Updated Horror Film Review List

Over the summer, I posted about a list of horror films I was working on. My horror students will be writing reviews of films that we do not watch as a class, and this is the list they will be able to choose from. After that earlier post, I made some changes and wanted to share the updated list (films in bold have been chosen by my students already):

1. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, dir. Robert Wiene (1920)
2. Nosferatu, dir. F. W. Murnau (1922)
3. Dracula, dir. Tod Browning (1931)
4. Frankenstein, dir. James Whale (1931)
5. Freaks, dir. Tod Browning (1932)
6. Cat People, dir. Jacques Tourneur (1942)
7. I Walked with a Zombie, dir. Jacques Tourneur (1943)
8. Gojira, dir. Ishirô Honda 1954)
9. Diabolique, dir. Henri-Georges Clouzot (1954)
10. Invasion of the Body Snatchers, dir. Don Siegel (1956)
11. House on Haunted Hill, dir. William Castle (1959)
12. Psycho, dir. Alfred Hitchcock (1960)
13. Eyes Without a Face, dir. Georges Franju (1960)
14. The Innocents, dir. Jack Clayton (1961)
15. What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, dir. Robert Aldrich (1962)
16. The Birds, dir. Alfred Hitchcock (1963)
17. Repulsion, dir. Roman Polanski (1965)
18. Kill, Baby, Kill, dir. Mario Bava (1966)
19. Kuroneko, dir. Kaneto Shindo (1968)
20. The Last House on the Left, dir. Wes Craven (1972)
21. Deliverance, dir. John Boorman (1972)
22. The Exorcist, dir. William Friedkin (1973)
23. The Wicker Man, dir. Robin Hardy (1973)
24. Deathdream, dir. Bob Clark (1974)
25. Hausu (House), dir. Nobuhiko Obayashi (1977)
26. Carrie, dir. Brian De Palma (1976)
27. The Omen, dir. Richard Donner (1976)
28. Suspiria, dir. Dario Argento (1977)
29. The Hills Have Eyes, dir. Wes Craven (1977)
30. Dawn of the Dead, dir. George Romero (1978)
31. Invasion of the Body Snatchers, dir. Philip Kaufman (1978)
32. Alien, dir. Ridley Scott (1979)
33. Phantasm, dir. Don Coscarelli (1979)
34. Zombie, dir. Lucio Fulci (1979)
35. The Shining, dir. Stanley Kubrick (1980)
36. Friday the 13^th, dir. Sean S. Cunningham (1980)
37. An American Werewolf in London, dir. John Landis (1981)
38. The Howling, dir. Joe Dante (1981)
39. The Evil Dead, dir. Sam Raimi (1981) or Evil Dead II (1987)
40. Poltergeist, dir. Tobe Hooper (1982)
41. The Thing, dir. John Carpenter (1982)
42. Videodrome, dir. David Cronenberg (1983)
43. A Nightmare on Elm Street, dir. Wes Craven (1984)
44. Re-Animator, dir. Stuart Gordon (1985)
45. Blue Velvet, dir. David Lynch (1986)
46. Hellraiser, dir. Clive Barker (1987)
47. Near Dark, dir. Kathryn Bigelow (1987)
48. They Live, dir. John Carpenter (1988)
49. Santa Sangre, dir. Alejandro Jodorowsky (1989)
50. The Silence of the Lambs, dir. Jonathan Demme (1991)
51. Man Bites Dog, dir. Remy Belvaux, Andre Bonzel, and Benoit Poelvoorde (1992)
52. Scream, dir. Wes Craven (1996)
53. Mimic, dir. Guillermo del Toro (1997)
54. Ringu, dir. Hideo Nakata (1998) or The Ring, dir. Gore Verbinski (2002)
55. Audition, dir. Takashi Miike (1999)
56. Ginger Snaps, dir. John Fawcett (2000)
57. The Devil’s Backbone, dir. Guillermo del Toro (2001)
58. 28 Days Later, dir. Danny Boyle (2002)
59. Willard, dir. Glen Morgan (2003)
60. Bubba Ho-Tep, dir. Don Coscarelli (2003)
61. Shaun of the Dead, dir. Edgar Wright (2004)
62. Dumplings, dir. Fruit Chan (2004)
63. The Call of Cthulhu, dir. Andrew Leman (2005)
64. The Descent, dir. Neil Marshall (2005)
65. Slither, dir. James Gunn (2006)
66. [REC], dir. Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza (2007)
67. Let the Right One In, dir. Tomas Alfredson (2008)
68. Pontypool, dir. Bruce McDonald (2008)
69. Thirst, dir. Chan-wook Park (2009)
70. Jennifer’s Body, dir. Karyn Kusama (2009)
71. Splice, dir. Vincenzo Natali (2009)
72. Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil, dir. Eli Craig (2010)
73. John Dies at the End, dir. Don Coscarelli (2012)
74. Honeymoon, dir. Leigh Janiak (2014)
75. Creep, dir. Patrick Brice (2014)
76. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, dir. Ana Lily Amirpour (2014)
77. It Follows, dir. David Robert Mitchell (2015)
78. Spring, dir. Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson (2015)
79. The Green Inferno, dir. Eli Roth (2015)
80. Goodnight Mommy, dir. Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala (2015)

I removed a few from the earlier version of this list that I hadn’t had a chance to see yet as well as a handful that I thought didn’t quite deserve to be on the list, and I ended the list with a couple of films that are supposed to be released this fall. The list, therefore, begins with film itself, pretty much, and ends with right now.

The list is a bit longer than it needs to be, but I wanted my students to have some options, even those who choose last, so I decided 80 was a nice, even number for the list. There are 30 students in the class; each of them is required to write one film review and has the option to write another for extra credit, so 80 is well more than what’s required even if everyone does two reviews. I suspect this means that the very early films will be neglected if students have later choices, however, so if I do this again, I might try to trim the list a bit more.

Some students have already made their first choices and so far the these have been spread across the 1970s, 1980s, 2000s, and 2010s. The 1990s have been skipped entirely and no one has ventured earlier than 1973. But quite a few people still need to choose their film, so it’ll be interesting to see if that pattern continues.