Halloween Countdown Top 5: Those that just missed the cut

October is here, and with that comes HALLOWEEN. This year I'll be doing, gradually, a countdown of my top 5 favourite horror films. I'd do more but I don't know whether I'd have the time. Anyway, horror is a fantastic genre, so here are a few films that just missed the cut on my all-time top 5: these films are all at the very least HIGH 4.5/5's for me, and some are really close to making my top 100 films of all-time. 

Silence of the Lambs is a film I used to absolutely adore. Come time I still love it a great deal, but there are certainly some flaws apparent in it, notably though some of the more heavyhanded scenes in terms of direction, and I'd say the third act is slightly weaker than the terrific buildup of the first two (the ending with Lecter's goodbye to Clarice is brilliant, though).

Don't Look Now is Nicholas Roeg's most effective film, with moments that genuinely terrify you to the very core, yet unlike most of his work there's also an emotional undercurrent to it all that resonates through the story of a grieving couple, most notably shown through Donald Sutherland's brilliant lead performance. It's not perfect and some of the slo-mo and effects are a bit dated, but like Silence of the Lambs the final scene is absolutely amazing.

Halloween is one of those films, like Raging Bull, I understand and completely feel the adoration to be justified. I just don't love it nearly as much as some do, though I do think it's a rather terrific atmospheric film which makes the slasher genre, one I'm not particularly fond of, quite watchable.

As does Scream, which though I don't think is a truly great film, is certainly one of the most entertaining horror films of all time. Its subversive nature doesn't always quite hit the mark, and one could argue it reaches its peak from the opening scene (which is still one of the most downright terrifying sequences in movie history), but still...I love watching it.

I don't love the finale to Night of the Hunter but I love everything before it, so it warrants a mention here as a rather compelling subversion of the Big Bad Wolf story.

Most horror comedies are a bit of a farce (in a bad way), but Shaun of the Dead is a wonderfully witty and at times rather effectively emotional take on the zombie comedy that grows on me more and more with every re-watch.

I Saw the Devil has a bit of an intrinsic flaw to me in that I found it so reprehensible to watch throughout that it took away from some of my appreciation of the film. I know, I know, it was the filmmakers intent, and I was certainly horrified by its every sequence, but I never really felt invested in the story, so to speak, because the hellish atmosphere enveloped everything. It does have an amazing leading performance by the South Korean acting maestro Choi Min-Sik.

Like I Saw the Devil, The Fly is a horror film with a great leading performance by the one and only Jeff Goldblum, and is otherwise a rather solid and engaging sci-fi take on the genre, with some beyond its time special effects. I like it a great deal, I don't love it, which is the same for Dead Ringers, another David Cronenberg psychological horror film, but both flicks are rather unforgettable watches. I need a re-watch of Videodrome though, that's for sure.

I really need a re-watch for The Thing. I'll be doing so next month, but for the timebeing it's a solid horror film with a great Ennio Morricone score, and the fact I loved The Hateful Eight so much makes me think a re-watch could bump this up. Possible future head-to-head.

The first half of Stephen King's It (1990) is amazing, think of an even better version of Stranger Things with the horror levels amped up to 10. Its second half lets it down, but the first half with the kids is some fine cinematic magic in terror.

I'd put Mulholland Drive in my top 5 if I considered it to be a horror movie, but I don't. Eraserhead is what I consider to be the only proper 'horror' film of David Lynch's I've seen. When you get down to it the film is a series of scattershot scary images, but nevertheless it works incredibly well for what it is.

Rosemary's Baby is Roman Polanski at his most stylized and excessive, and while the film's overt symbolism and downbeat nature might not work for some, it does for me entirely.

Les Diaboliques, The Haunting and Hour of the Wolf are some older horror films I really, really need to see.

I love, love, love both Nosferatu and Nosferatu the Vampyre, and I'll admit in terms of quality they're up there with some of my top 5. The thing is I need a re-watch for both, firstly, and secondly I can't decide which of the two I prefer. A future head-to-head, perhaps? As it stands I love Max Shrek as Nosferatu, but I love Werner Herzog's style of direction for the 1979 version.

I personally prefer Hitchcock when he's more 'thriller' and less 'horror', but that doesn't mean I find Psycho and The Birds to be anything less than great horror products from the Master of Suspense, even if I do prefer it more when his characters are engaged in slightly more grounded sequences of tension.



I should note that my #5 film the first one I'll cover, will be me technically cheating by putting two films in joint place: one of the most iconic horror films of the 1970s and the film directly influenced by it...