Quote:
Originally Posted by neverending
Because the French contributed several particularly noteworthy films from this era. I share Gigantic's sentiment.
Ils, Irreversable, Martyrs, Frontier(s), High Tension
One of these, at least, should be on the list.
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Yep. I would also definitely include Inside in that top echelon list. As a movement, there are a lot of other great films, but perhaps not top 22: Sheitan, Calvaire, Trouble Every Day, In My Skin, Maléfique...from the 90s, I Stand Alone. And as always a few that can be skipped- Baise Moi, Vertige.
At the risk of oversimplifying things, I believe there are two films that brought horror back en vogue: The Blair Witch Project, which kicked off a slew of found footage films and franchises, and The Ring (really the American version) which kicked off J-Horror and made it a worldwide fad. Guillermo del Toro and the Splat Pack (Marshall, Aja, Wan, Zombie, Roth, couple others) have kept it alive. That, and the popularity of The Walking Dead, feeding the zombie fad. Del Toro was already making great movies, but I believe he benefited from J-horror, which made atmospheric supernatural stories popular. The Splat Pack, on the other hand, have secretly found inspiration from the New French Extremists, whose subject matter spans the gamut, and have consistently brought new ideas to old concepts, such as slasher, psychological, home invasion, vampire, thriller, ghost (although, spoiler alert, that ghost might be psychological), and exploitation.
IMHO, it's understandable that none of these films made a particular horror list, but unacceptable that they didn't on a horror forum. Oh well, it all boils down to taste, and it's not the taste of the majority on this forum, which is totally cool. But if we're trying to represent history in our "100 Years of Horror", it's simply not representative.