Favorites

The first on our list is ALIEN. This is, in our opinion, the premiere science fiction movie of all science fiction movies yet made. It’s a true 10-rocket movie on my launch pad any day. To read the feature article, “ALIEN: A Remembering a Classic,” (by Editor in Chief Chris Rennirt) click here! That explains exactly why it’s such a superstellar specimen of cinema. In the meantime, here’s the original trailer from 1979!

Speaking of extreme danger in isolation, does the planet Earth really get any more like an alien planet than it does in The Thing (1982). This movie takes place in the freezing cold of the Antarctic, with a mutating, shape-shifting, I-don’t-know-what, from who knows where? The Thing is able to morph into anything it absorbs, making it one double difficult danger to detect. No matter how many times, we see The Thing, no thing compares to what this movie delivers!

Stories about demonic possession are on a short list of subjects that, if done seriously enough, scare the $#&* out of me. The Exorcist is most certainly a movie that is done more than seriously enough. It’s another of only a few movies that creeps us out just about as much every time we see it. As far as demonic possession goes, and all the various, expected scares, The Exorcist gets a full ten-rocket launch, here at Space Jockey Reviews!

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is not only a cult classic, it’s also the story wherein lives one of the most famous of all human movie monsters–Leatherface! First, there’s nothing quite like the evil that emanates from a monster that is truly human (in at least the pure corporeal sense), even if the behavior we consider human has long since evacuated the body. Leatherface is, in our opinion, the ultimate human monster, and, quite possibly, the ultimate monster of any sort. He holds first place with us, because he is based (loosely but certainly) on a real person who did things that were actually worse that what Leatherface did in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. (Believe it or not, it’s true!) In our opinion, they don’t get much more creepy and scary than that!

Who cannot remember where they were and what they were doing the first they saw Pinhead speaking those famous words, “I’ll tear your soul apart!”? Yes, Pinhead has been, for many years since the release of Hellraiser, an icon of horror cinema. At a time when just about every monster had been done or redone, along came the nail-studded demon from the depths of Hell, with his torture-hungry band of cenobitic minions–The Chatterer, Butterball, and the one only known as “the female cenobite.” What’s more is that all of these new creatures terrorized fans in a story just as unique, featuring a musical puzzle box to amaze even Dante. Yes! Clive Barker’s Hellraiser had set the bar for horror cinema higher, in 1987, than most people thought possible. Until the next bar-breaker, “No tears, please. It’s a waste of good suffering.” ~ Pinhead

“A talking head? Get a job in a sideshow!” Who would have guessed, after hearing Herbert West speak those famous words, that Re-Animator would take it’s place so quickly in the best of cult horror? Space Jockey Reviews was never surprised. Re-Animator had all the makings of not only a cult classic, but also the best in dark humor. Over-the-top violence and gore, with a healthy dose of good laughs was just the prescription needed to fill the gap left for so long. The scene with Megan Halsey on the gurney with Dr. Hill’s head is, in our opinion, enough to make Re-Animator a classic well-worthy of repeated viewings!

Whenever we think of the movie From Dusk Till Dawn, the names Salma Hayek and Santanico Pandemonium come to mind…immediately–along with a vision of Salma playing, or rather dancing the part. What warm-blooded male with a pulse can forget the sight of this serpent-handling siren from Hell? Who can forget her writhing and rolling with the rhythm, dancing like a snake, only to captivate us before the kill? Even the undead come alive in her presence, ready to die again for but another glimpse! Normally, we’d say it’s overkill to talk so much about a bikini-clad babe in a horror film, but not this time! Normally, they come a dime a dozen–but not Salma; she’s one in a million million! Yes, Salma Hayak as Santanico Pandemonium deserves all of this paragraph and more; she’s earned it from the masses of minions who’d pass up no chance to grovel at her feet and see her dance again and again…and again! (And oh how Ritchie really loves her feet, literally!) Oh yeah! Did we mention the movie? It’s really good too! 😉

The Decent is, quite simply, one of the scariest movies we’ve ever seen! It easily takes and holds its place in our top ten list of all-time favorites. The atmosphere in this film generated slowly, and brooding throughout is enough to keep us on edge, every time we watch it–even though we already know what’s going to happen! We’ve always liked movies that put characters (especially those otherwise confident and self-sufficient) in dangerous situations and make them as vulnerable as the smallest of insects we step on every day. The Decent goes the ultimate step further by placing characters in total isolation, away from all sources of outside help, making them easy prey–with the slightest of errors, or the best of strategies played out. Topping it all off are monsters as fresh as any we’ve seen in a long time–the crawlers! Admitting how effective The Decent is as a super-scary horror film is as easy as being honest. Use your imagination! Forget where you are, at home on your couch. Place yourself in the caves of the crawlers, for just a moment, and feel the fear.

Dead Girl is about a group of seemingly normal guys enlivened by the discovery of a girl, seemingly dead . (Oh what terrible things they do to her!) Is she really dead, is she a zombie, or perhaps, in some otherworldly way, is she still alive, seeking revenge? Dead Girl is a surreal tale of life and death, unlike any you’ve seen before. It’s a Space Jockey Reviews favorite, as abstract as it is horrifying and depraved!