griggs's - Horror Films (Available on Cinema Paradiso) Everyone Should Watch Once List

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Natalie Portman gives the performance of a lifetime as Nina, a stunningly talented but dangerously unstable ballerina on the verge of stardom.

Pushed to breaking point by her driven artistic director (Vincent Cassel) and the threat posed by a seductive rival dancer (Mila Kunis), Nina's tenuous grip on reality starts to slip away. As the pressure builds, Nina's all-consuming obsessions spin out of control, plunging her into a waking nightmare that will threaten not only her sanity, but her life.

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When Chris (Daniel Kaluuya), a young African-American man, visits his white girlfriend's (Allison Williams) family estate, he becomes ensnared in the more sinister, real reason for the invitation.

At first, Chris reads the family's overly accommodating behaviour as nervous attempts to deal with their daughter's interracial relationship, but as the weekend progresses, a series of increasingly disturbing discoveries lead him to a truth that he could have never imagined.

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To the enigmatic question "Who are Seconds?", the film's original poster responded: "The answer is almost too terrifying for words.... The story of a man who buys for himself a totally new life. A man who lives the age-old dream - If only I could live my life all over again.

" John Frankenheimer directs Rock Hudson as a "second": that is, the newly plastic-surgery altered "reboot" of, in this instance, a listless banker named Arthur Hamilton. Such procedures are carried out by a secret organization known only as "The Company," with the promise of giving an individual a chance at making a fresh start at life... but at what cost? Master lighting cameraman James Wong Howe provides the paranoiac atmosphere to the skewed reality of what came to be widely considered one of Frankenheimer's very best films.

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The enigmatic Vampire Hunter known only as D has been hired to track down Meier Link, a notoriously powerful vampire who has abducted a human woman named Charlotte Elbourne. D's orders are strict - find Charlotte, at any cost. For the first time D faces serious competition.

The Markus Brothers, a family of Vampire Hunters, have been hired for the same bounty. D must intercept Meier and conquer hostile forces on all sides in a deadly race against time. Despised by Vampires for his profession and by Humans for the blood in his veins, D relentlessly pursues his prey, little expecting where his journey will ultimately take him, as long buried secrets resurface once more.

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Faust's tale is a classic one of a man who sells his soul to the devil. In an attempt to gain control of the Earth, Mephisto (Emil Jannings) wagers an angel (Werner Puetterer) that he can corrupt the soul of the elderly professor Faust (Gosta Ekman).

Mephisto unleashes a plague that spreads amongst its inhabitants. Faust, unable to find a cure-renounces both God and science invoking the aid of Satan through a mysterious book.

Trying to leave their troubled lives behind, twin brothers (Michael B. Jordan) return to their hometown to start again, only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back. "You keep dancing with the devil, one day he's gonna follow you home".

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Deborah Kerr (in the performance of her career) plays the emotionally repressed vicar's daughter who takes up a job as a governess to two seemingly angelic orphans.

Gradually coming to believe that the children are possessed by the perverse spirits of their former governess and her sadistic lover, she begins to see manifestations of the ghosts prowling the huge gothic mansion of Bly House. Director Jack Clayton sustains a superbly haunting atmosphere throughout the film, and like James' original work, cleverly retains the ambiguity of wether the ghosts are real or the products of the governess's fevered imagination. Aided by Freddie Francis's exquisitely inventive and atmospheric CinemaScope photography, we, like the governess, are never quite sure what unspoken horrors are lurking beyond the edge of the frame and are kept guessing until the film's tragic conclusion.

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Viago, Deacon, and Vladislav are three vampires living together and struggling to cope with modern life. From doing housework to trying to get into nightclubs, they're perfectly normal - except for their immortality, fangs, and thirst for human blood.

When their 8000 year-old housemate, Petyr, turns 20-something Nick into o vampire, the guys must guide him through his newfound eternal life. In return, they ore forced to learn a thing or two about modern life.

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Brian De Palma's inspired rock 'n' roll fusion of Faust, The Phantom of the Opera and The Picture of Dorian Gray boasts an Oscar-nominated score by Paul Williams, who also stars as an evil record producer who not only steals the work of composer/performer Winslow Leach (William Finley) but gets him

locked up in Sing Sing - and that's not the worst that happens to him along the way.
Few revenge scenarios have ever been so amply justified, but the film is also constantly aware of the satirical possibilities offered by the 1970s music industry, exemplified by Gerrit Graham's hilariously camp glam-rock star. Jessica Harper (Suspiria) appears in her first major role as the naive but ambitious singer, on whom Winslow secretly dotes.
Prodigiously inventive both musically and visually, this is one of De Palma's most entertaining romps, not least because it was so clearly a labour of love.

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In this action-packed sequel to Alien, Sigourney Weaver returns as Ripley, the only survivor from mankind's first encounter with the monstrous Alien.

Her account of the Alien and the fate of her crew are received with scepticism - until the mysterious disappearance of colonists on LV-426 lead her to join a team of high-tech colonial marines sent in to investigate.

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Legend has it that whoever is the last person to die on New Year's Eve will be destined to drive the Phantom Carriage, collecting dead souls for a year.

When a drunkard is found at the stroke of midnight, the victim of a vicious fight, he is forced to relive his past to see how he and those around him have been destroyed by his selfish and destructive ways. Directed by pioneering Swedish film-maker Victor Sjostrom, The Phantom Carriage is arguably the most influential and enduring horror film of all time. Powerful acting and groundbreaking trick photography lend it an otherworldly atmosphere not since matched in modern cinema. Cited as being one of Ingmar Bergman's primary inspirations, The Phantom Carriage depicted death as a physical and industrious presence, something later echoed in The Seventh Seal.

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Onibaba is set during a brutal period in history, a Japan ravaged by civil war between rival shogunates.

Weary from combat, samurai are drawn towards the seven-foot-high susuku grass fields to hide and rest themselves, only to be ambushed and murdered by a ruthless team of mother (Nobuko Otowa) and daughter-in-law (Jitsuko Yoshimura). When Hachi (Kei Sato), a neighbour returning from the wars, brings bad news, he threatens the women's partnership.

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Hollywood superstar Bruce brings a powerful presence to an edge-of-your-seat supernatural thriller that critics have called one of the best films in recent times. Dr.

Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis) is a distinguished child psychologist haunted by the painful memory of a disturbed young patient he was unable to help. So when he meets Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osmen)... a frightened, confused eight-year-old with a similar condition... Dr. Crowe seeks to redeem himself by doing everything he can. Nonetheless, Malcolm is unprepared to learn the truth of what haunts Cole: terrifying, unwanted visits from the restless inhabitants of the spirit world. With a riveting intensity you'll find thoroughly chilling and utterly unforgettable, the discovery of Cole's incredible 6th sense leads them both to mysterious and unforeseeable consequences.

In postwar Japan, Godzilla brings new devastation to an already scorched landscape. With no military intervention or government help in sight, the survivors must join together in the face of despair and fight back against an unrelenting horror.

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During Napoleon's invasion of Spain, two soldiers discover a strange manuscript at an Inn. The book chronicles the adventures of Alfonso van Worden (Zbigniew Cybulski).

Alfonso's passage through the dangerous Sierra Morena mountains is repeatedly interrupted by seemingly random encounters with an assortment of larger than life figures. Tunisian princesses inform Alfonso that he is their cousin and their betrothed; an occult scholar ensnares Alfonso with confounding stories about feuds between Merchants and hardships faced by gypsies. And of course, Alfonso never did expect the Spanish Inquisition.