The MoFo Top 100 of the Nineties Countdown

I like Scream more, a lot more, but I think Nightmare might be the better slasher. I also think it's more imaginative and effective as a horror.

I love Halloween, too, and it's status as a horror classic is undeniable, but I think Scream and Nightmare are both better and I like them both more.

And, Guap, yes, Scream is that good, especially if you're a fan of horror and slashers, in particular.

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5-time MoFo Award winner.

my question was how Scream compares to the original Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street... not their sequels

I still prefer it to the originals... Elm Street is by far the better of Halloween and Elm...

... but Scream outweighs Halloween by a long way and isn't a massive amount ahead of Elm, but is certainly a better film.

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If In the Mood For Love didn't make the Millennium list, I can't see any of Wong's 90s films making this one.

I'd have Ran on my 80s list, if I made one.

I don't care about Scream but then I'm not a horror fan, I probably just don't get all the in-jokes. I'm fairly ambivalent about Dark City.

Scream is very different from films like Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, etc. because the killer is an actual human being who, once they're dead, THEY'RE DEAD. And they have to get new people to be the killer -- known as "Ghostface" because of the costume -- in each film. And you never know who that person is until the end of the movie. In each film, you meet a bunch of characters and many of them die off, but one of them turns out to be the killer. They're mystery films. It's like watching Clue. That, to me, is the best part about the series. They haven't done a Scream movie yet that deviated from this tradition, like letting you know who the killer is throughout the whole film -- but they could. I theorize that it may have almost happened, actually. Maybe. With what happened with the last film.

But that wernt the question!. He's asked if it was better than the original Halloween and Elm street, not the sequels.

That's a good point, SC... they're murder mysteries that use the slasher formula and a satirical twist based on that formula.

Edit: I answered the Elm/Halloween question afterward

It's almost like the Die Hard franchise or something (the Scream franchise). Every film features new villains and new situations, with a hero who keeps on living (Sidney Prescott as the Scream version of John McClane).

hmm, here's the aggregate averages of user/critic ratings across imdb, rotten tomatoes, & bluray.com comparing Scream (1996) to Nightmare on Elm (1984) to Halloween (1978)

Scream (1996)
Rotten Tomatoes Critics: 8.3
Rotten Tomatoes Audience: 7.2
IMDb: 7.2
Blu-ray.com: 8.1
Aggregate average: 7.70

a Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
Rotten Tomatoes Critics: 9.5
Rotten Tomatoes Audience: 7.9
IMDb: 7.5
Blu-ray.com: 8.3
Aggregate average: 8.30

Halloween (1978)
Rotten Tomatoes Critics: 9.4
Rotten Tomatoes Audience: 8.5
IMDb: 7.9
Blu-ray.com: 8.8
Aggregate average: 8.65

interesting. i think many might watch Halloween these days and think it's cliché.. probably bc it's been raped, pillaged, and plundered by so many movies since. but to me, it's still awesome.. and the fact that so many movies were spawned by it and copied its structure and rules makes it even more great.

a Nightmare on Elm '84 edges Halloween '78 to me, just barely.. but both are excellent in my view

Wow, really? I wasn't here for the Millennium list and I haven't taken a look at it yet, but that's really surprising to me. I think Chungking Express is Wong's most crowd-pleasing/accessible film, so I would expect it to make the list, but now I'm not so sure.

To go back a bit, Beauty and the Beast was in my top 10 and I'm glad it made the list (by the skin of its teeth). I love Gaston as a villain and I think his exaggerated version of competitive masculinity is hilarious. I'm a librarian so I really like the bookish Belle as a protagonist. Overall, I really like it as an animated fairy tale and think it's the strongest of the modern Disney animated films.

Next 2 please .

French cinema is certainly my favourite, but it's mainly late-'40s to mid-'70s stuff, with the exclusion of people like Godard, Bresson, Renoir and Clair.


How many French films do you have?

Bit hot and cold about this list. Meh, maybe it'll grow on me.

100. Con Air
99. Dong aka The Hole - not seen
98. Speed +
97. Beauty and the Beast
96. Edward Scissorhands +
95. F#cking Amal aka Show Me Love +
94. The Sixth Sense
93. Short Cuts - not seen
92. Sling Blade -
91. Heavenly Creatures -
90. Dark City - +
89. Scream

I like Scream, I like Scream quite a bit. About a probably.

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I have watched about 100. I need to watch more.

Adore the last two film choices, Scream is one of my all time favourites and for some reason I didn't put it in my top 20!

How could I forget it!

Now the forum has more artsy members to expect more non-English films in this top 100 than the last. Though one thing is that since there are a huge number of these movies and very few are widely known it is quite the case that many were in the top 25 lists but few were in multiple lists, making them harder to show up. They are not like Pulp Fiction, a movie everybody has seem.

As individual films, Nightmare >> Halloween > Scream

Personally, I don't think either of them are as scary or imaginative as Nightmare On Elm Street, by far. Nightmare is a brilliant horror film full of great effects that reflect on different fears. It isn't as limited in its exploration of fears as the other two films are. Halloween is played straight and very effective, Scream has fun with slasher conventions, but Nightmare is on a whole other level and taps more directly into the mind itself as the creative well of its frightening visuals and phobic scenarios.

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#31 on SC's Top 100 Mofos list!!

Sadly only seen 3 of those 12.

I pray to Madonna that one or two of my movies will be next.

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