At The Movies with Bryan, the Wannabe Filmmaker

10. The Thing (1982) Dir: John Carpenter Running Time: 108 min. The Thing was largely criticized when it came for being  overly violent and too gory, yet compared to the horror films of the last decade it is pretty tame. More importantly, the gore effects in The Thing actually serve a function to the overall story; the titular creature survives by assimilating the creatures around it. The audience never truly realizes the sheer horror of the Thing, until it is shown trying to assimilate sled dogs that are around it, and later when one of the humans is revealed to be a part of the Thing. The real tension in the film doesn't lie in its gruesome effects, but on the idea that the characters (and the audience) can never be certain as to who is human and who has been assimilated by the Thing. This one of the few remakes that improves upon the original film , The Thing From Another World.  This is largely due to the fact that it’s more faithful to novella both films are based

20. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) Dir: Tobe Hooper Running Time: 84 min. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is one of the most unnerving films ever made; it is completely unrelenting in its horror and never allows the audience a moment to breathe. You never feel comfortable around the main characters, because they are often at each other’s throats.   Franklin, despite being in a wheel chair, is completely unsympathetic and is often a huge burden on Sally and her friends.   Despite it’s rather gruesome title, the film is fairly tame in its use of gore; most of the horror is implied, rather than shown in full detail. The 2003 remake with Jessica Biel tried to replicate the look of the original film, but failed in that in tried too hard in making Leatherface a sympathetic character by giving him a painful back story. In the original, it is implied that the family turned to cannibalism largely due to economic factors (the closing down of the slaughter house, the scarcity of g

There are two types of people out there: those who absolutely loathe horror and those that can’t get enough of them; I definitely fall in the latter category as a good portion of my movie collection is of the horror genre.  If you ask any person what their top ten horror films are, you would probably get a different list each time. I have done better, rather than list my top ten horror films; I have opted instead to list my top 25 horror films.  I initially was going to do a top ten list, but the more I thought of it, the more I realized that there were so many to choose form that ten just would not do. This is by no means a “GREATEST” horror films list; in fact many films on this list are more guilty pleasures than they are high quality film making  When all is said and done movies are a form of entertainment, and each of these titles are entertaining in their own sick and twisted ways. I’m a big fan of old school horror and it’s fairly apparent when you read this list; all the fil

Halloween 4 ?! Surely, this is a mistake. Why would you want to devote an entire review to an unnecessary sequel to a classic horror film? Why not just review the original one instead?  I tell you why, my incredulous readers, because Halloween has been written about so many times that there is really nothing more I can say to it.  Halloween 4, on the other hand, is essentially up for grabs, because despite a strong cult following, it has essentially been overlooked by the critics.  It’s also the best of all the Halloween sequels; its gore is kept to a minimum and the characters are fairly likable. It’s definitely a mixed bag, but compared to the awful horror sequels that saturated the market in the 80s, it comes off rather well.  Despite the 4 in the title, it is actually the third film in the Michael Myers saga; Halloween III: Season of the Witch had nothing what so ever to do with the character (except for a brief clip of the first Halloween playing on the television), inste