Stephen King's favorite horror movies

I’ve been posting a lot about great movies lately, and it dawned on me a couple of days ago that I’d never shared one of the best horror movie lists that I’ve ever read – Appendix I: The Films from the back of Stephen King’s nonfiction classic, “Danse Macabre.”
Published in 1981, “Danse Macabre” is King’s take on horror fiction in print, on the radio, in movies and in comic books and his feelings about how horror fiction has influenced popular culture.
In the back of this (great) book, King includes two appendixes, Appendix I: The Films and Appendix II: The Books. Here’s what King had to say about Appendix I.
“Below is a list of roughly 100 fantasy/horror films tied together by their time and their excellence. All were released during the period 1950-1980, and all of them seem to me to be particularly interesting in one way or another; if I may say so without sounding like an Academy Award presenter, all of them have contributed something of value to the genre. You will find my own personal favorites marked with an asterisk (*).”
Without further ado, here are titles A-I on King’s best-of horror film list:
- The Abominable Dr. Phibes, 1971
- Alien, 1979*
- Asylum, 1972
- The Bad Seed, 1956
- The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, 1969
- Black Sunday, 1961*
- The Brood, 1979*
- Burnt Offerings, 1976
- Burn Witch Burn, 1962
- Carrie, 1976*
- The Conqueror Worm, 1968
- Creature from the Black Lagoon, 1954*
- The Creeping Unknown, 1955*
- Curse of the Demon, 1957*
- The Day of the Triffids, 1963
- Dawn of the Dead, 1979*
- The Deadly Bees, 1967
- Deep Red, 1976
- Deliverance, 1972*
- Dementia-13, 1963*
- Diabolique, 1955
- Doctor Terror’s House of Horrors, 1965
- Don’t Look Now, 1973
- Duel, 1971*
- Enemy from Space, 1957*
- Eraserhead, 1976
- The Exorcist, 1973*
- The Exterminating Angel, 1963
- Eye of the Cat, 1969
- The Fly, 1958
- Frenzy, 1972*
- The Fury, 1978
- Gorgo, 1961
- Halloween, 1978*
- The Haunting, 1963*
- The H-Man, 1958
- Horrors of the Black Museum, 1959
- Hour of the Wolf, 1967
- The House that Dripped Blood, 1970
- Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte, 1965
- I Bury the Living, 1958,*
- The Incredible Shrinking Man, 1957
- Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 1956*
- I Saw What You Did, 1965
- It Came from Outer Space, 1953*
- It! The Terror from Beyond Space, 1958
Like “The LOST Books” list from earlier this week, I’ll present you this complete list in the days to come. Let me know if you’ve seen any of these movies and what you thought about them. I’ve seen a few of them (and have even written about a few of them on this blog), but there are a few on this list that I’ve never heard of.