collisionwork | Oct. 25th, 2010

Stacie Ponder, at the excellent Final Girl blog, asked her readers for their 20 Favorite Horror Films -- apparently thinking she'd wind up with a list of around 50 films, and she'd write a bit about the top 31 this month.

Of course, Ms. Ponder's fine fine superfine readership responded with a total of 732 movies, which she's been listing off and discussing in brief as Halloween approaches.

I sent in my own Top 20. I was actually a bit surprised by what wound up on mine, or more exactly, what didn't wind up there (no Universal classics, for example). Oddly, to look at a list of my favorite films, there seems to be a few "horror" films on there that didn't wind up on my Top 20 Horror Film list . . . there's just some kind of difference when thinking about them as actual horror movies as opposed to as all-around movies.

I wish I had the full list I made up at first, as there were only about 27 movies I would count as "Favorite Horror Films" (I know Bride of Frankenstein and The Tenant were on the list) and I could list them all here, and seeing many of the names that have shown up on Stacie's master list have shown me how many I didn't even think of that could be here, but I'll stick to the list I sent her -- which is indeed pretty much a list of unsurprising classics, but so it goes.

Here's my 20 Favorites, with YouTube videos of their trailers (or in the case of #s 1, 5, and 9, the entire movie) - which you won't see if you're reading this on Facebook, so if you're interested in them - and there's some great trailers here - read it over on LiveJournal:

1. Nosferatu (1922)

2. I Walked with a Zombie (1943)

3. Isle of the Dead (1945)

4. Night of the Demon (1957)

5. Carnival of Souls (1962)

6. The Haunting (1963)

7. Black Sabbath (1963)

8. Hour of the Wolf (1968)

9. Night of the Living Dead (1968)

10. Twitch of the Death Nerve (1971)

11. The Wicker Man (1973)

12. The Exorcist (1973)

13. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)