The Rough Guide to.....

halloween
exorcist
suspiria
the shining
the texas chainsaw massacre
dont look now
the birds
american werewolf in london
...that's all i can think off the top of my head, feel free to add anything

Man with a Movie Camera
American Movie
Scary Movie
Scary Movie II
Scary Movie III
Silent Movie
Not Another Teen Movie
Jackass: The Movie
The Lizzie McGuire Movie
The Pirate Movie (1982)
The Kentucky Fried Movie
Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie
Steal This Movie
Movie Movie (1978)
Piglet's Big Movie
It's A Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie
Cheech & Chong's Next Movie
The Care Bears Movie
A Goofy Movie
An Extremely Goofy Movie
Tales from the Darkside: The Movie
Homicide: The Movie
Duck Tales: The Movie
The Garbage Pail Kids Movie (god, i forgot this existed!
Ipaglaban mo: The Movie
Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie
Tom and Jerry: The Movie
G.I. Joe: The Movie
Babar: The Movie
Home Movie
The Underground Comedy Movie
New Tork Beat Movie
The Movie Hero
A Movie (1958)
The Last Horror Movie
Road Movie
Hot Dog...The Movie
Sweet Movie
Soccer Dog: The Movie
Untitled Movie #1
This Is Not My Movie

ok, that's enough (although there's about a hundred more pages worth of 'em on IMDB

ADD: Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Cat People, Psycho, Frankenstein, Nosferatu, Dracula, Martin, Alien, Rosemary's Baby, The Fly, Curse of the Demon, The Howling, The Blair Witch Project

I'd subtract Halloween. It sucks IMHO.

Anyway, you've missed the genesis of the genre. Up until the dawn of the contemporary period with 1968's Night of the Living Dead, you've missed the following classic reference points:

Add: Nosferatu, Phantom of the Opera (Chaney), Cabinet of Dr Caligari, M, Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, Dracula (Lugosi), The Wolf Man, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Freaks, Thing from Another World, Cat People, The Hammer Curse of Frankenstein/ Dracula Price of Darkness/Curse of the Werewolf originals (though I'm not a huge fan of any of the three), The Awful Doctor Orloff (Franco), War of the Worlds, Blood Feast, Black Sunday, Night/ Curse of the Demon, Blood and Black Lace, Vertigo, Witchfinder General, Repulsion.

I know Curse of the Demon, Cat People, Nosferatu, Dracula and Frankenstein were already mentioned.

From the post Romero period you've got to have

Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Carrie, Deep Red, Last House on the Left, The Hills Have Eyes, Poltergeist, Jaws, The Thing, Friday the 13th, Dawn/ Day of the Dead, Re-Animator, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Gremlins, The Silence of the Lambs, Jurassic Park, Scream, The Sixth Sense

I'd argue against The Shining. Despite the fact it's toss, it didn't do bugger all for the genre and the same year's Friday the 13th took in more money and kickstarted a whole new genre.

The two that kicked off the Hong Kong horror genre are Mr Vampire and A Chinese Ghost Story so search them out, alongside Japan's Battle Royale and Audition which have been surprise Western hits (the former is overrated IMO while Audition is well worth catching).

And three that I thought about including but did not...

Spider Baby
The Beyond
Zombie

name your De Palma (but strongly consider The Fury)
The Fog (best campfirey ghost story evah)
Dario Argento's Opera and La Chiesa (produced by DA)
The Shining
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and practically anything else by Tobe Hooper (The Funhouse, Poltergeist, Eaten Alive)
Don't Look Now
The Birds
Day of the Dead
The Beyond
every Tourneur/Lewton (The Leopard Man, I Walked with a Zombie, Cat People)
Eyes without a Face
Nosferatu
Polanski's apartment trilogy but especially The Tenant
The Fly (Cronenberg)
Curse of the Demon
God Told Me To
Kill, Baby... Kill!
Creepshow & 1972 Tales from the Crypt (two of my favorite horror anthologies)

I know this film's love-hate, but the only film of the last handful of years that feels like a great horror film is Irreversible.

Wall Street
Scarface
Glengarry Glen Ross
Boiler Room
Swingers (this one I personally loathe)
The Godfather

The ones they start quoting when they're drunk:

All of the above, plus:

Billy Madison
Ace Ventura, Pet Detective
Austin Powers
Wayne's World
Goodfellas

Friday the 13th, however, on its own basic level scares me and makes me jump. The Shining does not.

I forgot about Peeping Tom. Another film I'm not overly fond of, but its place in this list is essential. It actually didn't use the same technique as Argento, but it nonetheless took the horror-as-voyuerism thing to new heights.

Haven't seen Combustion or Terrors, and Crocodile admittedly seems a lot better in relationship with Eaten Alive than it does stand alone, but Lifeforce is a classic among Hooper's fans.

"Lifeforce" is certainly no classic even amongst Hooper's fans! Have you seen "The Mangler" either?

And, sure, you can judge the imdb as a source of fan opinion but I'm telling you that "The Shining" splits critical opinion like no other... As for most gorgeous film ever?! I mean, really? More so than La Dolce Vita? Yojimbo? Suspiria? Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (which I'd say is right up there)...

"Lifeforce" is certainly no classic even amongst Hooper's fans!

Surely you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Stop speaking on behalf of a group you don't belong to pls.

Yes, The Shining is more gorgeous than every film you mentioned except possibly Suspiria.

As for "part of a group I don't belong to"... well, I can't be arsed getting into why you're wrong about that. I'll leave you to stew.

Before you make up your mind about Hooper's post "Chainsaw" films though surely you should see more of them? "The Apartment Complex", "Invaders from Mars" and "I'm Dangerous Tonight" are three more you've not mentioned, let alone his most recent "Toolbox Murders" which IS a return to form.

Sure "Lifeforce" has a cult following - but so does "Sleepaway Camp" and I'm not about to defend that either.

And, really, if you think "The Shining" tops Fellini then you need your eyes tested.

Who says I haven't seen enough post-Chainsaw films to know that he's a worthwhile director? Sure I haven't seen some of the supposed stinkers, but they do not detract from the power of the previously mentioned greats (and, yes, Invaders from Mars is another minor miracle). If we're talking about letting a director's misfires count against a directors successes, surely Fellini would be in deep deep trouble.

This is one of the reasons why The Shining is so important! A million and one horror films could make you jump at a basic level, but The Shining doesn't need to do that...there's a constant pervading sense of dread and unease from start to finish, that's where the scares come from. And even if it doesn't scare you, it's hard to deny that it's one of the most technically accomplished horror films ever...and surely that merits its inclusion in a Rough Guide if we're going to have bloody Jurassic Park for giving us CGI!

I think The Shining might be the greatest horror film ever made, it utterly transcends

You're onto a loser arguing that Lifeforce is great - I've not met anyone who thinks that, and it just really does not work. I watched the director's cut on DVD recently.

And how many of Tobe's films HAVE you seen? Just the greats or a wide and varied lot? While I think some of his subsequent films are very good, I don't think he topped "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" through a variety of bad luck, producer interference and slashed budgets. Search out "Salem's Lot", "Chainsaw 2", moments of "The Funhouse" and "Toolbox Murders" but for Godssake don't defend "Lifeforce", "Crocodile", "Spontanious Combustion" etc

probably because it's the only Stephen King film ever made where the title isn't prefaced by "Stephen King's..."

Funny how we've ended up at exactly the same spot that we started from. And I do believe that you were the one arguing for "technical audacity" as proof of a good horror film with the Jurassic Park reference.

And Stephen King is notorious about liking the most cinematically lackadaisical and artistically bankrupt versions of his films; the ones that basically filmed his novels note-for-note, with every hackneyed piece of Americana intact. Why do you think he has more or less decided that Frank Darabont is the best director that's ever worked on any of his films?

Hmm, King likes the most "bankrupt versions" of his films? Is this the same Stephen King who highly regards such classic adaptations as "Carrie", "Cujo", "The Shawshank Redemption", "Stand by Me", "Misery" et al? Darabont did a great job on two of King's films. "Shawshank" is a modern classic and "The Green Mile" is fantastic, both much better than "The Shining".

I'm not sure why you're so fixated on the importance of "genre," considering you're including films like Jurassic Park and Vertigo that are barely horror to begin with.

In few discussions is "The Shining" held up as a benchmark because, as I said, its influence is not especially high and it divides critical opinion very highly.

So, do you always go through conversations with your fingers plugged into your ears going "la-la-la-la" when the film The Shining comes up? Say what you will about how much you hate the film, but you're truly kidding yourself if you honestly think no one ever talks about The Shining anymore (be it in conversations amonst cinephiles, critics, college students or what have you). I sincerely trust I have no need to pull up the endless online, film-mag and personal critics' lists of great horror movies to disprove that one.

King doesn't particularly like De Palma's version of Carrie anymore, at least not in comparison to al the later ones (and, I add, he's vaguely come around on Kubrick's Shining). Not to be an auteurist prick about it (oops, too late), but two Darabonts and two Reiners are trumped by one frame of Kubrick. Thanks for playing.

"Not the horror masterpiece it was intended to be, but hardly the flop some have tagged it either" (James O'Neill)

"Intriguing but ineffectual adaptation"

(Maltin)

"Uninteresting ghost story" (Halliwell)

This is alongside negative write ups in Variety, Fangoria, TheDark Side et al

Whenever I have conversations about the genre, at festivals/ with critics/ directors etc The Shining is rarely mentioned. I really don't see it as being a defining point in the genre or a worthwhile horror film.

"The Shining, for me, is Kubrick's one great film, so rich and comic that it offsets his several large failures." - David Thomson

You're right. They're not good, they're g-r-r-r-r-reat! Don't feel the need to trash them, 'cause you're not changing my mind on this point.

requests:

rough guide to '50s melodrama
rough guide to czech films
rough guide to german new cinema

someonemoreknowlegdgeablethanmeaboutthesethingsGO!

TCM
Shining
Suspiria
The Fog
Deep Red
The Ring
Dawn of The Dead
Day Of The Dead
Night of The Living Dead
Tenebrae
Poltergeist
Re-animator

I'm gonna be a crazy purist about this and not include time travel films such as the Terminator pictures, 12 Monkeys, The Time Machine and Planet Of The Apes. I'm also gonna leave off films that are just plain apocalyptic (Day Of The Dead, Escape From New York) but not post apocalyptic by my estimation. Deep Impact and The Day After Tomorrow and The Day After don't count -- they are disaster films. I'm also going to leave off The Matrix out of spite. Actually, it, THX 1138 and Mindwarp are just too high tech to qualify as a hardcore post apocalypse movies.

Mad Max
The Road Warrior
Day Of The Dead
2029 After The Fall Of New York
The Quiet Earth
Omega Man
The Last Man On Earth
Testament
Le Dernier Combat
A Boy And His Dog
Cherry 2000
Warriors Of The Wasteland
Damnation Alley
The Ultimate Warrior
Warlords of the 21st Century
Night Of The Comet
The Blood Of Heroes
28 Days Later
Death Sport

THX 1138
Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes
Handmaiden's Tale
Logan's Run
Farrenheit 451
Z.P.G. Zero Polulation Growth
Harrison Bergeron
Alphaville
Gattaca
Aeon Flux
Demolition Man
Escape From LA
Minority Report
Brazil
Death Race 2000
1984
Soylent Green

If anybody can think of any more in either of these categories please let me know. I'm always looking for more.

Rushmore.