It

We all float down here. The movie “It” is a perfect combination of terror, friendship, and surprising comedy. The movie focuses on a group of seven kids who call themselves “The Losers Club” and Pennywise, the shapeshifting monster, who terrorizes them. There are plenty of jump-scares within the movie to keep the audience on the edge of their seat. However the movie was lacking in the chilling and suspenseful scenes that would typically make up a stirring horror movie. The blood and gore also certainly make this movie to some degree vile, but it didn’t overstep the “gross” boundaries. Other fantastic scenes incorporate a sense of friendship, which was extremely prominent in the final scenes when the children come together to defeat Pennywise. The child actors really helped these important scenes shine through. All of the actors were amazing and their performances were extremely realistic. Overall, the highlights of the movie reside in the vulgar yet hilarious comments between the boys. By far the funniest scene was when Loser, Richie Tozier openly said some very inappropriate things to Pennywise in the midst of a dangerous situation. From the quick remarks and banter to the horror and gore and finally the sweet moments between the whole Loser’s Club, this movie perfectly tied every all aspects of horror, gore and comedy. All of which what makes a great horror movie.

Nightmare on Elm Street

One, Two, Freddy’s coming for you. “Nightmare on Elm Street” was a revolutionary horror movie for its time. It’s a classic that brought new effects and ideas to the horror genre. The movie centers around four teenagers who all magically have the same dream featuring the same man, Freddie Kruger. When in this “dream world”, Freddie has the ability to kill his victims, which then kills them in real life. There were plenty of aspects that were attention-grabbing and scary. The movie was intense and suspenseful, helping to keep the audience interested in the plot. There was also a decent amount of blood and gore but because of the limited resources and knowledge during that time, it wasn’t too realistic. However, one of the most terrifying and bloody scenes is when Glen, one of the teens dramatically and very mysteriously dies.  As Glen falls asleep and enters the dream world he gets dragged through his bed as blood explodes through it. There were a jump-scares but the few present were predictable. Finally the young stars dominated the movie with now famous actors such as Johnny Depp. With the exception of a few cringey screams and running, the actors portrayed their characters very realistically. Overall, while there were some now outdated effects, the supernatural aspects and attention-grabbing deaths kept the movie interesting.

Babadook

This critically acclaimed movie follows widowed mother Amelia and her young, troubled son Samuel as they deal with a mysterious and threatening force living in their house. Samuel is obsessed with killing monsters from the stories he reads in order to protect his mom. One day, Amelia reads Samuel, “Mister Babadook”, a pop-up children’s book. Though it starts off like any other children’s story, Mister Babadook quickly turns violent, sending Samuel into hysterics. Later, the Babadook materializes and begins to mess with Amelia’s head, making her say and do things completely out of character. Although “The Babadook” had its creepy and suspenseful moments, it was not nearly as scary as anticipated. There were multiple disappointing moments throughout the movie when a jump-scare was to be anticipated, but the scenes would repeatedly end abruptly when the built up tension was resolved in an unexciting way. An outstanding aspect of the movie was the performance child actor, Noah Wiseman, gave. His realistic and attention-grabbing performance was especially impressive due to the fact that he was only 6 years old when they began filming.  Overall, “The Babadook” had a good plot line, however, it was not scary or creepy enough to be considered a staple horror movie.

Children of the Corn

“Children of the Corn” is yet another classic horror movie. The 1984 film was also considered revolutionary, bringing new ideas to the big screen. The plot centers around a young couple who stumble into a town of kids who have killed all of the adults. The kids claim that they murdered everyone because “He Who Walks Behind the Rows”, an evil and mysterious force, told them to. Throughout the movie, the couple runs around the town, set corn on fire and then leave. This movie could have used more terror and better effects. The effects were very unrealistic, even for 1984. The plot was slow, not incorporating the man behind the corn until later in the movie and the children actors were sub-par, yelling out their lines with no emotion. Rather than a horror movie with a scary yet cool supernatural force, it just seemed like a group of really weird kids with monotone voices. However, there were some positive aspects. The beginning scene depicts the murder of the adults. The scene was very detailed and creepy, especially when they showed the children’s bloody yet seemingly happy faces. This movie nicely incorporated a few chilling aspects but overall needed a faster-paced plot to keep the audience’s  attention.