"Dexter" Season 7 is quickly approaching, and we can hardly wait to see what's in store for us viewers this September 30th. Season 6 ended with Debra finding out Dexter's dark secret, actually catching him in the act. In honor of six seasons of Dexter ridding Miami of murderers, here is our list of seven killers we are most glad Dexter was around for.

Related Stories: All "Dexter" News Here

1. The Trinity Killer aka Arthur Mitchell (John Lithgow)

Season 4 is easily the best season of "Dexter" because of one thing: the Trinity Killer. John Lithgow brings to life the scariest serial killer ever to grace the screen.

I'll set the scene- Lithgow is in a bathtub full of water, sitting behind a young woman. Her face is frightened as his is soft and gentle. In one hand he holds a mirror aimed at the face of the young woman, whom he has in a choke hold. In his other hand is a razor, which he uses to slice the woman's femoral artery. In the mirror he watches as the life, and blood, completely drains out of his victim.

The bathtub is only one place Trinity performs his murders. The others include forcing a mother of two to commit suicide via high jump, beating a father of two to death with a hammer and burying a young boy alive.

Mitchell was an abusive father of two who was very active in his church's home building projects, an activity that allowed him to travel to kill. His worst act before his death by Dexter - the murder of Dexter's wife, Rita - created the biggest surprise on "Dexter" to date.

2. The Ice Truck Killer aka Rudy Cooper aka Brian Moser (Christian Camargo)

Season 1 started off with a bang. Almost immediately we are introduced to Dexter's dark secret, followed by a blood-drained and dismembered body with no head. This body is the work of the Ice Truck Killer.

Brian Moser, son of murdered Laura Moser and brother to unknowing Dexter, kills his victims and drains them completely of their blood. He then cuts the body into strategic pieces and places them in public places with subtle clues for Dexter to follow. Each clue helps Dexter remember a small piece of his past, which he has managed to forget.

Instead of just approaching Dexter to confess their relation, Brian kills to create a puzzle for Dexter to solve, ending in the attempted murder of Debra. What Brian didn't count on was Dexter's love for his sister.

3. The Skinner aka George Washington King (Jesse Borrego)

The trouble in Season 3 started when Dexter killed Freebo, a small time heroin dealer. It turned out that Freebo owed someone quite a bit of cash, that someone being George King. King owned a tree trimming service, which allowed him to go undetected as he trailed Debra Morgan as she interviewed Freebo's friends and associates for his whereabouts. Soon after speaking with them, each person would show up dead, skinned. Eventually, through the fear of an employee of King, Deb was able to deduct that King was the skinner, but not before Dexter could kill him.

4. Jorge and Valerie Castillo (Jose Zuniga and Valerie Dillman)

They may not be among Season 1's main killers on "Dexter," but Jorge and Valerie certainly belong on this list. The wealthy owner of a junkyard, Jorge smuggled Cuban immigrants into the United States on his boat after charging them an obscene amount of money. When they reached America, Jorge would slap on an additional fee. When these poor immigrants couldn't pay, Jorge would drown them.

What did Valerie do? She was aware of the murders and simply did not care. Jorge was bringing in large sums of money, and she enjoyed the power. Hopefully they had time to enjoy all of that money and power before they ended up on Dexter's table.

5. Jordan Chase (Jonny Lee Miller)

Season 5, though slow, gave us Jordan Chase, the modern day Charles Manson. A motivational speaker and bestselling author, Chase was able to convince people to take what they wanted and to act on their anger. He may not have participated in any of the murders of the young women who were brutally raped and killed by his followers, but he certainly encouraged and videotaped the acts.

His first murder was Emily, the first rape victim and only one of two known survivors. She was stabbed through the heart with a fireplace poker when she attempted to defend Lumen, the second survivor whom Dexter helped get revenge.

Jordan had power and he got off on it. His reign ended with a knife through his heart.

6. Doomsday Killer aka Travis Marshall (Colin Hanks)

Misleading the Miami Metro Police through the majority of Season 6 that the Doomsday Killer was Professor James Gellar, Travis Marshall emerged as a much more screwed up guy than the devout Christian follower of Gellar that Dexter believed him to be. Having killed Gellar and taken on the extra personality of said Doomsday Killer, Marshall murdered multiple people, using the bodies to stage the Book of Revelations' description of the apocalypse.

Whether he believed himself to be under the orders of Gellar the whole time or not, Marshall murdered his own sister and attempted to not only poison the entire Miami Metro Police Department but also kill little Harrison, Dexter's son.

7. Boyd Fowler (Shawn Hatosy)

Fowler was responsible for clean-up after the rape of thirteen women by Jordan Chase and "The Group." His job was to kill and dispose of the bodies. As a dead animal pickup officer for the Department of Sanitation, it was easy to disguise any disposals as simply his job. Though he claimed he was helping the women by killing them, his collection of hair trophies proved otherwise.

Dumping the bodies in barrels of water and electrocuting them by connecting jumper cables to the rim, Fowler obviously enjoyed his job. What he didn't expect was for Dexter to figure him out and let loose Lumen, who finished off the rest of his group.

"Dexter" Season 7 starts September 30, 2012 on Showtime. For more be sure to visit the official "Dexter" page on Showtime, "like""Dexter" on Facebook, and follow "Dexter" on Twitter.

The term “Scream Queen” might immediately bring to mind Jamie Lee Curtis, the star of Halloween, Terror Train and Prom Night, but a new Scream Queen is emerging to take the lead, and we can, once again, thank the Halloween series for bringing her to our attention.

Star of Halloween 4 and Halloween 5, Danielle Harris has exploded onto the horror scene, releasing several films a year for our viewing pleasure. In honor of her new release, The Victim; the upcoming The Ghost of Goodnight Lane; and her directorial debut, Among Friends, Dread Central is honoring our Scream Queen with a list of six of her best horror roles.

1. Annie Brackett in Rob Zombie’s Halloween and Halloween 2

Though they weren’t horribly popular with Halloween fans, one cannot deny that Rob Zombie has a way of bringing realism to his films. Danielle Harris brought such power to her role as Annie Brackett that we actually believed her pain after Michael viciously stabbed her multiple times. And let’s be honest; who didn’t feel that boulder in their stomach in Halloween 2 during the bathroom scene? While John Carpenter’s Annie was meant for comic relief, we all grew to love Rob Zombie’s Annie not only for her sense of humor but her adorable personality and were saddened when she met her violent but inevitable end.

2. Jamie Lloyd in Halloween 4 and Halloween 5

At the young age of 11, Danielle began her horror career running away from the silent masked stalker Michael Myers. She gained our sympathy votes not only because she was a child but because she was just so darn cute! Cursed to be the niece of Michael, poor Jamie felt the hand of loss when she had to watch her family members die one by one, eventually going mute as a result. With the help of Dr. Loomis and with her own clever tricks, Jamie manages to defeat Michael not once, but twice. Poor Michael has the worst luck with the women in his family.

3. Marybeth in Hatchet II

Assigning Danielle to the role of Marybeth in Hatchet II was the smartest move Adam Green could have made. That’s not to say that Tamara Feldman was bad in the role in the original, but let’s face it: Harris makes the movie. Having rounded up a group of giant redneck men with guns to help her kill Victor Crowley in the swamp of Louisiana, Marybeth stands as the sole survivor of the whole thing, yet again. In the end all it took to defeat Crowley was Marybeth herself and Crowley’s own hatchet.

4. Tosh in Urban Legend

After years of absence from the horror genre, Danielle returned in 1998 to the role of the Goth college roommate Tosh in Jamie Blank’s Urban Legend. A big change from her role as Jamie in Halloween, Tosh is the rude, heavy metal listening, black wearing, guy on the internet meeting, promiscuous roommate of our heroine, Natalie. Having walked in on Tosh having sex once before, Natalie knew better than to turn on the light upon entering her room. Little did she know turning on the light would have saved Tosh’s life. Instead, she became an urban legend.

5. Alissa in Blood Night: The Legend of Mary Hatchet

Alissa is invited to a party to celebrate the anniversary of the death of Mary Hatchet, a local serial killer. She establishes herself as this fun, sweet friend of one of the kids, but she never seems to be in the room when the teenagers start to die one by one. Coincidence? Not really. Alissa is actually the daughter of Mary Hatchet and seems to have inherited her mental problems. Danielle makes one adorable little killer and her story about her mouse tattoo makes the movie.

6. Maria in Cyrus

Danielle plays Maria, a news reporter trying to get the story of a serial killer in a small town. She is contacted by a local man who knows not only the killer's name but his story. Maria is so determined to further her career with this story that she doesn’t even notice how the whole thing is obviously a trap. Putting aside that her character is a bit dense, no one plays a lovable bitch quite like Danielle.

The Victim is on DVD and Blu-ray NOW! Keep your eyes and ears open for more information on the release dates of The Ghost of Goodnight Lane and Among Friends.

One of the things I love about zombie movies is that there are some unspoken rules that the audience goes into the movie knowing, which then cuts out your exposition time. One of the things that I hate about zombie movies is that there are some unspoken rules that the audience goes into the movie knowing, and if one of these rules is broken...

...the movie is looked poorly upon.

Confused yet? Good! I would say that the top three of these unspoken rules would be that zombies are not alive, zombies want to either eat people or spread their zombie-ness to other by biting them, and shooting a zombie in the head or otherwise destroying its brain will kill it. The following list is full of movies that make for really fun zombie movies or are typically regarded as zombie movies, but they break at least one of the previously stated rules.

6) 28 Days Later...
Most people's first reaction to this movie was: "Running zombies?! I don't think so!" You'll notice that I didn't state running as an important zombie rule, as quite a few zombie movies in the past decade have featured zombies that have no problem moving with urgency. The only "rule" that this movie really adheres to is the fact that the virus in the film is spread by bodily fluids, whether that be blood or saliva or, well, we didn't see any other scenes that ran the gamut of bodily fluid ingestion. At the time this movie was released, it made perfect sense to tap into the fear we have of blood and the deterioration of society, similarly to how Romero showed the dangers of science and the collapse of social order in Day of the Dead. Also, I think we can all agree that if it wasn't for the success of this movie, there wouldn't have been Shaun of the Dead, Zombieland, Land of the Dead or the remake of Dawn of the Dead. Hey, I'm not saying whether or not some of those movies should have been made, just pointing out the help they got from 28 Days Later...

5) [REC] 2
Again, similar to 28 Days Later..., this film really only sticks to the idea of bodily fluids being the transmission of the infection. The reason this movie needs to be represented and given some credit is because it directly connects the infection with the religious element that most movies only hint at. Zombies almost always show up as some science experiment gone wrong, and only randomly will we see a religious fanatic saying it's punishment for our sins, but [REC] 2 had no qualms about blaming not just the progression of science but also the existence of demons that can travel from one body to another with the help of some spit.

4) Demons
The title alone gives away the fact that this isn't a traditional zombie movie, but the appearance of monstrous creatures whose main goal seems to be to bite their victims to create more demons, thus leading to cities being overrun with these monsters, definitely sounds familiar to what happens in most zombies movies. The victims that are trapped in a movie theater with no hope, no understanding of what's happening, and the paranoia that causes them to turn on one another is just about as "zombie" as you can get.

3) Re-Animator
Herbert West, a man of science, believes he has unlocked the secret of life through his confrontations with death. Although West never quite reveals his passion of pursuing this endeavor, other than for the pure defiance of the human body, he has the brain power to make himself a worthy adversary of death. However, once reanimated, it seems as though nothing can stop his creations, and I seem to remember a beheaded man spending some "quality time" with the beautiful Barbara Crampton. It gave every man hope for a chance with Barbara Crampton, as just having our heads still attached put us ahead of the competition.

2) Braindead
Maybe I'm too immersed in the horror genre to understand that it comes as a shock to most people that Peter Jackson of Lord of the Rings and King Kong fame got his start making insane horror movies in New Zealand. Rather than science or religion, the events in Braindead (also known as Dead Alive) are started by a legendary creature known as a Sumatran Rat-Monkey biting our hero Lionel's (Timothy Balme) mother, causing her die and eventually come back from the dead. From there, his mother starts biting and subsequently infecting person after person, and when Lionel fails to keep these deaths under wraps, some of the goriest scenes of carnage follow. If only these creatures could be killed as easily as having their heads cut off, but even an attack on a horde of these creatures by Lionel wielding a lawn mower isn't enough. Pure comedy start to finish, and some of the most memorable gore that the genre has seen. Let it be an inspiration to all horror filmmakers out there that you might start with buckets of blood and end up with an Oscar.

1) Return of the Living Dead
You'd think that this unofficial spin-off of George Romero's Night of the Living Dead would stick a little bit closer to the source material, but luckily for us, it doesn't. I'm not going to try to convince you guys that I'd last in a zombie apocalypse, but knowing that these slow, lumbering monsters had a giant vulnerability on top of their shoulders, they seem to be more of an irritation than a threat. Return of the Living Dead made their ghouls just that much more intelligent and just that much more resilient, leaving the government no option other than to nuke the entire town. A ton of fun, lots of ridiculous moments, and have I mentioned Linnea Quiqley dancing naked in a graveyard? On second thought, that's probably what I should have led with.

Related Story: More Top Lists Over Here!

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions." Truer words were never spoken. So when someone decides to construct a body from cadaver parts and reanimate it with a lightning bolt, or surgically connect three people with one gastroenterological tract, they always hope for the best. Unfortunately, that's not usually the result.

Which leads us to our latest list of the best and the brightest. In honor of the DVD/Blu-ray release of The Apparition on November 27th, we bring out our list of Top 11 films featuring Experiments Gone Wrong.

As always, we've got to give a shout out to a few honorable mentions. Who would think that things would go wrong with keeping a cryogenically frozen Jason Voorhees, as in Jason X? Surprisingly, things went bad there. The splicing of DNA from different animals sounds like a brilliant idea, no? Splice proved that was a wonky idea as well. And certainly the Umbrella Corporation is responsible for making some really poor managerial decisions that resulted in the release of the T-Virus in Resident Evil.

And now, the Top 11 Experiments Gone Wrong.

Frankenstein (1931)

We might as well start this list with the most obvious entry. Frankenstein is the granddaddy of the experiment gone wrong tale. James Whale's legendary adaptation of Mary Shelley's vision is obviously the blueprint for stories of science gone awry. You would think that sewing a bunch of body parts together and then running a lightning bolt through the creature would generate happy times, but alas, this was not the case. Frankenstein is the original and quintessential example of experiments gone wrong. Boris Karloff delivers what can only be described as a monumental performance in a film that is as impactful today as it was when it was released over 80 years ago..

Re-Animator (1985)

The insanity of this film cannot be overstated. From the naked reanimated corpse raging though the laboratory to the most memorable oral sex scene ever captured on film (I defy you to find its equal), Re-Animator is the epitome of over-the-top 80's horror. With buckets of gore and the blackest humor you can imagine, Re-Animator has entertained horror fans for decades and all because Dr. Herbert West decided to bring his professor, Dr. Hans Gruber (name sound familiar fans of "American Horror Story"? Die Hard?), back to life. That unforgettable syringe with the glowing green liquid has meant nothing but trouble since its first injection and it continued to wreak havoc for two equally outrageous sequels.

The Human Centipede (2010)

Just the thought of Dieter Laser playing the diabolical Dr. Josef Heiter brings a smile to the face of most horror fans. As does the plan behind this film's experiment, that being the attempt to surgically create a Siamese triplet that shares one digestive system. And there's only one way we can do that, right kiddies? Oh yes…ass-to-mouth. And although Dr. Heiter spent his professional life separating conjoined twins, he has become more interested in putting things back together during his retirement. Maybe he should have tried golf. Initially, Heiter succeeds in creating the three-person 'pede, however it eventually proves to be a failure, and a deadly one at that. Although he did have some fun training his human pet (which was certainly not as cooperative as Heiter's previously constructed three-dog) the final result was certainly not what the good doctor intended.

The Stand (1994)

Everyone remembers Stephen King's epic tale, The Stand. The huge book, which was turned into a memorable mini-series, revolved around a post-apocalyptic Earth left nearly lifeless by a disease nicknamed Captain Tripps that proved to be fatal to 99.4% of people who came in contact with it. However, it's easy for the casual viewer to forget the fact that Captain Tripps was originally called Project Blue and it was created on a U.S. military base in an experimental laboratory. And it was just one lone soldier, Charles Campion, who escaped the base with his family as the site went into emergency lock down, that spread the superflu, wiping out the majority of Earth's population and bringing the story of The Stand to life. Whether the entire escapade was orchestrated by Randall Flagg or if he was just happy to take advantage of the situation is up each individual reader, but the result is the same…the downfall of humanity. And it all started with one dangerous experiment gone wrong.

The Fly (1958, 1986)

Whether you prefer the original version, or the modernized one starring Jeff Goldblum, the message from The Fly is very simple: Do not try to beam yourself from one location to another. However, if you simply must attempt to beam yourself from one location to another be sure, above all else, that there is nothing, and we mean absolutely nothing, in your transportation pod with you. Because if something is in there with you, you're going to genetically fuse together, and you know only bad, bad things can happen after that. Sure, being the Brundlefly seemed cool at first, but it's not long before you go from a Spiderman-like stud to a drippy gross mess of a beast…or in the case of the original film, a freaky-looking, human-headed bug that ends up being a spider's lunch.

Piranha (1977)

Once again the government sticks it up our butts with an experiment gone wrong. Most people remember the original Piranha for the bikinis and psycho kill scenes, but, here again, we have to remember that the entire clusterfuck started with a failed government project. The piranha were spawned from a clandestine government experiment entitled Operation: Razorteeth. Now, I'm no expert in nicknaming clandestine government experiments, but anything with Razorteeth in the name sounds like a precarious venture right from the get-go. But what fun we as viewers had watching the unsuspecting water park goers as they suddenly realized that the tickle they felt against their legs wasn't the gentle touch another bathing beauty, but one of the mutated offspring of Operation: Razorteeth (once you get saying it, it's hard to stop…Razorteeth!) about to start biting! Just when you thought it was safe…fresh water version!

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941)

There have been several theatrical versions of this tale, but the 1941 envisioning had some incredibly powerful names attached to it. The film starred two multiple Academy Award winners in Spencer Tracy and Ingrid Bergman and was directed by Victor Fleming who had previously helmed Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz two years earlier. The story is classic, Dr. Jekyll believes in the duality of mankind and is sure there is a good and evil side to everyone and he intends to prove it. By drinking a mysterious concoction, the mild-mannered Dr. Jekyll turns into the monstrous Hyde. Ironically, Doctor Gash has tried this same experiment to release his evil side with a mysterious concoction known as tequila. Yowza!

The Invisible Man (1933)

Frankenstein director James Whale makes his second appearance on this list as he was also the director for The Invisible Man. In this classic Universal Studios film based on the H.G. Wells novel, scientist Dr. Jack Griffin (Claude Rains) discovers the secret to invisibility through a drug called monocane. Unfortunately, a there is a very minor side-effect to the drug, that being it drives the user utterly batshit crazy. And, true to form, the monocane does just that to Dr. Griffin, sending him on a murderous rampage in pursuit of world domination. Needless to say world domination never arrives, and like many of the good intentioned scientists on this list, Griffin ends up dead. The film is wildly creative in its special F/X work, portraying the actions of Griffin using several different techniques to animate the title character including puppeteering with wires and a rudimentary green screen.

The Island of Doctor Moreau (1977)

"He who breaks the law shall be punished…Back to the House of Pain!" Believe us when we tell you, you don't want any part of that House of Pain. Crikey! This is another story that was adapted in several films, however the 1977 version seems to be the one that sticks closest to the original story. As we know, Dr. Moreau has turned himself into a god-like figure on his island in the middle of nowhere, being deified by the man-beasts he has created. As you would expect with its inclusion on this list, things don't go so smoothly for Moreau and the inhabitants of the island. His mutated creatures created through vivisection become impossible to control, blood is spilled and carefully laid plans go to crap.

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Once again, another example of government intervention gone wrong. Go figure. Adapted from the novel by Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange details the ultra-violent adventures of young thug Alex and his band of co-offenders he calls his droogies. After being convicted of murder and sentenced to 14 years in the stony lonesome, Alex serves two before being volunteered to participate in an aversion therapy experiment. Although the tests on young, malevolent, murderous Alex brought us some iconic cinematic scenes, they didn't do much in the long run to actually quell his ultra-violent personality. Sure, in the short term he got a little sick at the sight of violence and sounds of Beethoven, but when all was said and done, the experiment failed, Alex landed a government job and enjoyed a tasty plate of eggiwegs as the film closed. Way to go, government.

Jurassic Park (1993)

One of the most profitable and visually stunning examples of a science experiment gone awry, Jurassic Park was a monumental success in filmmaking. John Hammond's idea of cloning dinosaurs was an ill-conceived nightmare, but the adventure it spawned was one of the greatest ever. Absolutely iconic in every sense of the word, this film would go on to earn over $900 million worldwide and win three Oscars. So perhaps this was one example of an experiment gone horribly wrong that couldn't have gone more right.

Be sure to check out The Apparition, available on DVD and Blu-ray on November 27.

Another year winds down, and it's time to reflect on the good, the bad, and the ugly of 2012's horror offerings. We're giving you ten different lists this time, and per usual they come in a variety of formats, each reflecting the unique styles of our writers. We've also compiled them to come up with the year's overall winners and losers.

And don't be lazy by just reading along! Give us your own lists in the comments section below. We want to hear what you thought of the year in which we dodged the Mayan apocalypse but find our beloved genre facing some dark days as violent movies, video games, TV shows, etc., are coming under increased scrutiny following recent events.

But back to the matter at hand; we averaged out the top and bottom five vote getters on everyone's lists, and here are the results:

BEST: The Cabin in the Woods
Runners-up: The Loved Ones, Sinister

WORST: Piranha 3DD
Runners-up: Smiley, Silent Hill: Revelation

Check out the Dread Central staff's Best of and Worst of lists for 2012 by following the links below!

[Andrew Kasch]

[Brad McHargue]

[Doctor Gash]

[The Foywonder]

[Gareth "Pestilence" Jones]

[Heather "The Horror Chick" Wixson]

[Jinx]

[MattFini]

[Uncle Creepy]

[The Woman in Black]

Andrew Kasch's Picks

(in no particular order)

KILL LIST - Ben Wheatley's surreal limey hitman film is just the kind of gut-punch this genre needed. With an incredible atmosphere of dread, intense performances and some of the most nightmarish set-pieces in recent memory, Kill List hammers home the idea that horror always works best when it's subversive.

JOHN DIES AT THE END - Don Coscarelli goes into full-on bizarro mode and delivers his best movie since the original Phantasm. In an age of wannabe cult films, a true classic is hard to come by... but this journey down the rabbit hole is the real deal! One of the most wildly inventive and fun experiences ever crammed into ninety minutes. Bring on the sequel!

EXCISION - Richard Bates, Jr.'s black comedy/art-house psychodrama plays like Welcome to the Dollhouse by way of David Cronenberg. Along with its truly icky combo of sex and body horror, the fantasy vignettes feature some master-class surrealism, while AnnaLynne McCord easily takes the trophy for the year's creepiest performance.

THE CABIN IN THE WOODS - As sick as I am of 80's horror homages, Drew Godard and Joss Whedon delivered the be-all/end-all tribute with Whedon's trademark "Buffy" wit. Ambitious and hilarious, The Cabin in the Woods is a deconstruction that points out all the absurdities of genre tropes while pushing them into crazy new directions.

COSMOPOLIS - David Cronenberg's misunderstood character study shows us how the 1% can be the most dangerous creatures of all. Robert Pattinson finally breaks away from those godawful Twilight movies, giving a powerhouse performance as a sociopathic Wall Street tycoon who is truly off his rocker. It's a claustrophic head journey through a class-warfare apocalypse and a step back in the right direction for one of this genre's greatest visionaries.

Honorable Mentions: God Bless America, The Loved Ones, The Grey, Prometheus
Most Misunderstood Film: The Tall Man
Scariest Film: The NRA Sandy Hook press conference footage

Life is too short to watch Hollywood bullshit so I avoided crap like The Apparition, Underworld: Awakening, and Resident Evil: [insert generic subtitle here] like airborne herpes. But I was tricked into seeing the most egregious offender of 2012:

THE DEVIL INSIDE - This film sucks so hard, it deserves to take up the entire “Worst of the Year” list. Full of laughably bad writing, directing and acting, this found footage cash-in from the folks who brought you Stay Alive (that Frankie Muniz killer video game flick no one saw) couldn’t muster up a single thing resembling a scare. A year later, the only thing anyone can recall is the totally random non-ending which then had the balls to smash to a website address. Yet, Paramount's marketing campaign fooled moviegoers into making this #1 at the box office for a weekend, earning the filmmakers big bucks and Hollywood careers. Way to go, world.

[Andrew Kasch]

[Brad McHargue]

[Doctor Gash]

[The Foywonder]

[Gareth "Pestilence" Jones]

[Heather "The Horror Chick" Wixson]

[Jinx]

[MattFini]

[Uncle Creepy]

[The Woman in Black]

Brad McHargue's Picks

One of the best things about spending two months attending genre film fests is the opportunity to see a number of incredible films that will, in the cutthroat world of film distribution, struggle to find an audience beyond a brief stint on VOD. As someone whose voice ostensibly reaches thousands of people, it’s an honor to be able to champion a number of incredible genre films that are consistently overshadowed by the shit like The Apparition, which somehow snaked its way into theaters only to be met with overwhelmingly negative reviews.

Here are my Top 5 and Bottom 5 horror films of 2012, comprised of theatrical, VOD, and festival screenings I have personally seen this year.

The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh: Written and directed by Rue Morgue President Rodrigo Gudino, The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh represents everything that’s right with a genre littered with low-budget dreck and so much found footage it will make you vomit. I first saw the film at the Telluride Horror Show and was absolutely blown away by its unconventional story and beautiful cinematography, featuring long, sweeping shots of an old house filled to the brim with religious iconography. As the titular character, Vanessa Redgrave’s haunting voiceover provides context for the arrival of her son, Leon (Aaron Poole), an antiques dealer who inherited her house after she committed suicide, having devoted much of her life to a cult that worships angels. Leon discovers that she may be reaching out from beyond the grave to send him a message of dire importance. It’s a film that typifies the “slow burn” genre, with Gudino’s brilliant direction and deeply personal dialogue helping to create an edge-of-your-seat thriller deserving of the utmost praise.

The Conspiracy: Aaron Poole is on a roll because he once again appears in a film that absolutely blew me away. Part faux-doc, part found footage, The Conspiracy follows two friends, Aaron and Jim, as they seek to document the rantings and ravings of a local conspiracy theorist named Terrance. After he abruptly disappears, Aaron takes it upon himself to continue his work, leading to a secret society that may or may not be responsible for Terrance’s disappearance. While some might be quick to dismiss it for being little more than yet another found footage film, The Conspiracy uses seemingly very real subject matter and fictionalizes it into a sinister story that will leave you breathless. It segues in a beautifully organic way from a faux-doc to a found footage film, eschewing shaky cam and loud noises in favor of slow realizations that maybe these two documentarians got more than they bargained for.

The Battery: Currently popping up at festivals and exclusive screenings around the country, The Battery, written and directed by Jeremy Gardner, is living proof you don’t need a big budget to craft compelling horror. Shot for a mere $6,000 and featuring Gardner and newcomer Adam Cronheim, this post-apocalyptic zombie survival film is less about the zombies than it is the struggle for survival between two incredibly different people. Long takes, some clocking in at 11 minutes, showcase the mental and physical turmoil the two former baseball players are subjected to as they make their way through the woods and back roads of New England, avoiding zombies and dealing with their differences. Humorous dialogue, great music, and stunning practical effects build to an exceedingly tense and dramatic climax that help make The Battery one of the best - and most ambitious - “zombie” movies in recent memory.

The American Scream: Michael Paul Stephenson has an uncanny ability to make the mundane interesting, seen in the intimate and emotional The American Scream. Unlike his first doc, Best Worst Movie, which saw Stephenson and fellow Troll 2 star George Hardy inject themselves into the narrative, his follow-up takes a different route, focusing on candid and intimate interviews with three “home haunters” and their families. It’s an emotional portrayal of obsession and family and truly one of the best documentaries I have ever seen.

The Cabin in the Woods: It’s difficult not to include this film on any "Best of..." list given that it was not only a perfect theatrical release to get people interested in horror movies again, but also a brilliant send-up of horror audiences in general. By wrapping an overplayed conceit in layers of subtext, well-written characters, and one of the best scenes of free-for-all violence in recent memory, Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon created an eminently re-watchable film that will no doubt wind up on a few “Best of the Decade” lists.

Honorable Mentions: Tin Can Man, Nightmare Factory, We Need to Talk About Kevin, REC3: Genesis

The Apparition: This film, written and directed by newcomer Todd Lincoln, sat in purgatory for over two years before being dumped into theaters by Warner Brothers. Featuring a contrived haunted house plot and a boring and often nonsensical script, this Ashley Greene vehicle belongs in a textbook on how not to make a horror film. Its brief 82-minute running time felt like two hours as Greene meanders her way through a house filled with ad hoc scares and some of the most nauseatingly bad acting you’ll see in a horror film this year. In my review I wrote “The Apparition is a vacant, insipid, soulless, pathetic excuse for a film that barely deserves evaluation,” and that was me holding back.

Piranha 3DD: I like Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunston, though I feel they’ve become pigeon-holed in a sub-genre that relies less on story than it does over-the-top violence and gore. It’s confusing, then, that blood and violent deaths were conspicuously lacking in the screenwriting duo’s follow-up to the gleefully gory and outrageous Piranha 3D. Directed by John Gulager, the movie was just a boring, pointless excuse to capitalize on a mildly witty yet lowbrow premise that eschews everything that made its predecessor entertaining. It’s ironic, really, considering the thing took place in a water park, which is just rife for hilarious and gruesome deaths. In the end, we’re given a short and very tame onslaught of piranha making their way into the water park. Not even David Hasselhoff can save this sinking ship, but did you really expect him to?

The Tortured: How this movie exists is beyond me. It’s devoid of anything resembling an original thought, and the scenes of torture are tame and contrived. That’s not what makes it bad, though. It’s bad because it’s trying so hard to be more than it really is, and it fails so miserably it’s laughable. Its basic plot is laughably insulting, and the “twist” at the end is such an obvious attempt at giving the movie a point that failed to be made clear through a script propelled by stilted dialogue and laughably bad acting.

Munger Road: This film is kind of anomaly, mainly because it looks good and features a supernatural element that could have been interesting. Two stories, one that follows a group of kids stranded on a desolate stretch of road and another that sees an aging police chief track down an escaped serial killer, slowly intertwine before you realize it was nothing more than a shitty plot device that culminates in the most infuriating, insulting, and presumptuous ending you will ever see in a horror film. At least The Devil Inside gave you something mildly entertaining before kicking you in the balls.

Entrance: A girl walking around town and occasionally hearing something for an hour and a half before injecting a half-baked horror element is not how you make a movie. This is the entirety of Entrance, a muddled attempt at a character study that spends 90% of its time following around a barista whose life apparently sucks. After her dog disappears, she decides it’s time to move on, prompting a going away party with her friends. It lacks all semblance of substance before devolving even further with a tacked on ending that does absolutely nothing to make the entire hour before it worth a damn. It’s just a hollow film.

Honorable Mentions: Grave Encounters 2, The Devil Inside, V/H/S, Greystone Park

[Andrew Kasch]

[Brad McHargue]

[Doctor Gash]

[The Foywonder]

[Gareth "Pestilence" Jones]

[Heather "The Horror Chick" Wixson]

[Jinx]

[MattFini]

[Uncle Creepy]

[The Woman in Black]

Doctor Gash's Picks

As the year winds down, one thing has become abundantly obvious: Horror on television is thriving now more than ever in the past. It's great to see shows push the boundaries of what's been allowed on TV previously and bring horrific stories right into our living rooms.

I have two honorable mentions for this year, the first being one of those brilliant television projects I mentioned above. "American Horror Story: Asylum" is beautiful insanity. There is so much going on in this show that to try to describe it makes you sound mental…"Well, there are aliens and Nazis and this guy Bloodyface and an evil Santa Claus, and oh yeah, Anne Frank showed up on a couple episodes…" Crazy. But somehow it all works. And "American Horror Story" pulls no punches. It's brutal storytelling, and it's a blast!

My second honorable mention is actually the film I enjoyed the most in 2012. The Loved Ones was absolute maniacal perfection, but technically just the US DVD was released this year, and the film is actually a couple of years old. However, that being said, I'll forever hold a place in my heart for the Queen of the Dance, Lola Stone. The Loved Ones is devilishly brutal, and Robin McLeavy plays one of the greatest psychos we've seen in years. A true horror gem!

Sleep Tight
Helmed by [REC] and [REC2] co-director Jaume Balagueró, Sleep Tight is a trip away from the extreme gore and violence of [REC] into a story of unsettling, realistic violation. The film is completely driven by the skin-crawlingly creepy performance of Luis Tosar as Cesar, an apartment building concierge who uses his knowledge of the tenants to interfere with their lives. His lack of self-esteem and the feeling that he has nothing to live for, and therefore nothing to lose, makes Cesar a very frightening and dangerous character. His obsession over one particular tenant and the lengths he goes to invade her privacy are downright disturbing. The idea of this film is a great change of pace for the horror genre, and the execution by Balagueró and his cast and crew is first rate. A great film!

Sushi Girl
Sushi Girl is a tasty blend of horror and thriller with perhaps the best ensemble cast of the year. The story revolves around a diamond heist that went awry six years previously and the fallout that comes to pass when the man who held the lost diamond bag is released from prison. Tony Todd heads up the cast as Duke, the leader of the gang and the organizer of the heist, and host of the dinner meeting which becomes the backdrop for the film. Todd is as good as he's ever been, and he's supported by Mark Hamill, who brings a manic performance that fans of his work as The Joker will certainly appreciate. Andy Mackenzie and Noah Hathaway also shine. Sushi Girl ends with a twist that even the most attentive movie-goer won't see coming. A bloody thrilling adventure that draws the audience in and brings viewers on a violent excursion not soon to be forgotten.

The Cabin in the Woods
Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard got together and wrote a film that became one of the most unique and poignant in the horror genre this year. The Cabin in the Woods is a success on so many levels. It's got legitimate frights, legitimate laughs and a message to the horror genre that it's time to stop regurgitating the same story, same setting, same basic movie over and over again and extend itself to develop creative and original new stories. The re-watchability of The Cabin in the Woods is off the charts, Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford are absolutely hilarious (not to mention a laugh-out-loud performance from Fran Kranz) and there is plenty of gore to go around. The message from Whedon and Goddard is top-notch, and the film is stellar.

"Holliston"
Adam Green has established himself as one of the most dynamic directors in horror. With films as diverse as Hatchet and Frozen, Green has shown he can hit audiences from several different angles. However, his FEARnet project, "Holliston," may be his most brilliant work yet. For a fan of horror, "Holliston" is magnificent. A sitcom full of cameos from huge horror stars, tons of F/X and a member of GWAR living in the closet, "Holliston" is absolutely unique and brilliant. The cast of Green along with Joe Lynch, Corri English and Laura Ortiz with Dee Snider and Oderus Urungus are absolutely perfect together. There is a true comedic dynamic that flow through this group, making "Holliston" a magnetic television show that is made by horror fans for horror fans.

"The Walking Dead"
For years I've felt that "The Sopranos" was the best dramatic television series I'd ever seen. That was until Season 3 of "The Walking Dead" launched. "The Walking Dead" has become the face of horror for mainstream viewing audiences. No longer is the genre represented by Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers… when you say horror, the layman viewer thinks zombies and "The Walking Dead," and with good right. The show is absolutely phenomenal. It's so good that it has a legion of horror fans watching what is basically a soap opera populated by a zombie plague. The cast is incredible, the F/X are consistently better than any you'll see anywhere and the story simply continues to get more and more intriguing. "The Walking Dead" is currently as good as it gets.

My main beat here at Dread Central is the indies, and that's what I mostly watch during the year. And yes, many of them have their warts, but they are all somebody's baby and I can appreciate the love and dedication that goes into each and every one of them. And it's for that reason that I couldn't possibly take five of them and slap 'em onto a bottom of the barrel list. In lieu of my bottom five, I will simply leave this message for my beloved indie filmmakers: Continue to be creative, continue to push the barriers of what we've seen before and challenge the audience. Look at the list above and see what makes each project great and learn from them. Find the magic in those works and let them help you put that same magic into yours. Every year we see great indie films released, but for every one that shines, there are scores that fail. Don't fail. Be creative. Be original. Be great. I look forward to seeing what you crazy indie bastards have in store for us in 2013. Your hard work and dedication are an inspiration.

[Andrew Kasch]

[Brad McHargue]

[Doctor Gash]

[The Foywonder]

[Gareth "Pestilence" Jones]

[Heather "The Horror Chick" Wixson]

[Jinx]

[MattFini]

[Uncle Creepy]

[The Woman in Black]

The Foywonder's Picks

2012 was a really good year for movies – just not for horror movies. Putting together my best list was a bit of a chore because there were many horror offerings I felt were okay but unremarkable, few I would include on a best list even as an honorable mention. Despite coming away from the year firmly believing that the found footage genre has now completely overstayed its welcome, my favorite film of the entire year fell into that category: Chronicle. The only reason I didn’t include Chronicle on my best list is because I’m still not entirely sure it qualifies as a horror movie even though it certainly takes a turn towards Carrie-esque horror by the end.

5) THE LOVED ONES - I’m going to cheat here. I watched an import copy of The Loved Ones two years ago and included it on my best list then. It was one of the best horror movies of 2010, and with it having just gotten released in the US this past year, I can say it is still one of the best horror movies of 2012. I’ll just repeat what I wrote then: “I’ve heard this movie described as John Hughes does torture porn. That’s an unfair description. Unlike a myriad of torture-themed films I've seen, The Loved Ones uses the gruesomeness to actually ratchet up the suspense rather than just aiming for shock value or tantalizing viewers with gory money shots. Add in the surreal father-daughter maniac relationship, and you have an extra layer of creep factor. I first saw this film with a room full of teenagers on Halloween night, and believe me when I tell you it had every one of them freaking out. Seek it out when it finally comes your way.”

4) SOLOMON KANE – I don’t know which is worse: that it took this movie three years to finally get released in the US, that it was released to American VOD months ago but has yet to get a proper DVD/Blu-ray release, or that the same talented director made the preposterously, at times hilariously, bad Silent Hill: Revelations. Solomon Kane is the movie Van Helsing should have been. Better plot, better acting, better tone, better everything. If only Solomon Kane had the luxury of even half Van Helsing’s budget, it could have afforded the bigger and better action set pieces and special effects needed to put it even higher on my list.

3) THE WALKING DEAD (VIDEO GAME) – “Hey, Foy’s cheating again! That’s not a movie! That’s a video game!” It sure is - a cinematic game that tells a better story and delivers a more visceral gut punch than both the TV series it’s based on and just about every other horror movie of the past 12 months. I’m willing to include it on my list because it really is more akin to an interactive movie than a video game. Decisions have consequences. Actions have repercussions. When characters die, there’s a genuine sense of loss. Actual suspense! I can’t even say that about half the movies I saw this year. Stunning how movies are becoming more like video games, and now here’s a video game that, when all five episodes of it are put together, makes for a more satisfying cinematic experience than many movies these days.

2) THE COLLECTION– Easily my biggest horror surprise of the year! I wasn’t a huge fan of The Collector: too unpleasant, too mean-spirited, just not much fun. I was initially planning to skip this sequel altogether. Thank goodness I didn’t because I would have missed a horror sequel I had the sort of fun I haven’t felt since the days of Friday the 13th Part 6: Jason Lives and Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. A frigging crazy house of horrors that’s occasional silliness only further added to the thrill ride aspect. What I loved most about The Collection was that unlike so many “torture porn” movies, the premise is built almost from the very beginning around the notion of the victims hunting their tormentor instead of vice versa, even if within his lair he and his myriad of traps give him the advantage. Like Die Hard meets Saw. Saw Hard with a Vengeance!

1) THE CABIN IN THE WOODS– I’m fairly certain this movie is going to appear on most of the Dread Central staff’s best lists (sans Fini) so I’m not going to bore you with yet another spiel about why I loved this film so much. Instead I’m just going to voice my one minor complaint: That guy in the movie was right; it really would have been better with a merman.

Honorable Mentions: TWO-HEADED SHARK ATTACK, JUAN OF THE DEAD, ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER, THE BAY

5) SMILEY– Smiley makes it onto this list by virtue of its ending. If the ending to The Devil Inside had audiences across the country booing vociferously, throwing trash at the screen, and even spitting on the floor in anger, then it’s a good thing this movie didn’t get a wider release because then we might have heard stories of angry moviegoers trying to set the theater on fire. The ending can be surmised with one word: bull-fucking-shit! Not just implausible, also insulting and infuriating. And to make it worse, there’s a second twist ending that is equally erroneous. The rest of the film leading up to it didn’t offer much to smile about either.

4) BARRICADE– Was the snooze-inducing tedium of Barricade an actual movie or just a hallucination brought on by a bad case of the flu? Such a bore was Barricade that rather than write about it again, I’m just going to steal a paragraph from my review: Barricade isn’t so much a movie as it is a series of often poorly lit scenes almost always culminating in a fake jump scare operating under the mistaken belief that it’s a mind-bending chiller in the tradition of "The Twilight Zone” and The Shining. Not much by way of plot or character development, but, by god, there are flat jump scares, one after another, seemingly half of which culminate in the reveal of nothing out of the ordinary or someone relatively calm wondering why the other person is so freaked out. No matter how many times the Foley artist contributed a loud crash or the music would aggressively crescendo, I cannot recall a single moment that even so much as made me flinch. About all it succeeded in doing was provide enough noise to keep me awake (before delivering one of the year’s worst endings).

3) THE APPARITION– I’m going to assume by this film’s barely 75-minute running time that the producers edited it down into oblivion. If not, then The Apparition can lay claim to having the worst screenplay of any movie this year because the previews did a better job explaining what exactly was supposed to be going on in the film than anything within the film itself. Also never a good sign when a movie’s entire marketing campaign (trailers, TV spots, posters, DVD artwork) are all based around the very last shot of the film. Rarely has describing a movie’s story and characters as “moldy” been so appropriate.

2) DARK TIDE– “Professional diver tutor Brady returns to deep waters after nine years following an almost fatal encounter with a great white shark, bringing happy couple Kate and Jeff. However, before they know it, they discover that the nightmare from the deep is still lurking in the deep, more carnivorous and hungry than ever.” Too bad that completely inaccurate plot synopsis that is still to this day posted on IMDB as the plot summary wasn’t the movie they actually made. Instead I suffered through a 114-minute, painfully boring, semi-thriller that had less to do with sharks and more to do with Halle Berry arguing with her ex-husband, a wealthy father arguing with his slacker son, and all of them taking turns arguing with each other until their boat ends up in a The Perfect Storm scenario where they have to quickly make amends before they either are rescued, drown, or get eaten by stock footage of a shark. John Stockwell’s Dark Tide is so uneventful it felt like the producers tacked on a fairly lengthy sequence around mid-movie featuring characters never seen before just so someone could finally get eaten by (unseen) sharks.

1) PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4 – If you’ve listened to the most recent Dinner for Fiends, I’ve pretty much stated why this is the worst film I saw in a movie theater in all of 2012 not titled Red Dawn. I’ve never been a huge fan of this franchise, but I’ve never come out of any of these films feeling this negative. Forgetting the lame attempts at jump scares, the extended periods of nothingness, the head-scratching reasons why the main character is filming everything she does 24/7, and all the other completely worn out Paranormal Activity clichés, these films have never exactly been plot-heavy to begin with; yet, this installment manages to be such a poorly assembled slog that by the time it's over, it's apparent it would require yet another sequel and probably even another prequel just to make the ongoing mythology make a semblance of sense. Which begs my most pertinent question regarding this entire franchise: Why does Paranormal Activity need a mythology in the first place? If it was to become a franchise, why not just set each film in a different location with a different group of people and a different paranormal threat instead of bringing back Katie and family and constantly straining to create some sort of evolving storyline about witch covens, possession, rituals, and a demon/ghost that spends an awfully long time just screwing around when each time it clearly knows exactly what it wants and should just go in for the kill immediately. I remember when the first film opened in theaters how much of a relief it was to finally have something seize the Halloween horror mantle from the Saw franchise. Now we need something fresh to put Paranormal Activity out of its misery because I’m starting to miss Saw.

Dishonorable Mentions: PIRANHA 3DD, THE DEVIL INSIDE, THE RAVEN, FDR: AMERICAN BADASS

[Andrew Kasch]

[Brad McHargue]

[Doctor Gash]

[The Foywonder]

[Gareth "Pestilence" Jones]

[Heather "The Horror Chick" Wixson]

[Jinx]

[MattFini]

[Uncle Creepy]

[The Woman in Black]

Gareth "Pestilence" Jones' Picks

1. Maniac

Elijah Wood blows every expectation of him right out of the water in Franck Khalfoun's astoundingly brutal remake. Not only is it highly respectful of the original, but its technical magnificence is a cinematic marvel in itself. One of the greatest horror remakes ever made, and easily film of the year.

2. American Mary

The Soska Sisters find their directorial footing in spectacular fashion with this twisted tale of body modification, mental breakdown and revenge. Lead Katharine Isabelle delivers the performance of her career so far, and while the ending feels rather abrupt, American Mary delivers on nearly every front.

3. The Cabin in the Woods

It isn't perfect, but Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard's horror geek-out delivered one of the most fun pieces of fan service to hit cinemas this year. Smart, silly and firmly tongue-in-cheek, it nevertheless avoids outright lampooning or disrespect of the genre. The final twenty minutes alone should have monster fans grinning with delight.

4. Grabbers

On the topic of fun and monsters, no other flick delivered both in spades this year quite like Jon Wright's Irish boozefest Grabbers. An infectious sense of light-heartedness, well designed and realised creatures, and some of the best drunk acting ever make this one of the year's highlights... and come on, the plot alone is genius!

5. Sinister

Unsettling, seriously spooky and unforgiving horror is the order of the day in Sinister. Lead Ethan Hawke carries the mystery effortlessly, while the increasingly freaky unfolding of events keeps the audience glued to the screen. Commendably unafraid of sitting squarely on the bleak side of the fence, Sinister is also home to an excellent score and the most leap-inducing fright of the year. Mowing the lawn will never be the same again.

Honourable mentions: The Pact, Stitches, ParaNorman,Sleep Tight, The Seasoning House, The Bay.

1. Resident Evil: Retribution

Paul W. S. Anderson's ill-conceived series officially stops giving one iota of a shit with this pointless, insulting entry. Expository overload, ridiculously flimsy logic and some of the most overblown, poorly constructed action sequences seen across the entire franchise render this an absolute mess. Jovovich slums her way through while Anderson chucks in every kind of villain and hero he can pull from the games with a total abandonment of reason. A total and utter waste of time in every sense.

2. Piranha 3DD

Riding in the wake of Alexandre Aja's highly entertaining Piranha 3D, John Gulager's attempt at over-the-top exploitation/horror-comedy falls flat at almost every turn. Terminally unfunny and lacking the gorehound-pleasing carnage of its predecessor, Piranha 3DD attempts to overcome its meagre budget with the abundant addition of nudity and stunt casting. Neither of which manage to make it worthwhile.

3. After

Director Ryan Smith's saccharine snore-fest is fantasy-lite nonsense masquerading as an emotionally poignant drama. With a monster in it. That really doesn't do much. The overly twee attempts at audience manipulation routinely fall flat and are all but ousted by an ending that makes absolutely no sense to anyone not already clamouring for a love story. Visually impressive or not, After stands as little more than a frustrating, dawdling piece of sap.

4. Hidden in the Woods

This thoroughly repugnant Chilean effort has little to nothing in the way of redeeming features. Absurdly, and needlessly, vile at almost every turn, it's nothing more than an obvious attempt at courting controversy with neither the budget nor talent behind it to create anything of any interest whatsoever. This one should just stay hidden.

5. The Possession

Glossy Hollywood horror bollocks that takes an original premise and pisses it all against the wall in favour of the usual flash and safe scares. Even some unintentional hilarity can't make it worth taking in. If there's one thing on this earth that we didn't need, it's another The Unborn. Seems that someone out there disagreed.

Dishonourable mentions: Tulpa. Thankfully, I haven't been exposed to too many outright awful flicks this year. Yay!

[Andrew Kasch]

[Brad McHargue]

[Doctor Gash]

[The Foywonder]

[Gareth "Pestilence" Jones]

[Heather "The Horror Chick" Wixson]

[Jinx]

[MattFini]

[Uncle Creepy]

[The Woman in Black]

Heather "The Horror Chick" Wixson's Picks

Sinister- Sinister is absolutely my pick for the scariest flick I've seen in 2012; a clever new spin on many modern horror tropes, it also manages to leave you in an emotionally pummeled heap by the film's unflinching finale. My proverbial hat is off to co-writer/director Scott Derrickson and co-writer Robert C. Cargill for creating an unflinching and haunting exploration of urban mythos and one man's desperate need for validation that puts everyone and everything he loves in jeopardy along the way.

There are very few horror movies that hit theaters in 2012 that I'd use the words "disturbing" and "visceral" for, but Sinister seriously delivered the goods and then some for me. It's an incredible experience to see a thoughtful, character-driven but still downright terrifying genre film that manages to celebrate many of our beloved modern horror conventions, all while still making them feel new and unexpected to boot. I'd absolutely be game to follow Mr. Boogie on more terrifying adventures in the future.

Killer Joe- Sleazy, twisted cinematic perfection, Killer Joe is undeniably one of the more unforgettable movies of the year. Another gritty masterpiece from William Friedkin, who once again effectively crawls under the audience's skin just mere seconds into the flick with a rather awkward "hairy moment" (those of you who have seen Killer Joe know EXACTLY what I'm talking about), and he never once lets up on until the film's insanely bizarre conclusion.

It also doesn't hurt that Friedkin has one of the best all-around cinematic ensembles of 2012 in Killer Joe bringing acclaimed playwright Tracy Letts' challenging material to life; anchored by Matthew McConaughey (who is having a stellar 2012), this Southern-fried tale of deceit, murder and twisted love also features a raw and blistering performance by the always awesome Gina Gershon and is a hell of an introduction for newcomer Juno Temple.

For those of you who missed it earlier this year, Killer Joe arrived on DVD and Blu-Ray on December 21st, which makes for a perfect opportunity to catch up on the 'feel-so-bad-you-feel-good' flick of the year. You'll also never look at fried chicken the same way again.

ParaNorman- Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a big kid at heart so I was thrilled that in 2012 we were treated to THREE different horror-centric animated feature films. And while Frankenweenie may be (on a technical and storytelling level) the "best" of the this year's animated offerings, ParaNorman still remains my favorite of the trio and one of my overall favorite genre films of the year as well.

Every single miniscule detail - from the stunning design work of Laika to the color palette, the music and the voice performances - in ParaNorman leaves me with a big, goofy grin upon each viewing. There's so much heart and passion behind the flick (kudos to directing duo Chris Butler and Sam Fell), ParaNorman is easily one of the most rewatchable genre flicks of this year, if only to pick up on all the little horror homages you may have missed the first time around.

The Cabin in the Woods- There really isn't much left to be said that you probably haven't already heard before about Drew Goddard's transcendent The Cabin in the Woods (and chances are it's a film that will be showing up on a lot of other DC staffers' lists, too) so I won't even try and throw a bunch of fancy words around here. You get it… we love this movie, and if you haven't seen it yet, the less you know about it going in, the better.

But all the hype is real- The Cabin in the Woods is by far one of the greatest genre-bending movies of this or any year, and for any of you out there who missed out on seeing the flick on the big screen, you can go ahead and blame yourselves for all the remakes and PG-13 horror flicks we've been inundated with throughout the rest of the year and for what I'm sure will be years to come.

The Grey/The Raid: Redemption- This is the spot I generally use for my more fringy flicks- ones that aren't necessarily horror but somehow touch upon familiar genre tropes. This year was tough because many of my favorites fell into this fringe category; I couldn't pick just one so I went with two…The Grey and The Raid: Redemption.

Both movies thrilled me for very different reasons but ultimately for the same reasons; each director used their respective limited budgets to their advantage and proved that you don't need to rely on huge set pieces or grandiose visual effects to create engaging and enthralling storytelling.

In The Grey Liam Neeson delivers another career-defining performance (if only those hoity-toity awards people could remember movies released more than a month ago), and one of my favorite modern directors, Joe Carnahan (shut up, I love The A-Team flick and Smokin' Aces so whatever!), demonstrates that he can masterfully tackle action and emotion with an even hand. The plane crash remains one of the most startling sequences on the big screen this year, and there's just no denying the sheer awesomeness that is The Grey's final moments of Neeson staring down a bloodthirsty wolf.

And in terms of The Raid: Redemption, there's just not another action movie of this year that could match the frenetic energy and inventiveness that writer/director Gareth Evans crafted in his Indonesian action masterpiece. Everything about The Raid worked for me: the cinematography, the insane fight choreography, a breakout performance by Iko Uwais and Evans' ability to sustain a feeling of overwhelming suspense from start to finish- a new standard has been set for modern action with The Raid: Redemption, and I'm absolutely in line for anything from Evans in the future.

Honorable Mentions: Excision, Seven Psychopaths, Chronicle, [REC] 3: Genesis, The Aggression Scale, Some Guy Who Kills People, Dredd 3D, Looper, Citadel

Men in Black 3- Yeah, I know it's not pure horror, but I covered it earlier this year so there was no doubt in my mind that Men in Black 3 was going to make my "Worst of" list regardless of whether or not it's horror (it's sci-fi and we do some sci-fi, so there!).

But not even the return of Will Smith to the big screen after a four-year breather or Josh Brolin doing an absolute killer impression of resident stick in the mud Tommy Lee Jones could save this soulless sequel. It was bland, ugly and frankly a total letdown from what could have been a silly summer popcorn flick- plus we also got jipped on a brand new song from Mr. "Big Willie Style" himself, which is an immediate penalty for me.

Hopefully Men in Black 3 has officially ended this silly franchise (The original? Still great fun!), and at this point the only sequel I want to see from Smith is a follow-up to ID4 (yes, I'm serious).

ATM- Not that I was exactly expecting a movie about three people locked inside an ATM vestibule to be a cinematic tour de force or anything, but holy hell! This movie is just ridiculously dumb on every single level- the plot, the characters, the reveal, the logic… I could go on for another ten pages about just how this might be the stupidest horror movie of the year, but I think you get it.

What I REALLY wish was that this had been a movie about a killer ATM (a la Maximum Overdrive) than about a killer stalking a group of idiots at an ATM. That’s a movie that would have actually made far more sense than this turd of a movie did.

Paranormal Activity 4- Paranormal Activity 3 was amongst my favorite flicks of 2011 so even I'm a bit surprised to be putting PA4 on this year's worst list… but it deserves it. As a franchise fan, this sequel was insulting- no questions were answered, most of the gags were recycled from the other films and so much of the flick's logic makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

It's also the first Paranormal flick that didn't even get one single scare out of me- just a bummer all around. Here's hoping they turn it around on the fifth one and finally put all the puzzle pieces in place for fans once and for all.

Playback- You are probably asking yourself right now, "Wait, what was Playback again?" My response to that? EXACTLY.

Starring Christian Slater (remember when he had a promising career?), Playback is supposed to be a supernatural horror movie but actually never takes the time to make up its mind about what kind of movie it wants to be so what we get is a director who just shoves in EVERY SINGLE MODERN HORROR TROPE imaginable into its 98-minute running time and voila! The results are a big heaping pile of crap that I still can't believe got financed. Plus we also get treated to scenes of Slater masturbating to videos of high school girls, which frankly is an entirely new level of sleazy, even for me.

Greystone Park- This movie is so coma-inducing, I've fallen asleep twice trying to write about how awful it is. Oliver Stone's kid wrote, directed and stars in this inane found footage movie that is almost as dumb as ATM; it's nothing but a bunch of forced jump scares that never go anywhere and proves that not everyone who can "pick up a camera and make a movie" should. Guess filmmaking skips a generation, eh?

Dishonorable Mentions- Prometheus, The Tall Man, The Fields, Werewolf: A Beast Among Us

[Andrew Kasch]

[Brad McHargue]

[Doctor Gash]

[The Foywonder]

[Gareth "Pestilence" Jones]

[Heather "The Horror Chick" Wixson]

[Jinx]

[MattFini]

[Uncle Creepy]

[The Woman in Black]

Jinx's Picks

All said, 2012 wasn’t a completely terrible year for horror flicks. It wasn’t great, mind, but it certainly wasn’t terrible. It opened strong with one of my favorite films of the year (in any genre), and then gifted us with the occasional gem amidst the expected dreck from both the big studios and the indies.

Ohh, but there were some terrible movies, too. Movies that shame their cast, their makers, and the very genre they’ve chosen to degrade. Every year has its handful of stinkers, to be sure, but a few of this year’s worst were downright heinous.

Oddly, the recurring trend this year didn’t seem to be an issue of good/bad or great/terrible. Rather, this year seemed to give us a handful of films (in various genres) that had great potential, and every needed resource, but squandered it all with dodgy scripts full of easily fixed mistakes. One of these even managed to make it onto my Honorable Mentions list, through no fault of its weak writing. But, as this isn’t a “Best/Worst/Mehst” list, I’ll belabor this point no further.

One last note: Some of the films on the following list aren’t technically “2012” films. Some may have been produced years ago, and some may have been released in a limited capacity at the end of last year. My list takes into account those movies which were made widely available to viewers within this past year. Hope this doesn’t unsettle any of you.

5. The Innkeepers - One of the year’s biggest surprises for this reviewer. While I enjoyed director Ti West’s previous film The House of the Devil, I found his slow-burn approach to be mostly annoying with his earlier efforts (Trigger Man and The Roost). Fortunately, The Innkeepers continues West’s upward streak with this fun, frightening, and well-acted take on traditional spookfests. While the deliberate pacing in its first half may be off-putting to some, I found the characters endearing enough to carry the film without benefit of any supernatural shenanigans. Of course, once the ghosts do make an appearance, the movie becomes a genuine hair-raiser, barreling along toward a surprisingly downbeat (and perhaps somewhat misjudged?) finale.

4. The Loved Ones - Originally lensed in 2009, only to get a half-hearted release in the States this year, The Loved Ones manages to live up to its long-festering hype, giving us a grueling, haunting, and oddly romantic little flick that plays out like the bastard child of Tobe Hooper and John Hughes. The performances, the photography, and the music are all wonderful, but it’s the film’s darkly comic/horrific tone and lead actress Robin McLeavy’s truly unhinged villainess that left their bloody mark on this viewer. Now, Paramount, where the hell is the Blu-ray?!

3. Kill List - Director Ben Wheatley’s moody chiller almost defies categorization, as it seems to shift genres with each of its act breaks. Initially a mumble-corish domestic drama, then a buddy crime flick, Kill List ultimately switches its gears over to our favorite genre by its final thirty minutes, when the story’s mostly heretofore unseen threat finally reveals itself. Kill List is not for every viewer, but this writer found it to be one of the most engrossing and truly scary films that the year had to offer.

2. Take Shelter - While Shea Whigham and 2012’s breakout star Jessica Chastain put in predictably great performances, it’s star Michael Shannon’s intense turn as a possibly prophetic, possibly schizophrenic blue-collar family man that anchors this moody, icily horrifying film. While it’s a stretch to call this character study a full-on horror film, horror fans should appreciate its relentlessly unnerving tone and some of the most jolting sequences I’ve seen all year.

1. The Grey - Intermittently gorgeous and terrifying, Joe Carnahan’s survival tale may have been sold as a Liam Neeson action flick, but is more a stirring meditation on life, death, and faith. Every aspect of this film is superb from its fantastic acting to the beautifully gritty photography to the film’s haunting tone and its harrowing climax, which somehow manages to be as downbeat as it is hopeful. Nearly a year after having first seen this, I still claim it as my single favorite film of 2012.

Honorable Mentions: Corman’s World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel, The Cabin in the Woods, Prometheus, ParaNorman, Lovely Molly, Chronicle

5. Silent Hill: Revelation - An exhausting experience, this movie nearly put this reviewer right to sleep in the theatre. A follow-up to the damn good 2006 Christophe Gans original, Revelation forgoes any narrative logic in favor of hurling setpiece after setpiece at the audience but fails to ever be exciting or enthralling. Or even remotely interesting. While some of the creatures are cool, and the sets at times capture the gorgeous grime from the previous film, this film ultimately fails with its lamebrained script and hilariously awful acting. A franchise killer if I ever saw one.

4. Airborne - Dull, dull, oh so dull. Though the movie itself is well-lensed, and Mark Hamill’s brief appearance is quite decent, Airborne is ultimately a snoozefest, saddled with wooden actors and a story that never takes flight.

3. The Collapsed - Easily the worst of this year’s post-apocalyptic thrillers (and yikes, is that saying something), The Collapsed features a nifty last act twist that sets up what could be a potentially interesting sequel. Pity the preceding eighty minutes are poorly acted (mostly) and boring as hell.

2. Piranha 3DD - An aimless, entirely joyless trip into exploitative tedium, full of crassly unfunny “humor” and slumming actors who know better. While I dig grindhousey movies as much as the next guy, boobs and blood only do not a good movie make. A terrible film.

1. Area 407 - Ugh. A case study in what not to do with the found footage conceit, Area 407 squanders its cool (and mostly hidden) central idea by straining the audience’s patience with its repetitive structure, bad dialogue, and a seemingly unending laundry list of POV no-no’s. A life-draining, mind-numbing, soul-crushing watch. This movie hates you.

Dishonorable Mentions: Silent House, Paranormal Activity 4, The Wicker Tree, The Tall Man, The Apparition

Yet To See: Antiviral, Berberian Sound Studio, Hitchcock, Bait 3D, American Mary

[Andrew Kasch]

[Brad McHargue]

[Doctor Gash]

[The Foywonder]

[Gareth "Pestilence" Jones]

[Heather "The Horror Chick" Wixson]

[Jinx]

[MattFini]

[Uncle Creepy]

[The Woman in Black]

MattFini's Picks

It’s easy to look at 2012’s less-than-stellar offering of major studio releases and chalk it up as a loss. After all, the horror community rang in the New Year with Paramount’s, ahem, controversial possession flick The Devil Inside and closed it out with the same studio’s equally dismalParanormal Activity 4. Two reviled titles that helped make a case for the death of the cinéma vérité subgenre. In between these were so-so titles (The Woman in Black, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter) and forgettable ones (Chernobyl Diaries, The Possession) – some of which did decent box office even if long-term resonance with audiences seems unlikely.

But that’s not the whole story. In fact, I look back on 2012 as being a year that delivered a handful of personal favorites. Films that I’ve revisited numerous times already and will do so again. And considering my initial “best of” list featured ten titles, each of them warranting careful consideration for a slot in the top five, I’d say that 2012 was an impressive year for horror - provided you knew where to look. For comparison, I glanced back at the last three year-end lists I’d made for Dread Central and realized that I am more enthused by this year’s qualifiers on the whole.

Now, before we continue, a quick word about my criteria. Nothing irks me more than a year-end list consisting entirely of unreleased titles. Good for you, horror blogger; you managed to go to a movie festival or catch some advance screenings! But crafting a list of movies that audiences won’t see for a year or two doesn’t help the readership relate in any way when you’re supposed to be talking about 2012 releases. I understand this task isn’t the easiest: finding a list of quality movies in a year that wasn’t so hot can feel like more trouble than it’s worth. But 2012 was a better year than most, and if you couldn’t find five movies you really enjoyed, then you couldn’t have been looking very hard.

I’d like to also go a step further and explain that I’ve kept my list to horror-only offerings. Sure, there were some great and fringy movies that Dread Central covered this year. Things like Chronicle, The Raid and Dredd, to name a few. But none of these have anything to do with the horror genre, meaning they won’t be acknowledged in this list whatsoever.

5. The Collection - Now this is how you do a sequel! The Collector was a fun – and forgettable - little thriller, and this follow-up takes the concept to the next level. When a group of hired guns descend upon the hideout of our resident villain (holed up in the “Hotel Argento”), all hell breaks loose. This isn’t taking itself very seriously from the outset, and that paves the way for a delightful experience rife with junked out zombie henchmen, crazed guard dogs, gunfights, mass-murder devices, etc. Writers Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan were aiming to bring the fun to this follow-up (so much so that they threw caution to common sense and believability) and succeeded tenfold! The Collection is outlandish, absurdist and a true joy to sit through.

4. Detention - This delirious little ode to high school cinema plays out like an homage to every teen movie ever made. All the tropes are there, and writer/director Joseph Kahn has created one of the most energetic and hilarious experiences in years. Part slasher movie, part time travel adventure and with all the youthful angst of John Hughes’ entire oeuvre, Detention is not for everyone’s tastes. But if you haven’t given it a shot yet, you’re doing movies wrong.

3. Prometheus - This big budget, high concept amalgamation of Lovecraftian horror and brainy science fiction turned out to be the most divisive horror film in recent memory. This visually stunning experience explores questions of faith, life and humanity in a story of scientists searching for the ultimate answer. Noomi Rapace and Michael Fassbender are wonderful additions to the Alien universe, and while the script disposes of its superfluous characters in some admittedly thoughtless instances, this experience has stayed with me since my initial viewing. And I keep going back. The mark of a great film, for my money.

2. Beyond the Black Rainbow - While we’re on the subject of divisive films… Panos Cosmatos’ directorial debut is one of the most hypnotic cinematic experiences I’ve ever had. Imagine a marriage of Kubrick and Cronenberg, with just a dash of David Lynch for good measure, and you’ve got this study in science gone wrong. A psychiatrist’s psychosexual obsession with a telekinetic girl in a utopian future goes horribly awry, accented with the coolest audio/visual design I’ve seen recently. This movie puts us in the minds of its main characters – people whose lives have been addled by psychotropic drugs – by making us feel like we’re tripping, too. This is slow, obtuse and completely compelling if it’s in your wheelhouse. Whatever Cosmatos intends to do next, I can’t wait to see it.

1.The Loved Ones - Why Paramount felt like dumping this 2009 Australian import direct-to-DVD this year, I’ll never know. With the right marketing, I’m convinced this could’ve been a modest little theatrical success. It’s a gripping movie that runs us through a gamut of emotions: sweet, disturbing, uncomfortable, suspenseful and likable…all while managing to be a ton of fun. Robin McLeavy is unforgettable as the profoundly disturbed “Lola Princess”, and the movie has something to say about loss, tied to that indelible and inescapable parental hold. Great filmmaking all around. Those Aussies so very rarely disappoint, but they often delight.

Honorable Mentions

The Sleeper - Okay, this one really was never going to crack the top five "best of" this year, but this indie slasher is an under looked offering worthy of your time. Writer/director Justin Russell crafted this throwback to early 80s slashers on a miniscule budget. And while the digital look prevents it from feeling like the bona fide 80s relic it so desperately wants to be, its heart is in the right place. Beyond that, it gets everything else right: the pacing, the atmosphere, the settings… Russell nails it. Here’s a guy who understands the slasher film, and I look forward to his next outing as a result.

The Aggression Scale - Steven C. Miller’s home invasion suspense flick is pretty simple stuff: A gang of criminals invade a country home looking for stolen money. But instead of a Desperate Hours-ish situation, the villains get much more than they bargained for in a mentally unhinged teenager who isn’t afraid to fight back. Slickly done, with some good tension and terrific performances (especially Dana Ashbrook – great seeing him again!), this is a little gem that might’ve slipped past your radar. Rectify that.

Resident Evil: Retribution - Unlike the last film in the series (which sat comfortably on my “worst of 2010” list), Retribution is a good time. It’s loaded with enjoyable action setpieces that find action figure heroine Alice battling zombified Russian soldiers on motorcycles, shooting up suburbia and taking on executioners in a desolate Times Square. Writer/director Paul W.S. Anderson imbues this fifth outing with a breakneck pace slathered in goofy energy and set to a memorable tomandandy score. By now you know what you’re getting with these things, but the surprise here is how well this one works within the franchise’s parameters.

[REC]3: Genesis - The third film in the Spanish possession series changes gears drastically without sacrificing quality. This is probably the least impressive installment so far, jettisoning the found footage approach in favor of a traditional narrative. Director Paco Plaza blends humor in with the horror rather expertly, ensuring that even the goofiest moments never overshadow the underlying horror of this apocalyptic scenario. There’s added heft in a genuinely sweet and moving romance between the likable leads that gives it emotional resonance. Understanding the first two films couldn’t be topped, Plaza changed it up. That doesn’t mean this should be missed.

5. Puppet Master X: Axis Rising - There’s nothing worse than hating a movie belonging to a franchise you once loved. And it stings even more when you secretly harbored hopes for the installment in question. After a continuous string of colossal disappointments, I had hoped that the Puppet Master franchise would get back on track with this, the second installment in a planned World War II-era trilogy. Unfortunately, this is every bit as clunky, uninspired and boring as you might suspect. If you watched the last movie in the franchise (Axis of Evil) and hated it, feel confident in your decision to skip this one, too. Maybe next time, Full Moon.

4. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance - Still the worst movie I sat through theatrically in 2012. You’ve got to work really hard to make a movie about a demonic biker, Satanic cults and the devil himself so infinitely boring. What’s worse is that Nicolas Cage has gone beyond his usual craziness, delivering a performance that feels woefully forced, as if he’s resorted to delivering the kind of trademarked craziness he thinks audiences want. As my colleague, Foywonder, stated on Dinner for Fiends, ”Nicolas Cage isn’t funny when he’s in on the joke, too.” Enough said.

3. Smiley - Imagine a cross between Cry Wolf and Cruel Intentions, and you’ve got a pretty good idea what to expect out of this lame wannabe slasher. Not much else to say about this other than it offers no gore, no thrills and nothing new. Instead you get a repetitive movie with the worst twist ending in recent memory.

2. The Wicker Tree - Robin Hardy waited almost 40 years to do this semi-sequel to The Wicker Man. He shouldn’t have bothered. This drab, paceless pile of garbage doesn’t do one thing better than the original film, and considering it retreads the same territory, it’s damn near impossible to fathom why this was made at all. Lacking in the atmosphere, mystery and satire of The Wicker Man, Tree is a lethargic collection of uninspired songs, banal ridicule and an ending so immediately obvious that it’s depressing to find Hardy at the helm is this enormous disaster.

1. Piranha 3DD - Talk about uninspired. This sequel to 2010’s Piranha 3D seemed like it was in good hands when it was announced that the Feast team would be behind it. But director John Gulager and writers Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton just seem lost with it. The humor is forced and largely flops (save for one hilarious Hasselhoff on the lifeguard chair bit), and the movie isn’t so much a narrative as it is a bunch of crummy gags strewn together. It strives to be outrageous but feels desperate. As a big fan of the creative team behind this, I hoped it would be a home run, but instead it’s a swing and a complete miss that fails at everything it tried to accomplish – which wasn’t very much to begin with.

(dis)Honorable Mentions

ATM - A nonsensical suspense thriller that never generates an ounce of tension. Three people trapped in an ATM vestibule by a psycho killer proceed to do the dumbest things in order to remain there. And when the movie’s third act kicks in, it somehow reaches new levels of stupidity. Director David Brooks appears capable enough, and it’ll be interesting to see how he does with a better script at his disposal.

The Divide - An apocalyptic thriller that tries really hard to be shocking in its depiction of humanity at its worst. Thanks to heavy-handed scripting and laughably over-the-top performances, it’s nothing but unintentionally hilarious. Director Xavier Gens is an undisputedly talented man even though he’s yet to make a film I’ve enjoyed. This is watchable thanks to his assured and visceral direction, but it’s destroyed by just about everything else. A watchable mess, but still a mess.

[Andrew Kasch]

[Brad McHargue]

[Doctor Gash]

[The Foywonder]

[Gareth "Pestilence" Jones]

[Heather "The Horror Chick" Wixson]

[Jinx]

[MattFini]

[Uncle Creepy]

[The Woman in Black]

Uncle Creepy's Picks

There's little doubt about it - 2012 has been one hell of a year for horror movies, both good and bad. Narrowing things down to the five best and five worst is a pretty damned hard job, but alas... thy will be done. That being said, here are your old Uncle Creepy's picks in no particular order.

The Cabin in the Woods - Seriously, it's hard to remember the last time we saw comedy mixed with horror done so incredibly well. For my money this flick delivered on all counts from our favorite “Puppet Masters” at command central right down to its “kitchen sink” ending. Loved every damned second of it.

Prometheus - Talk about anticipation. The lead up to this film's release alone was enough to drive a person crazy. While not exactly the flick I wanted, I have to give it props for being the biggest budget cheesy monster movie I've ever seen in a theatre. Please, movie lords, if there's a sequel, keep Damon Lindeloff and his pointlessly headsy drivel that goes nowhere away from it.

Sinister - This pick is bound to be a controversial one as people either seem to love it or hate it. I for one had an absolute blast with the flick. The minimalist approach taken to deliver the scares is what won me over along with the rich mythos constructed for the film's big bad.

The Loved Ones - Yeah, okay. I know The Loved Ones was originally released in the UK in 2009, but we didn't get it here until this year, damn it! Of all the psycho slasher fodder we've been force fed over the last year, The Loved Ones is nothing short of a breath of fresh air. Hats off to Robin McLeavy for giving us one of the most memorable psychopaths of the last decade. If you haven't seen this one yet, do yourselves a favor – right that wrong pronto.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter - Now here's a film that truly surprised me. The simple fact that it is as historically accurate as it is, is mind blowing. Couple that with some of the best damned action found anywhere, and of course some truly evil vampires of the non-sparkling variety, and what we have here, kids, is nothing short of a genre-bending horror-centric home run!

Honorable Mentions
The Grey, Dredd, The Raid: Redemption, Chronicle, ParaNoman, The Bay, Maniac, Bait 3D

Jesus H. Christ! Where to start?

Silent Hill: Revelation 3D - Make no mistake about it; the only revelation to be found here was the fact that I just paid over ten bucks to see one of my favorite video game franchises get butt-fucked in the third dimension. 'Nuff said.

Greystone Park - Less a movie and more of an endurance test, you're not likely to see a bigger stinker for the rest of your life. In fact, I'd nearly put this one on par with Strawberry Estates save for the fact that something actually happens in this movie. At least I think something happened. Honestly, it was so friggin' dark that I could barely tell.

Tape 407 - Attention, indie filmmakers. Please use this poor excuse for a movie as a blueprint for how not to make a found footage film. From top to bottom everything is wrong. To cite every example would take far too much energy than this crap deserves. You're on your own.

Piranha 3DD - Here's an idea: Let's take everything that was good about Piranha 3D and leave it out for the sequel! We don't need blood and gore! We've got The Hoff! Who needs a plot? We've got Gary Busey! And we have sleaze! Tons of sleaze. We're gonna make the audience feel dirty! Here's the thing... When you can somehow make looking at boobs seem boring, there's a real problem with your movie. This one reeks of dead fish and Weinstein tinkering.

Smiley - Like Area 407, this is a complete A to Z guide on how not to make a slasher movie. This thing is just rancid. Bloodless kills. Stupid teens. Every horror cliché you can possibly fathom hurled at you with reckless abandon. In the end this piece of shit actually managed to make the incredibly wretched Cry Wolf look good, and that was no easy task!

Dishonorable Mentions
Paranormal Activity 4, The Tall Man, Munger Road, ATM

[Andrew Kasch]

[Brad McHargue]

[Doctor Gash]

[The Foywonder]

[Gareth "Pestilence" Jones]

[Heather "The Horror Chick" Wixson]

[Jinx]

[MattFini]

[Uncle Creepy]

[The Woman in Black]

The Woman in Black's Picks

It was tough coming up with a "Best of" list this year considering the sparsity of films that were even in the running, but along with those that rose to the top, I do have a few honorable mentions that I must make note of, especially for those films that are on the fringy side of the genre - not quite horror but definitely deserving of the horror fans' attention: Chronicle, The Raid, and Killer Joe. All three are outstanding and well worth your time.

Two movies that just barely missed landing in the Top 5 are Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (screw the naysayers; I had an absolute blast with it) and Detention (you can read my review for all the reasons why I loved this flick), and on the family-friendly side of the fence is ParaNorman, which surpassed all my expectations.

Lastly among my honorable mentions is the horror/comedy/creature feature The Cabin in the Woods, which would have landed in the Top 5 if only it has been a little more horror and a little less comedy although I certainly can't complain about a lack of creatures. In that regard, it blew past the competition!

Now on with the rest…

The Bay - The one film I saw this year that grabbed my attention from the onset and wouldn't let go was the found-footage thriller The Bay. How the hell Barry Levinson managed to breathe fresh life into the stale found footage sub-genre is beyond me, but he did it in spades - with a great cast and an idea that, even weeks after watching the film, gave me the worst case of the heebie-jeebies I've had in years.

Maniac - I know… many of you haven't seen this yet and are highly skeptical of Elijah Wood's ability to convincingly carry off a role like this. But trust me - and one of our harshest critics, Pestilence, who called it "a masterpiece of technical wizardry and a deserving horror classic in its own right" - you won't see a more visceral, disturbing film than Maniac anytime soon.

The Aggression Scale - Home invasion is becoming almost as routine a plot device as found footage these days, and if you thought you'd seen it all, well, you ain't seen nothing yet if you haven't seen The Aggression Scale. It's a fresh, unexpected take on the horror/crime hybrid with lots to offer fans of both genres and ensures that Steven C. Miller is a director we'll be watching very closely in the years to come. (I also dug his Silent Night, although I still say he should have given Donal Logue more screen time.)

The Dead / Juan of the Dead - These two zombie films are both so damn good, it was impossible to choose between them. The Ford brothers battled incredible odds to complete The Dead, and every bit of their efforts shows up onscreen. It's bleak and beautiful and, as Uncle Creepy said in his review, "I cannot recall a zombie movie before that has featured this many members of the living dead." As for Juan, it's totally different in tone but just as effective. Coming from Cuba, it provides a perspective we don't see very often - and you just have to love how subversive and politically pointed it is.

"American Horror Story: Asylum" - The biggest surprise of the year for me was how drastically my opinion of "AHS: Asylum" changed over the course of this season. A few more episodes remain to be aired as I write this list so I can't be 100% sure things will end on a high note, but given how far we've come from Episode 1 to where we are today, I'm feeling confident enough to go ahead and say that hands down the scariest, most unnerving and unsettling thing I've seen all year is this series (or miniseries or whatever the hell they're calling it this week). Ryan Murphy is taking us on a harrowing journey that taps into our very real fear of being labeled insane and experiencing all the horrors that come with it. Jessica Lange is again absolutely killing it with her performance, but so is everyone else - Lily Rabe is burning up the screen; Zachary Quinto and Sarah Paulson share an amazing chemistry; James Cromwell is supremely slimy; and on and on. And it has introduced a whole new generation to The Singing Nun's "Dominque"! Talk about scarring someone for life!

In an effort to keep things short and sweet, I'll try not to harp too much on the Bottom 5 this go-round; best to just offer my advice and move on so as not to give them any more attention than they deserve. But first here are the numerous dishonorable mentions (man, this year really sucked!), any one of which could easily have wound up just a few paragraphs lower: ATM, Piranha 3DD, Playback, Greystone Park, Barricade, Paranormal Activity 4, I Am Zozo, and Hypothermia.

As for the worst of the worst…

The Tall Man - I'm not even sure this can - or should - be classified as a horror film, but because we covered it and I know a lot of people are interested in it because of its director, Pascal Laugier, I feel it's my duty to warn people away. Biehl is sort of okay, but it has a terrible script and an even worse "message." Avoid at all costs.

Hollow - I don't like to pick on the little guy too much in these types of lists, but Hollow is just… well… hollow and tedious. It has unlikable characters and is poorly paced and padded with a lot of nothing. Found footage done totally wrong.

Underworld: Awakening / Silent Hill: Revelation - The Curse of the Colon strikes again! Both of these franchises really hit the wall this year with abysmal offerings that did nothing to either advance their storylines or leave fans clamoring for more. Enough - put them (and us) out of their (and our) misery, please.

The Monitor (aka Babycall) - Another flick hardly anybody else saw, but again, I have to be that canary in the coal mine warning you to turn back before popping this one in your DVD player some cold, lonely night. It's total dullsville and no doubt something Noomi Rapace will be happy to leave off her quickly expanding resume.

Munger Road - Few films make me angry. No matter how bad it is, I'm usually able to just move on and forget about it. Not so Munger Road. In a year when not having an ending seemed to be "the" thing, it went above and beyond that and flat out insulted its audience. As McHargue said in his review, "It’s the laziest type of filmmaking around, and any enjoyment to be gained from watching Munger Road quickly vanishes in the final five minutes of the film." In other words…

[Andrew Kasch]

[Brad McHargue]

[Doctor Gash]

[The Foywonder]

[Gareth "Pestilence" Jones]

[Heather "The Horror Chick" Wixson]

[Jinx]

[MattFini]

[Uncle Creepy]

[The Woman in Black]

We've got a shitload of lists on this website. Top 10 most brutal women in horror, top buggy movies, top animal attacks; we even recently had top supermarket horror films. But we may have reached another level with this one… Film's Most Frightening Rabbits!

Bunnies are generally cute and cuddly so you'd think that "evil" ones would be a pretty rare find, right? Well, think again, my friend! Bunnies aren't always as cute as Anna Farris and Angela Bettis in May. Sometimes those flop-eared bastards are downright nasty. Sinister rabbits have made their presence known in all types of movies.

We celebrate this list in conjunction with the release of Silent Hill: Revelation 3D, the long anticipated sequel to Silent Hill, which hits theaters on Friday, October 26.

There have been plenty of disturbing rabbits in film. One of the most disturbing that immediately comes to mind is Eminem's character, Jimmy "Rabbit" Smith in 8 Mile. Well, okay, maybe that one can't really make the list, but how about the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland? He obviously had something wrong with him... You're late. We get it. He totally could have used Ritalin or some kind of sedative. But he's not really scary. It does seem that addictive personalities are a bunny thing, as you can see from the Trix Rabbit and the Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs Bunny. It's just cereal guys, goddamn.

However, if you want scary, General Woundwort from Watership Down is about as off-putting as a cartoon bunny can get and certainly deserves an honorable mention. And perhaps the scariest bunny, although already dead, was boiling in a pot on the stove thanks to Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. How many men's zippers were stowed in the upright and locked position after seeing that little tantrum? Yikes!

Now, on to the bunnies!

Night of the Lepus (1972)

Based on a 1964 science-fiction novel entitled Night of the Angry Rabbits, Night of the Lepus was originally entitled Rabbits and tells the story of an Arizona town besieged by mutated, carnivorous rabbits. Now that's exactly what we're talking about. The film starred some heavyweight talent like Janet Leigh, Rory Calhoun and DeForest Kelly. The bunny effects were done by using domestic rabbits set against miniature backgrounds (how fun is that?!) as well as actors in bunny suits for some of the attack scenes. Beautiful. The film was released on October 4, 1972, and would go on to be crucified by critics. However, due to the sheer campiness of it, Night of the Lepus has gained cult status and remains alive in the hearts of horror fans today.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)

The Cave of Caerbannog is the location of our next bad-ass bunny. Led there by Tim the Enchanter, King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table find themselves overjoyed with the prospect of facing just a little rabbit to gain entrance into the cave. But things aren't always as they seem. That little white bastard laid the lumber to the Knights of the Round Table in quick fashion, killing a number of them and causing Sir Robin to soil his armor... again. This ferociously beastly bunny was responsible for one of the most hilarious and memorable scenes from the Monty Python lexicon. It's a case of finding horror in humor, and if you want a bloodthirsty bunny, this one certainly fits the bill.

Sexy Beast (2001)

Okay, this is a strange one. (It seems odd that after we write about a rabbit killing members of the Knights of the Round table, the next entry on the list would be "a strange one," but here it is). In Sexy Beast an evil mutant cowboy rabbit invades a character's dreams after she watches a member of her party utterly fail at killing a jackrabbit in the dessert. In the dream an anthropomorphic rabbit menaces the woman... oh yeah, and he's toting an Uzi. Family entertainment at its finest. However, in all seriousness, Ben Kingsley was nominated for an Academy Award for his role in this film. Maybe the humanoid rabbit's foot brought him luck.

Donnie Darko (2001)

And, of course, when you think horrific rabbits, everyone's mind immediately goes to Frank, the inter-dimensional living/dead, hero/villain of Donnie Darko. Frank is an incredibly complex character, and the fact that he's dressed in that stupid bunny suit is a great juxtaposition to the depth of the role. Frank is so creepy that his face went on to be the calling card for Donnie Darko, the cult favorite that sucks you into an meandering maze of twists that culminates in the ultimate mind-screw. And Frank, well, he went on to be an iconic horror characters who asks Donnie, and by extension, all of us: ""Why do wear that stupid man suit?" He is the best of the bunnies.

NOW comes the newest addition to the fuzzy-headed creatures: everyone's favorite blood-soaked Robbie from Silent Hill: Revelation 3D! Will you be able to stand the nightmares?

Open Road has acquired U.S. rights to video game-based sequel Silent Hill: Revelation 3D and plans to release the psychological horror flick wide on October 26th. Sean Bean, Deborah Kara Unger, and Radha Mitchell return from the original film.

Synopsis
For years, Heather Mason and her father have been on the run, always one step ahead of dangerous forces that she doesn’t fully understand. Now on the eve of her 18th birthday, plagued by terrifying nightmares and the disappearance of her father, Heather discovers she's not who she thinks she is. The revelation leads her deeper into a demonic world that threatens to trap her in Silent Hill forever.

There is an expression, "A mother's love is forever," and this could not be more true. However, when looking back through our favorite horror movies, another expression comes to mind: "A face only a mother could love."

In celebration of the upcoming film Mama, directed by Andrés Muschietti and executive produced by Guillermo del Toro, creator of Pan's Labyrinth, we decided to take a walk down memory lane and honor the top scariest, freakiest kids in horror. And there are some real doozies out there with truly a face only a mother could love!

Let's warm up with some horrible mentions. The young Drew Barrymore certainly fit the bill of creepy kid in her unforgettable role of Charlie McGee in Firestarter. As did the pumpkinheaded little monster, Sam, in Trick r Treat. (He counts, right? He's definitely child-like). Glen/Glenda, Chucky's seed in Seed of Chucky, was skin-crawlingly strange, and although she might be just on the fringe of too old for this list, we've got to throw a mention to Patience Buckner. She was, of course, the one-armed member of the zombie redneck torture family from The Cabin in the Woods who kept a journal with quotes like, "I can hear Matthew in the Dark Room, working upon father’s jaw. My good arm is hacked up and et so I hope this will be readable." Yeah, Patience Buckner makes the list.

And now on to The Top 11 Creepiest Kids in Horror.

Tomás-The Orphanage
Since we are celebrating a new Guillermo del Toro-produced film, we'd be remiss not to mention another film he produced with a remarkably creepy kid. The Orphanage featured a deformed, sack-wearing ghost-child that was incredibly unsettling. Although small in stature, Tomás' presence dominated this haunting film filled with mysterious deaths and disappearances, and the little guy turned out to be an incredibly effective character.

Henry Evans-The Good Son
After Macaulay Culkin finished playing Kevin McCallister in the Home Alone films, he would go on to reinvent the idea of scary, off-putting kids with his role of Henry Evans in 1993's The Good Son. Culkin's character was so effective that for years after the film was released, any especially devious movie kids immediately kindled references to The Good Son. Culkin was so icily remorseless that it made Gene Siskel say, "Here you have America's favorite kid throwing a dummy off of a little bridge over a roadway, causing an accident. That scares me. I think it's highly irresponsible to show a youngster doing something like that." Screw Siskel; we say job well done!

Esther-Orphan
In much the same vein as The Good Son was Orphan, with Isabelle Fuhrman playing Esther, who could be called the female version of Henry, albeit with a very disturbing twist. Now you may say that twist itself disqualifies Esther from being on this list, but she was just so damn effective she had to make the cut. Devious and deadly, Esther was as mysterious as she was deceitful, and the character was played masterfully by Fuhrman. Orphan is the kind of film that sticks with the viewer long after watching, and it is completely because of one little girl. Orphan was a surprising delight to viewers, and Esther found her place in the lexicon of horror.

Claudia-Interview with the Vampire
Played by Kirsten Dunst in Interview with the Vampire, Claudia brings an interesting, and brutal, angle to the world of the vamps. Since she was turned while still a child, Claudia is trapped in that tiny body, even as she matures. Her frustration with being imprisoned in the young mortal coil and dressed like a doll becomes evident, and she grows into an extremely vicious bloodsucker, even lashing out and attempting to kill her maker, Lestat. As is the case with many of the impish ne'er-do-wells on this list, Claudia eventually gets her comeuppance, but you can't help but sympathize with her pint-size plight.

Ethan-The Nightmare Before Christmas
Is it just me, or is this guy the creepiest inhabitant of Halloweentown? If you're not exactly sure who Ethan is, he's the pudgy little member of the zombie family with the Jack Sprat-esque mother and father. (You can see him hanging out in the guillotine basket about two minutes into the clip.) Oh, and he just happens to have his eyes sewn shut! Ethan does seem full of the spirit of Halloween and then Christmas (in the twisted way the Halloweentown residents celebrate), always smiling and cheering. But one cannot dispute that simply his look and the fact that he's playing in a basket used for catching decapitated heads (and that his eyes are sewn shut!) make Ethan one of the more disturbing cinematic kids!

The Grady Sisters-The Shining
Daughters of Charles Grady, the previous caretaker of The Overlook Hotel before Jack Torrance brought his family to what would become a snowbound prison, the Grady sisters were the subject of one of the most iconic images in the history of horror. Standing side-by-side in the hallway of The Overlook, the sisters asked young Danny Torrance to "Come and play with us... for ever and ever..." while images of their butchered bodies lying in the same hallway flashed on the screen. Absolutely chilling. Sure, The Shining contains many legendary lines ("All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.""Heeeere's Johnny"), but it's the sight of the Grady Sisters that's still one of the most recognizable - and scariest - things in the movie.

Gage Creed-Pet Sematary
The youngest entrant on our list of creepy kids, Gage Creed was the victim of some horrendously bad parenting, on several occasions, during his short life. Not only was the tot allowed to chase a kite into oncoming traffic while his sister called him a dumbshit, but his father and grandfather got into a fistfight at the poor boy's funeral, and then dad decided to bury him on sacred Native American land in the hopes that Gage would return to life. It's no wonder he came back from the Micmac burial grounds with such a piss-poor attitude. His memorable scenes, especially with Fred Gwynne, are amazing. A sliced Achilles tendon here, a throat bit out there. Yikes! There's nothing like a reanimated little bastard running around with a scalpel and bad intentions. That's the stuff nightmares are made of.

Danny Glick-Salem's Lot
While we're rattling off films inspired by Stephen King's writing, it only makes sense to add another of King's young monsters to the list. Danny Glick was one of the original victims in Salem's Lot, and his appearance hovering outside Mark Petrie's window proved to be not only one of the most memorable scenes from the film, but one of the standout shots in the vampire sub-genre of horror. "Let me in, Mark; he commands it." Quick thinking and a fortunately placed crucifix were able to drive the young vampire away, but things would get worse in Salem's Lot before they got better.

Eli-Let the Right One In
Oh Eli... so powerful, yet so vulnerable. The unlikely anti-hero of the stunning Swedish vampire epic is a character so different than what we've come to expect that she is immediately magnetic. Viewers marvel at her strengths, but then emotionally connect with her need for companionship. The brutal cycle that we see Eli bring Oskar into has certainly been going on for years and will continue for years to come. It's a tragic tale with memorable characters, none more so than this little vampire with the big heart.

Damien Thorn-The Omen
Has there ever been a name more synonymous with children behaving badly than Damien? The embodiment of the Antichrist himself, this little guy was powerful enough to spawn loads of sequels and a remake. Much as Jaws became the name we would give any large shark and Cujo was any big, intimidating dog, any child behaving bad enough to make others think they could be Satan's spawn was slapped with the handle of Damien. He is the original horrific child and perhaps the worst of them all. Hell, he's got it in his blood.

Regan MacNeil-The Exorcist
Damien may have the catchy name and the whole Antichrist thing going for him, but there is no one above Regan. The beast that young Linda Blair brought to life (with a lot of help from Mercedes McCambridge on the iconic voice work) is as powerful today as it was when released 40 years ago (and 2013 is the 40th anniversary). The Exorcist still makes a strong case for itself as the scariest film of all time, and a huge part of that is due to the character of Regan MacNeil, who is cripplingly scary. We literally see the demon sink his claws into her and drag her into Hell. Simply put, she's the scariest child ever to grace the silver screen... hands down!

Now that we've enjoyed this walk down memory lane, get yourself prepared for some new tiny terrors in Guillermo del Toro's frightening new flick Mama, which hits theaters January 18th.

Synopsis
Five years ago, sisters Victoria and Lilly vanished from their suburban neighborhood without a trace. Since then, their Uncle Lucas (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and his girlfriend, Annabel (Jessica Chastain), have been madly searching for them. But when, incredibly, the kids are found alive in a decrepit cabin, the couple wonders if the girls are the only guests they have welcomed into their home.

As Annabel tries to introduce the children to a normal life, she grows convinced of an evil presence in their house. Are the sisters experiencing traumatic stress, or is a ghost coming to visit them? How did the broken girls survive those years all alone? As she answers these disturbing questions, the new mother will find that the whispers she hears at bedtime are coming from the lips of a deadly presence.

For more info visit the official Mama website, and "like"Mama on Facebook.

With Ethan Hawke most recently delivering a laudable performance in the terrifying box office hit Sinister, due to hit UK DVD and Blu-ray on 11 February through Momentum Pictures, we decided to take a look back at some other Hollywood notables who made their mark on the genre with style. Aaaaand ACTION!

Danny Glover – Saw (2004)

Perhaps best known as Roger Murtaugh in the Lethal Weapon films, Danny Glover also has a long history of roles in smaller independent films. So it was perhaps not surprising when he turned up as obsessive Detective Tapp in low-budget horror Saw. Glover shot his scenes in two days, and the film went on to spawn one of the biggest horror franchises of all time.

Kevin Bacon – Friday the 13th (1980)

Famous for more than just Footloose, Kevin Bacon has one of the most memorable horror movie deaths ever in the original Friday the 13th. While filming the Tom Savini-designed scene was uncomfortable, Bacon was pleased with having a classic horror death: “You fuck the girl, you smoke the joint, you're dead. So that was good.”

Donald Pleasence – Halloween (1978)

Blofeld himself, Donald Pleasence, appears in one of his most memorable roles as Dr. Sam Loomis in the Halloween franchise. Featuring in five of the first six films, Pleasence once joked that he’d “stop at twenty-two!” In the end he was sadly stopped by his own death shortly after filming Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995), although his picture appears in Halloween H20 (1998) during the opening sequence.

Nicole Kidman – The Others (2001)

2001 was a very good year for Nicole Kidman, who starred in box office hit The Others after taking the world by storm in musical smash Moulin Rouge! Initially reluctant to explore such dark avenues after her all-singing, all-dancing extravaganza, Kidman asked the producers to find another actress for the role – and we’re all glad they didn’t!

Josh Hartnett – Halloween: H20: Twenty Years Later (1998)

Getting his big break alongside Michelle Williams in 1998’s Halloween reboot, Josh Hartnett sports one of the worst haircuts in horror history as he plays the son of Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode. The film was a hit and opened doors for Hartnett, who has since starred in a diverse range of films including The Faculty (1998), The Virgin Suicides (1999) and Sin City (2005).

Kiefer Sutherland – The Lost Boys (1987)

Receiving his first big break in the heartbreaking coming-of-age movie Stand by Me, Kiefer got his second big break in this absolute vampire classic… and quite literally so! He was only meant to wear David’s trademark black gloves when riding the motorbike. However, while messing around on the bike behind the scenes, he fell off, subsequently breaking his arm so he had to wear the gloves through the whole movie to cover his cast. Ouch!

Courteney Cox – Scream (1996)

Best known for her role as Monica Geller in the sitcom phenomenon that is "Friends," it was rather ironic to hear about Courteney landing a role in this Wes Craven modern masterpiece as cold-hearted weather girl Gale Weathers, who quite literally has no friends! Apart from one close friend it seems, her co-star David Arquette, whom she ended up marrying. We won’t mention the divorce...

Bruce Willis – The Sixth Sense (1999)

Luckily for some huge actors, film studios can’t kill off your career if you piss them off. No, they just make you play dead and control you like a puppet! Fortunately for Bruce Willis, though, this helped form one of his most memorable roles. The Sixth Sense was the first of two movies that Willis owed Disney after he caused another production, The Broadway Brawler, to be shut down due to him firing the director. He also was paid $10 million, half of his usual salary at the time.

Sigourney Weaver – Alien (1979)

The first day that Sigourney shot a scene involving Jones the cat, her skin started reacting badly. Horrified, the young actress immediately thought that she might be allergic to cats and that it would be easier for the production to recast her instead of trying to find four more identical cats. As it transpired, Sigourney was just reacting to glycerine sprayed on her skin to make her look hot and sweaty. Whew!

Daniel Radcliffe – The Woman in Black (2012)

While seeking to protect his son from the dark supernatural depths of Northern England in this Gothic chiller, Daniel Radcliffe opens another father-son relationship for trivia fans here! In the Harry Potter films Daniel plays the son of actor Adrian Rawlins, who had previously played the same role of Arthur Kipps in an earlier version of The Woman in Black in 1989. Like father, like son it would seem!

Elijah Wood – Maniac (2012)

While he'd already shown us an affinity for the twisted with his performance as the perverted Kevin in Sin City (2005), Wood pulls out all the stops in Franck Khalfoun's phenomenal Maniac remake with a frighteningly effective performance that bleeds sheer psychosis from the screen. A docile Hobbit no more, with Maniac Wood proves himself a genre figure to be reckoned with.

So, which other Hollywood marquee names can you think of that have cemented themselves in your memory for a genre-centric performance? Sound off below! In the meantime here's another look at Ethan Hawke in Sinister.

Sinister Synopsis:
Ten years ago, true crime writer Ellison Oswald (Hawke) made his reputation with a best-selling account of a notorious murder. Now, desperate to replicate the success of his first book, he moves his family into a home where the previous occupants were brutally executed and a child disappeared, hoping to find inspiration in the crime scene. In the home, Ellison discovers a cache of terrifying home movies, unwittingly opening the door into a nightmarish mystery.

Serial killers have long been the stuff of which nightmares are made. The serial killer sub-genre of horror has brought us some amazingly memorable characters that still haunt us to this day. On February 19th Warner Bros. Home Entertainment will bring us a new name in fear with The Factory.

Starring John Cusack and Jennifer Carpenter as detectives tracking a murderer, The Factory is set in the bitter cold of a Buffalo winter. A great place to hunt a hunter. And to celebrate the release of this newest addition to the sub-genre, we've compiled a list of the Top 11 Movie Serial Killers.

There is certainly a long list of names to choose from, but we narrowed the field a bit by limiting it to those who were just regular human people. No supernatural involvement here, just a person or group of people who've gone off the deep end and made hunting and killing others their main hobby. Not exactly the bunch you want to have over to the house for drinks and a rousing game of Scattergories.

We'll start the honorable mentions out with a couple of newer faces. Perhaps one of the more popular serial killers right now, whose story is currently unraveling before us, is Joe Carroll, the mastermind behind all the deviousness going on in "The Following." And we've also got to throw a little love to Vincent D'Onofrio for his outstanding work as the killer simply known as "Bob" in 2012's Chained.

But we mustn't forget some of our old favorites. Dee Snider's Captain Howdy in Strangeland was nothing if not unique. And as original stories go, Leslie Vernon's tale in Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon is as original as they come. Billy Loomis and his sidekick, Stu Macher, were genre-revivingly brilliant in Scream. And Kurt Russell brought a whole new meaning to "hell on wheels" and was a completely new style of hunter with the most unlikely weapon you'd ever expect as Stuntman Mike in Death Proof. Just missing the Top 11 was the incredibly creepy, unnamed and basically unseen (aside from a disturbing eyeball shot) killer from 1974's Black Christmas; the man that taught us never to pick up anyone walking along the side of the road in The Hitcher, John Ryder; and a man just trying to instill love of life in his victims, John Kramer (a.k.a. Jigsaw) of the Saw franchise.

And now we give you...

Patrick Bateman (American Psycho)
Inspired by one of the most disturbing books you'll ever read, written by Bret Easton Ellis, American Psycho hit the big screen with huge anticipation from fans. Just how were the filmmakers going to recreate some of the unspeakable atrocities committed by Patrick Bateman, the featured psycho in the book? Before emaciating himself for The Machinist or bulking up for Batman, Christian Bale was thrilling audiences as one of the most unique and charming serial killers we've ever seen. Bale creates the ultimate anti-hero with his portrayal of Bateman, a character that horror fans hold close to their heart even to this day, nearly 15 years after American Psycho was released and challenged us to believe that anyone is capable of anything…especially a guy specializing in "murders and executions, mostly."

John Doe (Seven)
Nearly 10 years before Jigsaw started his murderous masterpiece, Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman played detectives chasing down Kevin Spacey as a serial killer with a very plain name but a very ambitious plan. In Seven Spacey's John Doe made it his business to execute seven unfortunate souls who were guilty of breaking the seven deadly sins: sloth, greed, gluttony... oh, what am I doing? If you're reading this site, you know what the seven deadly sins are. You've probably broken a handful of them yourself. Like Jigsaw, John Doe's intricate pre-planning and execution of that plan were the most impressive parts of the character. And the climax of Seven, John Doe's swan song, is one of the most tense, memorable and shocking you'll find in film.

Dexter Morgan ("Dexter")
Although not found in a movie, there is simply no way Dexter Morgan doesn't make this list. Television's darling serial killer has been enamoring viewing audiences for seven seasons while he and his dark passenger face one adventure after another. All this while Dex still manages to do a bang-up job as a blood spatter expert for Miami Metro. Michael C. Hall is absolutely perfect in the role that, after so many episodes, it seems he was born to play. We've been with Dex through marriage and the birth of his child, seen his mother murdered and watched the spirit of his adopted father guide him through each and every crossroad in his life. Our familiarity with him, and Dexter's charisma and charm, has made him one of the most beloved characters on television. Not to mention the fact that he sets up one helluva kill room.

Sweeney Todd (Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street)
Oftentimes we'll see serial killers set on their murderous rampages by an egregious wrongdoing. That could not be more true than in the case of Sweeney Todd, or Benjamin Barker as he was known before that nasty ol' Judge Turpin stuck it right up his can, stealing his wife and setting him out to sea to die. Barker was a mild-mannered barber before being set on a path of vengeance. Most recently represented by Johnny Depp in the 2007 version of the story directed by Tim Burton, Sweeeny Todd actually has quite the history, with the original tale being told in a 1936 film, although the Burton/Depp tale much more resembles the 1979 Steven Sondheim musical. Todd disposes of unwanted men in his barber chair (which is advantageously positioned over a trap door), and his literal partner in crime, Mrs. Lovett (played in '07 by Helena Bonham Carter and by Angela Lansbury in the musical) grinds the bodies up and makes meat pies out of them. Which, surprisingly, the people of London circa 1846 can't get enough of. As will often happen, the murders get out of control, and things end up going horribly wrong for Todd in this musical tragedy. But a beautiful tale it is.

Curt Duncan (When A Stranger Calls)
Although we're not privy to much of his past, one has to assume that anyone as creepy as Curt Duncan, who was shipped off to the asylum for literally ripping children apart with his bare hands, had to have a trail of bodies in his wake. Duncan was portrayed by Tony Beckley in When A Stranger Calls; however, while playing the role, Beckley was terminally ill and died in 1980, shortly after the film was completed. Although the killer is not even seen in the iconic opening 20 minutes of the movie outside of a shadow, we find there is just something off-putting about him as we get to know him throughout the rest of the picture. We know the brutality he's capable of, and when we watch him try to blend into society after his escape from custody, we see just how unsettling he can be. Curt Duncan simply makes the viewers uncomfortable. He's the kind of guy that makes your skin crawl, and isn't that the goal? Not to mention he scores huge points for helping make the line "Have you checked the children?" legendary.

The Firefly Clan (House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects)
The number of bodies they may have piled up is unknown, but it's certain that The Firefly Clan had been in business long before we originally meet them in House of 1000 Corpses. With Otis B. Driftwood, Captain Spaulding and Baby as the main members, the group is fleshed out by the likes of Mama Firefly, Grandpa, Tiny and Rufus. They are as handsome as they are merciful and turn out to be a very amusing group. Sid Haig's Captain Spaulding provides comic relief for the films, but he shows he can be just as dangerous as Bill Moseley's deviously deviant Otis. Mama Firefly brings her own matriarchal qualities to the table as well. And Baby? The most beautiful butcher you'll ever lay your eyes on. And btw, the trailer below was done by Universal Pictures when they were going to distribute the film, long before it ended up at Lionsgate's door.

Mickey and Mallory Knox (Natural Born Killers)
They embarked on a murderous rampage that thrilled the nation, making them celebrities. Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis play the loving couple who perfectly dramatize society's love of danger. Serial killers have long been made into celebrities in society, and with the flash and charisma of Mickey and Mallory, it was no surprise they hit superstardom. With a script penned by Quentin Tarantino and with Oliver Stone at the helm, Natural Born Killers was a can't miss venture. Harrelson and Lewis could not have been better in roles that would go on to become legendary, and colorful characters brought to life by Tommy Lee Jones, Tom Sizemore and Robert Downey, Jr., assisted in providing the perfect atmosphere for Mickey and Mallory to thrive.

Norman Bates (Psycho)
One of the original, and still most disturbing, serial killers in the history of American film, Norman Bates set the bar for all cinematic depravity to follow in Alfred Hitchcock's iconic 1960 film Psycho. Norman had the perfect serial killer setup. He never had to go out and skulk around in the dark. The victims came right to him. He even had that handy-dandy peephole so he could scope out the merchandise before buying. Seriously, though, Norman Bates was such a deranged serial killer that his story became legendary. Psycho eventually spawned some sequels that looked to add to the tale, but the entire story was told when Mrs. Bates was revealed in the cellar before a frocked Norman could add to his body total. A simply unforgettable killer.

The Sawyer Clan (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre)
Everything's bigger in Texas? You're damn right! Sometimes things are done better by a group, and that was certainly the case with The Sawyer Clan in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Sure, Leatherface got all the love, but we've got to remember that it was The Hitchhiker that initially found the five kids in the big blue van. And it was The Cook that brought poor Sally Hardesty back for her dinner date with the Sawyers. So even though it was Leatherface's hulking form and chainsaw handiwork that audiences took away from the film, the serial killing in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was certainly a team effort. And, of course, after losing The Hitchhiker at the end of the film, they replaced him with an even more entertaining member when Bill Moseley's Chop-Top returned from Vietnam for Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 12 years later. You wouldn't want to see the Sawyers moving into the vacant house next to yours, but they do make one efficient team of serial killers. The saw is family.

Hannibal Lecter (The Silence of the Lambs)
Anthony Hopkins brought a monster to life with his portrayal of Dr. Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs and its sequels. It was the fact that Lecter was so smart, so far ahead of the game, that made him so terrifying, even when incarcerated. But it wasn't until his escape from custody that we really saw just how vicious Lecter really could be. Sure, we saw him talk ol' Miggs into swallowing his own tongue, but it was the escape where we really saw Lecter at work. A slash, slash here and a slash, slash there; and the next thing you know, the good doctor was being carried to an ambulance with someone else's face on, and off to freedom he went. The sequels also carried on with author Thomas Harris' vision of Lecter, insanely intelligent and brutally violent. The combination of the two make for one the most dangerous serial killers ever.

Henry (Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer)
Long before he was the foul-mouthed bigot Merle Dixon we've all come to love on "The Walking Dead," Michael Rooker portrayed one of the most realistic serial killers we've even seen. Rooker played Henry, a nomadic drifter based loosely on real-life serial killer Henry Lee Lucas. The film was the definition of gritty, realistic and downright chilling. Henry's remorselessness and robotic persona were the most frightening things about him. He killed randomly and without emotion, and what could be more frightening than that…a killer who will simply pick anyone out of a crowd, murder him or her, and then sleep tight at night without a second thought of his heinous act. Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer is one of the most realistic and acerbic looks into the mind of a killer we've ever had the pleasure to experience. It's a docu-drama made long before the style became in vogue, and it worked perfectly in this case. A voyeuristic journey into madness.

About The Factory
A Dark Castle Entertainment production, The Factory stars John Cusack (The Raven, 2012, Identity), Jennifer Carpenter (“Dexter”), Mae Whitman (“Parenthood,” “Arrested Development,” Scott Pilgrim vs. the World), Dallas Roberts (“Supernova”), Sonya Walger (“Lost”) and Mageina Tovah (“Joan of Arcadia,” Spider-Man 2, Spider-Man 3). It's directed by Morgan O’Neil (Drift, Solo) from a screenplay by O’Neil & Paul A. Leydon (Tatua) and is produced by Joel Silver (The Matrix trilogy), Susan Downey (Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows) and David Gambino (Whiteout, The Brave One).

The national day of love, romance, dry humping and reckless screwing is upon us. It's a day when we hold our significant others close and tell them how much they mean to us. It's also a day riddled with misery from which we seek distraction. That's why we're here.

Below you'll find a few articles, both new and old, as well as our favorite new video from YouTube users Pete and Roland that truly proves that Love Hurts. Enough talking. Check out the goods below, and then go hug someone - even if you don't know them - just to see the look on their face.

Long before I became a doctor, back when I was just a horror intern, I spent plenty of time cruising around the internet, and one of the things I loved to read the most was people's Top 10 Horror Movies lists. Unfortunately, I never read one I completely agreed with.

After finally becoming sure I would never find that perfect writer who nailed the Top 10 Horror Movies as I saw them, I decided to start my own site and thus gave birth to the short lived, but enthusiastically written site, DoctorGash.com. It lasted about as long as "Do No Harm" on NBC. However my love for top 10 horror lists never faded. And now I'd like to present you with mine.

Over the next 10 days I'm going to count down my Top 10 Greatest Horror Movies from number 10 right down to the granddaddy of them all and give you my reasoning as to why I feel each belong on the list. I included the films that I felt were the most effective and influential in horror. And you, dear readers, will certainly have your opinions on my entries, I'm sure. And I invite you to share your thoughts and opinion in the comments section below. Maybe between this list and your comments we can all agree on a top 10 to make the world happy.

It's nearly impossible to narrow the horror genre down to just 10 films, but here goes nothing. Remember, it's always easy to add to the list, it's just really, really hard to find films to remove.

So without further ado, let us begin this walk down memory lane and revisit some of the greatest, most important and entertaining horror films ever made. This is Doctor Gash's Top 10 Greatest Horror Movies… Ever!

#10-Scream
"Do you like scary movies?"

It’s December 1996. The slasher sub-genre of horror has become a joke. Multiple cash-grabbing sequels of Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween have hardened audiences. These tired sequels to the films we loved have become so predictable and uniform that the slasher genre is dying. And worse than that, the films themselves are just really, really bad. The Nightmare/F13/Halloween sequels became parasites of their origins. They required no thought or creativity. Pump one out each year and double your investment on brand name alone. But by 1996, that formula was finally drying up. Audiences were sick of watching garbage. They knew a Friday the 13th or A Nightmare on Elm Street or Halloween sequel was going to be trash and they began to stop going to the movies. It would not be long before filmmakers got the hint and stopped making them. We needed a hero.

Who better to be that savior than Wes Craven, the man responsible for The Last House on the Left, The Hills Have Eyes and the original A Nightmare on Elm Street? He collaborated with writer Kevin Williamson to create a new project called Scream. They enlisted a cast of unknown teens (most of whom would go on to have nice careers: Rose McGowan, Jamie Kennedy, Neve Campbell) to go along with Drew Barrymore, Courtney Cox and David Arquette and brought us a horror movie that, while paying homage to the genre, also reinvigorated mainstream horror.

Scream is not the Number 10 film on this list because it is the goriest or creepiest or scariest of the bunch. Far from it. Scream is here because it was the perfect film at the perfect time. Scream drew from all the horror that preceded it, incorporating it in either a suspenseful or comedic way, and delivered that to the audience in an extremely entertaining fashion. Scream was based around a true mystery. Who was the killer? Upon first viewing you really had no idea. Suddenly audiences remembered what it was like to enjoy a slasher film, not just go to the movies because it was the new Jason or Freddy flick. Moviegoers were treated to a great story. Scream brought us back. It showed us that there were movie-makers out there who would still put effort into horror, not just throw some crap on celluloid to get you off your ass and into the theater on Halloween to see some lame sequel all for nothing more than the almighty dollar.

As far as the picture itself, it's filled with references to great slasher films (not the least of which is Wes Craven himself as Freddy the Janitor in a red and green sweater). Jamie Kennedy is great as the horror sage, preaching the rules to the unsuspecting victims and (aside from the tribute to horror) Scream's most powerful asset is Neve Campbell as the perfect Final Girl. She is pretty and innocent. She smart, strong and vulnerable all at the same time. Sidney is THE Final Girl.

Again, Scream is not the "most" anything. It's not the 'most shocking' or the 'most bloody' or the scariest film of all time. (Although you could consider it the 'most perfectly timed film release ever'). But its strength was in its intelligence and timing. Scream is really entertaining, especially for horror fans. It addresses the 'Rules of Horror,' those things we can't do if we don't want to be filleted by the movie psycho. And the reason these 'rules' existed is because horror had become so predictable. Scream took that predictability and played on it, using the weak films of the past to build a stronger future. Just like The Cabin in the Woods recently did again.

Simply put, Scream couldn't have come along at a better time. It recharged audiences who were numb from countless terrible sequels and showed them that there were still cowboys out there who would bring them quality original entertainment. Neve Campbell was perfect as Final Girl Sidney and Matthew Lillard and Skeet Ulrich have to be recognized for their incredibly entertaining contributions to the film. Lillard's physicality and willingness to leave it all out there certainly made for a memorable character and Ulrich's downright two-faced nastiness was stellar.

No, Scream doesn’t have the pedigree of Jaws or Friday the 13th or several others that you may feel belong on this list, but without Scream we may not have some of the great horror we have today. Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson took the weaknesses of the genre and recycled them into a breath of fresh air movie that brought the slasher film back. We thank them for that and give Scream its proper place at Number 10 on the Top 10 Most Greatestl Horror Movies... Ever!

Perhaps the most polarizing film on Doctor Gash's Top 10 Horror Movies…Ever! list is Number 9, The Blair Witch Project. I've heard many people talk about how they detested this film, that nothing happened, that it was a waste of time.

Not only is The Blair Witch Project undeserving of these criticisms, it was one of the most influential and profitable films of its time.

#9-The Blair Witch Project
"I'm afraid to close my eyes, I'm afraid to open them."

Those that criticize the movie certainly missed the point of the effort, but regardless of any negativity, the box office take was staggering. Made on a budget that would barely cover a decent bachelor party in Vegas, Blair Witch ended up bringing in nearly $250,000,000. Not a bad return on your investment. In addition to the earnings, it solidified the found footage sub-genre of horror, and, most impressive of all, The Blair Witch Project was launched with a groundbreaking viral marketing campaign that was so effective it had many people thinking the whole thing was real.

Much like the Number 10 film on this list, Scream, The Blair Witch Project does not earn its spot here solely on the content of the film. Scream made the top 10 for being a great film at the perfect time. The Blair Witch Project makes the list primarily for the fact that its guerilla advertising campaign turned the world of film marketing completely upside down and reshaped the entire business of selling movies.

The brilliant marketing campaign, spearheaded by Artisan studio executive Steven Rothenberg, included a Sci-Fi (not yet Syfy) Network mockumentary about the missing filmmakers entitled "The Curse of the Blair Witch". The program even included interviews with the "parents" of the missing kids, and it aired just before the release of the film. An internet buzz about the movie possibly being real police footage stoked The Blair Witch Project and had audiences completely intrigued from the start. Blair Witch used the internet as no one in Hollywood had before and by doing so left audiences ravenous to see the film. It's a marketing strategy that is envied and copied relentlessly to this day.

And the trailblazing of The Blair Witch Project did not stop with its marketing campaign; it only began there. Creators/directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez solidified an entire sub-genre of horror, the found footage style. This wasn't the first film to use the idea of found footage as Ruggero Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust used the same technique in 1980, and there were a few movies scattered between then and The Blair Witch Projectthat tried it, but it never really took off. After the success of Blair Witch we’ve seen an endless parade of movies that use this technique, and some do it well. Just a brief glance of the found footage film list reveals offerings such as the Paranormal Activity series, Cloverfield, The Last Exorcism, [REC] and [REC]2 and (here's one for you) August Underground’s Mordum. An entirely new technique of filmmaking was embraced after Blair Witch which was not only fresh to audiences, but allowed films to be made much less expensively, giving more moviemakers a chance to bring their stories to life.

After the great marketing and creative presentation, what do we have? We have a film that is a study in tension. The best horror films give you a balance of tension and payoff. You have your build-up scenes and then your payoff scenes. A few minutes of walking through a strange dark house is paid off by a killer jumping from the closet and doing nasty things. Blair Witch was very adept at creating the tension, but they never gave the payoff…and it didn’t matter. The movie taught us that great horror wasn’t about seeing the gruesome monster or the knife plunging directly into the victim. It taught us that the journey was just as important as the money shot. If not more so. The Blair Witch Project was so tense with its creepy sounds and strange occurrences that you're cringing in your seat waiting for something to happen during your first viewing. Well, spoiler alert, nothing really does happen, but does that mean you were never cringing? No sir. The Blair Witch Project scared us, it scared the crap out of us, but people rail against it because it never showed the antagonist. Would it have been scarier if we eventually saw what was making all the crazy noises and toying with the filmmakers? Not at all. No filmmaker can create something scarier than we can conjure in our own minds. Only we as individuals know our own deepest, darkest fears, and this is what we use to fill in the blanks for The Blair Witch Project.

Overall, the film is amazing. As our characters are lost in the woods, it has an incredibly claustrophobic feel even though they are in the wilderness and completely unencumbered. Stephen King has proven time and again that being trapped is the most horrific scenario one can find himself in. He's used the idea repeatedly in books like Misery, Cujo and Gerald's Game. And in reality, if a character isn't trapped on some level, can you really have a horror story? Our three young filmmakers are trapped, unable to find their way back to the car. They walk south all day and end up right back where they started and hunker down for another night of strange noises and freaky happenings. Welcome to the world of the Blair Witch.

The Blair Witch Project is basically an improvised piece of work, adding to the authentic feel of it. Myrick and Sanchez really challenged the actors physically during filming (rationing food, keeping them in the elements) to enhance the tension. It worked. Their ad-libbed dialogue felt real. It all worked so perfectly.

Although it has its critics, The Blair Witch Project was groundbreaking not only for its unique filming style, but for its brilliant marketing campaign that has been, and will be, copied for years to come. The movie was masterful at building tension, so much so that it never had to give the money shot. Audiences were uncomfortable enough with the tortures of the woods that no further aggravation was required. However, when we finally get to the basement of Rustin Parr's cabin and Mike is standing in the corner of the cellar, an iconic horror image is created. For '90s horror, this final shot was your moon landing, your Zapruder film. It's the culmination of a perfectly original horror experience. An amazing ending for a groundbreaking film.

Assuming I haven't been run out of town on a rail by you Dreadies after the first two films on this list, I'll carry on with the next entry. It's completely coincidental that two of the first three films on this list are directed by Wes Craven; the dude just made some badass films.

And perhaps none more badass than A Nightmare on Elm Street.

#8-A Nightmare on Elm Street
"Whatever you do, don't fall asleep."

Before he introduced the world to the horrors of Elm Street, Wes Craven had already established himself as a masterful horror writer/director with the releases of such films as The Last House on the Left in 1972, The Hills Have Eyes in ’77 and Swamp Thing in ’82, but it wasn’t until November 9, 1984, when Craven unleashed a horribly burned, supernatural child-killer named Freddy Krueger on the world in A Nightmare on Elm Street, that he became iconic. Krueger was an instant hit, and Craven became a horror legend.

On an original budget of $1.8 million, A Nightmare on Elm Street would go on to create a horror empire. After the original there were several sequels, "Freddy’s Nightmares" television series, an eventual crossover with Friday the 13th’s Jason Voorhees, tons of merchandise and a 2010 remake. But it all paled in comparison to the strength of the original, which single-handedly fueled all that was to come later.

The feel of A Nightmare on Elm Street is one of absolutely helplessness. Nancy and the teens of Springwood can avoid Krueger simply by not sleeping. But how long can you stay awake? And eventually they are unable to fight sleep any longer and succumb to Freddy, falling into nightmares horrifically constructed by Krueger himself. Once again, you have a great horror film based around the fact that the victims are absolutely trapped by the antagonist. Trapped victims are certainly part of the equation that totals up to great horror.

The premise for the story came to Craven upon reading a series of articles in the Los Angeles Times about three Southeast Asian men who died in their sleep. They were refugees who fled to American from Vietnam and had been experiencing horrific nightmares. Each of the men died in his sleep during one of these episodes. Craven saw the three separate stories of the men on three separate occasions and crafted the idea of a killer who attacked while the victims were asleep. As for Freddy Krueger, that was an easy one. As a young man, Craven had been bullied at school by a child named, guess what, Fred Krueger. (Incidentally, the leader of the gang of rapists/murderers from The Last House on the Left played by the late David Hess was named Krug. Think this bully got to Craven a little bit?)

And although Wes Craven created A Nightmare on Elm Street, Robert Englund was the man who actually stepped into the Freddy Krueger character and brought it to life. In fact, Englund is one of only two men to play a horror character eight consecutive times. (Doug Bradley as Pinhead in the Hellraiser series is the other.) Englund became Krueger; even when not in makeup, one could not help but think of the charred, malevolent Freddy Krueger when looking at the always jovial Robert Englund.

But Englund would not be the only film icon to emerge from A Nightmare on Elm Street. Jackie Earle Haley (who would later go on to play Krueger in the 2010 remake) came to the auditions for the original film. A friend accompanied him. That friend was Johnny Depp, who landed the role of Glen Lantz in Nightmare and would go on to be one of the most successful screen actors of our time. Not a bad recovery from being sucked through your bed to a particularly splattery death.

A Nightmare on Elm Street is often lumped in with its counterpart, Friday the 13th, but Nightmare is on a different level. Sure, Jason Voorhees is an iconic character in his own right, but Friday the 13th had a tendency to get repetitive. Nightmare, even the sequels, was nothing if not creative. Maybe you didn’t agree with some of the antics of the later films, like Freddy being the giant puppeteer for instance, or the roach motel death, but they were always unique. And come on, they were pretty cool. But regardless of your opinion of the later films, there was nothing hokey about the original.

Simply put, what writer/director Wes Craven created with A Nightmare on Elm Street was nothing short of genius. Moviegoers could feel the incredible tension... and the original film was damn scary. Remember the scene in the alley with the giant long arms or the creepy Freddy girl in the school hallway? Everyone is familiar with how difficult it is to struggle to stay awake, and knowing Freddy Krueger was waiting for each victim to nod off made for great entertainment.

Yes, it must be said that the series made some unfortunate choices with Krueger’s personality and quality control of the films, but this does not take away from the fact that the original was so impressive that moviegoers would continue to attend A Nightmare on Elm Street sequels (and a horrid remake) even after a string of disappointments, hoping the filmmakers would be able to recapture the essence of the original. They never did manage to equal the initial offering, but it was a tough act to follow. In fact, it was almost impossible to top, which is why A Nightmare on Elm Street earned its spot among the Top 10 Greatest Horror Movies... Ever!

Film #7 on Doctor Gash’s Top 10 Greatest Horror Movies… Ever! is a classic that was censored and scrutinized in its day for scenes of blasphemy and violence against children.

That’s right, today we may think of Frankenstein as just an old black and white monster movie, but upon its release in 1931, this movie was shocking.

#7-Frankenstein
Henry Frankenstein: Look! It's moving. It's alive. It's alive...It's alive, it's moving, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive, it's alive, IT'S ALIVE!
Victor Moritz: Henry - In the name of God!
Henry Frankenstein: Oh, in the name of God! Now I know what it feels like to be God! "

We’ve been completely numbed to the power of Frankenstein. We’re hyper-exposed to The Monster as a cute, smiling Halloween staple, a clown (Herman Munster) and a character in children’s books (Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich by Adam Rex, for instance) and kids' movies (Kevin James' character in Hotel Transylvania and Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas is a female version of The Monster…and that is just two off the top of my head). But let's consider how this film was received when it was released over 80 years ago.

We can’t be swayed by what The Monster has become but rather simply remember what he is. He is a jigsaw corpse pieced together from random bodies, driven by a demented criminal brain, and reanimated by a mad scientist. The Monster is completely lost in a world that is foreign to him. He's tortured and cast aside by his creators…and then the monstrosity is unleashed upon the public with horrific results.

Although society’s main image of the Frankenstein Monster is undoubtedly cartoonish and fun, we must remember that upon its release, this film was considered so extreme it was actually censored in some parts. You have to remember this was 80 years ago and the sections that were removed from some prints of the film could air on prime time network television these days, but at the time, they were intense. Fans of the film will not be surprised to learn that the most scrutinized scene was the one involving The Monster throwing young Maria into the lake when he misunderstood the game they were playing together. On some prints of the film the entire second half of the of that scene, from when The Monster realized he no longer had flowers to throw into the water, through the end was cut.

More surprising is the scene when Henry Frankenstein actually brought the creature to life. He became extremely excited and proclaimed, “Now I know what it feels like to be God.” As John Lennon learned, comparing oneself to a popular deity usually doesn’t go over very well with the general public. There was an uproar over that line in the film and in many prints it was drown out with a large thunderclap. Other scenes that were cut at times were Fritz’s sadistic glee while torturing The Monster with a torch and the actual needle injecting The Monster while the doctor was subduing him. Pretty tame stuff by today’s standards, but at the time some places considered too much for the public to handle.

As for the main characters, the maniacal nature of Dr. Henry Frankenstein (Colin Clive) fuels the emotion of the film, but the true strength is in the performance of Boris Karloff as The Monster. Rarely in the history of cinema has anyone delivered such a memorable performance without ever uttering a single intelligible word. Karloff does a brilliant job of conveying anger, fear, confusion and hate, without verbally expressing anything more than grunts and growls. And director James Whale did a legendary job directing the iconic film.

Perhaps the most thrilling moment in the film comes when the doctor pulls the cover away and reveals his creation underneath. Remember, all of us were already very familiar with the Frankenstein Monster before viewing this film, but can you imagine the reaction of audiences originally seeing Frankenstein who had no idea what to expect. You have to envy them. Certainly make-up artist Jack Pierce needs to be credited here, as he was the one who designed the ‘flat-head’ look to The Monster (Pierce also worked on Karloff’s Mummy and Lon Chaney’s Wolfman. Certainly an impressive pedigree).

As far as influential horror films go, perhaps no movie can claim a bigger role than Frankenstein. With shocking imagery and brilliant performances this classic no doubt deserves its place among the greatest horror films of all time.

From the number seven film on the list, Frankenstein, we move forward nearly 30 years to another monster created by an overbearing master bent on control. However, Norman Bates' psychotic genesis didn't require lightning rods or stolen body parts, just a domineering mother.

#6-Psycho
"We all go a little mad sometimes… haven't you?"

"A boy's best friend is his mother." With this quote, we were launched into the completely twisted world of Norman Bates and the haunting Bates Motel. Released in 1960, Psycho is an easy choice for inclusion on any top 10 horror movie list.

Unfortunately, as modern viewers we find ourselves in a similar predicament as we do with Frankenstein. We know everything about the film before the opening credits roll. Psycho is such a powerful, historic piece of filmmaking that it has become part of our everyday lives. Every rundown flop house on the interstate can easily be referred to as the Bates Motel for a laugh, and who hasn't picked up a butcher knife while cooking, turned to someone (or to the empty room if you’re more of a loner), made pretend stabbing motions and mimicked that unforgettable sound of violin strings coming to life…"EEE, EEE, EEE."

Psycho is part of us. It's part of society. And unfortunately that fact exponentially weakens our viewing experience. However, even with this tremendous handicap, Psycho is outstanding more than 50 years after its debut. As I did with Frankenstein, I'll again ask you to imagine you are in the theater during its initial release. It's 1960 and you are attending a screening of a mysterious Alfred Hitchcock film entitled Psycho. (The film is adapted from the 1959 novel by Robert Bloch (who incidentally lived 35 miles from Ed Gein whom police arrested in 1957. Hmmm…coincidence?)). However, during the release, no one knows anything about the film because director Alfred Hitchcock had as many copies of the novel Psycho bought off the racks as possible to keep the film’s content a secret. Now that is being thorough!

Moviegoers were urged to arrive at the theater on time… in fact they were required to. Cinemas were required to deny late entries to Psycho, and although the movie houses initially balked, fearing lost ticket sales, the explosion of popularity for the film quickly convinced them otherwise.

The movie rolls…enter the beautiful Janet Leigh…in a bra…in bed with a man who isn't her husband! WTF?! Blasphemy! Next thing you know they'll show a toilet flushing in this film! And yes, they do. The opening scene of Psycho with Leigh and John Gavin as her lover, Sam Loomis (ring a bell Halloween fans?), was considered taboo with an unmarried couple in bed together. And believe it or not, the first shocking thing to take place in Room 1 of the Bates Motel was not the murderous shower scene, but the shot of the toilet flushing away the papers on which Marion Crane took notes, trying to figure out how to pay back the full $40,000 she pilfered. Toilets had not yet made it into mainstream cinema and were also taboo.

As wonderful as Leigh is as the conflicted Marion Crane, the focus of the film is, of course, Anthony Perkins as the iconic Norman Bates. The magnificence he displays playing the role cannot be overstated. He comes across as incredibly innocent (and in essence, he is) and must have thrown audiences far off the scent of what was truly going on at the Bates Motel. He is boyishly charming, but shows just the slightest hint of being off-balance during his meal with Marion, and as his reality begins to crumble while investigators close in on him, his performance responds in kind. It culminates in the chilling final scene of Psycho where Norma has completely taken over Norman’s body and speaks to the audience about how she will prove her innocence.

Psycho was followed by two sequels, a prequel, a shot-for-shot remake starring Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates, a television movie spinoff and an upcoming prequel series. But of course, nothing could recreate the suspense and shock manufactured by the masterful manipulation of the audience in the classic original film. Not even close.

The one-word title, Psycho, has become part of our modern vernacular. It's a word with little power anymore as it has been overused ad nauseam over the past few decades. And that's a good microcosm of the film itself…although stripped of much of its shock value over the past 50 years, Psycho is still one of the most powerful and impressive horror films… ever.

Are we alone in the universe? Pondering upon the vastness of the universe, we'd have to be incredibly self-centered to think we are the only life form in existence. And although we haven't seen proof of our intergalactic brethren, there have been plenty of films and TV shows about their clandestine (and more demonstrative) visits to Earth.

Now we have an entirely new horrific vision about one of those alien visits and the havoc they cause in Dark Skies. Keri Russell and Josh Hamilton star as the married couple whose life becomes derailed by mysterious happenings caused by a disturbing malevolent force…and it isn't a domestic disturbance by any means. This one is imported. Way imported.

To celebrate the release of Dark Skies this weekend, we have compiled a list of some of the best alien abduction stories we've enjoyed over the years. Come reminisce with us to get into the mood for this new, creepy tale about extra-terrestrials…and they're not the good Reese's Pieces-eating kind either!

"American Horror Story: Asylum"
Perhaps you forgot the alien abduction part of "American Horror Story: Asylum." With all the other stuff going on…a Nazi doing human experimentation, demonic possession, a serial killer…it's easy to see how one could forget that alien abduction was a big part of the story. But yes, indeed, amid all the other madness, Kit's wife, Alma, was stolen away…and that wasn't the only tinkering the greys did. Although we never got a good look at them, alien abduction certainly helped to shape this entertaining season of the upstart "American Horror Story" anthology series.

The Fourth Kind
Bad things happen in Alaska, folks. Not to say that it isn't a beautiful part of the world, and we certainly love our Dreadies from the north, but come on, you're ripe for the pickin's up there. Just look how those vamps took the place apart in 30 Days of Night. And then apparently the extra-terrestrials got wind of the goings-on in Alaska, and in The Fourth Kind we saw just what kind of damage they can do. This mockumentary is based completely around alien abduction and the damage and aftermath it caused to one doctor's life. As part of the film was intended to be reenactments and part actual footage of the events, The Fourth Kind manages to conjure up some skin-crawling moments. And that whole owl thing…I’ve never been a fan of those creepy, round-faced bastards anyway.

Predators
Ever wonder what happens after an unsuspecting hillbilly gets sucked into an alien spacecraft tractor beam? You wouldn't initially think of Predators as an abduction film, but that's exactly what it is. However, what we get in Predators is what happens to the victims after they’ve been stolen away without a trace. The film received mixed reviews, but you have to admit it’s a great premise. The predators abduct the most skilled and vicious fighters from around the universe to hunt in training exercises. And what a unique cast. Aside from Adrien Brody you had Danny Trejo, Topher Grace (who didn’t appear to fit with the rest of the murderous characters…but surprise, surprise), Laurence Fishburn, Walton Goggins and one of the original UFC fighters, Oleg Taktarov. Nice to see the predators at play, unwinding with their guests.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Here’s an example of another type of abduction…the abduction of the personality. In Invasion of the Body Snatchers the aliens didn’t take anyone anywhere; they just stripped humanity of their... well… humanity. Whether you're talking about the original from 1956 or the well-received remake from 1978 (both based on the novel The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney), both films dealt with the same general concept: the loss of our emotion. And in reality, if stripped of emotion, what are we? This may be a scarier concept than actual physical abduction because you can survive a good anal probing, but what becomes of you when you lose yourself?

Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Just to prove that all alien abductions aren’t bad, Steven Spielberg brought us the iconic film Close Encounters of the Third Kind. And just in case you still didn’t believe that aliens weren’t necessarily our enemies, he followed it up, of course, with E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, but no one got snatched up into space in that one. Although Close Encounters did end up on a positive note, it was quite harrowing along the way. Richard Dreyfuss' performance is one of the most memorable of his career (who could forget his mashed potato Devil's Tower sculpture?). And have we ever really gotten that five-tone song out of our heads? Do-do-doo-do-doooo.

Fire in the Sky
Based on the real-life story of Travis Walton's personal tale, Fire in the Sky does for alien abductions what The Amityville Horror did for haunted houses. That is, taking an incredible tale of a supernatural experience, one that is believable but not able to be proven, and making an incredibly powerful book and, ultimately, movie about it. Many fans of the genre feel that Fire in the Sky is indeed the scariest alien abduction film they've ever seen, and that's an opinion that's hard to argue. If you really dig this movie and would like to check out more on the real-life abduction claim, track down a copy of Travis Walton's book, The Walton Experience.

"The X-Files"
Well, folks (and this one goes out to you younger readers), long before "The Walking Dead" was the must-watch genre show on TV, there was a little program called "The X-Files" that managed to hold our attention for a few years. In actuality, we all know that Agents Mulder and Scully and "The X-Files" was THE show for horror/sci-fi fans for a long time. And although the weekly episodes had our favorite agents chasing all kinds of supernatural baddies, there was that huge underlying story arc about Mulder's sister and his belief that she was abducted by aliens. The series spawned a pair of movies that both landed in the "meh" department, but if there was ever a show that piqued our interests in alien abduction, "The X-Files" was it.

Dark Skies Synopsis
Dark Skies is a psychological thriller about a suburban couple whose lives become a nightmare when a terrifying alien presence enters their home each night to prey upon their children. Increasingly isolated from skeptical friends and neighbors, the couple are forced to take matters into their own hands to save their family.

Read our Dark Skies review!

Five down and five to go! We've reached the halfway point of the Top 10 Greatest Horror Movies… Ever! list, and now it's time to start busting out the real heavy hitters.

Night of the Living Dead is nothing short of iconic, single-handedly not only launching a legendary film series, but it's the film that gave birth to one of our favorite movie beasties: the zombie.

#5-Night of the Living Dead
"They're coming to get you, Barbara."

And they came... big time.

Nearly 50 years after that classic line was uttered and Bill Hinzman shuffled into our lives as Zombie #1, the living dead are not only still coming to get us, but they've gotten exponentially badder as time has gone on. Zombies are the stars of loads of movies, TV series, video games, comic books, etc. Zombies are chic, and it can all be traced back to one Pennsylvania farmhouse.

With Night of the Living Dead, we’re not talking about a movie that spawned a series of sequels which had a nice run for a few years; we’re talking about a movie that spawned an entire sub-genre of horror. An entirely new monster. Although the filmmakers never used the term "zombie" in Night of the Living Dead (instead referring to the reanimated corpses as "ghouls") it was indeed the origin of the zombie film. Projects which draw inspiration from Night of the Living Dead can be summed up by simply saying this: Anything that features, mentions or in any way alludes to a zombie can thank George A. Romero and his vision of the walking dead (that includes, of course, "The Walking Dead," which continues to be one of the most beloved shows currently on television).

Initially, the term '"zombie" was used to describe one under the mindless control of an evil magician or voodoo witch doctor. And although that definition is perfectly acceptable, when you mention "zombie" in modern society, we all think of reanimated corpses dragging themselves after a meal of human flesh, preferably brains. And that idea comes right from Romero (who got his start in the entertainment industry on "Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood," what?). He was influenced by Richard Matheson’s book I Am Legend (which featured vampire-like creatures hunting the last man on Earth). Romero thought a good post-apocalypse film should actually happen pre-post-apocalypse and show the point where things went from "really bad" to "oh shit, we're not coming back from this one."

And in Night of the Living Dead, things certainly did go south fast for Barbra and her comedian brother. When you think, "Hmmm... How bad could a visit to my father’s grave just before dark in a secluded rural cemetery go?" this is the answer. It can't possibly go any worse than it did in Night of the Living Dead. And we, the zombie-loving viewing audience, are the happy recipients of that nightmarish tale.

It must be noted that the visual quality of the film is quite rough and the editing is something of a hatchet job. You could write this off to the fact that the film is turning 45 years old, but if you look at Psycho, which was released eight years earlier, you see a film with a much higher production value. However, the low quality of the visuals actually seems to add something to Night of the Living Dead. A gritty, real-life quality is injected into the movie. Psycho was helmed by an established, masterful director at the height of his career. NOTLD was created by a young, rogue director looking to make a name for himself, and he did that with a story of claustrophobia, of man versus man, of hideous, bloodthirsty beasts encircling these embattled men preparing to eat them.

Night of the Living Dead is to the zombie sub-genre of horror what Black Sabbath is to the rock sub-genre of metal. Everything, everything, everything traces back to it, and it's powerful enough to stand on its own today. The tension and trapped feel of the characters translates brilliantly to the viewers, and Romero simply kept raising the bar as the film went on, reaching high with Kyra Schon's classic flesh-eating scene and culminating with a horrendously misfired bullet at the close of the film. We cannot thank George A. Romero enough for all the entertainment he has given us (and inspired in others) throughout the decades. This is filmmaking history.

As we get down to the number four entry on the list, we find one of the few horror films that the critics enjoyed as much as the fans. It's not often that true horrorphiles and starchy movie critics look at a film and both nod their heads and say, "Yeah, that's the stuff."

But with The Silence of the Lambs, that was exactly the case.

#4-The Silence of the Lambs
"I do wish we could chat longer, but…I'm having an old friend for dinner. Bye."

That was the perfect ending line for the most critically-acclaimed horror film of all time. The film's list of accolades includes five Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Actor (which Anthony Hopkins won, despite being on the screen for only about 16 minutes of the two-hour film), Jodie Foster took Best Actress, Jonathan Demme was Best Director and the film also won Best Adapted Screenplay. Wow.

Many consider The Silence of the Lambs to be more of a thriller than a true horror film, but don't make that mistake. Anytime you reflect back on this film and consider that maybe it isn't a pure horror movie, go back and watch it again…go through the whole experience from the beginning, and you'll certainly be reminded of the power of the film and the brutality of the characters. Do you recall how Hannibal Lecter escaped police custody? I believe it involved removing a guard's face in the most rudimentary of ways. This, my dear Dreadies, is a horror film.

The Silence of the Lambs, especially the scenes with Lecter, is a master class in suspense. Before her initial meeting with him, Agent Clarice Starling is repeatedly warned about the danger Lecter poses. And it is through these descriptive images of his crimes (especially those warnings of Dr. Frederick Chilton, describing how Lecter attacked a nurse and ate her tongue) that we are introduced to the monster that is Hannibal the Cannibal. And this is how the brilliant aura of Lecter is built. We hear all about his heinous crimes and see the fear he instills in those that have regular interactions with him. Even before we see Dr. Lecter in that cell at the end of the hall, he's already crept into our psyche.

Hopkins is absolutely hypnotic in this, perhaps his most memorable role. You simply cannot look away while he is on the screen, even while re-watching the film. His portrayal of Lecter is brilliant. Every line is delivered perfectly, whether it be his probing of Agent Starling, his verbal assault of Senator Ruth Martin or his farewell to Sergeant Pembry, Lecter is played perfectly. It is hard to believe, as mentioned above, that Hopkins could create such an iconic character while being on the screen for just a shade over 15 minutes.

Opposite him, Foster offers an excellent light to Lecter's dark, allowing him to dig into her mind in exchange for his assistance in the "Buffalo Bill" murder case. Anthony Heald is also great as the smarmy doctor overseeing Lecter in prison. However, often overshadowed by the power of Hopkins' performance and his chemistry with Foster, is the other monster in The Silence of the Lambs, Jame Gumb a.k.a. Buffalo Bill, played disturbingly by Ted Levine.

Yes, Lecter did utter the infamous line "I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti," which would go on to be the most memorable slogan from the film, but we mustn't forget that Jame Gumb had some memorable moments of his own. If it wasn't for the fact that he was up against one of the greatest antagonistic performances of all time in Hannibal Lecter, we can be pretty sure that The Silence of the Lambs would have been remembered for either 1) "It puts the lotion in the basket"; 2) Gumb’s crazy final scene and death image, crumpled on the floor like a dead spider, coughing up blood, with the night-vision goggles on; or (and this is the most likely) 3) Buffalo Bill's wild dance scene. Yeah, you know the one. Hidden penis and the hard close-up on his extraordinarily creepy lipsticked mouth saying, "Would you fuck me? I'd fuck me. I'd fuck me hard," in a voice that was very similar to former WWE wrestler Chyna or Ray Lewis.

The suspense never lets up. A great twist scene on the apprehension of Buffalo Bill wraps up an amazing adventure, and Lecter's exclamation point in the final scene as he fades into anonymity is perfect. Off he goes to hide in plain sight. Not the scariest, not the goriest, but this may be the most perfectly polished horror movie of all time. It is a masterpiece.

We're down to the top three horror movies ever created. I'm excited, how about you? For a long time the number three film was the most financially successful independent film of all time. But Halloween is not on this list for the money it made; it's here for the nightmares it generated.

#3- Halloween
Laurie: Was it the boogeyman?
Dr. Sam Loomis: As a matter of fact, it was.

It's the night he came home.

Halloween may not be the first slasher film ever, but it's the best. I suppose you could consider Psycho a slasher film, but Norman basically kept to himself unless you disturbed him. That isn’t the case in Halloween, and the good people of Haddonfield had no idea what was coming. Michael Myers was a hunter, and he arrived on Halloween night with a mission in mind.

Much like Hannibal Lecter was introduced by Dr. Frederick Chilton describing his heinous deeds to Officer Starling before we get Lecter's chilling on-screen introduction, Michael Myers' doctor, Sam Loomis (remember that name, Psycho fans?), played by Donald Pleasence, gave unyielding assessments of his patient repeatedly in Halloween. Pleasence's performance oozed nervous tension as he repeatedly tried to warn the Haddonfield Police of the danger that was coming for them.

Michael Myers would not have been nearly as daunting and frightening if it weren't for some of the setup Loomis gave him. My personal favorite story was: "I met him 15 years ago. I was told there was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong. I met this six-year-old child, with this blank, pale, emotionless face and the blackest eyes… the devil's eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realized what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply… evil." This is what we learn about Michael as he slowly makes his presence felt in Haddonfield.

Halloween was filmed in 21 days during the spring of 1978 on a budget of $320,000. It is still one of the most successful independent films of all time. Never has so much been done with a butcher knife and a modified William Shatner mask. Yes, for those of you who didn't know, Michael Myers' iconic mask is actually a William Shatner Halloween mask that had the eye holes widened and was then spray-painted bluish white. That’s right, the face of The Shape is none other than Captain Kirk.

And we must not forget the wonderful 'final girl' in Halloween. She was basically unknown before this film, but Jamie Lee Curtis was chosen to play the chaste (although we do see her smoking weed) Laurie Strode. And here is yet another tip of the cap to Psycho from Halloween. Why is that, you ask? Although she wasn’t the first actress selected for the part, one factor that helped lead director John Carpenter to finally select Curtis was her DNA. Jamie Lee Curtis is the daughter of Janet Leigh, the actress who played Marion Crane, the victim in the legendary Psycho shower scene. Carpenter thought it would help promote the film if the daughter of the actress in one of the most memorable horror scenes ever showed up in his film. Hello, horror dynasty. What other mother-daughter team could say they were in two of the greatest horror movies ever? None.

Michael Myers did not have the personality of Freddy Krueger, and although a beast in his own right, he didn't have the sheer juggernaut power of Jason Voorhees. But Michael Myers always seemed worse than either of them. Maybe it was the mystery, the wondering of what was lurking behind that mask. But whatever it was that went into making this most memorable monster, it could not have worked out better, and Michael Myers became one of the greatest movie villains ever. And it was, in the end, the brilliance and creativity of director John Carpenter and the sheer terror evoked by Michael Myers that drove Halloween to its rightful place atop the slasher genre.

The #2 Greatest Horror Movie... Ever! is The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. In fact, it's my personal favorite horror movie. If you and I were going to sit down together and check out a horror movie and you asked me to pick it, it'd be The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

There is one above it on the list, but it's not as fun as this one!

#2-The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

(Gash's note: Yeah, it looks weird, but the actual spelling of the film's title in the opening credits has the word "chainsaw" split into two words. Subsequent sequels and remakes would use the traditional spelling, chainsaw).

"The film which you are about to see is an account of the tragedy which befell a group of five youths, in particular Sally Hardesty and her invalid brother, Franklin. It is all the more tragic in that they were young. But, had they lived very, very long lives, they could not have expected, nor would they have wished to see, as much of the mad and macabre as they were to see that day. For them an idyllic summer afternoon drive became a nightmare. The events of that day were to lead to the discovery of one of the most bizarre crimes in the annals of American history, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre."

It is with this intro, read by John Laroquette (this bit of John Laroquette trivia was much more impressive when people immediately knew who John Laroquette was and you didn't have to go into a whole explanation about "Night Court" being the show on after "Cheers," etc.) that we descend into one of the greatest horror films in the annals of American history: The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

Everything about this film is perfect. The chilling intro, the underlying story of grave-robbing and Edwin Neal’s unforgettable portrayal of The Hitchhiker (and I do mean unforgettable; I remember many a night as a young man, lying awake in bed trying not to see that nut grabbing Franklin's knife and slicing his own hand open... but it simply wouldn't go away). Once its hooks are into you, you're not shaking Texas Chain Saw, ever.

Filmed on a paper-thin budget, this movie implies so much more than it shows. The casual viewer will remember gallons of blood being spilled on the screen, when in fact there was very little stage blood used during the filming. They will tell you that a chill went down their spine when they saw that meat hook come through the front of Pam's (Terri McMinn) chest. That never happened either. Director Tobe Hooper did a masterful job making you remember things you didn't actually see. And he needed to, as the film’s budget was under $300,000, shoestrings even in 1974.

But what was created on that meager budget would go on to inspire absolute legions of followers. Let me describe a movie for you: a group of teens/young adults venture out into the woods/hillside/rural area, and after their car breaks down/blows a tire/runs out of gas, they realize they are being hunted by a family/tribe/pack of deranged/deformed/cannibalistic weirdos. Sound familiar? The Hills Have Eyes, Wrong Turn, House of 1000 Corpses, Wolf Creek and Malevolence come to mind immediately; and I'm sure you can conjure up dozens of other titles. They all must tip their cap to the original, and still the best, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

As with all truly horrific films, the tension in Chain Saw is palpable. Hooper built it by making us wonder just how demented the Sawyer Clan was and how far this nightmare would go. He reveals the answer to us in the now infamous dinner scene as Sally Hardesty (Marilyn Burns) sees just exactly how twisted the family is when Grandpa is brought in to join the festivities. And Burns is brilliant. It is the sheer terror she channels that makes the final 25 minutes of the film legendary. The movie is gritty, the intro tells us that it's real, and to watch Burns in action with the killers, you could almost believe it is.

Of all the murderous slashers we've come to know, Leatherface may just represent the most perverse of them all. If the mask of human flesh isn't off-putting enough, the undertones of sexual depravity (or at least sexual ambiguity and confusion) make him that much more disturbing. And although he is just one amongst a family of killers, Leatherface's larger-than-life persona (delivered by Gunnar Hansen) is the most memorable of the film.

You cannot make a better film about people being hunted by people than this. It just seems too real. It seems effortless. A perfect storm of great villains blessed with wonderful victims. An absolute treasure of a horror film. It has stood the test of time, inspired legions and easily goes down as one of the best, most influential horror films ever.