100 Greatest Classic Horror Films

Here it is... The ultimate reference point for your viewing of classic terror films, personally compiled by me in order of preference... This list is by no means definitive though. I have yet to see so many of classic slices of horror hokum. And would a definitive list really include so many Sherlock Holmes films? Or so many poverty row pictures? I'll revise the list a year from now to see how my tastes, opinions and experiences have evolved. But until then - seek out some of these wonderful old movies. You won't regret it at all!

1. Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
2. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1932)
3. The Body Snatcher (1945)
4. Nosferatu – Eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922)
5. Psycho (1960)
6. The Invisible Man (1933)
7. The Old Dark House (1932)
8. Son of Frankenstein (1939)
9. The Wolf Man (1941)
10. The Haunting (1963)
11. Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)
12. The Black Cat (1934)
13. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939)
14. House of Usher (1960)
15. Frankenstein (1931)
16. White Zombie (1932)
17. The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)
18. Frankenstein Must be Destroyed (1969)
19. The Phantom of the Opera (1929)
20. Dracula’s Daughter (1936)
21. The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939)
22. Dracula (Spanish Version; 1931)
23. The Mummy (1932)
24. The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958)
25. The Scarlet Claw (1944)
26. The Plague of the Zombies (1966)
27. Pit and the Pendulum (1961)
28. Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966)
29. House of Wax (1953)
30. The Raven (1935)
31. King Kong (1933)
32. Bud Abbott Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)
33. Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954)
34. Son of Dracula (1943)
35. The Masque of the Red Death (1964)
36. Young Frankenstein (1974)
37. The Pearl of Death (1944)
38. Dracula (1979)
39. The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939)
40. Vampyr – Der Traum des Allan Grey (1932)
41. Frankenstein Created Woman (1967)
42. The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)
43. Phantom of the Opera (1943)
44. The Spider Woman (1944)
45. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)
46. The Curse of the Werewolf (1961)
47. Mark of the Vampire (1935)
48. The Fly (1958)
49. Bluebeard (1944)
50. Village of the Damned (1960)
51. Dracula (1958)
52. Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (1943)
53. Sherlock Holmes Faces Death (1943)
54. Tales of Terror (1962)
55. Cat People (1942)
56. The Son of Kong (1933)
57. Dracula (1931)
58. The Woman in Green (1944)
59. House of Dracula (1945)
60. House of Frankenstein (1944)
61. Freaks (1932)
62. Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943)
63. Rasputin: The Mad Monk (1966)
64. The Vampire Bat (1932)
65. The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945)
66. The Comedy of Terrors (1964)
67. House on Haunted Hill (1958)
68. Terror by Night (1946)
69. The Mummy (1959)
70. Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933)
71. Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell (1973)
72. Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956)
73. The City of the Dead (1960)
74. Dracula Has Risen From the Grave (1968)
75. Tarantula (1955)
76. Dressed to Kill (1946)
77. 13 Ghosts (1960)
78. Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff (1949)
79. Sherlock Holmes in Washington (1943)
80. Dr. Cyclops (1940)
81. The House of Fear (1945)
82. The Most Dangerous Game (1932)
83. The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)
84. It Came From Outer Space (1953)
85. The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959)
86. Carnival of Souls (1962)
87. Children of the Damned (1963)
88. The Raven (1963)
89. The Ghoul (1933)
90. Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970)
91. The Evil of Frankenstein (1964)
92. The Gorilla (1939)
93. The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942)
94. The Terror (1963)
95. Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942)
96. Scars of Dracula (1970)
97. Invisible Ghost (1940)
98. The Ape (1940)
99. Pursuit to Algiers (1946)
100. She-Wolf of London (1946)

P.S: This list is better by far than anything Channel Four has yet to compile. Don't you dare listen to those corporate hacks!

Mr. Swanton Discusses the Meaning of Life, Pt. 3.5

An unexpected delight popped up in my mailbox this evening. Instead of burying it away with the lesser comments, I felt it was my sacred duty to pin it up here for your reading pleasure:

divvy, while this guy can sound clever using quite advanced vocabulary, you
just sound like a twat. You sound like a really nerdy year 7 that spends his
time reading the dictionary and trying to learn "big words", but doesn't know
where to include them in a sentance, so sticks them in everywhere to appear
"interlectual". Just don't.

Whatever your gripes about my use of the English language (what is it there for if not free use?), it is probably the result of some crushing personal and emotional inadequacies/anxieties that haunt your every waking moment and leave you unfulfilled and woefully unpopular. Fortunately, my vernacular dexterity allows me not only to create your argument, but also to ruthlessly slaughter it.

1. You began your first sentence with a lower case letter. This is poor grammar, and hence representative of its cringing writer.
2. "Divvy" isn't a real word. At least so far as I'm aware. In any case, its impact is lost on me.
3. How dare you address me as "guy." (And so near to Bonfire Night as well, children!) When embarking upon an informal letter it is vital that the receiver knows your identity. This miserable coward didn't have the guts to tell me who they are, obviously terrified that I will beat them up after school.
4. "... Can sound clever..." Oh, but of course, nobody is allowed to be cleverer than you, are they diddums? It would only make you feel terribly insecure. You mention the word as if it's a trait to be admired before completely undermining it. You must have a grounding inferiority complex.
5. "Quite advanced vocabulary"? Is this a joke? Just because the words "ignoble," "maudlin," and "the" don't crop up in The Sun too often doesn't mean they straddle beyond the limits of human comprehension. The average article in The Times is far more complicate dthan what you'll read here. Presuming you can read.
6. "... You just sound like a twat." Wow. Inferiority complex 101. So you remain under the impression that mankind should grunt no more than cunt, shit, fuck, bastard and bollocks, are you? I'm guessing you also watch Emmerdale Farm and drink naught but apple cider and have been caught trying to escape the dreaded school building at some point this week. And you mentioned earlier that I "sound clever." If intelligence and insight is synonymous with degradation and misery, I'm sorry to say that the world just got a bit happier.
7. You typed the word "year" without a capital. Tut, tut, tut - naughty little outlaw disobeying the great God of English grammar.
8. By the way, in betraying the knowledge of Year Sevens, I know at once that you attend my school. You've narrowed down the millions of internet users who might've sent this petty hate mail to roughly fifty. Quite the blunder, I'd say. And I've yet to encounter the miserable Year Seven who will touch a dictionary with a sixty-eight foot literature pole.
9. I do not spend any time at all raiding the dictionary for new words. I use a Thesaurus. And a pretty good one too. I also have the ability to read. You know, the same sort of written article that has stopped your miserable parentage dumping you with a social worker on nine consecutive occasions.
10. "Trying to learn 'big words'..." I don't understand the problem here. Are they "big words" or aren't they? Black or white? Make your mind up, or simply refrain from registering your poorly-thought-out diatribes at all.
11. "Doesn't know where to include them in a sentence..." Right. I see. Where do you go about including alien words in a sentence? Somewhere towards the back? The front? Brackets? Slopey italics following every other word? Somebody as idiotic and foolish as myself desperately requires your insightful services. You are committing a selfish and nefarious deed in hiding your light under a bushel! You must come out into the open and lecture English at Cambridge for a multitude of burgeoning Stephen Frys! Or alternatively fuck off. I don't know, it's up to you I guess.
12. You spelt intellectual in a far from intellectual manner. In fact, it's a travesty to view. I hate to think how you kmust function in a classroom situation. Or a social situation. Or even this far-removed internet situation. Failure is imminent.
13. "Just don't." You've yet to give me a substantial reason why I should retire to tin town and live in a shoebox for the rest of my life. And to exactly waht does this particular "don't" refer to? Don't sound like a nerdy Year Seven? Don't sound clever (woe betide)? Don't learn "big words"? Don't "sticks them in everywhere"? (Since you're doubtlessly carrying a slew of chav-related STIs, you'll already know about the sort of trouble that business can get you into).

Let it be shouted from the mountain tops: James Swanton will not take this display of arrogant, ignorant petulance lightly. If you want to confront me in argument, I shall simply chop your head off with my tongue. If you want to engage in a physical battle of some sort, I shall hold no punches (they say madmen have great strength, you know - and I can already tell I must be much taller than you). If you want to show you have the guts and strength of character to state your opinions face to face, then be my guest. I shall eagerly await your apologies on Monday at school. But you won't win. For I shall carry on. A brief warning: never underestimate the sheer drive and power that bubbles just beneath my velvety surface. You will be shredded instantly and possibly expelled.

And just in case that litany of flowery verse was lost on you, I must add that you are "a cunty, bugger-sucking, bastarding mother fucker of a scumball's bollocking shit heap." And in case the more enlightened, worthwhile, upstanding members of society were unfortunate enough to read that, I send my deepest apologies. Such vermin are beneath contempt. Thank you.

How the Local Ghoul Celebrated Halloween

Well, this year hasn't been so different to all the others. Another barrage of the most insane and recklessly greedy trick or treaters, another barrage of painfully lost sweets and another barrage of crude reality dumped on childhood illusions. Happy, happy, hip-hop-happity days in other words.

I'd like to stab the people who complain that Halloween is over-commercialised (apologies Callum). As the years go by, it increasingly seems like such a non-event. Nevermind all the skeletons in the closet (one plastic/glow-in-the-dark taken apart and neatly tucked away, one robotic one in a wedding dress, a vast array of masks and gloves, etc.) - no way in hell was I going to dress up like a chav pretending to be a vampire and parade around York bricking windows and generally arseing about at bus shelters. For one as over-exposed to the subject as I, Halloween ought to be a night of quiet reflection over a magnificent passion. Nevertheless, one conversation with some more rambunctious individuals bears repeating:

(James Swanton opens the door. There is one trick or treater.)
HE: Trick or treat!!
(Two more dwarfish, mask-wearing imps pop out from the darkness, showing off their terrible acting skills as they scream in the most tuneless and woefully dull manner available. James Swanton has a small heart attack - yeah, right - and rushes to get the gun.)
ME: Gee. Whizz-pop. Wow. Aren't you terrifying?
(James Swanton reaches for a bowl and kindly selects the smallest lollipops on display.)
ME: There you go. Goodbye...
HE: Wait. Wait a minute. I want to pick my own. Let me put this back...
ME: I'm afraid not. Now kindly piss off, I need my beauty sleep more than this mudpack might suggest.

All frighteningly true! Up till the last sentence at any rate... I may come off as a curmudgeon (I don't think I'd be doing my job properly if I didn't), but I just can't get other the atmosphere of petty thuggery, greed and just plain nastiness that's begun invading Halloween. Children become hideous, candy-driven psychopaths on the 31st, and at times their conduct strikes me as most appalling. In any case, I shall revert the wicked children in question to our dedicated staff of Senior Prefects at once, whereupon they shall be seated comfortably in an innocuous and warm RS classroom for peaceful as punishment. Is there any significant reason (related to the ancient Celtic holiday or otherwise) why I should distribute large amounts of sugar among passing vagrants once a year? Why these peculiar individuals should glower on my doorstep, craning their grubby necks into my home? We have perfectly good soup kitchens somewhere in York! They're probably a helluva lot more nutritious as well.

I got into the swing of All Hallow's Eve by simply viewing a classic horror film (cue sustained groan). Bride of Frankenstein of 1935 - not just a great Frankenstein film, or a great work of the macabre, but one of the greatest pieces of cinema ever. I deny anyone from the most snobby and elitist arthouse circuit (the ruthlessly ludicrous person who raves about films with titles like Madame Da Pompadour's Intergalactic Wishing Well and adores talentless, hack-ish French directors) to deny this simple truth after watching even five seconds of 1947's Scared to Death. And that's a James Swanton promise...!

"Twas at least fifty-five nights before Christmas,

And all through the room,

Echoed laughter from Boris,

And theremins of doom..."

A very, very happy November 1st to you all. May Bonfire Night send us all to a fiery, skin-peeling death!