Author F. Paul Wilson has crafted any number of terrifying tales, but his most famous contribution to modern fiction is the introduction of Repairman Jack, one of the great genre characters of the past 25 years. I recommend any of his novels, though I have a soft spot for Hosts, which takes the alien bodysnatching plot to new and disturbing conclusions. What could possibly scare F. Paul Wilson?

THE EXORCIST

As long as man is inhuman to his fellow man, as long as God remains hidden, as long as intelligent men of faith question their faith, this timeless novel will have a place on the bookshelves of the world.

Following Sean T. Collins’ take on presenting his favourite horror movies, here are the nine that take up my top spots as of this moment.

See how many you can name!

As regular readers may have noticed, I was unable to follow through on the promise of a kick-ass Halloween in the last half of October. Unfortunately, real world responsibilities always come before blogging. My greatest regret was in my inability to participate in 31 Flicks That Give You The Willies over at Shoot The Projectionist. The proprietor, Ed Hardy, Jr., was kind enough to send me an invite for the event, and I was about halfway though my list when other matters stole my attention. To make up for my absence, if only in a small way, I’d like to post my thoughts on the somewhat controversial results.

Unlike some of the contributors, I found the list itself to be more diverse than I expected. How often do you come across a list that places such films as Eyes Without A Face or the original Nosferatu so highly? But for the most part I like lists like this more for what it says about the participants and their views on horror than I do the actual films on the list. In the comments section of the post Kimberly of Cinebeats points out that genre mainstays such as Bava and Corman didn’t make the cut. Even Ed Hardy, Jr. shows some dismay at the selection. I wonder how these lists are influenced by the availability of the material, or if the horror canon has been shaped over the years to exclude certain movies, at least in some circles. I know that for myself there are certain kinds of horror films which I have only a passing familiarity with. If my lack of breadth in the genre were revealed I would probably be drummed right out of the club.

Adding to that is the fact that both the nominating and voting process were open to people who weren’t necessarily horror enthusiasts. I don’t doubt that at least a few people participating in either level had only seen maybe double the amount of horror movies necessary to contribute. If I had to choose 31 of my favourite comedies, the final half would consist of whatever I could remember having watched, not what I consider quality film. This may seem as if I object to non-horror fans participating, but that isn’t the case at all. Last year I invited some of my favourite non-horror bloggers to write posts for The Horror Blog. I’m always interested in the insight of those people not immersed in the genre. It’s just that, with their wider focus on all film, it’s less likely that they’ve seen many horror offerings from outside the usual suspects.

A quick look at the 33 winners by decade (there were a few ties) shows that the 60s and 70s combined overtake the other six decades represented by 19 films to 14. I found this somewhat surprising as I have always considered most bloggers to be of an age where their nostalgia would show preference to the 80s (which, to be fair, placed third behind the 70s). Were the 60s and 70s actually a Golden Age for Horror? Or are we trading on the opinions of those before us?

None of the above should be seen as a criticism of the list itself. Like I said, I prefer mulling over the ‘whys’ over the ‘whats’ in a list like this and 31 Flicks That Give Me The Willies provides plenty of grist for the mill. My one complaint, and the only thing that almost makes me glad I didn’t participate, is some of the negative commentary that accompanies the selections in the post itself. Hardy says in the comments “I’d tried to be diplomatic in presenting the results, since it was after all my survey,” but it’s hard to see how with quips like “If there is such a thing as a one-hit wonder in the film, this was it” and “Not to step on any toes here, but… this one I just don’t get.” The two movies targeted above would have probably made my list, and I would have felt a little put out if I had taken the time to participate only to have my choices ridiculed. There are plenty of selections in the list which I wouldn’t place in my top 100 let alone my top 31, but I can at least acknowledge why I think they’re important movies, if not very good ones. If he considers repeating the event in years to come Hardy would do well to allow select people who actually chose the movies he dislikes to offer their own commentary, not unlike what he did with a few selections.

Name your very first horror movie memory.

Mark - Exclamation Mark’s SciFi/Horror Review

Ahhh, this is an easy one! As a child I stayed up late one night and caught a glimpse of It Came from Outer Space on television. I was fascinated, even then, by how the movie took on the aliens’ point of view (as if you were actually looking through the alien’s one big eye). For years I remembered those monsters’ point of view shots but could not remember the film they were featured in. It would be impossible to relate the joy I felt when I came across the film as an adult. It is still one of my all-time favorite sci-fi/horror flicks!

Sean T. Collins - Attentiondeficitdisorderly Too Flat

I’m almost positive it’s watching King Kong vs. Godzilla on one of channel 11 WPIX’s Saturday monster-movie matinees. “My corns always hurt when they’re near a monster.”

Eric - Bloody Good Horror

It was with my brother and some girls he had brought home. He was probably 14 at the time and I was 10. He brought home some nubile young teenage girls, rented Friday the 13th, and I hung out with them and watched. All I remember is that at one point I was sitting on one of their laps… funny thing how I always loved horror from that moment on. The next summer I had my mom rent me “Halloween 2″ from the video store. Michael Myers scared the shit out of me so badly that I couldn’t sleep for the entire summer. I was literally looking over my shoulder for him every second. I couldn’t get enough. In many ways I feel that horror fans all have a similar experience when they were really young that has left a large impression on them.

Billy

When I was a kid, my dad always worked midnights or afternoons so I never got to see him. I was pretty much raised by my mom, and we had our little routine every week. Once a week we would go to the Blue Star and share a roast beef sandwhich with mashed potatoes and peas. And every night we would watch Wonder Woman and eat spaghetti because it was all we could afford. But every friday night was the one I looked forward to the most, because it was horror night on Buffalo 19. The earliest one I remember watching was with my mom and it was entitled SSSSSSSSSS (forgive the incorrect spelling, I’m sure I’m missing some S’s). In it, a scientist was trying to figure out how to regrow people’s lost limbs by injecting them with this concoction he made from snake blood, but in the process he ended up turning his test subjects into snakes instead!

Dave - Rue Morgue’s The Abbatoir

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what was first, but my earliest horror movie memories are of Disney’s Watcher in the Woods (rented in a giant white clamshell case from the local Consumer’s Distributing outlet), which scared the crap out of me, and a double-feature of Universal’s Frankenstein and Dracula, which my parents recorded on our gargantuan, 1970s-model VCR. I watched ‘em every weekend for quite some time.

Curt - Beyond The Groovy Age of Horror

Not being allowed to see them!! When I was very young, we lived near Columbus, Ohio, and as I recall the newspaper typically featured at least a full two-page spread of nothing but movie ads–the kind that Scary Monsters magazine does such a wonderful job of reprinting. Anyway, I wasn’t even allowed to look at those. Unless I’m very much mistaken, I was staring wide-eyed at an ad for Young Frankenstein the first time the “movie pages” were ripped from my hands and the taboo was laid down for me in no uncertain terms. Look at me now! Ah parents, when will they ever learn?

JA - My New Plaid Pants

This is actually something that’s driven me crazy for years and years and I don’t think I’ll ever have the answer to it. When I was maybe six or seven years old, I sneaked into the room where my parents were watching a werewolf movie, and it totally traumatized me - had to sleep with the light on for years afterwards - but I’ve never figured out what movie it was. At this point I can’t even offer enough of what I do remember to go on, just some camera-angles and lighting stuff that’s hardly specific but I’d know it if I saw it again. For a long time I thought it was Neil Jordan’s The Company of Wolves, guessing from the cover-art of that snout-erupting mouth which seemed familiar, but then I saw TCoW and it wasn’t right at all. It has to be from the same time period, or a little earlier. Agh, I’ll never know!

Kimberly - Cinebeats

Watching one of the Hammer Dracula films with my dad on TV when I was only around 7 years old. I believe it was Dracula Has Risen From the Grave, but naturally I can’t remember much of the details at all except Christopher Lee’s scary fang-filled grimace. I was totally terrified of Christoper Lee and I spent most of the movie hiding my face in my dad’s armpit. Lee gave me my first movie scares and he’ll always hold a special place in my horror loving heart for that.

Tim - Mondo Schlocko

Seeing TOURIST TRAP for the first time on some sort of CREATURE FEATURE late night program. Even to this day those images of the mannequins still freak me out.

David Z. - Tomb It May Concern

I remember hanging down a flight of stairs using my feet as anchors to sneak a viewing of Howard Hawks’ The Thing on UHF while my parents were blissfully unaware that the carrot monster was warping me forever. I’m sure there were previous exposures to horror, but that was the one I remember best.

Nathan - MicroHorror

Aw, hell. I was an over-sensitive coward when I was a kid. A friend put on the ‘78 version of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” at a sleepover party and I had to go hide. Seeing “Beetlejuice” in the theater scared the crap out of me. Even “Young Frankenstein” was too much in parts.

It’s a good thing I’m so much better adjusted now, right?

Louis - Damaged 2.0

The first film I ever saw in my life, that I fully remember, was when I was three, and it was AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON. My dad was a cop in Houston when I a little kid, and he’d get home about nine or so and my mom would have dinner for him and, we’d just gotten cable, so they’d watch a movie before going to bed. Normally, they’d let me stay up because I’d end up falling asleep, but the first movie I ever watched the whole thing of was the aforementioned AMERICAN WEREWOLF, and it can easily be said that it set me on a certain path. I wasn’t scared (no, the first film that truly freaked me the fuck out would come a few months later, in the form of POLTERGEIST), and my dad explained to me that it was all fantasy, latex make-up and what-not.

Funny enough, the third film I ever watched all of was A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, in that same month. Maybe my parents thought I wouldn’t remember all that? Joke’s on them!

Rony

My very first horror movie memory was when I a kid, I was able to see the drive-in screen from my bedroom window. I was able to watch the first Child’s Play movie. I couldn’t sleep that night but who cares, the movie was awesome!

Awww. I bet you were all cute little tykes, like the Little Rascals or Devil Times Five. Thanks once again to the Horror Roundtable crew, and welcome back Exclamation Mark! If you’re willing, please leave your own early horror memories in the comments below.

Of all the horror sub-genres the one that seems the least likely to succeed as a comic book is also one of the ones that has been attempted the most often; the slasher. Tim Seeley is a man who finally got it right, by taking the emphasis off of the villains and placing it on their unlikely enemy, the final girl, in his horror comic series Hack/Slash. You would figure that this preoccupation with slasher fare would be reflected in what scared him, right?

The last thing that creeped me out was the H.P. Lovecraft story “The Whisperer in the Darkness.” The way he describes the method of communication between the creepy crab/fungoid aliens was both otherworldy weird, and oddly familair…the man is THE master for a reason. He could make bizarre, incomprehensible things eerily possible, and the skittering, flying crab thingies were no exceptions. It didn’t hurt that I read it while I was vacation in San Francisco, and had spent the day at Fisherman’s wharf, surrounded by the boiled bodies of those delicious water bugs.