I have a confession to make: I haven’t seen Psycho. Or Halloween. Or Friday the 13th. Or Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Or The Exorcist. Or Scream. Or Night of the Living Dead. The list goes on. Name a horror movie that you think is central to the classic horror cannon. I probably haven’t seen it.
I’ve been smiling and nodding my way through horror movie conversations for at least the last 10 years. There are a couple movies where I’ve picked up enough about them through osmosis that I can have a halfway decent conversation about them without losing my credibility.
In modern horror and some random niche areas, I’m pretty up-to-date. I’ve seen Get Out and It Follows and The Witch. I’ve also watched the entire Human Centipede franchise more times than most humans on this earth would care to admit. I’ve seen every single Saw movie (two of them in the theater even! Pity they were the worst ones), and every single Chucky movie (except the 2019 remake do not get me started). I love the Evil Dead franchise to death.
Normally, having holes in my nerd cred doesn’t bother me that much. But there are a lot of people who somehow got the impression that I’ve seen every spooky movie. I guess I just radiate that energy or something.
It’s not necessarily that I’ve avoided these movies (except Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I am legit terrified by the thought of watching that one), it just seems that, even in this age of streaming, these movies are nowhere to be found. I even paid for a Shudder subscription, but even they don’t have Psycho, Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, The Exorcist, the list goes on.
I realized the holes in my horror movie street cred needed closing when I sat down to write a book based on the slasher formula and realized I’d seen like…two classic slasher movies. I got about 7000 words into a zero draft when I realized I had no idea what I was doing, and that I need the encyclopedic knowledge that people seem to think I have.
SO HERE WE GO. Here’s the watchlist I’ve made for myself, starring some of my most egregious YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THAT?!?!?! errors. I might blog along the way, since I’m taking notes for Research Purposes anyway. If I don’t end up blogging on them, feel free to stare at this list in shock.
- Hellraiser [rewatch, but I’ll be reading Clive Barker’s Hellbound Heart first]
- Halloween
- The Exorcist
- The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
- Psycho
- Maniac
- Scream
- Evil Dead [rewatch]
- Night of the Living Dead
- Nightmare on Elm Street [rewatch]
- Nightmare on Elm Street 2 [I hear this one is really gay and I’m stoked about it]
- Friday the 13th
Since a solid chunk of these films aren’t available (for free) on any of the streaming services I either pay for or mooch off my family, I’ll be getting them from my library. Use your local library, folks. We only pirate Static Shock in this house.
Also, pray for me. I scare easily.
Sad Magical Creatures 