Mark Pilkington

Comments

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre

It feels more unique with every passing decade.

Possession

Its combination of sincerity, hysteria and high strangeness remain unmatched.

Videodrome

It feels more prescient with every passing year.

Suspiria

Still unbeatable as a nightmare of colour, vision and sound.

Gojira

For its fearless critique of the abuse of technology in pursuit of power – through the medium of a monster - and for the thousands of imitators that followed in its wake, some of them also quite good!

Further remarks

I'm mostly surprised at how many of my choices have remained much the same over the past decade, and how they are all 40 or more years old!

Whether that's because my tastes have ossified as I approach my own 50th year, or whether I genuinely haven't seen anything better made in more recent years, it's hard to say, but these are all films I've seen multiple times and find new pleasures in with each viewing.

They've all been influential in their way, either through imitation, re-makes, re-issues or discussions, and all should be seen (and largely have been!) by those in pursuit of The Horror.