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“Night brings terror. Strange, alien forms move restlessly across the face of the earth. Fear, horror and death follow in their wake. The sky is dark; the moon has not yet risen; the stars seem too frightened to shine ..." --- Drake Douglas (introduction to Horrors)
Pleasure of Nightmares 1st Annual Hall of Infamy

The votes have been tallied. The results are in. Here’s the 1st Annual Pleasure of Nightmares Hall of Infamy!

Alien movie poster
1. Alien
US 1979 Directed by Ridley Scott
Space crew aboard a mineral ore freight ship tries to survive against a ferocious alien beast.
“I admire its purity. A survivor ... unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality … I can't lie to you about your chances, but ... you have my sympathies.”
Gore Score: 4/5
Terror Factor: 9/10
Atmosphere Level: High

The Exorcist movie poster
2. The Exorcist
US 1973 Directed by William Friedkin
A young 12-year-old girl is possessed by a demon, Pazuzu, and two priests, one of them an exorcist, are called in to try and drive the evil spirit from her ravaged body.
“The demon is a liar. He will lie to confuse us. But he will also mix lies with the truth to attack us. The attack is psychological, Damien, and powerful. So don't listen to him. Remember that - do not listen.”
Gore Score: 2/5
Terror Factor: 8/10
Atmosphere Level: Medium

The Thing movie poster
3. The Thing
US 1982 Directed by John Carpenter
US Antarctic Research Station is infiltrated by a grotesque and ferocious alien creature which can absorb and imitate its victims.
“I dunno what the hell's in there, but it's weird and pissed off, whatever it is.”
Gore Score: 5/5
Terror Factor: 8/10
Atmosphere Level: High

Ringu movie poster
4. Ringu
Japan 1998 Directed by Hideo Nakata
A mysterious video claims the lives of whomever watches its weird, unsettling images, and it is revealed to be the work of malevolent female ghost called Sadako.
“It's not of this world. It's Sadako's fury. And she's put a curse on us.”
Gore Score: 1/5
Terror Factor: 9/10
Atmosphere Level: High

Rosemary's Baby movie poster
5. Rosemary’s Baby
US 1968 Directed by Roman Polanski
A young couple - the wife is pregnant - moves into an apartment but discover the neighbours to be very strange, with a disturbing and diabolical agenda.
“Rosie, a pain like that is a clear sign that something is not right. We just want you to get another opinion, see someone else, that's all.”
Gore Score: 1/5
Terror Factor: 7/10
Atmosphere Level: Medium

A Nightmare on Elm Street movie poster
6. A Nightmare on Elm Street
US 1984 Directed by Wes Craven
In the dreams of his victims a powerful demon, once a child murderder, stalks the children of the lynch mob who took their revenge upon him.
“Whatever you do don't fall asleep.”
Gore Score: 3/5
Terror Factor: 8/10
Atmosphere Level: High

Wolf Creek movie poster
7. Wolf Creek
Australia 2005 Directed by Greg Mclean
Stranded backpackers in remote Australia fall prey to a murderous bushman who offers to fix their car, then takes them captive.
“I'm going to do something now they used to do in Vietnam. It's called making a head on a stick.”
Gore Score: 4/5
Terror Factor: 8/10
Atmosphere Level: Medium

The Shining movie poster
8. The Shining
US 1980 Directed by Stanley Kubrick
A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where an evil presence possesses the father into a deranged and malevolent state of mind, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from the past and of the future.
“No sir, YOU are the caretaker. You've always been the caretaker. I ought to know: I've always been here.”
Gore Score: 2/5
Terror Factor: 8/10
Atmosphere Level: High

Ginger Snaps movie poster
9. Ginger Snaps
Canada/US 2000 Directed by John Fawcett
The older of the two Fitzgerald sisters - suburban Goth outcasts - gets bitten by something hairy in the woods, and it certainly wasn’t frost. Soon enough she’s got major teething problems.
“I get this ache... And I, I thought it was for sex, but it's to tear everything to fucking pieces.”
Gore Score: 3/5
Terror Factor: 6/10
Atmosphere Level: Medium

An American Werewolf in London movie poster
10. An American Werewolf in London
US 1981 Directed by John Landis
Two American tourists in England are attacked by a werewolf that none of the locals will admit exists, whilst one becomes the undead, the other realises he must die to prevent the curse from perpetuating.
“Beware the moon … And stick to the road. Oops.”
Gore Score: 4/5
Terror Factor: 8/10
Atmosphere Level: High

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie poster
11. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
US 1974 Directed by Tobe Hooper
Five friends pick up a dodgy hitchhiker who leads them to a rundown house where they are hunted down and terrorized by a chainsaw-wielding killer and his family of cannibals.
“My family's always been in meat.”
Gore Score: 2/5
Terror Factor: 8/10
Atmosphere Level: High

Halloween movie poster
12. Halloween
US 1978 Directed by John Carpenter
A psychopath, institutionalised since childhood, escapes and returns to his hometown on a murderous rampage, while his doctor desperately pursues him.
“It's Halloween, everyone's entitled to one good scare.”
Gore Score: 1/5
Terror Factor: 9/10
Atmosphere Level: High

Se7en movie poster
13. Se7en
US 1995 Directed by David Fincher
Two cops, one new and arrogant, and the other about to retire, track a clever serial killer who is using the seven deadly sins as his modus operandi.
“This isn’t going to have a happy ending.”
Gore Score: 2/5
Terror Factor: 7/10
Atmosphere Level: High




Here are clips from each of the movies kicking off with the rarely seen extended chestbursting scene from Alien and culminating with the brilliant title sequence from Se7en:













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STRANGE DARK DREAMS

April 16th 2008 05:23
The Holy Mountain
Pulling inspiration from John Doe’s superb review of David Lynch’s seminal Blue Velvet, and stirred on by the excellent analysis of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s infamous El Topo by The All Seeing Eye, I found myself swimming in the turbulent and troubling deep waters of cinema’s darker, weirder moments. What were the strangest?

There were only two directors groping and pulling me down into that whirlpool and into the abyss; Jodorowsky and Lynch.

I’ve seen all of David Lynch’s features. He’s consistently the most intriguing fabricator of cinematic spectres in North American cinema. Martin Scorsese may be the verbose visceralist, Jim Jarmusch the minimal artiste, the Coen brothers the wry humourists, but David Lynch is the dark dreamer, the nightmare conjuror par excellence.

And from just below the border, is the filmmaker who has dabbled so gloriously with the surreal; loco Mexican Jodorowsky. I’ve seen three of the four features he’s delivered and they are about as enigmatic and grotesque and brilliant as cinema can get.

So here are seven movies that are guaranteed to fuck your mind right up, and one sentence each to describe their ingenious madness.

ALEJANDRO JODOROWSKY
El Topo
1. El Topo (1971)
The gunfighter El Topo (The Mole) and his young son ride through a desert on a mission to find and defeat four master gunmen, while two mysterious women attempt to thwart his quest, and religion and violence collide.

2. The Holy Mountain (1973)
A Christ-like figure wanders through grotesque scenarios filled with religious and sacrilegious imagery, where he meets a mystical guide who introduces him to seven wealthy and powerful individuals, each representing a planet in the solar system.

Santa Sangre
3. Santa Sangre (1989)
A young man, confined in a mental hospital, experiences flashbacks showing him being traumatised in the family circus by his philandering knife-wielding father, and his religious fanatic of a mother.

DAVID LYNCH
Eraserhead
1. Eraserhead (1976)
Henry Spencer tries to survive his industrial environment, his frustrated girlfriend, her loony parents, his seductive neighbour, and the unbearable screams of his newly-born mutant child.
Lost Highway
2. Lost Highway (1997)
A free-jazz saxophonist is framed for the murder of his wife and sent to prison, where he inexplicably morphs into a young mechanic and begins leading a new, but very precarious existence.
Mulholland Dr.
3. Mulholland Dr. (2001)
After a car-wreck on the winding Mulholland Drive renders a woman amnesic, she and an earnest Hollywood-hopeful search for clues and answers across Los Angeles in a series of mis-adventures which twist darker and darker.

4. Inland Empire (2006)
An actor’s perception of reality becomes increasingly distorted and fearsome as she finds herself falling for her co-star in a remake of an unfinished Polish production that was supposedly cursed.

Of course there are other movies which defy logical description, coherent synopsis, or any kind of rational explanation. But anyone who truly loves the dark dream-fabric potency of cinema keeps coming back to these mutant babies.


Thanks to Internet Movie Database for the plot outline blurbs some of which I re-shaped.
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Nosferatu 1922 Max Schrek
Any published list of what are supposedly the “best” or “most influential” or “essential viewing” movies is always going to be open to conjecture, likely to cause argument, or be challenged by someone else’s opinion. But that’s what makes it interesting.

I’m currently reading a brilliant book called Ten Bad Dates With De Niro – A Book of Alternative Movie Lists. With the book in mind I decided to compile yet another list of my own, a variation on an often repeated theme; horror movies that I keep coming back to, because they’re so damn effective for one reason or another.

Many of them are flawed, but then most movies are in some way or another. When I say flawed, I mean that they exceed in several key areas, but another part of the movie might not be so great. I don’t really believe there are “perfect” movies. There are definitely some that come close though.
Alien H.R. Giger's face-hugger
I admire and respect directors like, for example, Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez, who champion movies that might only have one scene that is brilliant, whilst the rest of the flick is dodgy and forgettable. Sometimes that’s all a movie needs to inspire you or make you realise that the cinematic experience can work on so many levels, from the blindingly obvious to the oh-so-subtle.

My list below is a selection of what many would refer to as modern classics or cult favourites. It’s hard not to return to these movies time and time again, simply because they’re so rich in technique, content, mood, and execution. Of course there are numerous others I could have included, but for this blog I try to stick to my rule of “13”.

No doubt I’ll make an “alternative” list as well, but for now, here’s the “semi-obvious” list and three short reasons each as to why I feel these movies are so effective and memorable.


Nosferatu (1922)
1. German Expressionism
2. Max Schrek as Graf Orlock
3. Based on the novel Dracula

Psycho the shower scene
Psycho (1960)
1. The Bates motel & house
2. The shower scene
3. Joseph Stefano’s screenplay

The Exorcist movie poster
The Exorcist (1973)
1. The title & poster
2. Linda Blair spouting “Your mother sucks cocks in Hell, Karras, you faithless slime!”
3. Dick Smith’s special effects make-up

Suspiria (1977)
1. Dario Argento’s nightmare logic
2. The Goblin soundtrack
3. The primary colour cinematography
Suspiria Luciano Tovoli's cinematography

Halloween (1978)
1. John Carpenter’s electronic score
2. Dean Semler’s Panavision panaglide camerawork
3. Jamie Lee Curtis in foreground, in shock, as The Shape, supposedly dead, sits up in the background

Alien (1979)
1. H. R. Giger’s alien & alien spacecraft design
2. The chest-bursting scene
3. The cast, their characters, and how they relate to each other
Alien chest-bursting scene

The Shining (1980)
1. Based on a Stephen King masterpiece
2. Directed by Stanley Kubrick
3. Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrence

An American Werewolf in London (1981)
1. Rick Baker’s transformation sequence
2. Griffin Dunne as undead Jack Goodman
3. The Slaughtered Lamb and the subsequent sequence on the moors

The Evil Dead (1982)
1. The use of the shoe-string budget (ie special effects)
2. Sam Raimi’s kinetic mise-en-scene
3. Total bodily dismemberment

Poltergeist R-rated masquerading as PG
Poltergeist (1982)
1. PG-rated movie that’s more effective than many R-rated movies
2. Tobe Hooper vs. Stephen Spielberg (the nasty vs. the nice)
3. “They’re heeeeere!”

Videodrome (1982)
1. David Cronenberg’s prophetic screenplay
2. James Woods as Max Renn
3. Rick Baker’s special effects make-up

Day of the Dead (1985)
1. Tom Savini’s special effects make-up
2. George Romero’s tone and atmosphere
3. Still the zombie movie to end all zombie movies

Braindead (1991)
1. Peter Jackson’s relentless mise-en-scene
2. No holds barred, bad taste, gross-out, splatstick humour
3. The 20-minute lawnmower-zombie wipe-out
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trick or treat
Keeping on the grindhouse tip, I’ve made a list of thirteen essential elements (liable to cause argument) that would feature nicely within the context of a sleazy, nasty, horror movie. I had dirty, reprehensible, misanthropic fun here.

So if you had to pick four of these to feature in a movie that you’d like to see, which ones would you pick? And then give your piece of midnight movie filth a title


[ Click here to read more ]
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Horrorphile's BLOODY BEST of 2007

January 17th 2008 23:25
28 Weeks Later poster art
Nudged and winked at by John Doe’s top films of 2007 I thought it best if I offered my opinion on the bloody best of last year. Not that there’s a wealth of movies to choose from, slim pickings really, but a couple of doozies.

I’ve decided I should narrow the top bunch down to horror horrors, excluding a few of those movies that I’ve reviewed that wouldn’t be described as horrors per se by the majority, but which I’ve labeled either a post-modern horror or a kind of horror hybrid


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movie queue back in the day
In the wake of watching Rob Zombie demystify and, in a roundabout kind of way, ruin the original Halloween conceit with his pedestrian and dreadfully ill-concieved re-envisioning/re-imagining/r e-fucking-make (disregarding the numerous dreadful Halloween sequels, Halloween II and III notwithstanding), I decided to savour the vitriol and make a series of movie lists.

Cult Classics That Should Never Have Been Remade (But Were or Will Be, Damn Them!)
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Who's your FAVOURITE KILLER?

September 26th 2007 04:39
Christopher Lee as Count Dracula
It might seem like an odd, vaguely distasteful question, but I know all the horrorphiles will embrace the question with homicidal hands and a fevered mind.

You’ve seen enough horror movies to know that about 99.9% of them feature some kind of murderer, or at least a menacing force capable of killing. Or at the very least an atmosphere of such dread and fear that you could possibly die of fright


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13 HORRIFIC MOMENTS in HORROR

September 24th 2007 02:01
Alien John Hurt
A friend of mine had the coup of interviewing director Eli Roth for a publication he writes for and he generously sent me through the list of Roth’s favourite goriest moments in horror, pre-publication. Of course I can’t share this information with you as it breaks journalist protocol, yadda yadda, but it did provide inspiration for me.

So I’ve concocted my own list. I was tempted to spread the list across the whole of cinema, but decided to keep it in the family. The question I then asked myself was: am I making a list of the most violent moments in horror, or the goriest moments in horror, or the bloodiest moments in horror? There are differences


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HAPPY 'BLOODY' BIRTHDAY HORRORPHILE!

August 16th 2007 01:04
Bloody Birthday
That’s right, it’s been exactly one year since I delivered my first Pleasure of Nightmares post on Orble. Wow, how time flies when you’re having fun!

I must say it’s been an intriguing ride so far … I’ve been elated and depressed at different times. However I’ve very much appreciated the opportunity Orble has provided me. The five days a week writing discipline has been immeasurable for me as a freelance writer, and I trust it will be another stepping stone to my inevitable Great Success


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Jason Voorhees
It’s only fitting. I’ve already reviewed the first Friday the 13th movie which came out nearly 30 years ago … Eeeek! I’m starting to feel very old and crusty. Rather than throw up a review of Part 2 (which actually could have been the best in the series if it hadn’t been so badly butchered by American censors before it was released), I decided to impart a summary of the entire series (yes, all eleven of the bastards), with a focus on the BODY COUNT statistics and a severed nod toward the silliness which the series quickly descended into.

I rate each movie out of five stars


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Dracula's Castle
I read last night on Yahoo news that an heir of Romania's former royal family put "Dracula's Castle" in Transylvania up for sale on Monday, hoping to secure a buyer. No price was announced, although Real Estate experts predict the castle would sell for more than $135 million, adding that Archduke Dominic Habsburg, the current owner, will sell it only to a buyer "who will treat the property and its history with appropriate respect."

The Bran Castle, perched on a cliff near Brasov in mountainous central Romania, is a top tourist attraction because of its ties to Prince Vlad the Impaler, the bloodthirsty warlord whose cruelty inspired Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, Dracula. Legend has it that Vlad spent one night in the 1400s at the castle (that’s all you need; one dark and lonely night


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With Tarantino and Rodriguez’s Grindhouse features due for release in Australia later in the year I came up with an entertaining indulgence for budding festival programmers. The concept is to imagine you are in control of a repertory cinema for a weekend. You’ve been given the Saturday and the Sunday to program two horror/exploitation double feature sessions.

The criteria are simple: select two movies that can be linked by either thematic content or stylistics. You can’t use two movies by the same director. You choose the order; deciding which film to play first, and which movies might suit the Saturday night rather than the Sunday


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Shakers, SCREAMERS and movers

June 19th 2007 04:44
Suspiria DVD cover art
In every field there are always those talented filmmakers who are constantly pushing the boundaries, stretching the envelope, shakin’ the foundations. While their pioneering work is not always recognized at the time, some critics – champions, we should call them - will label the movie ahead of its time.

Most often than not, these maverick movies become regarded as cult classics. Not all cult movies are cult movies because of their novel, trailblazing parts and elements. Some become cult favourites because they are, in fact, deep, mind-ransacking, soul-dredging trash. But that’s another kettle of rich, aromatic fish


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Michael Myers in Halloween 2007
um ... "BOO!!"
Just as beauty is judged by the eye of the beholder, in the realm of the horror movie what scares the living bejesus out of one person might not necessarily have the same effect on another. Sure, just like the Miss Universe pageant top ten finalists, there’s always bound to be several contestants that everyone agrees are undeniably gorgeous. In horror there are numerous films – or scenes within films – which are generally regarded as universally terrifying.

Back in September of last year I posted my all-time scariest movies. This is partially based on how I view the films now, but more importantly, keeping in mind the age when I first saw them. I listed them in the chronological order of first seeing them; 1) Poltergeist (1981), 2) Alien (1979), 3) Halloween (1978), 4) Suspiria (1977) and 5) The Evil Dead (1982). Although Poltergeist doesn’t deliver me the chills and shocks like it did when I was 12, certainly Alien, Halloween and Suspiria still manage to hold a certain horrorphilic je ne sais quoi! As for The Evil Dead, a brilliant horror movie, but for me the tone has softened a lot over the years


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A Canon electric typewriter ... last of its kind
I do love memorable dialogue; screenwriter’s lines that shimmer and resonant long after the images have become hazy. Sometimes dialogue is enjoyable because it’s so ripe and juicy, other times it ricochets around because it’s so damn funny (many of my faves are streaked with irony). Some lines are absurdly clever, while others plain and simple as the night sum up the character or mood of the movie so damn succinctly.

Many of the following lines of dialogue may not appear that interesting taken out of context, but hopefully you will have seen the movie and know exactly the scene I’m talking about, that magical moment just prior to something scary or horrific happening, or perhaps moments after the mayhem has occurred


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… including six that already have been!
Bryn in a blue funk
Okay, okay, so I’m still in a blue funk about the plethora of remakes that keep being hustled and bustled out, across the big screen and all over the video store shelves. Surely and steadily all the cult classics – the untouchables – are being given the overhaul, even though they still have enough grunt and roar left in ‘em to last at least another fifty years!

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My favourite horror DIRECTORS

December 21st 2006 05:23
This is a little difficult, since I probably have more favourite individual movies than several movies by single directors. There are, however, horror auteurs whose body of work nearly always captures the essence of horror, the elements of which entices the Darkness, feeds our hunger for terror, haunts our dreams and plagues our nightmares.

Here are five of my favourite horror directors who have made two or more movies which I feel are seminal to the horror movie oeuvre


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… otherwise I’m gonna have to kill ya!

But seriously, these are in my opinion fifty of the most powerful, creepy, and gut-churning horror films ever made, and if you consider yourself a fan of horror then you should have seen at least half of these. If you’ve seen 45 or more then you’re a die-hard, gore-houndin’, terror-freakin’, True Believin’ horrorphile, and I salute you.
My criteria were movies that still hold potency in today’s viewing realm of overt cynicism and jaded sensibilities. But I had to be ruthless in my selection, as there were plenty more I could recommend


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My All-Time SCARIEST Movies

September 11th 2006 03:27
It’s one thing to shock and repulse a horror audience, and many horror films do that very effectively. But that’s only one side of the bloodied coin. The other side is, arguably, the harder side to scratch; being able to terrify an audience.

The graphic nature of gore was considered the last taboo of the silver screen, so in this age of extreme hard core horror where straight-to-video titles such as the Japanese Guinea Pig series and other Euro pseudo-snuff atrocities have pushed the gross-out envelope almost as far as it can go, horrorphiles find themselves searching for that elusive, yet altogether more soul-wrenching element … pure and utter terror.
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NOVELS I'd like to see as MOVIES

August 31st 2006 02:12
… or Books Already Filmed That Could Be Much Better.

Everyone has their favourite movie adaptation of a novel. And everyone has a short list of novels that haven’t been made into films which they’d love to see put into production


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Moderated by Bryn