ROTTEN TOMATOES: RT's Top 20 Halloween Movie Countdown, Part 4 Comments

RT's Top 20 Halloween Movie Countdown, Part 4

by RT Staff | October 31, 2006

Summary

Happy Halloween! We've been counting down the Top 20 Halloween flicks and today we unveil the number one best-reviewed in horror and suspense cinema, so without further ado... Back to Article

(1-28 of 28 posts) | Reply

245_trioxin writes:
on Oct 31 2006 12:43 PM

donnie darko sucked. it is more sci fi than it is horror. thank god this was based on ratings and not on scare factor. other than 28 days later, i approve

thomas of the living dead

(Reply to this)

the_don_of_yreka writes:
on Oct 31 2006 12:45 PM

28 Days Later and Psycho are good but not needed in this countdown. slap someone for making this lame list.

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MattyDaddy74 writes:
on Oct 31 2006 12:55 PM

[b]Yeah I got to admit.....[/b]
this list really sucked. When you create something like this you gotta look at factors that actually matter. Being scary, how the gore was used, psychological factor and whether or not the film is a cult icon. There were only a few on here that I agreed with. The films that I would have picked, based purely on the above criteria. These are in no particular order: Psycho, The Exorcist, Poltergeist, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, Audition, Seven, The Sixth Sense, Halloween, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (original), The Shining, Carrie, Evil Dead, Silence of the Lambs, Night of the Living Dead, Hellraiser, Scanners, Amityville Horror (original), The Omen, and Scream. I'm sure that list isn't PERFECT, but it's what I'm going with.......

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Jbourne37 writes:
on Oct 31 2006 01:11 PM

I really hate The Devil's Backbone. It isn't scary, just boring.

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FILMCZY writes:
on Oct 31 2006 01:36 PM

I'm still trying to figure out why Psycho (1968) is rated "R"?

Title: Psycho (1984)
Rating: R
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Other: Re-Rating
Previously rated (M) in (1968).

Per www.filmratings.com

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normydreads writes:
on Oct 31 2006 01:56 PM

I like Matty's list. Way to go. But I can't really argue with Psycho as number 1. Its one of my all-time favorites and the pre-cursor to all the slashers we love.

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Fangmeier69 writes:
on Oct 31 2006 02:17 PM

[b]Where the hell is John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN?!?[/b]
Doesn't it have a 100% rating on this site?

And what the heck are comedies like Shaun Of the Dead doing here?

I thought this was for films that are actually scary.

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CavA writes:
on Oct 31 2006 02:31 PM

Are people here so stupid that they dont realize that its based on tomatometer reviews? Has anyone noticed that all the topxx lists on this site are also based on well... the actual purpose of the site. This site is not based on editors personal picks but on a compilation of critic's reviews... wow what im saying is so obvious yet it seems so many people dont fully understand

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egraLeD writes:
on Oct 31 2006 02:56 PM

Alien must be in the top like the #1

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The Senhman writes:
on Oct 31 2006 03:16 PM

In reply to this comment (#847767)
Our criteria for this list is at least 40 reviews. That puts the bias on more recent films because older films tend to have less reviews.

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cardow writes:
on Oct 31 2006 03:36 PM

In reply to this comment (#847770)
hmmm, probably should've lowered that like 20, or even 15. It would've made the list less ... disappointing

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egraLeD writes:
on Oct 31 2006 04:28 PM

In reply to this comment (#847770)
but why ridley scott's Alien wasn't on the top?

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egraLeD writes:
on Oct 31 2006 04:32 PM

and why they will do Saw 4? whyyy? (crying)

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mikewl writes:
on Oct 31 2006 05:00 PM

[b]Why "Alien" isn't listed[/b]
This list is for horror/suspense movies. RT lists "Alien" as science fiction/fantasy. Yeah, I think it's silly, too, but what are you going to do?

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yodas gooch writes:
on Oct 31 2006 05:13 PM

Nice work, but it really needed to be a top 20 list...no 'Thing', 'Alien' but Shaun of the Dead???

Different Strokes for different folks I guess

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alsanali writes:
on Oct 31 2006 05:26 PM

What do you mean... it IS a top 20 list. Just not a very good one.

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bubbaburnstine writes:
on Oct 31 2006 05:38 PM

The list wasnt bad, but Donnie Darko is not a horror movie at all.

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WileyMan writes:
on Oct 31 2006 06:23 PM

Donnie Darko should not be on this list. It is not a horror film but a science fiction story with a few moody moments. I'm glad Shaun of the Dead is in the top five as well as The Devil's Backbone. I'm surprised The Ring did not make the cut though; I guess I will have to check the archives for its Tomatometer.

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Lizard Brain writes:
on Oct 31 2006 07:34 PM

[b]As I feared...[/b]
No "The Thing"= not much of a list.

Anyone who hasn't seen "The Thing" (1982) with Kurt Russell, do yourself a favor and get to it. Not only gory scary, back when they used latex instead of CGI, but psychologically scary. You won't trust your friends or your dog for days after viewing this movie.

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MattyDaddy74 writes:
on Oct 31 2006 08:12 PM

In reply to this comment (#847768)
[b]uh huh[/b]
yeah dude, we realize it........we just don't like it. So we're telling them, rather than be lazy and do it that way, why not be creative and use many factors to determine this list.

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lucidslumber writes:
on Oct 31 2006 09:15 PM

In reply to this comment (#847781)
[b]its like.................[/b]
you asked for vanilla,but expected chocolate.....The list served the exact purpose intended.....youre whining about something you cant change.They have specified SEVERAL times the criteria,yet still you waste your time bitching about it.Is it really that important to you? Sad.This list is exactly as expected,apperantly your to reticent to accept that.

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raisedmaze writes:
on Oct 31 2006 11:13 PM

[b]Alrighty......[/b]
I agree with the person's comment above that Donnie Darko is more Sci-Fi than it is a horror movie (although it could be considered "suspense", which makes sense), but I don't agree that it sucked. It was a fun movie, and perfectly deserving to be on this list.

Now that I've looked at the criteria that these are the best reviewed movies in the horror/suspense genre, I feel that not including the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the original Dawn of the Dead (or Night of the Living Dead for that matter), *NONE* of the Evil Dead movies (although Bubba Ho-Tep could be seen as a sort of all-encompassing nod to all three ED Movies, and is deserving as such), nor the biggest, most disappointing oversight in my opinion, Bill Paxton's Frailty.

I'll just come out and say this: I have yet to see Joy Ride, but putting *ANY* movie, especially a supposed "horror/suspense" movie starring Paul Walker and/or Steve Zahn in a list of "best of" movies ahead of any of the six movies I mentioned above makes the list broken. All six of those movies have a better RT score than Joy Ride, number of reviews and "classification as horror/suspense" be damned, so I just flat-out, plainly, not over-exaggerating just don't understand putting a movie like that ahead of those (mostly) *absolutely outstanding* movies.

But I must say that putting Audition (which I have yet to see but really want to) and The Devil's Backbone (ditto) on the list help ease that pain. And putting Shadow of the Vampire in the list (especially so high up) was classy as well. But that still doesn't make the list unbroken, because it still is, and here's my final, truncated reason.

Putting the remake of Dawn of the Dead and Land of the Dead on this list ahead of (and seemingly not even considering) the original Dawn of the Dead or Night of the Living Dead is absolutely atrocious, again criteria for consideration be damned all to hell. I didn't particularly care for Dawn so much (nor 28 Days Later for that matter, for the same jerky DV camera motions throughout a lot of both movies), but I thought Land of the Dead was quite fun. But not including Romero's two own far better masterpieces and putting Land of the Dead in there is quite wrong.

There it is, I've said my peace.

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unbreakable_samurai writes:
on Nov 01 2006 10:55 AM

28 Days Later is in my opinion the best zombie movie ever made, I love that movie. Shaun of the Dead is over rated and just an ok film.

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Kudos Mooney writes:
on Nov 01 2006 11:15 AM

In reply to this comment (#847783)
[b]you said you reviewed the criteria for the list...[/b]
but i really think you reviewed the criteria gathering mold in between your ass cheeks. because the criteria said that it had to have more than 40 tomatometer reviews.

it's okay. i know. it's complex ideas and thoughts coupled with common sense. we can't expect everyone to be perfect.

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reyes writes:
on Nov 01 2006 11:30 AM

What an awful list.

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dave1606 writes:
on Nov 01 2006 03:09 PM

[b]the most unfair list[/b]
ok so the number too pic is a strangley obscure movie that looks good but the only reason that it has such a high rating is that it wasn't reviewed by nearly as many people as some of the other movies. for example the remake of Dawn of the dead has 158 reviews and the devil's backbone has 88 thats a big difference.

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MattyDaddy74 writes:
on Nov 01 2006 05:45 PM

In reply to this comment (#847782)
[b]spare time.....[/b]
Nah dude, it isn't that important to me. I'm just looking to do something in my spare time between being a full-time pre-med student and working three jobs. Excuse me for trying to squeeze some leisure time in over this site. I never intended to change their list. They can feel free to use whatever system they choose, but I felt inclined to provide my own list, based on gore, psychology and cult status. My comment also served to give them a better system for future lists. They could leave it up to us to vote. And I wasn't being reticent. That word means to "be silent" or taciturn. I was being anything but........

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dylan21484nj writes:
on Nov 01 2006 11:51 PM

you do a top 20 Halloween movie countdown and Halloween (the movie) doesn't even make the list? how stupid is that? IT'S THE NAME OF THE MOVIE, FOR CHRISSAKES!!

this just affirms what i already knew - LISTS SUCK ASS.

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