Personally, Last Shift (2014). It was a smaller budget movie that came out awhile back that not many seem to know about. One of the only movies that actually got under my skin in recent years showing budget isn’t always everything. The director remade it recently with a bigger budget but you can skip the remake it’s not as good. Any other recommendations?
John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness. Really cool premise with a cameo from Alice Cooper, and some neat practical effects
I put off watching Prince of Darkness for ages and when I finally did, it gave The Thing a run for its money as my favourite Carpenter. Also it got me to watch Quatermass & the Pit which I loved too.
American History X
As you wish: Wishmaster (1997).
“Do you wish to be beautiful forever?”
It’s on the edge of horror, but I find it terrifying.
8mm. It’s a Nick Cage movie, but it’s him at his best.
If that’s not truly horror, then I gotta go old school and say the original Nightmare on Elm Street. It’s not a must see because it’s the best ever made or anything; there’s some spotty acting, and it has that eighties vibe. But it’s still scary because the concept is a nightmare of its own. The idea of something creeping around the edges of dreams, waiting to ooze into you and rip you apart from the inside? That’s fucking genius.
It’s also a seminal film, and of the slasher genre. It’s one of the holy trinity that, eventually, led to things like Saw, scream, and all the modern variations on the slasher theme.
Threads (1984), imo there are very few films I think everyone should watch but that’s the one that most readily comes to mind.
Tuesdays with Morrie
(1997)
My English teacher had the class watch it every year before graduation and for whatever reason it stuck more than any other in class school memory
pi 1998 by darren aronofsky… obsession, paranoia, gaslighting, pattern seeking… maybe visually jarring for its high-contrast b/w but lends itself to the texture of delusional clarity. story of a man whose independent research yields some numerical anomaly and he becomes driven by the need to re-create this outcome.
