7 Scares In 7 Years

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UPDATED WITH MY OWN LIST DOWN BELOW!
(LOOK MA, I MADE A LIST!)

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Alright, I don't know if I can completely trust the opinion of someone who says they are disappointed that they didn't have room for Saw on their 7 Best Horror Movies of the Last 7 Years list.

But Jeffrey M. Anderson at Cinematical does have some very good choices that did make it onto the list, so let's take a look.

These are his choices with my esteemed comments alongside.

1. Pulse (2001, Kurosawa) - He speaks of the original Japanese version, not the currently-in-theaters one. I reviewed it here. Good movie... certainly not my fave, though.

2. Land of the Dead (2005, Romero) - Another good movie, I reviewed it here. Again, probably wouldn't make my top list, though. Sorry, George!

3. Audition (2001, Miike) - Watch the bag, indeed. Shudder. This one might place at the top on my list. It'd be tough to choose between this and Wolf Creek. Which did not make his list and wasn't even mentioned. Humph.

4. The Blair Witch Project (1999, Sanchez & Myrick) - Def. top 3 material. Scares me every single time.

5. The Descent (2006, Marshall) - This one I just saw and reviewed last week; I need some time to decide where this would go, as well as watching it again with the real ending attached.

6. Session 9 (2001, Anderson) - I'm with him on this one, Session 9 is seriously underrated. Think it got lost having come out right before 9/11, actually. Anyway, it's very very scary stuff.

7. The Devil's Backbone (2001, Del Toro) - Another good choice. I think. I've only seen it the one time in the theater even though, yes, I did buy it when it came out, so my lack of a burning desire to watch it again kind of makes me wonder if it'd place so high on my own list. Have to give it another chance.

Besides being disappointed he couldn't place the terrible, terrible Saw on his list, Anderson does say he's upset he also couldn't fit Ravenous, so that's a point in his favor. Ravenous would've easily made my list, though - it marked the first time I'd been made nauseous from pure tension while watching a horror movie since I was 10 years old and watching Cujo. I had to stop the video for a few minutes.

So what's my list, I find myself asking... myself... as probably does Jeffrey M. Anderson, since "It's easy to critique isn't it, asshole?" (That JMA in my brain talking to me, by the way.)

Anyway... I think I can do this! Lists fill me with terror, as if they're written in The Granite Tablets of Eternity or something, but let's give her a go.

MY TOP 7 HORROR FILMS
OF THE PAST 7 YEARS

1. Requiem For A Dream
2. Audition
3. Wolf Creek
4. American Psycho
5. Ravenous
6. The Blair Witch Project
7. Session 9

Yes, I am calling Requiem a horror film, Aronofsky himself has called it "a monster movie" so I feel justified. And nothing has scared me like it. Ever.

I had a really hard time finishing this list (shocker!). Somehow I decided American Psycho, as a horror film (which it is, though I'd say more marginally than Requiem), wouldn't place as highly as it would on just a plain ol' Favorite Movies of Any Genre list. It doesn't scare me like the three before it, or even as the ones behind it, but it's a great, great film outside of existing just to scare me. It's got a lot of other things it's doing in there. It was hard to figure out where to put it, honestly, so the middle seemed about right.

I felt bad about May not making it... I like the movie very much, but it gets a little too silly at times, and somehow lacks the punch I want it to have in the end. But Angela Bettis gives one of the best horror performances in awhile in it.

And The Descent could make it onto this list in the future. And 28 Days Later just missed too! Sigh... it's hard to be a horror geek.
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