The 50 Best Horror Movies You've Never Seen

1) The title needs to be taken at face value. It's not a list of the 50 best horrors you've never heard of, or the 50 best horrors period. It's the 50 best horrors you haven't seen.

2) Clearly some people are going to have seen many or even most of these movies. In the Internet Age, it's pretty much impossible to find gems that nobody has seen. The title is a bit of puffery, but a reasonable viewer should accept that it's meant to convey a certain set of parameters, not )a literal description.

3) It's clearly aimed at people who aren't voracious horror fans. Voracious horror fans can certainly enjoy it for the discussion possibilities (rankings. what got left out, what were you pleasantly surprised to see, etc) but the basic aim of the show is to discuss horror that isn't Halloween/TCM/Saw/Poltergeist/etc. So they're offering alternatives to the ones most everyone can name even if they haven't seen any of them. This is a valid and useful service being offered.

Horror (or any genre, for that matter) fans have to remember that there's a big old world out there, and most of it doesn't share your drive to learn all you can about your genre. It's perfectly okay to reach out to the casual fans too, and teach them a little more about horror films.

Well, after what seems like a half-hour of a bunch of Millennials talking quick sound bites about a kaleidoscope of films, we actually get into the countdown. Then we get rapid-fire clips of the movies very generously intermingled with headshots of the Millenials making like, you know, totally Millennial comments about them. Good idea, but poorly executed. Get some serious people who are experts in the genre to narrate the films. We don't need to see their faces every five seconds.

The 50 Best Horror Movies You've Never Seen (2014)

*** (out of 4)

P.J. Soles hosts this two-hour and twenty-minute documentary taking a look, as the title tells you, the fifty best horror moves you've never seen. Countless critics, actors, writers and directors show up to talk about the movies in question and why they love them so much.

Look, whenever a list like this is put together it's mainly for debate. People will take a look at the list and argue about the ranking or argue about what film was left off. These lists are just made to stir up a conversation and more times than not there's not too much thought put into them. As far as this list goes, I'm curious as to who this documentary was aimed at because the majority of the films on here are extremely well-known titles that even your marginal horror fan is going to know about. The film might be beneficial to those who really are unaware of anything outside of HALLOWEEN, Friday THE 13TH or THE Texas CHAIN SAW MASSACRE but everyone else is probably going to know of the films.

With that said, the list of films is a little.....over the map I guess you'd say. At first it seems like the list is going for titles from the past thirty years then they quickly do an old Hammer but then there's really nothing else "old" until we get THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER and REPULSION. Some might argue these aren't even horror movies but I think the bigger argument is who hasn't heard of these movies? Then you've got stuff like BASKET CASE, BLACK Christmas, THE SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE, THE HUNGER, HALLOWEEN III, WHEN A STRANGER CALLS, RE-ANIMATOR, PUMPKINHEAD and AUDITION. Again, most of these titles are very well known.

With that said, seeing something like THE FOOD OF THE GODS making the list is a bit of a head-scratcher. Either way, THE 50 BEST HORROR MOVIES YOU'VE NEVER SEEN is a mildly entertaining documentary that horror fans should enjoy even though they're not going to stumble across anything they probably haven't already seen or at least heard of.

This was a documentary that caught my attention when looking for something to watch at work. I was curious coming in as to the number I had seen and if I hadn't, did I at least know of that movie? I'll give my totals, but this was an intriguing doc along with the people that were interviewed.

Where to start though would be assessing the list, I had seen 40 of the 50 movies. Of the 10 that I hadn't, I think only one of them was one that I hadn't heard of. One that I hadn't was Joshua from 2007, that was a completely new one. There were ones like Grace, The Fury, Lemora: A Child's Tale of the Supernatural and Burnt Offerings, that I knew of, just hadn't seen yet. They're all on my high priority list for one reason or another. I do think that including the original Wrong Turn, Wishmaster or the original Black Christmas on this list are a disservice. There are more obscure movies that would benefit talking about more. I will credit though the ones that I hadn't seen as well as ones like Alone in the Dark or Tourist Trap that are just oddball ones that need to be seen more.

There are also a solid group of people here, from talking heads to filmmakers and actors. There is like Arnold T. Blumberg, Arielle Brachfeld, Brian W. Collins, Heidi Honeycutt, Kim Morgan, and Brad Miska to name experts/historians in the field. They interviewed scream queens Michelle Bauer, P. J. Soles, Brinke Stevens and Linnea Quigley. I also recognized John Gulager, Brea Grant, Ryan Turek and Philippe Mora as well.

What I'll also say is that this isn't going as in-depth as it could. They give good information, present the film and reactions people have to the work. I like that this one scratched beneath the surface a bit more than others. This runs two hours long and it flew by. I'm not saying that this one is great, but I think it works for what they're doing to offer up less talked about horror gems, for the most part.

My Rating: 8 out of 10.

A list by people who know nothing for those who wish to stay ignorant. The title is so misleading. Half of these had large releases. And the narrator's? So boring as to be coma inducing. The only way a viewer hasn't seen at least half of these is if they were born in the last decade.