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This is the film that started the era of slasher films. The story is about a serial killer named Michael Myers, who killed his sister, when he was only six, and has now escaped from his mental institution and returns to his home town to wreak havoc. He goes after one girl (Jamie Lee Curtis) in particular, who is baby-sitting a friend's kid on Halloween night. Despite the attempts from Michael's psychiatrist (Donald Pleasance) to stop him, the killer just keeps on coming.Made on a small budget, Halloween is the definitive slasher film. Many of the cliches you usually see in horror films, most likely originated here. Despite how it's categorized as a blood-and-gore film, there's very little blood and almost no gore. The horror comes from the suspense and the eerie music, composed by the director John Carpenter. Carpenter uses the usual technique of scaring people to perfection. What he does is give you a false scare, lets you relax, then stabs you in the throat. As Alfred Hitchcock once said, "I enjoy playing people like a piano". Halloween does just that.
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Though some may not agree with me, Nightmare is probably the best horror film next to Psycho. It tells of how a group of teens seem to be having the same horrible nightmare, about a man with a scarred face, dirty hat and shirt and a glove with four razor-sharp knives attached to it. He starts to murder the teens one by one, using their own fears and dreams to get at them. You see (for those of you who don't know already), he is the ghost of a child-killer, who was burned to death by adults, including the parents of the dead children. So he decides to go after the children of his murderers for revenge.The thing I always liked more about Freddy, than I ever liked about Michael or Jason, is that Freddy's not a stupid killer in a hockey mask, who hacks up stupid teenagers. Freddy (Robert Englund) uses imaginative ways for his victims to die, using what they most hate, fear or love against them. Say, for instance, there is a girl, who hates bugs with a vengeance. What could be an interesting way of killing her? Why, turning her into a bug of course! Kudos to director Wes Craven for bringing us one of the most imaginative horror films ever. My one complaint is the lousy ending. But I won't tell you why I think this for fear of ruining the ending for you. Nightmare will always be the number one horror movie in my book.
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Here is the true genuine "splatter" film. None of the blood-and-gore effects from the other films mentioned in this article can compare to some of the stuff shown here. Most of you know the story, but let me refresh the memories for the people who don't know. Murders are taking place at Crystal Lake and the murderer is suspected to be Jason Vorhees, a kid that supposedly drowned years ago, because of some incompetent counselors. Apparently, Jason is getting revenge against every camp counselor in Crystal Lake. I won't reveal the real identity of the killer. All I can say is that it's not Jason. At least...not this time.The film is supposedly scary, though the effects and the dialogue are so laughable, this has to be from the "so bad, it's good" school of filmaking. Fans of the series might boost this rating up by about a star.
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Here we have a cult classic about five people, who return to the place where they grew up. However, the house is now occupied by a inbred family of cannibals, who have an bizarre idea of what type of meat makes a good barbecue. The pride and joy of the family is Leatherface, a squealing madman, who wears a mask made out of a human face and totes around a chainsaw for slicing and dicing his victims. That's the story in a nut-shell. It's sort of based on the life of notorious serial killer Ed Gein, who killed his victims and made things out of their skin. The film is terrifying and stomach-churning. It has a sort of claustrophobic feel to it, making you squirm in your seats. Though people say this is a really bloody film, there's only about three minutes worth of blood, tops! Also, the idea of watching people get clubbed in the head and hung up on meat hooks, might be a bit much for people with weak stomachs. Still, this has the power to terrify and shock, even after all this time.
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