From silence to splatter... the de-evolution of horror

I'm probably blowing my wad posting all of this horror stuff in one day, but I'm behind this month. Sue me... as well as eat me.

If you couldn't tell, thinking about modern horror vs. other horror has me peeved worse than the time I separated my shoulder slipping in my puppy Dawson's piss. And, I promise you, that really happened, and it blew as bad as you would think... especially since my head landed right next to Hyde's litter box.

It is truly sad that, today, horror is synonymous with things like gore, chainsaws, machetes, and young, moronic, horny, bad seed teenagers. I remember (well, I know of) the time when horror was all about the setting, the mood that was established by the exposition and presentation, the events that transpired by way of actual story development instead of the shock of how much more gruesome the next death scene will be. The maniacal eyes of Norman Bates, the silent and sad, yet cerebral, demeanor of Frankenstein's creature, the predatorily vermin-like prowling of Count Graf Orlock, the flock of sinister birds Hitchcock summoned on the unsuspecting inhabitants of Bodega Bay, even the psychotic activities of Vincent Price in The Pit and the Pendulum... this is horror. There's a reason blood-and-guts has its own sub-genre (slasher).

Now, don't get me wrong, being the sadist I am I can't help but get off on Jason slamming some dumb bimbo against a tree in her own sleeping bag, or Michael Myers sticking an I.V. in an unsuspecting nurse's arm and letting her bleed to death, or Freddy dragging Johnny Depp through a bed to his bloody doom, or Leatherface skinning someone's face off and placing it over his love interest's head, or Julia Roberts and company sitting around talking about how screwed up their life is, but this still is not horror for the true fan.

The real horror lies in what is the most realistic, what could very well be lurking right around the corner, in your neighborhood, in the next aisle of the supermarket, always right under your nose. To me, Norman Bates - a hotel clerk who "loves" his mom - is a whole hell of a lot more scary than some mindless zombified killing machine like Jason Voorhees. But alas, with the lonely exceptions of 28 Days Later, Let the Right One In, Koma, The Orphanage, The Devil's Backbone, Ringu, and Ringu's American counterpart The Ring, "horror" has went the way of Hollywood, which means plenty of breasts, plenty of hot young actors, plenty of contrived and meaningless storylines, and plenty of blood and guts to keep the kids happy.

Today's crop of horror "fans" isn't necessarily at fault for their predicament - it's what they were born into. The best that true movie fans can do is get to these people early, or at least pique their interest, and inform them that Urban Legend and I Know What You Did Last Summer is NOT horror. So, to make it easiest on us all, I will include a link to the internet's best lists and info pages so you can point people in the right horror movie direction... I'll also do my own, but I'm saving that for the week before Halloween.

Enjoy the lists and heed their advice, but a couple of warnings: some of the movies may appear on multiple lists. But don't worry, that just means it's extra-especially spooky and you should go out and rent it soon! Also, the lists may seem kind of long, but there are literally thousands of horror flicks. And look at it this way, you've got the rest of your life (and maybe even your after-life) to watch 'em all...

• The IMDb's Top 50 Horror Movies of All-Time
• Classic-Horror's "Masters" page
• Best-Horror-Movies.com's Top 100
• Bloody-Disgusting's reviews, arranged by score
• Fangoria's 101 Best Horror Movies You've Never Seen

UPDATE (10/31): You can check out my 31 favorite horror films here.