knightni

Looks like it's full.

I'm in. Where's Brian?

QUOTE (Jordan4life @ Oct 24, 2010 -> 08:26 PM) Good. Change it back to 12 teams. 12 teams is perfect. Marcus is the Commish. PM him.

QUOTE (Brian @ Oct 24, 2010 -> 08:02 PM) I'd do it if there is still time You know what, I will too.

Giants in 6.

QUOTE (chw42 @ Oct 24, 2010 -> 03:06 PM) Ratings have gone down every year for a while now. http://www.baseball-almanac.com/ws/wstv.shtml 1996-98 is beginning of the internet for everyone era. Plus, you see that FOX took over the Series after 1999, when the ratings started to take a serious dip. I just think that all primetime TV has been affected to a point over the last 15 years so that all TV ratings would mirror the baseball ones.

59-14 Raiders after 3rd Q. I wonder if McDaniel will lose his GM job?

If it's 9pm and you need a 12th guy, let me know.

I just acquired a PSP GO. I need to buy a charger to make sure that it works, but I'm not liking that it doesn't have an external game drive like the original PSP has.

QUOTE (Buehrle>Wood @ Oct 24, 2010 -> 03:55 PM) Saw and The Ring, definitely two of my favorites. I appreciate the feedback!

There's a few more. A lot of newer, but also an older one.

21. (tie) Rosemary's Baby (1968) (6 of 20 lists - 76 points - highest rank #7 ScottyDo) Rosemary's Baby is a 1968 American horror film written and directed by Roman Polanski, based on the bestselling 1967 novel by Ira Levin. The cast includes Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon, Maurice Evans, Sidney Blackmer, and Charles Grodin. The film received mostly positive reviews and earned numerous nominations and awards. The American Film Institute ranked the film 9th in their 100 Years…100 Thrills list. The official tagline of the film is "Pray for Rosemary's Baby." Plot Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow), a bright but somewhat naive young housewife, and Guy (John Cassavetes), her husband and a struggling actor, move into the Bramford, a Gothic, 19th century New York City apartment building with a history of unsavory tenants and mysterious events. Their neighbors are an elderly and slightly eccentric couple, Minnie and Roman Castevet (Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer), who tend to be meddlesome but seem harmless. Guy becomes unusually close to the pair while Rosemary tries to maintain a distance from them. Guy lands a role in a play when the actor originally cast suddenly and inexplicably goes blind. Soon afterward, Guy suggests that he and Rosemary have the child they had planned. On the night they plan to try to conceive, Minnie brings them individual ramekins of chocolate mousse, but Rosemary finds hers has a chalky under-taste and surreptitiously throws it away after a few mouthfuls. Shortly afterward, she has a dizzy spell and passes out. She experiences what she perceives to be a strange dream in which she is raped by a demonic presence. A few weeks later, Rosemary learns she is pregnant and is due on June 28, 1966 (6/66). She plans to receive obstetric care from Dr. Hill, recommended by her friend Elise (Emmaline Henry), but the Castevets insist she see their good friend, famed obstetrician, Dr. Sapirstein (Ralph Bellamy). For the first three months of her pregnancy, Rosemary suffers severe abdominal pains, loses weight, and craves raw meat and chicken liver. The doctor insists the pain will subside soon and assures her she has nothing to worry about. At the Castavets' New Year's Eve party, Roman raises a toast to "1966: the Year One". When her old friend Hutch sees Rosemary's gaunt appearance, he is disturbed enough to do some research, and plans to share his findings with her but falls into a coma before they can meet. He briefly regains consciousness before he dies, and instructs his friend Grace Cardiff to deliver the book about witchcraft on his desk that he had planned to give to Rosemary. Photographs, passages in the text he marked, and the cryptic message "the name is an anagram" lead Rosemary to realize Roman Castevet is really Steven Marcato, the son of Adrian Marcato, a former resident of the Bramford who was accused of worshiping Satan and was a martyr to the cause. She suspects her neighbors are part of a cult with sinister designs for her baby, and Guy is cooperating with them in exchange for their help in advancing his career. She deduces that Dr. Saperstein is also part of the conspiracy when his receptionist comments that the smell coming from a good luck charm given to Rosemary by the Castavets — which contains tannis root, also known as "Devil's Pepper" — reminds her of a fragrance often shared by the doctor. An increasingly disturbed Rosemary shares her fears and suspicions with Dr. Hill, who, assuming she is delusional, calls Dr. Sapirstein and Guy. She is told that if she cooperates, she and the baby will not be harmed. The two men bring Rosemary home, at which point she goes into labor. When she awakens following the delivery of her baby, she is told the child died shortly after birth. However, when she hears an infant's cries somewhere in the building, she suspects he still is alive. In the hall closet, she discovers a secret door leading into the Castevet apartment where the coven meets, and finds the congregation gathered, worshipping her newborn son, the spawn of Satan. The truth is revealed about Rosemary's son being the Antichrist, devastating Rosemary considerably. Both Roman and the coven urge Rosemary to become a mother to her son, Adrian. The film ends with her adjusting her son's blankets and gently rocking his cradle. Cast * Mia Farrow as Rosemary Woodhouse * John Cassavetes as Guy Woodhouse * Ruth Gordon as Minnie Castevet * Sidney Blackmer as Roman Castevet / Steven Marcato * Maurice Evans as Hutch * Ralph Bellamy as Dr. Abraham Sapirstein * Charles Grodin as Dr. Hill * Patsy Kelly as Laura-Louise * Victoria Vetri as Terry Gionoffrio * Emmaline Henry as Elise Dunstan * Hanna Landy as Grace Cardiff * Tony Curtis as voice of Donald Baumgart Production Script In Rosemary's Baby: A Retrospective, a featurette on the DVD release of the film, screenwriter/director Roman Polanski, Paramount Pictures executive Robert Evans, and production designer Richard Sylbert reminisce at length about the production. Evans recalled William Castle brought him the galley proofs of the book and asked him to purchase the film rights even before Random House released the publication. The studio head recognized the commercial potential of the project and agreed with the stipulation that Castle, who had a reputation for low-budget horror films, could produce but not direct the film adaptation. He makes a cameo as the man at the phone booth waiting for Mia Farrow to finish her call. Evans admired Polanski's European films and hoped he could convince him to make his American debut with Rosemary's Baby. He knew the director was a ski buff who was anxious to make a film with the sport as its basis, so he sent him the script for Downhill Racer along with the galleys for Rosemary. Polanski read the latter book non-stop through the night and called Evans the following morning to tell him he thought Rosemary was the more interesting project, and would like the opportunity to write as well as direct it. Polanski, having never before adapted a screenplay, was not aware that he was allowed to make changes from the source material, leading to the film being extremely faithful to the novel and including many lines of dialogue drawn directly from Levin's book. Author Ira Levin claimed that during a scene in which Guy mentions wanting to buy a particular shirt advertised in The New Yorker, Polanski was unable to find the specific issue with the shirt advertised and phoned Levin for help. Levin, who had assumed while writing that any given issue of The New Yorker would contain an ad for men's shirts, admitted that he had made it up. Casting Polanski envisioned Rosemary as a robust, full-figured, girl-next-door type, and he wanted Tuesday Weld or his own wife Sharon Tate for the role. Since the book had not reached bestseller status yet, Evans was unsure the title alone would guarantee an audience for the film, and he felt a bigger name was needed for the lead. Patty Duke was considered for the lead. With only a supporting role in Guns at Batasi (1964) and the not-yet-released A Dandy in Aspic (1968) as her only feature film credits, Mia Farrow had an unproven box office track record, but her role as Allison MacKenzie in the popular television series Peyton Place and her unexpected marriage to Frank Sinatra had made her a household name. Despite her waif-like appearance (which would ultimately prove beneficial to the character, as Rosemary became more frail as her pregnancy progressed), Polanski agreed to cast her. Her acceptance incensed Sinatra, who had demanded she forgo her career when they wed, and he served her divorce papers via a corporate lawyer, in front of the cast and crew midway through filming. In an effort to salvage her relationship, Farrow asked Evans to release her from her contract, but he persuaded her to remain with the project after showing her an hour-long rough cut and assuring her she would receive an Academy Award nomination for her performance. Robert Redford was the first choice for the role of Guy Woodhouse, but he turned down the offer. Jack Nicholson was considered briefly before Polanski suggested John Cassavetes. Sylbert was a good friend of Garson Kanin, who was married to Ruth Gordon, and he suggested her for the role of Minnie Castevet. He also suggested The Dakota, an Upper West Side apartment building known for its show business tenants, be used for the Bramford. Its hallways were not as worn and dark as Polanski wanted, but when the building's owners would not allow interior filming, that became a moot point and it was used for exterior shots only. Polanski wanted to cast Hollywood old-timers as the coven members but did not know any by name. He drew sketches of how he envisioned each character, and they were used to fill the roles. In every instance, the actor cast strongly resembled Polanski's drawing. These included Ralph Bellamy, Patsy Kelly, Elisha Cook, Jr., Phil Leeds, and Hope Summers. When Rosemary calls Donald Baumgart, the actor who goes blind and is replaced by Guy, the voice heard is that of actor Tony Curtis. Farrow, who had not been told who would be reading Baumgart's lines, recognized the voice but could not place it. The slight confusion she displays throughout the call was exactly what Polanski hoped to capture by not revealing Curtis' identity in advance. Filming Sydney Guilaroff designed the wig worn by Mia Farrow in the film's early scenes. It was removed to reveal the Vidal Sassoon hairdo that made headlines when Farrow cut her trademark long hair during filming of Peyton Place. One of Mia Farrow's more emotionally charged scenes occurs in the midst of a party, when several of Rosemary's female friends lock Guy out of the kitchen as they console her in private. The scene was shot in a single day. That morning, just before the first take was filmed, a private messenger served Farrow with formal divorce papers from Frank Sinatra. As she read the documents, Farrow fell to her knees on the kitchen floor and openly wept in front of the cast and crew. Roman Polanski insisted that the day be canceled and filming be postponed until the next day, when he would start consecutively filming as many scenes as possible that did not contain Rosemary. Farrow openly would not accept this, insisting that nothing had changed. The day's filming concluded on time and without delay. When Farrow was reluctant to film a scene that depicted a dazed and preoccupied Rosemary wandering into the middle of a Manhattan street into oncoming traffic, Polanski pointed to her pregnancy padding and reassured her, "no one's going to hit a pregnant woman". The scene was successfully shot with Farrow walking into real traffic and Polanski following along, operating the hand-held camera since he was the only one willing to do it. Critical reception In her review for The New York Times, Renata Adler said, "The movie—although it is pleasant—doesn't seem to work on any of its dark or powerful terms. I think this is because it is almost too extremely plausible. The quality of the young people's lives seems the quality of lives that one knows, even to the point of finding old people next door to avoid and lean on. One gets very annoyed that they don't catch on sooner." Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called it "a brooding, macabre film, filled with the sense of unthinkable danger. Strangely enough it also has an eerie sense of humor almost until the end. It is a creepy film and a crawly film, and a film filled with things that go bump in the night. It is very good...much more than just a suspense story; the brilliance of the film comes more from Polanski's direction, and from a series of genuinely inspired performances, than from the original story . . . The best thing that can be said about the film, I think, is that it works. Polanski has taken a most difficult situation and made it believable, right up to the end. In this sense, he even outdoes Hitchcock." Variety stated, "Several exhilarating milestones are achieved in Rosemary's Baby, an excellent film version of Ira Levin's diabolical chiller novel. Writer-director Roman Polanski has triumphed in his first US-made pic. The film holds attention without explicit violence or gore . . . Farrow's performance is outstanding." Today, the film is widely regarded as a classic; 53 of the 54 reviews surveyed on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes are positive. Legacy In the 1976 television film, Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby, Patty Duke starred as Rosemary Woodhouse and Ruth Gordon reprised her role of Minnie Castevet. For the scene where Rosemary is raped by Satan, Rosemary's Baby ranked #23 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments. Contrary to an urban legend, Anton LaVey did not play the role of Satan in the rape scene of Rosemary's Baby. In fact it was actor Clay Tanner, and no technical advisor was used. Thirty years after he wrote Rosemary's Baby, Ira Levin wrote Son of Rosemary, a sequel which he dedicated to the film's star, Mia Farrow. Reaction to the book was mixed, but it made the best seller lists nationwide. A 2009-2010 remake of Rosemary's Baby was briefly considered. The intended producers were Michael Bay, Andrew Form, and Brad Fuller. The remake fell through in 2008. Accolades Academy Awards * Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress (Ruth Gordon, winner) * Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay (nominee) Golden Globe Awards * Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture (Gordon, winner) * Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama (Farrow, nominee) * Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay (nominee) * Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score (nominee) Other awards * BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role (Mia Farrow, nominee) * Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures (nominee) * Writers Guild of America Award for Best Written American Drama (nominee) * David di Donatello Award for Best Foreign Actress (Mia Farrow, winner) * David di Donatello Award for Best Foreign Director (winner) * Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Motion Picture Screenplay (nominee) * French Syndicate of Cinema Critics Award for Best Foreign Film (winner) * Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor (Sidney Blackmer, winner) * Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress (Gordon, winner) In popular culture The film has been parodied in numerous works since its 1968 release, including Mad Magazine ("Rosemia's Boo-Boo", issue #124, January 1969) and The Realist ("Rosemerica's Baby", No. 93, August 1972). References to the film can also be found in innumerable music and television works. Some artists who have featured references to the film within their music include Interpol, Microfilm (band), Charles Bronson, The Devil Wears Prada, The Tubes, Today Is the Day, Walt Mink and Fantômas. The hardcore punk band Rosemary's Babies took the pluralized version of the title as a statement of their horror film influences. The film has also been referenced in several television shows and other films, including That '70s Show, Bébé's Kids, South Park, Star Trek: Enterprise, Chapter 27, Stay Tuned, Last Action Hero,Ugly Americans, Frasier, Weeds, Angels in America, CSI, Gilmore Girls and Roseanne. Following the film's premier, a string of movies about Satan worshippers and black magic appeared on the low budget-big budget scene. Among those films made and released were The Devil Rides Out, The Brotherhood Of Satan, Mark Of The Devil and Blood On Satan's Claw. They offered up new views of good against evil, especially when Devil worship caused concern in the modern world.

21. (tie) Saw (2004) (5 of 20 lists - 76 points - highest rank #2 Buehrle>Wood) Saw is a 2004 American-Australian horror film directed by James Wan and starring Tobin Bell, Shawnee Smith, Leigh Whannell, Cary Elwes and Danny Glover. The plot of the film was conceived of by James Wan, while Whannell wrote the screenplay. It is the first installment of the Saw film series. The film's story revolves around two men who awaken kidnapped and chained in a dilapidated industrial bathroom. They are each given instructions via a microcassette recorder to kill the other man in the room as that is the only "rule" of their "game". Meanwhile, police detectives investigate and attempt to apprehend the mastermind behind the "game." The film was first screened January 19, 2004, at the Sundance Film Festival to positive reviews. It was then screened at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 18, 2004, with theatrical releases on October 29, 2004, in the United States and December 2, 2004, in Australia. The film was originally rated NC-17 for strong, graphic violence, though after being slightly re-edited, it was released with an R rating. Critical responses varied. Some critics denounced the entire film as nothing more than a "cheap snuff film", while others praised its stylish visuals and called it a true "chilling" and "terrifying" horror film. Despite mixed reviews, Saw was a financial box office success. Plot Adam Stanheight (Leigh Whannell), a photographer, and Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes), an oncologist, awaken at opposite ends of a grimy, disused bathroom, Adam in a water-filled bathtub. Both men are chained at the ankle to the pipes. Between them is a body of a man lying in a pool of blood, who appears to have shot himself in the head. He holds a revolver and a microcassette recorder. Adam and Lawrence discover tapes in their pockets; the men learn from both tapes that Adam must escape the bathroom, while Lawrence must kill Adam before six o'clock, or he'll lose his wife and daughter and be left to die. They find a bag containing two hacksaws, though neither is able to cut through the chains. Adam breaks his saw and throws it at a mirror in frustration; Lawrence realizes that they are meant to be used on their feet. Lawrence tells Adam that their captor is very likely the Jigsaw Killer, whose name is a misnomer; he never directly kills anyone, instead putting victims in situations or mechanical traps (which he refers to as "games") in which they must go through physical and/or psychological torture to survive and escape with a better appreciation for life. Flashbacks show that while Lawrence was talking with some students and an orderly named Zep Hindle (Michael Emerson) about the terminal brain cancer of a man named John Kramer (Tobin Bell), he was approached by Detectives David Tapp (Danny Glover) and Steven Sing (Ken Leung) about his penlight being found at the scene of a Jigsaw "game". He viewed the testimony of Amanda Young (Shawnee Smith), a heroin addict, who is the only known survivor of Jigsaw's games; she barely escaped from having her jaws ripped open during her game by a "reverse bear trap" and believes that her experience made her a better person. Other victims of Jigsaw's games included Paul, who was trapped in a cage filled with barbed wire, and Mark, who was trapped in a room with a flammable substance all over his body along with a candle to help him read the walls covered with numbers that hid the combination to a safe. One of the detectives revealed that Jigsaw frequently watched his victims die — he "liked to book himself front row seats to his own sick little games". Meanwhile, Lawrence's wife and daughter, Alison (Monica Potter) and Diana (Makenzie Vega), are being held captive in their home by a man who is watching Adam and Lawrence through a camera behind the bathroom's mirror, while tormenting Alison and Diana. Their house is simultaneously being watched by Tapp, who was discharged from the force. Flashbacks show that he became obsessed with the Jigsaw case after viewing Amanda's testimony, and that he and Sing illegally entered a warehouse they knew to be Jigsaw's lair and saved a man from being killed by drills aimed at his neck. Jigsaw managed to make a run for it after slashing Tapp's throat, and Sing was killed by a shotgun booby trap while pursuing him. After being discharged, Tapp began stalking Lawrence. In the bathroom, Lawrence finds a mobile phone that can only receive calls and a cigarette and lighter; he and Adam use the latter two items to try to stage Adam's death, but an electric shock through Adam's ankle chain foils this plan. Following these events, Adam and Lawrence recall their abductions; they were both ambushed and knocked unconscious by a stranger wearing a gruesome pig mask. Lawrence receives a call from Alison, who warns him that Adam knows more than he is telling. Adam explains that he was paid to take pictures of Lawrence for the past few days by Tapp, and shows Lawrence a pile of pictures of him from the bag containing the hacksaws. Lawrence berates Adam for invading his privacy, while Adam shows Lawrence evidence that he was cheating on Alison. Adam then notices a picture of a man in Lawrence's house; Lawrence identifies the man as Zep the orderly, and the two deduce that Zep is their abductor. Adam then points out that it is six o'clock, the deadline. Zep moves to kill Alison, but she frees herself and manages to overpower Zep, gaining Tapp's attention in the process. He arrives in time to save Alison and Diana from Zep, allowing them to escape, and chases Zep to the sewers. Lawrence, who is only aware of gunshots and screaming, is zapped by the ankle chain as well and loses reach of the phone; in desperation, he saws off his foot, then takes the revolver and shoots Adam, who collapses to the floor. Zep, who shot Tapp during the chase, enters the bathroom intent on killing Lawrence, only to be blindsided by Adam (whose gunshot wound in the shoulder had not been fatal) and beaten to death with a toilet tank cover. As Lawrence crawls away with the promise that he'll return with help, Adam searches Zep's body for a key and finds another microcassette recorder. He learns that Zep was another victim of the game, following rules to obtain an antidote for the slow poison within his body. While listening to the tape, the body that had been lying on the floor then rises to its feet and reveals itself as John Kramer, the real Jigsaw Killer. He tells Adam that the chain's key is in the bathtub, which was drained when Adam accidentally kicked the plug out. Adam then grabs Zep's pistol and tries to shoot Jigsaw but is electrocuted by his hidden remote control before he can get a shot off. Jigsaw then turns off the lights and shuts the bathroom door while leaving Adam inside to die. Cast * Tobin Bell as Jigsaw * Shawnee Smith as Amanda Young * Leigh Whannell as Adam Faulkner * Cary Elwes as Dr. Lawrence Gordon * Danny Glover as Detective David Tapp * Michael Emerson as Zep Hindle * Dina Meyer as Detective Allison Kerry * Mike Butters as Paul Leahy Stallberg * Paul Gutrecht as Mark Rodriguez Wilson * Ken Leung as Detective Steven Sing * Makenzie Vega as Diana Gordon * Monica Potter as Alison Gordon * Ned Bellamy as Jeff Ridenhour * Alexandra Bokyun Chun as Carla * Oren Koules as Donnie Greco (uncredited) * Benito Martinez as Brett * Avner Garbi as Father * Hans Raith as Detective (uncredited) Reception Box office The film earned $18,276,468 on its opening weekend which averaged $7,894 per theater from 2,467 theaters, and ranked #3 for the weekend behind The Grudge and Ray. Saw went on to gross $103.1 million in 9 weeks in theaters. Critical Critical responses were mixed. Rotten Tomatoes reports that 47% critics gave the film a positive review, based upon a sample of 158, with an average score of 5.4 out of 10. On Metacritic, the film has an average score of 46 out of 100, based on 32 reviews. Roger Ebert gave Saw two stars out of four, calling it "an efficiently made thriller" but "finally not quite worth the ordeal it puts us through." Carla Meyer of The San Francisco Chronicle wrote that the film "[combined] B-movie acting with a twisted mind-set and visual tricks designed to camouflage cheap effects" and that it was "terrifying at some moments and insinuatingly creepy at many others". Despite the mixed critical response, the movie has attracted a strong following and has spawned six sequels as of 2010. On Empire magazine's list of the 500 greatest films, it is ranked 499th. Bloody Disgusting ranked the film tenth in its list of the Top 20 Horror Films of the Decade, with the article calling Saw [p]erhaps the most influential horror film of the decade, [which] kick-started a franchise.... n light of its measly $1.2 million price tag the film's quality relative to bigger-budget horror films is striking. It also takes itself seriously, which came as a breath of fresh air following the trend of wimpy tongue-in-cheek horror that had dominated the multiplexes post-Scream. More than anything, this twisted morality tale is a film made by horror fans, for horror fans; it’s gory, it's depraved, and best of all it introduced a new horror icon in Jigsaw." Home media Soundtrack Megadeth's song "Die Dead Enough" was originally set to be featured in the movie, but was not used for undisclosed reasons. DVD Uncut Edition The uncut edition of the film is approximately eight seconds longer than the theatrical version.[14] The additional footage includes: * An extra closeup shot of the body on the floor, which shows the extent of the "gunshot wound" on the back of the head. * A few extra seconds of Paul crawling through the razor wire. * A few extra shots of Amanda sifting through the intestines and stomach of Donnie. * An extra shot of Lawrence sawing into his foot, which shows more blood. However, in addition to the new footage, the dialogue between Lawrence and Adam in the end, just before Lawrence leaves, has been shortened in the Region 1 release as Dr. Gordon's line of "I wouldn't lie to you." has been cut, but is retained in the Region 2 release. The short film used to promote it, also entitled "Saw", is also included on the DVD. The uncut DVD also contains "See Saw in 60", which consists of three jumpy and humorous one-minute condensed versions of the film. Two are presented using dolls with crude faces drawn on them; sound clips from the movie are used for one, high-pitched squeaky voices for the other. The third is made using actual footage from the movie and the squeaky voices. A similar Easter egg was used on later uncut releases of the sequels. Saw VI bundle A barebones copy (featuring no special features) of "Saw" was featured with the DVD and Blu-ray release of Saw VI. Video game A video game, also titled Saw, was developed by Zombie Studios and published by Konami. The game serves as a sequel to Saw, and a prequel to Saw II. It was released on October 6, 2009 on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC platforms.

22. The Ring (2002) (5 of 20 lists - 75 points - highest rank #2 pittshoganerkoff) The Ring is a 2002 American psychological horror film directed by Gore Verbinski and starring Naomi Watts and Martin Henderson. It is an American remake of the 1998 Japanese horror film Ring. Both films are based on Kôji Suzuki's novel Ring and focus on a mysterious cursed videotape which contains a seemingly random series of disturbing images. After watching the tape, the viewer receives a phone call in which a girl's voice announces that the viewer will die in seven days. The film was a critical and commercial success. Plot Two teenage girls, 16-year-old Katie Embry (Amber Tamblyn) and 17-year-old Becca Kotler (Rachael Bella), discuss a supposedly cursed videotape while home alone at Katie's house. Katie reveals that, seven days before, she went to a cabin at Shelter Mountain Inn with friends, where she viewed the video tape. The girls laugh it off, but after a series of strange occurrences in the next few minutes, involving a television in the house turning itself on, Katie dies mysteriously and horrifically while Becca watches, leading to Becca's institutionalization in a mental hospital. Katie's 9-year-old cousin, Aidan (David Dorfman), is visibly affected by the death. After Katie's funeral, Ruth Embry (Lindsay Frost) asks her sister Rachel (Naomi Watts), Aidan's mother and a journalist, to investigate Katie's death, which leads her to the cabin where Katie watched the tape. Rachel finds and watches the tape; the phone rings, and she hears a child's voice say "seven days", upsetting Rachel. The next day, Rachel calls Noah (Martin Henderson), an ex-boyfriend who is Aiden's father, to show him the video and asks for his assistance based upon his media-related skills. He asks her to make a copy for further investigation, which she does, but later takes it home herself. To Rachel's horror, she discovers Aidan watching the copy a few days later. After viewing the tape, Rachel begins experiencing nightmares, nose bleeds, and surreal situations (for instance, when she pauses a section of the tape in which a fly runs across the screen, she is able to pluck the fly from the monitor). Increasingly anxious about getting to the origin of the tape, Rachel investigates images of a woman seen in the tape. Using a video lab, she discovers images in the tape's overscan area, which through further research she discovers to be a lighthouse located on Moesko Island. It also turns out that the tape's overscan does not include time code, which hints that the tape was not made using electronic equipment. The woman turns out to be Anna Morgan, who lived on the island in Washington, many years prior with her husband Richard (Brian Cox). Rachel discovers that, after bringing home an adopted daughter, tragedy befell the Morgan ranch – the horses raised on the ranch went mad and killed themselves, which in turn supposedly had caused Anna (who loved her horses) to become depressed and commit suicide. Rachel goes to the Morgan house and finds Richard, who refuses to talk about the video or his daughter and sends Rachel away. A local doctor tells Rachel that Anna could not carry a baby to term and adopted a child named Samara (Daveigh Chase). The doctor recounts that Anna soon complained about gruesome visions that only happened when Samara was around, so both were sent to a mental institution. While Rachel is investigating on Moesko Island, Noah is investigating the institution, where he finds Anna's file and discovers that there was a video of Samara, but the video is missing. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Rachel sneaks back to the Morgan house where she discovers the missing video, watches it, and is confronted by Richard who says that the girl was evil. He then electrocutes himself in the bathtub, sending Rachel running out of the room screaming. Noah arrives and, with Rachel, goes to the barn to discover an attic where Samara was kept by her father. Behind the wallpaper they discover an image of a tree seen on the tape, which grows near the Shelter Mountain Inn. At the inn, they discover a well underneath the floor, in which Rachel finds Samara's body, experiencing a vision of how her mother pushed her into it. Rachel notifies the authorities, and gives Samara a proper burial. Rachel informs Aidan that they will no longer be troubled by Samara. However, Aidan is horrified, telling his mother she had freed her body, and that Samara "never sleeps". In his apartment, Noah's TV turns on, revealing an image in which a decaying Samara crawls from the well and out of the TV into the room. Horrified, Noah trips backward and tries to crawl away from Samara. Samara faces him, exposes her true face and stares directly at him, killing him with fear, which Rachel discovers after racing to his apartment and seeing his face distorted like Katie's was. Upon returning to her apartment, Rachel destroys and burns the original tape. Wondering why she had not died like the others, she remembers that she made a copy of the tape. She soon notices the copy of the tape underneath the couch. Rachel realizes the only way to escape and save Aidan is to copy the tape and show it to someone else, continuing the cycle. The film ends with Rachel helping Aidan to copy the tape. Cast * Naomi Watts as Rachel Keller * Martin Henderson as Noah Clay * David Dorfman as Aidan Keller * Brian Cox as Richard Morgan * Jane Alexander as Dr. Grasnik * Lindsay Frost as Ruth Embry * Amber Tamblyn as Katie Embry * Rachael Bella as Rebecca 'Becca' Kotler * Daveigh Chase as Samara Morgan * Shannon Cochran as Anna Morgan * Richard Lineback as Innkeeper * Pauley Perrette as Beth * Sara Rue as Babysitter Reception In order to advertise The Ring, many promotional websites were formed featuring the characters and places in the film. The film was financially successful; the box office gross actually increased from its 1st weekend to its 2nd, as the initial success led DreamWorks to roll the film into 700 additional theatres. The Ring made $8.3 million in its first two weeks in Japan, compared to Ring's $6.6 million total box-office gross. The success of The Ring opened the way for American remakes of several other Japanese horror films, including The Grudge and Dark Water. A sequel, The Ring Two, was released in North American theaters on March 18, 2005. It was directed by Hideo Nakata, the director of Ring. The Ring also received critical acclaim from film critics, receiving 72% favorable reviews out of 167 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, and a Metacritic score of 57/100 (mixed or average) from 36 reviews. On the television program Ebert & Roeper, Richard Roeper gave the film "Thumbs Up" and said it was very gripping and scary despite some minor unanswered questions. Roger Ebert gave the film "Thumbs Down" and felt it was boring and "borderline ridiculous"; he also disliked the extended, detailed ending. IGN’s Jeremy Conrad praised the movie for its atmospheric set up and cinematography, and said that “there are 'disturbing images'… but the film doesn't really rely on gore to deliver the scares. … The Ring relies on atmosphere and story to deliver the jumps, not someone being cleaved in half by a glass door.” Film Threat's Jim Agnew called it “dark, disturbing and original throughout. You know that you’re going to see something a little different than your usual studio crap.” Verbinski was praised for slowly revealing the plot while keeping the audience interested, “the twists keep on coming, and Verbinski shows a fine-tuned gift for calibrating and manipulating viewer expectations.” Despite the praise given to Verbinski’s direction, critics railed the characters as being weak. The Chicago Reader’s Jonathan Rosenbaurn said that the film was “an utter waste of Watts… perhaps because the script didn’t bother to give her a character,” whereas other critics such as William Arnold from Seattle Post-Intelligencer said the opposite: “she projects intelligence, determination and resourcefulness that carry the movie nicely.” Many critics regarded Dorfman’s character as a "creepy-child" “Sixth Sense cliché.” A large sum of critics, like Miami Herald’s Rene Rodriguez and USA Today’s Claudia Puig found themselves confused and thought that by the end of the movie “[the plot] still doesn't make much sense.” The movie was number 20 on the cable channel Bravo's list of the 100 Scariest Movie Moments. Bloody Disgusting ranked the film sixth in their list of the 'Top 20 Horror Films of the Decade', with the article saying "The Ring was not only the first American “J-Horror” remake out of the gate; it also still stands as the best." Sequel A sequel to "The Ring" was produced in 2005. "The Ring Two" is based upon the events in "The Ring," and furthers the story. Also, another 'sequel' is set to be produced. "The Ring 3D" has been confirmed, and is predicted to be released in 2011 or 2012. The plot of this sequel is, as of now, depicting the events that occurred in Samara's past - before the cursed video tape. The film is to be filmed in 3D.

23. Let The Right One In (2008) (5 of 20 lists - 72 points - highest rank #5 Soxy) Let the Right One In (Swedish: Låt den rätte komma in) is a 2008 Swedish romantic horror film directed by Tomas Alfredson. Based on the novel of the same name by John Ajvide Lindqvist (who also wrote the screenplay), the film tells the story of a bullied 12-year-old boy who develops a friendship with a vampire child in Blackeberg, a suburb of Stockholm, in the early 1980s. Alfredson, unfamiliar with the horror and vampire genres, decided to tone down many elements of the novel and focus primarily on the relationship between the two main characters. Selecting the lead actors involved a year-long process with open castings held all over Sweden. In the end, then 11-year-olds Kåre Hedebrant and Lina Leandersson were chosen for the leading roles. They were subsequently commended by both Alfredson and film reviewers for their performances. The film received widespread international critical acclaim and won numerous awards, including the "Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature" at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival and the European Fantastic Film Festivals Federation's 2008 Méliès d'Or (Golden Méliès) for the "Best European Fantastic Feature Film", as well as four Guldbagge Awards from the Swedish Film Institute. Plot Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant), a meek 12-year-old boy, lives with his mother, Yvonne (Karin Bergquist), in the western Stockholm suburb of Blackeberg in 1982. His classmates regularly bully him, and he spends his evenings imagining revenge. One night, he meets Eli (Lina Leandersson), who has the physical appearance of a pale girl his own age. Eli has recently moved in next door to Oskar with an older man named Håkan (Per Ragnar). Eli initially informs Oskar that they cannot be friends. However, over time, they begin to form a close relationship, with Oskar lending his Rubik's Cube to Eli, and the two exchanging Morse code messages through their apartment wall. Håkan secretly requests that Eli stop seeing him, but is rebuffed, as Eli has developed tender feelings for Oskar. This is first seen when Eli discovers that Oskar's schoolmates have bullied him after questioning him about a cut on his cheek, and encourages him to stand up for himself. This inspires Oskar to finally stand up to his tormentors during a field trip and to strike the leader of the bullies, Conny (Patrik Rydmark), on the side of the head with a pole, damaging his ear. Meanwhile, Håkan has killed a local resident to provide blood for Eli. When he fails to return with the blood, Eli finds and kills a local resident named Jocke (Mikael Rohm). Håkan attempts to hide his body in a lake, but Oskar's fellow-students discover it during a field trip. When his last attempt to secure blood fails, and he is about to be caught, Håkan purposely disfigures himself by pouring acid on his face, preventing the authorities from identifying him and tracing Eli. Eli finds out where Håkan is being held at the local hospital. Håkan lets Eli in the window and offers his neck for Eli to feed on. Afterwards, he falls out the window to his death. Now alone, Eli goes to Oskar's apartment and spends the night with him, during which time they agree to "go steady". Some time later, Oskar shows Eli a private place he knows. Unaware that Eli is a vampire, Oskar suggests that they form a blood bond, and cuts his hand, asking Eli to do the same. Eli, thirsting for blood but not wanting to harm Oskar, laps up his spilt blood before running away. Soon after, Eli attacks Virginia (Ika Nord), a local woman. Her boyfriend, Lacke (Peter Carlberg), who was also Jocke's best friend, turns up just in time to interrupt the attack. Virginia survives the attack, but soon discovers that she has become painfully sensitive to sunlight. Thirsting for blood, she pays a visit to her friend, the eccentric Gösta. Gösta's many cats attack her fiercely. In the hospital, Virginia asks an orderly to open the blinds in her room. When the sunlight streams in, she bursts into flames. Lacke, who has lost everything because of Eli, seeks out Håkan and Eli's apartment. He finds Eli asleep in the bathtub and, as he is about to strike, Oskar distracts him. Eli is alerted by the noise and kills Lacke. Eli realises that it is no longer safe to stay, and informs Oskar of this. The next morning, Oskar receives a phone call from Conny's friend, Martin (Mikael Erhardsson), who lures Oskar out to resume an after-school fitness program at the local swimming pool. The bullies, led by Conny and his older brother, Jimmy (Rasmus Luthander), start a fire to draw Mr. Ávila (Cayetano Ruiz), the teacher in charge, outside. This leaves Oskar trapped alone in the pool, where Jimmy forces him to hold his breath underwater for three minutes, threatening to cut Oskar's eye out if he fails. As Oskar is underwater, a commotion takes place above the surface. Soon, Jimmy's severed head drops into the pool, followed shortly by his arm, which was holding Oskar down. Oskar is then pulled out of the water by Eli. A closing wide shot reveals three dismembered bodies around the pool and Andreas (Johan Sömnes), the reluctant fourth bully, sobbing on a bench. The film concludes with Oskar travelling on a train, with Eli beside him in a trunk to avoid the sunlight. Inside, Eli taps the word "kiss" to Oskar in Morse code, which he taps back. Cast * Kåre Hedebrant as Oskar * Lina Leandersson (Elif Ceylan, voice) as Eli * Per Ragnar as Håkan * Henrik Dahl as Erik, Oskar's father * Karin Bergquist as Yvonne, Oskar's mother * Peter Carlberg as Lacke * Ika Nord as Virginia * Mikael Rahm as Jocke * Karl Robert Lindgren as Gösta * Anders T. Peedu as Morgan * Pale Olofsson as Larry * Cayetano Ruiz as Magister Ávila * Patrik Rydmark as Conny * Johan Sömnes as Andreas * Mikael Erhardsson as Martin * Rasmus Luthander as Jimmy * Sören Källstigen as Erik's friend * Bernt Östman as Virginia's nurse * Kajsa Linderholm as the teacher * Susanne Ruben as the older Eli Production Development The film project started in late 2004 when John Nordling, a producer at the production company EFTI, contacted Ajvide Lindqvist's publisher Ordfront to acquire the rights for a film adaption of Ajvide Lindqvist's novel. "At Ordfront they just laughed when I called, I was like the 48th they put on the list. But I called John Ajvide Lindqvist and it turned out we had the same idea of what kind of film we should make. It wasn't about money, but about the right constellation". A friend introduced Tomas Alfredson to the novel. While he normally doesn't like to receive books, because "it's a private thing to choose what to read", he decided to read it after a few weeks. He was deeply affected by the depiction of bullying in the novel. "It's very hard and very down-to-earth, unsentimental (...) I had some period when I grew up when I had hard times in school (...) So it really shook me", he told the Los Angeles Times. Ajvide Lindqvist was already familiar with Alfredson's previous work, and he and Alfredson discovered that they "understood each other very well." In addition to EFTI, co-producers included Sveriges Television and the regional production centre Filmpool Nord. The production of the film involved a total budget of around 29 million SEK, including support from the Swedish Film Institute and Nordisk Film- & TV Fond. Screenplay Ajvide Lindqvist had insisted on writing the screenplay himself. Alfredson, who had no familiarity with the vampire and horror genres, initially expressed skepticism at having the original author do the adaptation, but was very satisfied with the end result. Many of the minor characters and events from the book were removed, and focus directed primarily on the love story between the two leads. In particular, many aspects of the character Håkan, including him being a pedophile, were removed, and his relationship with Eli was left open to interpretation. Alfredson felt that the film could not deal with such a serious theme as pedophilia in a satisfying manner, and that this element would detract from the story of the children and their relationship. A key passage in the novel details what happens when a vampire enters a room uninvited, an action that traditional vampire lore usually prohibits. Alfredson originally wanted to omit this from the film, but Ajvide Lindqvist was adamant that it had to be included. Alfredson was initially nervous about the scene. He realized in post-production that the sound effects and music made it "American, in a bad way", and had to be removed for the scene to work. The end result, which shows Eli slowly beginning to bleed from her eyes, ears, and pores, received positive notices from many critics. Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian described it as a "haemophilia of rejection". The novel presents Eli as an androgynous boy, castrated centuries before by a sadistic vampire nobleman. The film handles the issue of Eli's gender more ambiguously: a brief scene in which Eli changes into a dress offers a glimpse of a suggestive scar but no explicit elaboration. A female actress plays Eli's character, but Eli tries to tell Oskar "I'm not a girl" when Oskar asks that Eli be his girlfriend. According to an interview with the director, as the film was originally conceived, flashbacks explained this aspect in more detail, but these scenes were eventually cut. In the end, Ajvide Lindqvist was satisfied with the adaptation. When Alfredson showed him eight minutes of footage for the first time, he "started to cry because it was so damn beautiful". He subsequently described the film as a "masterpiece". "It doesn't really matter that [Alfredson] didn't want to do it the way I wanted it in every respect. He could obviously never do that. The film is his creative process", he said. Casting "Both Kåre and Lina who plays the leading parts are extremely intelligent, have exceptional integrity and are both kinds of strange old people. (...) It took us a year to find them, and I think they’re unprecedentedly fantastic." —Tomas Alfredson, director Casting of the lead actors took almost a year, with open castings held all over Sweden. Kåre Hedebrant, selected to audition for the role as Oskar after an initial screening at his school, eventually landed the role. Lina Leandersson responded to an online advertisement seeking a 12-year old boy or girl "good at running". After three more auditions, she was selected to play Eli. Alfredson has described the casting process as the most difficult part of making the film. He had particular concerns about the interaction between the two leads, and the fact that those who had read the book would have a preconceived notion of how the characters were supposed to look. He wanted the actors to look innocent, and be able to interact in front of the camera. They were supposed to be "mirror images of each other. She is everything he isn't. Dark, strong, brave, and a girl. (...) Like two sides of the same coin." On another occasion, Alfredson stated that "[c]asting is 70 percent of the job; it's not about picking the right people to make the roles. It is about creating chords, how a B and a Minor interact together, and are played together." In the end, Alfredson expressed satisfaction with the result, and has frequently lauded Hedebrant and Leandersson for being "extremely intelligent", "incredibly wise", and "unprecedentedly fantastic." Filming Although the film takes place in Blackeberg, a suburb of Stockholm, principal photography took place in Luleå (in the north of Sweden) to ensure enough snow and cold weather. The area where the filming took place dated from around the same time as Blackeberg, and has similar architecture. However, Alfredson shot a few scenes in the Blackeberg area. In particular, the scene where Eli leaps down on Virginia from a tree, was shot in the town square of Blackeberg. Another scene, where Eli attacks Jocke in an underpass, was shot in the nearby suburb Råcksta. The original Blackeberg underpass that Lindqvist had envisioned was deemed too high to fit in the picture. Due to the extreme cold, many of the outdoor close-up scenes were made in a studio. The town hall of Boden was used for the hospital exterior scenes. The jungle gym where much of the interaction between Oskar and Eli takes place was constructed specifically for the film. Its design was intended to suit the CinemaScope format better than a regular jungle gym, which would typically have to be cropped height-wise. Most of the filming used a single, fixed, Arri 535B camera, with almost no handheld usage, and few cuts. Tracking shots relied on a track-mounted dolly, rather than Steadicam, to create calm, predictable camera movement. The crew paid special attention to lighting. Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema and director Tomas Alfredson invented a technique they called "spray light". In an interview, van Hoytema describes it as follows: "If you could capture dull electrical light in a can and spray it like hairspray across Eli’s apartment, it would have the same result as what we created". For the emotional scenes between Oskar and Eli, van Hoytema consistently diffused the lighting. Post-production The film contains around 50 shots with computer-generated imagery. Alfredson wanted to make them very subtle and almost unnoticeable. The sequence where multiple cats attack Virginia, one of the most complicated scenes to film, required several weeks of drafting and planning. A combination of real cats, stuffed cats and computer-generated imagery was employed. The film features analogue sound-effects exclusively throughout. The lead sound-designer Per Sundström explained: "The key to good sound effects is working with natural and real sounds.(...) These analogue sounds can be digitally reworked as much as necessary, but the origin has to be natural". The soundscape was designed to come as close to the actors as possible, with audible heartbeats, breathing, and swallowing. Late in production it was also decided to overdub actress Lina Leandersson's voice with a less feminine one, to underline the backstory. "She's 200 years old, not twelve. We needed that incongruity. Besides, it makes her menacing", Sundström said. Both men and women up to the age of forty auditioned for the role. After a vote, the film team ended up selecting Elif Ceylan, who provides all of Eli's spoken dialogue. Footage of Ceylan eating melon or sausage was combined with various animal noises to emulate the sound of Eli biting into her victims and drinking their blood. The sound crew won a Guldbagge Award for Best Achievement from the Swedish Film Institute, for the "nightmarishly great sound" in the film. Soundtrack Swedish composer Johan Söderqvist wrote the score. Alfredson instructed him to write something that sounded hopeful and romantic, in contrast to the events that take place in the film. Söderqvist has described the outcome as consisting of both darkness and light, and emphasized melody and harmony as the most important qualities of the music. It is performed by the Slovak National Symphony Orchestra. The score placed fourth on Ain't it Cool News' Top 10 Best Scores Of 2008 List, being described as "scrupulously weaving together strains of bone-chillingly cold horror with the encompassing warmth of newly acquired love". If magazine described the score as "the most beautifully emotional score yet to grace the undead. It’s a feeling of tender melancholy that delivers its scares in a subtle, chamber orchestra way". The song "Kvar i min bil", written and performed by Per Gessle, resonates repeatedly through the film. Originally an outtake from Gessle's solo album En Händig Man, the song was specially provided for the film, to resemble the sound of popular 1980s pop group Gyllene Tider. Gessle has described the song as a "bluesy tune with a nice guitar hook”. Other songs in the film include "Försonade" from 1968, written and performed by future ABBA member Agnetha Fältskog, and "Flash in the Night" from 1981, written by Tim Norell and Björn Håkansson and performed by Secret Service. On November 11, 2008, MovieScore Media released the film soundtrack in a limited edition of 500 copies. It contains 21 of Söderqvist's original scores from the film. Release Theatrical Let the Right One In received its first performance at the Göteborg International Film Festival in Sweden on 26 January 2008 where Alfredson won the Festival's Nordic Film Prize. It subsequently played at several other film festivals, including the Tribeca Film Festival in New York (24 April 2008), where it won the Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature, the Edinburgh Film Festival on 25 Jun 2008 where it won the Rotten Tomatoes Critical Consensus Award, and the Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival in Switzerland on 3 July 2008 where it won the Méliès d'Argent (Silver Méliès). The Swedish premiere was originally planned for 18 April 2008, but following the positive response from the festival screenings, the producers decided to postpone the release until autumn, to allow for a longer theatrical run. At one time there was a plan to release the film for a special series of screenings in Luleå, beginning 24 September and lasting seven days. This was canceled when the Swedish Film Institute announced that Everlasting Moments had been selected over Let the Right One In as Sweden's submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The distributors released it on 24 October 2008 in Sweden, Norway, and as a limited release in the United States. In Australia, the film was released on 19 March 2009. The film was released in cinemas in the UK on 10 April 2009. Critical reception Swedish critics generally expressed positive reactions to the film. In 26 reviews listed at the Swedish-language review site Kritiker.se it achieved an average rating of 4.0 out of 5. Svenska Dagbladet gave the film a rating of 5 out of 6 and hailed Alfredson for his ability to "tell [stories] through pictures instead of words about a society where hearts are turned to icicles and everyone is left on their own, but also about love warm and red like blood on white melting snow". Göran Everdahl for SVT's Gomorron Sverige gave the film 4 out of 5 and described the film as "kitchen sink fantasy" that "gives the vampire story back something it has been missing for a long time: the ability to really frighten us". Expressen and Göteborgs-Posten were less impressed and gave the film 3 out of 5. Expressen criticized it for being unappealing to those uninitiated in vampire films while Göteborgs-Posten believed the supporting characters had lost the emotional depth that made the novel so successful. Let the Right One In was well received by US critics. As of 2010 the film has a 97% "fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes based on 148 reviews, with an average rating of 8.2 out of 10, including a 97% "Cream of the Crop" rating from top critics, based on 29 reviews. Additionally, Metacritic has reported an average score of 82 out of 100 based on 30 reviews which indicates "universal acclaim". Reviewers have commented on the beautiful cinematography and its quiet, restrained approach to the sometimes bloody and violent subject matter. KJ Doughton of Film Threat thought the visuals in the ending were fresh and inventive and would be talked about for years to come. Roger Ebert gave the film 3.5 out of 4 stars, calling it a vampire movie that takes vampires seriously, drawing comparisons to Nosferatu and to Nosferatu the Vampyre. He described it as a story of "two lonely and desperate kids capable of performing dark deeds without apparent emotion", and praised the actors for "powerful" performances in "draining" roles. Ebert later called the film "The best modern vampire movie". One negative review came from Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly, who gave the movie a "C", characterizing it as a "Swedish head-scratcher", with "a few creepy images but very little holding them together". Bloody Disgusting ranked the film first in their list of the 'Top 20 Horror Films of the Decade', with the article saying "It’s rare enough for a horror film to be good; even rarer are those that function as genuine works of art. Let the Right One In is one of those films – an austerely beautiful creation that reveals itself slowly, like the best works of art do. The simplicity of the story allows Swedish director Tomas Alfredson to focus on these two pre-teen characters with a penetrating insight that not only makes it a great vampire film but a great coming-of-age film as well. At its core, the film is, simply, a human story, a pensive meditation on the transcendent possibilities of human connection. Most of all, it’s a film that sticks with you, and whose stature will continue to grow in the decades to come." The film was ranked #15 in Empire magazine's 2010 list of "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema". In their rationale, the authors noted that, "in these days where every second movie seems to feature vampires, it takes a very special twist on the legend to surprise us - but this one knocked us out and then bit us in the jugular", and found that the "strange central friendship" between the two lead characters was what made the film "so frightening, and so magnetic". Top ten lists The film appeared on many critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2008. * 1st - David Ansen, Newsweek * 1st - Dan Jolin, Empire * 1st - David Hughes, Empire * 1st - Kim Newman, Empire * 2nd - Marc Savlov, Austin Chronicle * 2nd - Peter Vonder Haar, Film Threat * 2nd - Marc Mohan, Portland Oregonian * 2nd - Mike Russell, Portland Oregonian * 3rd - Mark Dinning, Empire * 3rd - Simon Crook, Empire * 4th - Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune * 4th - Sean Axmaker, Seattle Post * 5th - Ty Burr, Boston Globe * 5th - V.A. Musetto, New York Post * 5th - Helen O'Hara, Empire * 5th - Liz Beardsworth, Empire * 5th - James Dyer, Empire * 5th - Sam Toy, Empire * 6th - Kimberly Jones, Austin Chronicle * 7th - Lawrence Toppman, Charlotte Observer * 7th - Phil De Semlyen, Empire * 7th - Olly Richards, Empire * 8th - Scott Foundas, L.A. Weekly * 9th - Andrea Gronvall, Chicago Reader * 9th - Keith Phipps, The Onion AV Club * 9th - Damon Wise, Empire * 9th - Ian Freer, Empire Home media The film was released in North America on DVD and Blu-ray in March 2009 by Magnet Films, and in the UK in August by Momentum Pictures. The American discs feature both the original Swedish dialogue and an English dubbed version, while the European versions feature only the Swedish, and an audio-descriptive track in English. Icons of Fright reported that the American release had been criticized for using new, oversimplified English subtitles instead of the original theatrical subtitles. This unattributed translation contained many mistakes and reductions, with many fans calling the release unwatchable. Following customer complaints, Magnet stated that they would release an updated version with the original theatrical subtitles, but will not exchange current discs. Director Tomas Alfredson also expressed his dissatisfaction with the DVD subtitles, calling it a "turkey translation". "If you look on the 'net, people are furious about how bad it is done", he added. The UK release retains the theatrical subtitles. Awards and nominations Alfredson won the Göteborg International Film Festival's Nordic Film Prize as director of Let the Right One In on the grounds that he "succeeds to transform a vampire movie to a truly original, touching, amusing and heart-warming story about friendship and marginalisation". Let the Right One In was nominated in five categories for the Swedish Film Institute's 2008 Guldbagge Award, eventually winning for best directing, screenplay and cinematography as well as a Best Achievement-award to production designer Eva Norén. In awarding the film the "Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature", the top award at the Tribeca Film Festival, the jury described the film as a "mesmerizing exploration of loneliness and alienation through masterful reexamination of the vampire myth". The film also won the Méliès d'Argent (Silver Méliès) at the Swiss Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival (NIFFF) and went on to win the Méliès d'Or (Golden Méliès) for the "Best European Fantastic Feature Film", awarded by the European Fantastic Film Festivals Federation of which NIFFF is a part. Other awards include the first Rotten Tomatoes Critical Consensus Award at the Edinburgh Film Festival. Despite being an internationally successful film, Let the Right One In was not submitted by Sweden for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The details surrounding the film's eligibility for the award resulted in some confusion. Being released on 24 October 2008, the film would normally be eligible for submission for the 82nd Academy Awards. However, the producers decided to release it on 24 September as a seven day limited run only in Luleå. This would be exactly enough to meet the criteria for the 81st Academy Awards instead. When the Swedish Film Institute on 16 September announced that Jan Troell's Everlasting Moments had been selected instead of Let the Right One In, the Luleå screenings were cancelled. Despite the fact that the film was released within the eligibility period for the 82nd Academy Awards, it wasn't among the films considered because the Swedish Film Institute doesn't allow a film to be considered twice. Award Category Recipients and nominees Outcome Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival Silver Scream Award Tomas Alfredson Won Black Tulip Award Tomas Alfredson Won Austin Fantastic Fest Best Horror Feature - Won Austin Film Critics Association Best Foreign Language Film - Won Australian Film Critics Association Best Overseas Film - Won British Academy Film Awards Best Film Not in the English Language - Nominated Boston Society of Film Critics Awards Foreign Language Film - Won British Independent Film Awards Best Foreign Film - Won Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards Best Foreign Language Film - Nominated Calgary International Film Festival Best International Feature Tomas Alfredson Won Chicago Film Critics Association Awards Most Promising Filmmaker Tomas Alfredson Won Most Promising Performer Lina Leandersson Nominated Chlotrudis Awards Best Movie - Nominated Best Director Tomas Alfredson Nominated Best Actress Lina Leandersson Nominated Best Adapted Screenplay John Ajvide Lindqvist Won Best Cinematography Hoyte Van Hoytema Won Edinburgh International Film Festival Rotten Tomatoes Critical Consensus Award Tomas Alfredson Won Fant-Asia Film Festival Best European/North — South American Film Tomas Alfredson Won Best Director Tomas Alfredson Won Best Film Tomas Alfredson Won Best Photography Hoyte Van Hoytema Won Florida Film Critics Circle Awards Best Foreign Language Film - Won Empire Awards Best Horror Film - Won Goya Awards Best European Film - Nominated Irish Film & Television Awards 2010[80] International Film - Nominated Guldbagge Awards Best Achievement (Bästa prestation) Eva Norén Won Best Achievement (Bästa prestation) Per Sundström Jonas Jansson Patrik Strömdahl Won Best Cinematography (Bästa foto) Hoyte Van Hoytema Won Best Direction (Bästa regi) Tomas Alfredson Won Best Screenplay (Bästa manuskript) John Ajvide Lindqvist Won Best Film (Bästa film) John Nordling Carl Molinder Nominated Best Supporting Actor (Bästa manliga biroll) Per Ragnar Nominated Gérardmer Film Festival Critics Award Tomas Alfredson Won Best Film Tomas Alfredson Won Göteborg Film Festival Nordic Film Prize Tomas Alfredson Won Nordic Vision Award Hoyte Van Hoytema Won Kansas City Film Critics Circle Awards Best Foreign Language Film - Won London Film Critics' Circle Awards Foreign Language Film of the Year Tomas Alfredson Won NatFilm Festival Critics Award Tomas Alfredson Won Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival Grand Prize of European Fantasy Film in Silver Tomas Alfredson Won Special Mention Tomas Alfredson Won Youth Jury Award Tomas Alfredson Won Online Film Critics Society Awards Best Foreign Language Film - Won Best Screenplay, Adapted John Ajvide Lindqvist Won Breakthrough Filmmaker Tomas Alfredson Won Breakthrough Performance Lina Leandersson Won Breakthrough Performance Kåre Hedebrant Nominated Phoenix Film Critics Society Awards Best Foreign Language Film - Won Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival Best Director Tomas Alfredson Won Citizen's Choice Award Tomas Alfredson Won San Diego Film Critics Society Awards Best Foreign Language Film - Won San Francisco Film Critics Circle Best Foreign Language Film - Won Saturn Awards Best International Film - Won Best Performance by a Younger Actor Lina Leandersson Nominated Best Writing John Ajvide Lindqvist Nominated Sitges - Catalonian International Film Festival Grand Prize of European Fantasy Film in Gold Tomas Alfredson Won Southeastern Film Critics Association Awards Best Foreign Language Film - Won Toronto After Dark Film Festival Best Feature Film Tomas Alfredson Won Toronto Film Critics Association Awards Best Foreign-Language Film - Won Tribeca Film Festival Best Narrative Feature Tomas Alfredson Won Washington DC Area Film Critics Association Awards Best Foreign Language Film - Won Woodstock Film Festival Best Narrative Feature Tomas Alfredson Won

QUOTE (JPN366 @ Oct 24, 2010 -> 12:20 AM) Andy Bernard will take over where Michael Scott leaves off after Steve Carrell leaves the show. The show will be dead within 2 seasons after Carrell leaves.

QUOTE (LittleHurt05 @ Oct 23, 2010 -> 02:24 PM) So at what point does ND stop scheduling Navy and replace them with a more beatable opponent? Never

QUOTE (Felix @ Oct 23, 2010 -> 04:25 PM) ^^ I'm sure Zombieland will finish high as well, despite not being a horror in any sense. Also, I didn't send in a list, but I'm excited to see where Swimfan finishes! Zombieland didn't get one vote. I considered it, but I tend to like the older stuff better.

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24. Paranormal Activity (2007) (4 of 20 lists - 66 points - highest rank #5 pittshoganerkoff) Paranormal Activity is a 2007 American horror film written and directed by Oren Peli. The film centers on a young couple, Katie and Micah, who are haunted by a supernatural presence in their home; it is presented in the style of "found footage," from a camera set up by the couple in an attempt to photograph what is haunting them. Paranormal Activity premiered at Screamfest Film Festival in North America on October 14, 2007, and was shown at the Slamdance Film Festival on January 18, 2008. It received a limited U.S. release on September 25, 2009 and nationwide release on October 16, 2009. The film earned nearly $108 million at the U.S. box office and $194 million worldwide. Paramount/DreamWorks acquired the U.S. rights for $350,000. It is one of the most profitable movies ever made, based on return on investment, although such figures are difficult to verify independently and are likely to exclude marketing costs. Plot Katie (Katie Featherston) and her boyfriend, Micah (Micah Sloat), are a young couple who recently moved into a two-story tract house in suburban San Diego, California. Katie claims that a ghostly presence has haunted her since her youth and believes that it has followed her to their new home. She hires a psychic, Dr. Fredrichs (Mark Fredrichs), who assesses that she is being haunted not by a ghost, but by a demon. He says the demon feeds off negative energy, and its intent is to haunt and torment Katie no matter where she goes. Before leaving, he advises them not to taunt or communicate with the demon, and to contact demonologist Dr. Johan Averies for help. Instead, each night, Micah mounts a video camera on a tripod in their bedroom to record any paranormal activity that might occur while they sleep in the hopes of solving the problem himself. The camera manages to capture several supernatural phenomena which remain minor at first, including the bedroom door moving by itself, and the sound of rapid footsteps downstairs. As Micah consistently taunts the demon, the phenomena gradually grow worse, including loud bangs and inhuman noises reverberating from deep within the house. One night, Katie awakens to spend several hours standing by the bed staring at Micah while he sleeps and goes outside to sit on the backyard swing, none of which she remembers the following morning. Katie, already irritated by Micah's flippant response to the situation, becomes irate when Micah brings home a ouija board despite Dr. Fredrichs' warnings. While the two are out of the house, the Ouija board's planchette moves on its own and a small fire erupts on the board, extinguishing itself moments later. The next night, Micah sprinkles talcum powder in the hallway and later the couple finds non-human footprints leading to the bedroom from the attic. In the attic, Micah finds a burnt photograph of a young Katie, which was previously thought to have been destroyed in a house fire. The morning after a particularly intense haunting, a loud bang is heard and they discover the glass over a photo of them has been smashed with Micah's image scratched underneath. Dr. Averies is abroad when Micah finally agrees to invite him, so Dr. Fredrichs comes instead. Upon his arrival, Dr. Fredrichs immediately has a sense of dread. He apologetically leaves despite their pleas for his help, stating that his presence is only making the demon angry. Two nights later, Katie is dragged out of bed and down the hallway by an invisible force. Hearing her screams, Micah gives chase and seizes her back; the next morning they discover a gruesome bite mark on her back. Stressed and exhausted, the couple decide to go to a hotel. Later, Micah finds Katie gripping a crucifix so tightly that it bloodies her palm. Micah, angry at a situation he cannot control, burns the crucifix and the picture found in the attic. Just as Micah is set to leave, a suddenly calm Katie insists they remain at the house, claiming that they're "going to be okay now", her voice speaking dually with the demon's voice. Later that night, Katie awakens to once again stand and stare at Micah while he sleeps. After standing and staring at Micah for approximately three hours, Katie goes downstairs into the darkness. After a moment of silence, Katie lets out a blood-curdling scream, waking Micah who rushes to her while the camera records what sounds like a struggle downstairs. Suddenly, the screams stop, and a brief silence is followed by the sound of heavy footsteps coming up the stairs. Micah's body is violently hurled at the camera, knocking it over. Katie slowly walks into view, her clothing soaked with blood. Crouching over Micah's body, she slowly looks at the camera with an evil smile and suddenly lunges toward it, with her face adopting a demonic appearance right before the screen fades to black. The film ends with an ending title card stating that Micah's body was discovered a few days later by the police, and Katie's whereabouts remain unknown. Cast * Katie Featherston as Katie * Micah Sloat as Micah * Mark Fredrichs as Psychic * Amber Armstrong as Amber * Ashley Palmer as Diane Production First-time director Oren Peli had been afraid of ghosts his entire life, even fearing the comedy film Ghostbusters, but intended to channel that fear into something positive and productive. Peli took a year to prepare his own house for shooting, going so far as to repaint the walls, add furniture, put in a carpet, and build a stairwell. In this time, he also did extensive research into paranormal phenomena and demonology, stating, "We wanted to be as truthful as we could be." The reason for making the ghost in the story a demon was a result of the research pointing to the most malevolent and violent entities being "demons". The phenomena in the film take place largely at night—the vulnerability of being asleep, Peli reasoned, taps into a human being's most primal fear, stating, "If something is lurking in your home there's not much you can do about it." Attempting to focus on believability rather than action and gore, Peli chose to shoot the picture with a home video camera. In deciding on a more raw and stationary format (the camera was almost always sitting on a tripod or something else) and eliminating the need for a camera crew, a "higher degree of plausibility" was created for the audience as they were "more invested in the story and the characters". Peli says that the dialogue was "natural" because there was no real script. Instead, the actors were given outlines of the story and situations to improvise, a technique known as "retroscripting" used in the making of The Blair Witch Project. In casting the movie, Peli auditioned "a few hundred people" before finally meeting Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat. He originally auditioned them individually and later called them back to audition together. Peli was impressed with the chemistry between the actors, saying, "If you saw the [audition] footage, you would've thought they had known each other for years." During a guest appearance on The Jay Leno Show on November 3, 2009, Sloat and Featherston explained they each saw the casting call on Craigslist. Featherston noted they were originally paid $500 for their work. The film was shot out of sequence due to Peli's self-imposed 7-day shooting schedule, though Peli would have preferred the story unfold for the actors as he had envisioned it. Sloat, who controlled the camera for a good deal of the film, was a former cameraman at his university's TV station. "It was a very intense week", Peli recalled, stating that the film would be shot day and night, edited at the same time, and would have the visual effects applied to it as the acting footage was being finalized. Post-production and distribution The film was screened at 2007's Screamfest Horror Film Festival, where it impressed an assistant at the Creative Artists Agency, Kirill Baru, so much that CAA signed on to represent Peli. Attempting to find a distributor for the film and/or directing work for Peli, the agency sent out DVDs of the movie to as many people in the industry as they could, and it was eventually seen by Miramax Films Senior Executive Jason Blum, who thought it had potential. He worked with Peli to re-edit the film and submitted it to the Sundance Film Festival, but it was rejected. The DVD also impressed DreamWorks executives Adam Goodman, Stacey Snider, and finally Steven Spielberg, who cut a deal with Blum and Peli. DreamWorks' plan was to remake the film with a bigger budget and with Peli directing, and only to include the original version as an extra when the DVD was eventually released. "They didn't know what to do with [the original]," said Blum; they just wanted to be "in business" with Peli. Blum and Peli agreed, but stipulated a test screening of the original film before going ahead with the remake, believing it would be well-received by a theatrical audience. During the screening, people began walking out; Goodman thought the film was bombing, until he learned that the viewers were actually leaving because they were so frightened. He then realized a remake was unwise. Paramount Pictures, which acquired DreamWorks in 2005, bought the domestic rights to the film, and international rights to any sequels, for $300,000 USD. The theatrical release was delayed indefinitely because Paramount had put all DreamWorks productions on hold. Meanwhile, a screening for international buyers resulted in the sale of international rights in 52 countries. Only after Goodman became production chief at Paramount in June 2009 did the film finally get slated for a fall release. Alternate versions After the film was acquired by Paramount Pictures, several changes were made. Some scenes were cut, others added, and the original ending was scrapped, with two new endings shot. The ending shown in theaters during the film's worldwide release is the only one of the three to feature visual effects, and it differs from the endings previously seen at the Screamfest and Burbank screenings. Another version of the film was shown at only one public viewing. Katie returns to the bedroom after the screaming and noise of her and Micah struggling downstairs. She is holding a knife and covered in blood. She closes and locks the bedroom door. Katie walks over and smiles at the camera, then slits her own throat. This ending is offered as an alternate ending on the DVD and Blu-ray release of the film. There is a third ending in which, after killing Micah, Katie returns to the bedroom and sits down against the bed with the knife in her hand, rocking back and forth, for almost two days straight. Katie's sister comes looking for her, but when she enters the house, she is heard screaming after seeing Micah's body and runs out of the house. The police arrive at the house a few hours later, and Katie comes out of the bedroom with her knife, calling for Micah. Following a heated confrontation, a door behind the officers slams shut, causing the officers to shoot Katie. This version was the "original" version; it is only available to view on the internet. Release On September 25, 2009, the movie opened in thirteen college towns across the United States. On his website, director Oren Peli invited internet users to "demand" where the film went next by voting on eventful.com. This was the first time a major motion picture studio used the service to virally market a film. Twelve of the thirteen venues sold out. On September 28, Paramount issued a press release on Peli's website, announcing openings in 20 other markets on Friday, October 2, including large-market cities such as New York and Chicago. On October 3, it was reported that a total of 33 screenings in all 20 markets sold out and that the movie had made $500,000 domestically. A day later, Paramount announced that the film would have a full limited release in 40 markets, playing at all hours (including after-midnight showings). On October 6, Paramount announced that the movie would be released nationwide if the film got 1,000,000 "demands" on eventful.com. The full limited release of the film started on Friday, October 9. On October 10 the Eventful.com counter hit over 1,000,000 requests. Paramount announced soon after that the film would get a wide domestic release on Friday, October 16 and then expand to more theaters on the 23rd. By November, it was showing in locales worldwide. Home release Paranormal Activity was released on DVD and Blu-ray on December 29, 2009. The home release media includes an alternate ending to the theatrical version, in which Katie slits her own throat in front of the camera, then collapses to the floor. It was released in the UK on March 22, 2010 on DVD and Blu-ray with some specials. The DVD and Blu-Ray was released in Australia on April 2, 2010. In March 2010, a limited VHS edition was released in the United States and The Netherlands. This was accomplished after a petition on the website, WeWantVHS.com. Additionally, at the end of the credits, 15 minutes worth of names were added to the DVD release as part of a special promo where fans could sign up on the Paranormal Activity website and submit their name to be added for free. Reception Reviews Based on 175 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an overall approval 'certified fresh' rating from critics of 82%. Movie critics James Berardinelli and Roger Ebert each awarded it 3.5 stars out of a maximum of 4 stars. Entertainment Weekly critic Owen Gleiberman gave Paranormal Activity an A- rating and called it "frightening...freaky and terrifying" and noted that "Paranormal Activity scrapes away 30 years of encrusted nightmare clichés." Bloody Disgusting ranked the film sixteenth in their list of the "Top 20 Horror Films of the Decade", with the article saying, "Peli deserves props for milking the maximum amount of tension out of the spare, modern setting – an ordinary, cookie-cutter tract home in San Diego. It doesn’t sound very scary, but Peli manages to make it terrifying. If you aren’t white-knuckling your armrest at least once or twice while watching it, you probably don’t have a pulse." However, David Stratton of the Australian version of At the Movies remarked that "it was extremely unthrilling, very obvious, very cliched. We've seen it all before." Box office The film opened on September 25, 2009, to 12 theaters taking $36,146 on its opening day and $77,873 on its first weekend for an average of $6,489 per venue. It took more success when it opened to 33 theaters on October 1, 2009, doubling the box office reception, grossing $532,242 for an average of $16,129 per venue, bringing the 10-day total to $776,763. As it expanded to 160 theaters on the October 9–11 weekend, the film grossed $2,659,296 on that Friday having a per-theater average of $16,621. It went on to gross $7,900,695, which was $800,000 more than originally estimated. Over the weekend, the film reached the week's highest per-theater average of $49,379, coming in at #4 for the weekend, behind Couples Retreat, Zombieland, and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Over the weekend of October 16, 2009, Paranormal Activity expanded to 600 more theaters, grossing $19,617,650 with $25,813 per theater average gross, and bringing the total gross to $33,171,743. On the weekend of October 23, 2009, Paranormal Activity rose to #1, beating out the expected number one box office victor Saw VI, earning $21,104,070, expanding to 1,945 theaters for an average of $10,850 per theater, compared with the $14,118,444 gross from 3,036 theaters, and $4,650 average for Saw VI. The film has grossed $107,918,810 domestically and $85,379,199 in foreign markets, with a total gross of $193,298,009. Accolades The film was nominated for "best first feature" in the Independent Spirit Awards 2009. Related media Digital comics In December 2009, a short digital comic entitled Paranormal Activity: The Search for Katie was released for the iPhone. It was penned by Scott Lobdell and features art from Mark Badger. Parodies The 30 Rock episode "Verna" spoofed Katie's sleepwalking with a fast-forward video of Liz Lemon "sleep-eating." On March 7, 2010, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin performed a spoof of the film as part of the 82nd Academy Awards. Sequel Paramount hired screenwriter Michael R. Perry to create the follow-up for an October 22, 2010 release. Oren Peli, the director of the first film, serves as a producer for the sequel. Kevin Greutert, director of Saw VI, was initially hired to direct the sequel. However Lionsgate exercised a clause in Greutert's contract to have him direct the next film in the Saw franchise. The full acting cast returned for the sequel. Tod Williams is the director for Paranormal Activity 2, which started production in May 2010. The teaser trailer was seen with The Twilight Saga: Eclipse upon its release on June 30, 2010.

25. Hostel (2005) (4 of 20 lists - 65 points - highest rank #4 ScottyDo) Hostel is a 2005 horror film written, produced and directed by Eli Roth, starring Jay Hernandez, Derek Richardson, Jennifer Lim, Eythor Gudjonsson and Barbara Nedeljáková. Eli's original script was developed by Quentin Tarantino, who also acted as producer on the movie. Due to the graphic nature of this film, its showing has been restricted in certain countries. The sequel, Hostel: Part II, was released on June 8, 2007. Plot Two college grad students, Paxton (Jay Hernandez) and his friend, Josh (Derek Richardson), along with their friend Óli (Eyþór Guðjónsson), are backpacking together across Europe on vacation. After being thrown out of a discothèque in Amsterdam, the three visit a brothel, where Josh chickens out of having sex with a very attractive prostitute. When they return to their hostel, they meet a Russian man named Alexei (Lubomir Bukovy) who informs them about an undocumented hostel in Slovakia filled with beautiful, American-loving women. The three subsequently board a train on which they meet a peculiar businessman (Jan Vlasák), who "freaks" Josh out by placing his hand on his thigh. The man moves to another cab on the train immediately after Josh expresses his obvious disapproval of such an unexpected action. The three leave the train at a small Slovakian village, and check into the local hostel, finding themselves sharing a room with two beautiful single women: Russian Natalya (Barbara Nedeljáková) and Czech Svetlana (Jana Kadeřábková), who entice them into joining them at a spa and a disco. At the disco, Josh is saved from being attacked by a gang of impoverished children looking for money and bubblegum by the peculiar businessman whom he had unpleasantly encountered on the train. Josh apologizes for his overreaction on the train and buys the businessman a drink, and the businessman assures him there are no hard feelings. Later that night, Paxton and Josh have sex with Svetlana and Natalya, respectively. The next day, a young Japanese backpacker, Kana (Jennifer Lim), approaches Paxton and Josh, who are searching for Óli, informing them that her friend, Yuki (Keiko Seiko), is strangely missing as well. An MMS photo sent from Yuki's phone shows Yuki and Óli beneath a smokestack of an abandoned factory, with the word "Sayonara" written in Japanese beneath it. A while later, they spot a man wearing Óli's jacket, and follow him, but when confronted, the man claims the jacket is his. Not long after, Paxton and Josh receive a second MMS photo message from Óli's phone, in which their friend appears in a closeup face shot with the text "I go home" accompanying the image. Then, the scene shifts to the source of the photo, revealing Óli's severed head sitting on a table in a dark, dungeon-like room with a man in surgeon-like attire leaving the room, and about to torture a young woman. Under a feeling of intense discomfort and suspicion, Paxton and Josh decide to leave Bratislava with Kana the following day. Paxton later notices that the MMS photo of Oli and Yuki has been faked. Although Josh is anxious to leave immediately, Paxton talks him into staying just one more night, so they can have sex with Natalya and Svetlana one more time. Josh reluctantly agrees. Later that night, while partying with Natalya and Svetlana, Paxton and Josh are slipped tranquilizers. Josh stumbles back to the hostel while Paxton passes out in the disco's storage room, where he is inadvertently locked in for the night. The next day, Josh wakes up handcuffed to a chair in a dungeon-like room with a bag over his head and sees the business man from the train entering the room. After he examines the tools on a table, while Josh tearfully pleads to be released, the businessman chooses a drill and begins torturing Josh by drilling him in both of his pectorals just above his nipples and in his thighs. After he is done, the businessman sits down and tells Josh his unfulfilled dream of being a surgeon. Josh desperately begs him to let him go. The businessman puts on the facade of releasing him, but instead slices Josh's Achilles tendons, leaving him screaming in pain. The businessman then opens the door and tells Josh he is free to go, but once he attempts to stand, he falls over. The businessman then stands over Josh as he tries to crawl away and violently slices his throat. Meanwhile, Paxton awakes and returns to his room where two women invite him to a spa, eerily similar to Natalya and Svetlana. Paxton merely observes them suspiciously, with a look of confusion and suspicion on his face, realizing something is definitely amiss. When the local police chief (Miroslav Táborský) proves unhelpful, Paxton locates Natalya and Svetlana at a dismal bar. Paxton furiously interrogates them on the whereabouts of Josh, and the two girls lie to him, telling him that Josh and Óli went to an "art show" together where the factory is. Although Natalya and Svetlana tell Paxton to relax and have a drink, he is furiously unyielding and demands he be taken to where Josh and Óli are. Natalya and the man she is sitting with comply, and they begin to leave the bar to take Paxton to the factory. When Paxton looks back to Svetlana and asks if she is coming, she replies, "I already seen this show." Once Paxton enters the factory, he shockingly witnesses the businessman cutting open Josh's corpse like a surgeon. He is then ambushed by thugs. As he is taken to a cell, he sees several other rooms where others are being tortured. He is restrained in a chair and joined minutes later by a German client, Johann (Petr Janiš). When Johann realizes that Paxton speaks his native language, he requests one of the staff thugs place a ball gag in his victim's mouth. However, the continuation of Paxton's torture causes him to vomit, and thus, Johann removes the gag. He then cuts off two of Paxton's fingers from his left hand with a chainsaw, but at the same time, unintentionally and unknowingly severs Paxton's hand restraints. Johann runs toward Paxton with the chainsaw but slips on the ball gag and accidentally cuts his own right leg off. Paxton gets out of the chair and shoots Johann in the head. Paxton hides on a cart filled with corpses, pretending to be dead. He then knocks out the man cutting up and cremating the corpses. After disguising himself as a client, he meets another client who thinks that Paxton is a client too. Paxton becomes more uncomfortable as the man begins describing the thrill he is anticipating. When the man leaves, Paxton escapes. He hears Kana's screams and decides to rescue her. Paxton locates Kana and kills the man who is torturing her with a blowtorch (the same man he met before after disguising himself). Kana's face is badly disfigured, her right eyeball hanging out of the socket. In an attempt to stop her screaming, Paxton cuts the eyeball loose. The two flee in a car from the building and get chased by some of the guards. While driving away Paxton sees Natalya and Svetlana talking to Alexei, confirming his involvement, and Paxton runs the three of them over, killing them. With the help of the child gang, Paxton and Kana elude the guards and head to the train station. When Kana sees a reflection of her disfigured face at the station, she jumps in front of an oncoming train, committing suicide and allowing Paxton to flee inside the other train without being noticed. Aboard the train, Paxton hears the voice of the businessman. In Vienna, he follows him to a public restroom and throws the Elite Hunting's card under his stall. When the businessman reaches down to pick it up, Paxton cuts off two of his fingers, holds his head underwater and, when the man sees Paxton's reflection, slices his throat and slams his head into the toilet. Paxton then boards a train leaving Vienna. (In an alternate ending available on the DVD, Paxton gets revenge by spiriting away the businessman's young daughter. When the businessman emerges from the men's room his daughter is gone and he calls her name in anguish as we see her leaving on a train with Paxton holding his hand over her mouth to quiet her cries.) Cast Actor Character Jay Hernandez Paxton Derek Richardson Josh Eyþór Guðjónsson Óli Jan Vlasák The Dutch Businessman Barbara Nedeljáková Natalya Jana Kaderabkova Svetlana Jennifer Lim Kana Keiko Seiko Yuki Lubomir Bukovy Alexei Jana Havlickova Vala Rick Hoffman The American Client Petr Janis Johan, the German Surgeon Takashi Miike Miike Takashi Patrik Zigo The Bubblegum Gang Leader Milda Jedi Havlas Desk Clerk Jedi Miroslav Taborsky Police Officer Production Despite the fact most of the movie is set in a small fictional location near Bratislava, Slovakia, actually not a single sequence was shot in Slovakia. The filming locations were at the Barrandov Studios, Prague and in Český Krumlov, Czech Republic. In addition to the lower costs of filming in the Czech Republic, Barrandov has well-equipped sound stages, making it a popular choice for US productions set in Europe. 95% of the film was shot on location in and around Prague, and the stage was only used for the main torture rooms. Originally the part of the business man, eventually played by Jan Vlasák, was offered to producer Quentin Tarantino who turned it down only to regret it upon seeing the finished film. Reception Box office The film's opening weekend North American box office gross was $19.5 million, making it the top grossing film that weekend. It went on to gross a total of $47.2 million in the U.S. The film's budget was around $4.8 million, and the film went on to gross over $80 million at the box office worldwide. Critical response The film received mixed reviews from critics. On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 58% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 98 reviews. On Metacritic, the film had an average score of 55 out of 100, based on 21 reviews. Guardian film critic Peter Bradshaw noted that Hostel was "actually silly, crass and queasy. And not in a good way". David Edelstein of New York Magazine was equally negative deriding director Roth with creating the horror sub-genre 'torture porn,' or 'gorno,' using excessive violence to excite audiences like a sexual act. Jean-François Rauger, film critic for Le Monde, a French newspaper, and programmer of the Cinémathèque Française, listed Hostel as the best American film of 2006, calling it an example of modern consumerism. Hostel won the 2006 Empire Award for Best Horror Film. The film's underlying social critique and its link to Marxist and Nietzschean philosophy was recently debated by a panel at Rider University's 2010 Film Symposium by Dr. Barry Seldes, Dr. Robert Good, and James Morgart. Slovak reaction to setting The film's release was accompanied by strong complaints from the country of Slovakia, and also from the Czech Republic. Slovak officials were disgusted by the film's portrayal of their country as an undeveloped, poor and uncultured land suffering from high criminality, war and prostitution, fearing it would "damage the good reputation of Slovakia" and make foreigners feel it was a dangerous place to be. The tourist board of Slovakia invited Roth on an all-expense paid trip to their country so he could see it is not made up of run down factories and kids who kill for bubble gum. Tomáš Galbavý, a Slovak Member of Parliament, commented: "I am offended by this film. I think that all Slovaks should feel offended." Defending himself, Roth said the film was not meant to be offensive, arguing "Americans do not even know that this country exists. My film is not a geographical work but aims to show Americans' ignorance of the world around them." Roth has repeatedly argued that despite the many films in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre series, people still go to Texas.

26. Carrie (1976) (5 of 20 lists - 64 points - highest rank #3 sti3) Carrie is a 1976 American supernatural horror film directed by Brian De Palma and written by Lawrence D. Cohen, based on the novel Carrie by Stephen King. The film and the novel tell the story of a socially outcast teenage girl, Carrie White, who discovers she possesses psionic power which seems to flare up when she becomes angry. Carrie's powers become apparent after her humiliation by her peers, teachers, and abusive mother, eventually resulting in tragedy. The film stars Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, Betty Buckley, Amy Irving, Nancy Allen, William Katt, John Travolta, P.J. Soles and Priscilla Pointer. The film was a major success for United Artists, grossing $33.8 million at the U.S. box office, on a budget of $1.8 million. It received a mostly positive response from critics. The film spawned a failed sequel The Rage: Carrie 2 and a fairly well-received made for television remake, released in 2002, neither of which involved De Palma. During a survey taken in October 2008, it was revealed that Carrie was considered one of the most popular movies teens watched on Halloween. Both Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie were nominated for Academy Award for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress respectively. Plot Carrie White (Sissy Spacek) is a shy teenage girl abused by her religious mother, Margaret (Piper Laurie). The girls at school also harass Carrie, with Chris Hargensen (Nancy Allen) being especially cruel. Carrie experiences her first period while showering after gym class, and the other girls throw tampons and sanitary pads at her before Miss Collins (Betty Buckley) intervenes. As Carrie becomes more upset, a light bulb pops just before Miss Collins tells the other girls to leave. Miss Collins brings Carrie to the principal's office, and while consoling her, the principal calls Carrie by the wrong name, inadvertently emphasizing how overlooked she is. When Carrie corrects the principal and says "it's Carrie," an ashtray falls from the principal's desk. Later, while Carrie is walking home, a neighborhood boy crashes his bicycle after taunting Carrie. Margaret, who walks from door to door "spreading the gospel of salvation through Christ's blood", receives a call from Miss Collins about the locker room incident and tells Carrie that the "curse of blood" is punishment for sin. She locks Carrie in a closet and forces her to pray. In her bedroom that night, a miserable Carrie stares at her mirror until it shatters. Sue Snell (Amy Irving), one of Carrie's gym classmates, expresses regret for teasing Carrie at school. The next day, English teacher Mr. Fromm (Sydney Lassick) reads a poem written by Tommy Ross (William Katt), Sue's boyfriend. Fromm invites the class to critique Tommy's work but mocks Carrie when she speaks, which irks Tommy. Sue, feeling guilty for teasing Carrie, convinces Tommy to take Carrie to the prom and show her a good time. Carrie suspects she may have a telekinetic gift, and researches it in the library. Later, Tommy asks Carrie to prom but Carrie flees, fearing another trick. After a pep talk from Miss Collins, Carrie accepts Tommy's invitation when he later approaches her at her home. Carrie tells her mother that she is going to the prom, and Margaret insists the prom is an occasion of sin, refusing to let her attend. However, Carrie causes the windows of the house to slam shut, revealing her telekinesis. Margaret believes this is Satan's power, but Carrie again insists she will go to the prom. Meanwhile, Miss Collins berates the girls who tormented Carrie in the locker room, subjecting them to a week-long boot-camp-style detention. All the girls show remorse except for Chris, who holds a deep hatred for Carrie. After Chris throws a fit, Miss Collins bans her from the prom. Chris tells her delinquent boyfriend, Billy Nolan (John Travolta), that she wants revenge on Carrie and goes with Billy and other kids to a farm where Billy kills a pig. After draining the pig's blood into a bucket, Billy places the bucket above the school's stage. Chris makes a deal with her friend Norma Watson (P.J. Soles) and Billy's friend Freddy to rig the election of prom king and queen so Tommy and Carrie win. As Carrie gets ready for the evening, her mother tells her that everyone will laugh at her. Carrie defies her mother, leaving with Tommy. Though her classmates are surprised to see Carrie at prom, they begin treating her as an equal. Sue Snell sneaks into the prom to ensure everything is going well for Carrie. To Carrie's surprise, she and Tommy are named prom king and queen. As the couple approaches the stage to be crowned, Sue discovers Chris hiding behind the stage holding a rope attached to the bucket of pig's blood resting on the rafters. However, Miss Collins forces Sue out, believing she is there for mischief. As the crown is placed on Carrie's head, Chris pulls the rope and Carrie is drenched in pig's blood. As the crowd looks on in silence, Tommy is knocked unconscious by the bucket and Carrie imagines the whole room laughing and jeering at her. Carrie's telekinesis takes over, closing the doors to the gym and turning on a fire hose. Norma is killed by the fire hose along with many other people, and Carrie kills Miss Collins with a falling rafter. Mr. Fromm is electrocuted, which then causes a fire in the gym. Leaving her classmates inside the school as it burns, Carrie walks home, covered in blood. Chris and Billy catch up with her, intending to run her over with Billy's car, but Carrie uses her powers to flip the car, killing Billy and Chris. At home, Carrie breaks down in her mother's arms after taking a bath. Believing the devil has taken over Carrie, Margaret brings the girl to her knees and stabs Carrie in the back. Carrie falls down the stairs and is cornered in the kitchen by her mother, but sends kitchen knives flying at her mother, pinning her to the wall and killing her. Overcome with guilt and grief, Carrie uses her telekinesis to collapse the house where both she and her mother are crushed by falling debris. Some time later, Sue, the only survivor of prom, dreams of visiting the plot where Carrie's house stood. As she places flowers on the ground, a bloody hand reaches out, grabbing Sue's wrist, who then wakes up, screaming in her mother's arms. Cast * Sissy Spacek as Carrie White * Amy Irving as Sue Snell * Piper Laurie as Margaret White * Betty Buckley as Miss Collins * William Katt as Tommy Ross * Nancy Allen as Chris Hargensen * John Travolta as Billy Nolan * PJ Soles as Norma Watson * Priscilla Pointer as Mrs. Snell * Sydney Lassick as Mr. Fromm * Stefan Gierasch as Mr. Morton * Michael Talbott as Freddy * Doug Cox as The Beak * Harry Gold as George Dawson * Noelle North as Freida Jason * Cindy Daly as Cora * Deirdre Berthrong as Rhonda * Anson Downes as Ernest * Rory Stevens as Kenny * Edie McClurg as Helen Production Pre-production Carrie was the first Stephen King novel to be published and the first to be adapted into a feature film. In an interview in Port Charlotte, Florida at a public appearance near his home on the Gulf coast on March 20, 2010, King said he was 26 years old at the time and was paid just $2,500 for the film rights, but adding "I was fortunate to have that happen to my first book." De Palma told Cinefantastique magazine in an interview in 1977: “ I read the book. It was suggested to me by a writer friend of mine. A writer friend of his, Stephen King, had written it. I guess this was almost two years ago [circa 1975]. I liked it a lot and proceeded to call my agent to find out who owned it. I found out that nobody had bought it yet. A lot of studios were considering it, so I called around to some of the people I knew and said it was a terrific book and I'm very interested in doing it. Then nothing happened for, I guess, six months. ” Lawrence D. Cohen was hired as the writer, and produced the first draft, which had closely followed the novel's intentions. However, later versions departed from King's vision rapidly, and certain scripted scenes were omitted from the final version, mainly due to financial limitations. The final scene, in which Sue reaches toward Carrie's grave, was shot backwards to give it a dreamlike quality. It was also filmed at night, using artificial lighting to create the desired effect. This scene was inspired by the final scene in Deliverance (1972). Spacek had insisted on using her own hand in the given scene, so she was positioned under the rocks and gravel. DePalma stated 'Sissy, come on, I'll get a stunt person. What do you want? To be buried in the ground?!' However Spacek declared 'Brian, I have to do this.' DePalma explains that they "had to bury her. Bury her! We had to put her in a box and stick her underneath the ground. Well, I had her husband bury her because I certainly didn't want to bury her. I used to walk around and set up the shot and every once in a while we'd hear Sissy: 'Are we ready yet?' 'Yeah, Sissy, we're going to be ready real soon." The White house was filmed in Santa Paula, California and to give the home a Gothic theme, director and producers went to religious shops looking for artifacts to place in the home. Coincidentally, one of the locations where Carrie was filmed, Palisades Charter High School, was at one time owned by the parents of Carrie Fisher, Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher years before the school was built. The lot was then taken some years after the couple had purchased it by the State by eminent domain to build "Pali High". Initially, Melanie Griffith had auditioned for the role, taking it as an opportunity to begin a career as a mature, adult actress. After Griffith dropped out from the project, Sissy Spacek had been persuaded by husband Jack Fisk to audition for the title role. Fisk then convinced De Palma to let her audition. After several auditions, DePalma concluded that Spacek would be playing Christine Hargenson. Determined to land the leading role, Spacek backed out of a television commercial she was scheduled to film, rubbed Vaseline into her hair, didn't bother to wash her face, and arrived at the final audition clad in a sailor dress which her mother had made her in the seventh grade, with the hem cut off, and booked the part. Amy Irving was cast alongside her mother, Priscilla Pointer, who would play the mother of Irving's character. Nancy Allen was the last to audition, and her audition came just as she was on the verge of leaving Hollywood. She and De Palma later married. Filming Principal photography and filming began on May 17, 1976 and ended in July, with a 50-day shooting schedule. Principal location shooting occurred in California: in Culver City Studios, and in Los Angeles, the Bates High School scenes were filmed at Pier Avenue Junior High in Hermosa Beach, with the exception of the shots of the Bates High School athletic field, which were filmed at Palisades Charter High School in Pacific Palisades. The shots of the school in flames, and the gym scenes, were both filmed inside Culver City Studios. De Palma began with one director of photography, and cameraman Isidore Mankofsky, who was eventually replaced by Mario Tosi after conflict between Mankofsky and De Palma ensued. Gregory M. Auer served as the special effects supervisor for Carrie, with Jack Fisk, Spacek's husband, as art director. De Palma borrowed heavily from the films of Alfred Hitchcock, which as a result, gave Carrie a Hitchcockian tone. The most obvious example is the name of the high school, which is Bates High, a reference to Norman Bates from Psycho (1960). In addition, the four note violin theme from Psycho is used throughout the film whenever Carrie uses her telekinetic powers. Much of the filming and production became problematic, most notably the prom scene, perhaps the most chaotic to film, and took over two weeks to shoot, with 35 takes. Auer added red, green and yellow food colouring to a bulk-sold concoction known in the cosmetics industry as 7-11 Blood. However, when it was put to use, the concoction kept drying and adhering to Spacek's skin because of the hot lights. The only solution was to hose Spacek down when the substance got gluey. A wraparound segment at beginning and end of the film was scripted and filmed which featured the Whites' home being pummeled by stones that hailed from the sky. The opening scene was filmed as planned, though on celluloid, the tiny pebbles looked like rain water. A mechanical malfunction botched production the night when the model of the Whites' home was set to be destroyed, so they burned it down instead and dropped the scenes with the stones altogether. However, some interior scenes had already been filmed which were left in the movie where one can clearly see boulders crashing through the Whites' ceiling. Reaction Box office performance Carrie initially had a limited release on November 3, 1976, opening in 409 theaters. After receiving a broader theatrical release, it grossed $5 million, and was one of the five top grossing films for the following two weeks. Its domestic gross was $33,800,000, more than 18 times its budget, which in today's money, is equivalent to $135 million. Awards and critical reception Carrie received immensely positive reviews and is widely regarded as one of the best films of 1976, as well as one of the best horror films ever made. The film currently holds a 90% "Certified Fresh" rating on the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times stated the film was an "absolutely spellbinding horror movie", as well as an "observant human portrait". Pauline Kael of The New Yorker stated that Carrie was "the best scary-funny movie since Jaws — a teasing, terrifying, lyrical shocker". Take One Magazine critic Susan Schenker said she was "angry at the way Carrie manipulated me to the point where my heart was thudding, and embarrassed because the film really works." A 1998 edition of The Movie Guide stated Carrie was a "landmark horror film", while Stephen Farber prophetically stated in a 1978 issue of New West Magazine, "it's a horror classic, and years from now it will still be written and argued about, and it will still be scaring the daylights out of new generations of moviegoers." Quentin Tarantino placed Carrie at number 8 in a list of his favorite films ever. Nevertheless, the film was not without its detractors. Andrew Sarris of The Village Voice commented, "There are so few incidents that two extended sequences are rendered in slow-motion as if to pad out the running time..." In addition to being a box office success, Carrie is notable for being one of the few horror films to be nominated for multiple Academy Awards. Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie received nominations for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress awards, respectively. The film also won the grand prize at the Avoriaz Fantastic Film Festival, while Sissy Spacek was given the Best Actress award by the National Society of Film Critics. In 2008, Carrie was ranked number 86 on Empire Magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time. This movie also ranked number 15 on Entertainment Weekly's list of the 50 Best High School Movies, and #46 on the American Film Institute's list of 100 Greatest Cinema Thrills, and was also ranked eighth for its famous ending sequence on Bravo's five-hour miniseries The 100 Scariest Movie Moments (2004). They Shoot Pictures, a filmsite that is in contact with film critics all over the world, lists Carrie as 348th on their current list of the one thousand greatest pictures ever made. Stephen King's reaction today In a March 20, 2010 interview, King replied that he thought, although dated now, Carrie was a "good movie." Music The score for Carrie was composed by Pino Donaggio. In addition, two pop songs ("Born to Have It All" and "I Never Dreamed Someone Like You Could Love Someone Like Me") were written for the early portion of the prom sequence and were performed by Katie Irving, sister of star Amy Irving. Donaggio would work again with De Palma on Dressed to Kill, Home Movies, Blow Out, Body Double, and Raising Cain. The soundtrack was originally released on vinyl in 1976 under the United Artists label; a deluxe CD edition containing a few tracks of dialogue from the film was released by MGM/Rykodisc in 1997. A 2005 CD re-release of the original soundtrack (minus dialogue) is available from Varèse Sarabande. Portions of the film's score were omitted from all versions of the soundtrack album, most notably the piece of music that plays while the girls are in detention. Additionally, the other songs in the film (Education Blues by Vance or Towers, (Love Is Like A) Heat Wave by Martha and the Vandellas, etc.) were uncredited in the film and were omitted from the album. A bootleg version of the complete score has circulated on the internet. Sequels, remakes and related works Carrie, along with the novel, have been reproduced and adapted several times. Sequel The Rage: Carrie 2 was released in 1999. It featured another teenager with telekinetic powers who is revealed to have shared a father with Carrie White. The film received universally negative reviews and was a box office failure. Remake In 2002, a television remake starring Angela Bettis in the titular role was released. The film updated the events of the story to modern-day settings and technology while simultaneously attempting to be more faithful to the book's original structure, storyline, and specific events. The one exception to the latter was that the ending of Carrie in the remake was drastically changed: instead of killing her mother and then herself, the film has Carrie killing her mother, being revived via CPR by Sue Snell and being driven to Florida to hide. This new ending marked a complete divergence from the novel and was a signal that the movie served as a pilot for a Carrie television series, which never materialized. In the new ending, the rescued Carrie vows to help others with similar gifts to her own. Although Angela Bettis' portrayal of Carrie was highly praised, the remade film was cited by most critics as inferior to the original. Stage productions A 1988 Broadway musical of the same name and starring Betty Buckley, Linzi Hateley and Darlene Love, closed after only 16 previews and five performances. An English pop opera filtered through Greek tragedy, the show was so notorious that it provided the title to Ken Mandelbaum's survey of theatrical disasters, Not Since Carrie: Forty Years of Broadway Musical Flops. Clips of the musical may be found on YouTube. Apparently, the only known footage of the musical is the opening number, "In". Early in the 21st century, playwright Erik Jackson attempted to secure the rights to stage another production of Carrie the musical, but his request was rejected. Jackson eventually earned the consent of Stephen King to mount a new, officially-sanctioned, non-musical production of Carrie, which debuted Off-Broadway in 2006 with female impersonator Sherry Vine in the lead role. Similarly, many other unofficial spoofs have been staged over the years, usually with a gym teacher named "Miss Collins" (as opposed to the novel's "Miss Desjardin" and the musical's "Miss Gardner"), most notably the "parodage" Scarrie the Musical, which hit the Illinois stage in 1998 and was revived in 2005; Dad's Garage Theatre's 2002 production of Carrie White the Musical; and the 2007 New Orleans production of Carrie's Facts of Life, which was a hybrid of Carrie and the classic American sitcom The Facts of Life. Influence on other films The film was quickly followed by a wave of copycats and imitators. Though Carrie is more melodramatic than traditional horror films, its biggest influence was on the slasher genre that exploded in popularity shortly after the release of the film. The final scare (in this instance, a hand bursting from the grave) was rarely seen until this point, and soon most slasher films incorporated this tactic. Films like the Friday the 13th series have been accused of ripping off Carrie's ending, because each feature finales where a hand bursts out of a strange location and grabs something. Another film of that series, Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood, released in 1988, featured a telekinetic protagonist, similar to Carrie. Other films lifted the character layout and storyline more blatantly and featured teens who were humiliated seeking revenge, often with the aid of some sort of supernatural power. Amongst the most notable are: Jennifer, in which the titular character (Lisa Pelikan) unleashes her wrath on her peers by exerting her telepathic control over snakes; Mirror Mirror, in which a girl taps into an evil force that resides in her mirror; The Initiation of Sarah, a 1978 movie of the week in which the titular character (Kay Lenz) gets revenge on a rival sorority member (Morgan Fairchild); Slaughter High, in which a young man is horribly burned as a result of his classmates' prank; Evilspeak, in which Clint Howard taps into the powers of Satan through his computer; and Jawbreaker, which featured an ugly duckling plot, a humiliating prom sequence, a pig's blood reference, and three cast members from Carrie films (William Katt, P. J. Soles, Charlotte Ayanna) portraying the Purr family. Pop culture references Horror metal band Razorthroat recorded a 2004 concept album entitled "Pig Blood Blues" based on Carrie.

28. (tie) Suspiria (1977) (4 of 20 lists - 61 points - highest rank #2 Flash Tizzle) Suspiria is a 1977 Italian horror film directed by Dario Argento, and co-written by Argento and actress Daria Nicolodi. Nicolodi claims the plot was inspired by an experience of her grandmother's. The setting was originally to be a children's school but was later changed to a dance school for older teenagers. It stars Jessica Harper, Alida Valli, Udo Kier, and Joan Bennett in her final film role. Entertainment Weekly rated the film #18 of its top 25 most frightening movies of all time, saying it had "the most vicious murder scene ever filmed". A poll among critics at Total Film named it as the 3rd greatest horror film of all-time. It was rated #24 on the cable channel Bravo's list of the "100 Scariest Movie Moments". Suspiria is the first of a film trilogy Argento refers to as "The Three Mothers", about evil forces attempting to break through to the earth and wreak merciless havoc. Argento's next film, Inferno (1980), was the second in the trilogy, and the third is The Mother of Tears. By a poll of film critics conducted by the Village Voice, Suspiria was named the 100th greatest film made during the 20th century. The film was the final feature film to be processed in the Italian processing plant of Technicolor before it was closed. Plot During a night of rain and thunder, a young American ballet student, Suzy Bannion (Jessica Harper), lands in Munich to attend a prestigious dance academy in Freiburg. When she reaches the school, she witnesses another student, Pat Hingle (Eva Axén), fleeing the building in a panic. Unable to gain access herself, Suzy stays in town for the night. Pat arrives at a friend's apartment where she is attacked and murdered. She is stabbed several times. The killer then winds a cord around her neck that finally hangs her when she crashes through a stained-glass ceiling. On the floor directly below, Pat's friend is also killed when she is hit by falling glass and metal. Upon her arrival at the academy the next morning, Suzy is introduced to Madame Blanc (Joan Bennett) and Miss Tanner (Alida Valli). In a recurring Argento plot device also used prominently in Profondo Rosso and Tenebrae, Suzy realizes she recalls overhearing something Pat said the night before, but is unable to remember it. Suzy meets Olga (Barbara Magnolfi) and Sarah (Stefania Casini) and learns that she is to board off-campus with Olga. The following morning, Blanc informs her that a dormitory room is now free but Suzy says she would prefer to stay where she is. After a strange encounter with the cook (Franca Scagnetti), Suzy passes out during a lesson and awakens to discover the staff have moved her into a dormitory room against her wishes. Sarah's room is next door, and the two become friends. As the school prepares for dinner, maggots begin to fall from the ceiling. Tanner discovers crates of spoiled food on the floor above, and the students and staff are forced to sleep in the practice hall overnight. During the evening, Sarah identifies a distinctive whistling snore as that of the school's director, who is not due to return for several weeks. The next morning class is interrupted when Tanner accosts the blind pianist Daniel (Flavio Bucci), telling him that his guide dog has bitten Blanc's young nephew Albert (Jacopo Mariani). Outraged, Daniel proudly resigns immediately. That night, Suzy hears the staff as they leave for the night, but realizes they seem to be heading somewhere inside the building. While discussing this with Sarah, she becomes suddenly drowsy and goes to sleep, leaving Sarah to count the footsteps she hears as they pass. Meanwhile, while Daniel the pianist crosses a plaza with his dog, a statue of a phoenix comes to life; his dog becomes spooked and tears his throat out, killing him. Next day, Suzy upsets Sarah by telling Blanc that she heard Pat saying the words "iris" and "secret" the night she died. As the two girls swim, Sarah reveals that she was close to Pat and that Pat had been taking notes and talking strangely for some time. Later, she discovers the notes are gone. Once again, Suzy comes over drowsy and Sarah flees her friend's room just before an unseen person enters. Escaping to the attic, Sarah is attacked and finally murdered after becoming trapped in a room full of razor wire. Finding Sarah's room empty the following day, Suzy goes to meet her friend's psychologist Dr. Mandel (Udo Kier). Mandel explains that the school was founded by Helena Markos, a Greek émigré, who was believed to be a witch. Markos is also known as Mater Suspiriorum, or the Mother of Sighs. Mandel's colleague Professor Millus tells Suzy that a coven can only survive with their queen. Back at school, Suzy discovers all the students have gone to the theater. Finally suspicious of her prescribed glass of wine, she dumps it and listens for the footsteps of the staff. After her count, Suzy finds herself in Blanc's office. Noticing irises painted on the wall she finally recalls what Pat was saying the night she was killed, and finds a door hidden in the wall. Beyond, she discovers a ritual chamber where the coven is gathered, apparently directed by Blanc and comprising most of the rest of the staff. Unseen, Suzy learns she is to be killed, and finds Sarah's corpse. In another room she finds the directress and accidentally wakes her. The directress reveals herself as Helena Markos and taunts Suzy, invisible as an empty indentation on the bed when Suzy pulls back the bed curtains. Helena calls Sarah's reanimated corpse into the room to attack her. Suzy lunges at the outline of Markos, fatally stabbing her through the neck with the tailfeather from a glass peacock, causing Sarah's possessed corpse to vanish and the defeated coven members to writhe helplessly and bleed. Suzy then flees erratic supernatural forces ripping apart the place all the way out of the school and into the night as the building bursts into flame, destroying the entire coven. Cast * Jessica Harper as Suzy Bannion * Udo Kier as Dr. Frank Mandel * Joan Bennett as Madame Blanc * Alida Valli as Miss. Tanner * Stefania Casini as Sarah * Miguel Bosé as Mark * Flavio Bucci as Daniel * Barbara Magnolfi as Olga * Eva Axen as Pat * Susanna Javicoli as Sonia * Rudolf Schundler as Prof. Milius * Margarita Horowitz as Teacher * Jacopo Mariani as Albert * Franca Scagnetti as Cook Production The title, Suspiria, and the general concept of the "The Three Mothers" came from Suspiria de Profundis, Thomas De Quincey's sequel to his Confessions of an English Opium Eater. There is a section in Suspiria De Profundis entitled "Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow". The piece asserts that just as there are three Fates and three Graces, there are three Sorrows: "Mater Lacrymarum, Our Lady of Tears," "Mater Suspiriorum, Our Lady of Sighs," and "Mater Tenebrarum, Our Lady of Darkness." Suspiria is noteworthy for several stylistic flourishes that have become Argento trademarks. The film was made with anamorphic lenses. The production design and cinematography emphasize vivid primary colors, particularly red, creating a deliberately unrealistic, nightmarish setting. This look was emphasized by the use of imbibition Technicolor prints. The imbibition process, used for The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind, is much more vivid in its color rendition than emulsion-based release prints, therefore enhancing the nightmarish quality of the film. It was rumored that this film contained ghostly images or apparitions in certains scenes within the backgrounds that appeared in glass and lighting that were unexplained. This added to the mystique of the movie. Soundtrack The Italian rock music band Goblin composed most of the film's musical score. Goblin also composed music for several other films by Dario Argento. In the film's opening credits, they are incorrectly referred to as "The Goblins". The score for Suspiria is considered a unique masterpiece. Like Ennio Morricone's compositions for Sergio Leone, Goblin's score for Suspiria was created before the film was shot. It has been reused in multiple Hong Kong films, including Yuen Woo-ping's martial arts film Dance of the Drunk Mantis (1979) and Tsui Hark's horror-comedy We Are Going to Eat You (1980). Goblin frontman Claudio Simonetti later formed a heavy metal band, Daemonia, and the 2001 Anchor Bay DVD release contains a video of the band playing a reworking of the Suspiria theme song. This DVD edition also contains the entire original soundtrack as a bonus CD, long out of print in North America. Goblin's main title theme for Suspiria was named as one of the best songs released between 1977 and 1979 in The Pitchfork 500: Our Guide to the Greatest Songs from Punk to the Present. The main theme has been sampled on the Raekwon and Ghostface Killah song, Legal Coke off of the R.A.G.U. mixtape. Also sampled by RJD2 for the song, Weather People off Cage's Album Weather Proof and by Army Of The Pharaohs song Swords Drawn. The main theme and other music from the film was also sampled in television series such as Invader Zim. Response No aspect of Suspiria was as influential as Argento's flamboyant approach to filming the many killings occurring in the story. Argento already had a reputation for brutal violence in his films, such as his preceding feature, Deep Red, and he would later in his career be much criticised for it, including charges of misogyny which he denies. In Suspiria, victims are murdered in extremely elaborate ways; Pat Hingle initially has her face shoved through a window before she is stabbed in the chest repeatedly. She is then tied up, has an electrical cord wound around her body which slips as noose around her neck when she falls, is stabbed through the heart (in close up) and finally dropped through a stained-glass ceiling. A large piece of falling debris then impales another woman below. The camera lingers on Pat's blood-spattered body, suspended from the roof by the cord. This sequence was so greatly edited for Suspiria's original U.S. release that it was almost purged from the film. The film was seen as so violent in Germany that it was unsuitable for release and is to this day banned. Suspiria made Argento famous. Though many of his later films were admired by his fans, Suspiria is generally regarded as his best. Joan Bennett was nominated for a Saturn Award for her performance, missing out on Best Supporting Actress to Susan Tyrrell for Bad. Two bands, a Norwegian thrash metal band and a pioneering mid-1990s U.K. gothic rock band, have named themselves after the film. Several albums have also used the title, including Suspiria by Darkwell, Suspiria by Miranda Sex Garden, and Suspiria de Profundis by Die Form which can also be regarded as inspired by Thomas De Quincey's work of the same title. The Smashing Pumpkins used the theme from the film as introductory music on their 2007 tour. The Houston-based Two Star Symphony Orchestra, on their 2004 CD Danse Macabre: Constant Companion, included a track titled "Goblin Attack" that features a strings rendition of the Suspiria theme. The track's title appears to be a reference to the Italian rock band Goblin. The 69 eyes wrote a song 'Suspiria Snow White' on the album Back in Blood. The movie's music has been imitated by various artists, including Ministry's "Psalm 69" from their album Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs, Cage Kennylz's "Weather People", and Atmosphere's "Bird Sings Why the Caged I Know". In the 2007 film, Juno, the title character mentions Suspiria during a discussion of horror films with character Mark Loring after she finds a SomethingWeird Video copy of The Wizard of Gore. Remakes A remake was expected for a 2005 release according to the Internet Movie Database. This status remained as such into 2006, but the entry was eventually removed. Around the same time, writer Steven Katz stated that the remake "probably will not happen". Some fans believe that Argento was responsible, as he was against the remake, claiming to have seen a script, and saying "it will be s***, but that won't be my fault". But according to the IMDb, the remake has now been announced to be released in 2012. During June 2006, Japanese studio GONZO reportedly announced the production of an anime remake of Suspiria (サスペリア) is in development, but it has not yet announced a release date for TV broadcast. The anime adaptation will be directed by Yoshimasa Hiraike (Solty Rei). During March 2008, it was announced on the MTV Movies Blog website that the remake of Suspiria was to be made and released in 2008 with director David Gordon Green (Pineapple Express) at the helm. The remake is being produced by Italian production company First Sun. During August 2008, the Bloody Disgusting website reported that Natalie Portman's and Annette Savitch's Handsome Charlie Films set to produce the remake and that Portman will play the lead role. In 2009, it was reported that the movie will star Portman and directed by David Gordon Green. The First Sun project will produce by Marco Morabito and Luca Guadagnino. The American independent supernatural thriller film Finale was inspired by Suspiria, the director John Michael Elfers described his film as homage. The American film The Woods starring Agnes Bruckner features a plot very reminiscent of Suspiria. Awards Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA * 1978 Nominated Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress – Joan Bennett * 2002 Nominated Saturn Award for Best DVD Classic Film Release * Ranked #45 in Empire magazines "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010.

Slight list adjustment.

28. (tie) The Evil Dead (1981) (4 of 20 lists - 61 points - highest rank #4 pittshoganerkoff) The Evil Dead (also known as: Evil Dead, The Book of the Dead, Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead and The Evil Dead, the Ultimate Experience in Grueling Horror) is a 1981 American horror film written and directed by Sam Raimi, starring Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss, and Betsy Baker. The film is a story of five college students vacationing in an isolated cabin in a wooded area. Their vacation becomes gruesome when they find an audiotape that releases evil spirits. The film was extremely controversial for its graphic terror, violence, and gore, being initially turned down by almost all U.S. film distributors until a European company finally bought it in the Cannes Film Festival marketplace. It was finally released into theaters on October 15, 1981. Although its budget was just $375,000, the film was a moderate success at the box office, grossing a total of $2,400,000 in the U.S. upon its initial release. Despite getting mixed reviews by critics at the time, it now has a dedicated cult following. The film has spawned two sequels, Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness; work on a script for a further film has started. Plot Five Michigan State students venture into the hills and mountains of Tennessee to spend a weekend in an isolated cabin. There they find The Book of the Dead (a fictional Aztec/Canaanite text, unrelated to the Egyptian Book of the Dead), otherwise known as the Nyturan Demonta. While searching the basement of the cabin, the students find and play a tape recording of demonic incantations from the book, unwittingly resurrecting "Kandarian" Demons. The characters are then possessed one by one, beginning with Cheryl Williams (Ellen Sandweiss), after she is hypnotized by the song of a Demon and lured into the forest at night. Alone and far from the safety of the cabin, the Demon proceeds to possess the trees of the forest, which come to life in a snake-like fashion and brutally rape her. Cheryl escapes the trees and is chased by the Demon all the way back to the cabin, where no one believes her story and assumes that she was attacked by a wild animal. Her brother, Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell), decides to drive her into town where she can stay the night. They discover that the only bridge is completely destroyed and the supports are bent into the shape of a claw-like hand. Soon thereafter, Cheryl, having been infested by a Demon during the rape, dies and becomes a deadite (a corpse that is used as a vessel for the Demon that has possessed it) and stabs Linda (Betsy Baker) in the ankle with a pencil. Scotty beats her with the blunt end of his axe and kicks her in the cellar; he then locks her in the fruit cellar, but afterward Shelly (Theresa Tilly) enters her room and is killed and possessed by a Demon that crashes through the window; now a deadite, she becomes psychotically vicious and attacks Scotty (Hal Delrich), who dismembers her with an axe. Scotty then leaves to find a trail out of the woods. Ash goes to check on Linda, but finds that she too has become possessed by a Spirit. Scotty returns, but has suffered massive injuries inflicted upon him by the possessed trees. Before losing consciousness he tells Ash there is a trail in the woods. Linda revives momentarily from the possession and Ash drags her outside and locks her out of the cabin. He goes back to check on Scotty, but finds that he died from his injuries. Linda later returns as a deadite and tries to stab Ash, but Ash stabs her through the chest with a dagger. Ash drags her outside to dismember her with a chainsaw, but finds that he cannot bring himself to do it, and simply buries her instead. She rises from the grave and, after a violent struggle, Ash beheads her with a shovel. He returns to find the cellar door open. He enters the cellar, to find shotgun ammunition and returns to the upstairs. He hears a noise from Shelly and Scott's bedroom. With the shotgun, he goes in to investigate and suspects Cheryl may be in the closet. Cheryl jumps at the window a demon had earlier broken through and tries to take the shotgun from Ash, grabbing at it wildly. Ash shoots her in the chest, but it does not seem to have any effect. Ash then proceeds to barricade both the front and back doors. He runs back into the cellar to find a box of shotgun shells and experiences a strange series of events including the cellar filling with blood and hearing voices. Cheryl tries to attack Ash through the door, but he shoots her and then barricades the door. Meanwhile, Scotty's dead body suddenly revives to reveal that he has been possessed by a Spirit, only to have his eyes gouged out by Ash after a brief struggle. Ash notices that Nyturan Demonta has fallen near the fireplace and is starting to burn. Ash sees that Scotty's body is starting to burn as well, giving an allusion that disposal of the book into the fire will also destroy the Demons. Before he can reach it, however, Cheryl successfully breaks in through the front door and easily knocks him down. Scotty then pins Ash to the floor while Cheryl grabs a fireplace poker and repeatedly hits Ash in the back with it. Ash manages to grab the book after several attempts, using the necklace he had given to Linda earlier in the film, and throws it directly into the blazing flames just as Cheryl raises the fireplace poker to impale him. The Demons leave the bodies of Cheryl and Scotty, and their corpses become inanimate and fall apart over the course of several minutes just as dawn breaks, leaving Ash as the only survivor. He heads outside and stands in front of the cabin for a moment, thinking he has survived the ordeal. An Unseen Evil speeds through the forest, breaks its way through the cabin doors, and descends upon Ash, who screams in terror as the film ends. Production Raimi and Co. managed to secure a shooting budget of less than $375,000 and with the cast and crew, headed for a wilderness cabin in the woods near Morristown, Tennessee. The movie was shot over a period of about 1.5 years. Raimi used 'Fake Shemps' or 'stand-ins' to replace the actors who had left. One of the only actors loyal to the project from the beginning was Bruce Campbell (also a producer of the film and Raimi's childhood filmmaking partner), who went through torturous circumstances as the character 'Ash.' According to the Evil Dead DVD commentary, he would often return home after a night of shooting in the back of a pick-up truck, as he was usually covered in fake blood made from a mixture of corn syrup, food coloring, and non-dairy coffee creamer. Actors Richard DeManincor (Scott) and Theresa Tilly (Shelly) both went under different "stage names" during the shoot, since they were members of the Screen Actors Guild and wanted to avoid being penalized for participating in a non-union production. They are credited in the credits as "Hal Delrich" for DeManincor and "Sarah York" for Tilly. According to Bruce Campbell's autobiography, If Chins Could Kill, Richard acquired his stage name by combining his short name with his roommates' names, Hal & Del. Joel Coen served as an assistant editor on the film. Censorship Because of its graphic violence, the original version of the movie was banned in several countries, including Finland, Germany, Iceland and Ireland. In Germany, the movie's release was hindered by public authorities for almost 10 years. Original 1982 cinema and video releases of the movie had been seized, making the movie successful on the black market video circuit with pirated copies abounding. Several well-known horror enthusiasts publicly criticized the German ban on the movie, including author Stephen King (who gave it a rave review in the November 1982 issue of Twilight Zone). A heavily edited version was made available legally during 1992. During 2001 an uncut German DVD version was released, but the Berlin-Tiergarten Court ordered seizure of the DVD in April 2002 (Case Number 351 Gs 1749/02). In Finland, The Evil Dead was later released uncut on DVD by Future Film, and rated K-18. In the United Kingdom, the movie was one of the first to be labeled a video nasty during the mid-1980s and was finally released uncut in 2001. When the film was re-submitted in the US for a rating in 1994 the MPAA classified it with an NC-17 rating. When the distribution company Elite Entertainment released the film on DVD in 1999 they retained the NC-17 version. Anchor Bay Entertainment has since acquired the DVD rights to the film, and their subsequent releases have surrendered the rating to allow them to release the film unrated. Critical reception The Evil Dead received mixed reviews upon its release but over the years its critical reputation has grown considerably. Based on 45 reviews, the film holds a 100% "Fresh" rating on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes. The film was selected by the American Film Institute as one of the 400 candidates for AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills, a list of America's most heart-pounding films. The movie's vine rape scene has been described by some as being misogynistic. Raimi has since stated he regrets putting it in the movie. * Beyond Hollywood 5/5 stars * Nick Schager (A-) * Analog Medium 4.5/5 stars Releases The first release was on October 15, 1981. The film had a re-release in March 2010[12] as part of The Evil Dead Cross Country Tour, which begins in the NuArt Theatre in West Los Angeles. The limited edition Blu-ray was released on August 31, 2010 in the United States, featuring two discs with audio commentary with writer/director Sam Raimi, producer Robert Tapert and star Bruce Campbell. Spin-offs There have been a variety of spin-offs and tie-ins including a musical and comic mini-series. The themes of this movie have become a cult favorite among tattoo clientele. The images and catch phrases adorn a wide range of people from the rank and file to tattoo artists like Dan Henk. Evil Dead: The Musical With the approval of both Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell, a musical version of the film was staged, enjoying a successful workshop in Toronto and performances at the Just for Laughs Festival in Montreal in 2004. The New York off-Broadway production started previews on October 2, 2006. The official Opening Night performance was November 1, 2006. The show continued with 8 performances per week at the New World Stages until closing February 17, 2007. Evil Dead: The Musical has recently started production in Toronto starting from May 1, 2007 with the run extended from June 23, 2007 to August 4, 2007. On August 4, 2007 it was announced that the show has now been extended for a final time until September 8, 2007, excepting its further extensions to May 3, 2008, June 14, 2008 and August 2, 2008. A production is also scheduled to open at the Campbell Theatre in Martinez, CA on June 13, 2008. A second Canadian production by the Sock 'n Buskin Theatre Company opened on March 12, 2009 for a short run in Ottawa at Kailash Mital Theatre at Carleton University. This version created quite a buzz and was well-received on opening night. Ground Zero Theatre and Hit & Myth Productions will be staging the next production at the Playhouse at Vertigo Theatre Centre in Calgary, Alberta, running May 26, 2009 to June 15, 2009, extended to July 12, 2009. Comic book In January 2008, Dark Horse Comics began releasing a four part monthly comic book mini-series based on Evil Dead, written by Mark Verheiden, with art by John Bolton, who provided art for the Dark Horse Army of Darkness comic. The comic miniseries has several noticeable differences from the film, such as Cheryl being only a friend of Linda, and not Ash's sister. Dynamite Entertainment has an on-going "Army of Darkness" series and several mini-series and cross-over mini-series, featuring horror characters such as Darkman, the Marvel Zombies and Herbert West. Earlier incarnations The short film Within the Woods (1978) was made as a prototype to help convince possible investors to fund The Evil Dead. In it the filmmakers experimented with techniques they would use in the feature. It shares plot elements with The Evil Dead and also stars Bruce Campbell.