A list this complete is going to be long, so it helps to look at the Top 50 as the undebatable canon. Personal opinion aside, they’re the titles you have to include for credibility. Now we round out the Top 100 with films that are not just excellent Horror/Thrillers, they are among my All-Time Favorite Films of any genre.
I’ve already written about Aliens in the Hollywood365 section, but I didn’t get into how scary the film is. Another title that often gets disregarded because it’s more Action and Science Fiction. Or it’s seen as Intense but not Scary, which Is B.S. James Cameron gives himself over to Ridley Scott’s aesthetic with the patience and lighting in the opening scene, and by the climax he’s using his loud Big Jim voice, but throughout he uses his tech-noir aesthetics to amp up the tension and occasionally shock the audience.
The initial landing in the rain and exploration of the colony is a sci-fi set filmed like Gothic Horror. It leads to a couple of All-Timer jump scares, one where Burke gets too close to the face-hugger tubes and another where Newt sets off the motion trackers. During this film’s chestburst, there’s a jolting metallic sound, and that’s another gothic sequence leading to the terrifying discovery that the marines have fallen into a trap. It’s the reason why so many sequels fail, and this one is regarded right alongside the original. Cameron doesn’t steer too far from the first film while also making it entirely his own.
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