the film continued. It may be confusing, as to what the witch herself even is, but I think the atmosphere and mood are enough to make this one a memorable experience.''

Inviso - ''Of all the movies on this list, I feel like Blair Witch has probably had the greatest cultural impact, both in terms of its influence on the horror genre overall, and its general use in pop culture (Mark Burnett has cited Blair Witch as one of the inspirations behind Survivor.) And for what it is, Blair Witch is acceptable. We watched several found footage movies on the last list, and they all struggled with pacing issues and just general lameness. Blair Witch starts out similarly, with far too much of its short runtime dedicated to bland scenes of traipsing through the woods. Admittedly, the woods aren’t a great setting, because there’s only so much you can do there…but once spooky stuff starts going down, the film picks up. The general devolution of the cast as they succumb to sleep deprivation and hunger adds a raw element to their respective performances, BUT I do wish the film was a little less hokey in some of its scenes. That’s the major flaw is that this is almost TOO realistic, and most people’s home movies aren’t amazing. So yeah, decent, but not amazing.''

Johnbobb - ''Basically the movie that sparked the found footage genre that we know today. Not sure if that's a good thing or not (Chronicle and Cloverfield are good at least) but there's no denying the influence this movie had on literally the smallest possible budget. I'm not gonna say it's incredible, because it isn't. It's alright. But it is creepy, and you can buy the panic in the actors, so it's hard to not at the very least admire what they were able to do with what they had. (Also I'm gonna go ahead and acknowledge that this isn't even remotely a unique take, but literally everything that can be said about this movie has been said already.)''

Snake - Why I Chose It - ''Perhaps the single most influential film on this list, Blair Witch Project is one of the most successful indie films of all time and inspired countless other found-footage films. Maybe even more important was Blair Witch's legendary viral marketing campaign, which was the first to really use and capitalize on the internet to spread buzz and word-of-mouth, fooling many audience members into thinking the actors were actually missing and the events were real. Blair Witch spawned two quasi-sequels, as well as an extended universe of video games that spun-off the BloodRayne series of all things.''

My Thoughts - ''I loved this movie back when I first watched it, but a recent re-watch brought it down for me quite a bit. I'm an appreciator of atmospheric tension and build-up, and I still think there are certain points in the film where Blair Witch is a slow-burn masterpiece. However, I think in their efforts to make this film as realistic as possible, there are moments especially early on which are not conductive to the experience of watching a film. They feel like watching someone's boring vacation footage instead of a movie. The purpose of this is not lost on me, but at the same time, it doesn't really work as well as a horror movie because of it. With the exception of Heather Donahue, I don't think the acting is particularly convincing as people say it is either. I never really liked the ending of the film either, which feels particularly anti-climatic. I still think there's some good here, and I think many found-footage films could learn a thing or two from it. It's an enigmatic film that has really transcended itself over the years in my opinion, being more interesting to read about than to actually watch.''

JONA - While there is some good acting and interesting lore, the majority of the movie is our main characters just being lost and that’s just not entertaining.

KBM - ''I have never really understood the appeal of The Blair Witch Project, or really even found-footage movies in general for the most part. If you asked me to list off the least eventful movies I've ever seen, this would spring immediately to mind. I suppose there was a novelty to the whole “improvisational shaky-cam horror” thing in 1999 (especially with the marketing campaign that SOMEHOW managed to fool some people into thinking this was actual documentary footage), but watching 100 minutes of people running through the woods doing nothing really tests my patience.''

Scarlet - ''I have seen better filmed Wal-Mart security footage with more intriguing plots than this. In this universe, there has never been a bigger overreaction from human beings towards stick figures and leaves. Perhaps the singularly least realistic film I’ve ever seen, which is pretty impressive for a movie that claims to be “found footage.” It should have been left lost. Forever. Rating: 13/100''

Genny - ''I'll give the Blair Witch Project this: it may not have started the found footage genre of horror but it certainly popularized it. That's not actually a positive remark. I can't forgive this for being 90% buildup no matter how hard I try. 4/10''

Karo - ''A documentary film crew decides to do a piece on a spooky local legend, and while you might think that you'd eventually get some cool supernatural shit, all you really end up with is an hour and a half of watching lame home movies of these three dumbasses yelling at each other. It almost seems if they are heading towards some big scary payoff but the camera just drops on the ground and the film abruptly ends. Welp, that was a waste of time. The cinematography is shaky, out of focus, and shot either too close up, too far away, or literally just a blank black screen. The audio volume fluctuates wildly between barely audible mumbling and JOSSSSSHH!!! All this featuring cartoonish and unbelievable characters who are acted more ineptly than Survivor contestants. Remember this is all intentional. They are deliberately making their movie bad and unprofessional while critics with their heads rammed up their own asses compliment them on their artistic vision. If you want to see inept handcam video footage, that is what fucking youtube is for, keep that shit out of theaters. We aren’t gonna hang some 6-year-old's stick figure drawing in the goddamn Louvre for christsakes. An utterly worthless 'movie' that is a disgrace to the art of filmmaking, and everyone involved should be abandoned in the deep woods until they are forced to eat their own feces to survive.''

36. Arachnophobia

KBM - 16 Genny - 22 Charon - 24 Karo - 24 Johnbobb - 34 JONA - 35 Scarlet - 37 Snake - 37 Inviso - 40

KBM - ''This one surprised me quite a bit. I wasn't expecting to have so much fun with a giant creature feature; I particularly wasn't expecting to have so much fun with a movie all about killer spiders. I'm personally not super arachnophobic, but I can't say I'm a big fan of spiders either – but what really elevated this movie was its brilliant sense of humor, and extremely charismatic lead performance from Jeff Daniels. Managing to make you squirm without QUITE crossing a line of grossness, it even manages to have a bit of a satirical bent to it, taking the mickey out of American small-town culture without feeling too mean or cynical about it. John Goodman also gives a great, hilarious supporting turn as the town's crazy exterminator. It's certainly not one that will win over any extreme arachnophobes, but if you can stand watching a movie with spiders that doesn't go too over-the-top with its scares, this is a good, fun time, with some strong practical effects that gel surprisingly well with the actual footage of spiders.''

Genny - ''I do not have arachnophobia. Spiders are awesome though like most people I don't like when they're crawling on me. Even though it's campy as hell this movie does a pretty great job at conveying the irrational fear that someone with this affliction undergoes in the presence of these arachnids. I could really do without Exterminator Meatloaf and that whole scene in the basement- sorry- the WINE CELLAR though. The comedy stylings presented here are just too much. 7.2/10''

Charon - ''A blend of silliness and the very real fear of spiders, this film tackles the monster movie in a more eloquent way than other over-the-top heavy handers. As one of the monster films on this list, I was surprised to see that there was no humanoid spider or gargantuan spider of unreal proportions to appear. I appreciate that they kept some element of realism intact as I feel it enhanced my ability to become more immersed in the universe. That said, this film still never takes itself that seriously. Some of the deaths here are played up as humorous and of course, you can't forget John Goodman stomping around as an exterminator with a god complex. Still I feel it was well made, and played things straight enough not to make me question the horror elements of the film.''

Karo - ''A group of scientists discover a new species of spider in the unexplored rainforest. This arachnid looks exactly like a tarantula, except it is not its an evil death spider from hell that has venom that can kill in seconds. One of these eight legged terrors gets shipped to the U.S. in a coffin because apparently nobody thought quarantining a dead body that died of unknown causes in a third world country was a good idea. It then mates with a normal spider which is totally how spiders work maybe and baby spiders overrun the countryside and bite everyone. The whole thing is incredibly stupid, and the ridiculous climactic scene where you have hundreds of spiders crawling out of the fucking plumbing and every other crevice is even stupider. It is nothing more than idiotic horror shlock.''

Johnbobb - ''Honestly, kind of boring. It picks up a bit in the second half, but from there, it just sort of goes from boring to "watch a bunch of people scream and flail around from spiders." Which, sure, that's kind of what I expected given the title, but I was really hoping this movie would have more of its own identity. But it just... doesn't. I've heard Arachnophobia talked up plenty before too, but I'm not sure where the hype is coming from.''

JONA - ''There’s some decent comedy in here, but the movie is just a slog to watch through with the film being almost two hours long. Unfortunately, the spiders just did nothing for me.''

Scarlet - ''Unlike some of the cheesy movies I ranked higher on this list, Arachnophobia is content to be a title-only project. “I’ve got an idea for a project, Frank.” “Oh yeah, what is it?” “I call it… Arachnophobia.” “So a spider horror film? What’s it about?” “... Arachnophobia.” “Yeah, what’s it about?” “I don’t know yet, but it’s such good shit, pal!” In the late 80s and early 90s, I’m fairly convinced that was the general pitch meeting in Hollywood. Rating: 11/100''

Snake - Why I Chose It - ''Arachnophobia is a cult film that is a send-up to classic b-movies, mainly from the 50s-70s. I wanted a movie on this list that really invoked what those films set out to accomplish. It was a moderate box office success, but is far more remembered by arachnophobes for being one of the biggest triggers out there.''

My Thoughts - ''It's a crime how long this film is. With such a simple concept, this should be a very in-n-out affair, but instead it drags on and on with way too many characters and a weirdly over-complicated plot. Call me simple, but a movie called Arachnophobia should just be about spiders and not some weird Amazon undiscovered species that has the most convulted way of coming over to the US so the movie can start. However, I will admit to liking the use of the practical effects, John Goodman's character, and the pretty funny ending.''

Inviso - ''John Goodman is the hero of this movie for obvious reasons. Fuck this movie. That’s all.''

35. Species

Scarlet - 19 Genny - 23 Inviso - 23 Karo - 28 Charon - 31 Snake - 34 Johnbobb - 36 KBM - 37 JONA - 38

Scarlet - ''I mean, it’s basically softcore porn horror. Rating: 42/100''

Genny - ''Species is another neat concept let down by its awful conclusion. Also I can't stand Forrest Whitaker's character here. He comes across as goofy and out of place even though he's in actuality the character with the most wherewithal on the protagonists' side. The antagonist is scary enough, and I can't fault her for wanting to live out her life cycle but I cannot look past this film's flaws. 7.1/10''

Inviso - ''On paper, and if I’m being honest, in practice as well, Species is NOT a good movie. It’s blatantly exploitative and plays up a weird “man-eater” stereotype of women as monsters and villains in sexual encounters. The majority of the plot is absolute nonsense, and was nonsense from the first minute they included Forrest Whittaker’s character is a GODDAMN PSYCHIC. For a film that has no qualms with flashing multiple characters’ breasts on a regular basis, they somehow manage to PG-ify all the death and carnage of the movie, which is the point of a fucking HORROR MOVIE. Oh, and the dated CGI from the ending is pretty fucking terrible. So why rank is this highly? Well, again, if I’m being honest…it entertained me a little bit. It wasn’t QUITE “so bad it’s good” levels, but if you’re gonna be a shitty movie, at least casting a hot lead actress to walk around naked can do wonders for me enjoyment of the film. It also helps that this list has a LOT of duds, so merely being able to keep my attention is worth a decent placement from me.''

Karo - ''Humanity makes contract with an alien race which tells them to fuse human and alien DNA, and nobody ever stops to think that this might be a bad idea because the aliens support green energy and that means there is no way they could possibly be evil. When their ill-advised experiment escapes, Lex Luthor forms an awkward team of underdeveloped characters to help track her down, and maybe like two of them are actually any use. One of these people is psionic, which is not explained in any way and everyone just acts like this is as totally normal as someone being left handed. There was some great potential for the girl to be a tragic or complex character, and early on it seemed like things were going down that route. Well until she suddenly wasn't and was just some generic evil movie monster and she's gotta die cause she's evil and stuff. It's just a convoluted and uninspired mess that seems written by at least three different people who wanted wildly different stories, one of whom watched too much Aliens and had sexual fantasies about mating with the Xenomorph Queen.''

Charon - ''When you're thrown so quickly into a film without much buildup to the world you're entering, it's hard to get your bearings or enjoy this story very much. The premise is kinda interesting, I guess, but honestly the way this one begins is a little jarring for me. It's like not even 10 minutes in and we've got these 4 random people that are gonna play buddy cop the movie, except they aren't cops. The cast is also... strange. I mean, with the mystic guy, he really sticks out. It's a little silly at times, and in those moments I was wondering if he was secretly protecting our anti-hero. At least, I think that's what she's supposed to be. As the film progressed I felt increasingly less sorry for her though, and I'm not certain that was an intended effect or not. There's some dated feeling to the effects as well obviously; it's not pretty at times at all.''

Snake - Why I Chose It - ''Species was a box office success and spawned a franchise of two sequels and comic series. It is also notable for being the film debut of Natasha Henstridge and for helping Michelle Williams gain more exposure to her career. H.R. Giger helped design Sil's character and background.''

My Thoughts - ''Species had potential to be sure; a great cast, talented effects team, H.R. Giger on board. The film is not a total disaster, but weird creative choices and an ultimately boring plot and climax drag it down considerably. Its themes of sexual maturation and identity could've also been explored way more deeply and tastefully, with the film feeling very exploitative at times.''

Johnbobb - ''For the first like 10 minutes or so, I had high hopes for this movie. Michelle Williams even as a kid was an impressive actress, and does a lot with very little early on. Then she crawls into a cocoon and comes out as a 30-year-old who can't act. And then shockingly, Michael Madsen, Alfred Molina, Forest Whitaker and Ben fucking Kingsley can't scramble together a decent performance between the four of them. On top of that, something about the whole thing feels almost exploitative. Really just kind of an icky movie.''

KBM - ''This very transparently only exists as an excuse for Natasha Henstridge to take her clothes off. Don't get me wrong, she does look great with her clothes off, but personally I need a bit more than that to get invested in a movie. I ended up entertaining myself by playing a game of “how drunk is Michael Madsen in this scene?” In fact, the entire all-star cast seems to wish they could be elsewhere other than making this movie. At least the H.R. Giger designs are, well, H.R. Giger designs, and the effects work (at least, when it's not cheap 1995 CGI) is pretty solid. But intermittently cool practical effects and nice-looking boobs do not a good horror movie make.''

JONA - ''While it has an interesting concept and there can be some grotesque imagery, those moments are so few and far between. The movie just wants to show off some fanservice. Also, doesn’t help that the characters are just there.''

34. Deep Blue Sea

Inviso - 17 Genny - 27 Scarlet - 28 JONA - 29 Snake - 29 Charon - 30 Johnbobb - 32 KBM - 33 Karo - 35

Inviso - ''This movie is just stupid fun. The premise is…bizarre, to say the least (you’re seriously telling me that you need to perform delicate science experiments on sharks, and you’re NOT doing this inland somehow?), but if you can look back that, it’s an enjoyable movie. I like the colorful cast of characters, and while Samuel L. Jackson does have some death flags flapping around his head, his death is a surprise if only because he gets killed off before two separate fodder characters, in an extremely unique and memorable indoor shark kill. I also give credit for managing to make sharks feel more threatening than just generic killing machines. By making them hyper-intelligent sharks, it adds just that extra bit of menace to their actions, and makes the threat posed to the humans that much more real. PLUS, it makes the big reveal that much cooler, when the humans realize that the sharks just want to sink the facility so they can escape into the open ocean. So yeah…fun movie with some definite rewatch value.''

Genny - ''Deep Blue Sea straddles the line between a good meme and a good movie. In other words it's so dumb in a way it actually works. My hat is like a shark's fin/10''

Scarlet - ''Saffron Burrows, who I am always extremely torn on as actress, anchors this utterly preposterous movie that thinks it’s hybridizing Jurassic Park and Jaws, when in reality its hybridizing Jurassic Park II and Jaws III. I mean, this movie is almost hilarious thanks to just how ludicrous it actually is. For me, this is reminiscent of the Godzilla film that was released a year earlier. You can just feel the fingerprints of a studio all over everything in this movie. It’s built by committee, full of jaws and fury, signifying nothing. Rating: 25/100''

JONA - LL Cool J and Samuel Jackson can be entertaining but not much else stood out.

Snake - Why I Chose It - ''Following Jaws, the shark movie became an important sub-genre under the umbrella of horror. While few have ever been received well commercially or critically, Deep Blue Sea was a box office success for both the genre and for a flailing director desperate for a hit. In addition, Deep Blue Sea, though not received well at the time, has retroactively become a well-regarded entry in the killer shark category.''

My Thoughts - Though this movie is mostly forgettable, the Samuel L. Jackson death is indisputably the best shark death of all time.

Charon - ''Super intelligent sharks fool scientists into helping them escape a research facility, yet can't tell them apart from fire extinguishers in the end. I guess this film was born from someone's fascination with sharks and cancer research, which is a bit overblown by the media so making a film based around this premise is odd. The whole movie is odd though. Here again we find comical black character being "hilarious". Ah LL, why was it that you never panned out an acting career quite like Ice Cube? Another thing I have to note is that this film sort of did a swerve by killing off the main character, basically twice. It wwas hard to wrap my head around the only two characters surviving being the two they were. It has some cool action beats and scenes in it, but usually these shark films are too hokey to suspend me far enough to get very engrossed with what's going on.''

Johnbobb - ''Don't get me wrong, this is a mostly exciting movie. It's violent and legitimately scary at time, but man does it get worse as it goes on. It suffers by having it's least compelling character as its main protagonist, and when you see him survive over the more enjoyable characters EVERY TIME, it just gets old. The visual effects are decent, especially the practical effects. But ultimately, it's just not all that good.''

KBM - ''A lesser entry in the “killer shark” subgenre (a subgenre I do have a certain fondness for), this nonetheless does have a couple things going for it that keep it from being among the very worst of its kind. First and foremost, unlike the films beneath it on this list, the death scenes actually get pretty fun and creative – especially the one where Samuel L Jackson gets eaten right in the middle of a motivational speech. The cinematography is pretty great; Renny Harlin has a knack for knowing where to put the camera even if he's far from the best storyteller in Hollywood. And then there's LL Cool J, who's delightful and thankfully stays alive through the whole movie. Sadly, though, that's where the good stuff ends, and the rest of the movie is, uh, a wash. It's possible to turn off your brain and enjoy the schlock factor here, but just watching the highlights on YouTube is a much more expedient use of your time.''

Karo - ''In an attempt to cure Alzheimer's, scientists do tests with genes and brain enzymes and shit. They use big fucking sharks for this because the pet store was out of hamsters. For this endeavor, they all live on this submerged complex in the middle of the fucking ocean because why have your valuable research somewhere safe and easy to get to when you can have it destroyed by a hurricane? After a series of events involving a helicopter filled with ten tons of TNT hitting the station, they are trapped because they literally built only one stairwell to the surface in their big-ass underwater research lab. The survivors take a zigzag path through the structure with one ridiculous contrivance after another stringing along the plot, all while being chased about by genetically modified sentient super-sharks. It is simply an excruciating experience to watch this group of unlikable characters with lame acting and bizarre dialogue crawl about this station that takes so long to fill with water that I suspect it must harbor a portal to the sponge dimension. Ever wonder what would happen if Micheal Bay made a Jaws reboot? Well, wonder no longer because that is pretty much what this is.''

33. I Know What You Did Last Summer

Inviso - 7 Charon - 17 Johnbobb - 25 Scarlet - 29 Genny - 30 Karo - 30 Snake - 38 JONA - 40 KBM - 40

Inviso - ''One of the best things a slasher film can do is craft a cast of characters so awful that you’re cheering for the villain to cut them to pieces. IKWYDLS manages to pull this sort of cast together, with volatile asshole Ryan Phillippe, arrogant beauty queen Sarah Michelle Gellar, doofy dumbass Freddie Prinze Jr., and stuck-up know-it-all Jennifer Love Hewitt. But even better, this isn’t a case of a group of dumb teens getting stalked at random. No, these kids run a guy over with their car and dump his body to hide the accident. It’s no wonder the guy doesn’t die and comes back to kill them. The pacing is great, with the killer opting to psyche them out first, rather than going for the kills immediately, and the end result is an intense series of kill sequences and chases that just feel awesome overall. This is just a really solid slasher flick, and I enjoyed it.''

Charon - ''Easy to count among Scream cash-in's, this film features a talented cast of young actors who'd go on to major success and a plot that's plenty memorable. This movie is set in a real-life style situation, where you're forced to make a quick decision that will impact the rest of your life. To me, this movie was always more than just a Scream knock-off. The suspense is good, the killer isn't who you'll guess at first and while he may not be quite on the level of a lot of recurring antagonists on this list, the Fisherman to me is a fairly good villain even if his motive ends up pretty simple. It's just a fun film to me.''

Johnbobb - ''This is one of the best examples of horror that's competent without really being GOOD. It's got suspense, it's decently shot, the set pieces are nicely varied. So why is it that I find this film ultimately forgettable? Maybe the bland characterization; very few horror films fit the main teen horror tropes as neatly as this one does, with the nice girl, the bad boy, the beauty and literally just "the other guy." Maybe it's the villain, who I imagine most of the people ranking won't remember the name of by the time the rankings are up, despite the fact that finding the identity is so central to the plot. It feels like a training video on how to make a horror movie; it's good enough at what it does but doesn't have enough of an identity of its own.''

Scarlet - ''In another attempt to create a 90s version of the Brat Pack, a surprisingly loaded cast is handed the singularly most generic teen slasher script ever unimagined by a screenwriter. Can Iron Bull, Buffy, the chick from an LFO video and Shooter salvage this flan of a film? Nope. And this failed Brat Pack reboot would slink into obscurity eventually. Rating: 25/100''

Genny - ''I'll be honest I never was too wild about I Know What You Did Last Summer. Even as a kid I thought Scream pulled off the whole 90s mystery/slasher horror thing a helluva lot better and this latest rewatch did nothing to change my mind. It's campy and fun, but also chokful of inescapable clichés, and it does nothing truly clever enough to warrant two sequels. Don't believe the hype, it's 6/10 at best.''

Karo - ''These dumbass teenagers run over a guy and leave him for dead, but it turns out he was still alive and now is back for revenge. Any and all logic is thrown out the window for the sake of cheap scares and plot twists as Popeye the Killer Man murders secondary characters and pointlessly trolls the protagonists with no real end goal in sight. Why did the girl have a trunk full of crabs that mysteriously appear and vanish? Does the Fisherman have some weird supernatural powers that he only used in this one random instance and totally ignored when he was fighting the protagonists on the deck of his ship?Even the mystery is lame and arbitrary, hey wow shocking the killer was actually this guy who never appears on screen and we only just now learned the name of! Fuck off. I do know what you did last summer, and it was make a really bad movie.''

Snake - Why I Chose It - ''I Know What You Did Last Summer is one of the highest grossing slasher films of all time, and was #1 at the box-office for three weeks straight. It has oft been parodied, and was one of the main inspirations for Scary Movie (along with Scream). Along with Buffy & Scream 2 that same year, it also established Sarah Michelle Gellar as the premier "scream queen" of the 90s.''

My Thoughts - ''If generic had a picture in the dictionary, this movie would be it. It's just about as straight-forward as a slasher can get, and that's without the benefit of a central villain that you could at least get enjoyment out of it. No one is ever going to be scared of "The Fisherman". I expect way better from this screenwriter and from this cast too. Total waste of a movie.''

JONA - An incredibly dull movie with uninteresting characters and the only hook of the movie is the mystery and that ends in a very dissatisfying way.

KBM - ''I couldn't give less of a shit what you did last summer. This is a movie that typifies every trope I hate most in slasher movies. Completely devoid of likable characters, and populated by the dumbest characters, the promise that they'd all die gets you through the movie before you realize that they're not even going to do THAT part properly. There's nothing scary, nothing funny, nothing charming about this drek. The “who's the murderer” twist at the end is just as bad as everything else. It's just a bad, stupid, thoughtless cash grab movie that's endemic of the very worst the '90s had to offer.''

32. Halloween H20: 20 Years Later

Charon - 19 Genny - 20 Inviso - 27 Johnbobb - 28 JONA - 30 KBM - 31 Scarlet - 31 Snake - 31 Karo - 38

Charon - ''While not the film the 2018 version would be H20 gave us an early glimpse of what a reunion between the two series leads would be like, and much like that film it'd have some success. I've always enjoyed the dynamic relationship shared by Laurie and Michael; most slashers like Freddy and Jason lack a connection to their victims whereas Myers has a singular driven goal. This movie also introduced a young Josh Harnett whom I thought played his role well. I'm probably a little biased towards Halloween as a whole, but this film was a nice return to form after a couple of real stinkers for the franchise.''

Genny - ''I know Michael Myers is regarded as the best of the big three slashers by some, but he's always been my least favorite of the trio personally. Jason and Freddy have that supernatural flair about them and what sets Michael apart is that he's a normal guy who happens to be evil for no reason. Also that he seems impervious to fire, bullets, stab wounds, and falling from heights. Really I think the mistake was making him "normal" Jaime Lee Curtis gives a solid performance here, but everyone else either phones it in or overacts aside from LL who's acting isn't enjoyable for a different reason. I especially dislike the many irrational decisions made by Laurie and Michael throughout the film, but it has some nice kills. 7.3/10''

Inviso - ''First off, I feel like my enjoyment of this film is either hampered or bolstered by the fact that I’ve literally never seen a single film in the Halloween franchise, outside of the reboot we watched for the last horror list. Hampered, because I have no context for the film’s plot. Bolstered, because I have no idea how much better or worse the film is compared to its predecessors. But I digress. If you’re going to make a slasher film and you’re going to fill it with contrived nonsense, the least you can do is stack up a high body count. But this film starts with a trio of unnecessary deaths, then a LONG gap, and then three more kills in quick succession. Really, the only thing that makes this feel different from a generic slasher film is the ending. Laurie FUCKS Michael up MULTIPLE times. She stabs him, steals the morgue truck with his “dead body” in it, slams on the breaks to fling him through the windshield, runs him over, pins him against a tree, and decapitates him. While this ending is awesome, it’s also completely pointless and feels like a means of bloating a movie that doesn’t even reach 90 minutes. Seriously, this is a ten-minute sequence after the standard “Michael is presumed dead and escapes to set up the sequel” moment of the film, and the fact that it was necessary is not great. There is just SO much filler in this movie just to get it up to a decent runtime, and it winds up not being that great as a result.''

Johnbobb - ''As much as I want to give this movie credit for sticking the landing at the end SO HARD, I can't. One trope I HATE in horror movies is "significant character so unbearably and irrationally awful that you want them to die." Another is excessive fakeout jumpscares. And holy shit does this movie abuse those two to hell and back. The son is such a horrible shit that I can barely sympathize with Laurie for wanting to protect him, and literally like every five minutes there's someone startling somebody else for some stupid reason. There are cool, classic Halloween moments hidden in a bunch of bullshit. ''

JONA - Most of the movie is dull but the climax can be pretty entertaining.

KBM - ''Credit where credit is due: this is definitely not the worst entry in the Halloween franchise, though it's far from the best one either. It does, however, have the worst title of the bunch (even considering that three of the movies are just called “Halloween” and two are called “Halloween II” – yeah, this franchise is a mess). Wisely ignoring the events of all but the first two movies in the series (wiping out the mess that was the Jamie Lloyd storyline) so that we can bring back Jamie Lee Curtis, the return of Laurie Strode manages to somewhat salvage what's otherwise a mediocre-at-best script. Probably the worst thing about this movie is its overreliance on cornball fake-out jump scares, which have a numbing effect after awhile. There's some interesting casting here, with quite a few before-they-were-famous appearances, but unfortunately most of the characters really don't get that much interesting to do save for a wink-wink extended cameo appearance by Janet Leigh of Psycho fame. More or less the same concept as this movie would be redone to better results with 2018's Halloween, rendering this subpar effort little more than a historical curiosity for series completionists. The ending sequence is pretty well done, at least.''

Scarlet - ''The signature grungy Halloween flavor has been drained in favor of a more slick, polished and generic late-90s post-Scream horror vibe, though I still find it a lot more watchable than Halloween 5 or 6. That’s not much of a compliment. Heck, that might be more of a dig at 5 and 6. Having Jamie Lee back helps save this movie from utter rating destruction. I guess the biggest compliment I can give is that the final thirty seconds or so are pretty cool. Rating: 24/100''

Snake - Why I Chose It - ''One of two Halloween sequels released in the 90s, I ultimately went for H20 due to its connection to the original two films instead of the sloppy continuity mess created with the fourth film, as well as the 20th anniversary being an important landmark for one of the biggest horror icons ever. While perhaps seen as "just another" slasher sequel to some, I think for exploring the world of horror, it's important to check in on the big franchises and see what has been done right and what has been their biggest mistakes.''

My Thoughts - ''Halloween H20 is by and large NOT the worst Halloween film ever made. I actually think it's one of the better ones overall, with all credit to Jamie Lee Curtis for not phoning in her performance despite almost quitting the film all together because of constant Halloween sequel bait. This could've been an excellent psychological horror piece between Myers and Strode, but we're not here to discuss could'ves. The fact of the matter is, Laurie's son, LL Cool J, and a forgettable cast of generic high schoolers forgoes any creativity or opportunity for real character development, instead opting for sloppy, boring kills and a rushed ending that closes the book on Myers for good (for just about the 3rd or 4th time, depending on who's counting). After being blown up to smithereens and burning alive in Halloween 2, how am I ever going to believe Michael is really dead this time? The mask in this is also really cheap looking, I hate how Myers looks in this. Though, despite all my criticism, I still think there's at least some aspects of a good movie here, you just have to look pretty closely to see them. It's definitely that Curtis factor that carries the film and makes it a worthwhile entry at the very least for a Halloween fan.''

Karo - ''Hey, it's Michael Myers! He's actually alive! Twenty years have passed! He's still trying to kill his sister! Whoop-de-doo! Once you pass the opening sequence, the film is an incredibly boring slog that is just a good 40 minutes of hey this crazy chick sees Michael Myers! But ha ha wait no she was just mistaken, dun dunn DUNNNNN!!! Then the Happy Mask Butcher finally shows up and stabs a bunch of people we don’t care about in a generic manner before being finally killed by Laurie after surviving: 1. being hit with a battle ax. 2. being stabbed 10 times in the chest. 3. being thrown out a second story window. 4. being ejected through the windshield of a car going like 80 miles an hour then run over by the car and knocked off a 50 foot cliff and said car dropped on top of him. C'mon now, Myers isn't supposed to be fucking Superman, he's just a crazy dude who wears a mask. One fatal flaw in the movie’s premise is echoed by several of the characters in the dialogue: why the hell did Michael wait so long to come after his sister? Who the fuck knows, and you know what, who the fuck cares. It's just another pointless slasher sequel made to profiteer off of characters created decades ago and should be chucked out the window like the garbage it is.''

31. Bram Stoker's Dracula

KBM - 4 Scarlet - 18 Johnbobb - 22 Snake - 28 Inviso - 30 JONA - 32 Karo - 32 Charon - 38 Genny - 39

KBM - ''Full-stop, this is the best vampire movie I've ever seen. Though I COMPLETELY understand this not being for everybody, for me this brings the Dracula legend to life like no other adaptation manages. Francis Ford Coppola brings a surreal, nightmarish quality to the visuals and the flow of the story, and Gary Oldman manages to redefine and bring new “life” to a role that had already been played iconically twice by Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee. Anthony Hopkins also brings some great manic energy to the second half of the film as one of the most unhinged Van Helsings ever, and I'm gonna be honest, I didn't think Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder were as bad as their performances' reputations suggest.''

Scarlet - ''God, this is one of the hardest movies to rank and rate on this list. Much like Gary Oldman’s haircut. In fact, maybe everything else I think about this movie - from the great camerawork to the interesting sets to the bizarre script to the performances that range from good to bad and everything in between - is best summed up in that haircut. Maybe the movie is actually just about the haircut. Maybe this entire list is predicated on the notion that this haircut will be the defining point of contention that determines the legacy of Snake as a curator of lists. Maybe Snake was the hair stylist here. Maybe every vampire movie before or since this one is fundamentally built around the planned moment when Gary Oldman would sport this haircut. In all honesty, I think my ranking here is soft. I respect so much of this film, and I would honestly watch it again for sheer entertainment value, but certain vital aspects of the film are unmitigated disasters - notably Keanu Reeves’ performance. But, then there’s this hair. And I just don’t know what to do with it. Rating: 48/100''

Johnbobb - ''goddamn this movie is long. I mean, it's not even that long (just a little over 2 hours) but it draaaaaaaaaaags. The visuals and sound and costumes are all excellent but man does it get boring in between the big moments, especially whenever Keanu Reeves is on screen. The performances are inconsistent, ranging from excellent to fucking HORRIBLE. That, on top of a plot that's just a little too meandering, keeps it from being the gothic epic it so badly wants to be.''

Snake - Why I Chose It - Often cited as one of the best vampire films ever made, 1992's Dracula was a box office smash and established the tone for a whole new generation of vampire films & tropes still in common use today.

My Thoughts - ''A tiring exercise of Hollywood excess, Dracula aspires to be the defining representation of vampires on film, but in its quest to do so, it wrings itself to such extremes that you just feel exhausted once it's all said and done. I won't lie that this is a totally eye-catching picture, with a Gothic aesthetic to die for and character designs stick with you long after it's over. And yes, Gary Oldman is as good as they say. But, a film like this needs to be perfect in all areas, and I don't think it has a very solid script and performances like Reeves are just as bad as they say, while the film overstays its welcome with a plodding pace and overdramatic feel, holding it back from being the quintessential vampire flick it wants to be. A strange, curious mess of a film to be sure.''

Inviso - ''This shit was confusing. Like, you have SO many characters in this movie, and the writing doesn’t do even REMOTELY a good job of establishing who the central character is, or who we as the audience should care about. You’d THINK it’s Keanu, but he’s halfway written out of the film early on. Winona Ryder? She feels like more of a tagalong to the main plot. Gary Oldman? Again, you’d THINK so, but he’s also the primary antagonist. As a result, there’s no focus in the plot. You jump from Transylvania to London and back again, introducing secondary characters with plot lines that don’t make any sense. The trio of dudes who are all TOTALLY cool with sharing some skanky redhead is…strange. Oh! And why the fuck is a vampire able to turn into a werewolf? I spent most of the movie thinking there was a secondary monster running around. Really, the acting chops of Gary Oldman and Anthony Hopkins are the saving grace of this film, because it was…strange at best.''

JONA - The film has a good atmosphere but the movie’s too long and the humanization of Dracula and the reveal of Mina Harker actually being the reincarnation of Dracula’s lover makes the romance uninteresting.

Karo - ''This is an awkward and disjointed attempt at making yet another Dracula film, with silly special effects that look like they were done in photoshop and acting so hamfisted and overdramatic it sounds like a 4kids anime dub. The title itself seems pretentious. Are all the many other adaptations not of Bram Stoker's character? Did they raise him from the dead to produce this movie? You better have read the novel or you will understand little of what the hell is going on in this mess, Dracula randomly getting younger or being a werewolf are things we are just supposed to 'know' or something and are not explained at all. Anyway Dracula moves to England and they have to kill him and shit. They know where Dracula keeps his coffin and so of course they go there in the middle of the night because that is clearly the best time to try and kill a vampire and oh my god hey lets leave the girl alone in the room with the window overlooking Creepy Vampire Abbey “you'll be safe here”. You literally have Van Helsing with you, how can you be so completely fucking stupid? The world didn't really need another Dracula movie, and it certainly didn’t need one as awful as this.''

Charon - ''A confusing, bogged down butchering of a classic story that seems so easy to write that it practically writes itself, yet someone decided that they'd ignore the ghost writer. Unfortunately, the film doesn't realize that you can't cram the entire book into a movie without doing a disservice to the source material. From the start it's hard to follow as we're introduced to a woefully miscast Keanu Reeves and then he kinda takes a backseat to other characters for the rest of the film. Dracula's transformations into the wolf are odd and it's not very apparent that it's even him, or why he has to be a wolf when he does it instead of a vampire. We even get this brief lesbian moment which seems... completely pointless. The supporting cast all just blend in together outside of the main 4 or 5 characters; Hopkins clearly is still in Lecter mode here and you can really get a sense for that. It takes me out of the film a bit because of that. As for Dracula himself, there's never any moment I feel I can see things from his side, which is kinda the whole point of Dracula usually. Oldman does a really good Johnny Depp impersonation though, sure. I was really expecting more out of this film and I was just shocked by how drab, puzzling and underwhelming it was.''

Genny - ''I had such high hopes for Bram Stoker's Dracula coming into this and all I have to say having finished it is this: "WTF was that?" If this is a faithful adaptation of the novel then go ahead and cross reading it off my bucket list. 4.2/10''

30. Child's Play 2

Genny - 13 Inviso - 20 Charon - 25 Karo - 25 KBM - 28 Snake - 30 JONA - 31 Scarlet - 32 Johnbobb - 39

Genny - ''I'm not gonna say it's better than Child's Play, but I would still put Child's Play 2 in the same sentence unlike anything ending in "of Chucky"... Oh wait, shit! Anyway, the sequel takes a campy approach to the lore of Chucky intentionally and it works. When Chucky impersonated the Tommy doll is the first time I burst out laughing at anything in this project. However despite this being a bit more comedic than the original it goes heavier on the slasher horror. I ended up feeling bad for Andy and Kyle's foster parents even though the dad was kind of a dick. 7.8/10''

Inviso - ''Okay so…why the FUCK would you, a major toy company, decide to repurpose a burned and mangled “Good Guy” doll that is potentially connected with multiple homicides? I don’t care what dumbassed PR scheme you have in mind, but just let it fucking GO. Anyway, this movie winds up extremely goofy, right from the first kill being that of an electrocuted factory worker who gets backflipped through a plate glass window. And it’s kinda fucked up in just how psychologically damaging the whole thing is bound to be for Andy. No one believes him, he’s tormented by a killer doll, and even more people die all around him. Plus, some of the adults that die are just CARTOONISHLY awful (specifically Andy’s teacher and his foster father).

I’ll give credit though…Chuckie is genuinely unsettling. And some of the kills are really creative (including murdering Chuckie like, three times in the “Good Guy” factory). Oh! And also, I like how they didn’t turn Kyle into a completely one-note bitch, but rather she kinda understood the shit Andy was going through, and gave him slack more often than not. Also, I felt really bad for Joanne. It seemed like she either couldn’t have kids of her own, or didn’t feel like her husband would make for a good father, but she seemed to genuinely care for Andy and Kyle, only snapping once her husband died. I wish she hadn’t been killed so callously, but at least is was off-screen, so we didn’t have to watch her suffer.''

Charon - ''All the gleeful gore that is Chucky, this time without the elements of suspense or mystery. A lot of these horror franchises exist because their lead, that is their villain, is such a powerful onscreen presence. Chucky's mere appearance in a film, usually, is enough to get people interested and you can at least expect a quality performance that can't really be duplicated by Brad Dourif. This film drops the tense atmosphere of the first one by just showing you Chucky doing evil things immediately. It makes the film much less interesting than the original, but still good enough to be enjoyed for the mindless series of deaths that it is.''

Karo - ''The manufacturers of the Chuckie toy, upon hearing all the reports of demonic possession, decide the best way to examine the doll is to completely rebuild it from scratch. What could possibly go wron.. AAUGH!! Pressed for time before before he gets trapped in the body of a toy forever, Chuckie decides the best course of action is not to just immediately take Andy's soul before anyone realizes anything is wrong, but rather pretend to be a normal doll for seemingly no other reason but to troll everyone and waste time. Indeed, the movie is so atrociously written that it can't even bother to remember things that happened 20 minutes ago in the script. 'Hey Andy we heard about how you got detention in school today'. Well you know, the teacher was also beaten to death with a ruler but I guess that wasn't very fucking noteworthy. It is your typical rubbish horror sequel, and as such it must rely almost solely on the charisma of its central killer character. Chuckie may have more presence than, say, Jason Voorhees, but asking him to prop the whole movie up with his squishy rubber arms is a bit too much''

KBM - ''Is it crazy that I think this movie is actually a little better than the first Child's Play? This one leans a lot more into the camp factor of the Chucky doll, which I think was a smart choice (especially with Brad Dourif in the role), and the little kid seems to have learned a little bit about acting since his annoying turn in the first one. I wouldn't go so far as to call this a good movie, but I at least got some entertainment out of the camp – and intentional entertainment, at that. I can't say I'm a huge fan of this franchise in general, but for a slasher sequel, this is not bad.''

Snake - Why I Chose It - ''Three Chucky films were released in the 90s, and all three were moderately popular box office successes. I targeted two for this: Bride of Chucky, and this one, the first sequel. I had Bride on the list for a long time due its softly rebooted storyline perfect for new viewers and for being one of the most well-known and successful entries (the most, in fact) in the series. However, I ultimately went with CP2 because it was the first sequel in what would become a long running franchise, and for being the film to establish the new tone the Child's Play series would keep for the rest of the films in the series going on.''

My Thoughts - ''I've never really been a big fan of the Child's Play series. I think Chucky is a mostly nonsensical, non-threatening villain, and it was a great move to go goofy with the character rather than having that pretense of being a serious horror movie. This film really brings Chucky into his own and Brad Dourif is undeniably good here. He's the only one that can really act at all in this film; Alex Vincent is as stiff as ever and none of the adults are very good either. I lied a little, because I do like Christine Elise's character too, but ultimately the spotlight is on Chucky. Besides a decent ending sequence, Child's Play 2 absolutely plods along with little aim or purpose, cycling constantly between home, school, and the basement, with the most unrealistically annoying parents and teachers in existence. If it wasn't for Chucky himself, this movie would be absolutely worthless.''

JONA - Aside from the eye-opening climax, there’s not much substance here besides Chucky’s antics.

Scarlet - ''The worst part of Hollywood, aside from the Dementors, is the ever-present necessity to go to a well. Everything is a well to Hollywood, and as long as there’s still a bit of liquid left to squeeze out of the damn thing, you can rest assured that you’ll be handed a hackneyed script rife with repeats of something that came before. And said something doesn’t even have to be good. It just has to exist. Aside from some great delivery here and there by Brad Dourif, this entire film is an exercise in just how bad a film can get before airlines won’t run them to lure their passengers into mindless stupors on overseas connecting flights to European countries. And not even the good ones. The Vlado ones. Rating: 23/100''

Johnbobb - ''Before even starting this list, I assumed this would end up on the bottom. I never saw the first Child's Play, and that wasn't an accident. If there's one extremely specific subgenre of horror I hate, it's fucking living dolls. I don't know what it is about them. It's not that they're scary, just that they're so creepy and unpleasant that it makes me physically uncomfortable to watch them. That alone is reason enough for me to dislike this movie, but on top of that, it's just REALLY bad. The puppetry of Chucky is laughable, the performances kind of suck, the characters are all terrible in various ways (bonus points to the foster parents that left a Chucky doll in the closet before giving the room to the kid traumatized by the Chucky doll). Chucky himself is the worst of all though. Not scary, not funny, not thrilling, just completely unenjoyable.''

29. Urban Legend

Charon -11 JONA - 21 Genny - 26 Scarlet - 26 Karo - 27 Inviso - 28 Snake - 32 Johnbobb - 33 KBM - 38

Charon - ''Stands tall amongst the Scream inspired horror wave of the late 90's with its clever use of diversion and multitude of possible suspects. Of all the films on this project, this one probably surprised me the most. We watched this one near the end of the list, and I expected a pretty straightforward slasher film. Instead I found this one to be full of surprises. It was probably the only film on the project that actually kept me guessing until the end. While the payoff was underwhelming considering how much I loved the buildup to it, this was still a pleasant treat.''

JONA - ''This is probably higher than it should be but a murder mystery with themed murders appeals to me. However, the characters are nothing special and I did have a problem with the reveal, but that gets kinda handwaved by the ending.''

Genny - ''In Urban Legend we have a really cool concept for a movie botched by its execution and terrible conclusion. That woman's plan made zero sense if she was just going to kill the man she was framing and that makes me beyond frustrated. Oh well. 6.9/10''

Scarlet - ''In yet another attempt to create a 90s version of the Brat Pack, a surprisingly loaded cast is handed a fairly generic teen slasher script that hinges on one slightly interesting gimmick. Can the Joker, Peter Bishop, Lex Luthor and Bunny Lebowski salvage this tapioca of a film? Nope. And this failed Brat Pack reboot would slink into obscurity quite quickly. Rating: 28/100''

Karo - ''A serial killer terrorizes a small college with murders that mimic urban legends, and does the world a favor by offing all the worthless little shits that live there. Everyone is really stupid and acts in an unbelievable manner. Hey, someone was just decapitated so lets go drive out into the middle of nowhere at midnight in a car that doesn’t start properly. Seems like a good plan! The film is full of plot elements that make sense individually but are nonsensical as a whole. For example, why would Paul freak out at the girls looking in the trunk if he didn’t put the body there? Why would the killer leave the body in the trunk anyway? To try and get the boy she loves arrested for murder? Idiocy like this runs rampant throughout the entire movie and the script seems written by someone who just wanted to go 'gotcha' as much as possible without any thought of consequences. If only this film's existence was the sole myth here.''

Inviso - ''This movie’s greatest selling point is also its biggest failing. By virtue of taking urban legends and applying them to a serial kill’s MO, you have some unique and inspired kills. However, the contrivance needed to make those kills happen is…pretty terrible. Every scene is fucking awkward, and you have this psychotic killer whose motivation makes no sense beyond seeking revenge against the two girls that ruined her life. Killing all of those other people…particularly those that the main character didn’t give a shit about, felt pointless. It doesn’t help that the cast feels completely underdeveloped, and ultimately like they only exist to be victims in scenes completely detached from the central character. For fuck’s sake, douchebag character has his dog microwaved in a bustling house party, and then he himself is tied up and murdered in a bathroom at that same party…and no one discovers this. Nor do they care when Tara Reid is getting murdered. It’s hard to tolerate that, because the uniqueness of the kills isn’t forgivable.''

Snake - Why I Chose It - Between its cast of fresh faces and experienced veterans alike (including horror mainstays Brad Dourif and Robert Englund), and the way this film reintroduced urban legends into the public conscious, Urban Legend was a box office hit and produced a small franchise of two sequels.

My Thoughts - ''This film has potential in its concept, but fails utterly in scripting, characters, and performances. This film has a strange midnight movie feel but without the curiosity or realistic constraints of one, creating a mood that never really feels right or in-line with what the film really wants the tone to be. Of all the Scream-inspired films on this list, I also think this feels the most like a straight-rip of that formula, replacing horror films with the titular urban legends instead.''

Johnbobb - ''This was... something? I was intrigued by the idea of Urban Legends manifesting in reality, created and made true by the collective conscious of the public. But that's not what it is, of course. In the end, it's a forgettable slasher where nobody is really worth caring about and where the urban legends come across as serving less as inspiration and more as easy screenwriting. ''

KBM - ''Another example of what went horribly wrong with the slasher genre in the late '90s. What a weird era it was when someone like Tara Reid could be taken “seriously” as a Hollywood actress. Bland, mindless, and annoying, with a bunch of teenagers who are stupid even by horror movie standards, this is a movie that's shamelessly trying to copy other movies that weren't even that good to begin with. None of the characters are interesting (with the exception of one somewhat likable security guard who isn't in enough of the movie), the kills are too self-consciously referential to be any fun, and even Robert Englund is wasted in a too-obvious red herring of a role. Brad Dourif is here too, and he also gets next to nothing to do (a travesty in any situation where an over the top Dourif performance might partially redeem a schlocky movie). The movie finally doubles down on its stupidity when the killer is revealed and literally starts playing a slide show to demonstrate how and why they did the things they did.''

28. Nightbreed

JONA - 17 Johnbobb - 19 KBM - 22 Snake - 23 Scarlet - 24 Charon - 28 Genny - 29 Karo - 34 Inviso - 37

JONA - ''The movie has a pretty strong start and sets things up to be very engaging. The middle kind of falls flat at times and it started to run a bit too long but the climax is incredible. It was cool to see what the Nightbreed were capable of instead of being just window dressing for a good part of the movie. ''

Johnbobb - ''I got some strong Dark City vibes from this. It's not something I'd call objectively good. A lot of the performances are pretty weak and some of it is kind of dumb, but it still stands out because of how creative it is. Nightbreed presents a unique, bizarre reality and dives headfirst into it, quickly going from intriguing to crazy to pure batshit, in a (mostly) good way. The character designs are distinct and wild and the action is thrilling, and from a movie like this, that's about all I can ask for.''

KBM - ''A super-entertaining mess of a movie (a trend in this part of the list, to be sure), this has a whole lot of unique ideas that it doesn't always quite know how to get across. I watched the director's cut, and even in that context there are some baffling aspects of this movie – but then again, it's possible that, considering this was planned to be the first movie of a trilogy, we as an audience aren't necessarily meant to understand everything that's going on. Nevertheless, it's certainly an entertaining, fascinating movie, with some incredibly creative production design and visuals, and strong performances, especially from David Cronenberg as the ghoulish, unhinged psychotherapist. The unique mythology of this universe was enough on its own to draw me in, and I do kind of wish we'd gotten follow-up films.''

Snake - Why I Chose It - ''Though far from the most financially successful film on this list, the years have been kind to Barker's passion project, becoming a cult film that feels destined to be realized in its entirety. With almost enough re-releases and cuts to make Blade Runner blush, Nightbreed is a shining example of horror creativity that I think deserves a wider audience, no matter how imperfect.''

My Thoughts - ''I don't think I've ever seen a film as weird, wonderful, and woefully incomplete as Nightbreed. Through the various cuts of this I've seen (with a 3-hour cut to come), Nightbreed has never felt like a complete movie to me. Yet, there's so much I love, from Cronenberg's doctor/killer combo to the Nightbreed themselves, beautiful, complex creatures that mirror the outcasts of humanity in a touching way. On the flip-side however, is a too complex mythology not fit for 90 minute or 145 minute or even a 180 minute run-time. Things are not explained well enough to become compelling, instead begging for a TV adaptation to let things grow and breathe naturally. Besides that though, Nightbreed deserves to be seen despite its faults, and it's a world I never mind returning to over and over again.''

Scarlet - ''There is some depth hidden in this movie, a commentary on the nature of being an outcast in society, but by and large the practical effects and the camp made me yearn for the appearance of one Buffy Summers at some point to put this cast out of its misery. And, quite frankly, the entire film plays like an episode of a Buffyverse show, sans the parts of it that are actually watchable. A lot of this movie in general just seems to hedge its bets on keeping itself a cliffhanger-esque ending and inconsistent character arcs that leave you guessing as to whether is movie is at all a step up from the slash movie drivel of the previous decade. Rating: 31/100''

Charon - ''A film that clearly should have been a series, Nightbreed suffers from a bloated cast we're supposed to care about a world that's never properly explained. What strikes me the most is the way characters discuss Midian. It's like... "oh yeah, Midian, I've heard of it. I'll be right there", but in reality Midian is just this random graveyard but people discuss it like it's a town even before they know what it is. There's some promise here, I mean I do like the lead character well enough and the villain is also decent, but they kinda get buried here by some freaky nonsense here and there. I really feel that this would have found a better home in a series or miniseries; there seems to be a lot of universe to expand upon that never really was, and even with the way the movie ended they sort of hint at that as well. It's not necessarily a bad movie, just a little bit clumsy.''

Genny - ''Nightbreed drops you into a world where nothing is explained thoroughly enough. The Nightbreed are an intriguing concept as a race, and I wanted to like the movie based on the premise alone, but it ends up being just okay. 6.5/10''

Karo - ''So there is apparently this hidden city in the woods filled with people in silly makeup called the nightbreed, and some guy goes there and becomes one of them and they all fight some dipshit rednecks while constantly cutting to a shot of some random ghoul leering at the camera with some shit-faced smirk because that is supposed to be like scary or something. The nightbreed themselves are an inconstant assortment of rejected horror movie concept art brought to life by people who constantly change their minds throughout the story on whether they want their monsters to be grotesque or sympathetic. It doesn’t help things that the film is incompetently directed and written with no sense of direction or pacing. Plot elements are thrown out willy-nilly and then soon forgotten, the tone of the movie shifts wildly between any given scene, and it is impossible to form any sort of connection to anything that is going on. In the wake of all this unpleasntry we are left with a confusing mess of a movie that doesn’t know what the hell it wants to be. Is it a slasher movie with Mr. Sackhead? Is it the story of a man turning into a monster after being bitten? It is a moral fable about bigotry? Is it the result of consuming way too much weed? It is somehow all of these cliched things simultaneously, and all of them poorly. Please keep the creators of this film far far away from any more movie cameras, and for the love of god don't let them breed. In the night or otherwise.''

Inviso - ''This movie was stupid. Like…I’m genuinely confused by the plot and what the point was. There were too many characters that just got flung at the screen without properly explaining the purpose behind them. I don’t completely understand why the serial killer psychotherapist had it out for Boone? Like, I get using him as a fall guy…but why would you use him as a fall guy for crimes that no one really had any lead on? The movie also introduces a priest over halfway through its runtime, and suddenly he becomes a major character for…reasons? And hell, even the plot of the Nightbreed themselves seemed unsure as to whether it was possible to portray them as good guys. This film was just trying too hard to be both creepy AND fantasy, and it didn’t work for me on either end of the spectrum.''

27. Wishmaster

Genny - 7 Charon - 20 KBM - 23 JONA - 24 Inviso - 26 Johnbobb - 27 Scarlet - 34 Snake - 35 Karo - 36

Genny - ''Wishmaster and its sequels were my childhood guilty pleasures. I always loved the way the Djinn spoke with such intimidation and gravitas. The methods in which he kills his victims and/or claims their souls is as creative as it is random. Does anyone know why some of his victims are free to live for a couple days while others are insta-killed? No? Cool. At any rate an evil genie that intentionally corrupts your wishes is a unique concept that I adore. In fact the only major gripe I have with this movie is the terrible decisions made by the protagonist, but I guess you wouldn't have a plot without that! 8.5/10''

Charon - ''The lead villain is almost good enough to create an enduring horror franchise as the love letter it sends to the those pays tribute to; almost. Yes this film did end up with a number of sequels, but all of those came straight to DVD. I feel like the Djinn was almost good enough to warrant the sort of series we have seen from the actors that appear within, namely ones like Englund and Hodder. He has a good stage presence and even though he's sort of a combination of Freddy and Pinhead, he's a pretty cool villain. I'd guess the reason why Wishmaster isn't quite as revered as some of the other horror franchises is that the backstory of the character is more difficult to touch upon. I'm not sure really. But I liked this movie, and I think the makeup here has held up extremely well considering the film and budget.''

KBM - ''It hurts me to put Wishmaster even this low because it was so damn much fun to watch. However I can't technically make the argument that it's a good or smart overall movie. What I can say is that Divoff's performance in the title role is absolutely magnetic, and between that and the gleefully over-the-top gore, campy B-movie special effects, and creative death scenes, Wishmaster satisfied this particular horror fan. The veritable parade of guest stars from other horror franchises was also a lot of fun, and the actors were well-used in their cameo roles (I particularly enjoyed Tony Todd's scene as a growling bouncer who gets himself a hell of a death scene, and Kane Hodder – the best Jason Vorhees – appearing as a security guard who the Djinn quite literally “goes through.”)''

JONA - ''This movie is pretty schlocky but I also found it pretty fun, pretty much because of the Djinn’s gimmick. I always liked the “corrupted wish” angle and it gets some mileage here. ''

Inviso - ''I’ve never seen a single movie in the Hellraiser franchise (I’ve seen scenes, but never a full film), yet based on what I know about Hellraiser, this film feels like someone took the concept of Hellraiser and merged it with the concept of Nightmare on Elm Street, to create a bizarre amalgamation of weird, mythological creature horror. The movie is goofy as shit, with the weird contrivance of the djinn needing people to ask him for something in order to use his powers, only for him to turn around and ruin their wish. Some of those ruined wishes are so hilariously contrived that you can’t help but laugh at them, either. Ultimately though, while I appreciate a movie that you can’t take too seriously, I wish this didn’t go so completely cheesy like it did. It detracts from the wackiness of some of the kills when the djinn randomly goes to a shop and turns a girl into a mannequin just for shits and giggles. So yeah…interesting concept, but not perfect.''

Johnbobb - ''I never know how to rate or rank "so bad it's good" movies. This is a horribly acted, horribly written movie that is funny as hell because of it. Well, for the most part; there are more than a few boring lore scenes that literally nobody cares about. However, I also have to deduct points for it not even being the best take on this same concept (looking at you, Needful Things). Try a little harder, Wishmaster.''

Scarlet - ''This movie, about a young boy who is whisked away to the storybook realm that librarians and LeVar Burton claim resides within every book, attempts to take a truly all-star voice cast and roll them into a Magic School Bus style bit of edutainment which teaches us that books are fun. Too bad that the star of the film pretty much demonstrates that only the most bullied and heckled geeks in the school hierarchy are privy to this exclusive realm of magic. It’s an even tougher sell with a script that, ironically, isn’t a page-turner. Rating: 20/100''

Snake - Why I Chose It - ''The Djinn has become a moderate horror icon with a series of three sequels. Wishmaster is also an all-star celebration of the most famous actors and filmmakers in horror, directed by special effects wizard Robert Kurtzman, produced by Wes Craven, composed by Harry Manfredini, and featuring actors like Robert Englund, Angus Scrimm, Tony Todd, & Kane Hodder, just to name a few.''

My Thoughts - ''I want so badly to like this movie more than I do. The Djinn is a pretty cool concept for an antagonist and overall I think he looks pretty good, and I love seeing all the cameos like some sort of horror MCU. However, this movie is just overall really dull beyond a few gore scenes and the Djinn concept isn't pushed as much as I would've liked.''

Karo - ''An evil djinn is released from a gem and he sets out to give the three wishes that will free his kind and doom mankind as we know it. Perhaps this genie would have opened the portal to his world by now if he didn't fucking maim and murder every single person he comes across. Surely a being as old and powerful as him should understand the concept of enough intrigue and subterfuge to convince a master for long enough to achieve his goals that all this wishing won’t make him grow an extra arm out of his anus. So the movie breaks down as follows: the genie meets someone who makes an ill advised or poorly worded wish. Oh nooo this isn’t what I wished for! Cue a lot of screaming and excessive use of motion blur. Repeat. It is hard to tell which is worse, the terrible acting or the idiotic script. An evil counterpoint to the friendly Robin Williams genie is an intriguing concept but this is just so so terribly made and I wish it never existed.''

26. Event Horizon

Karo - 16 Snake - 18 Charon - 22 Inviso - 22 Genny - 24 Scarlet - 27 Johnbobb - 30 JONA - 33 KBM - 36

Karo - ''A crew sent to rescue a lost space flight finds to their dismay that everyone went insane and killed each other while speaking latin. So the ominously named Event Horizon is a vessel that has the scientifically dubious ability to generate black holes inside itself and use them to jump through spacetime. They then like enter the wrong stargate address or something and open a portal to hell by accident. Dealing with something other than the cliched space aliens is refreshing, though unfortunately when you really break things down the movie is essentially a generic store brand Alien, only minus the actual alien and the ship is evil or some shit like that. There is nothing majorly wrong with the film, but it is hard to get excited when you have a plot you have seen a million times before and a supporting cast that is either forgettable, or memorable for all the wrong reasons. The result is something that cannot quite escape the event horizon of mediocrity''

Snake - Why I Chose It - ''Though a troubled production and a vastly cut down final product doomed this film before it even premiered, Event Horizon has managed to maintain a strong fanbase with strong home video sales. It has influenced many subsequent sci-fi properties, most notably the Dead Space series.''

My Thoughts- ''The fact I enjoy Event Horizon as much as I do despite all its glaring issues both behind and in front of the camera I think means there's something really solid here. Laurence Fishburne & Sam Neill deliver great performances despite a wonky script, and I absolutely love this film's lonely, dread-filled atmosphere. I think the ship design of the Event Horizon is really unique, especially the gravity drive room. The ship feels properly Eldritch despite being man-made, and I love that the ship is the actual antagonist, always present, always watching. The film's psychological moments are also really effective, especially juxtaposed with the more traditional viscera and gore associated with horror. In general, the blood in this is properly unsettling and gruesome. I think the ending kind of falls flat for me, but the journey is well worth it.''

Charon - ''An eerie film that doesn't quite reach the levels of greatness you can sense just beneath the surface; it's hard to tell what holds it back. Event Horizon is a space horror that also blends in elements of psychological horror, which in theory should propel the movie into greatness. For me, it just never quite makes it there but I still really enjoy the concept and want to like it a whole lot more than I do. It puts me in mind a good bit of As Above, So Below on that note, another film which has a similar sort of "this place knows my darkest secrets" touch to it that I want to really love. As a concept, this movie is great, but the execution just leaves something out. I think it needed more darkness, more actual scares in there with it. Oh, and don't forget we didn't need another funny black man. That said, at least this film didn't seem to be quite as racist as some of the others here.''

Inviso - ''This movie manages to really set a creepy stage for the vast majority of its runtime. The slow devolution of the crew as they’re tormented by hallucinations is great, as is the general breaking down of societal norms as the demonic energy permeating the ship threatens to take control. However, after creating such an eerie setting, I feel like the film rushes the ending far too much. The entire cast is still alive going into like, the last 20 minutes, and then it’s just kill after kill after kill. It’s a pacing problem more than anything. Also, if you know anything about my tastes from Doctor Who, I love a good base-under-siege story. It gives a chance to develop a large cast and flesh them out. But in this, it’s really only three characters that get fleshed out, and then a bunch of kill fodder. It’s unfortunate, because I feel like there could’ve been a lot more in terms of psychological horror, rather than just having Sam Neill go crazy and start killing everyone. So yeah…solid concept that just couldn’t stick the landing, unfortunately.''

Genny - ''What do you get when you take the haunted house concept and make the house a space ship instead? Event Horizon dares to ask this question. It's a refreshing concept I wish was utilized more in any media. Space horror when done correctly can be edge-of-your-seat thrilling. That said, Event Horizon doesn't really do it justice. The sense of isolation is there, as is the necessary cabin fever victim, but as interesting as the premise is I couldn't help but feel it let me down. 7.1/10''

Scarlet - ''Imagine how much work it takes to save one of the worst scripts I’ve ever seen. That’s no exaggeration. It’s complete and utter nonsense. But the work put in by two phenomenal talents (Lawrence Fishburne, Sam Neill) and the sheer ridiculous effects work at least turns this script into memorable crap. Which is better than being unmemorable crap. That said, the film is heavily reliant on jump scares to turn this “I wish I could make Alien” pipe dream into something more. It apes pieces of things other sci fi horror films do well, but without understanding what makes them work. Rating: 27/100''

Johnbobb - ''Anyone else get some Flatliners vibes from this? But like, less good. There's definitely an attempt here; good set design, decent action, but it ultimately just came off way more corny than scary. The performances are inconsistent and sometimes even cringey (not helped by weak dialogue), and the plot ended up being considerably less interesting than the concept might let on. It's over-the-top and overacted in a way that definitely doesn't match the one it seems to want. ''

JONA - The movie has an interesting concept and setting but it just ends up being kinda dull.

KBM - ''Oh, Paul W.S. Anderson. The fact that the best movie you've ever made is 2002's Resident Evil adaptation is very telling. This mess of a sci-fi horror film features the worst Sam Neill performance I have seen, and that includes Jurassic Park III. The rest of the cast doesn't fare much better, but it's not like they have any good (or even coherent) material to work with. Some of the visuals are nice, but with a story this muddled, derivative, and ultimately insubstantial, that only carries you through part of the first act before you realize that it's all just going to get steadily worse from here.''

25. Mimic

Karo - 17 JONA - 20 Snake - 20 Scarlet - 23 Johnbobb - 24 Inviso - 25 KBM - 29 Genny - 32 Charon - 36

Karo - ''Scientists release genetically modified bugs into the city to stop a cockroach plague, and of course they get realllly big and start eating humans. I'm sorry, but you can't just take a tiny little insect with termite and mantis DNA and have it turn into a six foot tall humanoid with fucking lungs in just three years, I don't care how fast its metabolism is. If you are having 17 thousand generations per year it means you are basically mating right out of the egg sac and that means no natural selection. Anyway, everyone heads down into the scary sewers and gets torn to pieces by big bad buggies. It is nothing but a generic monsters in the dark movie, and true to its title it is just a mimicry of better films that came before.''

JONA - ''Honestly, my favorite part of the movie might be the opening credits. That’s not even to say the movie is bad or anything; those were some cool credits. The movie’s got great atmosphere and shows off the dirty, dingy Manhattan subways well. I already hate cockroaches and seeing Ermine-sized cockroaches scared the heck out of me. There’s not much that makes this movie stand out but it’s still enjoyable. ''

Snake - Why I Chose It - ''Del Toro's second '90s outing, and first big-budget film, Mimic is his first film to showcase his natural talent for the fantastical & grotesque monster design he his known for. It is also Norman Reedus' debut film, and became a minor franchise with 2 sequels.''

My Thoughts - ''It is far from Del Toro's most solid film, but damn does the guy know how to build atmosphere. The naturally terrifying look of New York subways is the perfect breeding ground for this, with the gritty reality juxtaposing with the fantastical humanoid cockroach monster. And what a monser it is. It looks dated, but I think in the way that PS1 graphics look dated. It reminds me of how the graphics of the original Silent Hill became scarier in retrospect due to not being able to clearly tell what certain things fully look like. I absolutely love that feeling. If I had a complaint, the cast and characters are completely forgettable, and can't really muster up anything worthwhile between them.''

Scarlet - ''Featuring a monstrous foe that’s one part Species, one part The Thing, and one part nonsensical, Mimic is easily the worst outing ever by Guillermo del Toro. Just a complete mess that’s only buttressed by some excellent tonal work that only Del Toro can create. However, it’s a pretty paint-by-numbers plot with some terrible performances. Send this movie to Bargain Bin Hell, boy. Rating: 37/100''

Johnbobb - ''Given that it's a Del Toro film, it shouldn't be a surprise that the best thing about it was the monster design. A life-sized roach bug that visually adapts to hunt humans? That's what I wanted from Arachnophobia! It's just a shame nothing more is ever really done with it. It's creepy and atmospheric at first, but eventually devolves into more of a generic survival monster horror. There's a lot of wasted potential here.''

Inviso - ''If I’m trying to be completely objective, this wasn’t a BAD movie. Guillermo del Toro knows his way around a horror film. It just didn’t really appeal to me. I wasn’t necessarily grossed out by the bugs or anything…I don’t know how to describe it. I guess the way I’d put it is that the film felt like it was trying too hard to make a gritty, realistic setting, complete with realistic-looking bug autopsies and organs. But…that just made the whole thing feel unpleasant to watch, you know? Don’t get me wrong, any movie where the first two kills are two obnoxious little bastard children gets some points in my book for taking a risk (although seriously, the autistic shoe shine kid deserved to die.) I can’t explain it. This just didn’t appeal to me. It was like Alien (or Aliens, since there were multiple bug creatures), if Alien took itself just a LITTLE too seriously for its own good. That seriousness is the make or break determination for me, I guess.''

KBM - ''My least favorite of Guillermo del Toro's films, I was at least pleasantly surprised that I didn't absolutely hate this movie thanks to my visceral and crippling phobia of cockroaches. Del Toro is one of the most talented directors working today, so even the least of his oeuvre has things going for it. For one, Charles S. Dutton as an ornery MTA officer provides some much-needed life to the proceedings, and thanks to del Toro's visual flair, the movie manages to maintain a certain level of creepy atmosphere even when nothing particularly interesting is happening. Unfortunately this is dragged down by several factors: some corny, pointless jump scares, a pretty dull script, and an utter lack of chemistry between Mira Sorvino and Jeremy Northam as the romantic leads being the chief offenders. You also have a story that wastes a perfectly good F. Murray Abraham, a magical autistic trope of a character whose story arc really doesn't go anywhere at all, and behind-the-scenes executive meddling fuckery courtesy of the Weinsteins that definitely didn't help matters.''

Genny - ''Oh Guillermo del Toro, how could you have anything to do with this? Of all the "giant version of commonplace animal is a huge threat" films the plot for Mimic is the most forgivable, but I would be lying through my teeth if I said I felt anything for any of the characters contained within. 5.2/10''

Charon - ''An unbelievable monster movie that you can't think about too long or you'll completely unravel the plot until it's a twitching roach on the floor. So we'll release these roaches, that will destroy these other disease ridden roaches, right? Okay. We'll biologically engineer the species to die after a few months, and they'll be completely infertile. Check. We've gotta kill all these humanoid roaches! Uh... ok. It just handles the transition so badly you'd think it was a joke. I know this is based on a book and I'm curious if the book makes any more sense out of this or not. From a scientific standpoint, this one might make the least sense of all the science fiction themed horrors. I'm just not seeing how these things evolved to the point they did; things just don't work like that. Ignoring that part of it, the movie isn't terrible or anything. It has some odd plot points like "abduct main female character, but don't kill her, like we killed every other character we encounted" but the atmosphere it decent enough. I just can't get passed the antagonists though; it's too outlandish.''

24. Fire in the Sky

Inviso - 11 Snake - 17 Genny - 19 Scarlet - 25 JONA - 26 Charon - 28 Karo - 29 Johnbobb - 31 KBM - 32

Inviso - ''This is a weird movie, because everything the viewer sees is based on a true story…or at least as true as a story about alien abduction can be. As a result, the plotline is told in a very bizarre fashion…but it still kinda works. The cold open has a bunch of shellshocked guys showing up in town, scared shitless, and then it turns out one of their buddies is MIA. So for the first half of the film, it’s purely a thriller where the audience has no idea if the “alien abduction” story is true or not, and whether Dallis really murdered Travis or not. But then Travis returns, all kinds of fucked up, and we’re subjected to an EXTREMELY disturbing alien abduction sequence, where he’s floating through a ship after some horrific imagery and events take place. And that’s it. He remembers everything, but life has to move on as though nothing ever happened. It’s an interesting take, and again, it’s something that would only ever come about if you’re trying to adapt a real story. That makes it feel more compelling in and of itself, so I guess I’m pretty okay with that.''

Snake - Why I Chose It - Based on the true story of Travis Walton's UFO abduction, Fire in the Sky has what is considered one of the most well-regarded and most frightening alien abduction scenes ever.

My Thoughts - ''Despite my lowish ranking here, I adore this movie. Ufology is a hobby close to my heart, and I think the story of Travis Walton is one of the most interesting and frightening cases out there. I really like the different kind of horror on display here; it's not what most people would consider horror, but that pain and longing of not knowing what happened to your close friend while everyone around you blames you, is so sad and scary to me. Of course, when the real horror of the alien abduction does start, it is so jarring and contrary to the rest of the film that it feels like your breath gets literally taken away as you hang on every horrifying and sickening detail. The performances are all excellent and I think the slow, methodical pace works wonders in deepening the film's overall impact on me.''

Genny - ''I had no idea Fire in the Sky was based on real-life events prior to watching it for this project, though my fiancé did and notified me. I thought it would be difficult to attempt to make a horror film that borrowed from actual events, particularly events that didn't involve some tragic massacre, but I was proven wrong. It's competently made, and though the creepy visuals tread toward sci-fi more often than horror the depicted imagery does inspire a certain sense of dread within me. The actors' portrayals are also good enough to get signed off by a couple of the actual people who went through this, and the performances inspire pity and hopelessness so I cannot complain. 7.4/10''

Scarlet - ''You know how some people suck and say that Close Encounters is boring because they can’t appreciate the cultural zeitgeist of the film? Yeah, Fire in the Sky actually DOES suck because it’s so phenomenally boring that taking a sleeping pill works less effectively as self-medicating anesthesia than this movie, and there is no cultural zeitgeist to this slog of a movie. I’ve read Wall Street Journal articles with more excitement. Rating: 29/100''

JONA - The drama is somewhat intriguing and the alien scenes are cool but this just feels stretched out for what it is.

Charon - ''Terrific acting is tempered by a somewhat too slice-of-life style story that doesn't particularly hold up well in its own genre. Robert Patrick is a treasure as usual, putting on a brilliant performance. Really all the actors do a phenomenal job here, the problem really is just the limitations of this film. Since it is based on a real account of an alien abduction, it's hard for the film to do much beyond tell you that story without the actual people looking too foolish for imagining something outlandish. I find it difficult to call it a horror film, as horrifying as I'm sure being abducted and tested upon is and I in no way want to discount the stories of anyone who believes that's happened to them, but as a film I can only rate this so high on the strength of the actors.''

Karo - ''This bunch of loggers sees a UFO in the sky, and because one of them is a dumbass he ends up abducted and thoroughly probed. The group comes under suspicion of having murdered their friend, and some attempt at resolution is made by a lot of idiot rednecks shouting in each others faces. Not really a whole lot else happens in the film, the aliens never reappear except in flashback, it's just these grubby lumberjacks protesting over and over that they reaaaaaally did see their friend get kidnapped by E.T. and they weren’t just taking LSD on the job. It is very hampered by being based on a 'true' story and thus limiting the plot from taking any surprising turns. Or any turns at all, really.''

Johnbobb - ''That abduction flashback scene would've made an INCREDIBLE short film. It's a shame you have to watch an hour of angsty blue collar UFO sighting politics to get to it.''

KBM - ''This is a horror movie? Huh. Well, regardless of genre, this movie really only makes it even this high on my list for one reason only: the actual alien abduction scene, once it finally happens, lives up to its reputation and makes for a genuinely harrowing 15 minutes or so. But man, that 15 minutes is just about the only substantial thing about this movie, which for the most part was a slog to get through. The actors are clearly doing their best here, but I spent most of the nearly two-hour runtime utterly bored by this slow slice-of-life tale about a bunch of toxic asshole rednecks. It's telling that the scenes aboard the alien craft have almost nothing at all to do with Travis Walton's actual account of what “happened” – almost as if the filmmakers would have been better off scrapping the “based on a true story” angle and coming up with a more interesting story entirely to surround the abduction scenes''

23. Tremors

Inviso - 9 Johnbobb - 13 Scarlet - 16 JONA - 25 KBM - 25 Snake - 25 Karo - 26 Genny - 33 Charon - 34

Inviso - ''It’s been a long time since I’d seen Tremors, so the freshest memory I had of it was the RedLetterMedia review. And that review hit the nail right on the head with regards to this film. It’s great. It’s cheesy…very B-movie. But a B-movie can be amazing, and Tremors was exactly that. It just nails a lot of the best things about horror movies. There’s a slow build as the viewer wonders what this mysterious, murderous creature is; the protagonists have to think and reason a way out of their situation; and there’s some quirky fun to the characters that makes you get invested in their survival. The whole “they can sense vibrations” thing adds some suspense amidst the cornier elements of the film, and it just makes the protagonists feel that much more impressive when they manage to overcome the odds and win. Also, I love the fact that you have four graboids, and the writers killed all four in different ways (head-first into concrete, shot to shit, blown the fuck up, and launched off a cliff.) That’s creative, and it’s a nice little cherry on top of a quaint and fun movie.''

Johnbobb -''This is one of the first things I think of when I think of fun, goofy monster movies. The graboids are just a great monster design. Huge and bizarre and threatening but also fun to watch and easy to understand. It manages to take what's expected of a horror environment (dark, small and clautrophobic) and flip it on its head, managing that same inherent creepiness in a massive, bright desert town. It jumps right into the threat and action without wasting any time. Kevin Bacon is wacky and enjoyable to watch. Reba and her man and their wall of guns are hilarious. It's not a flawless movie by any stretch but it's a blast to watch.''

Scarlet - ''Your mileage may vary, depending on your love for the B-Movies of yesteryear. Kevin Bacon hams it up in this love letter to the monster movies of the 50s, and the campy stupidity is both a blessing and a curse as it sets the tone. While the movie seems fully aware of how bad it is, it also isn’t able to rectify that problem in any way. Knowing is half the battle, but there is another half, and that falls into the realm of “doing something about it”. It seems like the director here was content on letting the actors disguise the flimsiness of the film with cartoonish performances, distracting from the man behind the curtain here. Rating: 50/100''

JONA - ''The characters are likable enough and the setting of the town in the desert helps give the movie its own vibe. It’s also fun to see how they deal with the creatures. It doesn’t have much substance but it’s just dumb fun.''

KBM - ''Here's a movie I can't help but feel I should have liked more than I did. Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward are super charismatic in the lead roles; Michael Gross and Reba McEntire are equally delightful as a pair of comic-relief survivalists. Really most of the cast are beyond solid, and the movie has a pretty good sense of humor about its ridiculous premise. Sadly, at least for me, Tremors ends up being slightly less than the sum of its parts. Possibly it's the knock-off Arrakis sandworms that didn't do much for me, maybe the fact that the movie doesn't have much visual style going for it outside of some creative low-budget effects, or the somewhat repetitive script, or maybe it's the fact that the whole thing is so doggedly PG-13 that it loses a bit of the bite it could have had. Nevertheless it's a decent, rewatchable movie, that makes up for its lack of scares with a strong cast and a genuine sense of humor.''

Snake - Why I Chose It - One of the most recognizable monster movies ever made thanks to a combination of Kevin Bacon's starpower and the attention-grabbing Graboids, Tremors has become a huge franchise of 5 sequels & a TV series.

My Thoughts - ''Tremors is a decently enjoyable movie with some nice moments of comedy balanced with legitimate danger, and really fun practical effects. No complaints about the cast either. Ultimately though, Tremors is missing that "x-factor" for me, and I can't for the life of me figure out what it is. There's just something off about it, that doesn't really pull me in as much as I thought it would.''

Karo - ''In this hick town in colorado or whatever there's these earthquakes that are caused by unknown burrowing monsters and a lot of people get eaten but unfortunately not the dipshit little boy. The main characters are these two moronic cowboys who spend a lot of the movie yelling at each other and the other dumbass residents of the town, with everyone having such atrocious acting that it makes Anakin in the Phantom Menace look Oscar-worthy. The creatures are stupid looking and don't make a bit of sense from any logical standpoint, its just like yo dawg, I heard you like snakes so we put snakes inside your snakes so you can snake when you snake and snake snake snake snake. So aliens, irradiated mutants, or escaped government bioweapons? The fuck if I know, as far as the movie is concerned these things just exist for the sake of existing, nothing but dumb shit cooked up in the head of someone who wanted to remake Jaws with giant earthworms.''

Genny - ''I didn't hate Tremors as much as I thought I guess. It's a competent movie though I cannot comprehend the prevalence of giant regular animal movies in this decade. 5.2/10''

Charon - ''Deep beneath the sands are terrifying worms; more digging is required for a quality film. Definitely the weakest of the Bacon films for me, this one is just a little over-the-top, try hard sort of funny. The main characters seem like they should have gigantic heads and limbs because of how much they feel like caricatures. The romance here feels really forced and unbelievable as well. Sure it's a young Kevin Bacon, but they really seem to have virtually no common bond that isn't surviving gigantic sand worms together. The worms themselves are just kinda eh as antagonists. As far as monsters go, I guess they're not awful or anything. I do like the mythical beast known as the Mongolian sandworm, which I feel these are partially based upon. Ultimately, I just feel the characters here are too campy and I found it hard to get much invested in their fate.''

22. Braindead/Dead Alive

KBM - 6 JONA - 7 Inviso - 15 Snake - 19 Charon - 21 Genny - 25 Scarlet - 33 Johnbobb - 37 Karo - 39

KBM - ''The pinnacle of the “splatter horror” gore-fest subgenre, this movie is just a blast to watch. I don't know if I've ever seen a filmmaker have so much fun just going as over-the-top as humanly possible with gore effects as Peter Jackson does here, and it's a testament of what a talented filmmaker he is that even the gross-out elements of the movie work because of the tongue-in-cheek sense of humor at work here. It's a masterpiece of intentionally tasteless horror-comedy, and one that really, really works for me. Such great bloody fucking mayhem that even the Evil Dead series can't match.''

JONA - ''The movie is pretty funny with how spineless Lionel could be and the constant hiding of anything being wrong. The relationship between him and Paquita is also pretty nice and they have good chemistry together. I’m glad I decided not to eat while watching this because the lunch scene was really gross. The climax of the movie is just glorious, with the amount of action and gore shown. What really makes this movie so memorable is just how absolutely disgusting and amazingly gory it could be. ''

Inviso - ''This movie is gross and I more than likely would never want to watch it again…but I still found it compelling and fascinating at the same time. The plot is thinner than skim milk for sure, but this really isn’t about plot. It’s about weird and over-the-top characters surviving in an even-weirder and more over-the-top zombie situation. Every character (except the Hispanic shopkeep, somehow) is a one-note caricature, and yet the movie still manages to work because it’s not about characterization or anything like that. It’s about a horrid old woman getting bitten by an evil monkey, rapidly decomposing, and slowly infecting a large group of people to serve as grotesque zombies. The last twenty minutes of zombie warfare are hilarious, and the insanity just builds to a whole house party of zombies, the use of a goddamn lawnmower as a weapon, and the main character clawing his way out of his zombie demon mother in a rebirth scenario. I should also mention that the movie randomly tacks on both a tarot card prediction of the shopkeeper’s love life, AND a subplot about the main character’s father drowning, because the movie apparently needed both of those things. It’s crazy and gross, but I HAVE to give props for the practical effects. Oh, and also, the priest kung fu scene is fucking amazing. “I kick ass for the Lord!” indeed.''

Snake - Why I Chose It - ''Perhaps the pinnacle of the splatter film, Braindead (or Dead Alive in NA) has the reputation of being the "bloodiest" film in history. It is also the most representative of Peter Jackson's early filmmaking sensibilities, with an affinity for the strange, mass carnage & black comedy.''

My Thoughts - ''I've never seen such a delightful movie that has so much gore and grossness. This film is off-the-rails insane and I like almost every minute of it. The storyline is strangely compelling and gives the gore scenes an enjoyable background to work with. It's also just straight-up hilarious, Peter Jackson pulls off tongue-in-cheek humor flawlessly. Perhaps it overstays it's welcome, but certain scenes are just so good and disgusting that it doesn't even bother me.''

Charon - ''This strange tale about a man's journey to escape his overprotective mother is an interesting twist on the genre, and will make even the stauchest critics of horror comedy chuckle often. I personally am one of those people, and I'm sure that's no real secret to anyone. This film was definitely something, and I expected to not enjoy it at all but surprisingly enough it's quite good for what it is. The cast is mostly good; many of the zombies don't get lost in the background, and I especially loved Father McGruder, the Lord's asskicker. The gore here is at times pretty high, but it really is tempered quite a bit by all the comedy at play here. It treats gore in a much different way than some of the other films on the list that employ it, and it has my respect for making me see that not every horror comedy is bad.''

Genny - ''Dead Alive and Cemetery Man have a lot of the same "charm", but where one fails the other succeeds in its comedic efforts. "I kick ass for the Lord" might be my favorite line in this project. Is it delivered better than "I see dead people" or "What's in the box"? No. Is it acted as professionally as "Do you still hear the screaming of the lambs"? Definitely not. Is it more iconic than all these and more? Naw, but dammit there's so much charisma in it and that's indicative of the movie as a whole. I eventually even overlooked the gross out action and learned to enjoy it. 7/10''

Scarlet - ''Two things. First of all, I watched a show called Braindead a couple of years ago. This was not related to that show. That was a big strike against. Second of all, Wickle should not watch this movie. This is functionally, “Yo dawg, so I herd you liek gore so I put some gore in your gore.” I really do have a line when it comes to gore itself, and while I could see how this movie might be amusing to some really sick sons of bitches who probably have no conception of decorum and show up to black tie dinner events and talk about how they saw a truck disembowel a deer on a highway on the way to the social function, I myself believe that if a movie makes you feel like not eating, its doing a bad job. Theaters need to sell concessions, not clean them up from the floor when they are regurgitated. Blergh. Ew. Gross. Rating: 21/100''

Johnbobb - ''God that fucking custard scene almost made me puke. I mean, I'm fine with gore and horror, and I'm fine with gore used for comedic purposes. The gross wackiness kind of reminded me of Drag Me to Hell, which I loved. But this is just... that's all it is. It seems like it's just taking ridiculous gore effects, pointing at them, and saying "HAHA look how gross that is!" And sure, they're gross, but I've seen enough over-the-top horror at this point that goofy, gross-out effects just don't do it for me without there being more of a draw beyond that. And if the movie itself wasn't gross enough, the music is just real unappealing. Like distractingly bad daytime soap music.''

Karo - ''A young man's mother gets turned into the undead by a monkey bite and he ends up with an ever increasing collection of pet zombies and everything turns gross and stupid like zombies having sex to make zombie babies and scores of meaningless disembowelments of human and undead alike. The film is a thoroughly unpleasant experience filled with nonsensical plot turns and insensitive ethnic stereotyping, and it is rife with feeble attempts at humor that only serve to turn the stomach and it some cases rip it out entirely. The story gets ever more idiotic the longer it goes on, and pretty much just gives up by a certain point. But hey, as long as we spray enough fake blood around to fill an olympic sized swimming pool we don't need anything else, right? I couldn't think of a more apt title, because braindead is exactly what this movie is.''

21. Cemetery Man

Johnbobb - 5 Scarlet - 9 JONA - 15 KBM - 15 Karo - 22 Snake - 24 Inviso - 33 Genny - 37 Charon - 40

Johnbobb - This was like Care Bears Movie II: A New Generation levels of me not knowing what the fuck is happening but unlike Care Bears Movie II: A New Generation I'm glad I watched it

Scarlet - ''I came into this film with no expectations and walked away very surprised. The tone and language and presentation of the film were just so unique and really flavorful. Very offbeat from the standard zombie fare, the argument could almost be made that its an artful take on the undead. And, look, let’s all be very honest: Rupert Everett was one of the most overlooked actors of the 90s. The guy can churn out a performance. I’ve never understood how he didn’t land more leading roles. Rating: 62/100''

JONA - ''The strangeness and humor really make this movie charming. Francesco’s a strong main character and I found the running gag of him never being a suspect funny. I thought the scenes where he was losing in touch with reality was great. However, I never really liked the scenes with Gnaghi. The ending where Gnaghi could properly speak was weird but I enjoyed that. Just an odd, enjoyable film.''

KBM - ''Now this is a delightful piece of nonsense. I'll be damned if I can even really tell you what this movie is about (the Weird Fucking Italian Horror subgenre being what it is), but the actual plot of the movie takes a backseat to just how funny and absurd everything is. Rupert Everett is fantastic in his off-kilter role as the eponymous cemetery man (AKA Signore Dellamorte, as referenced in the much better, but too-difficult-to-translate, original title: Dellamorte Dellamore). I found myself enjoying the hell out of this movie's unique, surrealist take on zombie horror, set in a universe where people seem more interested in fucking zombies than other living human beings. Bouncing back and forth from psychological character drama, to dark comedy involving the mayor and his daughter, who comes back as a hilariously mobile disembodied head, to Italian gore-fest material, to even a couple of pretty beautifully-shot sex scenes, this movie manages to tie all of these disparate tonal leaps together into an entirely contiguous, if not exactly coherent, whole.''

Karo - ''So this guy works at a graveyard where all the bodies keep coming back to life and these clones of this girl keep wanting to fuck the gravekeeper who might be a serial killer and his morbidly obese r***** sidekick has a love affair with the undead decapitated head of a child. Then the movie gets REALLY weird. The film's dark humor is hit-or-miss but when it is at is best it is the strongest part of the movie, and it really should have gone more in that direction with less melodramatic monologing from the protagonist. What remains is a series of incoherent plot elements strung together into an equally confusing whole that doesn’t resolve or explain anything, and has a hard time validating its own existence.''

Snake - Why I Chose It - Loosely based on the Dylan Dog comic series (the best selling comic in Italy), Cemetery Man is one of the most prominent and well-regarded Italian horror films of all time, gaining a large cult following over the years.

My Thoughts - ''Cemetery Man is an insane movie that is a compelling, if occasionally non-sensical, descent into madness. Rupert Everett is great in the lead role, and really makes this as enjoyable to watch as it is. The cinematography and visuals are gorgeous too, but some rather strange narrative choices and bad characters drag this movie down a little bit for me.''

Inviso - ''This film is extremely weird, and honestly, it was also rather hard to follow. It feels like it was trying to be a horror-comedy, but lacks the pacing and delivery to really be funny. A third of the movie is slow and revolves around less-than-amusing sequences of zombies and interpersonal melodrama. Then the middle third of the movie starts to go over-the-top with the zombies, and various love interests also becoming zombies in their own right, with wacky results. And then there’s a sharp twist as the main character decides to become a serial killer, and just starts indiscriminately murdering people. This is weird, but the movie’s tone is still too bleak and grim to match the inherent quirkiness it’s trying to push. I just don’t know what to think about this film…it seemed like it didn’t know what it was trying to accomplish, and that made it a bit of a slog to watch.''

Genny - ''I will admit Cemetery Man had its moments of genius, but they were few and far between. The rest of this was a slog to sit through, and while the very ending was out of left field, every plot beat in this overlong spectacle prior to that was beginning to become completely predictable. 4.5/10''

Charon - ''Quite possibly the least funny film I've ever seen; there's no resurrecting comedy since it never existed here. Dull, uneventful, repetitive, and definitely not scary, this film is really strange to me. I can't figure out what they were going for here. Is this a horror comedy? If so, I guess I just don't appreciate the humor used here. I never laughed once, or even smiled I think. The general plot seems full of holes as some zombies in this film are just the mindless, brain searching meatbags everyone expects but then others seem to have personalities. Some can even speak and seem completely uninterested in killing the living. There's plenty that's unsettling, in all the wrong ways. Like the mentally handicapped assistant the main character has lusting after what's explained to be "a child" by his boss. They go on to have a strange romance where this disembodied head actually seems to fall in love with the guy, before mysteriously flying to attack her father. This was probably the highlight, or lowlight, of the film. There's no rhyme or reason to why anything in this story happens, and wondering if Dellamorte will end up with the dinner plate areolas and how many times he'll kill her is not interesting. Complete and utter drivel. Gna.''

20. Army of Darkness

Scarlet - 8 Inviso - 10 Karo - 10 JONA - 13 KBM - 14 Snake - 26 Johnbobb - 35 Charon - 37 Genny - 38

Scarlet - ''A great tribute to the Harryhausen movies of yore, Army of Darkness is one step removed from the Evil Dead films that came before it, relying on the undeniable charisma of Bruce Campbell to transport the fans from beginning to end. As a ride, it’s goofy, it’s messy, it’s maybe even downright bad at times, but it’s entertaining more often than it’s not. That comes from a script that takes nothing seriously except the charm of Bruce Campbell. Extremely quotable, and endlessly engaging, this movie is close to being an extended piece of dark sketch comedy, almost completely forsaking the horror roots of the first two installments of the Evil Dead franchise in favor of fun, occasionally mindless, entertainment. Rating: 69/100''

Inviso - ''This is a great B-movie. Bruce Campbell’s Ash is an amazing protagonist, because he has that perfect amount of “I don’t give a fuck about ANY of this shit” that helps to really sell the absurdity of the situation he’s in. It’s a lot like Rowdy Roddy Piper in They Live. When you have a badass action hero who couldn’t possibly care less about the plot, it frees them up to do hilariously stupid shit, and say awesome one-liners. Now, is Army of Darkness the cleverest movie? No…definitely not. But it’s right up my alley. You know from prior rankings that I can enjoy a good, cheesy movie. And this is cheesy as hell. It’s just fun to throw an “I don’t give a fuck” modern guy into a scenario where he’s forced to survive life in medieval times, while simultaneously bringing a chainsaw, a shotgun, and a car, all into play with the backwater peasants. Oh, and the ending is a perfect mix of awesome and cheesy to cap off the film. Very very fun.''

Karo - ''Some dumbass who fucks around with the Necronomicon gets sent back in time to one of the little-known feudal kingdoms that existed in medieval southern california. These knights send Ash on a quest for the Necronomicon again for reasons and the movie goes completely off the deep end and turns into Looney Tunes as mini-Ashes subject our one-handed protagonist to less-than-funny slapstick violence. It is a film that requires a certain mindset to enjoy, lest the more quirky or strange elements get dismissed as utter stupidity. Nevertheless, it lacks the finesse and semi-grounding in reality that similar comedic movies such as Pirates of the Caribbean have, and thus keeps it from reaching its full potential, as does a hero that spends way too much time crossing the line between lovable asshole and regular asshole.''

JONA - ''I dig the Middle Ages setting and seeing Ash interact with people of that time. It’s a goofy movie with goofy action and comedy but also a lot of fun.''

KBM - ''My personal favorite of the Evil Dead series, and one of my favorite Sam Raimi movies in general, Army of Darkness is the one that really takes the time to revel in the campiness of its setting and premise. I love its use of the Dark Ages setting, its wild, scattershot sense of humor, and its unbridled creativity. I love how different it is from the rest of the series, thereby not feeling beholden to the “rules” of the rest of the movies and feeling like a freer, more surrealist and experimental product. Though there are a couple of comedy scenes that can get a bit overly-silly (for instance, the sequence with dozens of tiny Bruce Campbell's climbing out of a broken mirror), on the whole this ends up being one of the freshest, most original living-dead flicks that I can name.''

Snake - Why I Chose It - The final film in the Evil Dead trilogy, Army of Darkness is arguably the most recognizable film in the series, featuring Ash's most iconic quotes, as well as spinning off a whole sub-franchise of comics that crossed over with the likes of Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, Dracula, and even Marvel Zombies.

My Thoughts - ''When it comes to the Evil Dead franchise, I have a love-hate relationship with it. It tries a balancing act between the serious and the absurd, and I don't think it always works that well. Evil Dead 2 did it best, fixing the mistakes of the first film with comedic overtones and giving the series more of an identity to itself. Army of Darkness too often loses me with a mess of tones and plot details and events, the only constant ever being Campbell's great central performance.''

Johnbobb - ''So, I GET what they were going for here. But it wasn't my thing. In fact, I've been putting off watching this and the Evil Deads specifically because I felt like they weren't going to be my thing. In general I like Sam Raimi, and after seeing Drag Me To Hell and bits and pieces of the Evil Dead movies, I've had a general grasp of his style. It's kind of hit or miss, with Army of Darkness landing on the far side of "miss." The movie is mostly bad special effects and cheesy lines and goofy sound effects. Sometimes I can really dig this campy style, but honestly I just wasn't feeling it. ''

Charon - ''The longest, most horror filled Three Stooges episode of all time. As the film that "made" Evil Dead what is game to be, I feel very... unhappy with it. A lot of body humor and stupidity abound here. It's like, why are these guys just not killing Ash instead of playing games with him? It gets old pretty fast once you realize that's about all this movie has happen. The bad guys all run up, pull down his pants and stick their thumb in his ass and then he shoots them dead. It's not a fun time. I will say I appreciate Bruce Campbell making this character his own, I guess, but at the same time it's not really a character I can find much joy in. Every once in a while someone will say something funny, but it's mostly misses instead of hits for me.''

Genny - ''I'm sure I'll get flak for this, but the Evil Dead series is just not my brand of humor. Army of Darkness to me was not even laughably bad, which is a major offense for a horror comedy. 4.4/10''

19. Flatliners

Genny - 9 Snake - 16 Charon - 17 Scarlet - 21 JONA - 22 Johnbobb - 23 Karo - 23 KBM - 24 Inviso - 29

Genny - ''Is there life after death? Is it heavenly and beautiful or hellish and hideous? Flatliners seeks to answer these questions or serves as a warning that some questions are best left not asked. Keifer Sutherland's character here is almost as unenjoyable as the doctor from Dark City, but I can sympathize with most of the supporting cast. We all make mistakes in our youth when we're dumb and reckless. And Joe... well he pays heavily for his transgressions. I wish David and Nelson's pasts didn't both involve bullying a peer because it makes it a little harder to sympathize with either one, but it is what it is I guess. Flatliners was a pleasant surprise 8.2/10''

Snake - Why I Chose It - ''Though he may not be the first name to come to mind when it comes to horror, Joel Schumacher has plenty of experience with the genre (The Lost Boys, Phantom of the Opera, Blood Creek), making films that may be flawed but always his own. However, I mainly chose Flatliners for its unique concept and approach to horror, as well as its strong casting. Flatliners also received a remake in 2017.''

My Thoughts - ''A thoughtful film, if a little hard to swallow at times. The cast is all excellent and characters feel properly human and three-dimensional, with flawed problems and histories that make them interesting to follow, and they're not always easy to sympathize with either. The hallucinations presented in the film are where most of the horror comes from, and though I never found them particularly scary, the way they affected the characters always kept me hooked and engaged with the film's story. It's interesting how a film dealing with the afterlife has no deaths for any of the main characters. Flatliners prefers to use its concept instead to help these characters grow and escape the shadow of their pasts, proving that not every horror movie needs death to make it interesting.''

Charon - ''An interesting premise and tons of unsettling dream sequences, Flatliners employs an all-star cast to tackle the mystery of life after death. The near-death experience is definitely interesting; without having one yourself it's hard to really believe in, as the movie itself touches on. Those that have had them tell of various different things, but the recurrent theme seems to be "life flashes before your eyes". In this film's case, it takes a dark twist on that and shows you perhaps your life's biggest regret or fear. It's expertly handled honestly, and I probably unranked this film a bit given how much I did enjoy it. A film that's as disturbing as this one gets away having no deaths at all somehow, but it still manages to be an effective thriller where you're never sure if the characters will come back from the beyond this time.''

Scarlet - ''In an attempt to create a 90s version of the Brat Pack, a surprisingly loaded cast is handed a unique but poorly constructed script that takes a gimmick and really does its best to confound it with poor writing. Can the Tess Ocean, Oliver Babish, Jack Bauer and the Hollow Man salvage this beef stew of a film? Nope. And this failed Brat Pack reboot would slink into obscurity. Rating: 40/100''

JONA - ''It’s intriguing to see what the characters see in their time between life and death and how most of them have to deal with the sins of their past and there’s some spooky imagery that comes with them. Kinda weird how Julia Roberts’ character had to deal with something that wasn’t her fault though. It can be boring at times, especially how much time feels wasted in between the characters flatlining. The execution of the movie can be clumsy, but the concept and imagery of the movie is enough for me to like it.''

Johnbobb - ''I definitely enjoyed this. After I was done watching, it was hard to put my feelings into words, and I think that's ultimately because as much as I liked this, I wanted more. The performances are all solid (Kevin Bacon in particular is always great) and the concept and execution were both fascinating. The ideas it presented were interesting and it definitely twisted my expectations from typical psychological horror. However, it didn't really go far enough for my taste. It sort of danced around deeper and more complex themes without ultimately saying much by the end, which is a shame, because with a little more complexity it could've been great.''

Karo - ''A group of med students obsessed with the afterlife take turns killing each other in order to force a 'near-death experience' because science. In this experiment they induce a state of clinical death on one of them, panic profusely as attempts to revive them seem ineffective, then they wake up just when all hope seems lost. Then one of the others goes 'oh golly gee, it's my turn next!' and we start all over again. You goddamn lunatics are you fucking insane? Normal people do not treat cardiac arrest as a game or hold bidding wars as to who can stay dead the longest. The lone female character in the group is subjected to incredibly sexist behavior from the male leads, who only acknowledge her existence in order to white knight for her, ask her out, try to get her in bed, or to crack jokes with each other about about the previous points. What was an intriguing concept ends up running off the rails with silly phantom children, inconclusive and confusing 'death' sequences, and lack of any real exploration of the subject matter.''

KBM - ''A wonderful concept somewhat marred by dodgy execution, courtesy of everyone's favorite hack director Joel Schumacher. There's something viscerally exciting about watching these students argue about who will dare to go under for how long, and for awhile I get quite into this movie. The characters are interesting, likable, and well-acted (with the exception of William Baldwin's Joe – his acting is fine but wow is the character insufferable). The problem is that the afterlife sequences get a bit repetitive as they aren't as creative as they could have been, and the movie loses some of the potency it could have had thanks to its unwillingness to actually kill off any of its main characters. At the very least, I feel like Kiefer should have died at the end, but the movie chickens out and gives us a Hollywood ending that flies in the face of what came before it. Still, it's an entirely watchable flick, with some engaging character arcs and moments of genuine visual flair from Schumacher.''

Inviso - ''Fun fact: my voice remote immediately loaded up the 2017 remake of this film, which apparently has a FOUR PERCENT from Rotten Tomatoes. I had to actively go searching to find this on Netflix, as a result. And…eh, it really wasn’t worth it. At the risk of making a pun, this movie was extremely flat. Nothing felt like it had any stakes. Four characters “kill” themselves and get revived, and yet no one ACTUALLY dies during the movie, outside of a little kid in a flashback. That’s kind of the problem. It would be one thing if like, these people cheated death and started having real, negative consequences in the form of demonic punishment or something. But let’s recap.

Joe sees visions of all the women he’s video taped having sex, leading to a guilt trip that ultimately gets him caught by his fiancé. Okay, fine. Kinda lame that his story pretty much ends with the break up, but whatever. Julia Roberts freaks out about seeing her dead dad…but all she ultimately needs to do is hug him and have him apologize to HER, and everything is all better. Kevin Bacon sees a little girl insulting him, so he goes and apologizes to her when she’s all grown up, and again, everything is fine. Really, the only person who actually SUFFERS as a result of all this is Nelson, who killed a kid when he was younger. And yet even he flatlines himself to the brink of death, and atones by apologizing to the kid he killed…and so everyone lives happily ever after. I don’t know…it just felt like forcing creepy situations that didn’t deserve it, and the ending felt unearned. It wasn’t great, unfortunately.''

18. The Frighteners

JONA - 5 Scarlet - 12 Snake - 14 Karo - 15 Inviso - 19 Charon - 25 KBM - 27 Johnbobb - 29 Genny - 36

JONA - ''This was a movie I never heard of before the project but I’m really glad I watched it. Michael J Fox puts on a great performance here and his character has good chemistry with Lucy. Frank is a really engaging character and I enjoyed his character development and sad backstory. I really felt for the guy after he just shuts down and doesn’t want to talk to anybody. The scene where he reaches heaven is very strong and his happy ending feels well-deserved. All the different ghosts and the FBI agent are entertaining, even if not all the jokes hit. The Grim Reaper’s murder mystery is also engaging to follow and does provide its good share of spooks. This movie invoked sadness, laughter and some scares and everything just worked well together for me, as someone who likes a good variety. This movie might be higher if this wasn’t such a late writeup. ''

Scarlet - ''Enjoyable but also forgettable. MJF is a charmer but most of this movie is just mild: mildly scary, mildly amusing. Likely Jackson’s direction only improves the sum of the ingredients. It’s like the movie equivalent of Taco Bell sauce. It’s a welcome bit of flavor but ultimately it’s trying to disguise a fairly bland product. Rating: 53/100''

Snake - Why I Chose It - ''Peter Jackson's 2nd horror romp of the 90s, The Frighteners was a darling for Universal Pictures and was positioned as their summer blockbuster before ultimately becoming a flop. The film was notable at the time for its numerous digital effect shots, one of the most of any film at the time. It's also Michael J. Fox's last starring role in a feature film.''

My Thoughts - ''This movie is such a joy to watch. It's a little goofy but overall I think it's the funniest horror comedy on the list. Michael J. Fox is incredible with great comedic chops per usual and the effects I think have surprisingly aged well in a charming sense. Despite the film's general light-hearted overtones, Jackson still does not forgot to bring the suspense with fluid camera work. The Grim Reaper is an intimidating antagonist as well. The graveyard scene also has tons of joyfully macabre imagery. All in all, a film I love watching over and over again! It never gets old for me.''

Karo - ''There's this fraudulent exorcist who tells his undead friends to go haunt houses so he can have work despookifying their homes. Yeah that's right, he has the legit ability to speak with the spirits of the dead and the most profitable thing he can think of to do with this is be a con man. Anyway, he ends up crossing paths with a homicidal spirit thanks to his gift and seeks to protect the town via astral projection and bad special effects. It is somewhat funny, though it goes on for way too long and often feels like a cut-rate Ghostbusters that doesn’t really bring much of worth to the table.''

Inviso - ''This movie was just weird, wacky fun. It was like Men in Black meets Ghostbusters, but not in the R.I.P.D. way. Michael J. Fox is good at playing a slightly-quirky slightly-antihero kind of character, and it shows. I appreciate the fact that this film takes a hard turn really quickly. We’re introduced to Fox’s character as a psychic conman (who ironically is using genuine psychic powers to con people), and yeah, he pulls a couple cons with his ghost buddies early on, but after he’s introduced to the movie’s female lead, the film takes a DARK fucking turn, and I LOVE it. Suddenly, crazy-ass Jake Busey is back as a ghost, continuing his serial killing spree, and he’s killing people to conveniently paint Fox as a serial killer.

Things go off the rails at that point, as the movie just gets goofy. Ghosts fight the grim reaper, some caricature characters show up as murder fodder, and then we’re introduced to the batshit crazy FBI agent, whose malfunction is never quite explained. All of this is great, but it gets even better when the movie pulls a reverse twist (that is, the ending is so obvious that you go into it expecting a twist or subversion, making it a twist in and of itself). The chaos of the endgame is great. Really, the only drawback is just how threadbare the plot is. Nothing is explained all that well, and there aren’t a lot of quality character arc conclusions. So yeah, fun movie, but fun is all really.''

Charon - ''This goofy film probably wasn't the sendoff from film lead that Fox deserved, but his charms are still present and carry the movie to at least some level of respectability. The story is mostly carried by Fox, whom I always find it hard to hate in anything he does. He's good here as a sneaky conartist, but one that's actually honest in a way too. It has a very Ghostbusters feel to it in the delivery, and despite some dark things happening the world never feels terribly threatening even with the "reaper" on the loose. The character of Dammers was interesting and reminded me of a sort of evil Monk impersonation, if you can impersonate a character that was yet to exist I guess. It's decent, watchable and all.''

KBM - ''A decent but ultimately somewhat forgettable film from Peter Jackson's pre-Lord of the Rings days, The Frighteners is a workmanlike, goofy movie that gets bogged down by its overlong runtime, hit-or-miss gags, and ghost effects that are among Jackson's more dated work. As a swan song for Michael J. Fox's movie career, it definitely leaves something to be desired, though he still manages to inject some of his trademark charisma into the proceedings, and the movie does get some mileage out of its talented supporting cast (particularly the ever-entertaining Jeffrey Combs).''

Johnbobb - ''I can't tell what kind of audience this is designed for. It's like a horror comedy, but the comedy is weirdly juvenile and slapstick for how dark the movie is. There are a lot of interesting concepts here, and surprisingly decent effects for the time, AND I want to give it a small bonus for having Michael J. Fox, who is just always fun to watch. But even then, the movie's not great, and is ultimately made worse by the drastically inconsistent tone. ''

Genny - ''I love Michael J. Fox, but not enough to worship the ground he walks on and films like The Frighteners serve as records that no one has a flawless filmography. Between the cheesy effects, acting and dialogue I was certain my lactose intolerance would end me by its conclusion. 4.5/10''

17. Cronos

Karo - 8 KBM - 12 Scarlet - 13 Snake - 13 Charon - 16 Johnbobb - 20 Genny - 21 JONA - 28 Inviso - 32

Karo - ''An elderly antique dealer comes into the possession of an ancient device that can grant eternal life and somehow still has a live insect inside it which makes no sense but we just kind of have to accept it. The old geezer uses the device to make himself feel good, but it also gives him an unnatural appetite for a certain red liquid. It is an interesting take on vampire mythos and also possibly a metaphor for drug addiction if you really take a close look at it. Guillermo del Toro shows his directing skills to craft a story that never gets boring, the one big problem is that the character of Angel seems incredibly out of place in the film. He is a silly foul-mouthed lunatic who is like some cast off of a bad Adam Sandler movie, and it really hurts the serious nature they are going for.''

KBM - ''Guillermo del Toro showing off that he had serious filmmaking chops as early as his very first feature. The acting is great across the board – Federico Luppi carries the movie wonderfully in the lead role, his granddaughter does a great job in a mostly-silent role (especially for such a young actress), Claudio Brook is nice and threatening as the antagonist, and Ron Perlman provides some well-timed moments of levity as the bumbling American henchman/nephew to the villain. The script is also quite smart, effectively creating a nice allegory for addiction in its vampire lore without bogging things down by over-explaining anything. Well-paced and beautifully filmed, this debut definitely displays the promise of what's been a brilliant career for del Toro, and just taken on its own, is a unique, stylish, and underrated entry in the horror canon.''

Scarlet - ''If you like Del Toro, you’ll certainly enjoy this freshman outing from a young Guillermo. But it’s so hampered by the roughness of a fledgling director. The script certainly lacks the polished quality of a seasoned veteran, and it really plays like the world’s best student film. That’s not to say it’s bad, but that there are very clear weaknesses to the presentation. The attempts to subvert the conventions of storytelling seem a little too much for this young, unproven Del Toro to handle at this point. But filmmaking is about practice, and this is an example of getting those reps in. Rating: 53/100''

Snake - Why I Chose It - ''Guillermo del Toro's first feature film, Cronos is often hailed as both one of the best vampire films of all time and one of the best Spanish-languange films of all time. It even foreshadowed some of Del Toro's notable hallmarks, including working with recurring actors (Federico Luppi, Ron Perlman) & his penchant for small, thoughtful films that blur the lines between horror, fantasy, and drama.''

My Thoughts - ''This is easily one of my favorite vampire movies of all time. Del Toro's debut feature already shows a master at work, with gorgeous cinematography and a slow, tense build punctuated by some seriously affecting moments of drama. A really great example of this is when Gris uses the Cronos device, and it pierces his wrist in an excruciating way, as gears turn and the music swells a little. Then, the scene cuts to quiet, with Gris' granddaughter watching him from above, worried for his safety. It's so effectively sad and the whole film is filled with scenes like that. It's also one of the most unique takes on the vampire mythos by far. Though the typical tropes are all there, the Cronos device really helps set it apart from the pack, acting as almost an addictive drug for Gris. Can't go without mentioning Perlman's great performance, filled with both menace and levity as only he can pull off. The film is capped off with an ambiguous ending, which makes the film that much more touching and thoughtful overall. Cronos and Del Toro deftly analyzes the effects of immortality on the human condition, crafting a masterwork that's universally frightening.''

Charon - ''An interesting film about immortality; del Toro surprises here with this Mexican originated dark film about the dangers and wonders of it. I didn't really know what to expect from this film, but given it wasn't "really" an American film I was nervous of it a little bit, but I ended up liking this one quite a bit. The cast here is brilliant in their roles, especially Federico Luppi and Ron Perlman. You have to love just watching Perlman kick his ass most of the film so you'll be happy when he gets his in the end. I enjoyed the twist near the end here, where we avoid that bad ending for our hero. Instead del Toro leaves this ambiguous, which is something that the horror genre could apply more often in my opinion.''

Johnbobb - ''Man it's weird looking back at this now and seeing all the future Guillermo Del Toro tells. The bizarre faith-focused fantasy, the striking makeup and prosthetics, the Ron Perlman. Cronos is really rough around the edges but Del Toro's creativity shines through it. It's a far cry from his later masterpieces but goddamn if you can't see the potential lying in it all.''

Genny - ''Cronos poses the question of what it means to be immortal and whether it's worth it to live forever if the cost is having to feed on life. Gone are the overkill gory moments and overgrown beasts running rampant in many other 90s offerings, instead Hellboy lays a smackdown or two of realistic violence, but he's not the villain nor is his invalid uncle. Instead it's desire. I can buy that. Who wouldn't want youth, health, and longevity? 7.3/10''

JONA - While I liked the concept and characters, it just felt plodding for the most part with few moments that felt important.

Inviso - ''I don’t really know how to describe my feelings about Cronos, other than saying that I think the pacing really hurt the film as a whole. Like…okay, mysterious device reinvigorates a human body, but at the same time turns said human into a vampire. Fine. I’m TOTALLY cool with that as a premise. I also find the main protagonist to be a likable person who warrants to level of emotional investment the movie gives him. However, around the fifty-minute mark, I realized the movie had been going on for as long as it had…and the bare minimum of plot had unfolded. Aside from the initial creepiness of having a robot beetle clamp down on one’s hand…there’s no real horror stuff. But then, the back end of the film is so backloaded with vampirism, and creepy imagery…it feels rushed in my opinion. I feel like the slow transformation could’ve been spaced out over a longer period of time, and because it WASN’T, the end result just feels sloppier, I guess.''

16. Wes Craven’s New Nightmare

Snake - 2 Charon - 8 KBM - 13 Genny - 15 Johnbobb - 18 JONA - 19 Karo - 20 Scarlet - 30 Inviso - 34

Snake - Why I Chose It - ''The seventh film in the Nightmare on Elm Street series, New Nightmare features Wes Craven's return to the directorial chair, his first reappearance in the franchise since the original film. New Nightmare treats the original series as in-universe films, requiring little continuity knowledge to watch and enjoy. It also returns Freddy to his darker roots, after progressively getting more goofier with each installment. New Nightmare would go on to inform Craven's future film Scream, and would be the last Freddy movie for nearly a decade.''

My Thoughts - ''New Nightmare, in my opinion, is Wes Craven's magnum opus. In the film, Craven analyzes his position as a "master of horror", and the responsibility and role he had in crafting one of horror's most enduring icons. His films literally unleash Freddy into the world at large, an analogue to the real-life nightmares many viewers of the real Freddy films have experienced themselves. Craven himself has often tried to escape the pigeon-holing of being that one "horror director", and New Nightmare makes it clear that spectre forever looms over his legacy almost too greatly to escape from. It's incredible contemplative and introspective, and yet, New Nightmare also manages time to be a damn scary, fun time too. Beyond the sub-text, Robert Englund portrays Freddy with a whole new menace to him, and with the exception of the first film, I've never found him scarier than here. Heather Langenkamp is also fantastic, and both the similarities and differences between her and her character Nancy are extremely fun to notice. She's definitely horror's premiere dual-role final girl! In closing, the idea of Freddy becoming reality is an idea I've always loved. In my opinion, we make these fictional entities real everyday, by discussing them, by being frightened of them, by giving them new life through fan writing or drawings. Yet, Craven proves that, in the end, it's all just a story, and it's our responsibility to remember that. Craven gives himself and the viewer an out, we just have to play our roles one last time to realize that.''

Charon - ''An obviously darker take on Freddy, this film successfully revamped the dream haunter, sadly they just didn't continue from where they should have. It's hard to believe that this film basically ended the original line of Nightmare films, which is a shame because it's clearly superior to all of the other sequels that came after the original. Not only that, but it failed in the box office. With Craven gone, it's hard to imagine a good movie coming, but I digress. The premise here is interesting, as they treat the entire rest of the films as if they were simply that, films. This is a concept we'd see borrowed later by other films, that is, making a horror movie around the production of a horror movie. The whole malevolent being that happened to get written into being Freddy just now likes to be Freddy is neat, and while they tone down the campiness of his antics a bit, they keep all that made him a great slasher.''

KBM - ''The original postmodern, self-referential slasher-satire, and (with the eventual exception of Cabin in the Woods) my favorite of its type. Despite its ability to make fun of itself and the Elm Street series it's ostensibly part of, this also represents a welcome return to form for Freddy Krueger after the Elm Street sequels turned him more and more campy, and thereby less and less scary. Heather Langenkamp is great as both herself and her character from the films; also great as “themselves” are the likes of Bob Shaye, Wes Craven, and of course, Robert Englund in his own double-role. This is just so creative without being in any way smug about its own cleverness, and definitely ends up being one of the best, and certainly most intelligent entries in the franchise.''

Genny - ''Aw yeah Freddy's back with a brand New Nightmare (presented by Wes Craven) that's more of a meta mind fuck than anything else. I'm okay with this. It's a clever way to refresh a series that was starting to run out its welcome while still paying homage to a time when the Nightmare franchise wasn't so stale, worthy of a 7.6/10''

Johnbobb - ''Conceptually, this is one of Wes Craven's coolest ideas. He's not the only person to ever do the "fictional creature comes into the real world" trope by any stretch, but this is definitely one of the most intriguing examples of it. Freddy's reality-bending abilities have always been a defining aspect of the character, so twisting not just dreams but fiction as well into reality is just such a cool move. In execution, it could use a little work, falling victim to some of the cheesiness associated with both Freddy and 90s horror, but overall is just such a neat idea that it's easy to forgive some of its flaws.''

JONA - ''Snake was patiently awaiting all the writeups for his board project. He checked his e-mail and he received writeups from scarlet and Genny. He decided to post on Discord confirming that he received them and to give a notification to others to send their writeups in. Snake posted “ Got both scarlet and Genny's. @gauntlet Just to check in and confirm again, I have Inviso, Karo, John, Genny, and Scarlet atm. And I'm waiting on charon, KBM, and JONA.” JONA was not at all prepared to hand in his writeups. As of that notification, he only wrote passages for 12 of them and even he knew that they were simple. JONA started to do more writeups but then wondered if he should do a wacky writeup for Wes Craven’s New Nightmare. He was unsure about his feelings on the movie and its meta-ness. He felt it helped made the movie feel fresh and that it gave some insight into the minds of people who worked on horror films. On the other hand, the meta-ness made the threat of Freddy was lessened due to it and it made the film somewhat alienating, due to him not knowing the franchise well. Then, JONA knew what his writeup should be like. He started typing, “Snake was patiently awaiting…”''

JONA: “Alright, this writeup will do.”

is what JONA originally wrote down to conclude his writeup, but then he decided to end his dumb writeup with this sentence right here.

Karo - ''Upset with bad sequels, Freddy Krueger decides to come to the real world and try to kill the movie crew before they can make any more. Yes, seriously. Anyway, Nancy um, I mean Heather is having nightmares and prank calls featuring Mr. Krueger, and after meeting with Wes Craven (yes, inside the actual movie), she realizes that Freddy is some ancient being who can be easily distracted by watching slasher movies, so they should make another one before he takes over the world. And that's the movie we have here. Maybe. It is an interesting take on Freddy to make him more of an eldrich evil rather than a vengeful ghoul, though it seems given the revelation of his true nature it seems he is defeated way too easily. You should need fucking Doctor Strange to deal with someone like this, not just randomly stabbing him a few times and pushing him into an incinerator. It is always good to try new things, particularly in the excruciatingly formulaic slasher genre, and this deserves props for the attempt I guess? However, the scenario is silly and way, way too meta, and seems more like an excuse for Wes and everyone to shamelessly insert themselves into their own series. Should just stick with the old nightmare.''

Scarlet - ''I appreciate the creativity at play here from ol’ Wes, breaking down the fourth wall in order to breathe new life into a stale product. But it’s still a slasher, it still looks like low-budget garbage, and I still judge people who think this is entertainment. Rating: 24/100''

Inviso - ''I really did want to appreciate this film for how meta it was, but then it’s almost two hours long, and the plot was stretched EXTREMELY thin, to the point where it became outright lame. The little kid actor is fucking annoying in literally every second of the film, and I kinda wish he’d been murdered early on to facilitate the plot. But yeah, the main actress from the original Nightmare on Elm Street starts having nightmares and premonitions related to Freddy Kreuger, and it turns out that he’s being manifested into the real world. That’s an interesting concept (and like I said, very meta like some of Craven’s later works.) But…there’s this weird, supernatural element, and the film isn’t quite hokey enough to match the fore factor of the original films. Oh! And can I just say that Freddy himself looks absolutely terrible in this? It looks like the studio cheaped out and bought a “visible man” mask, and that’s all they bothered dealing with. Ultimately, the concept was interesting, but it lacked ANY real bite to it.''

15. Audition

Snake - 5 Johnbobb - 9 JONA - 9 KBM - 11 Karo - 13 Genny - 18 Scarlet - 22 Charon - 33 Inviso - 39

Snake - Why I Chose It - ''One of Japan's most prolific directors, Takashi Miike is well-known for his extreme violence, sexual themes, & extremely dark humor. Audition is representative of this perfectly, and, along with Ring, helped popularize J-horror in the west. A notable director influenced by Audition is Eli Roth, inspiring the "torture porn" genre and directly informing his film, Hostel.''

My Thoughts - ''This was the first foreign language horror movie I had ever seen, opening my mind up to some really fucked up movies that come from Japan and other countries. It takes a look at the power struggle between men and women, and works as a devilishly tricky subversion of both masculine dominance and extreme feminism. It's absolutely frightening how Audition and Asami switch tones from an almost delightful rom-com to brutal psychological and bodily horror. Asami's quiet anger and anguished performance is one of the all time best. Her expressions as she uses acupuncture needles and a wire saw on Aoyama is absolutely the stuff of nightmares. Even with all the physical pain and gruesome detail happening on screen, Asami always remains the scariest and focal point of the scene, leaving you reeling at how a person could ever become this damaged. It's a film where the lines of morality are completely blurred, and I love the countless ways you can read into this film. On one hand it's a feminist revenge piece. On the other it's a male perversion power fantasy gone horribly wrong. Asami herself is full of contradictions and hypocrisies; maybe this film is simply what happens to an abused, hurt child who never really got over her pain. Either way, Audition is a one of a kind horror film, a slow-burning exercise that escalates into a scene for the ages.''

Johnbobb - ''What a sweet rom-com. I down on his luck widowed man finding love? It's like a Japanese Sleepless in Seattle! But it also has an adorable A24 indie drama quality. Two awkward and unlikely people happen to meet and their connection is immediate. Wait, what's happening? Huh, nevermind, probably nothing. Oh, I'm sure he'll find her, these two are meant to be! Look how devoted he is to her. He-- wait, what? Wh-- what? Wait don't-- wh-- NO-- FUCK NO WHY WHAT IS WHY WHAT NO FUCK''

JONA - ''Asami’s a great antagonist and I really like how her mysterious aura is slowly taken away as the movie goes on. Once her true colors are shown, the actions she does are just sick and grotesque. Audition is a bit of a slow burn, but it’s absolutely worth the wait.''

KBM - ''Now this is a slow-burn horror thriller. This reminded me of some of my favorite horror movies of the '60s and '70s, which did such a great job of slowly building up the tension and creepy factor to an almost unbearable level before finally letting loose in the final act. I can definitely understand this movie taking a bit too long to get going for some people, but I appreciated the amount of effort put into establishing the characters and the situation, giving this movie a depth that a lot of horror movies don't manage. Even the filmmaking style bears this out – in the opening act of the movie we get lots of long takes and flat angles, but as the movie goes on and our hero gets himself further and further into a bad situation, we start getting quick cuts, frenetic handheld camera movement, and some Dutch tilts that highlight his deteriorating mental state. The slow build makes the twisted final act feel all the more earned, with Eihi Shiina's performance pitch-perfect as she plays out her misdirected revenge fantasy.''

Karo - ''A middle aged man stages a fake audition in order to acquire a new wife, an act that probably ranks at about a 7.5 on the Creep-O-Meter. He soon meets what seems to be the perfect girl but it turns out she is actually a serial killer who specializes in Xtreme Acupuncture. The yandere concept isn't really a novel one, nor does a whole lot really happen in the movie, but cute + evil is generally a winning combination and the story doesn’t ever become uninteresting.''

Genny - ''I had never heard of Audition before this list. Admittedly it is a bit of a slow burn until the third act, with rare shining moments of subtle horror, eerie atmospheric intrigue, and lots of foreshadowing. Unfortunately this is where Audition shines the brightest as upon the onset of the third act all subtlety and intrigue is thrown out the window for blatant gore and torture porn. The effects are fantastic, enough to make me physically queasy which I can't say about many recent films in this genre, but man that's not the turn I was hoping or wanting this movie to take. That said it's still good enough for a 7.5/10, but mostly for the first two acts.''

Scarlet - ''I respect that there is some audacious thematic material in this movie, but ultimately, torture porn is torture porn. I don’t like it, and I think the world is worse for its existence. I don’t think there’s a reasonable explanation on why we should endeavor to make movies of this nature. For me, it’s unsettling in a way that’s not acceptable. It makes me feel physically ill. And even with everything else about this movie firing on all cylinders, I just can’t respect that. Rating: 40/100''

Charon - ''A chance to be psychologically chilling and unnerving is passed up for some torture porn that goes on for way too long. Audition is a film I figured I'd like more, and I did like it up until the twist where we watch a guy be tortured for what seemed like an eternity. I wasn't like grossed out by it or anything either, I was simply bored. It lost its shock value and turned into a total snoozefest after that. There were creepy moments early on in the film, like the way Asami eerily waited for that phone call. That was legitimately scary, but unfortunately rather than being a thriller it turned into a film that would influence some of my least favorite horror directors out there. It's just not my thing, and I was highly disappointed that it was this type of film. The acting was really on point but I can't in good faith rank something very high that I enjoyed so little.''

Inviso - ''There are just a variety of reasons this one didn’t work for me. As I’m sure people remember from my utter hatred of Martyrs on the previous list, torture porn is really hard for me to enjoy unless there is a quality storyline (and there also has to be a certain level of detachment in terms of my ability to believe the events of a torture porn film are really happening…like the Saw franchise.) But those last thirty minutes…they’re just awful. It starts out terrible with visions of Asami forcing a bagged victim to eat her vomit, and then it’s just needless torture and suffering of a guy who didn’t really do anything TOO wrong (outside of faking an audition to find a girlfriend I suppose). And then the movie ends with a bizarrely-realistic portrayal of Asami as a total fuck-up, dicking around with pepper spray and eventually getting kicked down some stairs to her death. It’s…not right at all.

Additionally though, while the movie did eventually have a segment (the third quarter) that intrigued me with how off-putting and creepy Asami is…the film is not well-paced in my opinion. I think it’s a cultural thing, because this isn’t the first Japanese movie I’ve watched where it feels less like drawing out the tension and more like just padding the runtime (I’m thinking specifically about the scene where the son clears the table for far too long, early in the film.) I dunno…for a movie that’s almost 2 hours long, it just felt like it dragged way too much. Far too much filler for a movie with a gross-out ending that ALMOST feels completely detached from the rest of the movie (aside from the information provided during the visit to the closed-down bar.)''

14. Sleepy Hollow

Inviso - 2 Charon - 4 Karo - 14 Genny - 17 Johnbobb - 17 KBM - 20 Scarlet - 20 JONA - 23 Snake - 33

Inviso - ''Okay, I know. I know that this probably has no business being at the top of this list and there are probably a handful of consensus top ten picks that this movie has no business outranking. But I just can’t deny my enjoyment of this film. For all intents and purposes, this is a whodunnit. It’s a slasher flick, sure. But it’s a whodunnit slasher flick that focuses much more on the dark, gothic elements than on the killings (which, although they get more elaborate as the film goes on, are still mostly a variety of beheadings.) Johnny Depp’s Ichabod Crane is quirky and fun, and I like the idea of an investigator who is too squeamish around blood to properly perform the very investigations he proports to be an expert at performing. I enjoy the slow, unraveling of the mystery surrounding the headless horsemen, and I also find it to be a nice touch, having the horsemen be a genuine ghost, but having him CONTROLLED by a flesh and blood person. It grounds an otherwise supernatural tale. Overall, I just really enjoyed the entire concept and execution of the film.''

Charon - ''With Tim Burton at the helm, Elfman running the music and Johnny Depp at the lead, and even Christina Ricci on support how could this be anything but great? It might be easy to please me, as you can just use a combination of the names above and probably achieve a high success rate, but I think this film is probably a good bit underrated. The source material is of course one of the best short stories of all time, and this is probably that work's best adaption. Depp adds in the quirky flavors he's known for giving his characters and for this one, it works. I enjoyed the evil stepmother being thrown in here as well, and Christopher Walken is eerie as the Horseman. It follows the short story's script and adds upon it nicely, all whilst talented people weave it all together.''

Karo - ''Otherwise known as the Tim Burton movie with Johnny Depp and a lot of black. No not THAT one, the other one. No, the OTHER other one. No, the... ah fuck. Anyway, this is an adaptation of the classic short story of the same name, and by adaptation I mean just making whatever shit up they felt like. So instead of a being a mysterious and ephemeral phantom you tell tales about around a fire, the Horseman is an 18th century Jason Voorhees who lumbers around chopping up people with medieval weaponry and is controlled by a witch who is holding his skull hostage so she can get revenge on people in the town she doesn’t like. What the actual fuck. Add in more mystical occult mumbo jumbo than a fanfiction written by a 14 year old wiccan edgelord and it bares so little resemblance to the original story that you might as well not even call it sleepy hollow at this point. The sole saving grace of the film is Depp's performance as Ichabod, who is now a slightly comedic policeman attempting to solve the murders with logic and deduction. Don't get me wrong, a version of sleepy hollow where Ichabod gets the girl and unmasks Brom with his wits is a great idea, it is just not this movie. Brom is chopped in half by the Horseman midway though the story and the new villain is this cartoonish monologing sorceress whose backstory is pulled right out of the ass. It is a dreary, mediocre movie that violates most of the precepts of a good mystery and leaves one a combination of bored and bewildered by the time it reaches its ridiculous conclusion.''

Genny - ''While I really wasn't looking forward to rewatching Sleepy Hollow for this list it turned out to be a pleasant surprise. It wasn't quite as mediocre as my previous watch led me to imagine it. It's rather competently acted (especially if you don't mind Depp and Ricci reprising typical roles around this time) and even the CG animation isn't a complete eyesore. The plot twist is somewhat predictable given the step mother's behavior near the end; however I can forgive these transgressions given it's a decent loose adaptation of an established lore. 7.5/10''

Johnbobb - ''I tend to like the darker side of Burton more than the goofy side, and his skill with visual gloom is in full-force here. Story wise, it's honestly a little dull. Depp himself is fun, as is the Horseman, with the rest of the players mostly just filling the space around the two. Where it shines though is the production and art style of everything. It's violent and sleek and captures the setting powerfully.''

KBM - ''Too unnecessarily convoluted to be a truly great film, but too gleeful and stylish to be a bad one, this lands right smack dab in the middle of Tim Burton's wildly hit-or-miss filmography. The screenplay pulls its characters in so many different directions at once that it really is hard to keep track of what's happening at any given point, but then we'll cut to something like Christopher Walken having way too much fun screaming his head off as the Horseman, or the delightful council of elders featuring Dumbledore, Palpatine, Vernon Dursley, and *gulp* Jeffrey Jones, and all the narrative shortcomings are (more or less) forgiven. Johnny Depp is also at the top of his game here, disappearing into the character as he was pretty consistently able to in the heyday of his career. This also features some of the most beautiful (and Academy Award-winning!) production direction of Burton's entire oeuvre, which is quite high praise indeed. It's definitely a hot mess, but the strong cast, the visuals, and the sheer apologetic lunacy make it an incredibly entertaining viewing experience.''

Scarlet - ''I tend to grade Burton on a curve. His luscious, phenomenal setwork and costuming is almost a given. I tend to look deeper and desire those apparently unattainable things like a script that is actually interesting. And Burton is oftentimes lacking in the storytelling department. His talent is sometimes exclusively visual. If anyone is a worldbuilder over a storyteller, it’s Tim. And that’s why the most loaded cast on this list ends up being one of the more underperforming casts on this list. Rating: 41/100''

JONA - The atmosphere and Johnny Depp pretty much carry the movie but it feels like its missing something that would make the movie more compelling.

Snake - Why I Chose It - ''It would be remiss to not have a Tim Burton film among its 90s horror brethren. Sleepy Hollow is actually Burton's only directional film of the 90s that can really be considered full horror, though Edward Scissorhands & Ed Wood certainly brush shoulders with the genre. Sleepy Hollow was a box office smash and won several accolades across several award ceremonies.''

My Thoughts - ''Sleepy Hollow is very similar to Bram Stoker's Dracula in my eyes. An overwrought, overlong, indulgent borefest that has no engaging central plot to speak of and it's up to Depp's charm to carry this film on his legs, back, shoulders, and head, and well, let's just say it crumbles under all that pressure. In Burton's quest to establish the perfect Gothic atmosphere, he forgets to bring along meaningful characters, a script, satisfying story details, or anything else besides scenes that service the only thing Burton seems to care about. And honestly, I don't even care for the atmosphere all that much to begin with. Ooooh, an old village, oooooh, a spooooky forest, damn I'm so enthralled by this exciting imagery. It's all a cardboard facade for a boring, straight-forward film, and this is certainly not Burton's best showing by any means.''

13. Ring

Karo - 7 JONA - 10 Genny - 12 Snake - 12 Charon - 14 Scarlet - 14 Johnbobb - 15 KBM - 21 Inviso - 31

Karo - ''The classic japanese horror movie about killer videotapes and girls crawling out of TVs. It moves at a deliberate pace that is excellent for building tension, yet still has the time limit looming large to remind you that they better get this shit done fast. Something that western horror movies could learn from this is fear of the unknown is more scary than someone in a dumb mask. Hell, Sadako isn’t even shown until the end of the film yet her presence looms large throughout the whole story. It is a classic that is known even outside its home country for a reason.''

JONA - ''The first scene is a really great mood setter and shows how good direction can help a low budget movie. Ring really plays its simplicity and minimalism to its strength. The movie has great creepy moments and the investigation is engaging. ''

Genny - ''Whatever, The Ring is better. I once heard a quote (this was a long time ago so don't ask me to source it please) that the reason The Ring did so well is because Americans don't "get" Japanese horror. Having Ringu fresh on my mind, I have to agree. It's not bad by any means. The performances of the actors are solid, and Sadako is just as sinister as Samara. I think the fault lies in the "ring" itself in that unless something went right over my head (not impossible) there is no visual cue for the ring in this movie. Unless the ring refers to the sound the telephone makes when Sadako tells you how much time you've got left on this earth then it's not present. I vastly prefer the American take on this, but the original is not bad by any means. 7.9/10''

Snake - Why I Chose It - ''Ring is the single most influential J-horror film of all time. Not only was it a runaway success in Japan, it was one of the first big J-horror films to cross over to North American audiences and popularize that style here, influencing many directors and inspiring American remakes. Sadako has become one of the biggest and most recognizable Japanese horror icons, second only to Godzilla. Also a bit of trivia, Ring and it's sequel Rasen were both released on the same day, although the latter was far less successful.''

My Thoughts - ''It was interesting having watched the American remake first, then seeing this one, and noting how similar the two actually are, with the American version being mostly faithful. However, there are several key differences that help both versions stand on their own. I think one of the biggest differences is what the tape represents. In the American version, it's not really much more than a conduit for the plot, but in the Japanese version, it's used more to represent the virus of technological advancement, overshadowing and at war with Japanese traditions and old-fashioned beliefs. It's very similar to how Godzilla captured the fears of Japan in the Atomic Age. Besides that, there's also a deliberately slower pace with more focus on the mystery of it all, with nothing too outright scary happening for most of the film's runtime. That's not to say it makes it boring though, in fact, it captures my attention in a whole different way from the American film. It's hard not to compare the two, but I love both and they both have their different places and influences in the world.''

Charon - ''Though the American remake is more relatable to native audiences, the original is still a good film in its own right. I think my hangups with this film are the main actors; that is, Reiko and her son. They don't capture my attention the same way Naomi Watts was able to. I will say that the twist on her ex-husband being kinda psychic was nice, and I did like him as much as his American counterpart. Samara was also more frightening than Sadako, and while I've heard that the similarly popular remake The Grudge is not actually as good as the Japanese version, I just think the American version is more scary. It might sound like I'm complaining about this movie too much, which I obviously still liked to rank it here. It's just that The Ring would have definitely been my #1 in the first horror project so I can't help but be critical of this version of one of my favorite horror movies.''

Scarlet - ''その劣ったアメリカのリメイクよりその観客がもう少し知的になることを期待します.

より多くのキャラクター開発とより低い生産価値はこのフィルムをよりきつくします、そしてそれは恐 怖をより少なくする.

ただし、興味深いのは、この映画はホラーというよりは謎のような感じがするということです. Rating: 53/100''

Johnbobb - "It's been one week since you looked at me. Your phone started to ring and shit got scary. Five days since you copied me saying. Something in this film's trying to kill me. Three days since the living room, Your son and ex watched the film; I'm hunting them too Yesterday you'd forgiven me But this'll continue to spread till I say I'm sorry"

KBM - ''The creepy, memorable film that was the genesis of the modern J-horror renaissance, Ring may not be the best movie of its kind, but it's certainly among the most influential. I vacillate between this and the American remake in terms of which one is better (I know, heresy) – they certainly both have their problems. The American version is more tightly plotted and has fewer narrative dead-ends; in particular, the well sequence in this original version really does go on for too long to no real purpose. However I think what makes this the stronger picture overall, apart from the somewhat pat answer of “this did it first,” is the strong cast – particularly having perennial genre favorite Hiroyuki Sanada in the role of the ex as opposed to the black hole of charisma that is Martin Henderson. Rie Ino'o's creepy backwards walking as Sadako is also particularly unforgettable here. It's not one of my favorite horror movies, but I certainly see the appeal of the concept and appreciate it for its themes and its influence on top of its freaky imagery.''

Inviso - ''Having seen the American remake, this is DEFINITELY a case of cultural difference having an impact on my overall enjoyment of a film. And unfortunately, I’m gonna have to make a lot of references to The Ring (which made the top half of my list when we ranked 2000s horror movies), because it spoiled me on what to expect here. Ultimately, while I can appreciate the final few minutes of Ring (and it does get some lingering good will from The Ring), it’s very boring. The movie lacks any sense of dread or foreboding that one might expect to accompany a horror movie. It doesn’t help that the actress seems incapable of conveying fear at any point, and half the times when the atmosphere is supposed to be frightening, she has this smile plastered on her face like she’s unaware of what movie she’s in. I don’t know. Even the tape itself feels watered down, like it’s not even remotely scary. It just doesn’t work for me.''

12. Candyman

Genny - 6 Snake - 7 JONA - 8 KBM - 8 Charon - 10 Johnbobb - 11 Karo - 18 Inviso - 24 Scarlet - 38

Genny - ''This was at the very least my 5th time seeing Candyman and yet the watches have been so far apart that it was basically like I was seeing it for the first time again. I recalled a few jumpscares that charon did not (so big ups to the movie for giving me the joy of seeing him react while I smirked and laughed), but I had forgotten all about the tragic ending and the false prophet that assaulted Helen in a shit stained bathroom while she tried to gather information for her doomed thesis. I also didn't remember the titular character ruining Helen's life by making it look like she committed all the murders. Or did he mind control her to make her actually do it? It's really debatable. It's far from perfect, but at 9.1/10 it's one of the best 90s horror has to offer methinks.''

Snake - Why I Chose It - ''Candyman was a critical and commercial success that established both Tony Todd and his titular character as horror royalty. Candyman was significant in its timely and pointed commentary on race and social class. It's also famous for its score (especially the main theme), and according to composer Philip Glass, he still gets money from that score every year. It has spawned two sequels and is receiving a remake directed by Jordan Peele.''

My Thoughts - ''As scary as it is thought-provoking, Candyman commands your attention thanks to Tony Todd's imposing performance and the background of the notorious Cabrini–Green housing project, a real-life horror show that informs much of this film's social commentary. Candyman may be the focal point of the film, but the real horror comes from the gang violence and deplorable conditions that the residents of Cabrini-Green live in and experience daily. The residents using the Candyman legend as their way of coping is such an interesting way of approaching a horror story, and ties reality into fiction so well. I definitely don't want to discredit the horror of Candyman either. His backstory is tragic and his methods are nothing short of terrifying. I like that he can be both a physical and psychological threat to Helen, and shots like the infamous parking garage really show off Candyman's all-seeing, all-reaching presence. I'm typically not a fan of jumpscares, but damn does this movie have some good ones! It's one of the best slashers ever in my book, a testament to how you can have your kills without having to sacrifice a compelling story.''

JONA - ''Helen’s investigation of the urban legend of Candyman is compelling to watch and the urban setting of Chicago helps contribute to the unsettling atmosphere. Seeing Helen’s psyche deteriorate as the movie went one was both entertaining and sad to see. The climax with her in the fire was very tense and it was nice to see her redeem her reputation to some people. Candyman, the character, is a great antagonist with his creepiness and seriousness. Tony Todd provides a great performance for him. I also liked the book end.''

Charon - ''Tony Todd intimidates as this unsung badass in a film about race and commitment. I've always had a special place for Candyman, the original at least. The concept and deliver is truly frightening. A modern-day Bloody Mary, but easily a dozen times more frightening, Candyman blends some slasher mainstays with some interesting backstory to really be an effectively dark masterpiece. The villain himself is in my opinion the most physically terrifying presence on this entire list, with a hook for a hand and the always horrifying bees, it's just easily the most monstrous killer on the list. Outside of all that, the story here is interesting and a good take on the "urban legend" genre.''

Johnbobb - ''This was... much better than I was expecting. Good enough that I could see Candyman becoming one of my new favorite slasher villains (even if he doesn't quite hit the level of people like Patrick Bateman and Jack Torrance. The film is carried by two excellent performances with bizarrely impressive chemistry. I went into this expecting the generic villain I knew from the typical "say this into the mirror" stories I heard growing up, but instead, this film carries a weird psychological weight to it, with Candyman himself being much more intelligent and disturbing than I had imagined (which is only added to by the orchestral music that plays anytime he's on screen. Really just a great slasher.''

Karo - ''Two college students researching urban legends get the bright idea to go into the projects and visit the site of a murder perpetrated by a supposedly mythological killer. It takes a surprisingly long time for them to reach the obvious result of getting mugged by gangsters, though in an even worse turn of events they end up offending the ghetto's resident ghoul and many people end up eviscerated. It is far more cerebral than your standard slasher schlock and while that isn’t saying very much it does try to pace things out so there is least a little sense of suspense and mystery between mindlessly painting the hallways red with the blood of innocents. It is never conclusively revealed whether the Candyman is a real phantom or just a psychosis of Heather, and the ambiguity works well in this context. Still, there is only so much you can do with a 'maniac hacks people apart' storyline, and despite the producers best efforts it remains a mediocre film overall.''

Inviso - ''This movie was fine. Wasn’t too bad, wasn’t too good, wasn’t too long. It was just fine. I don’t know what to say, really. I mean, the urban legend concept is a good one, and I appreciated the fact that this was a movie with a primarily African American backdrop (even though the main character was a white woman.) Having this grad student in over her head and traveling to the projects to research an urban legend already creates a bit of an unsettling atmosphere, but then the murders happen, and Tony Todd’s chilling portrayal of the Candyman rears its ugly head, and shit starts to go down. While Tony Todd is unsettling in and of himself, the movie starts to crawl up its own ass around the time he first appears. Helen is accused of murder, and everything looks like she really did it, and Candyman starts tormenting Helen for…reasons? Seriously, just kill her and stop fucking around. I don’t care if you’re trying some Freddy Kreuger “my power comes from people talking about me” shit…if you’re gonna be a slasher, BE a slasher.''

Scarlet - ''There is just nothing about this movie that I like. For fans of the franchise, I’m sure comments like that really sting. But, honey, sometimes you have to face the truth. Rating: 7/100''

11. Cube

Scarlet - 5 Johnbobb - 6 Karo - 9 Charon - 12 Inviso - 14 JONA - 16 KBM - 18 Snake - 21 Genny - 28

Scarlet - ''There aren’t a lot of high concept pieces on this list, and a good Hell in a Cell match was just what the doctor ordered with Cube, one of the more puzzling films Snake added to this project. Much like the movie Primer, Cube is reliant on a strong story that is designed to be digested through the understanding of rules and laws within a petri dish presented as a film. This understanding is the ultimate capstone that makes the film fall in place with itself, and that’s also the general presentation of Primer as well. I highly recommend Cube despite its low budget because a movie that presents the very setting as a mystery is something special. Rats in a maze. Rating: 73/100''

Johnbobb - ''Cube has a solid spot as one of my favorite cult horror movies. There are plenty of horror movies based around "a bunch of people trapped in a place" but something about Cube just stands out so strong. The brightly colored, industrial environment. The way all the characters seem to have a reason for being there, like they're all just pieces of the greater puzzle, because that's ultimately what the Cube is, an inconceivably massive escape room created by a force we never get to see or understand. ''

Karo - ''A group of people wakes up inside a gigantic cube with no recollection of how they got there and have to find a way out. In a series of tense scenes the captives make their way through the booby-trapped cube through improvisation and use of their special talents until the can get some answers. But these answers are where things start to unravel. Government bureaucracy built the cube just because? They kidnap people and throw them into the cube to die just because? This is idiotic. It is hard to tell if they were trying to make a weird political point about wasteful government spending or if they just literally couldn’t come with any better excuse for the cube's existence. The strength of the movie is the cast of characters and how they interact with each other and evolve with the situation thrust upon them, much like in Lost. Unfortunately, also much like Lost, the writers seem more interested in giving everyone the runaround instead of actually making sense, until ultimately the world around them begins to collapse under its own stupidity.''

Charon - ''A movie about escape rooms before they were a thing, this movie uniquely tackles shooting a film in several, small enclosed spaces. Another unique thing done in this film is taking the general cliches of heroes and villains and turning them on their head. That heroic cop you figure is the main character and contender for survivor? He's actually going to be the villain. The young "last girl" trope student that will surely be the one to make it out? Nope. I will say that sometimes these trope defiers hold the film back for me a bit, as it's hard to care about the one character that does survive as he's not exactly very endearing. The concept is unique however, and I appreciate trying something new in this case even if it dooms to to just being a good film instead of a great one.''

Inviso - ''This movie has an interesting concept, and a solid air of mystery, as the viewer never really finds out what the hell is going on. And while the movie burns through its best kills as the first two in its runtime (cheese wire intro, and face melting), the mere concept of several of the avoided traps is enough for me to feel intrigued. I also like when you take a collection of people with unique personalities, and force them into a survival situation…just to see how different people bounce off one another. Watching them slowly discover their use and purpose (escape artist, mathematician, autistic savant, architect) helped to add a method to the madness of Cube, although Quentin made it seem like a psychological experiment at its heart. The ONLY thing holding this film back is that the acting seemed like the lowest priority in filming. Everyone is one-note and over-the-top, and it became a bit much by the end. Props for turning Quentin from introductory protagonist into the villain by the end of the film though. Over-the-top character development…but character development nonetheless.''

JONA - ''I really like the setting of Cube. It’s such a standard design but it’s also eye-catching and it’s interesting to see all the different traps the rooms have. The mystery behind the situation, the problem solving and Quentin’s descent into madness were quite entertaining to watch. ''

KBM - ''To get this out of the way first and foremost: I've always hated when movies portray autistic people the way this movie does. However, when you have a movie that's this brilliantly atmospheric, where the concept and the production design are this strong – I'm willing to give it a pass. Despite some stilted dialogue and a couple performances that aren't as strong as they could have been, the plot is intelligent and refreshingly doesn't feel the need to sit down and explain everything that's going on. The traps are creative, the directing is great, and the great concept is well-served. I've also heard GREAT things about Cube 2: Hypercube. [/sarcasm]''

Snake - Why I Chose It - ''An unlikely independent success, Cube was a huge box office hit against a small budget of 350k. Cube has received much praise for its minimalist, industrial setting and philosophical approach to its characters. Cube received two sequels and has a remake upcoming.''

My Thoughts - ''A very straight-forward film, Cube is brisk and purposeful, always marching towards its endgame. The settings are weird and disorienting, which is this film's best aspect. I tend to enjoy "characters trying to escape" plots greatly, and while Cube may not be very original in this regard, it feels unique in that all the characters have an actual purpose in being there and have their specific skill to help the group. However, said characters tend to be very forgettable and I don't really feel much when they die. Cube is ultimately a great concept marred by some problems, but still an enjoyable film overall.''

Genny - Believe it or not I had heard of The Cube very recently to describe Escape Room'', specifically that it's The Cube meets Saw. I can't agree with that, as both movies have a little more substance than Escape Room, but I can see why someone would make that comparison. Let me tell you guys of all the sole survivors of all the horror movies ever, this one gets my made up award for Least Likely to Succeed, and yet he does. Until the last act of the movie I thought this man was a complete nothing character specifically designed to impede the others when the game was getting too predictable, but charon predicted he would be something of an idiot savant who would somehow save the day and while that didn't quite end up happening he was partially right all the same. I feel bad that he'll never get his twenty-seven bags of gum drops. 6.(20) 7/10''

10. In The Mouth of Madness

JONA - 2 KBM - 7 Snake - 10 Karo - 12 Charon - 15 Inviso - 16 Johnbobb - 16 Scarlet - 17 Genny - 31

JONA - ''Man, John Carpenter Is great when it comes to movies about paranoia. I just found the film so entertaining. Sam Neill’s performance is great and I love how his psyche breaks from not knowing what’s reality or fiction. The mix of Stephen King and Lovecraft here is awesome and the film has this somewhat inconsistent atmosphere with it being serious some times and cheesy other times but it actually helped the movie for me, since it worked with the theme of questioning reality. This film is a crazy, vastly entertaining ride and one I would want to go on again.''

KBM - ''Oh, John Carpenter. This might be the single most underrated movie in your entire filmography. Featuring a much better Sam Neill performance than that other movie on this list that he stars in, In the Mouth of Madness takes the ground work laid by the likes of H.P. Lovecraft and Stephen King and takes off running with it. I'm all about the atmosphere in my horror movies, and Carpenter is perhaps the king of horror atmosphere. Engrossing as hell, lovingly and stylishly crafted, this is definitely one that more horror fans should see.''

Snake - Why I Chose It - ''I mean, it's John friggin' Carpenter! That should be enough to get on any 90s horror list. In The Mouth of Madness is the 3rd film in Carpenter's thematic "Apocalypse Trilogy" that also includes The Thing and Prince of Darkness. It draws fully from Lovecraft mythology and also homages Stephen King. It only broke even at the box office but has gained a strong cult following thanks to a stronger modern interest in meta, self-reflexive works.''

My Thoughts - ''I will admit, it took me a couple of viewings in order to fully appreciate this one. As a teen, I thought it was dull and nonsensical. Now, with my brain fully indoctrined on Lovecraft's works, I have a better understanding of what makes this film so damn effective and terrifying. This is one of the most intense dives into the human mind I've ever seen, and one of the only truly accurate films to capture Lovecraft's tone perfectly. Sam Neill is incredible, and this is easily my favorite role of his. Carpenter has always been a master of the atmospheric, and it's no different here. I adore the meta-fictional breakdown at the film's end, a truly maddening conclusion to an already hellish nightmare. It just checks all the boxes in what makes an awesome horror experience for me.''

Karo - ''A man seeks to solve the disappearance of a popular horror novelist and unfortunately ends up in a quiet New England town ruled by Cthulhu or something. The story is standard Lovecraftian fare, ancient beings want to break through into reality and everyone gets mindfucked and grows an unhealthy amount of tentacles. The things that set this movie apart are how the author's narrative begins to spill over into the real world leading to a breakdown of the very nature of sanity and reality, with the protagonist finally realizing to his horror that he is nothing but a character in a movie. While it doesn’t really stand out in any other way, the blurring of truth and fiction in the story do make it seems somewhat original at least.''

Charon - ''Sometimes a headtrip, this movie requires a lot of contemplation afterwards to really appreciate it. Initially, this film was much lower on my list until I began to think more about it, ultimately adjusting it to this position. It reminds me of Alan Wake; except Alan is the antagonist here. I really loved the portrayal of Sutter Cane, probably the most memorable character from the film. It's definitely something you have to come around to I think, because even though everything is interesting it is also a little puzzling at times. That said, I did eventually come around to enjoying this one.''

Inviso - ''God bless Sam Neill. He tries so hard to pull off an American accent, but he manages to fuck that up in almost every movie I’ve seen him play an American. At some point, I imagine the director just gets sick of retaking scenes, and prints whatever. But yeah, this is a weird, meta movie. It’s creepy and unsettling, and it’s actually interesting the way the film paces itself. You open with Sam Neill in an insane asylum, telling a story about how exactly he came to reside there. But then the central character shifts slightly, to focus on a woman from the publishing house representing a major horror writer. So for the first half of the movie, Sam Neill isn’t really experiencing the horror, but she is…and this allows the audience to enjoy the creepy atmosphere while still maintaining a slow burn in terms of the scares.

The plot gets crazy once Sam Neill takes over at the center though, because he’s privy to a bunch of disturbing imagery involving tentacles and eldritch horror. Slowly, he runs afoul of Hobb’s End’s demonic energy, and discovers that he’s merely a fictional character, written on the pages of a horror author’s latest novel. This is the meta element I mentioned, and I think it’s handled well, because it really emphasizes the whole “don’t read the ending” plot point for the main character, meaning that he’s pretty much forced to live out the plot of the novel without any outside interference. By the time the film reaches its conclusion, the world has just devolved and it’s hard to tell if the events are meant to be real, or merely an ending to a story in which Sam Neill’s character is fictional in and of himself. That kind of mindfuck makes for a solid ending, and I enjoyed the film overall.''

Johnbobb - ''I liked this way more than I thought I would. It's a little campy, but the right type of campy, where it never really takes away from the creepiness of everything. If anything, it just makes it even more disturbing. It's bizarre and surreal, which was just exactly what I was hoping for from it. The whole thing is a wild trip.''

Scarlet - ''While it doesn’t exactly meet the expectations set by one H.P. Lovecraft, Carpenter actually pulls an excellent actor out of his hat to anchor this strong script that consistently defies the reality of an observer with the sorts of twists and unreliability that create a sense of disorientation. My only real issue with this movie is that it feels rushed in terms of editing and filming. The budget just seems perilously low here, and it really does affect my enjoyment of this story. That said, Carpenter is the perfect choice for this movie. I can’t imagine someone else trying to present this narrative. I just wish he was handed a few more bucks to make it feel less like a studio’s allowance ran out when they were picking up lighting equipment and cameras. Rating: 48/100''

Genny - ''Enter a world inspired by Clive Barker but written by Alan Wake. Into the Mouth of Madness combines Lovecraftian horror with body horror and features the Children of the Corn. Honestly there's not much to say about this movie other than that it feels like a hodgepodge of other successful movies, tropes, and ideas so much so that despite the (at the time) unique premise it loses its own voice. I mean sure it was interesting to see all of them play out together, but it was better the first time I saw each of them elsewhere. In the Mouth of Madness is a fitting title, because it's nothing more than insanity in cinematic form. 5.7/10''

9. Interview with the Vampire

Genny - 1 Scarlet - 2 Charon - 3 Karo - 5 Snake - 11 Johnbobb - 14 KBM - 17 JONA - 27 Inviso - 36

Genny - ''Interview with the Vampire features some amazing performances from Pitt, Cruise, Dunst, and Banderas. One vampire in particular, Lestat steals every scene he's in and serves as a flawless foil to Louis and his dwindling morals and humanity. I have nothing but praise for the costuming and stage designs, set against an accurately picturesque New Orleans backdrop. It's simply a gorgeous movie containing one of the most delightful bastards set to film. 9.7/10''

Scarlet - ''Look, it’s a full-length film about the guy Cassidy hung out with in Preacher Season 3. What’s not to love? The highest compliment I can pay this film is to say that I think it deserves an HBO-style adaptation. Rating: 84/100''

Charon - ''An engaging dark tale of vampires in a unique light; full of love, death and betrayal, this film seldom ever disappoints. The art direction of this film is fantastic, and of note, during our vacation to New Orleans a couple of months ago Genny and I got to see some of the filming locations used in the movie. It's really hard to ask for any horror movie to do better than casting Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, in the same movie no less. Their characters are of course the centerpiece of the film, though the insertion of Dunst's character made for some good dynamics as well. It's not quite the perfect movie, as it does stutter just a bit in the later acts since the movie can't go on forever, but it's still the best vampire movie I can remember watching.''

Karo - ''A centuries-old vampire dictates his life story for a books-on-tape series and the story follows him throughout the years as he searches for others of his kind. Louis is a compelling character who struggles with the conflict between his monster instincts and human morality and it is interesting to see how him and Claudia react differently to their transformation. It is not without problems, it is a mite longer than it really needs to be and the ending is laughably stupid (random Lestat why) but it remains engrossing throughout.''

Snake - Why I Chose It - ''Interview with the Vampire is one of the most well-known vampire films of the modern era, an adaptation of the Anne Rice novel that notoriously took close to 20 years to fully make and develop. It had a particularly high budget for a horror and vampire film at the time. It was a huge success at the box office and has two Oscar nominations under its belt. This film also exposed Kirsten Dunst to a wider audience, and she was nominated for a Golden Globe for her role as Claudia.''

My Thoughts - ''Interview with the Vampire is just solid in all aspects. The performances are incredible all-around, especially Tom Cruise's Lestat. The film keeps it pretty simple when it comes to the vampire mythology, but I love a good, straight-forward approach to the vampire genre every now and then. It's largely character driven and a true Shakespearean tragedy in many regards. The framing device of the titular interview also gives the story a nice flow that always leaves you eagerly awaiting for what happens next. Yeah, it's just great all-around!''

Johnbobb - ''One of the best vampire movies I've seen, though that's not exactly a high bar to meet. It definitely seems to understand the idea of vampires more than most vampire films. Sexual, violent, arrogant, and sometimes a little unnerving. At first it's just a well crafted slice-of-life look into an odd vampire family, before getting progessively weirder in both good and bad ways. The one major issue I have is the casting. Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt aren't really the best choices for these flamboyant European dudes. Funny enough, I think it would be a considerably better role for Brad Pit now that's he gotten more experience and range. They both do a serviceable enough job though, both showing acting prowess in parts and never really taking away from the great ambience of everything.''

KBM - ''Great performances, memorable characters, and lush production design make this movie a winner, even if the story stumbles a bit from time to time. It's a hard sell to set a genre flick in the South in the time of slavery, and in that regard sometimes it feels a bit exploitative of the cruelty and human suffering of the time, thanks to its seeming romanticism regarding the time and place (in other words, the Gone with the Wind problem). Fortunately, that ends up being a more minor issue in the grand scheme of things, as at its core this is just a really solid, well-told vampire story. If Brad Pitt is maybe just a little too mopey and sullen in the lead role, he's more than offset by some truly great performances from Tom Cruise (who absolutely owns the role of Lestat), a twelve-year-old Kirsten Dunst displaying talent beyond her years, and Christian Slater as the titular interviewer. Some of the sets here are also utterly jaw-dropping, in particular the sequence set in the beautiful underground Parisien catacombs where the local coven of vampires makes their home. As a sexy (and deliciously homoerotic) retelling of the vampire mythos, these succeeds on a lot more levels than it doesn't. Shout-out also to the Oscar-nominated Elliot Goldenthal score, which had the misfortune of being up for the award in the same year as Hans Zimmer's career-best score for The Lion King.''

JONA - ''MICHAEL COLE: JONA, the Gauntlet Galaxy would like to know your thoughts on Interview with the Vampire.

JONA: Interview’s got some things going for it. It’s got interesting characters with good actors, atmosphere and a neat narrative gimmick. However, nothing about the characters’ tales really stuck with me and the narrative gimmick just didn’t add anything except for the ending. I was confused on what exactly the lesson the interviewer was supposed to take in listening to Louis’s story. The movie could also be quite boring at times. It’s fine but it’s not outlasting 39 other movies.

MICHAEL COLE: Thank you for your thoughts. The Gauntlet Galaxy would also like to know if you have any interesting ideas for your writeups.

JONA: Not really, maybe I’ll just do song lyrics or some sh*bleep*


 * JONA walks away*


 * Michael Cole stares at the camera for 3 seconds longer than when it should be cut*''

Inviso - ''This movie is HORRIBLY acted. Like, I know that the vampires are all supposed to be otherworldly and shit, but that doesn’t excuse Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt and Antonio Banderas all behaving like monotonous aliens, and Kirsten Dunst being a massive bitch at all times. And that would be okay if the movie didn’t take itself SO seriously. Interview is trying to be all artsy, and it even uses the interview storytelling technique to cover up the fact that the plot of pretty threadbare and the events of Brad Pitt’s life really aren’t THAT spectacular. This film is over two hours long. It does not NEED to be over two hours long. Everyone is either an asshole, or a whiny douchebag, and it leads to an extremely unpleasant viewing experience.''

8. From Dusk till Dawn

Snake - 1 Scarlet - 3 KBM - 9 Johnbobb - 10 Inviso - 13 Genny - 14 JONA - 14 Karo - 19 Charon - 26

Snake - Why I Chose It - ''This genre-bender by prolific film legends Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino remains a shining example of creativity in the horror and crime genres. The film was George Clooney's breakout role and it was a box office hit. It spawned off a whole franchise of two direct-to-video sequels, a video game, and a TV series. The film also spawned several popular characters; Santanico Pandemonium has become a cult horror icon, and Texas Ranger Earl McGraw would go on to appear in Tarantino's Kill Bill films.''

My Thoughts - ''From Dusk till Dawn is an absolute blast from front-to-back. It can be hard for any medium to pull off a genre switch, but to me, From Dusk till Dawn pulls it off absolutely flawlessly. Both halves of the film are excellent in their own ways. You have the typical Tarantino crime thriller up first, an engrossing plot and set-up that establishes are main characters, likable yet deplorable criminals in the same vein as Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs or Vincent/Jules from Pulp Fiction. Clooney just oozes charm as Seth, and Tarantino surprises as Ritchie, he just fits that psychopathic asshole role like a glove. The kidnapped family also clashes well with the criminals, I love the chemistry and black comedy that occurs on the RV. The border scene is one of my favorites. The second half, when it turns into a horror film, is bonkers and so much fun. Tom Savini's Sex Machine is a pure badass, and the vampires themselves have a charming, 70s exploitation feel to them that you just know has a ton of love put into. And that's really what this film is. A loving ode to all of Tarantino and Rodriguez's weird and varied tastes, masterfully rolled into one film that just can't help but indulge on what makes horror such a fantastic, weird and varied genre.''

Scarlet - ''The movie starts off like your standard Tarantino crime film (replete with Tarantino himself, which only fuels that feeling), but by the time you’ve resigned yourself to this being one film, it turns into a vastly different experience. The casting here is phenomenal. Clooney is the master of playing a character with an air of coolness, turning a fairly disturbed individual into an exceptional protagonist. Hayek, Salvini, Cheech, Trejo… everyone is pitch perfect in their roles. Rodriguez seems primed to make a movie with the words “Bad Ass” emblazoned on the box art, and it certainly lives up to that promise and then some. From Dusk Till Dawn is style over substance, but goddamn, I love a bit of style sometimes. Rating: 74/100''

KBM - ''Starts out as a talky Quentin Tarantino crime drama, then takes a hard right turn into vampire horror. And it manages to both of these things really, really well. Hell, Tarantino himself even turns out a rare good acting performance (possibly better than usual because he's not directing himself here). From the surprisingly effective human drama of Harvey Keitel and his family, to the tense relationship between the Gecko brothers, to the fiendishly gory, no-holds-barred third act, this is one where everything just worked for me, despite so many disparate tones seemingly clashing up against each other. Shout-out to Cheech Marin's hilarious triple-role, and to fun supporting turns from the likes of Danny Trejo, Fred Williamson, and practical effects legend Tom Savini.''

Johnbobb - ''Quite a few times with 90s horror I've mentioned that excessive campiness and cheese can drag a movie down for me, but some filmmakers can do it right. There's something about the Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino combo that's just so appealing. It's wacky and wild and legitimately funny, with Clooney and Lewis both bringing unique and instantly memorable performances. On top of that, I've got bias because the last time I watched it was with my dad when I was probably much too young to see this movie, so I've got nostalgic memories cleaning up some of the rough edges.''

Inviso - ''For about half this movie’s runtime, I had no idea why it was included on a list of 90s horror movies…and then the twist happened. It comes completely out of nowhere, it’s a bizarre tonal shift, and it’s just weird enough to be interesting. I love me a good bloodbath, and it was hilarious watching the gang fight off a hoard of vampires before eventually improvising to find a bunch of kickass vampire-fighting weapons. Ultimately though, the thing that prevents this film from ranking higher is…I actually enjoyed the first half more. I like most Tarantino movies, and while this wasn’t directed by him, he was the writer, if I recall correctly. And the first half of the film felt very reminiscent of Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction. The back half, while cool, lost some of that zing, so we wind up here on the ranking.''

Genny - ''From Dusk til Dawn is unique to say the least. To say the most it's the weirdest vampire centric plot conceived because it doesn't even start out having anything to do with bloodsuckers. The film sets up the unstable brother played by Quinton Tarantino to be the major source of conflict due to his mental issues and unrestrained murderous nature, but right at the start of the third act he's tossed aside to play a bit role. It's bizarre! Every time I think the plot is going in one direction it does an about face, making it one helluva ride. 7.7/10''

JONA - ''I didn’t know much about the movie, except that it was about vampires, so the first half of the movie took me by surprise. I ended up enjoying the first half more than the second half because of the tension and suspense and how the entertaining characters bounce off each other. The second half, like Shawn Michaels on commentary, goes off-the-rails and while it does have fun, dumb action it wasn’t as compelling as the first half.''

Karo - ''A pair of bank robbers on the run take a preacher and his family hostage as they journey towards the border and much dark comedy ensues. Tarantino's skill at creating lovably inept criminals really shines in this movie, though I wish he would stop trying to be an actor because he fucking sucks at that. Anyway the first half of this can really hold its own with the best of his films, however once they cross the border, the film devolves into a meaningless bout of stupidity starting out with over 10 full minutes of nothing but half-naked woman dancing and then they turn into vampires because why not. Hey, its not like the start of the movie was a witty and well written crime comedy, lets just go to fucking transylvania and mindlessly splat stupid looking bat-people. It is so ill-fitting and so stupid. Remember the old forum game where each poster writes a little bit of a story and runs it further off the rails until it isn’t even recognizable anymore? Well, this is the cinematic version of that.''

Charon - ''A horror film for less than half of its running time and having that horror all take place in one location is a mixture of a feat and a disappointment. I find it difficult to explain this movie, perhaps because it is like many others that I don't like as much, not all horror. It was actually over halfway through before any horror elements crept in; and when I say that, I mean immediately show up out of nowhere. Now I could see this coming after some time, but the film that took place before this was... not always to my liking. I really hated Tarantino's character for example. I get that he was probably not supposed to be liked very much, but his antics were so deplorable and the lack of it actually being a horror film at that point were maddening. Once we get into the meaty part of the horror element, I wasn't particularly wowed by it I guess. You've got this assortment of characters, maybe like 2 of which you have any interest in, fighting some undead that have no real backstory other than they want to drink your blood. The ending is also odd, and it reminded me of Resident Evil 4's sometimes uncomfortable flirting except this one was worse at it. Why would this girl want to go with Clooney's character? Just so eh, then they all just kinda leave and it's over. How does she get back across the border covered in blood? Who knows or cares.''

7. Stir of Echoes

Inviso - 4 Charon - 5 Genny - 8 Karo - 11 Johnbobb - 12 Scarlet - 15 Snake - 15 JONA - 18 KBM - 19

Inviso - ''I had never even HEARD of this movie before seeing it, yet upon watching, it REALLY impressed me to an astounding degree. For starters, I appreciate a movie casting a child actor that lives through the duration of the film, yet he DOESN’T annoy me. Yeah, he’s a little Sixth Sense (I’ve been REALLY trying not to reference other movies on the list in these write-ups, but I couldn’t ignore the comparisons here), but I feel like he works. Meanwhile, Kevin Bacon losing his mind is kinda interesting, especially since he’s NOT losing his mind, and in fact he’s seeing prophesies about future events, and those prophesies allow him to survive and uncover a murder plot. Even the supernatural element of the film feels interesting because they only scratch the surface of what it means (and even then, only through the wife’s point of view), which adds an air of mystery to the proceedings. I just really liked this through and through.''

Charon - ''Mired in its original release by the previous month's Sixth Sense, this clarevoyant themed thriller has stood up very well in the test of time. While the similarities between this film and the much more widely known film I mentioned are obvious, apparently the concept for this film existed long before the Sixth Sense, since it's based on a book from the 50's. It's a good thriller and you never know quite what's going to happen right up until it does, and I like to be kept guessing so long as everything is still sensible. This is of course my favorite Bacon film on the list given its placement.''

Genny - ''Geez did Kevin Bacon star in every other movie in the 90s or what? Stir of Echoes stands a little bit apart from the crowd in that its creepy imagery is used sparingly and thus more effectively than a lot of other films during this time frame. It is also quite good at building suspense through its slowly unfolding murder mystery. I particularly enjoyed the cinematography of the theater hypnosis even if the catalyst for it was a tad contrived. 8.3/10, would watch again''

Karo - ''A blue collar worker ends up randomly getting psychic powers after a hypnosis session, and uses his newfound abilities to solve an old missing person case. The story is engrossing, if not super original, and the character of the wife is the definite mvp. Her reactions to all her husband's crazy shit are priceless. It is an above average occult thriller that gets the job done if nothing else.''

Johnbobb - Stir of Echoes isn't as deep or clever as it thinks it is but man do I love that solid like 40 minutes of Kevin Bacon just losing his fucking mind.

Scarlet - ''The Sixth Sense. Rating: 52/100''

Snake - Why I Chose It - ''Stir of Echoes was the first horror film to truly feel the effects of the influences of The Sixth Sense, released only a month after the Shyamalan debut. However, it wasn't the plot or film development that was affected; Stir of Echoes was deemed a copycat in the publics' eyes affecting reception and box office for the film greatly, despite being based on a book by Richard Matheson from 1958. It has since seen a much warmer reception and even received a loose sequel in 2007.''

My Thoughts - ''While not the most well-executed film on the whole, Stir of Echoes still manages to be haunting with one of Kevin Bacon's absolute best performances and a stern committment to isolated, horrific imagery that makes this film feel like Sixth Sense's edgier big brother. I like the use of a small-town setting, because horror lurking under suburbia is my god damn jam. Overall, I like the picture of insanity presented but I have a few problems with a plot that feels like an Edgar Allan Poe story and a lingering feeling that I've been there, done that.''

JONA - Kevin Bacon’s visions of Samantha are quite creepy and it’s intriguing to see the mystery behind Samantha.

KBM - ''Now we get out of the “this was a mess but I enjoyed it” part of the list, and into the “genuinely good movies” section. Stir of Echoes was a movie I hadn't even heard of before I laid eyes on the lineup for this ranking project, but I'm glad it's been brought to my attention as it's an underrated little movie (that almost certainly suffered commercially from being released in such close proximity to that OTHER supernatural horror movie from 1999 featuring a child who could see dead people). Kevin Bacon turns in one of his best performances here as a Chicago everyman who gets hypnotized by Angela from Six Feet Under and starts getting driven crazy by the visions that ensue. The kid in the movie is admittedly no Haley Joel Osment, and things start a bit rough with him “acting” directly at the camera, but fortunately he's not in as much of the movie once things really hit high gear. It all ends up being more than worth it for the last 20 minutes alone, which ranks among the most haunting ending sequences I have seen in a long time.''

6. Scream

Charon - 1 Johnbobb - 3 Genny - 5 JONA - 6 Snake - 6 Scarlet - 7 Inviso - 8 Karo - 21 KBM - 26

Charon - ''Easily the most important horror film the the 90's, Scream revamped the slasher genre and revolutionized horror in a way that can still be seen today. Scream was an innovator and the film is often mimicked or parodied to grand scales. The film's strengths are found in its wit, unpredicability and its ability to blend comedic elements into a film that's still actually tense and scary. Scream as a franchise is one of my all time favorites, and the original is arguably the best, though I'd be hard pressed to actually choose. The characters here are unlike most supporting cast members, at least in my opinion, as they all really are able to stand out and be memorable. The actors succeed greatly in interaction; I guess it isn't a surprise two of them even got married once upon a time. The film's love letter approach to slasher films that came before it is much appreciated, and it clearly takes all the best elements from those films and makes an awesome composition from them.''

Johnbobb - ''Goddamn, this movie. THIS is how you do satire while also making something that stands on its own. Pretty easily the best Wes Craven movie in my opinion, even if the Elm Street movies might have it beat on creative kills. Everyone's a suspect, but once you know who the killers actually are, everything makes more sense on rewatch, to the point where you feel bad for not catching the clues the first time around. You've got two killers with wildly different motives and psyches (Matthew Lillard in particular gives what is probably the best performance in any teen horror movie), both of whom steal the show toward the end. Jamie's constant "rules of horror" are hilarious, and the whole movie is just endelessly entertaining.''

Genny - ''Don't lie: the first time you watched Scream you didn't see the twist coming. At that time it just blew my mind that two psychopaths could work together... well for the most part anyway. The movie still holds up well to this day, despite being campy enough to be parodied to death. I'll admit there is a lot of cheesiness to it, but it's 9.2/10 iconic level.''

JONA - ''Scream has just the right amount of meta I would want for a movie like this. Enough to be clever but not enough to take away from the fear of the situation. I love the mix of horror and whodunnit and it makes the non-slasher parts more engaging. The humor of the movie helps with that too. The identity of the villain being a mystery and human and not being this larger-than-life character that’s the selling point feels refreshing. Scream’s just a great all-around package.''

Scarlet - ''It’s amazing how this self-aware culturally-hip one-of-a-kind slasher has become such a staple of the genre that even it comes across nowadays as another convention-filled paint-by-numbers slasher film. When Wes Craven created Scream, he was paving a new way into a previously braindead genre with some really witty and metatextual self-awareness. Now, everyone and their brother has to make sure that every character in their slasher is just too cool to be killed without grabbing a one-liner. Rating: 68/100''

Inviso - ''In retrospect, I’m really glad we did the list with Scary Movie before we did the list with Scream, because watching this made me realize…Scary Movie barely had to exaggerate to parody Scream. Scream is a parody in and of itself, with hammy, over-the-top acting from nearly the entire cast, and I LOVED how cheesy and how corny each and every aspect of the film wound up being. David Arquette in particular…holy SHIT his acting was hilariously awkward. From him eating an ice cream cone while discussing murders with his boss, to insisting on being respected by his little sister while wearing a badge, to answering a phone after the killer already hung up…he made this movie. The twist ending was great, the meta-commentary on slasher films was great, and overall, I just found this film so lovably goofy that I have to rank it high.''

Snake - Why I Chose It - ''Wes Craven's satirical take on the slasher genre lit the film world on fire. It was so successful and influential that it's near impossible to quantify the amount of subsequent media it inspired. Many films inspired by Scream even appeared on this list. Scream is credited especially for reviving the all-but-dead slasher genre and injecting it with a healthy dose of self-awareness, a trait many films would try (and fail) to match. Scream was also groundbreaking in its strong casting of established actors, Drew Barrymore and Courtney Cox being particularly notable examples. On the same token, Scream also drew more attention to several actors, including Rose McGowan & Liev Schreiber. Scream was the highest-grossing slasher of all time until last year's Halloween. It has spawned 3 sequels, a TV series, and series icon Ghostface even made a recent appearance in Dead by Daylight.''

My Thoughts - ''Hilarious, scary, & smart, Scream is practically the perfect horror movie. The way it so gracefully interjects horror tropes and film references into itself always feels natural thanks to the amazing casting. This isn't some half-assed attempt at being hip; it's genuine and comes from a wealth of love for the genre. Scream becomes more and more effective the more horror movies you consume. Yet, it never loses the fact that it is the very thing it's mocking. It uses those tropes to still make a compelling horror mystery. Ghostface is a unique killer, and one of my favorites because he can be anybody; he's not set in concrete like Jason or Myers, his personality can vary and it's such a fantastic breeding ground for developing characters. This is a horror fan's movie through and through, and one of my favorites of Craven's filmography.''

Karo - ''A masked ghoul begins killing some really overaged teenagers in a small town and like most slasher movies that’s kinda it. There is more of an air of mystery to this one, but unfortunately the way it hides the identity of the killer is not by intrigue or misdirection but rather just throwing as many creepy motherfuckers at the audience as possible until they can't think straight. It just leaves one wondering if maybe there is something wrong with the city water supply. It is more well written than most slasher movies, but still has way too much dumb teens doing dumb teen stuff and culminates in a silly series of events where people run all about a house a lot and everyone is as durable as Wolverine (acute blood loss? never heard of it). It is just treading old ground with a new monster and it ain't really the scream it wants to be.''

KBM - ''Scream is among screenwriter Kevin Williamson's better work, which definitely isn't the highest possible praise, but hey, it's something. Thanks to energetic direction from the late, great Wes Craven, and a cast, ably led by Neve Campbell, who're clearly all having a blast with the absurdity of it all, Scream turns out to be a fun, entirely watchable movie. The self-referential gags do sometimes get a little repetitive, and I do have issues with what this movie represents in terms of broader horror movie trends, with its having ushered in the era of smug copycat slasher movies featuring a lot of truly hateable, stupid teenage leads without any personality. This movie does have its problems, but the cast and the director are certainly talented enough to save this from ending up at the bottom of the barrel with the likes of certain copycats on this list I could name. Taken on its own, this movie isn't necessarily exceptional, but it certainly manages to be a good time. The opening scene with Drew Barrymore also works well on its own as a great horror short – if there's any problem with it, it's that the movie never quite reaches those heights again.''

5. Jacob's Ladder

JONA - 1 Snake - 3 Karo - 4 KBM - 5 Scarlet - 6 Johnbobb - 8 Genny - 11 Inviso - 12 Charon - 13

JONA - ''This movie’s the inspiration for Silent Hill and it definitely shows. The sense of paranoia is incredibly high here in the setting of Jacob’s Ladder. From the horrifying visions to the military conspiracy, it really feels like everything’s out to get Jacob. Tim Robbins does a great job in his performance and makes him pretty likable and get him out of all these different troubling situations that he found himself in. The atmosphere can be quite eery and creepy and the peaceful moments in the movie make the situations with that atmosphere very effective. The blurred lines between reality and fantasy and the mystery of what even is going on are what make this so engaging. Just a very fascinating movie that’s really quite the experience that’s hard to put into words how much I like it.''

Snake - Why I Chose It - ''Despite not being the most successful film at the box office, Jacob's Ladder has become an incredibly influential film. Its effects can be seen on everything from films to television to music to video games. Perhaps most famously, Jacob's Ladder had one of the biggest roles in influencing the Silent Hill series. Several settings are inspired by Jacob's Ladder, like the subway in SH3 and Brookhaven Hospital in SH2 & 3. James' design in SH2 takes Jacob's army jacket and hairstyle from the film. Jacob's Ladder also played a huge role in SH monster design, referencing their twitchy movements and grotesque, otherworldly look. The scene where Jacob is wheeled through the hospital is also directly homaged in Silent Hill: Homecoming. There's a whole load of references where that came from, but if I don't stop myself, I'd probably go on forever.''

My Thoughts - ''A deeply moving and affecting film, one with a terrific and emotional performance from Tim Robbins. The film deftly balances light but in-your-face horror with a tense, overbearing nightmare of an atmosphere, with a conspiratorial through-line that has you sympathizing with Jacob every step of the way, but also wary of Jacob's deteriorating mental state. The sparse shots of monsters, spectral creatures, and twisted figures of authority encapsulate Jacob's past as a soldier, the horrifying actions he took during Vietnam, and fears of a system that has failed him and his comrades beyond redemption. It’s a film that made me think about my own mortality and place in the world, and offers up deep cuts of philosophy and religion that ask big questions about the nature of life and death in a way that’s never in your face or ever too obvious. However, Jacob’s Ladder might just get its themes across best in its incredible soundtrack that aids the dark and sad atmosphere of the film.''

Karo - ''A Vietnam vet begins having weird visions and begins to wonder if he is going crazy. The movie is engrossing all through its runtime as the protagonist continues to lose touch with reality and searches for the truth about what happened on that day long ago. It deserves praise for making the 'all a dream' trope work by placing an unusual twist upon it, and it is certainly one of the best psychological horror films ever.''

KBM - ''An incredibly effective, disturbing mind-bender of a movie, that takes the already-existing horror that was the Vietnam War and twists it into a surreal nightmare that marches forward to an inevitable, yet still fairly devastating, conclusion. It seems like Tim Robbins could do no wrong in the early '90s, and among his great performances from that era this just may be one of his best. Along with that, you've got practical in-camera effects that really pushed the boundaries of what the horror genre was capable of, and went on to inspire one of my favorite video game series in Silent Hill. The underlying anti-war analogy is artfully pulled off here without ever pushing the message so far as to be preachy, and the pacing is so good that you barely notice it's one of the longer films on the list. I've had this one recommended to me over and over again across the years, and thanks to this project I've finally seen it, and I'm very glad I have.''

Scarlet - ''A tense horror film that is well-executed in many regards. The visuals, whether eerie or terrifying, produce just the right mood. There are some fantastic set pieces, starting with the scene in the subway. They telegraph the "twist" early on, a largely good decision, since the plot is made more coherent. But there are flaws; the horror scenes are fantastic and extremely effective, but to get to them you have to sit through an additional hour and thirty five minutes that's alternately cliched, overwrought, or goofy as fuck, and an ending that's all three. Rating: 70/100''

Johnbobb - ''I don't know where to begin talking about this one. It's somehow tamer than I thought it would be? But also heavy and incredible. Tim Robbins carries it with such a weird power. The whole thing didn't feel so much scary as it did just heart-wrenching, but I was always able to feel for Singer. ''

Genny - ''Jacob's Ladder was one huge mind fuck of a movie- a trip I wasn't disappointed I took. Even after the movie essentially spells out what happened at the end I'm left wondering if that's the truth of it or if the explanation it gives was just another ruse. Jacob being trapped in his own purgatory explains a lot of events, for example- how so many women kept flirting with him despite him not being that much more attractive than the average guy, and how the demonic figures stalking him always knew exactly where he was located; however it leaves a lot unexplained, particularly involving the other surviving soldiers. Are they trapped in Jacob's purgatory too or are they just a part of his fever dream? It's a lot to digest, and I like movies that give me something to think about afterward but still manage to entertain. 8.0 out of 10.''

Inviso - ''I’m a huge Silent Hill fan, yet I’d never seen Jacob’s Ladder before. Not ten minutes in, you have the subway scene with the chained-up exit and grated-off exit, and I could see how people said the Silent Hill series paid tribute to this movie (not to mention the weird twitching heads, bizarre and disgusting imagery, and switching between different planes of reality.) And honestly, it was hard to watch this film and NOT picture it as an addition to the Silent Hill series. It feels like it fits the tone so perfectly, and I can imagine a war veteran getting psychologically jerked around by the town.

As its own narrative, Jacob’s Ladder is interesting. It’s not a horror movie so much as it’s a psychological thriller. Opens in the midst of a battle in Vietnam, and then shifts back to a more serene and simple life for a postal worker. I like the unraveling of Tim Robbins though, and the fact that even the things that hit him first and foremost still have a rational explanation. You have a guy dealing with PTSD believing there’s a conspiracy against him, but then it turns out there IS a conspiracy against him, and THEN it turns out that he was killed in Vietnam and everything he’s experiencing is the final flash of life before his demise. It’s all so artistic and interesting, but I also like how they did the whole “he was dead the whole time” twist while simultaneously broadcasting his death throughout the film. I thought that was really clever and well-written.''

Charon - ''Usually credited with inspiring the Silent Hill series, this psychological horror delves deep into the mind of a dying man who tries to come to terms with his past. I feel like even though I liked it, maybe I didn't quite like it as much as I wish I did. I'm not sure what I mean or feel about that though. I guess coming in, knowing it was an inspiration for one of my favorite video game series put a heavy weight upon the film. I think I'd have loved it more if it were a little more trippy at times even, I think it pulled some punches at times and I did read it was toned down for audiences. The overall story was still pretty good however, and I suppose the movie itself was one long hallucination.''

4. The Sixth Sense

Karo - 1 Genny - 4 Scarlet - 4 Charon - 6 Inviso - 6 Johnbobb - 7 KBM - 10 JONA - 11 Snake - 22

Karo - ''A psychologist helps a troubled little boy and soon finds out about the kid's ability to 'see dead people', whom he struggles to help while at the same time dealing with his own marital issues. It is undoubtedly Shyamalan's best film, the usual twist is very well hidden, yet so obvious on subsequent viewings that you cannot say that he was ever unfair in the film's presentation. It is everything a mystery should be, as well as just being a good movie in general. It shouldn't take more than five senses to figure that out.''

Genny - ''What The Sixth Sense lacks in actual scares it makes up for with its mastery of building suspense. Even from its cold opening you're left unsure of Dr. Malcolm's fate until he's shown later. Imagine the very first time you saw this movie. You likely questioned it, but as the aftermath is so strongly implied your mind brushes the obvious inquiries aside. Even after the iconic line is uttered your mind convinces you that it's mere coincidence because it swears you've seen him interact with people other than Cole, but then the pieces all start to fall into place. It's all an elaborate lie. To me this is Shyamalan at his best. 9.4/10''

Scarlet - ''Is Shyamalan’s best film also his first major project? It’s a pretty close call. The Sixth Sense is a mind-bending, psychologically satisfying drama film that teeters on the edge between supernatural thriller and all-out horror. As a viewer, I was unbalanced the entire way, and I respect the now-overused Shyamalan style twist. Rating: 74/100''

Charon - ''A classic that established M. Night Shyamalan immediately, perhaps too much so, as a leader in young directors this twisting tale's influence on popular lexicon cannot be ignored. With Bruce Willis's star power and a brilliant performance by the newcomer Haley Joel Osment, this movie sets the mood like few others. There are some legitimately frightening scenes in this too however, which is great because you don't always expect that from these drama thriller movies. Rewatching this movie, to catch all the subtle clues about the fate of Crowe after you know about it is an experience really only this film can offer. It's well made, smart and though he may continue to try and do it, cannot be duplicated by Shyamalan.''

Inviso - ''If I’m being completely honest here, the only reason this movie doesn’t rank higher (that is to say, ranking with a chance at the top spot) is because of just how central of a character Haley Joel Osment is. He’s not a TERRIBLE actor, and he serves his role in the film well enough…but he just doesn’t appeal to me as a personality. His voice is bothersome, and he just can’t carry the movie on his own. Meanwhile, with him as the central figure, Bruce Willis is forced to tone down his personality somewhat.

All that being said, the movie is still pretty amazing. There’s an eerie, ominous tone throughout the film, leading up to the first big reveal: that Cole sees dead people. Suddenly the film becomes populated by the disturbing ghosts of the recently (and not-so-recently) deceased, plus Dr. Crowe starts to believe as well, upon listening to audio recordings from an old patient with similar issues. But rather than bring the film down the rabbit hole of outright horror, it instead takes a nicer turn, as the ghosts turn out to just be people with unfinished business, who need Cole’s help to pass on. The scene with Cole and his mother in the car is especially touching. And of course, Cole inadvertently helps Dr. Crowe to move on as he was…dead the whole time?!?! But yeah, really good film. I can’t wait to watch the rest of M. Night Shyalmalan’s directorial endeavors. He seems like a guy who can do no wrong.''

Johnbobb - spooky ghosts

KBM - ''What can even be said about The Sixth Sense that hasn't already been said? Thanks to having one of the most famous “gotcha” twists of all time, it's been analyzed to death in the 20 years since its release, and if there are a few things that don't really hold up to scrutiny, I can't bring myself to hold it against this film. Contrary to popular belief, M. Night is a really talented filmmaker, despite having had some rather spectacularly bad misses over the years, and he really shows off his affinity for aesthetic and use of color here. Bruce Willis and Haley Joel Osment also have great chemistry, with Haley Joel giving one of the greatest child-actor performances ever committed to film. “Shyamalan” has become synonymous with “what a twist” - and though plenty of the criticism lobbed at him is perfectly valid, for me it doesn't undermine The Sixth Sense, which still holds up two decades later.''

JONA - ''Knowing the twist ahead of time, it seems kinda obvious since the first scene doesn’t fit or make sense to put in if Bruce Willis wasn’t dead. That being said, it didn’t hurt my enjoyment of the movie. It’s intriguing to see the lives of a boy who can see ghosts and a man who doesn’t know he’s a ghost. The creepy imagery found in the movie is scarce but effective when it shows up.''

Snake - Why I Chose It - ''The Sixth Sense put director M. Night Shyamalan directly into the public eye, firmly establishing his horror & supernatural credentials and gaining notoriety for twist endings. It was the second highest grossing film of 1999 (behind Phantom Menace), and was the highest grossing horror film of all time until 2017's IT. It was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actor/Actress for Haley Joel Osment and Toni Collette respecitvely.''

My Thoughts - ''I want to like this film more than I do, I really mean it. It's not often that I think to myself, "I just had to be there for it." A truly great film in my eyes should not have this nagging thought attached to it. Years before I had ever seen it, it was just the "I see dead people" film to me. Spoilers don't inherently ruin films, but they can lessen a film's total overall impact if the rest of the film's elements aren't up to snuff. The performances are good, but I find the scares and overall plot extremely lame in comparison. There's nothing here that truly grabs me and gives me a reason to care. It's just a film I have no particular attachment too; I can appreciate its place in history, but other than that, I'd rather watch something else.''

3. Misery

Inviso - 1 Johnbobb - 2 Karo - 3 KBM - 3 JONA - 4 Charon - 9 Snake - 9 Genny - 10 Scarlet - 11

Inviso - ''Kathy Bates’ performance in this film was so good that she managed to overcome your typical genre snobbery from the Oscars to take home the Best Actress award for 1991. Annie Wilkes is just such an amazing character, right from the word go. She’s so aggressively nice for someone who hauled a car crash victim from his wrecked vehicle and laid him up in her guest bedroom. But then she just becomes more and more sinister, doing some utterly fucked up things (including smashing Paul’s ankles and murdering the town sheriff), and it turns out that she’s been a psychopath for a VERY long time, adding to the creep factor of having a writer forced to write for his stalker fan. The fact that Paul manages to take her down at the end is practically a miracle, but it also feels well-deserved by the end of everything. Overall, this film is really solidly-made and I loved it.''

Johnbobb - ''Kathy Bates as Annie Wilkes is probably my all-time favorite horror performance. There's a good bit more here to make it a solid horror classic. Great pacing, tense atmosphere, an underlying sense of dread, but it's all nothing compared to how absolutely fantastic Kathy Bates is.''

Karo - ''A popular romance novelist gets saved from a car wreck by an obsessive fan/stalker, and what at first seems innocent enough soon turns into a nightmare when the woman doesn't like the direction the author's story is taking. In a series of gripping scenes the crippled writer tries to find a way to escape while at the same time trying to soothe the less-than-hinged mind of the insane bitch caring for him. The character of Annie is frightening because she could be, not to mention feels like, a real person. You can keep your silly demons, aliens and swamp creatures, humans are the greatest monsters of all and this film shows exactly why.''

KBM - ''Speaking as a big Stephen King fan, this is one of the best adaptations of his work out there (and almost certainly the best one that didn't have Frank Darabont in the director's chair). Kathy Bates got a well-deserved Oscar for her unforgettable turn bringing Annie Wilkes, one of King's greatest villains, to life. James Caan is also amazing here in a very difficult role, having to carry a lot of dramatic weight while lying in a bed disabled for most of the movie. Rob Reiner really nails the atmosphere of this very introspective tale, and more than almost any other King adaptation this feels like it just leapt straight off the page and onto the screen. Subtle and freaky, it manages the difficult task of accurately depicting the mental anguish of a man stuck in a room alone, without the pacing ever suffering for it. I have rewatched this one a lot since I first saw it when I was 14, and it never loses a shred of its potency.''

JONA - ''Kathy Bates really shines here with her performance as Annie Wilkes. She’s really good at going from caring to crazy. James Caan is no slouch either with his performance and he’s good at making you want him to get out of his situation. Their author-fan relationship is really intriguing and how Annie Wilkes can go from complimentary to criticizing. I also really liked how the sheriff scenes made you think he would be the one to save the day but nope. It really makes Sheldon’s situation feel more hopeless. Just really enjoyable.''

Charon - ''Inside the mind of a deranged fan can be a dark place to visit, and this Stephen King adaptation explores it to the fullest. The least frightening people can sometimes turn out to be the most frightening of all. Annie's character is pretty complicated. On one hand, she acts very polite and God fearing all the whilst she's actually a convicted murderer. Watching her rationalize her actions is enjoyable, and knowing what would happen when she read the latest book by her favorite author was thrilling. I was kinda guessing though that'd his newest book wouldn't actually be the one he was working on before he was abducted, I thought he may have continued the Misery line of books after all, having been inspired by his ordeal.''

Snake - Why I Chose It - ''This critically acclaimed film best on the best selling Stephen King novel is most famous for Kathy Bates' star-making role as Annie Wilkes. Bates won the Academy Award for Best Actress for this film, and the film itself was a box office success. It has oft been referenced and parodied in many future works, and the quote "I'm your number one fan" has become ubiquitous with Misery.''

My Thoughts - ''Misery is a delightful little thriller with a surprising amount of layers for such a simple concept. It's a classic two-hander and both James Caan and Kathy Bates carry their respective weights, psychologically dueling for the upper-hand, a constant push-pull that analyzes the toxic intensity of extreme fandom. It's crazy and terrifying how Wilkes can turn on a dime from sickeningly-sweet-as-apple-pie to nightmarish-demon-spawn-from-hell, and it's equally exciting to see how Sheldon manipulates Bates to try and escape his situation. I think my favorite part is when Sheldon agrees to rewrite his latest novel for Bates, to comply with her request to revive his novel's main character. I love the ways Sheldon feigns friendship with Bates, utilizing Stockholm syndrome to great effect to try and manipulate Bates into letting her guard down so he can kill her. It's so smart and tense and thrilling, contrasting with the cozy, snowy atmosphere of the outside world. Misery also doesn't pull its punches when it comes to the physical horror; there's of course the "hobbling" scene, which deftly escalates the situation from "desperate" to "I'm doomed" right quick. It's sparse but toe-curling scenes like this that really puts the cherry on top for one of the best King adaptations ever made.''

Genny - ''This is a horrifying concept taken to its extreme when you think about it. Imagine you've written yourself into a corner and want to branch out, but fear fan backlash. You don't want to sacrifice the success you've gained, but you can't stand the thought of your career stagnating. A master of suspense, Misery appeals to the risk taker and dreamer in all of us then does its very best to crush those ambitions with the brilliant character portrayed by Kathy Bates. Annie Wilkes represents every fear that keeps you from moving forward in your creative endeavors. If you look at her like a mental obstacle- a personification of anxiety- rather than a physical one it's almost as scary as the thought of being hobbled with a sledge hammer. Almost. 8.1/10''

Scarlet - ''The definition of a one-man show, Misery is carried solely on the back of the Kathy Bates powerhouse performance that is Annie Wilkes. There’s even a surprising amount of dark humor to this movie which endears it to someone like me that tends to find suspense to be an exercise in holding in a fart. But, at the end of the day, a movie requires a hero when the situation is set as a survival piece. And, quite frankly, I care less about James Caan in this than I care about Scotty Caan in real life. That’s quite an indictment. Of Scotty Caan. Without something that compels me to care, the film ultimately buckles under the function of one person trying to fill the role of two. Rating: 59/100''

2. Se7en

Scarlet - 1 Genny - 2 KBM - 2 Inviso - 3 Johnbobb - 4 Snake - 4 Karo - 6 Charon - 7 JONA - 12

Scarlet - ''“Anyone who puts Gwenyth's head in a box is okay by me.” ~Ari Gold Rating: 92/100''

Genny - ''Rarely is a movie so devastating to the psyche as Se7en. Pitt put on a solid performance here, but Kevin Spacey as John Doe is the real standout managing to tread the extremely fine line between sociopath and sympathetic in a seemingly impossible task. It made me question how insane could someone this calculating really be, and how senseless could his actions have been if they led him to his exact desired outcome. Doe was cruel beyond reason, but he became a martyr for the cause of exposing corruption and in some cases putting an end to it. It's still a bit of a mind fuck just thinking back on it. 9.6/10''

KBM - ''“WHAT'S IN THE BOX? WHAT'S IN THE BOOOOX?”

Goddamn I love this movie. It definitely holds a nostalgic place in my heart as one of the first horror movies I watched home alone at midnight, when I was 16 (something that's become a Halloween tradition for me since). As someone who loves a dark, creepy atmosphere in her horror movies, Se7en has it in spades. I'm a big David Fincher fan, thanks in large part to his affinity for getting that atmosphere in his films just so, and this probably holds up as still my favorite movie of his. With a stacked cast all working at the top of their game, and a truly creepy, creative premise, this is a film that grabs you from the very beginning and never lets go. Haunting and relentless, with imagery that will stick with you for a long time after you've watched it, this is one of the darkest, outright scariest movies out there, for my money, with a bunch of extremely talented artists doing some of the best work of their careers. (Including noted sexual predator Kevin Spacey, whose performance may not have been as much of a stretch acting-wise as we once might have thought.)''

Inviso - ''I’m not gonna claim that this movie’s ending sold it, but goddamn if it didn’t boost an already solid film to even greater heights than I could have ever imagined. I meant, the whole tone of the film starts out so dark and gritty and it adds an extra sense of realism to the plot. Morgan Freeman’s character being a cop less than a week from retirement helps build the atmosphere of the film. He’s not some hotshot that wants to catch a serial killer for fame and glory. This isn’t that kind of movie. No, he’s a cop who has seen a whole bunch of awful shit, and he’s tired of it, and he’s pissed that he has to spend the last week of his career dealing with (at the start) some fat guy being fed to death. But then he gets saddled with the above-mentioned young, hotshot detective, and he’s stuck dealing with a shitty, rainy, final week on the job. It’s just an interesting setting. It’s like The Killing on AMC. I loved that show for its gritty reality.

Meanwhile, you’ve got Brad Pitt, and I feel like he nailed his role. He’s cocky, he thinks he’s hot shit, and because he hasn’t experienced life in a big city police force, he doesn’t know the ins and outs of the law the way Freeman does. So he’s aggressive and rude and violent at times, and this all culminates it a spectacular climax to the film, where he’s pushed to his limit and snaps by an effectively-frightening serial killer. For all the awful things he’s done, is it any wonder that Kevin Spacey plays a chilling, emotionless psychopath? Seriously, that ending wraps up the bleak, depressing tone of the film so perfectly, and aside from grossing me out with the Gluttony murder, I loved this movie.''

2. Se7en

Scarlet - 1 Genny - 2 KBM - 2 Inviso - 3 Johnbobb - 4 Snake - 4 Karo - 6 Charon - 7 JONA - 12

Scarlet - ''“Anyone who puts Gwenyth's head in a box is okay by me.” ~Ari Gold Rating: 92/100''

Genny - ''Rarely is a movie so devastating to the psyche as Se7en. Pitt put on a solid performance here, but Kevin Spacey as John Doe is the real standout managing to tread the extremely fine line between sociopath and sympathetic in a seemingly impossible task. It made me question how insane could someone this calculating really be, and how senseless could his actions have been if they led him to his exact desired outcome. Doe was cruel beyond reason, but he became a martyr for the cause of exposing corruption and in some cases putting an end to it. It's still a bit of a mind fuck just thinking back on it. 9.6/10''

KBM - ''“WHAT'S IN THE BOX? WHAT'S IN THE BOOOOX?”

Goddamn I love this movie. It definitely holds a nostalgic place in my heart as one of the first horror movies I watched home alone at midnight, when I was 16 (something that's become a Halloween tradition for me since). As someone who loves a dark, creepy atmosphere in her horror movies, Se7en has it in spades. I'm a big David Fincher fan, thanks in large part to his affinity for getting that atmosphere in his films just so, and this probably holds up as still my favorite movie of his. With a stacked cast all working at the top of their game, and a truly creepy, creative premise, this is a film that grabs you from the very beginning and never lets go. Haunting and relentless, with imagery that will stick with you for a long time after you've watched it, this is one of the darkest, outright scariest movies out there, for my money, with a bunch of extremely talented artists doing some of the best work of their careers. (Including noted sexual predator Kevin Spacey, whose performance may not have been as much of a stretch acting-wise as we once might have thought.)''

Inviso - ''I’m not gonna claim that this movie’s ending sold it, but goddamn if it didn’t boost an already solid film to even greater heights than I could have ever imagined. I meant, the whole tone of the film starts out so dark and gritty and it adds an extra sense of realism to the plot. Morgan Freeman’s character being a cop less than a week from retirement helps build the atmosphere of the film. He’s not some hotshot that wants to catch a serial killer for fame and glory. This isn’t that kind of movie. No, he’s a cop who has seen a whole bunch of awful shit, and he’s tired of it, and he’s pissed that he has to spend the last week of his career dealing with (at the start) some fat guy being fed to death. But then he gets saddled with the above-mentioned young, hotshot detective, and he’s stuck dealing with a shitty, rainy, final week on the job. It’s just an interesting setting. It’s like The Killing on AMC. I loved that show for its gritty reality.

Meanwhile, you’ve got Brad Pitt, and I feel like he nailed his role. He’s cocky, he thinks he’s hot shit, and because he hasn’t experienced life in a big city police force, he doesn’t know the ins and outs of the law the way Freeman does. So he’s aggressive and rude and violent at times, and this all culminates it a spectacular climax to the film, where he’s pushed to his limit and snaps by an effectively-frightening serial killer. For all the awful things he’s done, is it any wonder that Kevin Spacey plays a chilling, emotionless psychopath? Seriously, that ending wraps up the bleak, depressing tone of the film so perfectly, and aside from grossing me out with the Gluttony murder, I loved this movie.''

J

ohnbobb - ''I remember watching this on the couch at a friend's house in high school because he was a big Nine Inch Nails fan and wanted to see it. It's one of the most "Fincher" films out there, establishing his distinct dark style, and to this day it's still one of his best. It's manages to expose the brutal violence of the world without being an explicitly violent movie. It's horror disguised as noir and is just brimming with an overwhelming sense of dread.''

Snake - Why I Chose It - ''Forget Alien 3, Se7en is David Fincher's true birth as a visionary director. Se7en was a huge box office hit that stayed at the top for 4 weeks straight, and was critically acclaimed for its overbearingly dark tone that deftly balanced stark snap-shots of horror with an excellent story of mystery and criminal investigation at its core. Its ending has become nothing short of infamous and made "what's in the box?" a line people have come to dread.''

My Thoughts - ''Se7en is an incredible piece of art. It's a multi-layered film covering a whole range of genres, tones, & emotions. Buddy cop moments give way to images of startling and gruesome corpses, sweet romance is overshadowed by the constant downpour of the city and a stressful investigation, defeat is snatched from the jaws of victory just when everything seems to be over. Se7en is not an easy watch, but it constantly holds your attention thanks to two of the best ever performances from Pitt's and Freeman's careers. Yet, it's Spacey's John Doe that takes center stage, as Se7en changes perspective for its final act to get the audience into the mindset of a true psychopath. It's a subtle shift but turns all notions of good and bad on their heads, delivering a climax that just chills to the core whenever that one famous line is ever uttered. Atmospheric, intense, and devastating, Se7en is a must-watch by the best the film industry has to offer.''

Karo - ''A detective story about a serial killer who kills people in order to demonstrate the sins of mankind just in case it needed to be more obvious that people are a bunch of shitbags. So the story follows two cops as they investigate the crime scenes in an attempt to track him down. Think sort of a CSI kind of thing except, y'know, actually good. If the movie has one failing it is that is the climactic scene is a bit too obvious. Haha, I wonder who his mystery victim is? Man, it couldn't possibly be the character that they gave awkward out-of-place scenes to in order to make absolutely sure Detective Morgan Freeman knew what she looked like. Nonetheless, it remains a gripping crime thriller that is a fun watch and never drags even with its long runtime.''

Charon - ''An extremely brutal and dark crime thriller, Seven's strengths are most noticable when it's focusing on the serial killer's breadcrumb trail. I enjoy films like this, where you have an intelligent serial killer that's leading the protagonists along while performing acts that are of debatable morality. While John Doe doesn't have a real presence as a character himself, having to let his actions do most of the talking until the very end, I have a feeling that if this were like an anime I'd love the character. Killers that base their crimes around "is this person really worth caring about anyway" are usually pretty interesting. The finale is pretty gut-wrenching as well; it's definitely something I saw coming but that doesn't remove the sense of dread you feel when you find out your hunches were right.''

JONA - ''The actors and the atmosphere really carry the movie. Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt have good chemistry. Despite not being too original nowadays, the themed murders are still intriguing to follow. I do have a problem with the ending since Envy and Wrath didn’t match the previous murders and I didn’t like how the killer killed a woman who would be innocent in their viewpoint, but whatever he’s crazy.''

1. The Silence of the Lambs

Johnbobb - 1 KBM - 1 Charon - 2 Karo - 2 Genny - 3 JONA - 3 Inviso - 5 Snake - 8 Scarlet - 10

Johnbobb - ''How does a single movie manage to provide two of the best horror villains of all time while also balancing the character development of one of the best female movie protagonists in film history? While ALSO being intelligent, captivating and horrifying in equal amounts? A movie like this really doesn't come around often. ''

KBM - ''Not only my favorite '90s horror movie, but one of my Top 5 favorite films of all time. Anthony Hopkins is, of course, iconic in the role of Hannibal Lecter, but I would argue Jodie Foster's is even more impressive; quite possibly the best work of her career, perfectly underplaying the gradually building dread as the psychological horror amps up more and more. The rest of the cast is also great, with Ted Levine fittingly creepy as Buffalo Bill – the sequence where he stalks Clarice with night-vision goggles still ranks among the most terrifying scenes in history for me. Top it all off with a script that elevates the source material and beautifully atmospheric direction from Jonathan Demme at his best, and you've got a more-than-deserving Big Five Academy Award winner; rarely have the Oscars gotten the awards more right than they did in 1991. Incidentally, in a way this could be considered a sequel to Michael Mann's criminally underrated 1986 thriller Manhunter, based on the first novel in the “Hannibal Lecter” series, Red Dragon. It was remade pretty well under the original title with Anthony Hopkins reprising the role (and this being the version more people are familiar with), but for my money Manhunter is the creepier and more stylish picture and deserves to have more of a following. Give it a watch if you're as big a fan of Silence of the Lambs as I am.''

Charon - ''Legendary acting and intense characterization help make this film one of the landmark achievements of the 90's. Each character, big or small, is acted to such a high degree that it's hard not to appreciate it. The film paints an interesting picture in giving us Buffalo Bill as the despicable villain we're meant to hate so that when Lecter gets his happy ending we aren't left with that sense of "bad horror" where the villain is victorious at the end. Though he is clearly a villain, he isn't an antagonist to our protagonist, which makes Silence pretty unique. In my opinion, Hannibal Lecter is one of the best portrayed characters in film and it's truly difficult to imagine anyone doing a better job than Hopkins does here with him.''

Karo - ''In an effort to catch a serial killer, a young FBI trainee seeks the help of convicted psychopath Hannibal Lecter, who has his own agenda in mind. Lecter is of course the big star here, and while he has sadly far too little screentime the movie is more than just the genteel cannibal dinner hour. The character of Clarice in particular is very well done. A lot of the movie brings to mind the ubiquitous crime serial shows of the upcoming decades, though this film reaches a perfection of the genre that CSI: Alaska or whatever can only dream of achieving.''

Genny - ''Although I wouldn't go as far as to say The Silence of the Lambs is the greatest horror film of all time I can see why someone would hold that opinion. As a solid thriller, it confronts the viewer with the knowledge that society can be just as sinister as the monsters it creates. Of course Foster and Hopkins' performances are stellar, but I'd like to acknowledge the underrated portrayal of Ted Levine as Jame "Buffalo Bill" Gumb, who really sold that role and made the character almost as iconic as Hannibal Lecter. 9.5/10''

Inviso - ''A lot of the movies we’ve watched, the ones that received academy acclaim, I struggle to enjoy because the kinds of movies that tend to appeal to Oscar voters…tend to be the kinds of movies designed for more hoity-toity movie viewers. Not this time. Silence of the Lambs is one of only three movies to score Oscar wins for Best Picture/Screenplay/Director/Actor/Actress, and it deserves every last drop of praise it receives. Jodie Foster plays an amazing Clarice Starling, who is trying desperately to carry herself as strong, but she’s really far more fragile than she lets on. And Anthony Hopkins kills it as Hannibal Lecter, managing to create the OG “classy psychopath” upon whom all future archetypes are based. The whole movie is just so unsettling, and it’s like an extended (and obviously better-acted) episode of Criminal Minds. I really liked it.''

JONA - ''Do you really need a writeup from me about my completely unique opinion of The Silence of the Lambs being great? Yeah, I didn’t think so.''

Snake - Why I Chose It - ''Three words: horror, best picture. 'Nuff said!''

My Thoughts - ''Silence of the Lambs is intriguing. On the surface, it's almost too straight-forward. Your typical serial killer hunter plot. Yet, it's elevated so incredibly well by the acting talents here and this crime triangle of Starling, Lecter, and Bill that is so psychologically thrilling you can't help but be enthralled by what's happening on screen. With two villains fighting over control of screen time, you would think you end up with Spider-Man 3, but it just doesn't happen. It helps that their logos are so different, and though are both depraved individuals, the way they go about their criminal acts (to put it nicely) gives us a reason to want to see one stopped just as much as the other. Incredible camera-work and a clinical atmosphere puts the cherry on top.''

Scarlet - ''Now hear me out, because someone needs to say this. What Anthony Hopkins presents as Hannibal Lecter is not a measured and nuanced performance. In actuality, it’s probably more cartoonish than the standard superhero villain. I would put Cillian Murphy as Jonathan Crane up against Hopkins as Lecter any day of the week. I found this movie to be almost a caricature of the books from which the film originates, with lead performances that left me needing more. Foster, for her part, is about as much of a dimestore Dana Scully as possible, and Hopkins overplays his hand, turning his character into a farcical mess. But scattered in this movie are some hidden gems that I do love. God help me, Anthony Heald is always intensely watchable, for example. The biggest disservice I’ve ever done to myself is to watch the Hannibal TV series prior to rewatching Silence of the Lambs, learning just how… unimpressive the progenitor really was. Rating: 62/100''

Outlier

Inviso - 357 Genny - 308 Charon - 289 KBM - 248 Scarlet - 228 Johnbobb - 212 JONA - 218 Karo - 206 Snake - 202​​​​​​​