Gore galore: top 10 picks
Eli Roth, director of "Cabin Fever," an homage to old-school horror flicks, is -- not surprisingly -- a big fan of old-school horror flicks. Here's his list of the top 10 gore classics of all time. Most can be found at local video stores or on services such as
"Salo" (1976) While not technically a horror film, Pier Paolo Pasolini's movie, based on the Marquis de Sade's "120 Days of Sodom," remains controversial to this day. I took a date to see this film when it played at a revival house in LA. Big mistake.
"Dawn of the Dead" (1978) George Romero's zombie follow-up to "Night of the Living Dead" was made in reaction to his intense feeling that the country was turning into a giant shopping mall and that people would probably go to one even after they were dead. The film has many moments of incredible, over-the-top gore.
"Zombie" (1979) This was director Lucio Fulci's take on the zombie craze, and it has one of the classic scenes in horror, in which a zombie fights a shark. Much like "Open Water," it's actually a guy in the water fighting a shark. Pretty cool.
"Cannibal Holocaust" (1980) Regarded as "the mother of all cannibal movies," this is the film "The Blair Witch Project" lifted its premise from. Unlike "Blair Witch," director Ruggero Deodato's film shows explicit violence the entire way through. While tough to sit through and somewhat dated, it's still extremely effective. Great score, too.
"City of the Living Dead," a.k.a. "The Gates of Hell" (1980). Fulci's films have an element of cheese but are stunning. This one has a classic scene of a guy getting a drill put through his head; it's beautiful. The French director Alexandre Aja brought Fulci's special-effects guy out of retirement for his upcoming movie, "Haute Tension."
"The Thing" (1982) Widely regarded as the greatest horror film ever made, this succeeds on all levels: acting, writing, John Carpenter's direction, score, and scares. A classic. "Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn," (inset, 1987) Director Sam Raimi was brought up on obscenity charges in England after "The Evil Dead" (1981), so when he made this sequel, he consciously changed the tone to make it more like a Three Stooges episode. The camerawork, lighting, and gore have been more influential in modern horror than any other film's."Dead Alive" (1992) If you haven't seen Peter Jackson's early films, such as "Bad Taste" and "Meet the Feebles," stop reading this and go rent them immediately. Jackson completely outdid himself here, making the wettest splatter movie ever. The film is so unbelievably funny it created a new genre, called "splatstick."
"Audition" (2000). Considered to be director Takashi Miike's masterpiece, this is an exercise in tension and suspense. It's pretty much a buildup to the third act, and when the violence hits, it's more effective than any I've seen on screen in years. I couldn't watch; I had to cover my eyes.
"Ichi the Killer" (2001) Miike's classic screen adaptation of the manga comic is one of the greatest modern splatter films. I love this film so much I got made up like its villain, Kakihara, for the "Cabin Fever" premiere. 