10.28.09 | Jon Morgereth | Movie PollsPrint this Post
Tags: Alfred Hitchcock
Who’s your favorite horror master?
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52 Responses to “Who’s your favorite horror master?”
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I think the old film, The Haunting, was one of the truly frightening films of all time. Claire Bloome & Russ Tamblyn. No blood, no monsters - just psychological terror in black and white. "Whatever walks there, walks alone."
This is a good one! I went with the true master Alfred Hitchcock, But Tobe Hooper, and George Romero are both 2 of my favs as well! Great poll, it was such a hard choice!!
Where is James Whale? His four classic horror films of the 1930's are greater than any listed here(with the exception of Hitchcock and PSYCHO).
Scariest movie ever, without a doubt, a Japanese film called "Audition," check it out, it's a freak ...
I always thought that the best sequel was Exorcist III. The one with George C. Scott.
Pentland has it right--the original "The Haunting" is the best horror film ever because it lets the audience use their imaginations instead of showing the boogie bears on the screen. I can always imagine worst monsters than Hollywood can build, as witness that cheesy remake it did of this classic.
I just had to vote for my GREAT UNCLE
Somehow I think William Castle should be represented
with perhaps "The Night Walker" , Val Lewton with
"The Body Snatcher" or any one of several; and somehow an angle on the "Hammer" films perhaps Terence Fisher - "Horror of Dracula"
Where was Castle? The list is quite good though, but you could have Raimi,Friwdkin, kubrick too.
I agree with Al about Exorcist III.
SO WHAT HAPPEN TO ALL THOSE GREAT HORROR FILMS OF THE 60'S BY THE BRITISH,HAMMER PRODUCTIONS? ONE OF THE BEST DRACULA FILMS WITH CHRISTOPHER LEE.
I vote for "The Haunting"(1963) - will never forget it - I think it was Julie Harris' most memorable performance since she'd appeard in "Member of the Wedding" (1952)- although she did have a good role in "East of Eden"(1954).
Guess there's not many true horror fans taking this poll?
I like john Carpenter, Alfred Hitchcock and George Romero because of their twisted movies. There are others not mentioned in the survey that are no longer with us.
I also like James Cameron, Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Ridley Scott for the Alien series.
Mario Bava!
The horror anthology "Black Sabbath" is one of the greatest horror films; his other horror masterpieces, "Black Sunday", "Kill, Baby, Kill", "Whip and the Body", "Blood and Black Lace" really send me. I think I'll watch one tonight....
Italian director Mario Bava should be on the list. His films "Black Sabbath" and "Black Sunday" are horror classics.
I voted for Hitch, but I agree Whale should have been included.
For horror master, it would have to be Robert Wise for directing THE HAUNTING. No film has ever scared me like that, and I still can't watch it alone in the dark.
Friedkin and the original Exorcist gets my vote. Watching it in the theater was the scariest event of my teenage life.
Where is David Cronenberg on this list?!? Other than him, Hitch, Romero, and Stuart Gordon are my faves.
The scariest movie I ever saw was "Deliverance". I butt screams in horror when ever I hear Dueling Banjos. "Ya sure got a purty mouth!"
I've never understood the appeal of the Haunting. The first "scare" was a noise like some kind of industrial press. I didn't get it? Why would a ghost make a sound like that, and why would it freak everyone out so much? Sorry, I just don't get it.
Hmmmm... Interesting.
James Whale could scare without overt gore and sex. "Dracula" scared the heck out of me in my early youth. Dark and evil.
When I was in my 20s (the 70s), Romero, Hooper, Craven and Carpenter were "cutting their teeth" with more "in your face" horror. Of the four, I think Carpenter was the best (w/o the gore). Today, I'd like to see Quentin Tarantino give the horror genre a shot. I think he would do a good job because of his love of movies. I always looked at Hitchkock more as a master of suspense/thrills than horror although "Psycho" certainly had elements of horror in it.
This list of horror masters is fine, but I think everyone is forgetting one pivotal person, now long dead, who in many ways "created" the horror genre. Without this person, none of the individuals on this list would be there. I'm speaking of Edgar Allan Poe, the penultimate "horror master" whose influence on the individuals on this list is beyond measure. Without Poe, "horror" would not exist!
Hitch only made two real horror flicks [Psycho and the Birds], but Craven and Carpenter made more.
Freddie is my all-time fav horror character!!!
Neither of my favourite horror masters are among the choices offered. Alfred Hitchcock is far and away the best director on the list but, apart from Psycho, he never made a another horror film (unless by some stretch The Birds is categorized as horror). For me, the grand masters of horror are James Whale at Universal in the 30s (Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein, The Old Dark House); and Terence Fisher, Hammer Horror's most stylish house director whose dramatic pacing and expressive use of colour and decor surpassed any of his colleagues. His best horror films were The Curse of Frankenstein, The Horror of Dracula, The Revenge of Frankenstein, the Hound of the Baskervilles, and The Devil Rides Out-all gems.
I left out Val Lewton's collaborations with Jacques Tourneur because I regard them as psychological "fear" films rather than horror in the strictest sense although Tourneur himself made one great out and out horror film-Night of the Demon.
I love the old movie with Robert Mitchum, called 'Night of the Hunter', where he comes into town as a "preacher" and marries the widow (Shelly Winters) with 2 children. It's really quite spooky. I hope I got the title right
Too many great directors to choose from, but I chose Toby Hooper for his masterpiece THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE (the way it's spelled on screen). It's scared me so much, I couldn't keep my eyes on the screen during certain scenes.
I must wonder why Sean Cunningham wasn't nominated for FRIDAY THE 13TH. It too is scary! And he is certainly more deserving than someone like Rob Zombie.
Although there were a couple of good Horror movies to pick from (Psycho and Dawn of the Dead), this is the first time I really think the best movies were not even represented. The original "the Thing" and John Carpenters "the Thing" both trump everything else on this list. There is also Murnau's "Nosfaratu", Jesse Franco's Count Dracula, Ridley Scott's "Alien" that should be on the list
The list was pretty well stacked in Hitch's favor.
John Carpenter is an over-rated hack, and most of the others are blood and guts specialists with little finesse between them. Whatever happened to Val Lewton, James Whale or Todd Browning? I guess older means being forgotten, now matter what class is involved in the production.
The best is Hitchcock! He always made you use your own imagination but by the end you were no longer clear as to who the real bad guys were! Craven is good, as is Carpenter, but they just can't measure up to the true master of suspense and horror!
Many greats mentioned here very difficult choice. one of the newer and I really like his imagination is M. Night Shamalan and I am speaking of "Sixth Sense". Just a thought.
I am a fan of Hitchcock,and love Psycho,however Whale should have been included,as well as Val Lewton,and Kubrick(The Shining).I also agree with other viewers that Julie Harris gave a great performance in The Haunting,I love movies that play with your mind,rather than bloody,gruesome scenes.This was a tough vote !
I'm feeling like something's missing from this list, and it occurs to me that it's far too heavily-skewed towards Americans and the last 30-40 years. Where's Mario Bava? Paul Naschy? Takashi Miike? Val Lewton? Tod Browning? Terence Fisher? Roger Corman?
Hitchcock: Basically made three horror movies, and I'm not sold on "Psycho".
Carpenter: consistency is an issue.
Romero: list of great titles is a little short
Craven: consistency an issue, but he made three different films that revolutionized horror in three different decades, and that's hard to argue with.
Fulci: not enough first-class work, too much flawed execution
Barker: see Fulci. Why is he even on this list?
Hooper: his whole reputation rests on one film.
Gordon: He'd have my vote if his output weren't a little thin. He's been doing some very thought-provoking work lately.
Argento: comparable to Hitchcock at his best; at his worst, better than the others on the list at their worst. Directed and wrote many great movies. Collaborated with other great directors, spawned Michele Soavi (figuratively) and Asia Argento (literally). I just don't know if he's my personal favorite, but he's got the best credentials of all these.
Zombie: effective, but his movies are thrill-rides that don't have the depth of the best Hitchcock, Romero, or Gordon. See Barker.
I'm voting for Argento, but my real vote is for David Cronenberg. He's got a better lifetime body of work than any of those listed here.
"Dracula" scared the heck out of me in my early youth. Dark and evil." Tell me about it!!!!!
I voted for Hitch, cuz I do love "Psycho", but while terrifying ("Wait Until Dark" coulda been added to this list, too), I wouldn't call it a "horror" movie. Horror movies to me have to have some kinda monster in it. Mad slashers and serial killers might be monstrous, but they're not as other-worldly as "Dracula," for instance, or whatever that thing was in "The Thing," even tho each creeps you out in their own way.
Francis Ford Coppola's "Bram Stoker's Dracula" with Gary Oldman certainly creeped me out, even after seeing all the other versions of "Dracula." Also, the original, even though by today's standards, creaky "The Mummy" with Karloff was pretty damn creepy, even by today's sophisticated standards. Much better than more recent versions.
"The Haunting" also gets my vote as a movie to watch in the dark, experience all the sounds and visual effects, and get a thrill.
Watching the original "The Exorcist" on the big screen in the '70s also was quite something.
Catch on TV, "Ghost Story" a New England tale with Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., available now on TCM On Demand channels, if you've never seen it, and you'll also probably like that -- if you're alone and in the dark.
Once more, just for fun during Halloween season, check out "The Uninvited"
a fun ghost story mystery.
Brian de Palma belongs on this list...my favorite scary actor is george zucco...ok, so he was a little campy...but he sure had style....
Where is Stephen King?
Very incomplete list. Whale and Lewton definitely belong... and I'd personally add William Castle (for making it fun to be scared) and Roger Corman (for the Edgar Allan Poe movies). It's difficult to decide, but The Masque of the Red Death is my favorite of the Corman films. (And Vincent Price was fantastic in all of them.)
I do have to agree with many of the comments though, that The Haunting is probably the greatest horror film. Psychological terror at its best! I've seen it at least a dozen times, and it just pulls me in every time.
Psycho.......still cant watch it alone !
a good list - but I would include Raimi & Kubrick, Whale.
The current political body in Washington is about as scary as it gets! A close second is The Innocents 1961.
I missed my favorite; H.G. Clouzot
I have to agree with William. The orginal The Haunting was probably the scarest movie I remember seeing. When those walls start pounding and Julie Harris is holding her ears, I remember having to stop watching for a while. I must have been about 12. It still gets to me 40 years later.
The idea being to choose a _horror_ master (someone who founded a franchise or body of work),Hitchcock doesn't belong on this list. He's more suspense than horror.
I would suggest that Dan O'Bannon who appears to have written the stories for most of the Alien movies might be a good choice... while they are no less formulaic that the other franchises listed their premise is easily the best combo of creature feature and nail biting suspense, with aliens that will always be scary...
The original French Diobolique damn near made me pass out in the theater and has stayed with me ever since. When the "dead" husband stood up in the bath tub and took out his eyes, that was it for me.
The original French film Diabolique almost made me pass out. When the "dead" husband stood up in the bath tube and took out his "eyes" I lost it and so did most people in the theater. This movie has stayed with me all my life.
Psycho...great story and a great film by Hichtcock.
But......the shower scene was too mechanical.
The stabbing went...up and down, up and down...etc.
No foward thrust with the knife.
Where am I wrong?
I agree with Al on Exorcist III ( I looked up over my head for weeks after seeing that old lady crawl across ceilings-creepy), but I liked the first one too. I love Hitchcock, but I think taking it all in to account, he belongs more on a "suspense" list--not horror.
I don't think of Hitchcock as a Horror master. His films could be suspenseful, but horror?? I had to vote for Craven, simply because A Nightmare on Elm Street was pretty scary when it first hit theaters. Not to mention the Scream franchise. Even though I don't feel this was extremely scary, they are still amazing movies that deserve mentioning in this category.
Someone mentioned Stephen King. If he had directed anything, I would have chose him in a second! Some of his books are terrifying and he has kept me up many nights listening to the creaks of my house.
I'd like to mention one that should be on this list. "The Entity" ! It cast Barbara Hershey as a woman tormented by a paranormal spirit. It was definately something different, and one that you wouldn't watch alone.
Alfred Hitchcock was the BEST! He made you think and wonder about the outcome then It happened. A definite Master of Suspense. Now anything with blood and gore is considered a horror flick The more blood, the scary, no not really. The more blood the less time put towards a story. Does anybody if the movie 'Tarantula' is available anywhere?