The Bigass Bravo Horror List!! (Part 1)

"I deed eeet....I faawwkeeng, faaawkeeeng deed eeeet!".

Yep, after chipping away at it for about 6 years (give or take a year) I finally killed off the lists for "Bravo's 100 Scary Movie Moments", "Bravo's 30 Even Scarier Movie Moments", and "Bravo's 13 Scarier Movie Moments".

Eighty-something of them I've already done here, but the final 57 I'm about to do for the first time.
In three chunks of 19 at a time.

So here we go.

Starting with ones I've seen before, but never got around to doing here....


The Ring (2002)

Saw it in the theater.

Ehhh, all right.
I hear the Japanese version is scarier.

It's got scary ideas and visuals, but the cheesey acting, and melodramatic directing kept taking me out of the whole thing.

Don't hate it, but not a fan.
Haven't seen it since the first time.
Probably never going to again.

D'oh! did this one before here.
Ah, well...


Jacob's Ladder (1990)

I liked it a lot.
Striking visuals, and the story keeps pulling reality out from under you in unsettling ways.
Its crawled around in my head decades afterward after only the one viewing.
I've got to see it again, and maybe even own it someday.
But that list is so huge already.


Seven (1995)

I've got to give this one another chance sometime.
When I first saw it, I couldn't get past how much of a "Silence Of The Lambs", clone it felt like.


Cape Fear (1962)

I said in my "Psycho", review that Norman Bates was the prototype for the Freddys and Jasons, and I'd have to say Robert Mitchum as Max Cady is one of the next evolutionary steps along the way.

Check out both this, and the remake, they're both good.


The Vanishing (1988)

Another one that crawled around in my head after.
Very simple idea, no gore, but man oh man...

About a guy whose girlfriend disappears, and he spends the next few years trying to chase down who took her, and he thinks he knows who did it, and confronts the guy, and the guy won't admit to WHAT he did, but he cops to he did something, and he offers to show him what he did, but only if he takes a sleeping tablet.
The Bravo show spoils the ending, but I won't.
Check it out.


Single White Female (1992)

I see why this is on the list, because it's really popular, and was a hit in its day...but I think it's overrated.
This was part of a slew of movies that came on the heels of "Fatal Attraction", where the killer is in your life, and even usurping you.

Good for what it is, but not my cuppa tea as far as horror goes.
I dunno, I typically like my psychos blue collar.
Yuppie anxieties not so much.
Can't relate.


Fatal Attraction (1987)

I liked it a lot better than "Single White Female", but then, it was more original.
Or so I thought, until I saw "Play Misty For Me".

One of those ones you have to see at least once for pop-culture awareness.


Marathon Man (1976)

Excellent. Saw this way back in high school film history class.
Wish I could have taken 8 blocks of that class for all the good the other ones did for me.

One of the best thrillers ever.
Hoffman acts the shit out of this.
I'd easily put this on a "must watch to be a complete human being", list.


Duel (1971)

Speilberg's first movie. Made for TV. Pretty sure it retroactively got a theatrical release.

Very simple idea. A guy is chased by a maniac in a trailer truck for no reason that's ever revealed.
We never see the driver.
Just this evil truck that hunts him.

It builds, and builds, and gets crazier, and crazier, tenser, and tenser, until you think your heart's going to pop.
Speilberg was a genius right out of the gate.


The Sixth Sense (1999)

Covered it very briefly in "I h8 the 90's".

From the link...

Okay the first time.
Hasn't held up.
Nor has Shyamalan's career.
Ouch.

That was 2011, Shyamalan's losing streak got even more epic after that.

People say this and "Signs", were his good ones, I say it was this, and "Unbreakable".


Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory (1971)

The name of the list is "100 Scariest movie MOMENTS", so they can loophole in other genres that had a freaky moment in them, and here it's the Wonka-tania going down the scary tunnel.

Freaked me out as a kid, but I LIKED it
I was a little weirdo even then. :-D

HISHE did a great goof on the scary tunnel.


Signs (2002)

Things were going so well with this movie, and then the maudlin and illogical ending burnt it all to the ground.

Overrated as fuck.
Watch "Unbreakable", instead.


The Others (2001)

Another overrated one that the ending ruins.

The tension that the trailer and clips show is there...until the end where the ghosts reveal themselves, and they're out in broad room light as people, like "here we are", and it deflates all the tension and mystery.
And then the big twist is virtually identical to the one in "The Sixth Sense".


The Wizard Of Oz (1939)

Same loophole here as "Willy Wonka".

Here, according to the show, the creepiness is anything to do with the witch, and her flying monkeys.

I always did wonder, WTF was supposed to happen when the hourglass ran out?
Was a spell supposed to make Dorothy just drop dead, or was the witch going to run down, and hack her to pieces with a butcher knife?
And why the time limit?

We've all seen this, and if you haven't, where the fuck have you been?

Anyhoo, there, I finally covered this one.
See also "Oz The Great And Powerful",


Now, we get into ones I watched just to finish this list off...


Cat People (1942)

I've reviewed the pretentious 80's remake before.

This version is the bare skeleton of that one without the SFX transformations, and the titties.

Meh, I thought it was kinda boring, really.
Built way too slow for my tastes.
YMMV.


Pacific Heights (1990)

Michael Keaton's followup to the first "Batman".

Hated it.
More yuppie anxiety.
Skip it.


Village Of The Damned (1960)

Covered the 90's remake here.

Covered the plot pretty well there.
The 90's one is almost shot for shot the same movie, so watch either one.
They're both great.


Shallow Grave (1990)

A rare jewel in amongst "Pacific Heights", level drek.

Starring the 9th Doctor, and Obi-Wan Kenobi.

About three awful roommates who take in a 4th guy who up and dies, and leaves behind a satchel full of a million dollars, and they soon start distrusting each other, and then start bumping each other off for it.

Moral is, roommates suck, don't have any if you can help it.


Night Of The Hunter (1955)

Another one with Robert Mitchum playing a creep.

The protagonists are a little boy and his little sister, their dad is a crook who hides his ill-gotten gains in the girl's doll, then gets arrested, tried, and executed for the people he shot in the robbery.
Mitchum is the father's cellmate who gets out, and seduces the mother to try to find the money.

Very frustrating to watch, everyone was a naive gullible Bible-thumping idiot except the villain and the kids.
It was like watching the Trump campaign unfold in microcosm.

For that reason, I actually recommend it.


That's my 19 for today.
See you tomorrow for part 2!