Best Horror Film of 1979 (part 2 of a series)

holy shit

JFC - The Brood vs. Alien is a super tough call.

A buddy of mine keeps pestering me to see Tourist Trap.

Voted Phantasm

Is Phantasm the one with the spinning ball of death?

Yeah. And Angus Scrimm as "the Tall Man".

There's a batshit enthusiasm and almost accidental surrealism about the Phantasm movies that makes me love them madly even if it's obviously not the objectively "best" film on this list.

Actually no fuck it it is the best, Don Coscarelli tried to do something different and succeeded, for all the flaws in the series.

Is Firepower on the list by mistake? The only one I know from this era is an actioner with James Coburn (I think) in it.

I'm sure The Brood will win, and if you can put up with a Count Floyd-worthy bad performance from Oliver Reed, it is indeed a wild and gratifyingly subversive film. (Cronenberg used to love saying it was his personal Kramer vs. Kramer--he'd just emerged from a messy divorce--still one of my favorite readings by a director of his own film.) I think I'll vote for Hooper's Salem's Lot, though; just a good classical vampire film, and the first glimpse we get of the monster is one of my favorite shock moments ever (scroll to the five minute mark--or better yet, watch the whole movie!):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0vbSM-fnFw&feature=related

Anyone willing to rep for Herzog's Nosferatu? Based on what little I've seen, it seems to consist of Nosferatu just casually shooting the shit with people and hanging out.

I watched the Herzog movie as a teenager and remember being hugely disappointed but that's cos I was expecting a horror movie.

Is Firepower on the list by mistake? The only one I know from this era is an actioner with James Coburn (I think) in it.

I took the list from Wikipedia, but failed to confirm the validity of this one apparently. Whoops!

Wd argue that neither Nosferatu or Stalker is a horror movie in any useful sense.

Is The Brood the film where everyone in a block of flats catches a virus that makes them sex each other until they die?

I think that was Rabid

Shivers or Rabid. Always mix those 2. The Brood = Ollie Reed plus evil babbies

oh hahahaha yeah is that the tarkovsky stalker? i just assumed it was something else with the same name i hadnt heard of. yeah that wouldnt be horror so much then.

i am 90% sure im voting for phantasm here.

Anyone willing to rep for Herzog's Nosferatu? Based on what little I've seen, it seems to consist of Nosferatu just casually shooting the shit with people and hanging out.

― Darin, Wednesday, 16 June 2010 22:36 (24 minutes ago)

I adore it. The scene of the ghost ship arriving in town is really haunting and beautiful.

I also like the depiction of Kinski's Nosferatu as pitiable and grotesque.

Strange that I've seen almost all of the 1980 horror poll movies, but have somehow missed like 12 of these.

I really like Phantasm and still watch it from time to time, but my abiding love for Alien -- the very first R-rated film and the first horror movie I ever saw -- makes this a walk for me.

I guess I'm wrong--Phantasm will win...Speaking of Count Floyd, I'd absolutely love to see Flaherty's character try to sell Stalker as a horror film: "And, um, they're just walking around...they're-they're-they're just walking around, kids, and they're trapped...they're trapped in the Zone, they're right there trapped inside the Zone, and they just can't...they can't get out! They're trapped! Trapped in the Zone!...You don't think that's a bad thing being trapped in the Zone?...[panic-stricken look towards off-screen director] AH-OOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

Although I gotta say that at age 10 The Amityville Horror scared the ever-loving crap out of me. But at that age I also found the Frank Langella Dracula to be simply confusing and silly.

wtf is stalker doing on here?

These polls take me back to buying Fangoria as a kid.

http://www.horrorphile.net/images/fangoria-magazine-issue-7.jpg http://www.horrorphile.net/images/fangoria-magazine-issue-8.jpg http://www.horrorphile.net/images/fangoria-magazine-issue-9.jpg

actually unless there is a super contrarian push back i cant see anything other than alien winning this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzQ8u74uxx8&feature=related

also i think when a stranger calls was pretty great but its been a long long time

Wait, "Nightwing" = Armand Assante + killer bats, right?

Definitely throwing a vote The Brood's way. A best of both worlds situation there (the '70s eeeew factor + the '80s chill factor).

Fulci's Zombie is so stupid.

Salem's Lot has got some of the scariest shit I've ever seen in a TV movie ... and then also 2.5 hours of '70s soap opera.

Fair point. I guess I enjoyed the scary stuff so much--especially in the context of a TV movie--that the soap-opera downtime just seemed like necessary build-up. Not Hamlet, but fairly absorbing and well delivered. Plus I have a crush on Bonnie Bedelia.

I'm being a little flip. It's sort of a disturbing mix, actually. It sort of worked the same way in the book, where you started out with this methodical introduction to characters, characters, characters ... all of which winds up in about 100 pages' worth of people's lives ending.

i think the boy vampire tap-scraping on the window to be let in in Salem's lot is one of the scariest images i can remember from being a child.

hell yes dude, that one still sticks with me to this day

gnarrrgh Alien v Phantasm v Stalker v Zombi 2...?!

(even if I agree that Stalker doesn't rly belong here).

I've been really jonesing to see Prophecy lately for some reason.

The TV ad for Amityville Horror scared me so bad I never saw the movie :/

http://i44.tinypic.com/oaykd1.jpg

I was going to vote Alien but Herzog's Nosferatu is like daaaaaaamn

I hated Zombi 2.

Stalker is the best movie, but it's in the wrong poll

Voting Phantasm, even though I think Alien is pretty unimpeachable & obv. deserves to win this.
When I was a kid, I used to watch the first two Phantasm movies every year, right around Halloween. For whatever reason, they gave me the creeps in just such a way that coincided nicely with the late-October chill & decay (of course it didn't hurt that they were CONSTANTLY on television during that time of year, at least where I lived. To this day I can't take bike ride down a country road late Oct-Nov w/o at least once picturing the Tall Man singlehandedly hauling a casket over his shoulder across some nondescript cemetery, next to some nondescript church in the middle of NOWHERE. What great imagery & what a great villain - much about the films has not aged so well, but The Tall Man has got to be one of the great cinematic boogeymen OF ALL TIME.

Another thing about the movies that ruled was the alternate dimension/martian landscape/manufacturing zone for dwarf corpse-slaves.

Oddly enough I have thusfar not seen The Brood or The Thing, even tho I generally stan for Cronenberg. How this happened is anyone's guess. At this point, I'm almost sort of saving them for a special occasion.

Oh man you need to see both those movies!

I ended up voting for Alien. It's perfect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojhGdRSkiUw

wow i haven't seen the brood or the thing either iirc.

It's really demoralizing for me that the director of Alien now makes movies like Gladiator.

Is The Brood the film where everyone in a block of flats catches a virus that makes them sex each other until they die?

― kraudive, Wednesday, June 16, 2010 3:55 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I think that was Rabid

― Darin, Wednesday, June 16, 2010 3:56 PM (Yesterday)

Brood: Oliver Reed and evil rage children in puffy ski jackets
Rabid: Marilyn Chambers and virus that makes them bite each other
Shivers: island luxury apartment tower and the sexing until death

Lots of the Herzog is oddly dreamy and lovely (a vibe that belatedly ports over to Coppola's "Dracula"). Plus, he released an army of rats! "Alien" is pretty much as perfect as "Jaws," save why Sigourney strips to her undies at the end. "The Brood" is a bit of a mess, but boldly transitional to his "body horror" peaks of "Scanners," "Videodrom" and "Dead Ringers."

"Salem's Lot" I haven't seen for ages, but it was a pretty good TV movie, if I recall! Hooper is a pretty talentless hack, though, who lucked out.

Alien: In space, no one can hear you snore.

Stalker?? horror?

The Brood v Nosferatu

Just curious, when was the last time you saw "Alien?" Cause it's always more efficient than I remember it. I mean, "Aliens" - an action movie! - waits, like, an hour before there's any action, then follows it up with another 45 minutes of "inaction" (akin in mood to "Alien") then goes all out at the end to the extent you forget there was such a loooooooong build-up. "Alien" is pretty linear in its suspense, and though I suspect time has robbed it of some surprise/shock, the rest of it (acting, set design, creature design, SOUND design) rules.

Nice deployment of smoke, strobes and sirens in the last 15 minutes of Alien but, yeah, I have to agree with the detractors that it takes a pretty long while to get there.

So many other films since then have bitten the basic structure of Alien that it's hard now to appreciate how well built the movie is. The long build-up is one of its strengths.

One thing that was really fun about Alien was that when it came out in the pre-Internet dawn time most people didn't have a clue it was a horror movie. "Oh, a new SF movie, we liked Star Wars and Close Encounters, let's go see that." My wife was so traumatized by her experience in the theater she still won't watch it.

Agree with others that Zombi 2 is a crashing bore, famous sharkfight and eyeball threat scenes notwithstanding.

A few more 1979 entries worth a mention:

Delirium - 1/2 a slasher flick featuring a crazed 'Nam vet, 1/2 a lame political thriller
Killer Fish - cheezy Italian Jaws rip-off with piranhas (and Lee Majors)
Malabimba - legendarily degenerate Italian Exorcist rip-off -- boring as hell w or w/out porn inserts
Screamers - decent Italian Dr. Moreau, uh, interpretation - most famous for ads & poster art falsely promising that "you will see a man turned inside out!" You won't.
The Clonus Horror (aka "Parts") - neat, low-budget sci-fi/horror flick about clones raised for their...
The Driller Killer - early Abel Ferrara slasher flick, nicely miserable slice of vintage L.E.S. punk grime
Buio Omega - super sleazy Joe D'Amato necro thriller, one of his best (not much competition)

jeez, did i say immoral tales? yeah, immoral women = the film i was talking about (and the one on the list). cursed brain..

oh, and hal jam, if i were trying to find horror flicks for a year, i'd do an advanced title search on imdb and restrict title type to "horror", release date to "1979", and genre to horror. you'll probably have to screen the results for stuff that more than a few people have seen, but you'll get most everything that might conceivably qualify.

...and restrict title type to "horror" "feature film", release date to "1979", and genre to horror.

uh, yeah

not my poll. and, call me old-school, but i just go by reference books (Hardy, McCarty, Balun). though they don't always agree on year of release.

Buio Omega is Buried Alive. I know there is more than one though, but that is the one I assumed was referred to in the poll.

oops, sorry hal jam. thought for some reason that you were asking that question. redirect to darin...

batting average is not too high today

no worries.

haven't associated Buio Omega with the title Buried Alive since, wow, the VHS years???

Whoa - Clonus was 1979 and left off this list? It is a classic feel-bad 70s flick that was later made into the happy-ending glossy action-packed star vehicle The Island starring Ewan McGregor's butt and Scarlett Johansson's boobs.

x-post What about "Alien" is "super-clean?" The sleeping/eating spaces? If anything if was an opening salvo in the "the future is dirty" sort of vision. Everything in this movie is leaking or hissing.

http://www.favouritefilm.com/acatalog/alienlobby1.jpg

The sleeping/eating spaces?

But like I said, everything else is either leaking or hissing. If anything the sterile sleeping/eating arrangements are there just to highlight the messiness/rustiness of the rest of it.

if i were trying to find horror flicks for a year, i'd do an advanced title search on imdb and restrict title type to "horror", release date to "1979", and genre to horror. you'll probably have to screen the results for stuff that more than a few people have seen, but you'll get most everything that might conceivably qualify.

Thanks, contenderizer. I'll use IMDB along w/some other sites in future polls, so hopefully no more omissions.

Killer Fish - cheezy Italian Jaws rip-off with piranhas (and Lee Majors)

ha, I remember watching this on HBO

But like I said, everything else is either leaking or hissing. If anything the sterile sleeping/eating arrangements are there just to highlight the messiness/rustiness of the rest of it.

that's why contenderizer said it combines the used future/clean future, it's got both.

and does both well to boot

I mentioned this above but it's pretty amazing for a 30 year old sci-fi film to still look fresh

Alien was so scary that I get scared just looking at that egg image.

If we really dug deep I bet we could do a 1979 poll of only non-US Jaws ripoffs...

nah, most of those came earlier (Tintorera, Orca) or later (Great White, Mako, Devilfish)

I guess killer fish is technically a piranha ripoff

"Piranha" is awesome. Can't wait til we get to some Dante. "The Howling" is scary as shit.

My friend kevin did a whole slideshow/presentation about ripoff shark movies at 92nd st Y a few months ago so I have posters for all these shark/mean fish movies fresh in my mind's eye. Really wanna see Tintorera because a) early Basil Poledouris score and b) sharks vs. swingers

a tradition still alive & well, it seems

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWJ70m4GaUM&feature=related

it's just not the same.

Yeah if there's one thing the cheap shark movie slideshow proved to me, it's that motionless fiberglass shark >>>> dynamic CGI shark. When we got to the 90s-and-later part it became impossible to appreciate that shit on any level.

i blame Renny Harlin. had to have "fast" sharks. jerk.

For Cutthroat Island? He was probly terrified of ending up w/something like the sharks in the Matthau pirates movie.

x-post What about "Alien" is "super-clean?" The sleeping/eating spaces? If anything if was an opening salvo in the "the future is dirty" sort of vision. Everything in this movie is leaking or hissing.

― Josh in Chicago

yeah - i agree with whomever it was upthread that compared it to Altman(?) or some other 70s drama - esp. in terms of pacing and the types of characters and non-glamorous appearance of the actors

otm. the character interactions in the first half of the film are strongly reminiscent of altman (especially in the dining room/meeting sequence), and unlike any other horror or sci-fi film i can think of. probably the most convincing portrait of workplace cultures & politics the genre has produced. carpenter's the thing tries for something similar a couple years later, but falls far short.

i'm sure there are other examples of this from about the same time period, though ... none are immediately coming to mind, however. The 70s remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers has some similarities in terms of the pacing and initial characterizations, maybe?

The pacing and tone of The Shining is kind of similar.

The scruffy blue collar space guys leisurely sitting around doing blue collar space stuff came from Dan OBannon having written Dark Star earlier, I thought.

yeah, probably, but Dark Star has nowhere near as convincing a vibe. it's only partly a product of script - owes at least as much to the performances and the direction/editing.

really should watch the 70s body snatchers again. love donald sutherland and remember very little about it.

70s body snatchers is one of my favorite movies - imo better than the original

^ Totally. A masterpiece. Listen to the commentary track some time. Kaufman is some sort of unsung genius.

that's what i thought at the time, as a kid, but looking back, alls i remember is

http://www.ugo.com/images/articles/000903600/903558_big.jpg

uh...

http://www.ugo.com/images/articles/000903600/903558_big.jpg

but...

http://www.ugo.com/images/articles/000903600/903558_big.jpg

yes, but in a sense that image summarizes the existential crisis of 21st Century America.

nods sagely. all the good ones turn out to be pod people.

also, Stepford Wives.

70s body snatchers is one of my favorite movies - imo better than the original

― sarahel, Friday, 18 June 2010 22:33 (47 minutes ago)

otm

i mean, seriously - it's got Jeff Goldblum and Leonard Nimoy

One more testimonial to the '78 Body Snatchers: one of the 25 best films of the decade, I'd say. Kael's review captured its loopiness well.

could you post a link to that review?

Somebody had all the capsule 5001 Nights reviews online, but I think they took them down (or were forced to). You'd have to go to When the Lights Go Down for the full review. Kael loved Phil Kaufman's films.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

lol killer fish