Shaun of the Dead is an exceptional horror movie and comedy. No list of the best films in both genres over the past 20 years is complete without it… with one exception. Director and writer Edgar Wright was asked to name his 100 favorite horror movies of all-time for MOBI — wisely, he left Shaun off, even though it belongs among the greats. His list includes black-and-white classics from the 1920s and 1930s, like Nosferatu and Bride of Frankenstein, all the way to more recent fare, including seven titles from the 2010s: The Cabin In the Woods, The Skin I Live In, It Follows, The Babadook, The Witch, Raw (which everyone should see immediately — it’s on Netflix), and Train to Busan.
“Here, for Halloween, is a chronological list of my favorite horror movies. It’s not in any way an official best of list and merely represents my tastes at the moment,” Wright wrote. “To be honest it was very tough to whittle down to 100 and thus a lot of ‘thrillers’ that I love did not make it – Se7en, The Vanishing, Manhunter, Silence of the Lambs, as well as some science fiction films and allegorical movies (the fantastic Spirit of the Beehive). But rest assured you can find them all on my 1,000 (!) fav movies list.” The list is a solid mix of the obvious (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre) and the somewhat obscure (Dead Alive), and a nice starting point if you’re looking to put together a Halloween movie marathon. We have some suggestions, too.
Here’s the first 25 titles:
1. “Nosferatu,” F.W. Murnau
2. “Frankenstein,” James Whale
3. “Freaks,” Tod Browning
4. “Island of Lost Souls,” Erle C. Kenton
5. “The Mummy,” Karl Freund
6. “The Old Dark House,” James Whale
7. “The Invisible Man,” James Whale
8. “Bride of Frankenstein,” James Whale
9. “Dead of Night,” Alberto Cavalcanti
10. “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” Don Siegel
11. “Curse of the Demon,” Jacques Tourneur
12. “Dracula,” Terence Fisher
13. “A Bucket of Blood,” Roger Corman
14. “Black Sunday,” Mario Bava
15. “Eyes Without A Face,” Georges Franju
16. “Peeping Tom,” Michael Powell
17. “Psycho,” Alfred Hitchcock
18. “Village of the Damned,” Wolf Rilla
19. “The Innocents,” Jack Clayton
20. “Carnival of Souls,” Herk Harvey
21. “What Happened to Baby Jane?” Robert Aldrich
22. “The Haunting,” Robert Wise
23. “Blood and Black Lace,” Mario Bava
24, “Onibaba,” Kaneto Shindo
25. “Repulsion,” Roman Polanski
To check out the full list, head to MUBI.
(Via MUBI)
