You can look at this list as a sequel of sorts to lists that J.D. and I wrote in 2006. The Top 10 Overlooked Movies lists were designed to give you something to rent that you may not have heard about or had the wrong idea about. Think of this as an updated version of that list, inspired in part by the new Ricky Gervais film “The Invention of Lying,” opening this weekend. He starred in a great little romantic comedy from last year that disappeared from theaters without a trace (see #10) and it got me thinking again: What other new-ish movies do I never hear anything about anymore? What happens to great films after they suffer disappointing box office runs? The answer? They turn up here.

If you have an idea for your own Top 10 list, email me at eric@scene-stealers.com.

10. Ghost Town (2008)

He saw dead people, but nobody saw this movie. As a self-centered dentist who must grapple with the fact that dead people are suddenly asking him favors at every turn, Ricky Gervais is just testy enough to feel make the silly seem authentic—and very, very funny. He also pulls off the tricky task of convincing an audience to love a prickly bastard and root for his romance with ghost Greg Kinnear’s widow (Tea Leoni). Writer/director David Koepp peppers his movie with just enough cynicism and to keep “Ghost Town” from falling into bad rom-com Hell, and when things do get a little sappy, it actually works.

9. Zathura (2005)

This is the little-seen kids-oriented movie that Jon Favreau directed right before he did “Iron Man.” On the surface, it’s a story about a house that gets transported without warning into outer space by a mysterious board game. There’s a visiting spaceman, a giant robot, and the lizard-like Zorgons to contend with, but most of all, “Zathura” is about the camaraderie and friendship of two young brothers (Josh Hutcherson and Jonah Bobo) that’s always marred by varying degrees of competition and jealousy. Favreau shows that even before “Iron Man” he knew how to strike just the right balance between character and fantasy. (Sidenote: It was co-adapted from the book by David Koepp, who also co-wrote and directed “Ghost Town.” Weird.)

8. The Lookout (2007)

Having adapted the Elmore Leonard novels “Get Shorty” and “Out of Sight,” screenwriter Scott Frank makes a sure-handed directorial debut with this modest crime caper set in Kansas City. Chris (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is crippled with guilt and not able to function at a normal cognitive level anymore after a tragic high school car accident. His roommate is a blind father figure played by Jeff Daniels. Things get complicated for Chris when he meets a shady new crowd and they draft him into a scheme that he isn’t entirely aware of. Gordon-Levitt (who would go on to do “500 Days of Summer” and “G.I. Joe” this year) shines as the regretful loner and Matthew Goode (”Watchmen”) is magnetic as his new friend. The crime element is well-played, but its the characters you’ll really remember.

7. The Upside of Anger (2005)

The best female performance of 2005 in any movie was Joan Allen’s funny and fearless turn in a misrepresented film called “The Upside of Anger.” The hard-drinking, hard-charging Terry Ann Wolfmeyer is the razor-sharp creation of writer/director Mike Binder and, though you may think from the ad campaign that it is a touchy-feely family film, you’ll know from the moment you see Allen dismiss her daughter’s dreams in a fierce verbal barrage that you are in for more than you bargained for. Snappy dialogue is a rare find in Hollywood these days, and Allen and co-star Kevin Costner are on their game in this biting movie that avoids sinking into sentimentality until the moment it becomes almost unbearable not to.

6. The New World (2005)

The fact that the touching love story between John Smith (Colin Farrell) and young native princess Pocahontas (Q’orianka Kilcher) in Jamestown, Virginia probably never took place does not take away from writer/director Terrence Malick’s ability to tap into an emotional core that few directors achieve. The movie feels strange and new, like the English explorers must have felt coming upon a land unseen by “civilized” eyes, or how the native Algonquin people must have felt seeing those huge ships sail up to their shores. It also dismantles the entire rose-colored vision of America’s discovery and re-imagines historical events like the first Thanksgiving, all with the director’s trademark impressionistic style.

5. The Matador (2005)

Although he travels to exotic locales and is paid handsomely to be a “facilitator of fatalities,” Julian (Pierce Brosnan) is desperate and lost. He’s losing his knack for being a hitman, and realizes the trivial nature of his existence. His life is a series of frenzied one-night stands when he meets a mild-mannered salesman in Mexico City (Greg Kinnear). The two form an unlikely friendship, and soon Kinnear is doing all sorts of things he shouldn’t be. This is a funny, stylish movie from writer/director Richard Shepard that constantly feels as if it’s going to fall apart, yet it never quite does. It also showcases a depraved comedic side of Brosnan that is kind of a shock after all those years of playing the suave James Bond.

4. The Fountain (2006)

Before the neo-realism of “The Wrestler,” director Darren Aronofsky achieved a unique kind of narrative cohesion that defied traditional plot-driven mechanics with this lovely, stirring, and personal film. The combination of moody music, beautiful visuals, and rhythmic editing transports viewers back and forth through 16th Century Spain, a present-day medical struggle, the Fountain of Youth, the Tree of Life, and a future where Hugh Jackman floats through space in a clear bubble. While the ultimate meaning of the film may be up for interpretation, there’s no denying the film’s power to overtake the viewer. It’s narrative cohesion comes not from story, but rather the exquisiteness of its images and its transcendent life/death themes.

3. The Black Dahlia (2006)

Brian DePalma’s hugely theatrical adaptation of James Ellroy’s dark novel is one of the most criminally misunderstood movies in recent memory. Advertised as a film based on the real-life events surrounding L.A.’s most notorious unsolved murders, audiences and critics were instead treated to the pulpy, operatic descent into darkness of two 1940s L.A. cops (Aaron Eckhart and Josh Hartnett) and the woman they both love (Scarlett Johansson). Flamboyant camerawork and extravagant set design apparently weren’t enough to clue people in that this was meant to be a lusty and overheated soap opera set against the backdrop of a sick and twisted Hollywood. This is black noir the likes of which have never been seen, and the exaggerated acting by all involved is just part of the fun. This one is destined for a re-evaluation.

2. Speed Racer

To dismiss one of the most inventive movies in recent memory as a candy-colored assault on the senses is missing the point completely. This groundbreaking offering from the Wachowski brothers was unfairly bashed like no other movie last year. Like most films that are ahead of their time, though, I’m sure that “Speed Racer” will have its day. Rather than depicting reality, 14 different effects houses worked together to create a new form of “layered unreality” where nothing that is seen on the screen can actually exist in real life. The goal? A live-action interpretation of Japanese anime. The effects teams literally pieced together layer upon layer, essentially becoming the production design heads and “virtual” cinematographers. The pacing is frenetic, and the movie is probably too long for its own good, but as a bold experiment in storytelling, nothing else from last year is as invigorating.

1. Broken Flowers (2005)

Jim Jarmusch’s “Broken Flowers” tackles life’s ambiguous big picture and comes up with– guess what?– more ambiguity. A compelling portrait of loneliness tied together by a mystery plot, this meditative film has a wide-open array of interpretations. What it does subtly and surely, by putting Bill Murray’s eminently likable face on a character who stands in for our own existential nightmares, is ask us to face our own past and future. Does examining one’s regret require a complete flameout like Murray’s unfortunate Don Johnston, or will the inevitable march of time deal us cards of redemption? Murray keeps his hand close to his chest, wearing his best Poker face, and standing in for the viewer throughout. Devious in its simplicity, “Broken Flowers” has two transcendent moments of truth for every one silly and charming moment. Murray is alternately heartbreaking and hilarious in a role that Jarmusch wrote specifically for him, and there are no two better supporting performances in 2005 than the ones by Frances Conroy and Jeffrey Wright.

Tags: films, new, overlooked, overlooked movies, ten, top, Top 10 Lists, Top 10 Overlooked Movies of the Last Five Years, top ten, underappreciated

Today’s Top 10 comes from New Jersey resident Phil Fava, a longtime Scene-Stealers sitegoer, and it’s perfectly timed. He’s writing about a filmmaker who is so prolific that he has both canonized masterpieces (”Annie Hall,” “Manhattan,” “Crimes and Misdemeanors”) and Academy Award winners (”Bullets Over Broadway,” “Hannah and Her Sisters,” “Mighty Aphrodite”) littered throughout his filmography. And then there’s everything else. This is a great list of some movies that mostly fall into that last category, at least accorsing to Phil’s general-consensus-o-meter.  If you have a list of your own you’d like to contribute, email me at eric@scene-stealers.com. Here’s Phil:

As I eagerly await the release of Woody Allen’s newest film, “Whatever Works” (starring Larry David and opening this weekend in LA and NY), I can’t help but get all enthusiastic again about my favorite filmmaker. And nothing gets me riled up more than a game of Woody Allen apologetics, in which I defend the genius against allegations of sexual misconduct and artistic deficiency. It’s an easy job, to be frank. So, why not instigate the game myself? Here is a list of the top 10 most underrated Woody Allen films in the world according to me.

10. “Melinda and Melinda” (2004)

Four people meet for dinner in a Manhattan restaurant and debate the intrinsic nature of the universe. Two playwrights, one of whom is played by Wallace Shawn, are at the center of the dispute, and each takes the same scenario and spins it into a story of their own; one is comedic and the other is dramatic. And there’s “Melinda and Melinda,” starring Radha Mitchell and Will Ferrell among others, as the characters in the stories being told. The set-up device is simple and takes a back seat to the two stories which are told in turns. At the very least, the film is worth watching to see Will Ferrell in the comedic thread as the Woody Allen prototype. It’s a really funny performance in and of itself, and the dialogue is so vintage Woody that coming from a stammering, nebbish Will Ferrell makes it ten times funnier. The dramatic storyline is what you’d expect from Allen, who can write dysfunction without blinking. All in all, it’s a solid piece of work. There’s nothing groundbreaking here but most of it works really well. And Will Ferrell in the Woody Allen role? Come on. Where else can you hear Will Ferrell deliver a line like, “Yeah, but if you’re somebody who’s nobody, it’s no fun to be around anybody who’s everybody”?

9. “Manhattan Murder Mystery” (1993)

Other than a brief appearance in “Radio Days,” Diane Keaton hadn’t set foot on the set of a Woody Allen film for 14 years when they were reunited on screen in “Manhattan Murder Mystery.” In view of the scandal with Mia Farrow and Soon Yi Previn from the previous year, Keaton suddenly became Allen’s choice for top female billing in his next film. It worked out for the best, though. I’d go so far as to say that this pairing of actors was worth the protracted custody battle and media scrutiny exacted upon Woody and Mia! I mean, it yielded this film, which is as funny as anything Allen has done. It also reunited him with Alan Alda, who could not have been better in “Crimes and Misdemeanors.” Anjelica Huston? Well, to tell you the truth, her work in the aforementioned “Crimes” was one of the only things in the film about which I wasn’t insanely happy. But she’s a lot better in this. She’s less melodramatic and the fast-paced dialogue she and the other three leads have to deliver is pretty terrific. When all’s said and done, Woody Allen does dialogue. The mystery plot doesn’t really matter, and there’s only about as much overall tension worked up in this outing as any award show. In other words, the stakes here are not life and death. And, if they are, they’re not played that way.

8. “A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy” (1982)

If “Sleeper,” “Love and Death,” and “Manhattan” were able to conceive a child, “A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy” would be their cinematic offspring. I like to think of this film as Woody’s throwback to his movies of yesteryear made with the skills he acquired as a filmmaker after directing films such as “Annie Hall” and “Interiors.” It’s a lighthearted romantic comedy, for sure, but it has a setting, supernatural elements, and a screwball sensibility that place it alongside his earlier works. And you know what? It’s the best of them. He was still young enough to be a believable love interest of his female costars and yet experienced enough to craft a fully successful, competent film of this nature. Involving the romantic entanglements of a cast of characters including Mia Farrow, Tony Roberts, and José Ferrer, the film takes place over the course of a weekend at a summer home in upstate New York owned by Andrew (Allen) and Adrian (Mary Steenburgen). It’s a lot better than his early fare and it’s nice to see Woody not doing all of the comedic heavy lifting as a member of an ensemble cast. The rivalry between Ferrer and Roberts is great, and the screwball stuff works better than it ever did in “Sleeper.”

7. “September” (1987)

Can Woody Allen set an aesthetic tone for his films or what? “September,” his golden-hued follow up to “Hannah and Her Sisters,” touches on a few of the same issues as its predecessor but with a different tone, setting, and with a complete absence of comedy. It’s a dramatic, serious meditation on unrequited love and broken parent/child relationships taking place over the course of a few days in yet another summer home. Farrow and her best friend (played by Dianne Wiest) are two parts of a love quartet including two of Farrow’s neighbors, Sam Waterston and Denholm Elliott. Staying the summer with Mia, in addition to Wiest, is her mother (Elaine Stritch) and her retired physicist boyfriend (Jack Warden), the latter of whom engages Waterston’s Peter in a discussion of cosmic indifference and evolutionary randomness by candlelight after a storm shuts off their electricity. The performances are excellent across the board and function especially well within the isolation of the picture. There’s a vibe of loneliness in the movie and I can’t remember a single scene taking place outdoors. The aesthetic I previously mentioned is very conspicuous; the interior of the house really has an omnipresent golden hue. It’s such a solid, functional drama with great performances–mostly filmed in long, unbroken shots like so many of Allen’s works–that it deserves much more than to be shrugged off as it has. The set up is basically a theater exercise, but the delivery and payoff are totally redeeming.

6. “Everyone Says I Love You” (1996)

I’ll say it right off the bat: I don’t like musicals. Who does, though, to be honest? Other than the great films that seem to be musicals incidentally (“The Wizard of Oz,” “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”) and the few good pure musicals (“Singin’ in the Rain”), they’re not something I go for. They’re mostly phony, uninspired and, while I’m not that much of a cynic, far too saccharine for my taste. The whole “Let’s sing about what we’re doing, feeling, thinking, and what’s happening next” thing is really disruptive. But Woody Allen tackling the genre? I’m so in. “Everyone Says I Love You,” starring Edward Norton and Drew Bayymore, is a terrific entry in the vast, multifarious catalog of Allen films. It’s a classic Woody Allen romantic comedy with elaborate, wonderfully executed musical numbers almost peppered in. The great thing about this musical is that the songs were pre-existing and, as such, don’t do much more than vaguely indicate character’s emotions. They don’t telegraph the plot. They don’t serve as lame exposition. They’re just great pieces of music performed by many different actors in equally adept performances. Watch out for a young Natalie Portman!

5. “Zelig” (1983)

When one thinks of the seminal mockumentary of the 1980s, what comes to mind? My guess is “This Is Spinal Tap.” And that’s fine. Lots of people have a perpetual hard-on for the picture and treasure it. But I hate to break it to you, kids–the mockumentary of the 1980s just so happens to be “Zelig.” Using stock footage, staged interviews, and the kind of special effects that give meaning to the term, Allen and cinematographer Gordon Willis put together a marvelous, inexcusably forgotten masterpiece. Yeah, I said it. The subject of the piece is the fictional character Leonard Zelig (Allen), a man whose physiology demands constant adjustments in physical appearance and personality depending on whose company he’s keeping. For instance, when he’s around a doctor, he looks and acts like a doctor. And on it goes. It’s an astonishing technical achievement and is due a greatly heightened degree of appreciation. While some people’s mockumentary needs are met by “Spinal Tap” and the slew of subsequent Christopher Guest productions, we know what the real deal is. I do, anyway.

4. “Anything Else” (2003)

What an unjustly maligned movie this is! The basic argument of its detractors concerns its vague similarities to “Annie Hall” (which they fail to realize are similarities to all Woody Allen films) and their contention that Jason Biggs’ performance as Jerry Falk is a mere impersonation of Woody. Well, as someone who’s seen all three “American Pie” movies, I can tell you that Jason Biggs is not doing an impersonation of anyone. He’s been a stuttering, awkward, insecure neurotic since he stuck his dick in a pie in 1999. The difference here is that Woody’s dialogue has intellectual content and a level of sophistication in its humor slightly above that of dessert copulation. But this isn’t about “American Pie”; this is about “Anything Else.” And you know what? It’s a great movie. Christina Ricci is hyper-neurotic and unforgivably sexy as Jerry’s girlfriend Amanda, and Stockard Channing is pitch perfect as her mother. Her escapades with a coke-snorting horse whisperer are particularly entertaining. Woody, too, puts in the kind of performance as Biggs’ slightly deranged mentor that puts himself to shame in 2006’s “Scoop,” a movie that gets a deserved bad rap. While it is a pure romantic comedy at heart, much of the interaction between Allen and Biggs is darker and concerns the kind of deeper existential issues prodded in most of Allen’s films. Leave it to Woody to use a struggling relationship as a springboard for the meaning of existence.

3. “Deconstructing Harry” (1997)

I’m going to submit that this is the funniest Woody Allen movie, period. And it’s not funny in that very specific, highbrow, Woody Allen-kind-of-way. It’s funny on its own terms. It’s the product of an old master’s attempts to fulfill the comedic needs of a younger generation, and the results speak for themselves. Allen plays Harry Block, an author suffering writer’s block (not so subtle) who’s been invited to an honorary ceremony at the college that expelled him years before. Much could be said of the film’s apparent autobiographical content signified by its many failed relationships due to infidelity and betrayal and so on. But there are deeper truths here than those merely reflected in the director’s life. The humor here is so vulgar at times that it’s hard to believe Woody Allen was behind the lens, but that’s what makes it so effective. It is a perfect synergy of intellectual banter and crude sex jokes. And yet…the business about functioning better in art than in life remains intact, untarnished by the comedy. Same goes for all the insights, for that matter, which ring true en masse. I know it may seem like this entire recap/explanatory passage is about me being tickled by Woody Allen saying dirty words, but it isn’t. Had the movie been a stark drama with the same aphoristic integrity, I’d be telling the same story, here. But it isn’t. It’s really fucking funny.

2. “Husbands and Wives” (1992)

With shaky, hand-held camera work and seemingly arbitrary yet deliberately choppy editing, “Husbands and Wives” hardly holds any titles in the technical achievement branch of cinematic appreciation. But this artistic choice (it doesn’t sound any less pretentious when read aloud) happens to serve the film extremely well. It also makes a lot of sense, since it’s basically a totally sincere mockumentary not being played for laughs that uses voice-over narration and interviews with the characters. Those technicalities of production aside, the performances here are really terrific. And I don’t just mean Judy Davis’, whose turn as the cold, rigid intellectual Sally is hilarious. This film contains what might be Woody’s best piece of acting, period. He’s so restrained and surprisingly not neurotic, here, that I suspect his other, more high energy performances are indeed exaggerations of his personality (as he often declares). Sydney Pollack is really hilarious, too, in the most brutally honest way. The scene with him outside the party with his young, astrology-enthused aerobics instructor girlfriend is one of the funniest and most cringe-worthy I’ve seen. Another plus to this film is that you get to see a post-“Cape Fear,” pre-Scientology Juliette Lewis in a nice supporting role as the student/love interest of Woody’s character, Cliff.

1. “Stardust Memories” (1980)

This film, which came out one year after his universally lauded masterpiece, “Manhattan” (not to mention three years after his other universally-lauded masterpiece “Annie Hall”), could only really be expected to fall short. In the wake of such critical success, Woody decided to scrap any shred of easily digestible, logical narrative and make a film brimming with absurdity. While “Annie Hall” certainly had surrealistic elements to it, a clustered narrative, and presented scenes of pure imagination, it was relatively easy to follow. Alvy Singer’s constant breaking of the fourth wall had a way of keeping the fantasy sequences in check. But in “Stardust Memories,” the line between reality and fantasy is almost blurred entirely, right up to the end, with fantasy sequences taking place within larger fantasy sequences and so on. It’s definitely a film that requires repeated viewings to (almost) fully understand, but it’s so rich that each revisit is equally rewarding. Taking a cue from Fellini’s “8 ½,” “Stardust Memories” is about a disenchanted filmmaker named Sandy Bates (Allen) who has ceased to make comedies in view of human misery. He’s invited to the Jersey shore for a film festival of his past work, and during his stay, events of such humor and insight and madness and beauty take place, the cold shoulder this film has received is incalculable. From his encounter with alien life to childhood memories to a scene with his past girlfriend Dorrie (Charlotte Rampling) during which Louis Armstrong’s “Stardust” is played, the film is just alive. It has beautiful black and white cinematography by Gordon Willis and a fantastic soundtrack mostly comprised of Django Reinhardt. It’s also interesting to note that it marks the first in a series of what many perceive to be the definitive Woody Allen film, which includes jazz music and that ubiquitous credit sequence (“Annie Hall” was mostly devoid of music and “Manhattan” was 100% Gershwin). All in all, what this film lacks in straightforward storytelling and direct emotional impact, it makes up for in copious artistry and imagination.

Tags: 10, films, great, list, movies, overlooked, ten, top, Top 10 Lists, top ten, Underrated, woody, Woody Allen

Every Halloween, video stores are bombarded with the same question:

“Do you know any good horror movies I haven’t seen yet?”

Believe me, I know– I used to work at one. Unfortunately, most of the people that are looking for a new scary movie to rent stick with the tried-and-tired franchises like “Friday the 13th,” “Halloween,” “Children of the Corn,” “Nightmare on Elm Street,” etc. and have very little or no adventurous bones in their bodies. For them, a scary movie has a lot of gore and a high body count. For me, anything that creeps me out and keeps me there for two hours is a scary movie. The 10 movies on this list do just that. You may have heard of some or all or none of them, but these are 10 scary films that I think are too often overlooked. When you go to the rental store this weekend, try one of these. Links to related lists: Top 10 Scariest Movie Themes, Top 10 Movie-Inspired Halloween Costumes, Top 10 Slapstick Horror Movies, Top 10 Giant Monster Attacks! Movies, Top 10 Movie Monsters

1. Sisters (1973)

A reporter believes she’s seen a hot young actress (Margot Kidder) commit a murder (“Rear Window” anyone?), but there are more surprises in store when it is discovered there are separated Siamese twins involved. Brian De Palma is at his crazy best in this disturbing bloodbath with one of the most terrifying murder sequences (in split screen, no less!) ever. A showy camera zoom into an eye brings on some insane hallucinogenic asylum thrills, and Bernard Herrmann’s horn and synthesizer score keeps the trashy story in check.

2. Martin (1978)

A young man descended from East European immigrants in a crumbling steel town named Martin is so certain that he’s a vampire that he subdues women, slashes them with razor blades, and drinks their blood. George Romero shot this one, like always, on a shoestring budget—which makes Tom Savini’s bloody SFX all the more convincing. What’s really creepy, though, is the sense of inevitability Martin feels about his calling. Romero slips in his usual amount of social criticism as well. When things get tough, Martin reaches out to a local radio talk show and becomes a minor celebrity. “Martin” is a chilling and surprising vampire flick with more depth than a million “30 Days of Night”s combined.

3. Peeping Tom (1960)

One wouldn’t think that a movie about a man who murders women in front of the camera and then views his act again to study their every reaction to death would be directed by one of the most respected filmmakers of its time, but it was. British director Michael Powell’s reputation was ruined when he released this tale of voyeuristic perversion. It was labeled by one critic as “the sickest and filthiest film I remember seeing.” Perhaps the most shocking was that Powell overtly pointed out the moviegoer’s own voyeurism by turning it around on us. He made the viewer guilty by having us identify with a psychopath. After all, isn’t that what we are doing—watching people get murdered while we sit in the dark?

4. Frailty (2001)

Speaking of unlikely circumstances, actor Bill Paxton directed this spooky little movie that fills me with dread just thinking about it. Paxton plays a father who burdens his two young sons with a horrible dilemma, telling them that God has charged him to slay demons on Earth in human form. When he starts murdering people in the tool shed with an axe, things get really tense. Having current heartthrob and romantic comedy stalwart Matthew McConaughey tell the entire story in flashbacks makes this strange film even more idiosyncratic. Yes, there is a plot twist (that annoying convention that marks it as a post-“Sixth Sense” thriller), but there’s also tons of psychological terror and an abnormal amount of audacity to make up for it.

5. Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)

Werner Herzog’s re-imagining of the silent F.W. Murnau classic casts Klaus Kinski (who else?) in the title role and makes the beast more vulnerable and pathetic than horrifying. Creepiness abounds, however, in the hypnotic movements of the characters, the eerie score by Popol Vuh, and the close psychological link between the Harker character (Bruno Ganz) and the vampire. Is the Count a projection of Harker himself? Is he an outcropping of his inner self? There is an unhinged, sexual side of his and Lucy’s being that is gnawing at the edges, dying to be released. Herzog’s version is a descent myth – the journey from innocence to a terrible underlying reality which either destroys the character or makes them wiser.

6. Freaks (1932)

Special effects can never beat the real thing, so when Tod Browning filmed this circus nightmare, he cast Randian the “living torso,” the legless Johnny Eck, two real conjoined Siamese twins, two “little people” and the simple-minded “pinheads” (who later became mascots for The Ramones).Betrayal and revenge are the order of business, as a cruel trapeze artist taunts and ridicules the sideshow freaks after pretending to fall in love with one of them. The reality of the freaks’ situation is constantly staring you in the face, as they aren’t really acting, so it is hard to feel pity for the “normal” humans who get so much pleasure out of torturing them. What’s truly great about this movie is that it still shocks after 75 years.

7. Dead Ringers (1988)

Just one look at Jeremy Irons’ insect-like gynecological tools in David Cronenberg’s warped twin brother tale is enough to make you squirm. Though it may not be straight horror, this may be the most intense movie on this list. Elliot and Beverly Mantle are twin doctors who share everything, including their women. Their real conflict comes when a woman comes between them. A slow, deliberate pace gives one plenty of time to ruminate over the film’s themes of sexual panic, deformity, addiction and paranoia, all while staring in amazement at the towering performance of irons as both twins.

8. Fright Night (1985)

Like De Palma’s “Sisters,” this underrated teen horror entry borrows from the “Rear Window” template. Charley is convinced his next-door neighbor (a perfect Chris Sarandon) is a vampire, but nobody believes him. In desperation, he turns to late-night horror-TV host Peter Vincent (a nod to Cushing and Price played by with great sympathy by Roddy McDowall) for help. The genial old man is happy to have some attention, so he offers his “expertise.” What follows is a near-perfect blend of suspense and comedy that keeps you on the edge of your seat. It’s a bit dated now, but “Fright Night” does that rare thing that so few horror movies do—it makes you care about the characters.

9. Seconds (1966)

This new spin on the “fountain of youth” myth involves rich people who are able to get a complete reboot of their life. With the help of major plastic surgery and a rejuvenated body, these “seconds” have their old identities killed and get to start their lives over while they look and feel younger. Rock Hudson is one of those young-looking bodies, but he discovers some terrifying truths and begins to feel more trapped than ever in John Frankenheimer’s overlooked paranoid nightmare. The free love ways of the late 1960s have never seemed as selfish as they do here. “Seconds” was calling these motives into question pretty early on in the game.

10. Trick or Treat (1986)

When I was growing up, a friend of mine used to give me cassette tapes from his church of a minister playing records backwards and talking about how the devil had taken over rock music. It was a special kind of hysteria, but one that I kind of wanted to believe in, having become so enthralled by rock at such an early age. When Skippy from “Family Ties” played his Sammi Curr record backwards in this low-budget horror flick and the dead rock star talked to him, it was like my biggest fantasy/nightmare come to life. Although most of the plot is pretty terrible and special effects laughable, there are some very potent scenes that take me back to a time when I wanted my rock n’ roll evil and my rock stars bigger than life. Gene Simmons and Ozzy Osbourne are on the cover of the really crappy-looking DVD, but are only in the film for a total of about five minutes.

Tags: best, films, horror, movies, overlooked, overlooked horror films, overlooked scary movies, scariest, scary, Top 10 Lists, top ten