Craig Zablo

Hitfix polled more than 100 luminaries for the world of horror to come up with their list of The 100 Greatest Horror Movies of All Time. 

Here’s their top ten and my comments on each…

7. “Halloween” (1978; d. John Carpenter): Love the love that John Carpenter received on this list!

8. “Psycho” (1960; d. Alfred Hitchcock): A classic!

9. “Night of the Living Dead” (1968; d. George A. Romero): You know I love this movie!

10. “Jaws” (1975; d. Steven Spielberg): Jaws is a great film but I always have a bit of trouble placing it in the horror category.

Mental_Floss presents 40 Fascinating Facts About Your Favorite Horror Movies.  Here are three of my favorites…

5. STEPHEN KING WASN’T A FAN OF THE SHINING.
In 1983, Stephen King told Playboy, “I’d admired [Stanley] Kubrick for a long time and had great expectations for the project, but I was deeply disappointed in the end result. Parts of the film are chilling, charged with a relentlessly claustrophobic terror, but others fell flat.”

King didn’t like the casting of Jack Nicholson either, claiming, “Jack Nicholson, though a fine actor, was all wrong for the part. His last big role had been in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and between that and the manic grin, the audience automatically identified him as a loony from the first scene. But the book is about Jack Torrance’s gradual descent into madness through the malign influence of the Overlook—if the guy is nuts to begin with, then the entire tragedy of his downfall is wasted.”

24. GENE HACKMAN WAS SLATED TO STAR IN—AND DIRECT—THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS.
Gene Hackman and Orion Pictures split the $500,000 needed for the movie rights to the book. But Hackman dropped out days after he watched clips of himself at the 1989 Oscars as FBI Agent Alan Parker in the violent Mississippi Burning, deciding not to follow up a dark role with an even more unlikeable character.

38. SISSY SPACEK WAS ADAMANT THAT HER OWN HAND APPEAR INCARRIE’S FINAL SCENE.
Though Brian De Palma wanted to get a stunt person for the final scene, where Sue Snell visits Carrie’s grave, Spacek insisted that it needed to be her hand that was shown, which required her to be buried in the ground. “I laughed about that,” Spacek told NPR. “I do all my own foot and hand work, and always have.”

Mark Mancini and Mental_Floss present 10 Aquatic Facts About Creature from the Black Lagoon.  Here are three of my favorites…

1. THE MOVIE’S CONCEPT WAS CONCEIVED AT A CITIZEN KANE DINNER PARTY.
One night during filming of Citizen Kane, Orson Welles invited one of the movie’s actors, William Alland, over for dinner along with a cinematographer named Gabriel Figueroa. While there, Figueroa shared a story he had heard during his travels of a race of amphibious beasts—half man, half reptile—that stalked the Amazon River. More than a decade later, still intrigued by the concept, Alland dramatized it by producing Creature from the Black Lagoon.

4. A FORMER FRANKENSTEIN ACTOR TURNED DOWN THE MAIN ROLE.
When Boris Karloff retired from playing Mary Shelley’s reanimated monster, Glenn Strange took over. From 1944 to 1948, Strange terrified audiences in Universal’s House of Frankenstein, House of Dracula, and Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein. Years later, the studio tapped him to play their web-footed “Gillman” in Creature from the Black Lagoon, but because swimming wasn’t his forte, Strange declined the part.

9. ITS 1955 SEQUEL WAS CLINT EASTWOOD’S FIRST MOVIE.  
Pleased by the box office success of the original film, Universal rushed a sequel production.  Revenge of the Creature premiered in Denver on March 23, 1955. At one point, audiences got to see future star Clint Eastwood portraying a lab assistant. Though his appearance was uncredited, it hardly went unnoticed when the cast of Mystery Science Theater 3000 riffed  Revenge of the Creature in a 1997 episode:

For Revenge of the Creature, Arnold resumed directing duties and he didn’t care for the young Eastwood’s bit, telling Alland, “I told you I don’t want to do that ******* scene!” Eventually, he relented and the footage stayed in. Eastwood never forgot the experience. As he told The Telegraph, “It was a hell of a way to start your acting career: walk on a set and you know that the director hates the scene. Therefore you know he hates you.”

Jenna Mullins and E! present 31 Things You Didn’t Know About Your Favorite Horror Movies.  Here are three of my favorites…

1. The Exorcist is the first horror movie to be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards.

9. The blood used in Night of the Living Dead is chocolate syrup.

21. Crewmembers were so creeped out by Tim Curry‘s performance as Pennywise in It that most people avoided him during filming.

Roger Cormier and Mental_Floss present 15 Must-Watch Facts About The Ring.  Here are three of my favorites…

2. THE DIRECTOR FIRST SAW RINGU ON A POOR QUALITY VHS TAPE, WHICH ADDED TO ITS CREEPINESS.
Gore Verbinski had previously directed MouseHunt. He said the first time he “watched the original Ringu was on a VHS tape that was probably seven generations down. It was really poor quality, but actually that added to the mystique, especially when I realized that this was a movie about a videotape.” Naomi Watts struggled to find a VHS copy of Ringu while shooting in the south of Wales. When she finally got a hold of one she watched it on a very small TV alone in her hotel room. “I remember being pretty freaked out,” Watts said. “I just saw it the once, and that was enough to get me excited about doing it.”

6. THE TWO WEREN’T SURE IF THE MOVIE WAS GOING TO BE SCARY ENOUGH.
After shooting some of the scenes, and not having the benefit of seeing what they’d look like once any special effects were added, Henderson and Watts worried that the final result would not be scary enough. “There were moments when Naomi and I would look at each other and say, ‘This is embarrassing, people are going to laugh,'” Henderson told the BBC.” You just hope that somebody makes it scary or you’re going to look like an idiot!”

11. CHRIS COOPER WAS CUT FROM THE MOVIE.
Cooper played a child murderer in two scenes which were initially meant to bookend the film. He unconvincingly claimed to Rachel that he found God in the beginning, and in the end she gave him the cursed tape. Audiences at test screenings were distracted that an actor they recognized disappears for most of the film, so he was cut out entirely.

Mark Mancini and Mental_Floss present 10 Amorphous Facts About The Blob.  Here are three of my favorites…

6. ITS THEME SONG CRACKED THE BILLBOARD TOP 40.

Titled “Beware of the Blob,” this catchy anthem spent three weeks on the Billboard charts,peaking at #33. The song was co-written by Burt Bacharach, who also penned such hits as “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on my Head” and “What’s New Pussycat?” Thus far, Bacharach’s career has included six Grammy and three Oscar wins. Mack David—his partner on The Blob—was a seasoned vet, too (and eight-time Oscar nominee) who’d written lyrics for Disney’sCinderella (1950), among many other films.

7. ED MCMAHON CAN BE HEARD DURING THE MOVIE THEATER SCENE.

When the throbbing invertebrate descends upon an unsuspecting cinema, the audience is watching a genuine, real-life thriller flick. Daughter of Horror (a.k.a. Dementia) was released in 1955 and features narration from Johnny Carson’s future Tonight Show sidekick. Keep your ears open for McMahon’s familiar voice near the beginning of the clip above.

5. LEADING MAN STEVE MCQUEEN CHEATED HIMSELF OUT OF A HUGE PAYCHECK.
Despite a handful of television roles—including a guest appearance on the NBC series Tales of Wells Fargo—Steve McQueen (credited here as Steven McQueen) had yet to establish himself as Hollywood’s favorite bad boy. So Harris got him for a bargain price. After taking on the lead role (his first) in The Blob, McQueen was offered a choice: $3000 upfront or 10 percent of the film’s gross profits; he didn’t hesitate in opting for the former. At the time, McQueen was in dire financial straits and didn’t have much faith in The Blob’s box office prospects. He’d soon regret that call. Within a month of its release, The Blob had earned $1.5 million and went on to snag $12 million (nearly $97 million in today’s dollars) domestically.