Top 50 Horror Moment's In Film - 43, 42, 41, 40.
The following is picture heavy.
What the Burton remake of this timeless Roald Dahl book lacked was something that Burton tried to inject but failed miserably. It lacked Gene Wilder. Attempting to replace Wilder with Johnny Depp seems to some to be an inspired move, but his airy fairy take on Wonka is neither scary nor exciting - walking into glass doors is just not funny anymore Burton and Depp - and neither is burning dummies. What is scary is this psychadelic boat ride from the original film. Whilst is does beckon back to the hurricane sequence in the Wizard Of Oz, the boat ride sequence is something quite spooky. Chickens loose their heads, Slugworth appears, a man gets a centipede across his face, and Gene Wilder sings one hell of a spooky song whilst giving nicely spooky looks. Burton seems to have realised that his boat sequence would never have equalled the 73 version so he pumped it full of CGI speedyness and pointless roller coaster ride stylism.
Both of these great Disney classic's are underappreciated and usually sidelined for the horrific scene's in Bambi or Dumbo (mother shot, Dumbo on drugs), but in my opinion, these two films showclass greater scares than Bambi or Dumbo.
Pinocchio itself has some great horror scene's involving donkey tails, young boys getting drunk and playing pool, gambling, all the terrible things that can happen to a young boy who wants to be real - as if being made of wood wasn't bad enough! At the tumultous finale of the film, Pinocchio somehow trek's out into the ocean to find Gepetto and pal's - Cleo and something else - with a rock tied to his tail. He manages to find Monstro, the whale that managed to swallow Gepetto who was depressed because Pinocchio left him. Pinocchio plots to get swallowed by Monstro and save Gepetto. After being swallowed, they're in a predicament, how the hell do they get out of the belly of this whale?
Far from Disney's other portrayal of whales in films - Finding Nemo's nice whale who spits both Marlin and Dory out of his blow hole - Monstro is one mean mother fucker. Pinocchio and Gepetto get radical and hyper and start burning shit inside Monstro, determined to smoke the fucker out, so they can escape via his mouth. They manage this, and struggle severely to get the fuck out of the whale's mouth.
What makes this finale onto this list is the anger that has fueled Monstro now. He's on fire and he's pissed off. Pinocchio and Gepetto have managed to create a makeshift little raft that they plan to escape from Monstro on. Racing across the ocean in front of the whale, the bastard is screaming through waves after them, fury in his eyes. After fleeing for a while, they reach a sheer cliff face. A giant wave follows with Monstro on top. Their raft slams against the rocks and Monstro, furious, leaps out of the wall at the two men, his giant body slamming into the wall.
Sadly I couldn't find any worthy photo's of this scene and the best I could find was the following - which still captures Monstro's fury:
Next is Alice In Wonderland's Walrus and the Carpenter sequence.
In short it is an eery tale told by the equally eery Tweedledee and Tweedledum about a Walrus and his pal, the Carpenter. They plan on making themselves rich somehow, by clearing a beach of sand. That idea is quickly shafted aside when the Carpenter proposes work. Flung into the water, the Carpenter spies a bed of oysters. Little blighters in their shells, tucked away for sleep. The Walrus catches eye of this and walks into the water and woo's the oysters to come for a walk - much to the mother oysters dismay. The Walrus leads the little oysters away up the beach to a shack quickly made up by the Carpenter. Inside they sit at the table awaiting bread and sauce. What occur's is the Walrus' dining on the little oysters. His belly full, he feels no remorse for the oysters, just that he wishes there were more.
The Walrus is the only thing that I've seen that can touch their nose with their tongue like I can.
Whilst Lucio Fulci's Zombie Flesh Eaters suffers from a little too many laughable moments - where else can you watch a zombie fighting a shark? or what kind of laughter is derived from watching a zombie getting his head mutilated by an outboard motor? - it does have one extremely queasy moment where a beautiful lass is dragged closely to her death by a zombie as her eye is impaled on a wooden stick. Brilliant! Whilst I was harsh on Zombie Flesh Eaters at the time of viewing - I compared it too strongly to the superior Zombie Holocaust (which looks and is pretty much exactly the same as Flesh Eaters, only different soundtrack and sans zombie VS shark) - I should give it another viewing merely for this scene alone. Anybody who appreciates good gore should watch this just for this scene alone. Alas, I couldn't find any good screenshots of this and had to settle for the poor one I have below - the sequence works perfectly with the eyeball being splintered onto the stick and oozing out with its goo.
Peter Bogdanovich's brilliant first film is one hell of a ride. Given half a completed film already, Bogdanovich was told to make a film out of the already existing stock. Whilst the scene's with Karloff seem to make no sense up until the finale, it's the scene's with the all round family guy played by Tim O'Kelly that is the real horror of this film. Driven by some unknown reason, he gets a gun and decides to go on a shooting spree. Beginning one day it ends horribly at a drive-in theatre, but that's not the most horrific part. The moment where he is typing on his typewriter DIE and his wife enters who only just the night before was saying how much she loves him. He pulls a gun out and shoots her in the stomach. She goes flying backwards. His mother enters and he shoots her too. Then some other guy enters and he shoots him. Later in the film he positions himself on an oil pylon and using his sniper rifle he picks off drivers on a nearby freeway.
What the Burton remake of this timeless Roald Dahl book lacked was something that Burton tried to inject but failed miserably. It lacked Gene Wilder. Attempting to replace Wilder with Johnny Depp seems to some to be an inspired move, but his airy fairy take on Wonka is neither scary nor exciting - walking into glass doors is just not funny anymore Burton and Depp - and neither is burning dummies. What is scary is this psychadelic boat ride from the original film. Whilst is does beckon back to the hurricane sequence in the Wizard Of Oz, the boat ride sequence is something quite spooky. Chickens loose their heads, Slugworth appears, a man gets a centipede across his face, and Gene Wilder sings one hell of a spooky song whilst giving nicely spooky looks. Burton seems to have realised that his boat sequence would never have equalled the 73 version so he pumped it full of CGI speedyness and pointless roller coaster ride stylism.
Both of these great Disney classic's are underappreciated and usually sidelined for the horrific scene's in Bambi or Dumbo (mother shot, Dumbo on drugs), but in my opinion, these two films showclass greater scares than Bambi or Dumbo.
Pinocchio itself has some great horror scene's involving donkey tails, young boys getting drunk and playing pool, gambling, all the terrible things that can happen to a young boy who wants to be real - as if being made of wood wasn't bad enough! At the tumultous finale of the film, Pinocchio somehow trek's out into the ocean to find Gepetto and pal's - Cleo and something else - with a rock tied to his tail. He manages to find Monstro, the whale that managed to swallow Gepetto who was depressed because Pinocchio left him. Pinocchio plots to get swallowed by Monstro and save Gepetto. After being swallowed, they're in a predicament, how the hell do they get out of the belly of this whale?
Far from Disney's other portrayal of whales in films - Finding Nemo's nice whale who spits both Marlin and Dory out of his blow hole - Monstro is one mean mother fucker. Pinocchio and Gepetto get radical and hyper and start burning shit inside Monstro, determined to smoke the fucker out, so they can escape via his mouth. They manage this, and struggle severely to get the fuck out of the whale's mouth.
What makes this finale onto this list is the anger that has fueled Monstro now. He's on fire and he's pissed off. Pinocchio and Gepetto have managed to create a makeshift little raft that they plan to escape from Monstro on. Racing across the ocean in front of the whale, the bastard is screaming through waves after them, fury in his eyes. After fleeing for a while, they reach a sheer cliff face. A giant wave follows with Monstro on top. Their raft slams against the rocks and Monstro, furious, leaps out of the wall at the two men, his giant body slamming into the wall.
Sadly I couldn't find any worthy photo's of this scene and the best I could find was the following - which still captures Monstro's fury:
Next is Alice In Wonderland's Walrus and the Carpenter sequence.
In short it is an eery tale told by the equally eery Tweedledee and Tweedledum about a Walrus and his pal, the Carpenter. They plan on making themselves rich somehow, by clearing a beach of sand. That idea is quickly shafted aside when the Carpenter proposes work. Flung into the water, the Carpenter spies a bed of oysters. Little blighters in their shells, tucked away for sleep. The Walrus catches eye of this and walks into the water and woo's the oysters to come for a walk - much to the mother oysters dismay. The Walrus leads the little oysters away up the beach to a shack quickly made up by the Carpenter. Inside they sit at the table awaiting bread and sauce. What occur's is the Walrus' dining on the little oysters. His belly full, he feels no remorse for the oysters, just that he wishes there were more.
The Walrus is the only thing that I've seen that can touch their nose with their tongue like I can.
Whilst Lucio Fulci's Zombie Flesh Eaters suffers from a little too many laughable moments - where else can you watch a zombie fighting a shark? or what kind of laughter is derived from watching a zombie getting his head mutilated by an outboard motor? - it does have one extremely queasy moment where a beautiful lass is dragged closely to her death by a zombie as her eye is impaled on a wooden stick. Brilliant! Whilst I was harsh on Zombie Flesh Eaters at the time of viewing - I compared it too strongly to the superior Zombie Holocaust (which looks and is pretty much exactly the same as Flesh Eaters, only different soundtrack and sans zombie VS shark) - I should give it another viewing merely for this scene alone. Anybody who appreciates good gore should watch this just for this scene alone. Alas, I couldn't find any good screenshots of this and had to settle for the poor one I have below - the sequence works perfectly with the eyeball being splintered onto the stick and oozing out with its goo.
Peter Bogdanovich's brilliant first film is one hell of a ride. Given half a completed film already, Bogdanovich was told to make a film out of the already existing stock. Whilst the scene's with Karloff seem to make no sense up until the finale, it's the scene's with the all round family guy played by Tim O'Kelly that is the real horror of this film. Driven by some unknown reason, he gets a gun and decides to go on a shooting spree. Beginning one day it ends horribly at a drive-in theatre, but that's not the most horrific part. The moment where he is typing on his typewriter DIE and his wife enters who only just the night before was saying how much she loves him. He pulls a gun out and shoots her in the stomach. She goes flying backwards. His mother enters and he shoots her too. Then some other guy enters and he shoots him. Later in the film he positions himself on an oil pylon and using his sniper rifle he picks off drivers on a nearby freeway.