My Top Ten Foreign Language Horror Movies

I decided it was time to try to put together a bunch of “My Top Horror Movies” lists. I already did these two lists years ago:

My Top Ten Horror Comedies
My Top Ten Body Horror Movies

So I plan to post these the rest of this week:

My Top Horror Movies Pre-1970
My Top Horror Movies 1970-1999
My Top Horror Movies Of The 21st Century (I did a list for this here several years ago which I’ll update)

Then I might do an overall all-time My Top Horror Movies list (but the majority will be from the 1970-1999 list, I’m sure!).

I’ll probably call them all “Top Ten” to stay consistent with my other lists but, especially with this one, I was curious as to how much foreign horror I’ve seen & have listed everything I could think of. I will definitely be missing movies from these lists, though, and am sure I’ll be kicking myself for forgetting something.

I had to put some rules on this list:

1. It has to not be in English (not counting the silent films! Ha!). I disagree with the lists I saw online with The Babadook & loads of British horror listed as foreign. Not foreign to me.

2. I at first spent ages looking up each film on IMDb to see if “Horror” was one of the genres listed. It starts getting complicated as people may have different ideas of what makes a film a horror. If it’s horrific in any way, I usually consider it horror. But then there are other movies people consider horror which I never have (Jaws, a thriller and Alien/Aliens, sci-fi). So you can argue with my choices if you want. 🙂 But I did look up each for this one list & only one isn’t classified as horror on IMDb: M (1931). I’ve left out Battle Royale, though, which I had very high on this list at first then decided it’s not really horror. But M is a horror to me.

So here’s my ranked list counting down to My Top Ten Foreign Language Horror Movies:

Top Twenty:

20. Troll Hunter
19. Dead Snow
18. The Wailing
17. Tetsuo: The Iron Man
16. Audition
15. [REC]
14. The Platform
13. The Host
12. Eyes Without A Face
11. Les Diaboliques

Top Ten:

10. Ringu (but I could do with rewatching this)

9. The Orphanage

8. TIE: A Tale Of Two Sisters & Hausu

7. Let The Right One In

6. Nosferatu (1922)

5. M

4. Pan’s Labyrinth

3. TIE: Deep Red & Suspiria (Included these together but I really need to rewatch Suspiria, which I think looks & sounds great and is iconic, but I enjoyed Deep Red more)

2. The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari

1. Train To Busan

Honorable Mentions:
The Grudge (I remember liking this but really need to rewatch it. Same as with Ringu, although I did include it in the list as it’s so iconic)
Four Flies On Grey Velvet
Inferno
One Cut Of The Dead
Goodnight Mommy
Sputnik
Veronica
Dead Snow 2: Red Vs Dead
Ils

Some I Want To See (and I’d happily take more recommendations!):
Pulse
High Tension (aka Haute Tension aka Switchblade Romance)
A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night

Ones I Need To Rewatch:
The Grudge & Ringu (as mentioned above)
The Devil’s Backbone (don’t remember at all)

My 2017 Blind Spot Movies: Ranked

This is the second year I’ve done the Blind Spot thing and I’ve really enjoyed it. I saw 24 great films these past two years! (Here’s my ranked list of my 2016 Blind Spot choices)

I think my choices were slightly stronger last year but I still really liked all of the below films except number 12 and I think the top 7 are especially brilliant.

So here are My 2017 Blind Spot Movies, (from my least favorite to my favorite):

12. The Last Temptation Of Christ

11. Altered States

10. The Raid

9. The King & I

8. House (Hausu) (1977)

7. The Hustler

6. Jackie Brown

5. Wolf Children

4. Ghost In The Shell

3. The Untouchables

2. Watership Down

1. Rocky

See you tomorrow for my ranked list of all the books that I read in 2017.

October Horror Month Roundup & My Top Ten

Happy Halloween, everyone! This wraps up another year of October Horror Month for me, which always makes me a little sad (but also a little happy since I can go back to reviewing all sorts of genres instead of just horror). Until October 2018… 🙂

Ah, the horror genre. Between horror & comedy, I’d have to say we get the largest number of movies that are complete & utter shit. Very disappointing. I suppose part of the reason may be that they’re probably the cheapest types of movies to make but, also, people’s tastes vary so widely on these genres so only a small handful end up with praise & high ratings.

It felt like I reviewed only a couple of good horrors in 2016 & that the rest were dreadful. This year I’ve again seen some truly abysmal horrors but, overall, I lucked out and saw some really good ones. Yay! On this list of 32 movies: I loved numbers 1-4, I liked numbers 5-9 quite a lot, and I thought numbers 10-15 were fine & had fun with them. The rest were meh or awful. But 15 decent ones out of 32 is REALLY good for the horror genre! Oh, I should add that I cheated a little & threw a few “thrillers” in as well. 

So here’s my ranked list, counting down to My Top Ten Horror & Thriller Movies Watched For 2017 October Horror Month:

32. The Forest
31. Lifeforce
30. The Neon Demon
29. Poltergeist (2015)
28. The Girl On The Train
27. Byzantium
26. Only Lovers Left Alive

25. Cooties
24. 1922
23. Cell
22. Ghostbusters (2016)
21. Ouija: Origin Of Evil

Top Twenty:

20. Green Room
19. Mother!
18. Alien: Covenant
17. Split
16. Get Out

15. Monster Hunter (aka Dark Was The Night)
14. The Watcher In The Woods
13. Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children
12. Before I Wake
11. The Babysitter

Top Ten:

10. The Witch
9. Pontypool
8. The Wailing
7. The Gift
6. Coherence

5. The Final Girls
4. House (Hausu) (1977)
3. Gerald’s Game
2. Train To Busan
1. It (2017)

Phew. Horror Month is over! Now I can go watch something happy & fun. Any recommendations? 🙂

House (Hausu 1977) Blind Spot Review

House (1977)
Japanese: ハウス Hausu

Directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi

Starring: Kimiko Ikegami, Miki Jinbo, Ai Matubara, Kumiko Oba, Mieko Sato, Eriko Tanaka, Masayo Miyako, Yōko Minamida

Plot Synopsis: (via IMDB)
A schoolgirl and six of her classmates travel to her aunt’s country home, which tries to devour the girls in bizarre ways.

My Opinion:

Here’s a list of the Blind Spot films I’ve watched this year from my least favorite to my favorite (I’ve finished watching them all! Just need to review the rest):

12. The Last Temptation Of Christ
11. Altered States
10. The Raid
9. The King & I
8. House (Hausu 1977)
7. The Hustler
6. Jackie Brown
5. Wolf Children
4. Ghost In The Shell
3. The Untouchables
2. Watership Down
1. Rocky

I first heard about Hausu when Anna of Film Grimoire reviewed it (HERE). It looked truly bizarre from the images & I knew I had to see it so it got added to my Blind Spot list. Well, I’ve now finally seen it and I can confirm that it is, indeed, truly bizarre. Love it. We need more truly bizarre movies that are as entertaining as this one!

Er. I have no idea how to go about reviewing this. I read this at Wikipedia, which I found interesting:

“Following the success of the American film Jaws, a proposition came from the Toho film studio for Nobuhiko Obayashi to develop a similar script. To find inspiration for the story, Obayashi discussed ideas with his pre-teen daughter Chigumi Obayashi. Nobuhiko sought her ideas, believing that adults “only think about things they understand … everything stays on that boring human level” while “children can come up with things that can’t be explained”. Several of Chigumi’s ideas were included in House…”

It then gets more specific on what bits in the film were from the mind of the director’s daughter and it’s all the weirdest & most entertaining parts (mainly the ones involving the house “devouring” the girls). Maybe more pre-teens should be consulted when making movies if this is the crazy result! Of course, this came out in 1977 – times were more trippy back then. Also, I love how this movie came about because of the success of Jaws?! Haha! This is nothing whatsoever like Jaws, FYI. People get eaten, so… I guess that’s the connection.

By the way, this is a horror comedy. I highly recommend it as I think this is one of those films that everyone should experience at least once, especially film fans. Just know beforehand to not take it seriously and don’t expect the meandering storyline to fully make sense. This is also from the above Wikipedia link:

“Obayashi recalled that his producer told him that Toho was tired of losing money on comprehensible films and were ready to let Obayashi direct the House script, which they felt was incomprehensible.”

The overall story, which seems to have been written around the director’s daughter’s ideas, is actually better than I expected and involves the aunt the girls are staying with. There’s clearly something not quite right with that aunt. And her cat…

The story, which is messy but fun, isn’t really important anyway. The best thing about this film is its imagery. So many scenes in this movie will forever be stuck in my head. There’s a tiny bit of blood (nothing gory) and some nudity so it’s definitely only for teens & adults but it’s like watching a slightly fucked up cartoon. It’s a good one for someone like me, who likes weird and creepy but struggles with the gory stuff.

Finally, I’ll end by saying that this horror (comedy) movie gets one more thing very right where so many other horror movies fail: I loved the characters. But I’m not talking about well developed characters or anything serious like that. The teenagers who visit this weird house in the countryside are also cartoonish in the way they’re given silly names with matching personalities. That was a lot of fun. Here are their names: Gorgeous, Kung Fu, Prof, Fantasy, Mac, Melody & Sweet. Kind of like the Seven Dwarfs, I suppose (characters I also love). I was especially fond of Kung Fu, who, as you might guess, goes around practicing her martial arts skills the whole time. What else can I say? This movie is weird as hell and loads of fun. I highly recommend it but be patient if you watch it as it starts out very slow. Don’t worry – shit gets crazy once they arrive at the HAUSU!

My Rating: 8/10

My 2017 Blind Spot Choices

Last year I really enjoyed joining in on the Blind Spot series so many bloggers choose to do each year. You can see my final ranked list & review links to my 12 Blind Spot Movies Of 2016 HERE. I won’t be doing quite as much on this blog this year but I do like the thought of at least selecting another 12 films that I’ve been wanting to watch & finally making myself get around to watching them. So here are my choices for 2017:

Wolf Children

Jackie Brown

The Hustler

Watership Down

The Raid

Rocky

Fritz The Cat

The Last Temptation Of Christ

The King And I

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

Zodiac

House (Hausu)

Some Alternates (depending upon availability of the above & free time):

El Topo
The City Of Lost Children
Tetsuo (1989)
Solaris (1972)
Altered States
Ghost In The Shell
The Untouchables
Gandhi
The Right Stuff
Once Upon A Time In America