An independent film, in case you don’t know, is a film that is created mostly or entirely outside of the studio system. As such, “indies” are typically much more personal and much more daring and original than mainstream films, free from the tampering of a financially-concerned studio official. This of course pays off rather well for the horror genre, which is characteristically plagued by a lacking in originality; those studio heads only want the tits and the torture and the guts and the gore to be on display. Indeed, some of the best horrors ever made are indie films, whether they be B-movies, splatter-fests, zombie horrors or psychological chillers. So, let’s take a look at the ten best horror flicks to have ever gone through production without snobby studio heads constantly poking and nudging away at them; stay away, you money-grubbing swines!
10. “Paranormal Activity” (2009)
Budget:
$15,000
Plot:
In an attempt to capture footage of the supernatural entity they suspect is haunting their lovely suburban home, a young couple decide to film their everyday lives with a camcorder, with bloodcurdling results.
Why it’s amazing:
This super-low budget found-footage chiller from writer-director Oren Peli traumatised movie-going audiences the world over. Its deliberately slow pacing allows for a nail-bitingly tense mood as the supernatural goings-on (from doors moving to demonic possession) gradually become worse and worse.
Samuel L. Jackson is the quintessential badass actor. If you need a guy to shoot someone in the face, yelling obscenities the whole time, or a guy that just LOOKS like he could do all of those things while quoting Bible verses at you in a smooth R & B voice, Samuel L.’s your man.
He’s not really a guy who likes to mess around.
But, Sam’s played in a lot of movies, and while a lot of them were great, some of them were not so great. So, with apologies to Mr. Jackson, here are the 10 worst, in no particular order:
Often controversial, raunchy, and shaped like a balloon, Alfred Hitchcock, the “Master of Suspense,” is generally considered to be one of the great filmmakers of all time. His achievements include a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Academy Award Nominations, and inventing the “Thriller” genre of film.
Also, seriously, he’s like a beached whale.
In his long career, he made many movies. Here are, in this writer’s humble (yet awesome) opinion, the twenty best, starting with:
“When people ask me if I went to film school I tell them, ‘no, I went to films.’” These are the words of Quentin Tarantino, master screenwriter, master movie director and walking movie encyclopaedia. He is a man who grew up with cinema, frequently taking trips to his local grindhouse theatre in his youth to giddily view an assortment of dodgy B-movies, exploitation flicks, kung-fu movies and spaghetti westerns. He is a lover of film who, luckily for us, decided one day to venture into the medium, armed with the necessary knowledge and an unrestrained passion for all things cinema.
At present, Tarantino is one of the most renowned, beloved and legendary American filmmakers in all of Hollywood, up there with the likes of Martin Scorsese and David Lynch. Since his big-screen debut in 1992, he has directed seven wonderful films that have inspired and beguiled aspiring filmmakers and general audiences the world over; also, he’s won a friggin’ Oscar. Without further ado, let’s take a look at his five best films; well, according to me, anyway.
Paul Giamatti is not what we normally expect out of a leading man. He’s short, he’s pudgy, he’s balding…and he’s awesome. Here are five of his best movies, and why he makes them great.
