In celebration of Halloween, the IFC Films staff have put together a little list. It's a pretty ecclectic office, but as you can see we certaintly agree on classics. As voted by everyone from the Lawyers to the company President himself:

IFC Films' 10 Favorite Horror Films!

RUNNERS UP: Vampyr (1932), Suspiria (1977), Candyman (1992), The Orphanage (2007), A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

#10 -PSYCHO - 1960, d. Alfred Hitchcock
Modern horror was born in 1960. In Italy the giallo was sprung from Bava, in the UK Hammer found its stride, Michael Powell capped his career with PEEPING TOM, and in Hollywood the master of suspense turned a corner from a career of mystery to abject psychological terror. PSYCHO is ubiquitous, at this point, but its affect remains potent. In the attic: the ego, in the basement: the id. Hitch spun out a genre’s pinnacle with the simplest of Freudian metaphors, and a generation of movies owes him for it. (Keaton Kail)

#9 -HALLOWEEN - 1978, d. John Carpenter
Though this Carpenter classic is responsible for introducing the world to the oft-abused "slasher" genre, not to mention a franchise of sequels and prequels no one should ever bother with, it's hard to be too angry at the original. A sumptuous widescreen feast of terror with one of the all-time most haunting scores, the original "Halloween" is so frightening, you will want to turn away, but so aesthetically masterful, you won't be able to. (Jeff Deutchman)

#8 - JAWS - 1975, d. Steven Spielberg
No pontificating. Listen. http://bit.ly/2yh2Yp

#7 - THE DESCENT - 2006, Neil Marshall
Every great horror movie co-exists with an iconic score, PSYCHO had Bernard Hermann, JAWS had John Williams and THE DESCENT has David Julyan. Julyan's beautiful strings captures the fear, desperation, loneliness and strength felt by Shauna Macdonald's character as she tries to survive a violent and calculated attack of bat-like people in an Appalachian cave, with her thrill-seeking friends. What makes this movie so refreshing is the social dynamic between a group of women that try to help a friend who lost her husband to a fatal car accident a year before. The underlying secrets and tension between these characters can only be forced out by the literal interpretation of violent creatures killing them off one by one. I absolutely adore this movie, but it is elevated to a completely higher level with Julyan's score. (Nat Baruch)

#6 - THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE - 1974, d. Tobe Hooper
Tobe Hooper's MASSACRE hit the 70s like a blunt trauma. With a sickly palate of grease yellows, fleshy oranges and shocks of browned-blood-red Hooper painted the American south like it had never been seen before. '72's DELIVERANCE whetted an as-yet latent appetite for the deranged American hick-monster, but TEXAS CHAINSAW's redneck-sploitation thumbed at the apparently vivid phobia of an aberrant south to masterful, horrifying effect. A watershed in American independent film, and brags one of the most stunningly beautiful closing images in all of cinema. Leatherface dancing away towards sunset, gore effusing from his chainsaw, will certainly stick in my mind permanently. (Keaton Kail)

#5 - ALIEN – 1979, d. Ridley Scott
My favorite moment in ALIEN is one of the more tender and striking images of femininity I can summon up from any movie I’ve seen. Sigourney Weaver, victorious, exhausted, half-naked in her spaceship stands straight up in the glass cockpit and the camera worships her for a brief second, set starkly against a backdrop of terrible, empty, black space. It’s a tiny, elegant moment in a frenetically violent movie, but not rare. Scott’s touch elevates an aggressively simple, killer-aliens-will-lay-eggs-in-your-brain concept to a discussion of terror and the sublime. The film confronts an indefatigable image of space as the final frontier and finds out in the mystery nothing but monsters. And you’d certainly be hard pressed to beat the tag line. (Keaton Kail)

#4 - THE OMEN - 1976, d. Richard Donner
In the 1970s, the horror film picked up on a very specific anxiety: what type of child would result from the unbridled debaucherous reproduction and lax parenting of hippies? A Satanic one, of course. THE OMEN must be considered a member of any horror canon, but it is also unquestionably one of the most sublime conservative films. (Jeff Deutchman)

#3 - POLTERGEIST - 1982, d. Steven Spie... TOBE HOOPER
The inimitable Tobe Hooper claims his second spot in our countdown with the film that is surely responsible for more nightmares of generation Y than any other. Spielberg's producer credit often overshadows the undeniable stamp of the director of this terrifying domestic haunt, but questions of authorship are irrelevant to its brilliance -- a child's home is supposed to be the safest place on earth, and this movie terrorizes that security thoroughly. (Keaton Kail)

#2 -THE EXORCIST - 1973, d. William Friedkin
Scorsese recently hit it right on the nose: "A classic, endlessly parodied, very familiar— and it’s as utterly horrifying as it was the day it came out. That room—the cold, the purple light, the demonic transformations: it really haunts you." THE EXORCIST has carved out a little corner in understanding the horror film as something of an ideal of the genre. It cuts straight to a core fear of that final evil, Satan himself, come to make us do backwards-broken-spider-walks down staircases. (Keaton Kail)

#1 - THE SHINING - 1980, d. Stanley Kubrick

‘Nuff said. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rmn6FRgYwBQ



THE LISTS

Nat Baruch - Marketing & P.R.
My top 5 influential horror movies that remind me of halloween (though not necessarily my favorite horror movies of all time)


5. TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME - Dir. David Lynch
Traditionalists, say what you will about this film compared to the late-great TV show before it, but this film invoked fear in my little 11 yr old heart. Nothing can scare an 11 yr. old more than strobe lights, burly Canadians and cigarette butts.

4. THE GATE - Dir. Tibor Takacs
Yes, before directing such classics like MANSQUITO and episodes of RED SHOE DIARIES, Tibor made this underrated flick about a 13 yr old Stephen Dorff opening up the gate of hell in his parent's backyard by playing a heavy metal record backwards. This movie has the best use of a barbie doll as a weapon.

3. CANDYMAN - Dir. Bernard Rose
A story by Clive Barker, before ever seeing NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, this movie introduced me to social commentary within the confines of a horror tale. Hooks, babies, bees and dead dogs lie in this tale of a white grad student who is writing a paper on urban legends and comes across the one about a son of slaves who, violently murdered, becomes a cursed ghost in the present, reaking havoc in the Chicago projects when one looks in the mirror and says, "Candyman, Candyman, Candyman". All of this in enveloped with an iconic score by Philip Glass.

2. A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET - Dir. Wes Craven
My first foray into kitsch horror, though I say that with the utmost respect. What 8 yr. old would ask their parents to get them a subscription of Fangoria Magazine, just so they can order a replica of Freddy's glove?

1. POLTERGEIST - Dir. Steven Spie...I mean Tobe Hooper
The first horror movie that made me feel like I understood the responsibility and loss that a parent must face everyday, at such a young age. More kids movies should be like this.

Jeff Deutchman - Acquisitions 1. The Shining
2. Suspiria
3. Peeping Tom
4. Funny Games (97/08)
5. The Driller Killer


Justin Dipietro - Distribution 1) Shocker (if only because of Bingham Ray's standout performance)
2) I Spit on Your Grave
3) C.H.U.D
4) The Monster Squad (wolfman's got nards!)
5) Jaws 3-D


Jon Hertzberg - Distribution 1. DAWN OF THE DEAD
2. ALIEN
3. PSYCHO
4. SUSPIRIA
5. CAT PEOPLE


Kathryne Howe - Acquisitions 1 Silver Bullet
2 The Descent
3 The Exorcist
4 Halloween
5 Nightmare on Elm St.


Keaton Kail - Marketing & P.R. 1. Vampyr (1932)
2. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
3. Hausu (1977)
4. Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)
5. Blood & Black Lace (1960)
6. Alien (1979)
7. Night of the Hunter (1955)
8. [Safe] (1995)
9. Living Dead Girl (1982)
10. 28 Days Later (2002)


Huma Khan - Legal 1. The Exorcist
2. The Omen
3. The Omen II
4. Amityville Horror
5. The Ring


Lizzie Nastro - Acquisitions 1. The Shining
2. House of the Devil
3. Don't Look Now
4. Halloween
5. Cujo


Sarah Orazio - Exec. Assistant 1. Jaws
2. Ghostbusters (not horror, but so great)
3. Alien
4. The Birds
5. Scream (don't judge me)


Courtney Ott - Marketing & P.R. 1. The Thing
2. Alien
3. Psycho
4. Poltergeist
5. The Descent


Whitney Rodgers - Post-Production 1. Poltergeist
2. Child's Play
3. Candyman
4. Nightmare on Elm's Street
5. Pet Cemetery


Jonathan Sehring - President, IFC Entertainment 1. Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
2. Nosferatu (1922)
3. Psycho (1960)
4. Exorcist
5. Night of the Living Dead
6. Nightmare on Elm Street
7. Halloween (Carpenter)
8. Don't Look Now
9. Black Sunday (Bava)
10. Silence of the Lambs


I really like the early Cronenberg films (Frenzy, Shivers, The Brood) - Jaws doesn't count (it's a giant shark) - The Birds is great but it ain't Psycho.

Vicki Sheng - Marketing & P.R. 1. El Orfanato
2. The Shining
3. The Ring
4. The Others
5. Amityville Horror


Laura Sok - Marketing & P.R. 1. The Omen
2. The Shining
3. The Exorcist
4. The Orphanage
5. Halloween


Rose Surnow - Marketing & P.R. 1. The Vanishing
2. The Omen
3. Poltergeist
4. The Bad Seed
5. The Shining


C. Mason Wells - IFC Center “Hell Is Other People”
My favorite horror movies aren’t about blood or shocks, but the terrifying, cringe-inducing things people say and do to one another everyday. Full of emotional belligerence and bitter jealousy, naked egomania and crippling self-delusion, these are the kinds of movies you and watch through your hands -- in the horror of self-recognition.

1. THE KING OF COMEDY (Martin Scorsese, 1982)
2. WE WON’T GROW OLD TOGETHER (Maurice Pialat, 1972)
3. A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE (John Cassavetes, 1971)
4. THE FOREST FOR THE TREES (Maren Ade, 2003)
5. WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? (Robert Aldrich, 1962)


Ryan Werner - Marketing & P.R. 1. The Shining
2. Carrie
3. The Descent
4. Eyes Without a Face
5. Rosemary's Baby


Mike Winton - Marketing & P.R. 1. Jaws
2. Halloween
3. Creepshow
4. The Descent
5. Sleepaway Camp