This Halloween, you have 8 movies to introduce somebody to horror.
 

So your buddy doesn't know anything about horror... it's a shame I know, you're not even sure why you're friends with that person but that's beside the point. The point is that this week your friend wants you to introduce them to the horror genre. That sounds fun right? Kind of, they've set aside time to watch two movies a day, every other day for one week starting on Monday. You have 8 movies to show your friend the classic side, the gory side, the crazy side, the funny side, and all the aspects of horror cinema that you can squeeze into eight flicks. Which eight do you pick?

I think I would go with...


Nosferatu
Bride of Frankenstein

Night of the Living Dead
Evil Dead 2

Creepshow
Suspiria

The Thing
Cabin in the Woods

But even while typing those eight I came up with so many others I could put into each and every spot. I know these "top horror movie" threads have been done to death... and I don't care.

Classic
Frankenstein- Though Bride is my favorite horror film, I think without the first film as a pelude a lot would be lost, so I'd start with the original. Plenty of time later to get to the sequel.
Horror of Dracula- Bring on the other iconic monster with Hammer's masterful take on the tale, and introduce two iconic personalities, Cushing and Lee.

Gory
Well, my gory films won't actually be that gory. I'll reinterpret this category to mean films that up the ante with violence and scares.
Halloween- a near perfect masterpiece of terror.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre- Not that gory, but still violent and shocking.

Crazy
Repulsion- I'll go literal with this selection of a true masterpiece film depicting a woman's descent into madness.
Carrie- Original version. Some cheese factor, but Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie elevate this film to brilliance.

Funny
Beetlejuice- It just doesn't get much funnier than this film while still managing some scares.
The Raven- My friend probably won't get why this film is so funny, but I don't care. I'll just be geeking out the whole time about Price, Karloff and Lorre.
I didn't choose Young Frankenstein because he needs to know more about horror before he sees that.

Nice post, Despare. It will be interesting seeing people's lists.

Great choices! Ugh, I'd have to kidnap them and forcefeed Halloween to their eyes... or replace something on my list with it like a normal person would do...

As for the categories, you don't have to go with what I wrote, just throwing out some very general sub-genres within horror.

Halloween (original)
Night of the Living Dead

Frankenstein
Bride of Frankenstein

Dracula (Hammer)
The Mummy (Hammer)

House on Haunted Hill (original)
House of Usher

____________

"Enjoy that dead girl's body"

Eight is tough. First of all I wouldn't limit yourself to only two of these arbitrary types, crazy, funny, gory, etc, because the best tend to overlap in those respects, and also it is a narrows your selection and potentially eliminates some terrific movies that might be more compelling to someone unfamiliar with the genre. Here is a list of eight that I think gives a newbie a good introduction to a nice cross-section of horror and a good reason to seek out more:

Them
Night of the Living Dead (original)
The Reanimator
Evil Dead 2
The Haunting (original)
The Thing (82)
Audition
Black Sunday (Bava)

The classics I selected were the kind I thought would be more palatable to a modern viewer whose attention span might not make them amenable to the Universal classics or the German Expressionist classics. I also tried to avoid movies which are so brutal they might be a turn-off to the uninitiated, but I suppose Audition might be an exception to that, except everyone I have shown that to were blown away by it.

Classic:
Frankenstein
Son of Frankenstein

Gory:
Brain Dead
Dog Soldiers

Crazy:
Repulsion
Paranoiac

Funny:
Shaun of the Dead
Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein

Tough to choose just eight. I try and introduce horror to people year round. I tend to choose.

Suspiria
Audition ( most people i show this to get bored,or dont like subs.) I love them personally.
Evil Dead
Repo! The genetic opera (funny,scary,and a musical)
Frankenstein
Jaws
Zombi
Psycho

Just strapped in some friends and am playing I Spit On Your Grave. Guys, this is awkward...

it was awkward when I showed friends "Martyrs" I think that one scarred them for life.

I've not looked at anyone else's choices (except Despare's) so I'm not influenced/put off saying what I would say to be more original :p

Classic
Nosferatu
The Curse of Frankenstein

Gory
The Thing
Hobo With a Shotgun

Crazy
Basket Case
The Abominable Dr. Phibes

Funny
Brain Dead (Dead Alive) - also equally suited to gore
The Cabin in the Woods - the last one I'd show so that hopefully they got a few more tropes.

I think I'd introduce them to the Horror genre, with those sides, like this...

classic-esque
Nosferatu
Frankenstein

gory-esque
The Exorcist
The Thing 82

crazy-esque
Psycho
Nightmare On Elm St

funny-side-esque
Ghostbusters
Evil Dead 2

An interesting question. I don't like to limit myself to arbitrary genre lines, so my list reflects this. I think my eight would be (not in this order):

Halloween (1978)
A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
Psycho (1960)
The Haunting (1963)
Dracula (1931)
Jaws (1975)
The Howling (1981)
Pet Sematary (1989)

Those are some excellent films from a variety of genres that I think would give them a taste of the genre, if that doesn't work, I can always try more modern ones.

Classic
Night of the Living Dead
The Shining

Gory
Dead Alive
The Thing (original)

crazy
The Devil's Rejects
Evil Dead 2

Funny
Hatchet(Any of them)
Shaun of the Dead

Bride of Frankenstein
Halloween
the Exorcist
Nude for Satan (one of my favorite euro-sleaze flicks)
Evil Dead 2
Dawn of the Dead
Black Sunday
Curse of Frankenstein


I guess I would just show them my favorites, being of the mindset, "If they don't like these, they don't like horror".

It'll be a trap...

1. Hitchcock's Psycho (A beautiful drama-thriller about a guy & his bit crazy mother)
2. The Exorcist (A slow-burn moving film about a troubled teen & a priest)
3. Carpenter's The Thing (A solid sci-fi suspense thriller)
4. Carpenter's Halloween (A sad little story about a girl & his long lost brother)
5. Rosemary's Baby (An emotionally moving tale depicting the tensions & fear of the first-time pregnancy for a newly-married woman)
6. TCM [Original] (Newly restored, a lost 'true-crime' film about a survival story of a group of teens 'rescued' by a poor-struggling family)
7. Let the Right One In (An everlasting children love-story)
8. Freaks (30's highly acclaimed classic film about the behind the stage struggling life of circus people)

I agree with you. I wouldn't think to start someone with Bride of Frankenstein if they haven't seen Frankenstein 31. Many parts would be confusing, and many references would be left hanging. Having seen it recently, it's a lot more referential to Frankenstein than some might assume.

I see you didn't select Dracula 33 either. I liked Dracula 33, but it's not one of my favorites. It's a bit dry and slow. Probably would entertain intellectuals a bit more than non-intellectuals. I went with Nosferatu. Even though I had seen a ton of Hammer Dracula films and Dracula, I was still at the end of my seat for Nos. And surprisingly to me, I thought the special effects were better and more frightening than the former.

Just checking... you mean The Thing 82 or 52? The 52 version is called The Thing from the other world, but usually referred to as The Thing, especially before the 82 version.

LOL - no spoilers from you.

I enjoyed Freaks. But I don't know I would say it was particularly good, or important to horror. It may be a classic, because of the notoriety, which comes purely from the title, and the unique actors presented in a proper way (except, possibly, the last 15 mins; much of which was permanently cut). That is to say, if none of the actors were physically unique, and the characters were just trapeze, clowns and show girls, and it was released with the book title "Spurs", then we wouldn't be talking about it now.

When I picked Bride, I guess I was just picturing some of my "irl" friends, who would have been surrounded by pop culture up to this point. I would assume they knew the story of the original Frankenstein. I can't feasibly picture anyone being like, "What is this 'horror' thing you speak of?".

But the actors are not trapeze artists, clowns and showgirls. They're pinheads, human torsos, living skeletons, dwarves... what the world at that time called Freaks, abominations, monsters. Amongst themselves they're normal, but the outside world fears them, and puts them on display to demean and control them. In the film their society is invaded and betrayed, and they exact their brutal revenge, and it's not the type of revenge you could find in a western. Their revenge is endemic to their place as society's freaks. They've been mocked and humiliated and have acted like the monsters outsiders believe them to be.

Freaks is not only good, it's a masterpiece, and an important early example of the sympathetic monster(s) abused by an uncaring, cruel society.

If you are talking about the Dracula from 1931, then I could not disagree more. I loved that film and have ever since I was young. It is easily my favorite Classic Universal horror film. Nosferatu is good, but Dracula (1931) is better, in my opinion. I would actually say that it is my second favorite vampire movie of all time.

It's hard to believe that the same guy who made Dracula made Freaks. Freaks is terrifically directed and imaginatively filmed, whereas Dracula is stagy and slow, even by the standards of its time. Lugosi and Dwight Fry are the only good things about Dracula for me. When it came out with a Philip Glass soundtrack, I had to laugh, because no film could be less suited for a Philip Glass soundtrack, but perhaps I should give it a chance; maybe it works as a study in contrasts. No offense, but I think the respect for Dracula is generally unwarranted and rests solely on Lugosi's great performance. Of the Universal horror films, it is my least favorite.

Like I mentioned, I do not think the respect for Dracula is unwarranted in any way. I did not realize there was any hate for the film. I love Freaks as well as many of the Universal films, but Dracula is my favorite horror film pre 1950s, easy. I thought the film was excellent in many ways, not just due to Lugosi's performance. I still regularly revisited it and find it quite interesting.

We undoubtedly agree on one thing: it was the casting of real people with deformities that make the film notable.

Let me say upfront, I far from hate Dracula, I really like it. I do happen to agree with ShadyJ that it is relatively stagey and slow. Which isn't surprising because much of it was recreated from it's stage play script, play sets, and blocking/performance. The framing and editing bother me in spots too, such as the ending scenes in the crypts. The worst aspect of Dracula is the sound. Perhaps I've just heard bad copies, but the hiss to voice volume ratio is really bad, and many of the actors voice scenes sound chalky, some spoken too fast, some hard to understand.

The sets, such as the opening scenes inside Dracula's castle, are fantastic. I don't think anyone has done a better performance of Dracula than Bela's. Still, despite being a silent film, I think Nosferatu created a more fighting film version.

Freaks - Shocking, one-of-a-kind, heartbreaking, exploitative.
Nosferatu - Nightmarish, iconic, artistic, immortal.

Dracula - ...........zzzzzzzzzzzzzz...........

(No offense, it's just not my thing.)

Hellraiser
Phantasm
Invaders from Mars
NOES 1
Something wicked this way comes
Night of the Living Dead
Demons
Uzumaki

...I'd probably give them a look at "The Signal" and Shaun too.

Kind of a hard one for first timers...Especially hard not knowing which type of horror they'd be into...hmmm..Would probably have to tie in classics/monster movies, B horror, and slashers to open them up.

Nosferatu
The Bride of Frankenstein
The Evil Dead (ORIGINAL)
A Nightmare on Elm Street (ORIGINAL)
Last House on the Left (ORIGINAL)
Halloween (ORIGINAL)
Night of The Living Dead
Friday the 13th Part II

All movies are THE ORIGINALS... just so I won't have to type it after every movie :D

Nosferatu
Evil Dead
Salems Lot
The Fog
Creepshow
A Nightmare On Elm Street
Poltergeist
Theater of Blood

Just for fun... if I were to drop the categories (classic, gory, crazy, funny), and just hit on 8 films to introduce someone to the horror genre, one film per day, I think I would change it to:

Day:
1. Frankenstein
2. Night of the Living Dead
3. Psycho
4. The Exorcist
5. Alien
6. Halloween
7. The Thing 82
8. Evil Dead 2

I think those all hit different aspects of horror.