While there is a little overlap with this previous list, the members of this list are all suited to it sufficiently to overlook the duplication. These are characters who are not necessarily evil to the core – that would be another list – and in some cases you even have sympathy or fondness for the character.

She doesn’t gun down busloads of people, but there’s more than one way to be bad-ass. Mrs. Iselin is the wife of a senator, and her son, Raymond Shaw, hates her domineering attitude toward him. Shaw has been brainwashed by Soviet Communists years before the movie begins, and his own mother is a communist agent working undercover in America in order that she and her husband (really just she) gain all power in the White House. She does this by using her own son, Shaw, as a tool. She has absolutely no love for him. Or anyone else. All she wants is global power.

The idea of brainwashing her own son, of which activity she was the driving force, in order to force him to assassinate the President, after which Shaw goes to jail and she gets the power, is monumentally bad-ass!

He’s got better performances under his belt, but this one is outstanding. Harris gets into hot water when he personally beats a Russian mafia member to death in full view of people in Las Vegas. You gotta be bad-ass to willfully screw around with the Russian mafia.

They demand monetary recompense, and he sees to this by breaking the law every time he has to, robbing a known drug dealer, personally executing that drug dealer with a shotgun at point-blank range, enjoying his dying breaths in the process, robbing drug dealing street punks, and personally threatening to kill his own brand-new partner if he talks! He threatens him twice with guns, forces him to smoke a PCP-laced joint, then berates and threatens everyone in his entire neighborhood when his partner finally confronts him! That’s called FTW! That’s what that’s called!

Not an easy choice, given the definition of bad-ass, but I say he is. All he cares about is money. That’s it. And he will gladly kill every person on the planet to get more of it. Luckily oil drilling doesn’t require genocide, but he does see fit to execute a complete stranger who lies to him for a cut of the money.

Then he buries the body to hide the evidence. He publicly beats the minister of a small town, the sort of thing that will be found out by everyone in town sooner or later. Does he pick up and leave? No way! Just stays and keeps drilling the oil for himself. He blatantly reneges of monetary promises, and if you believe in God and jesus and such, dig this: he allows the minister to baptize him, provided that he gets the last tract of land in the area, to build a pipeline through it. He could not care less about the baptism. He uses God himself as a tool to get more money.

At the end, he cements his legacy by beating the minister to death with a bowling pin, after humiliating him. His own butler just stands and looks at him sitting next to the body. No surprise. Now that’s bad-ass.

A Britishman who dresses like a French fop. Even the characters around him think he’s gay, let alone public sentiment today. But he’s one of the finest swordsmen in the world, and derives sadistic ecstasy in dispatching a duelist one piece at a time, slowly, methodically, until the poor guy is helpless and terrified.

Ol’ Archy’s most bad-ass move by far, though, is slowly, methodically raping the helpless wife of a Scotsman who has irritated him. The Scottish are beneath him, he feels, and sees nothing wrong with raping and killing them. Then he leaves her alive to grieve.

Then the much larger Scot challenges him to a duel. Cunningham doesn’t even hesitate. “Bring him on.” And he enjoys himself immensely, slicing the Scot again and again, until the Scot finally kills him. Dead or not, Cunningham is one mean jerk!

No death scene has ever been more FTW!!! than Montana’s. He’s the greatest druglord in all creation, and uses more of his cocaine than anyone else. He just doesn’t give a flying rip. But that’s the thing. He never did. All the rival gang members in the world come down on top of him, and does he call security? Piss on security!

He loads a particularly grandiose self-defense weapon and proceeds to take on all comers. He just wastes ‘em right and left like rats. They shoot back, but he deliberately hocked himself up on coke beforehand, and now he’s nearly unstoppable. Shot after shot goes through his torso, and he takes ‘em like a man and shoots back, grenades and full-auto. His rivals can’t even take him off his feet! He’s just lost his sister, so he doesn’t care anymore. He just stands there shooting back and taunting them! They finally have to shoot him in the back.

His most bad-ass scene, though, is much earlier, when a drug deal goes sour, and he’s captured. The buyer demands all the drugs. He threatens Montana with a chainsaw! Montana is tied up and defenseless, and what does he do? He taunts the buyer to his face! “Why don’t you stick your head up your ass? See if it fits.”

In the annals of bad-ass scriptwriting, this one has to be #1! Kudos to the writer, whoever you are, because all those repeated Nos and Yeses and such are actually written that way on the page! Kingsley wasn’t ad-libbing! But the marvelous performance is all his, and he based it on his grandmother! Talk about Thanksgiving.

Logan wants the ol’ gang’s best safecracker back in action for one more heist. The safecracker is retired and living the sweet life in sunny Spain. Not an easy person to convince to return to a life of crime. Logan actually pulls it off, at the ultimate cost of his life, granted, but he just refuses to back off.

He smashes a beer bottle over the safecracker’s head, he screams like a lurching gorilla right into his ear, he howls, he kicks walls, threatens everyone around him with death, he publicly trashtalks the safecraker’s wife, Jackie, and lady friend, says how lousy they both were in bed. The safecracker’s wife is an ex-porn star, and Logan makes several points of that. He walks right up to a kid with a rifle pointed at him and mocks his fear.

And nobody, NOBODY, has ever unleashed a torrent of awe-inspiring, profanity-laced volcano language on the level of Don Logan. “Laced” isn’t the proper word. It’s profanity-inundated. If it’s an art, this guy is Jackson Pollock. “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!!! No f___ing way! No f___ing way! No f___ing way! No f___ing way! You made me look a right c___!” “I don’t give two s___s what Jackie Big-Tits thinks, she can think what she f___ing likes!” “I WON’T LET YOU BE HAPPY!! WHY SHOULD I?!?!” “F___ off, wanker! You’re doing it!”

This guy played Gandhi!

He’s so bad-ass that you love him! You want to see him dead more than anything in the world, but not for awhile. First you want to see him be bad-ass! He’s certainly got the coolest threads of anyone on the list. He smokes hash, he shoots morphine, he bangs hookers three and four at the time, and he rules the Five Point with “a spectacle of fearsome acts.”

He cudgels his political rival, a man many people in the area like a lot, with the rival’s own club. But that’s after he throws a meat cleaver into his back. Dozens of people witness it. No one dares say a word or try to stop him. “Why doncha burn him? See if his ashes turn green?” he mocks an onlooker over the dead body. This guy is none too fond of the Irish. “If only I had the guns, Mr. Tweed, I’d shoot each and every one of them before they set foot on American soil.”

He stands his ground and fights like a man, charging right into a crowd of opposing gangs. He lost a fight once, and personally cut out his own left eye, and sent it to the victor wrapped in blue paper. As a show that he would never look away again. “I would’ve cut ‘em both out, if I could’ve fought him blind.”

No loyalty. He is the man. Everyone else is loyal to him. Or dead.

All the geeks were sweating up to now, I’m sure. No argument, Darth Vader is an icon of bad-assness. All he wants is the rebel alliance crushed. They’re a threat to the empire, and he has no qualms about obliterating an entire planet of innocent species to draw those rebels out of hiding. He cuts off his own son’s hand. He tries his best to tempt him to the dark side, and when that fails, he threatens to tempt his daughter, of whom he has just learned. He says it with such malicious glee. He loves his job!

Hayden Christensen is not included for good reason. If I ever feel like ranking the biggest p_____s (female reproduction orifices), I expect he’ll make the list.

The original Vader just stalks around force-choking people to death. “Apology accepted, Captain Nieder!” Then on top of all that, he has a change of heart at the last second and personally kills the emperor at the cost of his own life.

How do you escape a super-ultra-hypermax security prison-asylum? Arrange to be transferred to anther facility, with more moderate security. True, the opportunity is lucky, but Lecter is always on watch for such things. I deliberated about whether he belonged, since he’s psychopathic. That means he has no feelings for the soul of anyone around him. But it doesn’t detract from his fearlessness, his sadism, or his brilliance. Nobody’s ever had a more horrifying stare.

Never mind that he eats people, first, he totally mindf___s Clarice, all just to grab a little payment for himself: moderate security. Then he still has to escape, which isn’t going to be easy. He picks his cuffs, he efficiently beats down both well armed guards. Then, to cement his legacy among the baddest of the bad-ass, he changes clothes with one guard, cuts his face off while he’s still alive, puts it on his own, and rides right out on a gurney. No one saw it coming. That’s after he disembowels the other guard and hangs him from his jail cell. He puts the guard’s pancreas on the guard’s head. He even has the nerve to call Clarice later–at the FBI’s headquarters–to let her know he’s out and having the time of his life. And he tells her a bad joke, “I’m having an old friend for dinner.”

Let’s run through the logic on this one: this guy robs a mafia-owned bank, rigs the heist so that all his accomplices kill each other, he kills the last one, takes only the mafia’s money, $60,000,000, and then personally confronts every one of the mafia bosses at the same time. He walks right in laughing! They know he’s the one who robbed them, and he proceeds to make things worse by killing one of their underlings with his disappearing-pencil trick. He gleefully mocks them about paying for his new suit, then deliberately insults the one who’s angriest. Why? Well, because he’s the angriest. What makes this guy tick?

He lets on that he only robbed them to initiate a citywide war with one of the baddest crime-fighters in 20th Century fiction. It’s good sport. He demands half of the mafia’s money in exchange for killing Batman. This is after he’s robbed them. Later, he lets the angry mafia boss capture him, just so he can cut the guy’s throat. Then the Joker goes right about his business!

He executes people daily throughout Gotham just to make Batman take his mask off and give up. Why? He explains that to Batman after he rigs his own capture. “I wanted to see whatcha’d do! And ya didn’t disappoint!”

What the hell makes this guy tick? He explains himself to Harvey Harvey Harvey Dent, after he’s sure Dent won’t be returning to the land of heroes. “I’m an agent of chaos.” Folks, in my opinion, that is the definition of bad-ass. How do you deal with a guy like this? He’s so bad-ass that he has no rules! He tries to execute innocent hostages just to play a little game with Batty.

Then on top of everything else, he actually has the nerve to justify himself to Batman. “I’ll show ya. When the chips are down? These uh…’civilized’ people? They’ll eat each other. See, I’m not a monster. I’m just ahead of the curve.” Then he just lets Batman beat him for a while, and laughs in his face the whole time. You cannot get more bad-ass than that.

One of the things I like about Listverse is the way that some lists can be so divisive, especially the lists about movies. Film preference is certainly a matter of taste and opinion, however, there are certain qualities to some films that make them truly good, such as script, direction, cinematography, acting. Not that these things guarantee everyone will love a movie or not. For example, not everyone will like Citizen Kane, however, there is absolutely no way anyone could deny the lasting power and influence the film has had on the industry. Which makes it a great movie. But what about the opposite? What are some films that are so poorly executed, so brazenly bad that they actually may be fun to watch? Sure, the scripts are lame, the acting is deplorable and the direction is shoddy at best, but there’s no denying the sheer joyful ineptitude of these films. I’m not talking about the simply bad films, (such as Transformers 2; Showgirls; Howard The Duck; Speed 2; Catwoman, and heaven forbid, Battlefield Earth). Those are just crappy films that are impossible to sit through. The films on this list have chutzpah. They have their hearts in the right place, if not the camera direction or script or acting. You actually can sit through these and enjoy them for what they are: so bad, they’re good.

Note: this is by no means a “top 10” list. The selections were based on a variety of reviewers, articles, popularity and an informal survey.

This 1957 clunker is a bad classic for one reason and one reason only: the completely ludicrous bird puppet used as the monster, probably the absolute worst monster ever to appear on film. Apparently, due to budget constraints, after the actors were done shooting, the film was sent to Mexico for the special effects—at very little cost and without oversight by the director or producers, When the got the footage back, they were completely aghast, but had no choice to release the film as is. The resulting film has people reciting serious dialogue about a horrifying creature, then being frightened out of their skulls by this giant flying misshapen goose or something out of a sick kids’ show, with googly eyes and a hairy feather coming out of its head. One bonus is that it features the extremely hot Mara Corday who starred in a number of these giant beast flicks in the ‘50s.

Favorite scene: Anytime the giant claw is on the screen.
Other laughably bad monster movies: Attack of the Giant Leeches (A guy in a trashbag), The Killer Shrews (Dogs wearing shag carpets), The Crawling Eye (A giant crawling eyeball!), C.H.U.D. (sewer creatures), The Monolith Monsters (Rocks.), Sting of Death (A guy becomes part jellyfish!!), Attack of the 50-Foot Woman.

Made as a parody of horror flicks in 1978, this film is a parody in itself. It never takes itself seriously and has a lot of very funny moments, but there’s no denying the ineptitude of everyone involved in it. Of course, how do you make a ‘good’ movie about the world being attacked by killer mutant tomatoes? So why make it in the first place? Because it’s damn fun.

Favorite scene: The underwater sequence as tomatoes attack swimmer a la Jaws.
Other laughably bad killer tomato movies: Return of the Killer Tomatoes (featuring a young George Clooney), and Killer Tomatoes Strike Back, and Killer Tomatoes Eat France.

Released 20 years ago, this chancre sore on the ass of film history is now gaining a cult following as one of the worst movies ever made. In fact, a new documentary called “Best Worst Movie” centers around one of the actors who is now a dentist, and the following Troll 2 has amassed. This movie is so reprehensibly bad, it is almost too much to sit through. But with the right frame of mind, and a few bong hits, it’s actually quite enjoyably awful. The plot revolves around little evil trolls taking over a small town because no one there knows how to deliver a line. Or something like that.

Favorite scene: A nerdy guy delivers a ridiculous line with painful gusto: “They’re eating her! And then they’re going to eat me! Oh my Goooooodddddd!” Clever!
Other laughably bad sequels: Ghoulies 2, Return to Oz (creepy as hell, but interesting to watch), Grease 2 (embarrassingly funny and bad), Jaws: The Revenge (another giant shark? Oh puh-leeze! And Michael Caine with a bad accent.)

This epic from 1964 is on many “Worst Movies of All-Time” lists, and for good reason. It’s bad. But it’s also so much fun on many levels, starting out with the bubble gum pop theme song, to the use of Whammo Air-Blaster guns as Martian weapons, to the sight of a young Pia Zedora as a Martian girl. The story revolves around said Martian children being depressed that kids on earth get to celebrate Christmas and they don’t. The solution is to kidnap Santa and bring him to Mars. Much hilarity and many hijinks ensue. Of course, all works out in the end and both Mars and Earth get to celebrate the holiday!

Favorite scene: The attack of the man in a polar bear costume. Complete with zipper up the back!
Other laughable holiday movies: Santa Claus (a creepy Mexican import), Jingle All The Way (Arnold trying to get the ungettable toy. Bad but fun!) Ernest Saves Christmas (bad, but who can hate Ernest?)

The term “schlock” started being used to describe films back in the ‘50s or so. It means something cheap, shoddy or inferior. And it’s been used to describe this 1975 film from infamously schlocky director/actor Paul Bartel (Lust in the Dust, Eating Raoul). The premise is that in the future, there will be a cross country car race in which pedestrians can be run down for extra points. The movie stars David Carradine and Sylvester Stallone, a year before the release of Rocky. It’s so over the top, that the overacting works. The cars are very cool and there is plenty of action.

Favorite scene: Nurses at a senior citizen’s home wheel the old folks out to the middle of the highway in wheelchairs for the drivers to plow through. Yee haaa!
Other laughably bad films with dystopian visions of the future: Rollerball (original), The Running Man, Waterworld

A B-movie is one that was made to follow a main feature, usually produced on a smaller budget, with lesser known talent and little studio support. The Blob may be one of the biggest B-movies of the ‘50s, if only because it’s still an all-time crowd pleaser and it featured Steve McQueen in his first role. It’s the simple story of boy takes girl to make-out point, meteor carrying a flesh eating blob lands on earth, and teens try to convince adults that there’s danger afoot. The famous “running out of the theater” scene is reenacted every year during Blobfest in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, where the film was mostly shot. (the theater is still intact). There are so many memorable scenes in this one, but even Steve McQueen has a hard time delivering some of his putrid lines.

Favorite scene: Watch some of the people running out of the theater. They seem to be having a great time. One woman actually falls and no one helps her up.
Other laughably bad teens in danger films: Night of the Creeps, Idle Hands, I was a Teenage Werewolf, Teenagers from Outer Space

With all due respect to the departed Patrick Swayze, this movie has become known as one of the best camp classics ever. Other than the fact that Swayze goes bare-chested every so often, this is one for the guys. Lots of brutal, bloody fistfighting, nudity, southern rock soundtrack, guns, knives and explosions. Something for everyone! Released in 1989, the film was a decent box office hit, but has now found it’s home as a cult favorite. The story is simple. Swayze’s character is a tough bouncer hired to take care of a bar, when he comes up against some evil guys who want to fight and stuff. It really doesn’t matter. This is pure campy fun, that is perfect to make fun of.

Favorite line: “Pain don’t hurt.”
Other laughably bad fight films: They Live, Any Billy Jack sequel, Dolemite

In 1953, sci-fi movies were all the rage. Films like War of the Worlds or Invaders from Mars played to peoples’ fears of aliens from outer space, while really being metaphors for the “red menace” that everyone in America dreaded. Among the lesser films of this genre would be Robot Monster. Director Phil Tucker put a guy in a gorilla suit and a diving helmet, went out to Bronson Canyon in California (the site of many western film and TV shoots) and cobbled together the most bizarre tale of alien invasion ever. I don’t want to get into the plot and spoil it for you, but there are Ro-men, a gorgeous love interest, a hunky scientist, some inserted stock footage of lizards in dinosaur costumes battling it out, flying saucers on sticks, and a couple of annoying kids. It’s a blast.

Favorite scene: The family decides it would be a good idea to picnic in the middle of a hot, rocky canyon and take a nap under the blistering sun.
Other laughably bad alien invasion movies: Little Shop of Horrors (the original version, not the fun musical), Killer Klowns from Outer Space, Monster A Go-Go

If Plan 9 is the granddaddy of laughably inept filmmaking, then Manos is the bastard red-headed stepchild. The brainchild of then fertilizer salesmen, Harold P. Warren, in 1966, it’s definitely a pile of crap. The film had practically disappeared until the geniuses at Mystery Science Theater 3000 found it and lampooned it. Which is probably the best way to watch it. The plot revolves around a family’s roadtrip that goes horribly wrong when they wind up in a mysterious ranch that happens to be some sort of devil worshipping pagan cult. The real star is Torgo, a brainless manservant of “the master,” who for some reason has giant swollen knees. What? Yeah, giant knees. The film was shot on a hand held camera that needed winding every so often, so no shot lasts longer than 32 seconds or so. And since it was shot without sound, the voices were all dubbed, mostly by only two or three people, so everyone sounds vaguely alike. It may be painful to sit through, but with a bunch of people and a good sense of humor, this is a bucket of fun.

Favorite scene: The Master sentences Torgo to die. Two of the Master’s wives claw at Torgo to “kill” him. Then his hand falls off in a fire. Huh?
Other laughably bad similar films: Nothing compares to this one.

The true granddaddy of entertaining inept filmmaking, this Golden Turkey winner is a true classic. Immortalized by Tim Burton in the great film “Ed Wood,” this was to be the director’s magnum opus, but instead it’s a top notch pile of crap. I find it incredibly watchable, if only to laugh at the passionate way some of these “actors” deliver their lines. The story of aliens making the dead rise to help stop the earth from discovering “solarbanite” has all the makings of a sci-fi/horror epic. But alas, that would never be. Instead, we get shots that switch from day to night and back again, an obvious stand-in for Bela Legosi (who died long before actual shooting began and appears only from footage Wood shot earlier), and sets right out of someone’s basement. (a shower curtain is the cockpit door on a plane, tombstones fall over when someone trips over the fake grass, and alien spacecrafts hung on wires wobble over shots of Hollywood.) This is great stuff, and will truly be enjoyed with tongue firmly planted in cheek.

Favorite scene: The fey alien berates the earthlings by yelling, “Stupid humans! Stupid! STUPID!!” Now that’s dialogue.
Other laughable films from the Ed Wood Canon: Bride of the Monster, Glen or Glenda?, Orgy of the Dead

Honorable “so bad, they’re good” mentions: Army of Darkness, The Beastmaster, Pink Flamingos, Flash Gordon, The Toxic Avenger, Valley Girl, Reanimator, My Life’s In Turnaround, Buckaroo Banzai, Blacula, Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster

It is probably obvious to many who have been around listverse for the last two years, that one of my favorite horror movies is the Exorcist. I have watched it countless times and love trivia relating to the picture. After watching it for the umpteenth time last night, I decided to post a list of trivia excerpts about the film (which seems apt as Halloween is nearly here and I am hoping to do a list on real exorcisms soon). This list is mostly derived from IMDB and MovieMistakes as they essentially summarize all that the director and actors have said about the film. There really is little I can add (hence the future list on exorcism). Be sure to watch the movie at least once this halloween. These facts relate to the original film release (and I recommend that as the one to watch – the new release version contains scenes that upset the balance of the film).

1. The young priest who gave Father Karras confession at the end of the film was (and still is) a Catholic priest (Reverend William O’Malley). In order to make him visibly shocked in the final scene, the director (William Peter Blatty) slapped him across the face unexpectedly and yelled “action!” Father O’Malley still teaches to this day at Fordham University.

2. On the first day of filming the exorcism sequence, Linda Blair’s delivery of her foul-mouthed dialogue so disturbed the gentlemanly Max von Sydow that he forgot his lines.

3. Very brief cutaways appear in the film in order to make the audience uneasy. The most famous is the demon face (seen above) – the face was that of Eileen Dietz who also starred in Happy Days and General Hospital. The face is, to me, the most memorable scene from the film and it still gives me a fright when I see it.

4. In the disturbing scene where Regan is masturbating with the crucifix, Eileen Dietz (as mentioned in number 3) was used for the shot where Regan belts her mother across the face. William Friedkin felt they needed someone with more heft physically to perform the stunt, and the double was shot from the back. The crucifix scene was filmed with Linda Blair, who says she wasn’t totally aware of what she was doing or the implications of the vulgar acts.

5. The scream of the demon being thrown out of Linda Blair was actually created by recording squealing pigs being driven into slaughter.

6. Ellen Burstyn received a permanent spinal injury during filming. In the sequence where she is thrown away from her possessed daughter, a harness jerked her hard away from the bed. She fell on her coccyx and screamed in pain – this was caught on film and adds to the realism of that scene.

7. The refrigerated bedroom set was cooled with four air conditioners and temperatures would plunge to around 30 to 40 below zero. It was so cold that perspiration would freeze on some of the cast and crew. On one occasion the air was saturated with moisture resulting in a thin layer of snow falling on the set before the crew arrived for filming. This obviously negated the need for fake breath mist which is prevalent in many modern movies.

8. When originally released in the UK a number of town councils imposed a complete ban on the showing of the film. This led to the bizarre spectacle of “Exorcist Bus Trips” where enterprising travel companies organized buses to take groups to the nearest town where the film was showing.

9. A filmgoer who saw the movie in 1974 during its original release fainted and broke his jaw on the seat in front of him. He then sued Warner Brothers and the filmmakers, claiming that the use of subliminal imagery in the film had caused him to pass out. The studio settled out of court for an undisclosed sum. The film affected many audiences so strongly that at many theaters, paramedics were called to treat people who fainted and others who went into hysterics.

10. If adjusted for inflation, the Exorcist would be the top grossing R-rated film of all time.

11. Due to its controversial material, this movie was not available on video in the UK until 1999 when the British Board of Film Censors (BBFC) approved an uncut version.

12. The substance that the possessed Regan hurls at Father Damien Karras (Jason Miller) is thick pea soup. Specifically, it’s Andersen’s brand pea soup. The crew tried Campbell’s but didn’t like the “effect.”

13. Director William Friedkin asked technical advisor Reverend Thomas Bermingham to exorcise the set. He refused, saying an exorcism might increase anxiety. Rev. Bermingham wound up visiting the set and gave a blessing and talk to reassure the cast and crew.

14. Gonzalo Gavira was called on to create many of the special sound effects after William Friedkin recalled his work from El topo (1970). One of the more memorable sounds, the 360-degree turning of Regan’s head, was actually made by twisting a sound crew member’s old leather wallet in front of a mike.

15. William Peter Blatty based his novel on a supposedly genuine exorcism from 1949, which was partially performed in both Cottage City, Maryland, and Bel-Nor, Missouri. Several area newspapers reported on a speech a minister gave to an amateur parapsychology society, in which he claimed to have exorcised a demon from a 13-year-old boy named Robbie, and that the ordeal lasted a little more than six weeks.

16. One of the most famous scenes in the movie and the shot used for the posters and the cover of the DVD/VHS releases was inspired by the 1954 painting “Empire of Light” (“L’Empire des lumières”) by René Magritte. It is the scene where Fr. Merrin steps out of a cab and stands in front of the MacNeil residence bathed in an eerie glow.

17. Linda Blair injured her back when a piece of the rig broke as she was thrown about on the bed

18. Linda Blair received her Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination before it was widely known that previous Supporting Actress winner Mercedes McCambridge had actually provided the voice of the demon. By Academy rules once Blair was given the nomination it could not be withdrawn, but the controversy about Blair being given credit for another actress’ work ruined her chances of winning the award.

19. For the vomiting sequences, Eileen Dietz doubled (uncredited) for Linda Blair, and later sued unsuccessfully for puking credit. Makeup veteran Dick Smith rigged Dietz’s facial contours with sheets of heat-formed plexiglass that were secured at the corners of her mouth and behind her head. A camouflaged nozzle anchored in Dietz’s oral cavity provided the apparatus through which the “vomit” could be forcefully discharged, fed by supply tubes discreetly embedded in the plexiglass on both sides of her face. Such was the complexity of the set-up that Dietz could barely swallow or close her mouth.

20. The “Exorcist steps”, 75 (or 74 – one is very small) stone steps at the end of M Street in Georgetown, were padded with 1/2″-thick rubber to film the death of Father Karras. The stuntman tumbled down the stairs twice. Georgetown University students charged people around $5 each to watch the stunt from the rooftops.

21. Due to death threats against Linda Blair from religious zealots who believed the film “glorified Satan”, Warner Bros. had bodyguards protecting her for six months after the film’s release.

22. The demon that possesses Regan MacNeil is actually named Pazuzu, however the demon’s name is never mentioned in any way in either version of ‘The Exorcist’ (or ‘The Exorcist: The Restored Version’). During the film Pazuzu lies to Father Damien Karras claiming to be the actual Devil. Conversations with Father Lankester Merrin show this claim to be false

23. Mercedes McCambridge regurgitated on a mixture of chewed, mushy apple and raw egg to produce the sound effect of Regan’s projectile vomiting.

24. At one point the search for a young actress capable of playing Regan was so trying that William Friedkin claims he even considered auditioning adult dwarf actors.

25. There are tales about ominous events surrounding the year-long shoot, including the deaths of nine people associated with the production and stories about a mysterious fire that destroyed the set one weekend. Actors Jack MacGowran (who played Burke Dennings) and Vasiliki Maliaros (Father Karras’ Mother) died before the film was released.

Hammer. A name synonymous with lush, Gothic horror with a very British tint. The Halloween season is ideal for bringing us back to those years from about 1958 until the early 70s, when Hammer—previously a somewhat down-on-its-luck film studio, hit upon the winning formula of revived horror classics with a fresh, Technicolor hue, liberally doused in blood and gore. Hammer produced dozens of films and a few TV series in its lifetime (it had a dry run in the 30s, before war-time exigencies slowed production and brought the studio to near-failure) –comedies, war movies, straight dramas, science fiction—but it became know for those fifteen or so years of full-color period piece horrors—often derivative and cheap and sometimes exploitative—but always flashy and classy and fun. Of course, to our tastes today these films are tame, the blood and gore silly and fake… but their wonderful period-creak has the cinematographic patina of a lost time—not only in the Victorian/Edwardian mise-en-scene of each film, but in the double dip of a bygone fifties and sixties, when times were simpler and even cheapish horror was slick and theatrical.

The following are thirteen of the best Hammers, partly my opinion and partly the consensus of Gothic horror fans. Kids today may be jaded, but open your minds to suspended disbelief, and you may find yourself enjoying the look, colors, tonal moods and dark atmospheres of these small gems… not to mention the splendid acting talents of Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Andrew Keir, Barbara Shelley, Michael Ripper, Andre Morrell and many others—the regular players who made Hammer their home.

These films are offered in no particular order.

Bernard Quatermass was a character created by Nigel Kneale for the BBC in the 1950s, who was featured not only on television, but in a series of films produced by Hammer, beginning in 1955 with “The Quatermass Xperiment.” This begat a follow up a couple years later. Both films starred a poorly-cast American, Brian Donlevy, (a somewhat mundane actor with a well-fed face, who looked more businessman than scientist) as Quatermass. After these two black and white efforts failed to take off, Hammer delayed producing another Quatermass film until 1967, when it could apply both Technicolor and a better actor more suited to the role: bearded and tweeded Andrew Keir, who lent a professorial grumpiness to the part.

But not only that—Quatermass and the Pit (titled “Five Million Years to Earth” for American distribution) was given a Hammer supernatural horror treatment as well. The story of a mysterious and apparently dangerous “haunted” projectile discovered during construction of the London Underground (it’s at first assumed to be an unexploded German bomb leftover from WWII) which turns out to be a spacecraft from Mars (replete with mummified Martian corpses and fossils of the ape-men the grasshopper-like Martians were experimenting on) is more pure ghost and horror story than science fiction, with the ancient Martian plot to transfer the survival of their civilization to genetically engineered apes (later to evolve into Humanity) mixed in with horrific legends of demons, devils, ghosts and goblins. Indeed, the horned visage of the Martians is discovered to be the root at our race memory of a classic devil, and the whole thing ends in a terrific bang of electricity and telekinetic energy. A favorite of many a Saturday Afternoon TV monster movie matinee for us kids of the 70s, this film still packs a delicious jolt.

Not a horror tale you say? Oh, think again. When Hammer got a hold of it, the most famous Sherlock Holmes story became very much a horror yarn, and one of the best. In fact, this ranks, in my opinion, as purely THE best version of “The Hound” ever made, and one of the best Holmes movies ever. Peter Cushing turns an elegant twist as the great detective, with Andre Morrell a superbly dead-on Watson. Christopher Lee is along for even more delight as the haunted and hunted Sir Henry Baskerville, heir to the titles and lands of the cursed Baskerville family. It’s always a thrill to watch the Lee and Cushing team-ups, and this one doesn’t disappoint. If you’re a Holmes fan, you’ll almost certainly love Cushing’s take on your hero, and if you’re a horror fan, you’ll find this one rare and tasty meat that’s well above the common dog food.

I’ve held forth on this one before (see my “Ten Suspense Movies You Must See’) but it never hurts to invite new audiences to look over an old friend.

For a time in the early-to-mid 60s, Hammer produced a series of psychological thrillers in the “mini-Hitchcock” vein, and to my mind this is the best. This twisting, turning, nothing-is-what-it-seems shocker affected me so much when I was a kid that I never forgot the scene of an old man’s corpse, glimpsed floating at the bottom of a weed-choked pool. I only saw the film once, on TV in the early 70s, but that scene stuck with me for so long that I finally tracked down the film years later, (I had remembered only bits and pieces of it) and of course added a copy of it to my library.

Pretty Susan Strasberg stars as the wheelchair-bound heiress who comes home to her family’s Cote d’Azur villa to suspicions that her stepmother and the village doctor may have murdered her father, and are plotting to drive her insane. From there it’s a minor roller-coaster ride of turning shocks with a surprise ending that delivers and delivers well. Creepy, moody, and sprinkled with scares, everyone I’ve introduced this film to has found it a fun delight. Let me know what you think.

Okay, first classic “monster” horror on the list, and also the first pairing of Peter Cushing as Dr. Van Helsing and Christopher Lee as Dracula. This stylish thrill-ride boasts the signature Hammer cinematography, dramatic score, expertly paced editing, and excellent direction of Terence Fisher. It made Hammer’s name on both sides of the Atlantic, and begat a series of Dracula sequels… not to mention launching the careers of the aforementioned Cushing and Lee as horror stars.

But it’s not only historic importance that places “Horror of Dracula” on this list (called of course simply “Dracula” in the UK, the “Horror of…” had to be added for US distribution as Universal still held rights to the solitary “Dracula” for use as a film title) it’s also because this is simply a ripping good movie. Speedily but effortlessly paced, it plays as much, or more, with the original Bram Stoker story as the Universal Lugosi version did, but where the Universal classic was spooky and creaky, and Lugosi’s vampire a merely menacing Transylvanian undead, the Hammer film is a bloody, frightening, tense thumper, and Lee’s Dracula a deadly, horrifying, evil killer. With his bloodshot eyes, blood-stained lips and demonic stare, this more violent Dracula makes us forget that prior to the Hammer/Lee interpretation, Hollywood vampires had been only elegant men in elegant evening clothes, like lothario magicians. Lee’s Dracula brings the dripping blood and brutal menace to the figure, and makes him more demon than charming trickster… the true Prince of Darkness.

I’ve never been as big a fan of the Hammer Frankensteins as I’ve been the Hammer Draculas. The reason isn’t merely reflective of a preference for murderous vampires over lumbering creatures, but it really hearkens to a difference in the way the two series were played. There’s something new and keenly exciting about Christopher Lee’s Dracula and something creepily terrifying about most of the films in which he played the character. But there’s something missing, I think, in the Hammer Frankensteins. There’s something of the unoriginal about them, the derivative, of the Universal originals… while at the same time the Hammer Franks pale, for all their Technicolor garishness, when placed up against the Universal high-marks. I simply can never view a Hammer Frankenstein film without remembering the James Whale original, or The Bride of Frankenstein or Son of Frankenstein. Perhaps its Karloff, whom for once Lee could not measure up to, no matter his physical height. And perhaps, too, it’s the way the Hammer Frankensteins never seemed to grasp the pathos or the tragedy of the monster—let alone his creator. And here too the Hammers falter—because, as Denis Gifford pointed out in his unparalleled study of the Horror film (A Pictorial Guide to Horror Movies) Hammer made the mistake of making Doctor Frankenstein the continuing element in the films, and not the monster. Cushing played Frankenstein in all but one of the Hammers, and Cushing was great. But his Doctor Frankenstein is simply evil mad doctor with few, if any redeeming qualities… and in each film he creates a new monster which only serves to pull us away, in some sense, from the original creation of the story… and away from the heights which Karloff managed to reach in the 30s.

So why is this movie here? Well partly historic significance—it proceeded “Horror of Dracula” by a year, and was thus Hammer’s first foray into the horror field. But it’s really more than that. This is arguably the best of the Hammer Frankensteins, and certainly the most stylishly handled, if some of the later films reached for more of an almost campy surgical mess and gore which could also be fun. It’s also interesting, however, in the way it chooses to focus on the failed humanity of Doctor Frankenstein himself, played with relished wickedness by Cushing. Told in flashback, we’re never quite sure if we’re seeing what really happened, or merely what Frankenstein has dreamed or imagined. In any case, though, this film delivers shocks and horror, and that’s what counts. In the future there were other Hammer Franks that had more murderous, brutal creature-creations, but Lee’s creature in this one (Hammer was unable to use the term “monster” for the Doctor’s creation, since this would have stepped on Universal’s legal toes) while having none of Karloff’s pathos, still echoes with a kind of pathetic sadness.

With this film, Hammer took a break from the “let’s milk the old Universal classics for all they’re worth” and created their OWN monster for a change… and it’s a good one. The daughter of a former missionary to the Punjab has been cursed, because of his misdeeds, to regularly transform into a humanoid, poisonous reptile. Her bite, of course, is fatal to anyone who comes close, and the resultant rabies-like mess is a nasty sight to behold. Sounds cheesy, yes—and it is! But that’s the delight of these films. You don’t come to film for reality, you come to it for nightmares and dreams. And like all great horror films, this one proceeds from start to finish like a bizarre and twisted bad dream.

Did I say “The Reptile” was like a bad dream? That description fits this film even more closely. Three years before George Romero changed the Zombie genre forever with “Night of the Living Dead,” Hammer films were already paving the way with the first film ever that transformed the zombie from merely a slavish, robotic walking corpse into a terrifying monster. No, the zombies in “The Plague” aren’t yet eating your brains, or devouring your flesh—but they’re a damn site more menacing and nightmarish than the somewhat neutral zombies of the thirties and forties, when they were more prop than monster, even in great (but cheap) turns at the ghoulish, like “White Zombie.” Val Lewton’s more-dark-and-psychological-romance-than-horror“I Walked with a Zombie” is still the best ever, but I’ll put this film at third place after “Night of the Living Dead” for its place in re-edifying and re-vivifying the zombie as a monster of terror in our minds.

Great use of color for mood and tone, great direction and editing, and great makeup effects. AND a plus—a marvelously surreal dream sequence in the middle of it, an unusual departure for the usually straightforward Hammer.

For me, the tops of all the Christopher Lee Dracula films. This is the one that gave me nightmares as a kid, and the one I remembered for years ever after. I’m not *exactly* sure why. Lee has nary a line in this film, but that only makes him more animalistically menacing and evil. And this is a brutal film in some ways, taking the Hammer nastiness up a notch. Oh, not as high as it would get later, in, for instance “Scars of Dracula” and so on—but you can see the blood on the wall here. A nice touch is the introduction of Dracula’s human “servant” and protector, Klove, acted by Philip Latham in a wonderfully understated but supremely menacing manner. It also features the beautiful Barbara Shelley as Drac’s first female victim, and the always enjoyable Andrew Keir (the aforementioned Doctor Quatermass) as a helpful but irascible priest who is instrumental in dispatching the evil count. High point—the brutal, slaughter-like sacrifice of Charles Tingwell’s character so that his blood will resurrect the dry-as-dust Lee back to the land of the living-undead.

I was initially unsure about the inclusion of this film to the list, and had originally preferred the later “Dracula has Risen from the Grave” (a nifty film in its own right, with the always-menacing Christopher Lee and a nice featured role of a failed priest as Drac’s slave/servant, including some more nasty brutality with a few particularly vicious murders). But then I thought the list was getting top heavy with Dracula films, and it needed a werewolf. AND Hammer did do the werewolf genre a nice turn with this minor, often forgotten picture.

It stars the always-watchable Oliver Reed, who portrays an even more tragic werewolf figure than is the norm—he is the result of a tragedy, in which a cruel nobleman first locked up and tortured a humble beggar, driving the beggar insane—and then had a servant girl flung into the beggar’s cell because she rejected the nobleman’s advances. There the hapless girl is raped, and the resulting child is cursed to lycanthropy.

The makeup for Reed’s werewolf may appear a trifle silly at times—that’s a matter of taste I suppose. But nothing silly about the story itself, or Reed’s performance, both of which carry with them power and subtlety. I found myself, on watching this film again, feeling eminently sorry for Reed’s character, who was cursed to a downfall that was not in any way his fault. And the pathos of this shows in the character quite well.

I think some people either love or hate this film. I love it. I think I know why too. Oh yes, surely, it’s all the attractive damsels that the Dracula stand-in, David Peel’s gloriously decadent Baron Meinster, gets to bite. (Yes, despite the title, this is NOT a Dracula film. Dracula is mentioned, but as having been destroyed. This film is about those who are carrying on in his name, with the loathsome “disease” which he has let loose upon the world). And it’s the edging-to-over-the-top performance of David Peel as a kind of metrosexual vampire, who retains some real menace in his clipped voice and manner. And it’s the TRULY over the top performance of Freda Jackson as “Greta,” Baron Meinster’s insane, protecting servant. But more than anything it’s the superbly stylized visual imagery, which makes the film look EXACTLY the way a gothic Technicolor horror film should look, from start to finish. This film should be watched on a slightly grey Autumn Saturday, with the leaves rustling in a menacing breeze, a threatening hush to a vaguely evil afternoon. You’ll see what I mean.

Never mind that this film throws Hammer continuity out the window (Van Helsing—again portrayed by the consummate craftsman, Peter Cushing—states in “Horror of Dracula” that vampires manifestly do NOT turn into bats—but in this film they do) and never mind that at times it makes little sense (characters seem to be introduced who are never seen again, and the vampiric brides make no move to stop Van Helsing from “curing” himself once Meinster has bitten to enslave him). It doesn’t matter. This film is such a ghoulishly visual treat you don’t care. It is chock full of memorable images—the first new bride’s “awakening” from the soil, with whacky Greta’s help—the fight between Meinster and Van Helsing in the castle—Van Helsing’s heroic “cure” of the bite inflicted on him—the padlocks falling supernaturally from a coffin—and so on. And it’s worth the price alone for David Peel’s fun take on the evil Meinster, with his biting delivery of the line, “MOTHER…..come here.”

Okay, again—there were other films I was thinking of including here. Any number of them. But then I reconsidered Hammer’s remake of Phantom of the Opera, and I thought, what the hell? What elevates this film, besides the usual lush Hammer cinematography, is the story of Herbert Lom’s tortured Professor Petrie, and the performance Lom turns in for the character. Again, this flies in the face, somewhat, of the original Leroux novel, but then so did the superior Lon Chaney version of 1927, not to mention the late 40s remake starring Claude Rains, which was more sappy romantic musical than horror film. I still prefer Chaney’s Phantom, who has no reason for what he does other than just being a butt-ugly nutcase. But his Phantom had the pathos. In a way though, Lom’s does too. We feel sorry for him. And that’s due to Lom… and partly to the always fun-to-watch Michael Gough, who again chews the scenery as the villain in yet another 60s shocker. Watch for Patrick Troughten as slimy rat catcher, too.

Lom’s Phantom dies heroically, saving the day. But before this we get to see the usually lush Hammer treatment of a classic story, with the Hammer edge of period decadence worked in. Only scary in spots, same may prefer other, more frightening Hammers… but this one manages to entertain without making us wish for Chaney, even if he still echoes and is still, of course, far better.

Another Hammer psychological thriller. I almost fudged by including yet another Hammer in the same vein, “Paranoiac,” with this one (here’s the link to the famous ultra-creepy scene from Paranoiac) but I decided I might as well just come down for one or the other—and I simply consider “Nightmare” to be the superior film.

It’s the story of a teenaged girl who witnessed her insane mother kill her father years earlier, and is now suffering recurring nightmares about the event. Released from school, she returns home to her guardian, nurse, and servants… but her nightmares become more and more realistic and vivid—and terrifying—centering on a woman she’s never seen before. We soon found out that the girl’s guardian and his mistress have taken advantage of all this to form a diabolical plot to get rid of the guardian’s wife… and the story goes twisting and turning from there.

Good, spooky suspense with a lot of atmospheric and creepy scenes to recommend it.

And sure, check out Paranoiac as well.

Another derivative Hammer that revives an old Universal favorite, this one again stars Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, with Lee at bat as the VERY tall and very moldy Egyptian, Kharis. Kharis was condemned to have his tongue cut out and be entombed in a living death for attempting to revive, using the “Scroll of Life” (it was the Scroll of Thoth in the original Karloff/Universal version) his moribund love, the princess Anank-ah, who, it just so happens, is the spitting image of the wife of Egyptologist/Archeologist Cushing.

When Cushing and his father and uncle come a-calling in Egypt to loot Anank-ah’s tomb, they rouse the ire of Mehmet Bey (George Pastell), a faithful follower of the long-dead religion of the god Karnak (which was actually a *place* in ancient Egypt, not a deity). Bey decides to use the accidentally-revived Kharis to take revenge on those who desecrated the tomb, and soon Cushing and family are marked for death.

In truth this plot was lifted from later Universal mummy films, but the yardstick to go by is always the original 1932 Karloff version—and really, this one holds up pretty well. The fun thing is to watch Lee—who is bandaged from head to foot—acting at times solely with his eyes. It’s downright amazing. He manages to convey anger, rage, determination and even sadness with just a change of eye-expression… the mark of a good actor. Cushing, of course, is a delight, and the film is moody and dark enough to scare. There were a few successor Hammer Mummy films–none of which starred either Lee or Cushing—and each had their moments of terror and gory shock. But this one maintains a level of typically stylish Hammer panache that keeps the fun going to the very end. Not a great film, but a decent one. Later mummies were scarier and more brutal (Hammer’s “Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb” and “The Mummy’s Shroud” both rack up the body count to a higher degree than this film) but it’s Lee’s performance and Cushing’s presence that bring home the goods here.

You may recall that we published a list of movies about movies not too long ago. It caused a bit of controversy due to the lack of a few entries. This list includes some of those omissions, plus a few films that are absolutely must-sees. Be sure to mention any that are missing from this, and the first list, in the comments.

A camera crew follows a serial killer/thief around as he exercises his craft. He expounds on art, music, nature, society, and life as he offs mailmen, pensioners, and random people. Slowly he begins involving the camera crew in his activities and they begin wondering if what they’re doing is such a good idea, particularly when the killer kills a rival and the rival’s brother sends a threatening letter.

This is the only movie on this list that I have not yet seen and therefore cannot accurately give any rating but the review on IMDB stated that “Our killer’s absolute disregard for human life, other than a thick crew of visually stunning characters, is nothing short of a masterpiece.”

A week in the life of Ben, a powerful Hollywood producer, as he juggles negotiations with a studio head so that his newest picture can open at Cannes in two weeks. Fighting with a high-strung director who must make edits to the film, with an actor and his agent because the star has arrived on the set of a new picture with a full beard, and with his most recent ex-wife, Kelly, who may have a lover. Can Ben keep it all together, get the green light from the studio to go to Cannes, move his new picture past the beard crisis, and maybe return to Kelly’s good graces?

What makes this movie interesting is that it views the life of a Hollywood producer who tries to keep his personal and professional life in check but it keeps getting screwed up by the people around him. This movie has a good story, likable characters and it’s funny.
(you might recognize some of the actors in this film: Robert De Niro, Sean Penn, Catherine Keener, Bruce Willis, John Turturro, Kristen Stewart)

Side note: Catherine Keener also stars in the #5 film on this list “Hamlet 2″

Jerry is a junkyard worker who attempts to sabotage a power plant he suspects of causing his headaches. But he inadvertently causes his brain to become magnetized, leading to the unintentional destruction of all the movies in his friend’s store. In order to keep the store’s one loyal customer, an elderly lady with a tenuous grasp on reality, the pair re-create a long line of films including The Lion King, Rush Hour, Ghostbusters, When We Were Kings, Driving Miss Daisy, and Robocop, putting themselves and their townspeople into it. They become the biggest stars in their neighborhood.

I really enjoyed this film, the story was original and well written, the actors were good and Jack Black works great with Mos Def.

Side note: Jack black also stars in the #9 film on the first “movies about movies” list “Tropic Thunder”

In the beginning of this film we meet a documentary team of three young men and a young woman. They are heading for the south-American jungle to search for real cannibals. After a while the crew is reported missing and a rescue team is sent from the US. This team gets in touch with an amazon tribe called the Tree-people. The tree-people gives them the only remains of the first crew – the film rolls containing the material this crew shot during their search for real cannibals. Back in the US we get to see these films. Now we know exactly what happened to the first crew.

Now in this film we get to see (real) animals being cut apart and a young girl getting skewered. If you liked “faces of death” you’ll really enjoy this movie.  Good luck trying to find a (legal) copy, this film has been banned in 50 countries.

Dana Marschz is a failed actor and recovering alcoholic who’s moved to Tucson to teach high school drama where he’s plagued by bad reviews, student indifference, budget woes (he and his wife, who is trying to get pregnant, take in a boarder), and his own teaching limitations. Because the other electives are closed he finds himself with a large class of seeming gang-bangers, and the principal informs him that drama will be cut next trimester. On the advice of a student reviewer, Dana decides to stage his own play, a sequel to “Hamlet” in which the prince and Jesus, with the use of a time machine, try to save Gertrude and Ophelia. Can Dana for once pull something off?

This movie is ridiculous but funny.

Side Note: actress Melanie Diaz also stars in the #8 movie on this list “Be kind Rewind”

The next great psycho horror slasher has given a documentary crew exclusive access to his life as he plans his reign of terror over the sleepy town of Glen Echo, all the while deconstructing the conventions and archetypes of the horror genre for them.

This movie is similar to “Man bites dog”;  a serial killer takes a film crew around town and shows them how to be a proper murderer. What makes this movie good is that the killer explains some of the horror movie clichés and gives step by step instructions on how be a real killer.

Max Schreck’s performance in the classic film Nosferatu has become legendary. What if the reason he was so good is that he really was a vampire? That’s the premise of this film, which features director F.W. Murnau, so enamored with creating the perfect vampire film that he seeks out an actual member of the undead to play the title role. But when Schreck starts taking more and more advantage of the opportunities to feed he suddenly has, can Murnau come to his senses and destroy him?

This was a good movie, the awkwardness of Max Schreck gives the film a humorous side and his loneliness a tragic side.

Zack Brown and Miriam have been friends since high-school and share an apartment with many unpaid bills. In a reunion party, they find that the former high-school star is now a porn actor, and this inspires them to make a porn film to pay their bills. They cast the actors, actresses and crew, and Zack writes the screenplay.

Funny movie, perhaps not Seth Rogens best performance but nonetheless worth watching.

Three film students travel to Maryland to make a student film about a local urban legend… The Blair Witch. The three went into the woods on a two day hike to find the Blair Witch, and never came back. One year later, the students film and video was found in the woods. The footage was compiled and made into a movie. The Blair Witch Project.

Really good movie, excellent acting and story, unfortunately if this movie was released today it would not get as much attention as it did back in 1999 because nowadays a horror movie needs a bunch of blood and shock effects to be valid which is truly sad.

This is not technically about the making of a movie, but rather about working on a screenplay and working for a big time producer. It is a must-see film and definitely deserves a place on this list. The synopsis: Buddy Ackerman (Kevin Spacey), a big time movie producer on the rise, hires young Guy (Frank Whaley) to be his assistant. Guy thinks he’s finally hit the big time. But Buddy has other ideas. He torments Guy with petty requests and daily reamings for bringing him Equal instead of Sweet-N-Low. Guy decides that he is fed up with Buddy’s torture and goes to Buddy’s house and ties him up and begins  his revenge. Guy’s lover, a script writer who has “screwed” her way to the top, is dragged into this. You have to see this film – it is great.

Cinematography is, in many ways, a thankless job. Everyone knows what their basic purpose is, how important it is to the film, and how visual images are often the most memorable, and yet many would struggle to name even one cinematographer. In the history of film, the role of the cinematographer is an often neglected one, and yet they have been as important and influential as directors, writers and actors. To commemorate them, here is a list of the ten greatest and most influential cinematographers. You may also like our Top 10 Cinematographic Masterpieces.

Miyagawa is arguably the most important cinematographer in Japanese history, having worked with a who’s who of Japanese auteurs, including Akira Kurosawa, Yasujiro Ozu, and Kenji Mizoguchi. He is perhaps most famous for his work on Rashomon, where he was the first person to point a camera directly into sunlight (utilising years of study on light exposure). He was also known for using multiple camera setups for scenes, and acclaimed for his contrast of sweeping tracking shots and sharp close-ups. Other innovations on the film include using mirrors to reflect natural light and using dyed black water as rain, to make it appear more vivid on camera. He was also a master of genres, working on comedies (The Rickshaw Man), samurai films (the Zatoichi films), as wells as overseeing 164 cameramen and using over 234 different lenses for Tokyo Olympiad, often compared with Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia as one of the greatest Olympics documentaries.

Some of Miyagawa’s stunning work on Rashomon can be seen in the clip.

Notable films: Rashomon (1950), Ugetsu (1953), Sansho the Bailiff (1954), Floating Weeds (1959), Yojimbo (1961), Zatoichi (1964), Tokyo Olympiad (1965)

Though nowhere near as prolific as others on this list, Urusevsky has earned an almost mythic status among cinematographers due to his work with Russian director Mikhail Kalatozov on such films as I am Cuba and The Cranes are Flying. His nearly unbelievable combination of deep focus, acrobatic tracking shots, subjective perspective and other remarkable cinematographic trickery was so ahead of its time that it wouldn’t be seen in the west until over a decade later. Unfortunately, his Kaltozov collaborations were largely buried by the Soviet propaganda machine, and have only recently been restored thanks to acknowledged admirers such as Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola. His spectacular camerawork, which often distracted from the proper focus of the scene, was defended by Urusevsky, remarking that, “It has never interested me, as cameraman, to just register what is going on in front of the camera.””

The above, much celebrated, clip is perhaps the most famous scene in Urusevsky’s repertoire, a balletic tracking shot from the opening of I am Cuba shows off his blistering and original camerawork.

Notable films: The Forty-First (1956), The Cranes are Flying (1957), The Unsent Letter (1959), I am Cuba (1964)

Vittorio Storaro (born 24 June 1940 in Rome) is a three-time Academy Award winning Italian cinematographer. He is most famous for his work on Apocalypse Now (his first Oscar), where he was given free reign by Francis Ford Coppola to photograph the film’s acclaimed visual look. He went on to win Oscars for Reds and The Last Emperor, which was directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, his most frequent collaborator. Storaro is widely regarded as a master cinematographer with a sophisticated philosophy largely inspired by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s theory of colors, which focuses in part on the psychological effects different colors have and the way in which colors influence our perceptions of different situations. With his son, Fabrizio Storaro, he created the Univisium format system to unify all future theatrical and television movies into one respective aspect ratio of 2.00:1.

The clip is a scene from The Sheltering Sky, showcasing arguably the most beautiful desert cinematography ever put on film. For a much better quality view (and longer version) of this scene, go here. You will absolutely not be disappointed.

Notable films: The Conformist (1970), Last Tango in Paris (1972), Apocalypse Now (1979), Reds (1981), The Last Emperor (1987), The Sheltering Sky (1990)

As Ingmar Bergman’s choice cinematographer, Nykvist was given the unenviable task of transforming the Swedish auteur’s startling, often surreal, images into reality in front of the camera. Despite this, Nykvist was noted for his subtlety and simplicity, favouring naturalistic lighting to complement Bergman’s slow, paced style of storytelling. He was unpretentious and often hidden behind his towering director, but Nykvist was still acknowledged for his work with two Academy Awards for Cries and Whispers and Fanny and Alexander. Nykvist also worked with directors such as Roman Polanski, Woody Allen and Andrei Tarkovsky. He was the first European cinematographer to join the American Society of Cinematographers, and received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the ASC in 1996.

Above is a beautiful scene from Persona. Notice the remarkable fading of light.

Notable films: The Virgin Spring (1960), Persona (1966), Cries and Whispers (1973), Fanny and Alexander (1982), The Sacrifice (1986), The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988)

Gregg Toland was not with us long, but it is a credit to his brilliance that he is so revered today. Toland was nominated five times for the Best Cinematography Oscar during a seven year golden period which lasted from 1936 to 1942, but it is his collaboration with Orson Welles on Citizen Kane that is most remembered. Though he didn’t create deep focus cinematography, he perfected it in Citizen Kane, allowing characters in the fore and background to be shot in focus at the same time. In fact, much of the film’s visual and cinematographic genius – low angles, high contrast, dark shadows – though often credited to Welles, was largely Toland’s doing. Welles later acknowledged that Toland was advising him on camera placement and lighting effects secretly so the young director would not be embarrassed in front of the highly experienced crew. So indebted was he to Toland’s work, that Welles insisted that their names appear together on the end credits. Later on, Toland worked on Disney’s Song of the South, which combined live action with animation.

Above is an example of deep focus in Citizen Kane.

Notable films: Wuthering Heights (1939), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), The Long Voyage Home (1940), Citizen Kane (1941), How Green Was My Valley (1941), Song of the South (1946)

Nicknamed ‘The Prince of Darkness’ for his penchant for using rich blacks and dark interiors, most famously in The Godfather films for which he is best known, Gordon Willis is famed for his innovative cinematography which has garnered him two Oscar nominations and heaps of respect. His work on The Godfather films is legendary, and his innovations include pioneering the use of warm, fuzzy, amber glows to represent nostalgic scenes of the past in The Godfather Part II, and the unique recreation of 1920s photography for Woody Allen’s Zelig.

Above is a clip showing Gordon Willis (and others) discussing the cinematography of The Godfather.

Notable films: The Godfather (1972), The Godfather Part II (1974), All the President’s Men (1976), Zelig (1977), Manhattan (1979), Zelig (1983), The Godfather Part III (1990)

Though born in Australia, Doyle made his mark by photographing Asian films, especially the work of Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai. His work with the director, particularly the films Chungking Express, In the Mood for Love and 2046, is lauded for their vivid splashes of colors and high saturation, and he is considered one of the most important architects of Asian New Wave cinema. He is also one of the few “superstar” cinematographers, whose reputation is often higher than the directors he works with.

Above is a clip from the film Hero, where Doyle’s attention to vivid colors was crucial to the story.

Notable films: Chungking Express (1994), In the Mood for Love (2000), The Quiet American (2002), Hero (2002), Infernal Affairs (2002), 2046 (2002), Paranoid Park (2007)

Beginning with films such as Cool Hand Luke and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Hall helped liberate approaches to filming by making, as Sight and Sound puts it, “making virtues of mistakes”. Blemishes such as the sun hitting the lens, dirt getting on the lens, or other seeming distractions which would have necessitated reshoots in the past, but Hall’s approach exemplified the new wave of American cinema and helped set a template for gritty, independent films. But Hall also proved he could handle more ‘pristine’ pictures, photographing films such American Beauty later in his career. He won his first Oscar in 1969 for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and then would have to wait 30 years for his next, for American Beauty. His third Oscar was awarded to him posthumously for Road to Perdition. As well as that, he was nominated a further seven times during his life.

Above is a funny scene from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, for which Hall won an Oscar.

Notable films: Cool Hand Luke (1967), In Cold Blood (1967), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), The Day of the Locust (1975), American Beauty (1999), Road to Perdition (2002)

James Wong Howe had over 130 films to his credit, spanning from the silent era to color. During the 1930s and 1940s he was considered one of the most sought after cinematographers in Hollywood. He was nominated for ten Academy Awards for cinematography, winning twice. As well as being one of the first cinematographers to use deep focus photography, Howe pioneered techniques to augment eyes on B&W film, early dolly techniques, handheld camera techniques and shooting by unusual light sources, such as by candlelight on The Molly Maguires.

The clip is some crisp, beautiful black and white photography from Hud, for which Howe won an Oscar.

Notable films: The Thin Man (1934), Algiers (1938), Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), The Rose Tattoo (1955), Sweet Smell of Success (1957), The Old Man and the Sea (1958), Hud (1963), Funny Lady (1975)

Charles Rosher was a two-time Academy Award-winning cinematographer who worked from the early days of silent films through the 1950s. Born in London, he was the first cinematographer to receive an Academy Award, along with 1929 co-winner Karl Struss. Rosher studied photography in his youth but earned a reputation early as a newsreel cameraman, before moving to the United States in 1909. He subsequently found work for David Horsley working in his production company in New Jersey. Because early film was largely restricted to using daylight, Horsley relocated his production company to Hollywood in 1911, taking Rosher with him, and opened the first movie studio there. This made Rosher the first full-time cameraman in Hollywood. In 1913 he went to Mexico to film newsreel footage of Pancho Villa’s rebellion. In 1918, he was one of the founders of the American Society of Cinematographers and served as the group’s first Vice-President. In the 1920s he was one of the most sought-after cinematographers in Hollywood, and a personal favorite of stars such as Mary Pickford. His work with Karl Struss on F.W. Murnau’s 1927 film Sunrise is viewed as a milestone in cinematography. In addition, Rosher also received two Eastman Medals (named for George Eastman), Photoplay magazine’s Gold Medal, and the only fellowship ever awarded by the Society of Motion Picture Engineers.

Above is an example of Rosher’s revolutionary work on Sunrise.

Notable films: Sunrise (1927), The Affairs of Cellini (1934), Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936), The Yearling (1946), Annie Get Your Gun (1950), Show Boat (1951)

It has been some time since we had our last film list so I thought it appropriate to publish one today. The thing I like most about this contributed list is that all of the films on it are exceptional movies and I would not hesitate to recommend any one of them to my friends. Be sure to add others that you like to the comments.

The Disorder: Borderline Personality Disorder

Disc jockey Dave Garver attracts the amorous attentions of a demented fan named Evelyn Draper. Evelyn lets Dave pick up at a bar; later at her apartment, Evelyn admits that she is the cooing caller who repeatedly asks Dave to play the Erroll Garner classic “Misty.” From then on, the film is a lesson in how one casual date can turn your whole life around. Evelyn stalks Dave everywhere, ruins his business lunch, assaults his maid, mutilates his house and all of his belongings, and finally threatens to butcher his girlfriend Tobie Williams. You’ll never be able to hear that song again without looking over your shoulder.

The Disorder: Schizophrenia

A young woman, Karin, has recently returned to the family island after spending some time in a mental hospital. On the island with her is her lonely brother and kind, but increasingly desperate husband (‘Max von Sydow’). They are joined by Karin’s father (‘Gunnar Björnstrand’), who is a world-traveling author that is estranged to his children. The film depicts how Karin’s grip on reality slowly slips away and how the bonds between the family members are changing in light of this fact.

The Disorder: Anxiety Disorder

Beth, Calvin, and their son Conrad are living in the aftermath of the death of the other son. Conrad is overcome by grief and misplaced guilt to the extent of a suicide attempt. He is in therapy. Beth had always preferred his brother and is having difficulty being supportive to Conrad. Calvin is trapped between the two trying to hold the family together.

The Disorder: Dissociative disorder

Marion Crane is a Phoenix, Arizona working girl fed up with having to sneak away during lunch breaks to meet her lover, Sam Loomis, who cannot get married because most of his money goes towards alimony. One Friday, Marion’s employer asks her to take $40,000 in cash to a local bank for deposit. Desperate to make a change in her life, she impulsively leaves town with the money, determined to start a new life with Sam in California. As night falls and a torrential rain obscures the road ahead of her, Marion turns off the main highway. Exhausted from the long drive and the stress of her criminal act, she decides to spend the night at the desolate Bates Motel. The motel is run by Norman Bates, a peculiar young man dominated by his invalid mother. After Norman fixes her a light dinner, Marion goes back to her room for a shower….

The Disorder: Autism

What’s Eating Gibert Grape is a beautifully shot movie of tenderness, caring and self-awareness that is set amongst the fictional working class one street town Endora. Centred around the Grape family Ellen and Amy and their two brothers Arnie and Gilbert, who, along with their morbidly obese widowed mother Bonnie Grape are striving to survive and coexist with the absence of a father figure, low wage work and seventeen-year-old Arnie’s severe mental condition. It is in this awkward and extremely one sided affair that the unfortunate Gilbert has to constantly, while working for the town’s slowly dying Convenience Store, take care of his younger brother Arnie. Gilbert’s life, his future, is thwarted he know this, but it is in this Guardian Angel that his love and bond for Arnie cannot, and will not, be let go. That is until the free spirit of Becky arrives in town, and with her grandmother are stranded for the week while waiting for parts for their vehicle. This realization unties new feelings, new thoughts and new hope for the put upon Gibert, something new is eating Gilbert Grape.

The Disorder: Schizophrenia

At Princeton University, John Nash struggles to make a worthwhile contribution to serve as his legacy to the world of mathematics. He finally makes a revolutionary breakthrough that will eventually earn him the Nobel Prize. After graduate school he turns to teaching, becoming romantically involved with his student Alicia. Meanwhile the government asks his help with breaking Soviet codes, which soon gets him involved in a terrifying conspiracy plot. Nash grows more and more paranoid until a discovery that turns his entire world upside down. Now it is only with Alicia’s help that he will be able to recover his mental strength and regain his status as the great mathematician we know him as today.

The Disorder: Autism

Charley is a hustler. He’s been on his own long enough to know how to work people and situations. He finds that the father who threw him out as a teen ager has died. He’s left him a now antique convertible and something more important, a previously unknown brother, Raymond. Raymond is autistic, but is able to calculate complicated mathematical problems in his head with great speed and accuracy. Their father has left his fortune to Raymond who doesn’t even understand what money is for. Charley is enraged by what has happened and by his father keeping Raymond’s existence from him for his entire life. He kidnaps Raymond from his residential home but then finds that Raymond will only fly Qantas. The two begin a long road trip that will lead them to an understanding of each other.

The Disorder: Borderline Personality Disorder

Susanna is depressed and directionless after finishing high school in the late 1960’s. A suicide attempt lands her in Claymore, a mental institution. She befriends the band of troubled women in her ward (Georgina the pathological liar, the sexually abused Daisy, the burn victim Polly) but falls under the hypnotic sway of Lisa, the wildest and most hardened of the bunch. Will Susanna “drop anchor” at Claymore and perpetually act out like Lisa, or will she finally pull her mind together and leave institutional life behind?

The Disorder: Schizophrenia

Donnie Darko doesn’t get along too well with his family, his teachers and his classmates; but he does manage to find a sympathetic friend in Gretchen, who agrees to date him. He has a compassionate psychiatrist, who discovers hypnosis is the means to unlock hidden secrets. His other companion may not be a true ally. Donnie has a friend named Frank – a large bunny which only Donnie can see. When an engine falls off a plane and destroys his bedroom, Donnie is not there. Both the event, and Donnie’s escape, seem to have been caused by supernatural events. Donnie’s mental illness, if such it is, may never allow him to find out for sure.

The Disorder: Mutliple Personality Disorder/Dissociative disorders

The narrator suffers from a lack of sleep. He tries different ways to cure this, but he does not succeed. He does get some sleep, but his conditions rebounds back into it’s original state when he meets a lovely young woman, whose name is Marla. He finds out that she and he both have a lot in common and they spend a lot of time together. While touring, he meets an enigmatic young man named Tyler and after a short conversation both become fast friends. Both like to relieve their inner tensions by hitting each other. Soon word gets around about their fights, and lots of young people also get interested. Then a club is formed, which the narrator and Tyler call ‘Fight Club’. Both start spending a lot of time and both also make lots of money. Another excellent film dealing with the same disorder but in a more serious light, is Sybil.

Some of the best writing is that which is motivated by personal experience. How much more personal can a filmmaker get than creating a movie about the trials and tribulations of making a movie? Here is a list of ten of the best films about filmmaking. Be sure to add your own favorites to the comments.

Perhaps the most grisly and realistic portrayal of the pornographic film industry, Boogie Nights tells the story of a man whose career path paves the way into notoriety that brings him both fame and abuse.

A hilarious send-up of Vietnam War films, Tropic Thunder is the story of three actors (portrayed by Jack Black, director Ben Stiller, and Robert Downey Jr. in blackface) that are dropped into a real jungle and forced to portray their movie roles in order to complete the film. This was a surprise critical hit, and it was the movie that finally stole the Dark Knight’s crown at the box office last summer. It also garnered Downey Jr an Oscar nomination.

A strange, semi-autobiographical film about a screenwriter’s struggle to adapt Susan Orlean’s book “The Orchid Thief.” Charlie Kaufman, when commissioned to adapt the book in real life, decided instead to pen a screenplay about his own failure to do that very thing, creating this bizarre film directed by Spike Jonze and starring Nic Cage as Kaufman and his twin brother.

A nearly 3-hour epic about a film star that helps to guide a young starlet to fame in spite of his own problems with alcoholism and age. Unfortunately, some footage of the film, which may very well be Judy Garland’s greatest performance, is now considered lost.

An anime film about a documentary filmmaker investigating the life of an elderly actress; shown in a “film-within-a-film” style that blurs the lines between fact and fiction. In many ways simultaneously a tribute to Japanese cinema and the art of animation, Millennium Actress is one of the greatest anime films ever created.

Perhaps Tim Burton’s greatest film is this biopic of Hollywood’s worst director of all time, Edward D. Wood, Jr. The film portrays Wood in a decidedly positive light, coming across as more of a tribute than a parody; which is one of the film’s greatest charms. It invents fanciful explanations for some of Wood’s most unexplainable directorial choices, and isn’t always entirely accurate, but a brilliant (and Oscar winning) performance by Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi makes it a winner.

The Coen Brother’s film about a playwright that comes to Hollywood to write movie scripts. The film not only provides commentary on the film industry itself but the direct contrast between Hollywood and Broadway and the impact of World War II on such business practices. This is a rather strange film that not everybody will immediately “get,” but it certainly warrants multiple viewings to appreciate the work as a whole. While maybe the the best Coen Brother’s film, it is perhaps one of their most personal.

The story of a silent film production company that’s forced to convert their latest picture into a “talkie” after the success of Warner Bros.’s The Jazz Singer. Not just a musical comedy, but the king of musical comedies, its soundtrack is often consider the best of any musical film ever produced.

Billy Wilder’s classic film about a struggling screenwriter who discovers a former starlet that begins to absorb him into her delusions of returning to the screen. Quotable, chilling, and bursting with class, watching this film reminds me of just how small pictures have gotten since 1950.

Federico Fellini’s masterpiece about a troubled film director struggling to complete his latest movie while his own life begins crumbling around him. Fellini, suffering a bout of writer’s block, opted to write a semi-autobiographical film ABOUT his writer’s block, choosing to title it in reference to the fact that it was his “8½” film (short films counting as “half” a movie). A tough film to swallow, but perhaps the most accurate portrayal of film making ever put on celluloid.

We certainly can’t miss out on an opportunity to include a David Lynch movie on a list, so here it is. The synopsis: after taking the lead in a new movie Hollywood star Nikki Grace learns the script is based on an old polish film, which was abandoned after the two lead roles of the film were murdered, Thinking the film is cursed Nikki’s imagination runs riot. This is a must-see film for anyone that loves Lynch films.

Menacing characters in films are my favorite; they come in all shapes and sizes and from different genres of film, below is a list of my top 10 menacing characters from film. Initially this was submitted as a list of 17 but it was honed down to a final list of only 10 – the omitted 7 characters are listed at the bottom under notable omissions. If you enjoy this list, you might also want to check out the Top 10 Badass Movie Characters.

This list isn’t all about baddies, or killers or MEN for that matter. Here I include Ellen Ripley because if you piss this woman off she will take your head off and come back for the bloody stump. The day begins normally for our heroine; it’s the run of the mill day for Ellen, travelling in space minding her own business when this little snapping alien shows up and starts feasting on her crew. Does Ellen run and hide? Cower in the corner waiting for help? No. Ellen grabs whatever she can find and fights for her life. They say ‘in space no-one can hear you scream’, I assure you if you go outside on a quiet night and listen really hard, you’ll hear Ripley kicking Alien ass somewhere in the universe.

Menace Factor: The safest place in the universe is standing behind Ellen Ripley.

We’re not safe walking alone on a dark night, we’re not safe leaving our doors unbolted and we’re not safe taking help from a complete stranger: you’d have thought slipping into a sweet sublime slumber would hold no worries for us. We’d be wrong because Mr. Krueger dwells in our dreams. After a spate of child kidnap/murders residents of Elm Street corner the accused and play catch the Molotov Cocktail, Freddy is rubbish at catch and loses, consumed in flames he makes a deal with 3 Demons where he agrees to hang loose in our dreams for a while. The Freddy we know and love is born. Try all the coffee, pills and potions you like, you’ll inevitably fall asleep and then Freddy is going to julienne you like a freshly plucked carrot.

Menace Factor: 1…..2…..Freddy’s coming for you…..

I’m not keen on men who like little girls, it’s wrong, shout, kick, scream, moan, jump up and down and have all the opinions you like; it’s still wrong. Hayley Stark thinks the same as me only unlike me she’s off to do something about it. Hayley looks young for her age and plays the cutie school girl long enough to drug her ‘older admirer’, tie him down and start to…. shall we say; perform surgery on his nether regions! There is not reasoning with Hayley, she has an answer for everything and doesn’t care for your bullshit. Top girl in my opinion.

Menace Factor: Cute as a button unless you’re a paedo.

Now Norman is the kind of guy you can take home to the family. Owns a big, albeit creepy, house overlooking his own Motel, dresses smart, albeit in the fancy new summer dress you just paid a fortune for, but a bloke that loves his mother ‘that much’ has to be respectable marriage material surely….. Doesn’t he? Alright, alright you caught me, I’m bending the truth slightly, Norman is obsessive, jealous, and he thinks women and sex are dirty (because his lovely mother says so) oh and just one more small thing…… Norman has Dissociative Personality Disorder, which means he has at least two compete personalities, the other being his dead mother, who Norman killed and now keeps her body in the creepy house I mentioned earlier.

Menace Factor: My advice? Doesn’t matter how tired you are or how hard it’s raining, keep driving.

Carrie White just goes to show that bullies can only push someone so far before they flip out and cause mayhem with their magical powers. Carrie’s not a bad girl, she just wants to get on with things, blend in with the crowd, it’s the people around her that don’t allow this to happen and end up paying the ultimate price. The decisive moment of humiliation in Carrie’s life comes at the prom, having a bucket of pigs’ blood poured over her and the pristine white dress she’s wearing gets Carrie a little mad, chaos ensues and Carrie creates havoc. I hope Carrie’s classmates enjoyed tormenting and taunting her because they ultimately pay with their lives.

Menace factor: She who laughs last, laughs longest (even if she is covered in blood).

This bloke would go through you for a short cut, literally. He’s the classic son just trying to do well for his family sake. Oh but his ‘trying to do well’ involves segmenting you into 200 portions with his trusty chainsaw or hanging you via a rusty meat hook through your cranium. Nice guy I hear you cry, ah give him the benefit of the doubt… the kids van broke down, what else was he to do on that hot Texas afternoon? Mow the grass?

Menace Factor: I’d have screamed that much too.

You’ve heard the term ‘bunny boiler’ yes? It gets used to describe anyone who becomes slightly infatuated with someone else, well; this film is where the phase was coined. Married guy meets girl, has weekend fling and thinks nothing more of it. Our Alex on the other hand has her own ideas about the relationship; Alex wants the married guy more and more and will do anything to get him, anything, including preparing him a nice rabbit stew and making sure his wife has fresh towels for bath time. How sweet of her.

Menace Factor: Ending relationships amicably since 1987.

This guy can smell you coming, has no fear and if that’s not scary enough he has a voice that could lull you into what you’d think would be a safe and peaceful slumber. When his help is needed to solve an F.B.I case Hannibal manages to escape, he eats his way through his guards face before disappearing into the great-blue-yonder. He freaks us out because we have no idea of how much he is actually capable of. Buffalo Bill is a pussy compared to Dr. Lecter.

Menace Factor: Drop of Chianti anyone?

All work and no play can make me a dull girl so I completely understand Jack wanting to dissect his squeaky voiced wife. Holed up in a snowbound vacant motel Jack is only trying to quietly finish writing his novel. When writers block kicks in and his invariably chipper wife becomes slightly more infuriating with each passing scene, Jack’s sanity skids into oblivion and he finds his hands tightly wrapped around an axe handle. I warn you guys, creep tentatively around this guy.

Menace Factor: He’d split you like a block of rotten wood.

You get switched at birth; it’s not your fault. You have Latin choral chanting as your entrance music; not your fault. You find yourself to be the spawn of Satan, well that’s not your fault either but excuse me if I don’t want to play hide and go seek with you. Damien spends the majority of his time staring absorbedly at people and making them altogether freaked out, people are dying all around him, committing suicide and it takes almost an hour and a half before someone realizes everything is connected to the sweet (if a bit eerie) Damien. Being the son of the Devil is bad enough but having to do his dirty work for him here on earth is just not fair on the little bugger.

Menace Factor: You’d honestly die to look after this child, just ask his nanny.

Notable Omissions: Captain Spaulding, Cannibalistic Mountain Men, Jason Voorhees, Pinhead, Hades (The Hills Have Eyes 2), Michael Myers, Dracula

This list was originally sent in as a top 15 – but five of the items have featured on previous lists so I have culled it to a list of 10. Fortunately none of the movies on this list have appeared on the site so we are able to present 10 brand new crazy movies for your viewing pleasure. Be warned: there are spoilers herein.

Here is a list of previous film lists that are of a similar bent:

Top 10 Most Bizarre Videos
Top 15 Most Disturbing Movies
Top 10 Weirdest Movies

Plot: Niki Junpei (Okada) is an entomologist on an expedition to collect insects in some sand dunes. When Junpei misses the last bus out of town, the locals offer to allow him to stay in town for the night. They send him down a rope-latter, into a house at the bottom of a sand-pit, owned by a widow (Kishida). The widow has been tasked with digging sand to be sold to other cities, and with preventing the sands from destroying her house (if her house is destroyed, the other houses in the village will be threatened). When Niki tries to leave the next morning, the rope-ladder is gone, and villagers inform him that he will now be assisting the widow in her endless duties. Eventually, Junpei falls in love with the widow, and resigns himself to his fate…

Weird Moments: Niki comes up with a way to siphon water from sand; Niki gets a chance to escape, but doesn’t (granted, the widow is carrying his child by that point); Honestly, the plot is the primary weird-thing here… and everywhere on this list, pretty much.

Plot: In an elite setting, at a chateau, a man asks a woman a question. She says, “No.”, and they continue to talk, almost as if she said yes. A second man approaches, and the conversation ends in a weird way. This conversation is repeated over and over again, but in different places in the chateau, and utilizing different camera angles each time. The men also play games, like Nim. There are also ambiguous voice-overs, and random tracking-shots down corridors.

Weird Moments: The whole thing is one big weird moment!

Plot: Using a mixture of live-action and clay-mation, “Faust” is based somewhat on the story of “Faustus”, with some hints of Goethe, Chris Marlowe, Franz Kafka, Absurdism, and Modernism. Basically, a man sells his soul to the devil… for some reason (it really isn’t clear why he does in this movie).

Weird Moments: Everyman (Cepek) drills a hole in a full-size doll, and has sex with it; Everyman finds an egg, shell and all, baked into a loaf of bread; Upon opening it, all Hell breaks loose.

Plot: Somethings very wrong in the town of Kurouzu! It’s inhabitants begin a collective obsession with coils, swirls, and twirls. Before long, they begin to turn into said coils, swirls and twirls!…

Weird Moments: Shuichi’s father crawls into a washing-machine, in order to get a “POV” shot for his collection of spirals; Katayama begins moving like a snail, and only comes to school when it rains; Various students begin growing shells in their flesh; Kirie’s mother cuts off her hair and finger-tips, due to her fear of the spirals; A millipede informs Kirie’s mother, via a hallucination, that there is a spiral, deep inside her ear (she ends up killing herself); Clouds begin spiraling into whirls; Kirie’s dad impales himself in the eye with a drill; “Snail-people” are found inside of a tunnel; Sekino’s body becomes “devoured” by swirls; Shuichi becomes one big spiral.

Plot-Preface: Michael Corleone (Kaufmann; and no, it’s not the same character as the one in “The Godfather”) is the son of a struggling mafioso and a repressed, Jewish house-wife, who finds solace in making, reading, and watching cartoons. He’s playing pinball when we first see him, which then abruptly switches from live action to animation.

Actual Plot: Mike routinely visits a bar, which has a bar-tender named Carole. He gets free drinks from her, under the condition that he gives Shorty – a legless regular at the bar – samples of his art from time to time. Through a sequence of events, Mike hooks up with Carole, which engenders the racist-fury of his father, as well as his father’s envy regarding Shorty. Mike then moves out of his house, and tries to get work. He finally gets the opportunity to pitch a movie-idea to a movie-mogul, however, the story is so bizarre, that the mogul has a heart-attack. Ultimately, they are forced into the arena of crime to pay the bills. Mike is ultimately, killed…and the film returns to live-action. The real Mike sees the real Carole, and follows her. Then they fight. And then they dance. The end.

Weird Moments: Snowflake, the nympho-transvestite, gets beat up by a drunk; The bullet that kills Mike enters his head in slow-motion; Mike’s movie-pitch (Wikipedia states the pitch better than I could: “In the distant future following a nuclear war, the world is covered with garbage. Most of humanity has been either destroyed or mutated, though the men are still horny, and apparently horny enough that they don’t care what they hump. A pile of garbage comes to life, as a result of a man humping it, and is worshiped as a religious figure, becoming known as ‘Mother Pile.’ The last living human female, Wanda The Last, becomes a sort of side-show attraction and tours the land with her duck-billed mutant manager, Warren. One night, God speaks to Warren, asking Warren to let Him have sex with Wanda. Warren obliges, and Wanda gives birth to the new ‘Messiah.’ Throughout His son’s life, Mother Pile searches for him, and although she crucified many men, not one of them gave her his location. Meanwhile, God gives His son lessons of ‘The Truth.’ The story ends after the son spends roughly three months meditating in a cave. After a shout of ‘I’ve got the Truth, Pop!,’ he shoots God in the head, who in turn topples over and crushes Mother Pile. The Messiah then comes out of the cave, looks over at God’s corpse, and says that the truth he received was that God had been conning them the whole time.”).

Plot: A girl (Hyodo) is the keeper of a mysterious egg in a post-apocalyptic world. She collects strange fossils and artifacts in a dead-city. Then, a man (Nezu) walks into town with a cross-shaped weapon on his back. In the mean-time, apparitions of coelacanths (a type of fish) appear within the town, and the statues of people [in the town] come alive, and begin to hunt the massive fish. The man then tells her a story, and waits for her to sleep. He then breaks her egg. Filled with anguish, the girl drowns. The end.

Weird Moments: The fish, of course; The statues hunting the fish with spears; Air-bubbles coming from her lungs during her death in the water become eggs.

Plot: The plot is divided into four acts (NOTE: There are SO many weird moments in this one, that most of the plot is going to be in the “Weird Moments” section!):

Act I: Fando and Lis, a paraplegic embark on their journey to the mythical city of Tar. They begin in a desolate city. A group of aristocrats have a party in the midst of this desolation. Fando gets paid for something, but he throws away his money, picks up Lis, and leaves the city.

Act II: The couple finds a dead-end, but they find their way to a marsh. They have a falling-out, but go their separate ways, although they find each other and leave shortly afterward.

Act III: Lis and Fando come across various characters in the desert.

Act IV: Fando once again grows weary of Lis. They get into a scuffle over various things, and Fando ends up killing Lis. Fando lives unhappily ever after…

Weird Moments: Where to begin? Lis is lured by a puppeteer (Jodorowsky) in a flash-back; The duo is guided out of the dead-end by the Pope; Old ladies play a card-game, with the winner being able to suck fruit-juice out of a young-man’s mouth; Fando runs-and gets ambushed by-into a gang of women armed with bowling-balls; Fando’s father comes to life, and puts Fando in his tomb; The couple paint each-others’ names on the walls of a room; They throw buckets of blood on the walls and on each other; A father and son begging for blood; Towns-people cannibalize parts of Lis’ skin after she dies; Fando gets covered in ivy, while sleeping next to Lis’s grave.

Plot: A simple businessman and his girlfriend accidentally run-over a man who loves metal a bit too much (Tsukamoto), and they cover up the crime. Needless to say, that was the wrong thing to do…and they pay for their actions, with a vengeance.

Weird Moments: Every once in a while, a TV-screen pops up with a man inside of it who giggles like Alvin the Chipmunk; The girlfriend grows a 7- or 8-foot-long metal penis. A lady in the subway goes bat-crap insane after touching what looks like a seagull corpse covered in metal, and attacks the businessman; A diode comes out of the businessman’s cheek, and he pops it like a zit; A TV-screen that pops up randomly, showing the couple making love; The fetishist shoves a piece of rebar into his knee-cap; Pictures of what appears to be Jesse Owens are posted all-over the fetishists’ “lair”; The couple have “hugging-sex”, where they just hug each other while they make “O-faces”.

Plot: Yakuza member, Minami, is looking for his brother, Ozaki. The plot is somewhat of a mess, structurally, but it parallels the episodic quests of Greek mythology.

Weird Moments: A very small dog is believed to be a “Yakuza attack-dog”; That very same dog is beaten to death; An innkeeper sells her breast-milk…straight from the tap, if you will; Minami awakens to find a man with the head of a cow in his room; This “minotaur” proceeds to lick him in the face, covering Minami in gooey saliva; A yakuza boss uses a ladle to stimulate his anus…

Plot: A farmer – who may or may not be the last man on Earth – lives on a farm in Belgium and falls in love with a big sow. After bonding with her in some very strange ways, he decides to consummate the relationship. Consequently, the very unlucky pig gives birth to a litter of human/pig baby/piglet-hybrids. He attempts to feed them all, but they only seem to want their mother’s attention. The [most stereotypical] farmer [in the world] becomes jealous and feels unwanted, so he kills all of the “hybrids”. When the sow hears of this, she commits suicide by drowning in a small pool of mud. The farmer-overcome with sadness (or because of the fact he JUST SCREWED A PIG), buries her, and even tries to bury himself along-side her. When this fails, he becomes furious, wrecks his house, and commits suicide via hanging.

Weird Moments: The farmer drinks tea made out of his own excrement; He fastens the heads of dolls to the heads of pigeons; He beheads a chicken for no good reason; The “couple” roll in the mud together, in order to bond; He collects strange materials in jars (which he destroys at the end of the movie).

Notable Extras: Inland Empire, Tetsuo II: Body Hammer, Visitor Q, Rubber Lover, 964 Pinocchio, Videodrome, Asparagus, Blood of A Poet, Un Chien Andalou, The Exterminating Angel, El Doctor, Joy Street, A Snake In June, Lost Highway, Mullholland Drive, Twin Peaks, A Clockwork Orange, Metropolis, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Organ, Ido, Ichi The Killer, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Any Pee Wee Herman movie or TV-show, Nosferatu, I Stand Alone, Brazil, The City of Lost Children, Delicatessen, Koyaanisqatsi, Big Fish, Monkeybone, Repulsion, Edward Scissorhands, Being John Malkovich, Many of Betty Boop’s cartoons, Santa Sangre, Blue Velvet, Akira, Ghost in the Machine, The Devils, Lair of the White Worm, The Big Lebowski, and Pink Floyd’s The Wall.