The UBW Top 100 Horror Movies - #25-1

We here at Uphill Both Ways love our horror movies.  Both of us grew up with vampires, werewolves, swamp monsters, irradiated beasts and everything around and in-between, and never has our love of the genre wavered. And it's with that love in mind that we decided to create our ultimate top 100 list of horror movies.  The only catch is that the films couldn't be newer than 1989. Sixties, fifties, or earlier? That's fine, as long as it's something we watched during the 70s and 80s  - and that only makes sense since that's the time frame we like to reminisce about here and on our podcast.  So how did we decide on this spooktacular countdown? We scoured the Internet for dozens of "Top Horror" movie lists, collated everything, eliminated ineligible entries, added, divided, averaged, and then sorted it all and then added our own personal rankings to the mix.  Really, the process is something a mad scientist would love and make lesser men tremble. We'd like to think that this process has given us the definitive list of movies that could have been watched on fuzzy UHF channels or VHS tapes back in the day.  Enough talk - let's wrap this thing up and see what the top films are!

#25

Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1978)

Director: Philip Kaufman

Starring: Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Leonard Nimoy, Jeff Goldblum, Veronica Cartwright

There’s maybe a handful of remakes that surpass the original and this is one of them. While the original had the scare of communism at its heart, this one - coming at the tail end of the 70s - is more akin to the fear that the hippies of the 60s and early 70s had to becoming yuppies and losing their whole counterculture street cred. There’s also the specter of government surveillance hovering over everything (like a spy satellite!), all of which - in addition to that ending - makes for one scary world.

The UBW Top 100 Horror Movies - #50-26

We here at Uphill Both Ways love our horror movies.  Both of us grew up with vampires, werewolves, swamp monsters, irradiated beasts and everything around and in-between, and never has our love of the genre wavered. And it's with that love in mind that we decided to create our ultimate top 100 list of horror movies.  The only catch is that the films couldn't be newer than 1989. Sixties, fifties, or earlier? That's fine, as long as it's something we watched during the 70s and 80s  - and that only makes sense since that's the time frame we like to reminisce about here and on our podcast.  So how did we decide on this spooktacular countdown? We scoured the Internet for dozens of "Top Horror" movie lists, collated everything, eliminated ineligible entries, added, divided, averaged, and then sorted it all and then added our own personal rankings to the mix.  Really, the process is something a mad scientist would love and make lesser men tremble. We'd like to think that this process has given us the definitive list of movies that could have been watched on fuzzy UHF channels or VHS tapes back in the day.  Enough talk - let's keep this going!

#50

House of Wax (1953)

Director: André De Toth

Starring: Vincent Price, Frank Lovejoy, Phyllis Kirk, Carolyn Jones

While House of Wax is itself a delightful thriller, its hook was that it was a 3D picture.  While there are a few scenes that really make use of the 3D gimmick, it’s not overdone and in fact somewhat takes a backseat to the story and performances themselves. Take away the stereoscopic images and there’s still an engaging and respectable thriller on screen.  

The UBW Top 100 Horror Movies - #75-51

We here at Uphill Both Ways love our horror movies.  Both of us grew up with vampires, werewolves, swamp monsters, irradiated beasts and everything around and in-between, and never has our love of the genre wavered. And it's with that love in mind that we decided to create our ultimate top 100 list of horror movies.  The only catch is that the films couldn't be newer than 1989. Sixties, fifties, or earlier? That's fine, as long as it's something we watched during the 70s and 80s  - and that only makes sense since that's the time frame we like to reminisce about here and on our podcast.  So how did we decide on this spooktacular countdown? We scoured the Internet for dozens of "Top Horror" movie lists, collated everything, eliminated ineligible entries, added, divided, averaged, and then sorted it all and then added our own personal rankings to the mix.  Really, the process is something a mad scientist would love and make lesser men tremble. We'd like to think that this process has given us the definitive list of movies that could have been watched on fuzzy UHF channels or VHS tapes back in the day.  Enough talk - let's keep this going!

#75

The Cat and the Canary (1927)

Director: Paul Leni

Starring: Laura La Plante, Forrest Stanley, Creighton Hale

With a plot that certainly seems to have influenced many ‘Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?’ episodes, this old, silent film includes some dark humor that serves to break up some of the most eerie segments. Following the death of the wealthy Cyrus West, his will leaves the inheritance to niece Annabelle solely due to her being the most distant relative named ‘West’.  Of course, she has to be declared sane by a doctor and as the rest of the family starts seeing dollar signs, the excitement begins. Filled with fun visual elements and some wonderful, gothic sets, this is not only a great haunted house movie, it looks good, too.

Fantastic Fest (2022) Reviews by Joseph Perry

“Solomon King” (1974), “ “Lynch/Oz” (2022), and “The Stairway to Stardom Mixtape” (2022) 

Solomon King

How baaaad is former CIA operative and Green Beret — and current nightclub owner — Solomon King? He’s so baaaad that after a woman he was protecting and recently made love to dies, his grieving process is short enough that he finds solace in the arms of another woman soon after. He’s so baaaad that, while suffering from a head wound, all he can think of is scoring with yet another young lady. And in between those times, he is involved in fisticuffs and gunplay aplenty. That’s how baaaad Solomon King is! Deaf Crocodile Films has done a terrific job with its 4K restoration of 1974 crime film Solomon King, which has a plot that reaches far beyond director/cowriter/star Sal Watt’s budget, but delivers mightily on entertainment and chutzpah. Solomon sets out to protect Princess Oneeba (Claudia Russo) when she and her father become the targets of a coup started by Prince Hassan (Richard Scarso) having to do with oil fields in the Middle East. Solomon’s brother Manny King (James Watts) helps her escape to Oakland, California, but after assassins kill her, Solomon makes things personal, including everything I wrote about at the beginning of this review and much, much, more, as the third act takes a turn from its urban-set action back to the Middle East. Though some of the performances are a bit flat and it is obvious that everything set in the Middle East was filmed locally, the sheer can-do spirit, the smile-inducing use of the pyrotechnics budget, and the tour of Oakland nightclubs — including some fun funk and soul numbers from the time — are just a few reasons that make Solomon King well worth seeking out.

The UBW Top 100 Horror Movies - #100-76

We here at Uphill Both Ways love our horror movies.  Both of us grew up with vampires, werewolves, swamp monsters, irradiated beasts and everything around and in-between, and never has our love of the genre wavered. And it's with that love in mind that we decided to create our ultimate top 100 list of horror movies.  The only catch is that the films couldn't be newer than 1989. Sixties, fifties, or earlier? That's fine, as long as it's something we watched during the 70s and 80s  - and that only makes sense since that's the time frame we like to reminisce about here and on our podcast.  So how did we decide on this spooktacular countdown? We scoured the Internet for dozens of "Top Horror" movie lists, collated everything, eliminated ineligible entries, added, divided, averaged, and then sorted it all and then added our own personal rankings to the mix.  Really, the process is something a mad scientist would love and make lesser men tremble. We'd like to think that this process has given us the definitive list of movies that could have been watched on fuzzy UHF channels or VHS tapes back in the day.  Enough talk - let's get this going!

#100

Wait Until Dark (1967)

Director: Terence Young

Starring: Audrey Hepburn, Alan Arkin, Richard Crenna, Efrem Zimbalist Jr.

Things are much scarier in the dark! A bit of a slow burn out of the gate, the pace eventually quickens as Hepburn, playing blind Susy Hendrix, is in-between a doll full of heroin and three men eager to recover the drugs. Hepburn was so good in the film that she was nominated for an Academy Award.

Happy October!