Horror Franchise Marathons - An Update And Discussion...

[philosoraptor42]

Last year I watched the every "Friday The 13th" movie, every "A Nightmare On Elm Street" movie (reviews of both here), and very nearly every "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" movie (reviews here). I also checked out every single "Hellraiser" movie (reviews here). Before seeing these, I'd always thought that these films were simply horrible and in a way they are, but I'd never realised the sense of fun that came with so many of them. "Jason Lives" is one of the most popular films amongst fans of the "Friday the 13th" series and it's quite clearly a horror-comedy. Horror comedies have long had a particular appeal to me, as can be seen from my "best horror comedies" list (which I have plans to update in the not-so-distant future).

I think a lot of people get the wrong impression of the horror genre because so often the films which gain the most praise and reach the top of "best of" lists for the genre are the least accessible. Films like "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "Blade Runner" are generally at the top of science fiction movie lists and whether you think they deserve to be there or not (I don't), you have to admit that they are both very slow moving and unappealing to mainstream audiences. The movie that is often at the top of horror movie "best of" lists is "The Exorcist". I asked a horror loving friend of mine recently whether he would genuinely call "The Exorcist" a good movie and his response was "Oh God no!" I may need to rewatch "The Exorcist" to give a fair appraisal, but from what I remember of it, it seems to me that it is lacking the sense of fun found in most horror films.



When most people think of horror, they either think of the horror series' mentioned above (mainly slasher movies with long strings of low budget sequels with limited variation from one instalment to the next), or they think of the traditional monsters which began their movie careers at Universal Studios (Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, The Wolf-Man, etc.). Yet, even just looking at recent years, there are quite a few fairly high brow horror titles: "Let The Right One In", "Take Shelter", "Black Swan", "We Need To Talk About Kevin" (which is practically a real-life version of "The Omen"), "The White Ribbon" (which is essentially an extraterrestrial-free version of "Village Of the Damned"), Gareth Edwards' "Monsters" and Joss Whedon's deconstruction of the horror genre in "Cabin In The Woods".



Last year I gave people the opportunity to choose which horror franchise I should watch next. The big winner was "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (I think mainly because people wanted me to watch the first movie in the series). That led to me becoming rather side-tracked when I decided to check out the entire filmography of Tobe Hooper. It seemed like a pretty great idea at first. I'd been meaning to see "Poltergeist" and I when I discovered that Angela Bettis was involved I couldn't resist checking out "Toolbox Murders". However, now that I'm nearing completion on this filmography, I have to recognise that most of it was awful (unlike my directors series' for Joe Dante or Neil Marshall last year.) Still, with this horror movie series reaching completion, it's nearing time to start a new one! The franchises on the cards to be watched include:
Child's Play
The Omen
Halloween
Phantasm

So... a few questions for my readers:
What horror film franchises should I add to the list?
Is it reasonable to call horror "fun"? Do you enjoy horror comedies or are they just horror-light in your opinion?
If you were choosing the best horror film of all time would you pick something like "The Exorcist"? If not, why not, and what would you replace it with?