By John W. Whitehead
May 26, 2006

I know I’m human, and if you were all these Things, you would just attack me right now,so some of you are still human. This Thing doesn’t want to show itself. It wants to hide inside an imitation. — MacReady, The Thing

The great horror and science fiction monsters are considerably more than the sum of their mutilated body parts. Most of all, monsters represent repression, generally of the sexual and moral kind. In short, the horror film is a sign that the moral sources of human behavior have been either repressed or forgotten or never clearly acknowledged by the culture. This repression invariably involves the return of the repressed in a disguised form such as film monsters—creatures not bound by the laws of nature as we know them. Indeed, in times such as ours when the sense of moral distinction has faded and new evils are afoot, the proliferation of horror films and novels—as well as primetime television shows that focus on horror—is an indicator of a massive subconscious confusion.

And there are some definite subconscious themes that flow through such films. With the advance of science and technology, there is a definite threat to the very nature of what it means to be human. The 1996 photographs of a live mouse with a human ear grafted onto its back are an uneasy reminder of how far we have come. But there is a pattern reflected in the films that has roots in the culture. For instance, with the post-‘60s films and especially those of the mid-‘70s, the story of man’s desperate attempt to preserve his masculinity in the face of sexual liberation, emerging feminism and related issues such as abortion are pushed to the forefront in horror films. The ‘80s films often delve into the sacrifice of the soul in the pursuit of pleasures and riches epitomized by the rise of Reaganism. And the ‘90s films onward are populated by ghosts and hobgoblins that follow us wherever we go and even crawl from inside our television sets to kill and maim.

These films invade our minds, drawing on a vocabulary exceeding far beyond the language of the rational. They speak to us of the fears and desires which lie buried deep within the shadows of our subconscious.

The great films of this genre, however, are things of strange and terrible beauty. And although there are many bad ones, there are also films that speak to us in ways that nothing else can.

These films are more than a frightening foray into cinema. Indeed, they are a testament to the human spirit battling against insurmountable odds in a hostile environment. They express our repressed fears and expose us to the dark side of human nature—something so destructive that it cannot be controlled. And once it is unleashed, all hell breaks loose.

The following are ten films that I rank as some of the best I have ever seen. To receive the full impact of what they have to offer, I suggest watching them in the dark with a good sound system. And, by all means, have someone you trust to hold onto.

The Exorcist

(1973)

This is a truly terrifying story of a young girl possessed by a demon. Based on the bestseller by William Peter Blatty and directed by William Friedkin, it created mass hysteria when it was released in theaters. This film, as I have written elsewhere (www.gadflyonline.com), effectively halted the death-of-God movement that emerged out of the late 1960s. Very gory and violent.