Horror Obsession Takes It's Own Path...

by Rick Chavez
(Chicago, Illinois)

I've always been into horror flicks. Ever since I was a kid, when I would go to to the movies or a video store, I would always rent or watch the one with the creepiest title or cover. But now, as the horror addicted man that I am, it is hard for me to write down my top 5 favorite or what I consider best horror flicks of all time. Even after viewing over hundreds of titles, it is hard for me to come up with my own definitive list. Why is this so? Am I not faithful to the best genre of film.

I remember around fall 1993 I rented Halloween. At first I thought it was boring, but then it got near the end, and when Michael stood up behind Laurie, I became scared out of my wits. It felt like a special time because I felt like I was the only one who admired Michael Myers. Even though I was about 11 at that time I felt like I knew more about horror flicks than what my friends thought they knew. All I heard was Jason this and Freddy that. But I knew at that point, because of the brilliance of Halloween, that there were better and more introspective horror films out there besides all the slasher, excluding the first Nightmare, Friday, and Halloween, crap out there; thus, led my exploration into horror movie addiction.

I started buying, renting, watching all the horror films I could watch. Psycho was great, Exorcist was haunting, Night of the Living Dead was introspective, but yet none of these films got me as much as Halloween did. So from there on I considered Halloween to be the ultimate, and my favorite, horror film of all time.

It wasn't until recently that I discovered that the internet was filled with lists of favorite or best of horror flicks of all time. So, out of my own curiosity, I decided to construct my own list.

Of course Halloween would top my list. In fact my first list started like this:

1. Halloween
2. Night of the Living Dead (1968)
3. The Evil Dead

.... at this point I stopped. Halloween next to Night of the Living dead is understandable, but how could The Evil Dead be in my top 3. No doubt it is an absolute favorite of mine, but to no offense to Raimi, the film isn't very intelligent. I admire it for its rawness, and the 16mm atmosphere makes it very creepy. Then I thought about Night of the Living Dead. For me, Duane Jones made that picture. Without him the film wouldn't crack my top ten. Besides him, the film is an excellent display of what would happen if the world truly went down as a survival of the fittest, but to be honest the film isn't that scary. And to be extremely honest, Halloween isn't that scary. The sole reason it topped my list is because it introduced me to the power that is the horror film. So this brought me to my ultimate question: what do I admire more from a horror film, it's scary factor or it's intelligent, more respectable factor.

Unfortunately I couldn't come up with my own answer. This is why I came here, to seek an answer or help from you guys, horror film addicts.

Hopefully, one day, I can come up with my own list of the definitive horror films.

P.S. To Best-horror-movies.com,

I very much respect your list of the greatest horror films of all time. Alien truly is an all out horror film.