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I am eliminating from history the movie Psycho. Known as the perfect movie at the perfect time. I picked Psycho because without this movie there would still be the undead, monsters, ghosts and even psychotic killers. The fact of life is that there always has been and always will be “psychos.” The atmosphere, camera work and score had more to do with the success of it way more than the other 2 movies. More so than most movies period. The sad fact of life is the Psychos do exist and eventually there would be a movie made about them. Peeping Tom came out a couple of months before Psycho but didn’t come close to the success. The reason for this is Big Al, not the movie itself. If he’d never thought to do Psycho his way of directing another movie would have still made him a classic icon, but if you add in previously unknown sexuality, a couple screeching violins and a theatre antic (You weren’t allowed to leave the theatre once the movie began, which created a buzz throughout America) you would now have the classic movie it has become.
Humans are human, which means their gonna do stupid, scary, crazy and even psychotic shit, all of which can be recorded into history and therefore have a movie made about it. That is why Psycho is expendable, it would still be going on weather a movie was made about it or not. What would be missed is the way Alfred created his own atmosphere, and use of camera angles and shots. But that’s not to say we wouldn’t have seen that same in another movie. Cant understate how important the human element is for a movie like Psycho. Without psycho there still would be serial killer movies just because there would still real life serial killers. Movies that involve the human element can be recreated but it’s the director that can make that same movie a classic. Now think of NOTLD never being thought of, or the notion of dead people being reanimated back to life or a monster in the moonlight relentlessly chasing after you. Now you just eliminated a huge percentage of horror period! Psychos will and have always existed but the same can’t be said about reanimated and/or put back together corpses. The human aspect of psycho is its biggest contributor but also the reason horror could exist without it ever being created. The same cant exactly be said about the others.
As for the others, I choose Night Of The Living Dead to be the most deserving of its classic status. This is in no way any disrespect to Frankenstein but think of the horror genre as a whole, now think of it without the undead. Without the living dead there is a huge hole in horror itself. Without Frankenstien there is still Dracula, Wolfman and other creatures or monsters in which early cinema could still create and harness the horror element all while still scaring audiences. Out of sheer numbers alone you would have to say NOTLD is a more important movie which would in return be more deserving of “classic” status. Frankenstien is one of the best stories ever told but there are times in which you are sympathizing with the villain. By the end of the story you’re not sure whether its him or us that the villain is, which should be taken as a compliment to the story itself. How can you see frank as a villain when as tosses the girl over the bridge thinking she would float just like the flowers. Now think of Zombies attacking the poor girl and pouring over the bridge with her trying to devour as much flesh as possible. Monsters and zombies are known as a few sub genres of horror, not Frankensteins’ and zombies. The percentage and effect that NOTLD had on the genre is the reasoning behind me stating that it is more deserving of the Classic status.
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