Published 16:45 26 Oct 2024 GMT+1
If a film left a bloke who’s known as the King of Horror feeling ‘helpless terror’, it’s surely worth a watch for those who are a fan of frightening flicks.
You’d think that the legend that is Stephen King wouldn’t get spooked easily due to the fact that he’s made a living out of writing some of the creepiest stories readers have ever got their hands on, but one movie really managed to frighten the living daylights out of him.
Just in time for Halloween, the legendary author has revealed his all-time favourite horror film which really gave him the heebie-jeebies.
He’s already recommended some must-watch movies that you can find on Netflix and previously revealed which supernatural flick he couldn’t bring himself to sit through, but now he is letting us all in on which cinematic masterpiece caused him to experience ‘pure atavistic’ fear while he was watching it.
That’s right, even King throws his popcorn and covers his eyes sometimes, people.
Stephen King has shared his recommendations for horror films which will have you hooked (Mathew Tsang/Getty Images)
In a new essay for Variety, the 77-year-old explained that he had ‘thought deeply’ about what he would crown as the scariest horror movie he has ever seen, which probably took him quite a while since he’s had the pleasure of viewing thousands of them.
King reckons that age has a lot to do with the answer to this question, as when he was aged 16, he thought that The Haunting was the most spine-chilling thing he had ever seen.
The 1963 supernatural horror film, directed by Robert Wise, follows the story of a paranormal researcher who assembles a group of people to help him determine whether the rumours that the notorious Hill House is haunted are true.
But after maturing a bit more, King’s taste in terror changed.
He said: “As an adult, it was The Blair Witch Project, with that building sense of doom and those truly horrible last 35 seconds.”
The author revealed that George A. Romero’s 1968 movie is the one which takes the top spot for him (Image Ten)
Horror fans will know the plot of the 1999 movie well, but for those who don’t, three young filmmakers travel to a village in Maryland to create a documentary about a mythical creature known as the ‘Blair Witch’.
But things take a dark turn when they enter the woods and begin to hear strange noises – and the trio disappear, leaving only their equipment and camera footage behind.
The 81-minute movie which viewers get to see is this spooky ‘found footage’ and it’s seriously creepy, but unfortunately for its creators, it was knocked off the top spot in King’s ranking by another film.
He revealed that George A. Romero’s 1968 ‘low-budget masterpiece’ Night of the Living Dead is the horror which managed to keep him up at night, and even all these years on, it still sends shivers down his spine.
The flick tells the tale of seven people who end up trapped in a remote farmhouse in Pennsylvania while zombie-like corpses – dubbed ‘ghouls’ in the film – are after them.
Take a look at the trailer for it here:
King explained: “I’ll never forget the smarmy older brother doing his bad Boris Karloff imitation – ‘They’re coming to get you, Barbara… there’s one now!’
“He’s pointing to the elderly wino stumbling among the gravestones, only the elderly wino turns out to be a reanimated corpse, and when Barbara locks herself in her car, she discovers that the smarmy brother – Johnny – has taken the keys. Meanwhile, the old man is trying to get at her, and the viewer understands he will not stop.
“It’s a moment of pure atavistic terror. Barbara puts the car in neutral (probably impossible without the key, but that’s movies for you) and rolls it down the hill, getting away… temporarily.”
The Shining writer said that although the movie might not pack the same punch these days, he still can’t shake the fear he was left with after he first watched Night of the Living Dead.
He continued: “In the end, no one survives. This movie has lost its elemental power over the years – has become almost a Midnite Madness joke, like Rocky Horror – but I still remember the helpless terror I felt when I first saw it.
“And now that I think of it, there’s a real similarity to Blair Witch, both with minimal or no music, both cast with unknown actors who seem barely capable of summer stock in Paducahville, both with low-tech special effects.
“They work not in spite of those things, but because of them.”
So sod your big budgets, Hollywood, as King reckons it’s the cheap ones which leave a lasting impact on horror fans.Featured Image Credit: Olivia Wong/Getty Images/Continental Distributing
Topics: Film, Stephen King, TV and Film, Horror
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