The Greatest Horror Movie Ever Made: The Case For THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE

In honor of the passing of legendary director TOBE HOOPER, we are presenting a chapter from the book THE GREATEST HORROR MOVIE EVER MADE. Author and Rue Morgue columnist Paul Counelis makes the case for Hooper's magnum opus as the best horror movie of all time.

Tobe Hooper 1943 -2017

                            THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE (1974) Director: TOBE HOOPER

     The first time I saw The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, I was 15 years old. I hadn’t seen a TON of really dark horror films at that point; I had seen A Nightmare on Elm Street as well as most of the Universal Monsters stuff (which I was obsessed with at the time). I had no idea what to expect. To be honest, I thought it was going to be a campy B movie.

     I was wrong. To put it mildly.

     By now, most people who would really call themselves horror “fans” have seen the original ‘TCM’, and are aware of how visceral and realistic it feels. Simply put, it accomplishes that rare feat that very few horror films have. It almost seems like a documentary, like we as viewers are just flies on the wall, uncomfortably observing this maddeningly matter of fact group of cannibal hillbillies chasing a group of lost young people around their “farm”.

     Because so many are WELL aware of the Texas Chain Saw mythology at this point, I will not spend too much time talking about how little blood or gore are actually shown in the film, but its notable that the movie is remembered as being so brutal decades later. The most disturbing things captured by the eye of the camera are the bizarre moments that the family is engaged in, such as having to help their seemingly decaying grandfather hold a hammer so that he can try to hit a victim with it. Bizarre stuff that stays with you.

     Even with A Nightmare on Elm Street pretty fresh in my young mind, I really was NOT prepared for the aural onslaught that is The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. 

     Context is needed. My uncle and I had been renting films that were generally highly regarded but that neither of us had seen. This was pretty much our only criteria when we walked into the video store for the week’s selection. Our first few viewings consisted of such eye opening cinema as The Godfather, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Close Encounters. To be sure, it was a priceless education for a teen who was pretty much a card carrying member of the church of Star Wars. I had seen plenty of good films, the early Karloff Frankenstein films for instance, but they weren’t super challenging in the most emotional ways like some of these films were.

     I feel like something changed inside me when the opening reel of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre flickered across my Uncle Tony’s TV screen. Don’t worry, it was in a good way.

     I sat in enrapt silence and with a more than a few sideways glances to see how Uncle Tony was faring with his own viewing experience. He seemed to be just as engrossed as I was watching Leatherface and his family act like maniacs to this unsuspecting group of city kids.

     Made for just over $80,000 in 1974, TCM marked the first time that I looked at a film and really realized, hey, someone MADE this. They wrote their simple story, got some people to play the parts, went out into a big house and just made their movie. I remember feeling like there was no way it should be as “good” as it was. Clearly, these were not seasoned actors with super expensive equipment and a big studio budget.

     It was the first time I thought, “I want to make a movie. And I CAN.”

     I’m sure that same realization happened to countless hordes of other TCM viewers over the years. The movie is a standing testament to the creativity and drive of its filmmakers and the actors and actresses who braved what was by all accounts a truly dreadful shoot.

     Heck, the shoot itself may have contributed to the grimy realism of the film. By now, the legendary stories of the smells, fatigue and the heat surrounding those folks while they were making the movie have made their rounds umpteen times via interviews and special features on the many home video releases. Suffice to say that some of the craziness we see captured on film was about as close to real as it gets without actually being real.

     Director Tobe Hooper has often recounted stories of how much the cast and crew resented him during the shoot. The movie they came out with suggests that their efforts were not in vain.
To call The Texas Chain Saw Massacre influential is almost an insult to the word “influential”. For dozens of horror filmmakers to come, TCM is less a film than it is a template for a certain type of aesthetic that has come to be associated with the movie and others like it.

     One so obviously influenced dude is Rob Zombie, who has seemingly made a cinematic career out of letting the TCM philosophy guide his work. The results have been mixed, but Zombie’s films have an undeniable grit that they largely owe to the TCM influence.

     It’s also fair to point out some of the TCM acting performances, which vary in terms of thespian quality, but which are absolutely indispensable to the film’s memorable imagery. In particular, the late Marilyn Burns is effective as Sally Hardesty, screaming and crying her way through the film’s seemingly prolonged climax in an excruciatingly realistic and primal state of fear and hysteria. Theories again abound that part of the realism of her performance was due to the conditions on set.

      Burns (decades old SPOILER ALERT, for pete’s sake) helped to establish an eventual major slasher film trope with her character surviving the film as a “final girl”, though she is definitely kind of just more lucky than Nancy or Laurie or Sidney, who are all kind of proactive in their survival. But give Sally credit…she keeps movin’ and keeps screamin’ until the very moment she laughs in relieved maniac manner, climbing into a random escape vehicle while Leatherface swings his chainsaw around like a frustrated dancer in a doomed ballet.

     Of course, Leatherface is another solid “pro” when keeping tabs on the TCM legacy. Gunnar Hansen helped to bring life to an enduring horror icon, playing Hooper and co-writer Kim Henkel’s hulking “Ed Gein” inspired madman. Hansen is a big reason why the film is so memorable, truth be told. He hits the right notes with his body language and the way he inhabits the face(s) mask(s). And he really is asked to do quite a bit in terms of selling the terror.

     One of the most jarring and sinister scenes occurs when Leatherface appears behind some poor fool, bops him on the head, drags him into a room and abruptly slams the door. That is a moment where we as an audience think, “Ok. I kind of don’t want to know what is going to happen behind that door. But I have to.”

     Wes Craven often cited The Texas Chain Saw Massacre as one of the best examples of watching a film that may have been directed by a madman. Craven knew of which he spoke; his own Last House on the Left still stands as one of the most controversial films ever made. It was the type of ’dangerous’ filmmaking that got both films immediately banned upon release.
   
     In multiple countries.

     For years.

     As is the case with so many immortal horror films, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre could also be held up as a reflection of the time of its release. Hooper claims that so much of the nature of the film is due to the government scandals and multiple wars of the era, where brutality and a lack of empathy were becoming the social norm. Leatherface and his loving family were characterized responses to that growing displeasure.

     One aspect of this movie which can’t be downplayed is the “score”, as it were. It is EXTREMELY important, though perhaps not in the way that the scores of films like Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street are. That’s because TCM features a slew of ghoulish and freaky sounds, drenched in echo and delay, often piled each atop the other like a sonic wall of brick and mortar. It is used to highly disconcerting effect. There is no escape from it within the confines of a given scene.

     Again, Roger Ebert heaped praise upon a horror film even while damning it. He grouped it with Night of the Living Dead because of its technical success, while also commenting on the negative content. He said that both films were “better than they had to be.” Which is true in the context of what he saw as B horror films created by fledgling filmmakers with no other outlets aside from horror to make movies. But it is decidedly NOT true for the millions of people who still consistently turn to those films for a good, roller coaster-like scare on a dark night. They do have to be that good.

     Which brings us to another important point…The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is scary.
    
     As with any and all horror films, the scare factor is a matter of opinion and specific to each viewer. A seasoned horror fan is just not going to be easy to scare. But when someone who is not a veteran of horror watches TCM, to this day, they are likely to be disturbed. Often, even terrified.
This is because TCM gets SO much right in terms of setting everything up. This might be due to director Hooper’s background as a documentary cameraman. Camera placement is extremely important to the success of the film’s realism, and the decisions Hooper makes put us in situations that feel claustrophobic and tense. As with Carpenter’s Halloween, an unusual number of daytime shots are initially used to set a mood, as well as adding to the desperation of being stranded with the psychotic family when night falls.

     There is really no way to overstate the importance of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre to the horror genre. Fans as varied as Ridley Scott (who claims the movie as an influence on his own amazing film Alien) and horror writing legend Stephen King defend the film as an important cultural phenomenon, and contemporaries like Carpenter and Craven (the latter of which humorously compared Hooper to Manson after seeing the film) have routinely named it as one of the most effective horror films they have ever seen.

     There is a film made before TCM that was also inspired by the Ed Gein story. It is director Alfred Hitchcock’s seminal grandfather of the slasher movie, Psycho. John McCarty, author of several excellent books covering horror directors and films, once remarked that TCM made the hotel in Psycho seem “pleasant” in comparison.

     Simply put, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a full on nightmare, worthy of its legendary status, and a legit contender for the title of the greatest horror film of all time.

                                               

Leatherface, "A frustrated dancer in a doomed ballet."

You can read the rest of  Paul Counelis' book THE GREATEST HORROR MOVIE EVER MADE, available now at Lulu.com, Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble

Why Uncle Wes is Important To Me: Wes Craven and the Boogeyman

Hardcore horror fans know the origin story of A Nightmare on Elm Street’s Freddy Krueger very well: Wes Craven has recounted the initial idea in many interviews over the years.

As the story goes, a very young Wes was peering out the window of his house watching the night when he caught the attention of a man in a bowler hat who was shuffling past. The man met Wes’ gaze and leered at him, scarily. Wes closed the curtain immediately and stood in fear next to the window for a few minutes.

He pulled the curtain back again, and to his sheer terror, the man was still staring at him. Wes watched as the man then turned as if he were walking toward Wes’ house, scaring him even more. He ran and told his older brother, who grabbed a baseball bat and waited by the door.

Apparently, the man got quite a kick out of giving the young boy an unforgettable jolt. Wes Craven got something more out of it, though; the seed for arguably the most popular of the modern movie monsters, Freddy Krueger.

Quite a few things differentiate Fred Krueger (gleefully and manically portrayed by Robert Englund) from his other popular counterparts; he doesn’t wear a mask (he doesn’t mind not facially hiding his intentions, chillingly), he clearly enjoys being the hobgoblin, and maybe most importantly, he is articulately lascivious. This is also a clear evolution from the classic Universal Monsters, who, aside from Dracula, didn’t relish their tragic roles as creatures of the night.

While Dracula is maybe his closest affiliate in early horror cinema, Freddy has something that even Drac didn’t have: Krueger could be the monster in your closet, the hand reaching for your foot when you absentmindedly dangle it off the bed, the voice whispering into your ear when you swear you’re alone…in other words, The Boogeyman.

The original intent of the boogeyman (or bogeyman, bogieman) is perhaps even more sinister than Craven intended his nightmare man concoction for the screen to be.

Simply put, the boogeyman was an imaginary creature that was used to literally scare children into behaving and listening to their parents. The boogeyman varied in “appearance” and legend, which changed from house to house depending on the imagination of the questionable parental units abiding. Some kids were told things like, “If you don’t share your toys, the boogeyman will get you,” or the even more unsettling, “Go to sleep, or the boogeyman will get you."

 

“But only in their dreams can men be truly free; ‘twas always thus, and always thus will be.” So speaks the poet John Keating, AKA Robin Williams in the film Dead Poets Society.

Keating must never have seen A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Wes Craven’s boogeyman was born of that same spirit, and if the intention of his film wasn’t necessarily CONQUERING the boogeyman, it certainly became so for many children of the 1980’s who were able to stand up to Krueger simply by making it through the entire film.

In A Nightmare on Elm Street, Freddy is defeated by the heroine Nancy (Heather Langenkamp) when she finally figures out that Freddy cannot exist where there is no “spirit of fear” (2 Timothy 1:7, KJV). Krueger feeds off the fear of the teenagers of Springwood, and when Nancy turns her back on him, she strips him of his power.

Here is a VERY important development to the future of the horror film. One heavily used horror trope finds females appearing as basically victimized “girls in turmoil”, screaming and waiting to be rescued. Even Laurie Strode of John Carpenter’s masterpiece Halloween, who fights back instinctively against the boogeyman Michael Myers, didn’t become proactive in quite the way Craven’s Nancy Thompson does in Elm Street. Nancy comes up with a plan and tries to, in effect, bait the boogeyman.

In his insightful book Visions of the Night: Dreams, Religion, and Psychology, dream researcher Kelly Bulkeley writes that "Nancy ultimately finds in her dreams the deep resources of personal strength to overcome an evil that the adult social world had failed to defeat."

Nancy finds the strength to accomplish this not just DESPITE the fact that her parents have separated and her mother has become an almost wholly introspective alcoholic, but partially BECAUSE of it. She knows that, even right there on good old Elm Street USA, there are dark depths, and as John Kenneth Muir points out in his excellent book, Horror Films of the 1980’s, “Nancy can recognize the link between worlds for what it is, and look below the surface of reality because she is already trained to do so, through family history.”

So, this is a horror heroine who doesn’t run away screaming, or become inevitable prey to the boogeyman of the night. She fights back, and in turn, conquers even the scariest of boogeymen. Elm Street’s tacked on ending of Freddy’s arm pulling Nancy’s mom through the door as the kids drive to school was added despite Craven’s protests, and is somewhat nullified by Nancy’s reappearance in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, co-written by Craven.

Craven himself has suggested that horror movies can have a positive effect on people, that making it through your first scary horror films can represent a squashing of childhood fears and thereby make kids feel empowered. In the case of Nancy, not only do kids get a hero who isn’t afraid to confront her fears, she does so despite the failings of the adults around her.

A Nightmare on Elm Street also represents another personal nostalgia for me, and perhaps yet another reason for my own gravitation to the franchise; I first watched it with my mother and a group of friends. We screamed and laughed and my mother had to have someone walk upstairs and wait outside the bathroom for her, but we made it through that terrifying film and thereby defeated that beastly boogeyman Krueger.

Sure, he reared his ugly head again when I was a teen watching Freddy’s Revenge, which I rented despite my own misgivings about the fearsome face of Fred staring back at me from the big box VHS cover art, but by now I knew the ultimate truth about Freddy and Elm Street…it was only a movie. Having grasped that concept through daring myself to watch, the horror film became essentially what a roller coaster ride might be to some; just a really fun, adrenaline powered ride through the creative concepts and sometimes astonishing cinematography and special effects of a film’s creators. Legendary author H.P. Lovecraft pointed out that “we must judge a weird tale not by the author's intent, or by the mere mechanics of the plot; but by the emotional level which it attains at its least mundane point.”

Cue Robert Englund, manically laughing as he peels back a layer of his own skull to reveal that “You’ve got the body, and I’ve got the brains.”

Children should be taught to deal with their fears, that much is undeniable. It’s an integral part of childhood, the way in which kids are made aware of how to cope with their natural apprehensions. There are the negative ways of using their fears against them (“If you’re bad, the police will come and lock you in jail”), or in effect making children scared by their own lack of fulfilling an adult’s expectations in things as non-threatening as sports or schoolwork.

Some parents even unknowingly try to bully their children into not being scared of curious things, such as humiliating them for being scared of something the adult finds non-threatening. Similarly, comparing children to other children their age or younger in a negative fashion (“Billy is only 8 and he isn’t scared of the swimming pool like you are”) can be just as damaging to a child’s psyche and self-esteem.

None of this is to suggest that every little kid should watch A Nightmare on Elm Street or any other horror film. There are movies that are not made for children of a young age, or kids who just can’t handle that form of entertainment. Toddlers should literally NEVER be exposed to a horror movie. In these cases, horror films can even be detrimental, which is why an adult should be familiar with the material they are going to screen with their kids. Plus, knowing what’s coming next is potentially a good way of letting the child know when they should cover their eyes.

The most important part of it is letting them in on the creative aspect. Showing them, “This is just a movie. That’s makeup done by an artist. That was made by this group of talented effects people.” In effect, pulling back the curtain to show kids the creative side of making a film.

It has been pointed out by numerous horror experts, particularly David J. Skal, that horror movies tend to reflect the times in which they are released, rather than vice versa. This seems to hold true in particular to horror vehicles during wartime. There seems to be some connection between people needing the catharsis of experiencing a thrill ride that has no implication on their own lives, but echoing the tragic reflection of the real life horrors of war. In the “atomic” fifties, the monsters of yesteryear were replaced in cinema by the looming threat of the atom bomb, with film after film showing the effects of atomic energy on the world, turning ants and spiders into gigantic monsters hell-bent on destruction.

Some psychologists have even suggested that there’s a lure in horror films because they reinforce morality; the old-fashioned moral codes and karmic aspects of horror thrive as much in modern horror as in the Grimm fairytales of old.

Rob Zombie, director of a handful of what some might think of as more extreme horror movies, is of the opinion that it’s irresponsible not to show the carnage that a horrible act can attain. He may have a point. The Bible describes in some detail the abuse and subsequent dismemberment of a concubine. She is, after a night of abuse, cut into 12 pieces which are distributed into “all the coasts of Israel” (Judges 19:22-29, KJV). There is no way to sugar coat that horrific event, and the Bible does not attempt to. Was it a reaction to the morality of the times? Judges 19:2, KJV: “But his concubine played the harlot against him…” Undoubtedly so, since many Christians in modern times have struggled with the interpretation of that particular scripture. The morality of the Old Testament plays out most famously in horror stories such as Tales From the Crypt, in which those outwardly seeking to perform evil receive their comeuppance…and it usually ain’t pretty.

Wes Craven directed his boogeyman in one more movie, Wes Craven’s New Nightmare. In that extremely interesting, cerebral and self-aware horror film, Freddy is regarded as a demonic portal; a beast existing now in the real world because of attempts to quell horror stories. It was an attack on horror censorship, and also a response to Craven’s critics who surmised that his films did more to hurt the world than to help it.

Legendary film critic Roger Ebert wrote of New Nightmare: “"I haven't been exactly a fan of the Nightmare series, but I found this movie, with its unsettling questions about the effect of horror on those who create it, strangely intriguing."

Interestingly, the climax of the movie is a play on the “Hansel and Gretel” fairytale, and Freddy is disposed of by Heather Langenkamp and her very young son, Dylan (Miko Hughes). 

 

In fact, in a reactionary turn of events, it is Dylan who comes to his mother’s aid and helps to send the big, bad boogeyman searing into the netherworld where he belongs.

Godspeed Uncle Wes, and thanks for giving horror a reasonable and wise voice, and for helping to give some of us the tools to, in essence, defeat the boogeyman.

Five Reasons Why the New 'Nightmare On Elm Street' Reboot Needs Robert Englund

"Uh...wanna cut the cake, Dad?"

THE INTERNET IS ABUZZ with the news that Hollywood is rebooting the legendary New Line Cinema horror series A Nightmare On Elm Street once again, only five years after a very good actor (Jackie Earle Haley) gave his best effort to a...let's just say, "inconsistently" scripted remake. It wasn't for trying; Haley did everything he could with the role, but whether the public wasn't ready for a new Freddy or whether the filmmakers just weren't up to the challenge is up for debate.

Very little has come out regarding any details for the newest attempt at remaking Elm Street, but several things occurred to me as soon as I read the news, and they all led me to settle in on one kind of "well, duh" notion: Robert Englund should play Freddy AT LEAST once more.

Now, I'm not in the corner who thinks they absolutely CAN'T make an effective film without Englund. Surely, a good horror movie is only as good as it's script and respective director, and there is always a chance that the new ANOES flick could be decent (or even better). Wes Craven's core idea is still solid and there is plenty of room for improvement over the 2010 remake, of course. I feel like the likelihood of making a spectacular new Elm Street is fairly slim, but even a mild improvement over the earlier reboot might feel like a success.

What I am saying is that having Englund back for one more go round sure would help.

Hear me out:

1) THE DREADED ORIGIN STORYIn order to "reboot" or "re-imagine" or whatever other word they try to toss about to keep us from saying "remake", they are going to have to start at the beginning...again. Remember when you watched the Spider-Man trilogy, and then a few years later you were sitting through Pete's origin story AGAIN for the Amazing Spider-Man reboot? Well, another Freddy origin story would mean the THIRD time for Freddy (FOUR if you count the kind of flashback-y rebirth thing in Elm Street 5: The Dream Child). Englund as Fred makes it possible to give a reason WHY he's back without recounting the entire tale YET AGAIN.

2) HIS AGE COULD HELP CREATE A FRESH SCRIPT
 Now, the one thing you hear ALL THE TIME when people clamor for Englund's return as Freddy is that he's "too old". Here is where a bit of Elm Street history rushes to the rescue: Wes Craven initially envisioned Krueger as an old man (doubtless because of the dude who "inspired" the creation of Freddy in the first place, a nameless old man who scared Uncle Wes as a lad). If the notion of a kind of Dark Knight Returns-ish Freddy story doesn't appeal to you, then I don't know what to say. It sure does to me. At this point, that could be such a dark, creepy and intriguing story to tell, and we've seen Robert in plenty of films lately that prove his energy is still there.

3) ENGLUND IS PART OF FREDDY'S "MAKEUP"
 One of the biggest reasons why Freddy is such a popular character is something that the reboot completely glossed over, and that is the fact that Freddy's "mask" still fully reflects Robert Englund underneath. Yes, we have the latex and the makeup, but you still "see" Englund; the lascivious personality, the feeling that Freddy relishes "the scare" and "the chase" as a boogeyman, the expressive eyes...that's all Englund. Hell, even that voice. Leatherface, Jason, Michael...they can look different and still be the same dude. Heck, even their masks change from film to film. Freddy is Freddy, even with various incarnations of his makeup resembling pepperoni pizza more and more as the series went on. That's not to suggest that NO ONE else could ever play Freddy, but wouldn't it be more fun if Englund could be a bridge to a reboot rather than trying to pretend he never existed in an all new universe?

4) HE'S TODAY'S VERSION OF BORIS
 Which directly leads to another point. If Universal could have continued to make Frankenstein films with Boris Karloff, would they have tried to replace him? Of course not. They were still trying to get Boris to be the monster as late as 1948, when the core Universal Monsters had their last go around in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. Look, obviously this is a different time, but Englund is probably the closest thing we have to Karloff in terms of being a celebrated horror actor who embodies an iconic character. Karloff portrayed the Monster with his own expressions and facial aspects shining through as well, and the Frankenstein Monster and Freddy Krueger are probably the TWO most recognizable and enduring makeup jobs ever portrayed in horror franchises. Whether you like him or not (I admit I don't understand how you couldn't), don't take Robert Englund for granted, folks...living legends who can still get the job done are VERY few and far between in today's cinematic horror landscape.

5) IT'S WHAT WE WANT!
 We (a lot of us...a WHOLE lot of us) want to see Englund as Freddy again. Even the box office would be best served by putting the legend back in the part. This is partially because there was a bad taste left in our mouths with the way Englund was kind of just shown the door when so many people wanted AT LEAST a Freddy vs. Jason sequel. We need CLOSURE. Yep, I said it. We need Robert Englund one more time.

Sure, like I said before, they could make a good and interesting Elm Street movie without him. It could happen, for sure. An all new Freddy could be intriguing, there's absolutely no denying that. But it sure would be fun to take my teens to see the real Freddy in the theaters. And it would be EXTRA amazing if it were a dark and creepy reboot with an amazing Robert Englund playing an older, more cynical boogeyman, sneaking around in the shadows with that lithe, spooky body language that he portrays so well.

Come on, New Line, give us one more big Freddy swing for the fences in Springwood. Because yes, every town has an Elm Street, but they're so much more enjoyable when Robert Englund is hanging out there.

TOP FIVE HORROR FILMS OF THE EIGHTIES

Most lists focusing on the best horror films of an entire decade are going to be different than the next. There will be various reasons for why one movie makes one list, but not another. This list attempts to corral the top five horror films of the eighties based on this short, slightly unfocused sequence of criteria:

• Popularity
• Influence
• Creative impact
• Eighties representation

Some movies would score high in one category, but not as well in the others. A few of those films on the "just missed" list are Stan Winston's wonderful Pumpkinhead, Clive Barker's creepy Hellraiser, Tobe Hooper's Poltergeist, Fright Night, The Lost Boys, and Fred Dekker's awesome Night of the Creeps. There are cult favorites not included on the list, not because they're not good films, but because there is only room for five. Number six would probably be An American Werewolf in London, for instance.

So, without further ado...

5) Return of the Living Dead - Director Dan O'Bannon's cult magnum opus, about zombies who overrun a town. This movie kind of defines the decade in terms of splatter, effects, and the combination of horror and comedy so prevalent at that time. Embodies the "feel" of an eighties film.

4) The Shining - OK, so Stephen King wasn't madly in love with Stanley Kubrick's vision of King's book. Still, it stands the test of time, with Uncle Jack Nicholson's eerie turn, strange and unique visuals, and a style that would be copied relentlessly to much less success over the next twenty years. Recently released to Blu-ray.

3) The Evil Dead - Sam Raimi's low budget splatter-piece that introduced genre fans to fanboy hero Bruce Campbell. Campbell, as Ash, is lasciviously abused onscreen by undead creatures, some of whom used to be his friends. Strange, unique, and extremely influential film.

2) A Nightmare On Elm Street - Wes Craven's most iconic creation, and one of horrordom's most beloved characters, Freddy Krueger makes his debut in this dark, scary flick. Robert Englund snarls and slinks his way to a fan favorite performance, and the phenomena of Freddy is born. Creepy and effective to this day.

1) John Carpenter's The Thing - The master's best film of the eighties also doubles as one of the most popular, often cited as the best horror film of all time. Rob Bottin's mind blowing effects and the nightmarish setting make this one of the most memorable horror movies ever made. The "Norris Creature" is one of the most popular monsters of the decade, despite the limited screen time. Originally bombed at the box office amidst height of the feelgood gigantic hit E.T., but found renewed life on home video. If you haven't seen this film...well, what are you waiting for?