Horror
The Exorcist has, for years, been considered the scariest movie of all time by many people upon its release in 1973. Directed by William Freidkin, The Exorcist was unbelievably terrifying and very controversial for the idea it introduced, which was that the children were the ones affected which had shaken audiences so much that there were reports of people having heart attacks, fainting and vomiting in the theatre from shock and terror. The plot follows a young girls mental decline as she starts acting hostile to her family and gains supernatural abilities. Her appearance and voice seemingly become more uncanny and less human. After numerous doctors and psychologists, the mother makes one final attempt to save her daughter by reguesting the help of two priests, one personifying hope, and the other personifying doubt. The very idea that a young girl could be so horribly affected in a horror movie and made to do digusting and demonic things was completely new, and had invented a whole new horror trope which would be repeated in so many other horror ovies to follow, sauch as IT. The Exorcist is a historical horror movie that paved the way to many more horror movies to come, with its horrific ideas that it introduced to cinema.
The Shining is often considered the greatest movie of all time and is the pinnacle of Stanley Kubrick’s work as a director. Based on the novel by Stephen King, the Shining is a story of a man named Jack Torrance(Jack Nicholson), who applies to be the caretaker of an isolated hotel called the Overlook Hotel, on top of a mountain in Colorado over the winter where he and his family, his wife Wendy(Shelly Duvall) and his son Danny(Danny Lloyd) who supposedly has a power that can see into the future called “The Shine”, will stay for the colder seasons, whilst Jack writes his play. For months, the family is isolated by themselves at the hotel, where the isolation, stress and supernatural events, begin to make Jack go crazy and begin to disdain his family, making him consider murder. The acting in this movie is some of the best that’s ever graced the face of cinema, Nicholson's dialogue delivery, Duvall’s reactions to Jack’s outbursts and Lloyd’s facial expressions are all top tier acting performances. The Shining focuses more on psychological horror, playing with the themes that extreme isolation can tear a family apart and lead into dangerous and trance like, addictive states. Whilst it may not be a typical horror film with body horror and scares, it is an amazingly crafted movie that plays with more terrifying and realistic themes and is very highly critically acclaimed.
The 2017 re-telling of the horror Stephen King novel by the same name, is often praised as the best of the three IT movies. Directed by Andres Muschetti, IT(2017) is a horror movie that focuses heavily on the fears of children, such as: creepy images, clowns and blood. The plot of IT follows the return of the fierce, supernatural clown entity Pennewise’s(Bill Skarsgard) return to the quiet Maine town of Derry. After an unsettling amount of children go missing, a group of children called the loser’s club(Jaeden Martell, Finn Wolfhard,Jack Dylan-Grazer, Jeremy Ray-Taylor, Wyatt Olef, Chosen Jacobs, Sophia Lillis) bands together to try and survive the wrath of Pennywise. IT is one of the most popular horror movies within the past ten years and the character of Pennywise has become a legend in pop culture for Bill Skarsgard's unsettling and twisted performance of the killer clown. IT is a cultural phenomenon that everyone should watch for a spine-chilling time.
Get Out is a masterclass in modern horror; directed by actor and comedian Jordan Peele, Get Out is a movie which focuses on the themes of racism in the modern world through exploitation and commodification. The plot follows a young black man named Chris Washington(Daniel Kaluuya) going to meet his girlfriend, Rose Armitage’s(Allison Williams) family, the Armitage’s, for the weekend. Whilst they are polite and very kind to Chris, things begin to feel unsettling, particularly the cleaner and the groundskeeper,who are both black, but act way out of character and are strangely robotic. As the weekend goes on Chris begins to find the family and their visitors are acting odd for supposedly normal people and suspects that there might be something else at play. Get Out is a psychological horror that whilst not relying on jumpscares, will make you feel eerie and very unsettled and is definitely worth watching.
