When lists of the best horror films are made, the same movies always float to the top. Everybody knows Psycho. Everybody's seen The Silence of the Lambs. And, despite the mixed opinions, Jaws is generally recognized as an important film in the genre. With thousands of horror films having been made over the last (believe it or not) hundred years, surely there are more gems out there, aren't there? Of course there are! Here are some of the treasures that have been overlooked by the box office and the repetitive lists. [Some text is courtesy of IMDB]
10. Dead End - 2003
For the past 20 years, Frank Harrington has grudgingly driven his family to celebrate Christmas with his mother-in-law. This year, he takes a shortcut. It's the biggest mistake of his life: The nightmare begins. A mysterious woman in white wanders through the forest, leaving death in her wake. A terrifying black car – its driver invisible – carries the victims into the heart of the night. Every road sign points to a destination they never reach. The survivors succumb to panic, to madness; deeply buried secrets burst to the surface, and Christmas turns into a living hell. This is an excellent low budget film with very few actors. Despite that, it manages to keep your attention. Well worth a look.
9. Tenebrae - 1986
WARNING: trailer contains brief nudity. 1986 was a good year for horror (as you will see as you read further down this list). With Argento's trademark visual style, linked with one of his more coherent plots, Tenebrae follows a writer who arrives to Rome, only to find somebody is using his novels as the inspiration (and, occasionally, the means) of committing murder. As the death toll mounts the police are ever baffled, and the writer becomes more closely linked to the case than is comfortable.
Luciano Tovoli's camera-work/cinematography is brilliant, especially the luma crane shot (which goes up one side of a building, over the roof and down the other side in one unbroken taken). There's also an extremely well-photographed and directed sequence featuring a girl being pursued by a rabid Doberman. Now they would do those two scenes with computers, and I think that obliterates the charm of the hands-on film-making process.
This film puts Hollywood thrillers like "Copycat" "The Bone Collector," and "Se7en" to shame, and it's apparent all three films stole ideas from this one (and from other films in Argento's oeuvre).
8. Black Christmas - 1974
This 98-minute film is a stark and stylish horror/thriller that turns everyone's favorite time of the year inside out. Olivia Hussey and Margot Kidder star among an ill-fated houseful of sorority sisters celebrating the holiday season. Festivities turn fatal when obscene phone calls break the serenity and it becomes clear that a psychopath is stalking the house. This is clearly the inspiration for many horrors that followed.
One reviewer put it most aptly: It's not often that you find a film in the thriller/horror genre that has something "new" to say, so it's even more exciting to find that one of the original films in the "slasher" genre is actually still one of the freshest, most unique and utterly entertaining of them all. This is the kind of movie you can't wait to tell your friends about, knowing full well they've probably never seen it, but they've heard of it.
7. The Bird with the Crystal Plumage - 1970
Another Italian film, the Bird with the Crystal Plumage, was Dario Argento's first film and it made him a hot property. The synopsis: Sam, an American writer in Rome, witnesses a murder attempt on the wife of the owner of an art gallery by a sinister man in a raincoat and black leather gloves. However, Sam is powerless to do anything, as he gets trapped between a double set of glass doors in going to her aid. The woman survives, and the police say that she is the first surviving victim of a notorious serial killer. But when they fail to make any progress with the case, Sam decides to investigate on his own, turning up several clues that point in the direction of just one possible suspect – assuming that he really knows who he's looking for.
