Given our focus ‘all things green’ we thought we’d throw together a fun list of ghoulishly green scary movies. Here’s our top ten. Don’t hesitate to add your own:
10. Let’s get it out the way right off the top. The thought of having to sit through Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” is a terrifying prospect for about 50% of the American public. All those Power Point charts, stock footage, melting glaciers, and God forbid facts…it’s just too much for many people to emotionally handle. Still…I know when I first saw it, it frightened the hell out of me.
9. “The Fly” (1986) – Mess with mother nature and you just might get what’s coming to you. And while we’re on the topic of messing with mother nature – how many genetically modified substances do you ingest every day? Jeff Goldblum (drooling fly goo above) has some graphically scary transformation scenes – David Cronenberg does some very icky movies – and the film’s ending just might make you think before you squish that ant crawling up your pant leg…or maybe not.
8. “The Blob” (1958) – Danger lurks in outer space (or cold war Russia). A comet crashes near a small town unleashing a creature that resembles a giant blob of gummy bear residue and possessing an insatiable desire to consume human flesh – always a good horror combo. Throw in a heroic young Steve McQueen and some pop corn and you’re good to go.
7. “Open Water” (2003) – Get out there and dive into nature…if you dare. A couple left to drift alone in a shark infested ocean try to resolve their relationship issues only to see that most terrifying of all relationships…with mother nature…go bad…
6. “Them” (1954) – Long before Three Mile Island and Chernobyl there was this classic depiction of the hazards and potential damage done to nature by nuclear testing. What better villains than giant voracious ants. A few people-hungry ants escape from a nuclear test site in the New Mexico desert, happily munching on unsuspecting movie extras all the way to L.A. sewers. A young and virile James Whitmore stars in this classic science lesson.
5. “The Birds” (1963) – Is that a wood thrush in your beehive Mrs. Smith? This Alfred Hitchcock classic still has me looking at crows with suspicion. Tippi Hedren sets the standard for fright flick screaming.
4. “Jaws” (1975) – The granddaddy of all animatronic monsters, a giant pissed-off killer whale terrorizes New England vacationers. What could be more chilling? Spielberg probably did more damage to the shark population than global warming and long line trawling combined. Still a great scary movie. Good karmic antidote: see “The Cove.”
3. “Arachnophobia” (1990) – A deadly South American spider enters the U.S. in a coffin and starts both breeding and killing. Somebody call Lou Dobbs! A comment on NAFTA, isolationism, or just a scary manifestation of people’s issues with our spider friends? Anyhoo…Jeff Daniels and John Goodman get the job done.
2. “The Wicker Man” (1973) – Not to be confused with the 2006 turkey starring Nicholas Cage, (scary only in the fact that it ever got released), the original English classic explores the dangers of meddling with folks hell bent on pursuing religious freedom…in this case paganism. Is the strange community on this remote Scottish island really a bastion for tree-hugging nature lovers and organic farming? Probably not, but getting torched in a giant wicker sculpture is a very scary prospect. High creepiness quotient!
1. “The Blair Witch Project” (1999) – The first of the low budget pov handy-cam genre and probably the scariest. Are we really so frightened by nature and the Jersey woods that we can wet our pants without ever seeing the scary witch monster? I recall being slightly disturbed leaving the theater after this one – perhaps it was the prospect of how much moolah the film makers were making with zero production value…
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I thought your top ten were hysterical. Very witty! Thanks.