Horror, Sci-Fi, Films 1930 - 2013 -- The Music of Universal Horror and Drama Films

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Date Posted: 17:07:02 08/21/13 Wed
Author: DAN
Subject: Horror, Sci-Fi, Films 1930 - 2013

I've been watching the worst movies for the last several weeks. And I'll be updating some more bad movies soon.

My favorite Horror/Scifi films are from the 30s and 40s. Then it would be the 60s and 70s. After that, the horror films from 80s thru 2013 have had very few good movies.

Most people from the ages of 10 to 40 don't care for the old films because they're in black and white and they have very little gore. Which is too bad IMO.

People seem to be crazy for those slasher, zombie and new age vampire horror movies which I find boring.
To me zombies are dead bodies brought back to animation with voodoo, as in "White Zombie," "I Walked With A Zombie," King of the Zombies, etc. Not those flesh and brain eaten zombie things you see now.

I went through year by year from the 70s to today and picked out the movies for each year that I thought were good. At one time anyway.

1930s and 1940s:
The absolute best years for horror films IMO.
Almost all of the horror films from Universal and other studios are very re-watchable. There's only two from Universal that I don't care much for are, "Life Returns" and "She-Wolf of London."

1950s:
There many good horror/scifi films in this era.
Giant bugs, humans and crabs. A Teen Age Werewolf, Frankenstein, Dracula, and Caveman. And many Aliens from other worlds.
We got another classic Universal monster with the Gill Man, in the Creature from the Black Lagoon trilogy.
Also Hammer began their Dracula and Frankenstein series.

1960s:
This era continued on with the Hammer horror films, and more assorted aliens, ghosts, and other creatures. Most of the 60s films are rewatchable, save for a few turkeys like, "Manos," "Creeping Terror" etc.

Now on to the 70s. I'm gonna go year by year from 1970 to 2013 because there really isn't that many films that I enjoyed. I saw almost all of the films I'm listing in the theater.

1970:
TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA - The weakest of the Hammer Dracula flicks. Chris Lee has very little to do in this one.

SCARS OF DRACULA - The last of the good Hammer Dracula movies.

1971:
Nothing this year.

1972:
DRACULA AD 1972 - A step down from the other Hammer Draculas, by moving to the 70s, but still enjoyable.

BLACULA - Not too bad low budget horror film.

1973:
SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA - The last Chris Lee Dracula. Still in the 70s, and not quite up to Dracula AD.

SCREAM BLACULA, SCREAM - Sequel to Blacula isn't quite as good. But it's ok to watch again every so often.

THE EXORCIST - Last movie to give me some chills when I first saw this with my girlfriend at 24. I don't watch this very much anymore though. And it lost it's ability to scare me. And The Exorcist brought about a lot of very cheap bad movies about Devils, demons, that tried to make money because this was such a big box office hit.

1974:
FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL - The last one from the Hammer Frankenstein series. I liked it when I first saw it but now it doesn't interest me that much.

THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE - I don't really care for slasher flicks, but Slasher movies was a new concept when I first saw it. I watched it once more on VHS in the 90s, but not again since then.

1975:
JAWS - The best horror flick from the 70s on. Still holds up well today.

1976:
GRIZZLY - Jaws rip-off about a giant grizzly on a rampage.
Not up to Jaws by no means, but still enjoyable to watch.

KING KONG - Disappointing remake of King Kong. I rarely watch this anymore.

1977:
Nothing worthwhile this year.

1978:
HALLOWEEN - The best slasher flick IMO.

JAWS 2 - Not as good as the first Jaws, but much, much, better than the 3 and 4.

1979:
DRACULA - I thought Frank Langella made a pretty good vampire, but I didn't like Laurence Olivier as Van Helsing Liked the movie then, but it bores me some today.

1980:
FRIDAY THE 13TH - Was kinda fresh when I first saw this, and I liked it, but after being saturated with Slasher flicks, I lost interest in it.

THE SHINING - Not as interesting to me as it was when I first saw it, it's still worth watching when there's nothing else to do.

1981:
THE HOWLING - Good werewolf movie at the time, but doesn't seem to hold up well now. Follwed by many bad sequels which I never bother with.

AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON - Still holds up pretty good.

WOLFEN - Interesting werewolf themed movie set in my home town of NYC.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2 - I liked this when I first saw it, but like the first movie in the series, I don't watch it anymore.

HALLOWEEN 2 - Not as good, but not too bad sequel to Halloween.

1982:
POLTERGEIST: - Not a bad ghost flick. Still holds up.

FRIDAY THE 13TH 3 IN 3D - Was my favorite Friday the 13th flick. When I saw this when it first came out, the 3D effects were the best I'd ever seen. This one holds up better than the other ones.

1983:
CHRISTINE - I thought this was cool back in the 80s because of the use of 50s rock n roll. I saw it again recently but I didn't care that much for it like I did.

CUJO - Rabid St Bernard on the rampage. Still holds up well.

1984:
FRIDAY THE 13TH 4, THE FINAL CHAPTER - I wish this were the final one. But at the time I was still into these flicks.

1985:
FRIGHT NIGHT - Good vampire movie. Holds up pretty well.

FRIDAY THE 13TH 5, NEW BEGINNING - Thought this sucked when I first it becasue there was no Jason. Haven't watched it since then.

1986:
FRIDAY THE 13TH 6 - Jason is resurrected, but I didn't care for this one much either. Buit I did like it better than 5.

POLTERGEIST 2 - Fairly good sequel to Poltergeist. Worth re-watching.

1987:
PREDATOR - Part horror monster movie, part action flick. Liked it then and now.

1988:
FRIDAY THE 13TH 7 - Better than 6 & 7 because of the girls with kinetic powers. Some of the action was good.

HALLOWEEN 4 - The Halloween franchise was going down hill starting with this one.

FRIGHT NIGHT 2 - Not as good as the first one, but still fairly enjoyable.

CHILDS PLAY - A new tkae on flasher flicks. This time a weird looking doll is posessed by a serial killer. Still a fun movie as slasher flicks go.

1989:
FRIDAY THE 13TH 8 - Disappointing because most of it tokk palce on board a cruise ship. And it wasn't really filmed in Manhattan.

HALLOWEEN 5 - I don't know why I continued to go to the theater to watch these Halloween sequels because they were getting tedious to sit through.

1990:
CHILDS PLAY 2 - Fun sequel.

1991:
CHILDS PLAY 3 - Started to get stale. Least favorite of the franchise.

PUPPETEER 3, TOULON'S REVENGE - I really enjoyed this when it came out and still do, despite low budget. I guess I like this so much is because the Nazi's were getting what they deserved.

1992:
BRAM STOKERS DRACULA - Ok when I first saw it. But like the 1979 Dracula, it bores me today.

1993:
FRIDAY THE 13TH 9, JASON GOES TO HELL - Very bad sequel. There was too much stupid body shifting, with Jason entering one body after another.

1994:
MARY SHELLEY'S FRANKENSTEIN - Ok movie. Follows Shelley's book more closely than all the other Frankenstein movies.

WOLF - Jack Nicholson is bitting by a wolf one night and slowly starts changing into a werewolf. Then to a full wolf. Entertaining.

1995:
HALLOWEEN 6 - Another mediocre sequel.

1997:
Zero

1998:
BRIDE OF CHUCKY - The bride gave this franchise a little more life. But it was still getting to be the same old.

HALLOWEEN 7 H2O - Slighly better than 6.

1999:
THE MUMMY - Oh how Pee-Oed I was when I saw this. I thought it was gonna be a modern take about Imhotep.
But what I got was a bunch of crap CGI and a lot of stupid comedy. But I found nothing funny about it. What a chore to sit through. I never saw any of the sequels. This was bad enough.

2000 and 2001:
Zero Movies

2002:
HALLOWEEN 8 - RESURRECTION - The last of the first Halloween series, which again, was a little better than than the last one.

JASON X - Dumb entry in the series. This time Jason is a waken on a space ship in the future and goes on the usual killing spree.

2003:
FREDDY VS JASON - I didn't bother going to the movies to see this because I hated the Nightmare on Elm Street flicks. I only saw the first Elm St when it played on HBO and I didn't like it at all. Anyway this was the final movies in the first franchise, and it was dumb and dumber.

2004:
SEED OF CHUCKY - The last sequel, (So far,) is kinda fun.

2005 & 2006
Zero

2007:
HALLOWEEN - Reboot of the old franchise was only fair.
But I dragged my carcase to the theater anyway.

2008:
Zero

2009:
HALLOWEEN 2 - Didn't go to the theater to see this sequel, saw it on HBO. Anyway it was better than I thought despite the same old thing.

FRIDAY THE 13TH - Another reboot. Watched it with my cousin on HBO. It was ok.

2010:
THE WOLFMAN - The last movie I saw at the theater. The movie started out good, but then they went and used too much CGI toward the end. Also the plot where Talbot's father was a werewolf, and a rather nasty one, was a stupid move on the producers part.

2011-2012-2013.
I haven't watched any of the horror films that came out in the last three years. I was going to check out the new Fright Night, but haven't gotten around to it yet. I heard it was that good anyway.

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Replies:

[> Re: Horror, Sci-Fi, Films 1930 - 2013 - CORRECTION -- DAN, 06:29:33 08/22/13 Thu [1]

When I made the last post, I didn't take the time to proof read it and I found some mistakes.

At the start of the previous post I said my favorite Horror/Scifi films are from the 30s and 40s. then the 60s and 70s.
Well actually the next best would be the 50s and then the 60s and then the 70s.

Also at the end of the last post...I meant I heard the new "Fright Night" movie WASN'T that good.

And the reason I went to see all the "Friday the 13th and Halloween and Chucky flicks was because my wife liked those kinds of movies and wnated me to go.

But I absolutely refused to go see the Nightmare on Elm Street films and all those Return of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, etc. ZOMBIE flicks.

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[> [> Re: Horror, Sci-Fi, Films 1930 - 2013 - CORRECTION -- Tim, 19:40:22 08/23/13 Fri [1]

Like Dan, my favorite horror films are from the 1930s and 1940s, followed by the 1950s and 1960s.

1930s
The Universal classics including DRACULA, FRANKENSTEIN, THE BLACK CAT, BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN and SON OF FRANKENSTEIN. Other studios released ISLAND OF LOST SOULS and KING KONG.

1940s
Universal's THE WOLF MAN and HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, among others. Also some excellent pictures produced by Val Lewton, such as CAT PEOPLE and THE BODY SNATCHER.

1950s
Lots of great horror and science fiction films, and Hammer horror gets going. Dan's list pretty much covers my favorites from the era.

1960s
Hammer's heyday, the Roger Corman series of Poe films starring Vincent Price, BLACK SUNDAY, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, and so much more. An amazing decade.

1970s
Hammer was still around but on the wane. THE ABOMINABLE DR PHIBES and its sequel still hold up today. THE EXORCIST was a well-made movie but had more gore than scares IMO. I would say the best horror movie of the decade was HALLOWEEN, followed by ALIEN. Frank Langella did a good job in DRACULA, but the film lacked the magic of the classics.

1980s
HALLOWEEN 3 was an interesting movie, with a story unrelated to the rest of the series. FRIGHT NIGHT was a fun vampire picture. Although I generally don't care for gore or modern zombie films, I liked RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD. I haven't liked any zombie movies since then.

1990s
BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA was interesting, but nothing spectacular. WOLF was the best horror movie of the 1990s, IMO. The worst was the Gus Van Sant remake of PSYCHO.

2000s
I haven't seen many horror movies made in the last 10 or 12 years, including the HALLOWEEN reboots.

Tim

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[> [> [> Re: Horror, Sci-Fi, Films 1930 - 2013 -- Tim, 19:46:50 08/23/13 Fri [1]

I forgot to drop the CORRECTION from the message subject.

Also I would like to add ROSEMARY'S BABY to my list of 1960s favorites. Like THE EXORCIST, it was a big "mainstream" box office hit, but I thought it had more scares than the gorier EXORCIST did five years later.

Tim

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