Horror Hall of Awesome: 90s Edition
The 1990s feel like a bit of a disappointment after the sheer quantity of scary goodness in the 1970s and 80s. Still, there’s plenty of awesome – and it’s very international!
Top of the Awesome
1. Dellamorte Dellamore (Cemetery Man) (1994). This amazing Italian horror film by director Michele Soavi (a protégé of Dario Argento) is a true one-of-kind: a frightening and funny movie about a cemetery caretaker (a fantastic Rupert Everett) who defends a small town from zombies that also doubles as a really sincere exploration of love, death and the meaning of it all. If that sounds a little too heavy, let me assure you that Dellamorte Dellamore is also one hell of a good time: visceral, violent, and weirdly erotic. It’s sublime.
2. Jacob’s Ladder (1990). In many ways, Jacob’s Ladder defies genre categories, falling somewhere between horror, psychological thriller, and drama. Without a doubt, it’s far more haunting than just about any other movie made during the 1990s, so I believe it deserves to be recognized among horror films. And, like many of the films listed in the Horror Hall of Awesome, Jacob’s Ladder derives its power from confusing the line between the real and imagined, reality and hallucinations, and it is extremely effective at making the audience feel just as paranoid and scared as the Vietnam vet (Tim Robbins) at the story’s center. It’s also got some wicked creepy visual effects.
3. Scream (1996). Now that we’ve spent a very long decade watching bad-to-mediocre postmodern horror films, it’s easy to feel less enthusiastic about Wes Craven’s thoroughly ironic slasher. But Scream remains a stellar horror flick: extremely well shot, clever (a little too clever, at times) and chock full of good scares. It’s hard to find actual scares in the painfully overused slasher formula, and Scream delivered them consistently and surprisingly. And the sequels weren’t bad, either.
But there’s more!
4. Cronos (1993). Hooray for Guillermo del Toro! This brilliant and imaginative horror story about a machine that grants immortality feels refreshingly classic.
5. Ringu (Ring) (1998). Whoah, J-Horror! It’s got some showstopping effects, but Ringu trades on supercreepy minimalist intensity. Also, it was really hard to find this film before the 2002 remake appeared, and the feeling of watching a bootleg of it made it all the more surreal.
6. Braindead (Dead Alive) (1992). On a splatter scale of 1-10, this Peter Jackson film rates an 11. It is ridunkulous. Seriously. It’s also hilarious, and features the funniest, grossest Freudian film climax of all time.
7. The Exorcist III (1990). This is a criminally underrated supernatural horror film, and (finally) a most worthwhile sequel to the original. Bonus: cameos from Patrick Ewing, Sam Jackson, Fabio and Larry King. Also, there’s a scene in this movie that scared me so much I almost peed my pants. I would describe it to you, but I’m afraid it would give me nightmares again.
8. Candyman (1992). This urban legend tale (made six years before the first of the Urban Legends hit the screen) is first-class horror: smart, evocative and full of great acting (no really). It doesn’t quite live up to its promise in the end, but that’s only because it promises so much. Also, it has a kick-ass soundtrack by Phillip Glass.
9. Army of Darkness (1993). I’ve soured a bit on Army of Darkness over the years, mostly because its crazy fanboy following kind of exhausts me, but I would be really, really remiss if I didn’t include it. Hail to the king, baby.
10. Ravenous (1999). Cannibalism, Manifest Destiny, Guy Pearce, Robert Carlyle and lots of old-timey mustaches. It doesn’t get much better than this.
Coming very soon: the 2000s! Whew!
