There's a whole spectrum of horror movies out there and although I focus on the great ones don't be fooled that I don't watch absolute garbage movies (and enjoy them). I do warn you up front that there are some really odd choices in here but I will explain my reasoning. I'm classifying my guilty pleasures as films that I really shouldn't enjoy but just can't help it.
Zombie Movies
Resident Evil
Ok, some people like this one a lot and consider it successful on it's own merits. Looking at it though it is a really trashy flick aimed at the video gamer that enjoys lots of things going boom. It's exactly what it is and doesn't pretend to be anything else. For that reason I wasn't disappointed with Resident Evil as a movie. As far as video game to movie adaptations go it's actually rather good. Much better than Silent Hill anyway. It's a guilty pleasure because I saw this one three times at the cinema :-o
Cheesy Vincent Price Movies
Dr Phibes/Theatre of Blood/House of Wax
... you know the type.
Vincent Price in his own right has to be a guilty pleasure. I can't imagine any of the above working if it wasn't for Vincent. Typically they have all dated horribly, the scripts are really corny and there's a really cheap feel to them. For some reason it works though. It's not horror made to shock, it's more cheesy entertainment with a slightly dark theme. These I clearly separate from Price's serious Poe works such as "The Pit and the Pendulum", "Masque of the Red Death" and "Fall of the House of Usher".
Teen Horror
Scream
Now it's actually debatable if Scream is a horror movie or just a teen movie with a murder theme. The classification doesn't really bother me too much. It's a movie that I shouldn't really like, the idea of teenagers running around, splitting in to groups being picked off by a masked psycho has been a standard horror plot since Sorority Row. It's just a modern take on the slasher movie. The reason Scream is a guilty pleasure for me is that it is entertaining, it's not sophisticated in the least but it is a good alternative to similar movies.
Gore
Hellraiser Part 3/4
Well parts 1 and 2 are a given. They are well directed and there is a genuine story to hang the gore from. Clive Barker had a vision and it worked. Parts 5 onwards are just an awful sell-out and it pains me to see the franchise give up on it's great start. Parts 3 and 4 are my guilty pleasure because I actually enjoy watching them where many people don't. They often receive very harsh criticism on the forums but in reality I think this is slightly more to do with a backlash at loosing Clive Barker rather than the movies themselves. Parts 3 and 4 both have reasonably solid story lines (no worse than other movies of the time) and the special effects are mostly up to scratch. Part 3 also was the start of Pinhead developing a bit more of a sense of humour, there are some great one liners in there. Had they stopped at part 4 I think the franchise would be remembered more fondly. The farce of part 5 onwards is a real pity.
Haunted House
House On Haunted Hill (1999)
The original "House On Haunted Hill" is obviously a William Castle/Vincent Price classic and one of the best of it's kind. Out of curiosity I watched the remake not expecting much, the trailer clearly set out that there would be CGI and a modern Hollywood approach to proceedings. I actually ended up really liking this one though. Geoffrey Rush is fantastic and holds the movie together. Although there is a lot of CGI which I usually want taken out of Horror movies, it actually seems to work for the most part here. OK, so it's not the original but I think the purpose of a remake should be to offer something a little different.
Happy hauntings, Jiblet.
So, what are your Horror Movie Guilty Pleasures? Please leave a comment below.
