FFA Top 200 Horror Movies of All Time: #5 - The Thing (14 Viewers)

[KarmaPolice]

Similar to Jaws - the best scenes for me aren't directly about the shark. #1 is the Indianapolis speech. Right after that for me are scenes like the encounter with Mrs. Kintner, the first time Quint and Brody meet, things like that. The attack on the Kintner kid and Quint are awesome example of horror scenes, but again for me it's more the bonus cherry on top not the primary driver for watching.

I think those scenes and others are some of the things that make it such a good movie. One of my favorites is when Brody is feeling down (I think Mrs. Kintner slapped him in the face after her son's funeral prior to the scene) and his son starts imitating what he does. The movie took the time to focus on some of the characters, and not just be about trying to catch the shark that was terrorizing the community. It is horror, though. Jaws is a monster shark eating people. The shark really isn't shown that much until the very end. The music is great at building up the suspense of when Jaws is about to attack, and you can feel the fear without seeing the shark chew up a person. Being that it really can happen adds to the fear. I remember jumping when Hooper is underwater searching that man's boat and the man's head rolls out. Good times!

I get that, but I think the point I and a few others are also making is that some of these debatable movies are also dramas, actions, comedies, etc.. That's a bit what keeps it off my list I think, and the fact that it's the other stuff that I love the most. For me it's just not enough of a horror for a high rating, and it's too good of a movie to be rated #40 of anything so it was left off initially.

From my thoughts to your keyboard. Top 10 movie all time for me, but I didn't want to shoehorn it into a horror list.

I don't get to October and think, "time to watch Jaws!"

Me neither, probably because I'll have watched it 2-3 times over the summer already.

 

[Keith R]

Similar to Jaws - the best scenes for me aren't directly about the shark. #1 is the Indianapolis speech. Right after that for me are scenes like the encounter with Mrs. Kintner, the first time Quint and Brody meet, things like that. The attack on the Kintner kid and Quint are awesome example of horror scenes, but again for me it's more the bonus cherry on top not the primary driver for watching.

I think those scenes and others are some of the things that make it such a good movie. One of my favorites is when Brody is feeling down (I think Mrs. Kintner slapped him in the face after her son's funeral prior to the scene) and his son starts imitating what he does. The movie took the time to focus on some of the characters, and not just be about trying to catch the shark that was terrorizing the community. It is horror, though. Jaws is a monster shark eating people. The shark really isn't shown that much until the very end. The music is great at building up the suspense of when Jaws is about to attack, and you can feel the fear without seeing the shark chew up a person. Being that it really can happen adds to the fear. I remember jumping when Hooper is underwater searching that man's boat and the man's head rolls out. Good times!

I get that, but I think the point I and a few others are also making is that some of these debatable movies are also dramas, actions, comedies, etc.. That's a bit what keeps it off my list I think, and the fact that it's the other stuff that I love the most. For me it's just not enough of a horror for a high rating, and it's too good of a movie to be rated #40 of anything so it was left off initially.

From my thoughts to your keyboard. Top 10 movie all time for me, but I didn't want to shoehorn it into a horror list.

I don't get to October and think, "time to watch Jaws!"

Not an October thing perhaps, but Jaws and Midsommar would make a nice summer night horror double-feature

 

[Andy Dufresne]

Similar to Jaws - the best scenes for me aren't directly about the shark. #1 is the Indianapolis speech. Right after that for me are scenes like the encounter with Mrs. Kintner, the first time Quint and Brody meet, things like that. The attack on the Kintner kid and Quint are awesome example of horror scenes, but again for me it's more the bonus cherry on top not the primary driver for watching.

I think those scenes and others are some of the things that make it such a good movie. One of my favorites is when Brody is feeling down (I think Mrs. Kintner slapped him in the face after her son's funeral prior to the scene) and his son starts imitating what he does. The movie took the time to focus on some of the characters, and not just be about trying to catch the shark that was terrorizing the community. It is horror, though. Jaws is a monster shark eating people. The shark really isn't shown that much until the very end. The music is great at building up the suspense of when Jaws is about to attack, and you can feel the fear without seeing the shark chew up a person. Being that it really can happen adds to the fear. I remember jumping when Hooper is underwater searching that man's boat and the man's head rolls out. Good times!

I get that, but I think the point I and a few others are also making is that some of these debatable movies are also dramas, actions, comedies, etc.. That's a bit what keeps it off my list I think, and the fact that it's the other stuff that I love the most. For me it's just not enough of a horror for a high rating, and it's too good of a movie to be rated #40 of anything so it was left off initially.

From my thoughts to your keyboard. Top 10 movie all time for me, but I didn't want to shoehorn it into a horror list.

I don't get to October and think, "time to watch Jaws!"

Not an October thing perhaps, but Jaws and Midsommar would make a nice summer night horror double-feature

I'll just watch Jaws twice.

 

[shuke]

I'm struggling to understand any opinion that Jaws isn't horror. It evokes the exact responses in audiences that a horror movie sets out to do. If there's a single movie that sparks a fear of the ocean, it's this one. Is it because it;s Speilberg? OR because it made a lot of money?

For me, I hadn't thought about it too much while doing my initial pass, but it wasn't in my top 40. I guess I would just refer back to IK's post and thoughts about SotL. This is the movie I referred to that is in my top 5 all time movies, so it would score quite high on the movie quality line, but for my initial thoughts it wasn't "horror enough", but honestly haven't thought about it much after that. There are a few that I don't really have a great reason for leaving off, love a lot, but still don't feel right putting on a list of horror movies - Psycho, Silence of the Lambs, Jaws are the top ones I was thinking about.

It's one of the reasons I struggled with the list. If I admitted it's horror, it should be at the top if it's one of my all time movies, right? But it still didn't feel right having it in my top 5 horror movies list and I didn't want to have movies like that in the 40s-50s either.

You wouldn't feel right having, excuse me [checks notes], Psycho on a ####ING HORROR MOVIE LIST?!

 

[Todem]

What's everyone's highest ranked movie that they have not seen?


Mine-

#42 - Frankenstein - 1931

20. Let The Right One In

 

[KarmaPolice]

I'm struggling to understand any opinion that Jaws isn't horror. It evokes the exact responses in audiences that a horror movie sets out to do. If there's a single movie that sparks a fear of the ocean, it's this one. Is it because it;s Speilberg? OR because it made a lot of money?

For me, I hadn't thought about it too much while doing my initial pass, but it wasn't in my top 40. I guess I would just refer back to IK's post and thoughts about SotL. This is the movie I referred to that is in my top 5 all time movies, so it would score quite high on the movie quality line, but for my initial thoughts it wasn't "horror enough", but honestly haven't thought about it much after that. There are a few that I don't really have a great reason for leaving off, love a lot, but still don't feel right putting on a list of horror movies - Psycho, Silence of the Lambs, Jaws are the top ones I was thinking about.

It's one of the reasons I struggled with the list. If I admitted it's horror, it should be at the top if it's one of my all time movies, right? But it still didn't feel right having it in my top 5 horror movies list and I didn't want to have movies like that in the 40s-50s either.

You wouldn't feel right having, excuse me [checks notes], Psycho on a ####ING HORROR MOVIE LIST?!

Correct. To me Hitchcock = suspense/thriller. Sure, Psycho is the most horror of them, but to me we are right back to that Silence of the Lambs/Se7en territory and debate.

I admit, I struggle a little bit in general with pre-70s horror. I only had 1 maybe 2 in my top 40-50. I like and appreciate a lot of them, but not enough to rate them too highly. Also when I think about those decades I tend to do a little bit side by side, and if I can think of better examples of horror movies, we are right back to that first part above. In that same year we have stuff like Eyes Without a Face, Black Sunday, Peeping Tom, Village of the Damned. I wouldn't argue they are all better movies, but I'd start to argue they might be better horror movies. Psycho isn't my favorite Hitchcock, and not sure it's in his top 5 for me either, so there's that as well.

Probably not the best example. Jaws and Silence were the struggles because both of those are all-time movies for me. Psycho isn't.

 

[KarmaPolice]

Similar to Jaws - the best scenes for me aren't directly about the shark. #1 is the Indianapolis speech. Right after that for me are scenes like the encounter with Mrs. Kintner, the first time Quint and Brody meet, things like that. The attack on the Kintner kid and Quint are awesome example of horror scenes, but again for me it's more the bonus cherry on top not the primary driver for watching.

I think those scenes and others are some of the things that make it such a good movie. One of my favorites is when Brody is feeling down (I think Mrs. Kintner slapped him in the face after her son's funeral prior to the scene) and his son starts imitating what he does. The movie took the time to focus on some of the characters, and not just be about trying to catch the shark that was terrorizing the community. It is horror, though. Jaws is a monster shark eating people. The shark really isn't shown that much until the very end. The music is great at building up the suspense of when Jaws is about to attack, and you can feel the fear without seeing the shark chew up a person. Being that it really can happen adds to the fear. I remember jumping when Hooper is underwater searching that man's boat and the man's head rolls out. Good times!

I get that, but I think the point I and a few others are also making is that some of these debatable movies are also dramas, actions, comedies, etc.. That's a bit what keeps it off my list I think, and the fact that it's the other stuff that I love the most. For me it's just not enough of a horror for a high rating, and it's too good of a movie to be rated #40 of anything so it was left off initially.

From my thoughts to your keyboard. Top 10 movie all time for me, but I didn't want to shoehorn it into a horror list.

I don't get to October and think, "time to watch Jaws!"

Not an October thing perhaps, but Jaws and Midsommar would make a nice summer night horror double-feature

If I do a double feature I seem to pair it with something goofy. Either another "vacation" movie like Great Outdoors, or another summer blockbuster. If I am feeling spicy, it will be something like the reamake Piranha.

I think this is why I like so many found footage movies. It seems I don't love zombie movies, or vampires, or creature features. It seems like gravitate to hauntings and the horrors of humans.

 

[Todem]

I am out of town and will catch up in my thoughts on a bunch of movies covered in the last few pages.

We are now in the absolute gold standards in the horror genre.

 

[KarmaPolice]

Maybe a fun way to do some missed movies would be to post 1 from each subgenre that wasn't on the list, like:

Found Footage
Zombie
Vampire/werewolf
Slasher
Haunting

Etc..

 

[The Gator]

I'm doing The Sadness and Martyrs double feature

 

[KarmaPolice]

I'm doing The Sadness and Martyrs double feature

May I suggest chasing that with something from the non-horror selection? Requiem for a Dream, perhaps?

 

[The Gator]

I'm doing The Sadness and Martyrs double feature

May I suggest chasing that with something from the non-horror selection? Requiem for a Dream, perhaps?

after that scene in The Sadness, the scene is a walk in the park.

 

[Todem]

I'm doing The Sadness and Martyrs double feature

Oh Jesus……that’s a double doozy of WTF did I just watch.