Ranking of Horrors Episode One: The Devil You Say!

And I thought, what better way to kick that all off than with a little project that I've had in mind for a while. And it's something I've wanted to do ever since I kind of stopped doing the Ouija experiment experiment, because I like science. And I think a lot of the people who listen to this show, I think a lot of you are also fans of science. Otherwise, why would you be here? The Dark Parade is a science-based podcast, always has been, always will be.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to rank on a monthly basis every horror movie that has ever been made in the history of mankind. Now, obviously we can't do that all at once. So we are going to do this a little bit at a time. And to introduce how this is going to work, I want to introduce you to our friend, The List. This is The List. Right now, totally empty. There is nothing on there, but we're going to change that. I've got a selection of 10 films that we are going to rank tonight.

And then we will continue to do so in the future. On a monthly basis. Some of these, hey, I've talked about on other shows, but so be it. Um. Oh, no. Okay, there we go. So you should have audio now. Sorry about that. Yeah, okay. All right, I can fix that. I can fix that. My dad's got a monster set of tools. Anyway, so how it's gonna work, you saw the list, even though the audio cut out when I went to the list, therein lies our problem.

So the list is empty for now, but we are going to fill it with 10 films tonight. Now when we end the show this evening, we will have the best horror movie that has ever been made along with the worst horror film that has ever been conceived, and then eight films in between. Now the full list will grow month by month, and as I record podcasts and watch stuff, and also, not for nothing, recommend some. If you want to recommend a film to be ranked, scientifically, then by all means, let's do it.

So drop me a message on the Facebook, and then there we go. The Ray Man is here, it's official. This is now a real show. Okay, and then as far as the distribution of the show, just a quick note about that. The video will be live when I record it, and then it will be archived exclusively on the Legion Patreon, because God knows, the good people running the network these days deserve it. And the audio will be free, of course, on the channel. So there you have it.

Well, without further ado, I guess we should get to work. Let's start listing stuff. That also means I'm going to have to do a little bit of fanciness to get the microphone on this also. Okay, let's see if this works. Ah, there we go. That seems to work. Let's start with near dark. What do you say? How about that for the first thing to do? We talked about this recently on Heart of Horror, The Near Dark, directed by Catherine Bigelow. Maybe, all right, again, we got to approach this with science.

Now, obviously, obviously with this being the first movie, this will simultaneously be the best and worst movie that has ever been made. Only for a moment, but for an instant. Let's appreciate for just a second, let's appreciate the philosophical conundrum that for just a moment in time, Near Dark will be both the best movie that has ever been made and the worst. A very Schrodinger's film sort of situation. Okay, but let's talk about Near Dark. We're here to do some science.

Enough screwing around. It's a vampire movie, as Lee points out. 1980s vampire movie. What is more horrific than a vampire? I mean, right off the bat, Near Dark comes out strong, okay, from a scientific point of view. It's stylish as all hell. That is one stylish film. Catherine Bigelow directs the ever living shit out of that movie. So it's really well directed, very stylish, great soundtrack, just a great look. It's such a vibe kind of movie, you know?

It's a movie that you kind of kick back and just let wash over you. And then let's talk about your Lance Henriksen and your Jeanette Goldstein and how great they are in the movie. And then, ladies and gentlemen, and then let's talk about Bill Paxton, who runs away with this movie. The scene in the bar and him just doing his whole shit kicker thing. Lee points out it's not a typical sexy vampire. It's very punk rock and cowboy.

It does have this almost rockabilly kind of vibe, and it's nomadic, and it's on the road. It almost feels like a precursor to, and I think we talked about this on Heart of Horror, that it's almost like the True Knot from the Stephen King Shining sequel, Doctor Sleep. It has that kind of vibe to it of just some vampires running around doing vampire ass shit in the desert, in the Southwest, and just looking cool, wearing dusters and killing folk, being awesome.

That's what it comes down to, just being awesome. Yeah, Joseph points out Pete Bill Paxton. Absolutely Pete Bill Paxton. I mean, you can't take your eyes off of him in the movie. He's just a star, and he's having such a good time. He's having so much fun with that role. So scientifically, we've got a really strong cast in the supporting roles, which is good to see. But then we run into problems. Okay, look, no experiment, hardly any experiment rather, is a pure success.

The problem with Near Dark is that the leads are awful. And it kind of sucks that so much of the movie, you're just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, but what's Lance Henriksen doing right now? I almost want to spend more time with Homer, the little kid vampire, which let's be honest, I don't really want to spend that much time with Homer, but I would rather be with Homer than with the leads. And you've got Tim Tomerson. Tim Tomerson is bouncing around this movie as the dad and doesn't do shit.

Tim Tomerson's amazing. He's doll man for God's sakes. Ladies and gentlemen, he's doll man. And we have him relegated to this father role doing nothing? Ugh. Anyway. That is rough. Trancers. His name is Jack Death. His name is Jack Death and he wears an awesome overcoat. And Helen Hunt is inexplicably in that movie. Trancers. A movie that eventually will have to be judged. We'll have to take it on its merits scientifically.

Like I've got a warm spot in my heart for it, but science is what we are pursuing here. But yes, Trancers is one we should talk about. What a terrific movie. I remember that being. Okay, so yeah, yes, yes. Also follow up, Joseph points out, there's like five Trancers movies at least. I think there might be a secret Christmas special in there somewhere too. All right, so Near Dark, a bit of a mixed bag is the thing. But right now, scientifically speaking, the, you know, here we are.

Let's move over to the list, shall we? And here we are, here's the list. And number one, with a bullet, Near Dark. There we go. There you have it. We're not done. Oh, not nearly, we've got nine more to do. Okay. Let's see what's next on our hit list. I'll tell you what, let's do something, let's do something recent. Let's really, let's get deep into the science here. Let's talk about Late Night with the Devil. Late Night with the Devil just came out, in fact, has it hit Shudder yet?

I don't think it has. It's what, the 12th, the 22nd, the 19th, the 42nd, somewhere in there. At any rate, if somebody in chat knows, then please. Okay, here's the thing. Late Night with the Devil. Late Night with the Devil on paper is the best movie I've ever seen. Here's why it's just right up my alley. I like ghost stories. I tend to like possession movies strangely, even though I realize that it's more of a psychological thing than a spiritual thing for me.

I don't go in for all that devil business, but I do like it when somebody gets possessed by a demon. Go figure. And that's also good horror stuff. Getting to the science of it, good old fashioned demonic or evil possession, great fertile ground for a horror film. And that's what this movie is. I mean, I'm not going to spoil anything here because it hasn't come out, obviously. Which, you know, makes the science more difficult, but you're going to have to go with me on this.

Because I don't want to give anything away. But there is, the premise of the film is, you've got David Desmouchand is a talk show host in the 1970s, and this is kind of a lost episode of the show. And it's a night when he's trying to get ratings at sweeps week. And so they're going to do exorcism, or talk to a possessed girl live on the air. And, you know, and then shenanigans ensue, as you might expect. Great premise. Also found footage, kind of, mostly.

You know, there's a little bit of fudging with that, but so be it. Yeah, so that's also good. Like found footage and possession? Well, now we got something. Now we're talking about a horror movie, folks. Then you get to the meat of it. It is the movie, like entertaining and scary and all of that stuff. Performances are amazing. David S. Maltzian is incredible in it. It's got a real look to it.

It definitely shoots for that 70s aesthetic and I think really nails it, both with the look of the film and also the performances and the way that people behave on television, which is, it sounds weirdly specific, but also people weren't like they are on TV now in the 1970s. It was much more of a performance when you came on a talk show and so there's a little bit of that. And so all of that stuff is really, really good.

I think the biggest problem with it is it never really achieves greatness, even though the premise... Everything that you will see in Late Night with the Devil, you've kind of seen other places. And I think my pal Duncan said the same, that it doesn't really break new ground in the way that Ghostwatch did or going back to the War of the Worlds broadcast, that kind of faux mockumentary style, like Lake Mungo even presents itself as a pretty straight documentary. And this has little bits of that.

It's a movie that is a bit of a magpie, where it collects all these other ideas and things from other movies and puts them together in a way that's really fun and really entertaining. And there are moments where it really kind of goes for it, and that's really. But it's like it reaches high orbit, but it never breaks atmosphere completely, as far as just being a really effective kind of thriller. But it's good. It's good.

And the problem here is that now we have to put it against Near Dark, a movie that could not be more different. But science, ladies and gentlemen, has to bear this out. So let's think about this.

Near Dark, aesthetically, it kind of has a vibe the way that Late Night with the Devil does, but the Late Night with the Devil aesthetic is very grainy and kind of in your face and very much calling to mind that era of video, which is kind of messy and blurry and kind of shitty, as opposed to Near Dark, which has beautiful southwestern panoramas and, as somebody pointed out, Tangerine Dream. You know, we said it already. It's kind of a vibe movie. You kind of nestle back into it.

It's got weak leads. And David Desmouchian and the lead role in Late Night with the Devil, amazing, amazing. But the supporting cast, the bench, oh, the deep bench of Near Dark. I think, look, you know, I love a good found footage movie. I have a whole other show that just dropped, you know, a week ago about found footage movies. So you know how I love them. Science is science. Near Dark is the better movie. So I think, let's just look at this. I mean... That's right, that's right.

Yeah, yeah, okay. Let's move on. There is more science to be done here. We cannot pause, we cannot revel in how right we are at this moment. Instead, it is time to move on to another possession film after, believe it or not, went on a bit of a kick about possession movies and specifically found footage possession movies, which led me to a rewatch of a movie called The Cleansing Hour.

The Cleansing Hour is a movie starring Kyle Gaulner, of all people, who has turned out despite his performance in... Oh, God, that Nightmare on Elm Street remake. Oh, boy, just nobody was good in that thing. He shows up in this and it's pretty good. The premise is that his pal is this bebearded, muscular, Thor-like priest or would-be priest who performs exorcisms online. And these hiring actors, and they twist around and twitch, and they've got little gags set up in the room.

And Kyle Gaulner is sort of his producer, and coordinates all this stuff, and their effects, and it's all for subscribers and viewers, and etc. etc. And then one night, Kyle Gaulner's girlfriend, who is an actor by trade, is going for an audition or something, and shows up on the set, and the actress that was supposed to be there that night to be the possessed girl in this online video does not show, and so the girlfriend steps in.

And wouldn't you know it, goodness gracious, real possession stuff happens. And, you know, it's viewers online and trying to figure out what the demon wants, etc. etc. So, Lee mentioned the Manitou. Doesn't show up tonight, but oh, that's not a bad pick. Anyway, Cleansing Hours. So, scientifically speaking, let's put this one on the block here. It's, you know, it's a pretty good idea. The premise of it is fun. Again, we talked about, you know, possession and found footage.

That stuff, I think, goes together pretty well. You can do a good one of those. You know, Kyle Gallner is good in it. I think the, let me find the name of the actor who plays his girlfriend. And because I'll feel bad if I don't. Alex Angelis, I guess, is her name. And then Ryan Guzman is the priest in this. Yeah, I think Kyle Garner is certainly the best of the bunch. The Ryan, how am I supposed to call him? The clerk. Ryan Guzman, less so. He's fine, but that's kind of it.

It is fairly routine, and the middle of it's a little saggy, but it's kind of fun. It's a pretty fun movie. And the idea of like, oh, this demon wants something, we've got to figure out what it is, so we can stop it from doing its thing, but also it's screwing with their heads and yada yada. And it's all that is fun. It's pretty fun. Pardon me. So, scientifically speaking, it is not a disaster of a movie. It's perfectly fine. It is the skim milk of horror. Sure, it'll do. Is it what you want?

Maybe not, but it's fine. You know what? You pour it over some cocoa pebbles, nobody's going to know the difference, but you know, you pour that, you use that as a base for a milkshake or something, and you're just, oh boy, it's not going to go as well as you hope. Yeah, so I think where we are with this, pardon me again, I'm looking at the list. I don't think it is a stretch to say that it should be the number three right now.

I don't think it's fine, but it's Late Night with the Devil, despite being a bit of a magpie of a film, still does a lot more interesting stuff than The Cleansing Hour and Near Dark still sitting on top. Okay, all right, all right. I like the work we're doing here, people. I think that it's the Lord's work, really. And speaking of the Lord, I went down another path with the found footage possession films and I ended up washed ashore on the banks of Chasing the Devil.

Chasing the Devil is not a good movie, but I will say it is an interesting movie. The premise of it is a good one. It is really low budget, and honestly this list, because we are doing every horror film in the history of horror, it will be comprehensive. There will be movies on all ends, all along the spectrum of budgets and quality. Thus, the need for a list like this, right? You want to be able to refer to a good science-based list for recommendations and so forth, and really a guide to life.

But Chasing the Devil is ostensibly a film all about a guy whose sister tried to kill the pope, or tried to attack the pope, and then hung herself, and was acting all cray-cray prior to that. And it, you know, sparks his curiosity, peaks his curiosity, and so he gets involved with a bunch of paranormal investigators, and all of this sounds pretty terrible, and you're not wrong, you're not wrong to think that.

But where the movie I think gets interesting is they start to run into other possessed people that have clues as to what happened to this dude's sister. Unfortunately, the movie isn't deft enough to make that really a good tease, so that by the, you know, third act, you're really getting all the information that you need to piece together the story.

Instead, this one just kind of vomits it all out in the, you know, beginning of the second act, and then the rest of the movie is just sort of chasing after the same thing, and then it gets really silly and descends into kind of a found footage mess. But there's a centerpiece to the film in which they track down a girl who is possessed by theoretically the same demon that had possessed his sister. And so it has this weird relationship with this guy and is antagonizing him very deliberately.

And that's kind of a neat idea. And the actress who is the possessed girl in the film, let me see if I can find her name real quick. I think it is Elise Aberell, E-B-E-R-L-E-A-B-E-R-L, something my clumsy tongue cannot pronounce. But anyway, she's quite good being possessed. It's kind of lewd and despicable and a little bit just wrong, the way that in The Exorcist, there are moments where it's like, this is just wrong. And that's what makes it so unsettling.

And Chasing the Devil has just a glimpse of that here and there. But then, like I said, you know, the performances are not good. It's, alright, so some, this is a found footage fool distinction I often make. Some found footage movies air on the side of letting the actors improv too much and they're just not good at it. And it's just a bunch of people yapping for too long. The, then you have the other side of that where it's too scripted and it doesn't feel authentic in any way.

And that's where Chasing the Devil lands, is it feels scripted, like they all feel like actors. And there's a happy middle somewhere, or just the actors are really good improvisers or just good enough to make it feel real. And that's not the level of actor we're talking about here because it's low budget and so forth. But yeah, she's a hero, yes. But she does kind of steal the show. She's really the best part of it, the possessed girl in the center of the film.

So scientifically speaking, it is not a movie that can be recommended because there's really only a couple of moments that make it worthwhile. And you're better off just messaging me and saying which ones are theirs. Or just find the scenes where you see the possessed girl that's on the poster there. The poster there, there, whichever way. Yeah, scrub until you see that. It's on 2B, it's fine.

But I think at the end of the day, when we're really looking at this from an objective and scientific point of view, I think again we can all agree that Chasing the Devil is going to fall below The Cleansing Hour. So far, they've kind of fallen in order. Will that change with our next film, another found footage possession film, called The Devil Inside? The Devil Inside is wretched. It is a movie that has, yet again, kind of uninteresting premise, but it is painfully, painfully dull.

I've seen this movie at least twice, and I still struggle to tell you what happened in this movie. I know there are priests, I know there's an outbreak of possessions, I know there is a website I am told to go to at the end of the film for more information, about what happened in the last three minutes of the movie, that were the only things worth watching in the movie. It is a movie that absolutely ends at the place that it should have begun.

It is unfortunate that it was ever committed to film. But here we are. So look, those are my personal opinions. I do not find this to be an entertaining movie in the least. I think that it should be abolished and the filmmakers punished in some way. Perhaps some sort of gulag, a film gulag where they are forced to watch Ginger Dead Man films until they promise never to do anything like this again. But it is an interesting premise. It is an interesting premise. I will give it that.

I will also admit that the actors are a little bit better than those in Chasing the Devil. So it has that going for it. And it's a bigger budget film. And it's more polished. And, you know, all of the things that come with it being tied to an actual studio release. The question is, does that mean that it is better than Chasing the Devil? I think that based on what I've said so far, you understand that this is not going to be near the top of our list, such as it is.

Oh, come on. The Devil Inside is my guilty pleasure. I assume you mean when you are not responding to typical sedatives, you can throw on The Devil Inside, it'll knock you right out. They might as well give you the countdown from 10. You throw on The Devil Inside, you skip to Chapter 2 on the DVD, you start counting back from 10, you're not going to see 6. Anyway, let's do the science. Let's not dilly-dally. I think when the science is done, I think it is worse than Chasing the Devil.

Chasing the Devil at the very least has that centerpiece exorcism scene that is pretty good. It has an interesting idea behind it. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Okay, that's half of our list for this evening. Let's keep going. No time like the present. Speaking of possession movies, let's talk about The Devil himself, and namely The Omen. Let's talk about The Omen. Holy shit. What a movie. What a movie The Omen is. 1976, Richard Donner directs it.

Gregory Peck, playing the ambassador to Great Britain, you know, makes a fateful choice one night when his wife is having a baby. The baby dies, so he is told. And, you know, here he is like, hey, we got this baby. We can swap him out for you. It's not a big deal. Lee Remick will never notice. And he makes that deal. Only, surprise, surprise, oops, we got a devil baby. So, devil baby YOLO forever. Look, I think this movie is terrific, but my opinion does not matter here.

This is about the science. So let's examine this. We're talking about the Antichrist. We're talking about the End of Days. We're talking about the Apocalypse. We're talking about the Devil Son. All right, that's, again, we're playing in the fertile fields of horror. Great. Then, then you've got an honest to goodness movie star. I'm not talking about good actor. I'm talking about movie star. Gregory Peck is a limited range actor, but he is a movie star.

When he is on screen, he's got that kind of that vibe that tells you like, I'm a movie star. Damn it, pay attention. And look, Lee is getting ahead of us, but says the science of glass pain, glass pain decapitation cannot be disputed. Look, we'll get there, but you are not wrong. You are not wrong because for the first time in any of these movies, save for A Near Dark, we have not been talking about gore and violence. Near Dark has that in the bar scene.

None of the other films really do, but The Omen brings it. He brings it in this. Lee Remick is great. The scene in the hospital where she is begging, Gregory Pegg like, don't let him kill me. Damien is gonna kill me. Yeah, it's terrific. The idea that Lee Remick starts to sniff this out ahead of anybody else where she's the one who's like, I think this kid is fucked up. I think we gotta bum one.

And the psychiatrist, by the way, the psychiatrist telling Gregory Pegg, spilling all the tea about what was said in therapy, pretty low. And Gregory Pegg, not a great person to be asking in the first place. But when the psychiatrist or psychologist says, yeah, she doesn't think the kid is hers. And he's like, but why would she think that? But that's crazy. Oh boy, I got a story for you doc. It's so good, so good. The baboon attack.

If you were banging around on Facebook as I was watching the movie, I was making a little joke, a jape, a jest about that. I was just like, hey, how was your day, dear? Well, the baboons attacked us because apparently our child's the devil. And that was fucked up. And we can't take them to the zoo anymore. And I also respect the fact that baboons know an antichrist when they see one. Okay, so again, back to the science. Performance is amazing. Gregory Peck is incredible in this.

Lee Remick is great. And then, and you're right, then you get to David Warner, who again kind of steals the scenes that he's in. Going toe to toe with Gregory Peck and more than holding his own. He's so good in this. The decapitation is amazing. The priest getting speared is pretty great. Damien is a legit creepy kid. It is a creepy ass kid. This movie does not work if Damien is just a happy-go-lucky kid.

But when he breaks the fourth wall at the end of this movie and gives that smile, and you're like, Motherfucker, that kid is, there is something wrong with this child. It has to be murdered. And another thing, another thing about this movie, here's how you know this is a 70s ass 70s movie. If everything goes right for our hero in this movie, if everything aligns and the stars line up, then his victory is murdering a child in a church. That's the best case scenario of this film.

That is some 70s ass 70s movie making. I love it. And scientifically speaking, the movie has balls. It goes for it. Gregory Peck gets murdered at the end of this movie, and the Devil wins. It's just terrific. And along the way, there's creepy stuff all along in the investigation of how do we know he's the Devil and all of that.

And then there's the housekeeper that shows up as a minion of Satan with this dog that Gregory Peck, every time he sees it, is like, I thought I told you to get rid of that thing. It's awesome. Everything about this is terrific. Like Joseph pointed out, rooting for Gregory Peck to stab that kid is a core memory of his. And likewise, I remember thinking, even then, that's fucked up. This is a father murdering his own child with not just a knife, a series of knives.

You gotta get them like four or five times. Oh my goodness. Okay, but then we gotta look at this. Alright. Let's take a look at this list. Is The Omen better than Near Dark? Is there anybody watching right now that would suggest that it is not? I think that what we have to do here is go with The Omen.

I think the science is, the performances, the concept, efficiently directed by Richard Donner, and there is the one good bar scene in Near Dark, The Omen has a couple of kills that are pretty terrific. They are pretty terrific. Okay, okay, yeah, let's keep this party moving. Because if we're talking Omen, we're talking classic 70s possession movies. And so when I say classic 70s possession movies, I think you know the one I mean. And we're going to do the legacy sequel to that.

That's right. It's The Exorcist Believer. The Exorcist Believer. So what do we say? This is not good. But, all right. Abby, you know, we'll talk about Abby another day. Although, it is fun. More fun? Okay, here's the problem with Exorcist Believer. The problem. What is the problem with The Exorcist Believer? Of Exorcist Believer is that the first half of it kind of gets it.

And I never thought I would say this about a movie, but things really start going wrong when Ellen Burstyn shows up, which is about halfway-ish through the film. And again, I'm not going to spoil it, because you probably know a lot of the complaints with the movie just by cultural osmosis and being in and around horror fans who have seen the movie and complained about the movie, etc. I had heard that. I'm late to the party. I did not watch it in theaters. I'd heard it was bad.

It didn't appeal to me. But then it shows up on Peacock. And, you know, folks, I love the Peacock. And it showed up on there. And I was like, eh, fine. Alright, fine. Let's do it. And The Exorcist Believer, like I said, the first half, I think, gets it. Because the first half is really about a child being lost, both metaphorically with her dead mother, and literally at a certain point where the child is lost, and a single father is panicked and searching for this child.

And that's the point where I was like, oh, okay, this, I don't know why everybody was complaining, because this kind of feels like an Exorcist movie setup. And it's directed very straight. David Gordon Green, again, from all the new Halloween movies and all that. And Pineapple Express, of course. But, you know, he's, it's not as elegant as Friedkin's direction, and it's not as gritty as any of that. But it was kind of fine. And it was played straight enough that I was okay with it.

And then it just gets fucking silly. It really goes off the deep end. And not in a fun way, in a way that feels like, man, you were so close to getting this right, and you abandon the core concepts of what makes an Exorcist movie scary, because you know the rules. I know this sounds like maybe a petty argument, but the reason that the Exorcist, I think, works is it all takes place within a Catholic context. You know the rules of this.

There is a demon, and there is a priest, and the priest can banish the demon, but there's going to be a battle between them. It's a battle between good and evil, and the demon hates crosses, and holy water, and the name of Jesus, and all of that. The power of Christ compels you, all of that stuff. And in Believer, they kind of toss that out, or they certainly diminish the relevance and importance of that. It's like, well, then it doesn't work.

Then the premise doesn't work, because I don't understand what this demon is. If it can be any religion that is affected by it, then if it's everything, then it's nothing. That's the problem. And by the end of the movie, it's just ridiculous. Yeah, there it's right. Like all the basic shit they teach in Catholic school, that's the rules of the exorcist. It's nice and clean. And this just feels a little too, not even hippie-dippy or something like that. It's just, it's just not good.

It's just not good. Yeah, it's even more frustrating, because I do think a lot of that first piece of it is pretty good. And the possession stuff is sort of fine, but because it's split between two girls, you're never really totally focused on one or the other. And one of the things that makes Exorcist so unsettling is seeing the corruption of Linda Blair from this very chubby cheek, pretty little girl to this monstrous thing. And that kind of happens real fast. And it feels like a big whiff.

And I know that Universal ponied up a lot of money for the Exorcist. And they're going to do a couple of more of these in principle. But boy, I just can't imagine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Joseph was asking, didn't they blow a fortune on the rights? I think it was like 400 million, I think, was. Hold on. Let's find out. This is always entertaining to see someone just typing. Yeah, 400 million confirmed. $400 million and Believer made nowhere near that. But then you come down to the science.

Well, let's talk about the science of this. Where does it fall on our list? Let's look at said list. So where does it fall? The Exorcist Believer. Is the Exorcist Believer... It's not better than Near Dark. Is it better than Late Night with the Devil? No, it is not better than Late Night with the Devil. Is the Exorcist Believer better or worse than The Cleansing Hour? That's an interesting question. Because The Cleansing Hour, it's much lower budget, it's very self-contained, but it's fun.

It's fun. And the Exorcist Believer feels a little bit more like chasing the Devil in the wasting of the potential. Hmm... I think... Link. Huh, I'm just looking at it. Is The Exorcist Believer worse than The Cleansing Hour? Yes, yes it is. Is it better than Chasing the Devil? It is. That's right, The Exorcist Believer, you're new number five. Ramann saying that they need to course correct and get someone to fix the sequels.

They need to abandon whatever they think they're doing as far as this being some big story line and some trilogy of movies, and they just need to do, let's go to some other hillbilly part of America and have it happen there, and do it, but you've gotta play it straight. That's the secret of making a good exorcist movie.

Actually, the secret of making a good exorcist movie is they already did it and stop, because even Exorcist 3, which is the closest you get to another good exorcist movie, is not really about possession of, in the way that exorcist believer is. The exorcist, right, right. Do something where it's like a suburban family. The first time they did it, it was in Georgetown with an actress and her daughter, and it was a wealthy, affluent woman.

And it would be interesting to do that in a more suburban setting, where it's like a Catholic family in the suburbs of Austin, and all of a sudden, their life is upended by something happening with their son or their daughter or something. I think that would be fine. Wilfer Brimley as an exorcist. Get out of that girl, God damn it. I mean it. You keep possessing that girl, I'm gonna take my belt off. I'm serious. Okay, let's, we've still got work to do here. We are not done yet.

Okay, so we are, however, out of the realm of possession films. Are we completely? Yes. So this is a little more freewheeling, but hey, these are movies I watched, and thus, they need to be ranked scientifically. Here we go. Gods of the Deep. This is a Lovecraftian movie in which some folks are hired to go deep into the ocean, into an abyss, and study the potential for this ancient ruins or something. No, Joseph, it is not Underwater, which is a better film.

Probably, probably, we haven't done the science, obviously. We have not done the science on Underwater. But, probably that. So, all right, Lee, don't get ahead of me yet. So, yeah, so they go to study this thing and find a life form, and they think it's dead, but it turns out to not be, and it's kind of a Cthulhu kind of thing. And anyway, I don't think this is an Asylum film, but it could be an Asylum film. It's really bad. It's in the sense that it's really cheap.

It's kind of unabashedly cheap. And there's something kind of plucky about it, which I know I shouldn't care about this. I should not give it any points for, well, even though the monster looks like somebody just got a Halloween mask and wore a series of ill-fitting garbage bags beneath it to suggest some sort of amorphous body. The problem is none of that stuff really matters.

All it leads to is a tentacle coming out of a couple of people's bellies when they're going crazy because they've been infected by the Elder Gods. And it's incredibly derivative, but it's a pale, pale, pale imitation of much better movies like Underwater, like Leviathan, like Deep Star Six, like any of those underwater horror movies. Not quite a Deep Rising, a movie that I look forward to doing the science on because my heart says it's wonderful, but the science we'll have to see.

But it's, yeah, you know, Leah is seeing it. I think he can vouch for me when I say, it's really bad. It's really, really a bad movie. The performances are rough and not that they have much to do. I mean, the actors may be totally fine, but it's, you know, every routine right down to somebody on the ship, you know, like grouchy captain of the ship or whatever getting possessed and by the elder god shit and having the tentacle whipping around on his belly and just like, we gotta stay down here.

I'm opening the doors. You know, that kind of stuff. It's just it's bad. It's just this is just an all around bad movie. The question is, though, again, let's talk about the science of it. It's really cheap. The script is bad. The effects are bad. It is like to be original level production where the lighting is not great. The effects are terrible. It's just cheap front to back and it feels like a cash grab and et cetera, et cetera. All right. Let's let's look. Let's look at our list here.

I mean, Gods of the Deep where we're let's start with Exorcist Believer is Exorcist Believer is better than Gods of the Deep. The question is, is Gods of the Deep better or worse than Chasing the Devil? And it's it's worse than Chasing the Devil. Now though, is it better or worse than the Devil inside? What are you saying? Everything so far so far is better. Yeah, I agree with Lee on this. I think that Gods of the Deep is worse than the Devil inside.

The Devil inside has some good performances in it, and it's kind of an interesting premise. And, you know, it's got kind of a big budget polish to it. It's not very good, clearly, but Gods of the Deep is worse in pretty much every way. It's really terrible. It's a bad movie. Okay, all right, let's get to it. We've got eight on the list. We've got two to go before we hang up the spurs tonight. And next on the hit list, Blackwater Abyss. I like a creature feature.

I love and not like, I love a creature feature. It's one of my favorite subgenres of horror. I plan to spend a lot of time working on one over the summer. That said, just because you are dancing in grand halls does not mean that you belong high on this list. This is of course a sequel to Blackwater, a movie about a killer crocodile. Pretty good. Blackwater is pretty good. It's no rogue. Rogue is one that we will definitely need to do the science on. Rogue is a terrific movie.

But Blackwater neither called for nor needed a sequel. And what we have is Blackwater Abyss. Blackwater Abyss is, it starts off okay. The main characters, the main group, a foursome, a quartet, are kind of fine. They're a little annoying, but they're kind of fine.

Like it feels like it's going to be a slasher movie, because it's like, all right, well, we're introducing these characters, and clearly they're about to get stranded somewhere with a crocodile, which spoilers they do, when they're going on this like cave dive kind of thing. And they wind up in this like underground lake where a crocodile has come and is now stalking them.

And they've got to find their way out before the tide rises, and they're trapped in the cave with the crocodile, only with no more place to hide. And so the premise sounds pretty good. The problem is that the crocodile stuff in it just isn't very fun. You know, as I said, it almost has a slasher set up, and it feels like that's the movie it wants to be.

That, you know, it's not good enough to be an actual good drama the way that Rogue kind of is, where Rogue feels like a legitimately good movie with characters that you can relate to and all of that. This movie is never going to have that. And why they don't just go full schlock, I don't understand. Because if you're not going to be successful as a drama, then be outrageous, man. Like, really, you know, put your foot down on the pedal and do something interesting.

And they don't, they don't do anything interesting with any of this. And that's a real disappointment because this movie could have been something, it could have been a contender. He says, engaging all the youth with a Marlon Brando reference. Anyway, from on the waterfront, no less. I'm just watching all the viewers leave. Good, good. Go away. We don't need you. Now we're going to do on the waterfront references here. Yeah, Joseph says, Grizzly is the blueprint. Right, right, right, right.

That movie is, it has just enough drama and melodrama to make it all hang together, but it's also schlocky as hell, and it's wonderful. A crocodile, again, spoilers, a crocodile does not get blown up by Bazooka at the end of this, and the movie is certainly the worst for it. So the performances are fine. They're not great. There's not a superstar coming out of this group based on a performance in this. Movie. The crocodile stuff is not good. There's some CGI that's pretty dodgy.

There's just nothing fun about it. This movie ought to be fun, and there's nothing fun here. It feels like just a drudgery, and it ends up being some nonsense about who slept with who and who's engaged to whom, and you're like, who could possibly care about any of this? I just want to see this crocodile eat people, and I want to see people try to get away from that crocodile. I don't care that you're about to get engaged, but maybe you fucked Darryl over there. Who cares?

All right, Darryl, enjoy Hitchhiker's Guide with the young one. Anyway, so Blackwater Abyss. The tirade is over. The science, though, does suggest that this is not a successful film. This is below the line of acceptable entertainment for you and your loved ones. But where, where, folks, where does it fall on this list? All right, is, let's start with Exorcist Believer. Excuse me. Is Blackwater Abyss better or worse than the Exorcist Believer? It is worse. Is it worse than Chasing the Devil?

Yes. Chasing the Devil is not a good movie, but there are things about it that at least you'll sit up and pay attention to. That does not happen in Blackwater Abyss. Then we get into Devil Inside and Gods of the Deep Territory, like the real dregs here. So, is it better than The Devil Inside? Oh, this is tough. It does not direct you to a website. I was thinking about that. But also the very end of The Devil Inside gets pretty fucking crazy.

And there's never a moment of craziness in Blackwater Abyss that rivals, and honestly better performances in The Devil Inside. I think scientifically speaking, I think scientifically speaking, The Devil Inside is better than Blackwater Abyss. Which leads us to the final question here, which is, is it better or worse than Gods of the Deep? Is Blackwater Abyss? Yes. I mean, Gods of the Deep pretty much fails at everything. Blackwater Abyss. Ooh, man, it's kind of tough.

Blackwater Abyss is not good. Hmm. Yeah, I mean, I guess at least you feel a little connected to the characters a little bit in a way that you are not in Gods of the Deep. I think Gods of the Deep hangs on to its spot at the bottom. And then I think, I think that's right. I think that's right. That's right. All right, last film. Oh, all right. Let's do this. Unknown Visitor, a movie that popped up on my Amazon Prime feed. I like a found footage movie, as has been discussed already.

There's a whole show called Found Footage Full, I do, right here on the Dark Parade. And Unknown Visitor kept showing up in my feed, as if Amazon was saying, go on, you're gonna like this. And honestly, the idea of like, hey, this is entirely told from the point of view of like a ring camera on a door, sort of appealed to me. There was something about that that was just crazy enough to work.

Like this is, you know, I tell kids all the time when it comes to poetry, cause you know, there's plenty of young kids that fancy themselves poets, and they bring you their poetry, and it's, you know, they're scratching down their feelings and all of that is valuable and it's fun and that kind of thing. But for the ones who are really pursuant about it or serious about it, I always say like, you need to work within a form, you know?

You need to work within iambic pentameter or a Petruchin sonnet format or something because forcing yourself to work in that kind of confined format forces you to be creative and think about what you want to say and exactly what you mean and it's just a level of discipline and art that's a step above, right? So it feels like the idea of like, oh, we can only shoot or our conceit is we can only shoot this through this ring camera. So we've got to get creative with it. You're right.

Joseph says what I did. Okay, that's interesting. Let me at least see what this looks like. And this either was the reason I clicked on it and watched it. And likewise, maybe the reason that I should have changed my mind immediately is that the movie's only 54 minutes long. But that also felt like that's about enough time for a ring camera movie to sustain itself before, like about an hour is about all I wanna see of this.

And it is probably porn level acting, you know, that kind of, not B movie, but sort of Z movie, like we did this in our backyard. And again, I kinda root for that. There's something about that that I kinda like. But in this case, it is not well utilized, or it's not charming the way that it kinda can be sometimes.

And then, you have the problem of the basic premise, which is, as I understand it, that there is a ghost lady that was attacked by a man that at first I thought was a ghost, but then she eats a sandwich, which pops in and out of frame. In fact, when I was looking at some of the Letterboxd reviews, some of them were very focused on a sandwich that is left out on the porch for this unknown woman who might be hungry, question mark.

And depending on what scene you're in, the sandwich kinda comes and goes because of just continuity problems.

But you know, if it's just the one camera and the one setup, you can't get the continuity right for this, and then I think it has, at the end of it, there's something to do with maybe the woman was actually the woman who lived in the house and was observing all this, that the ghost woman was actually her from the future, perhaps, and the bald, schlubby guy that both installed the ring camera and then maybe murdered someone. It's a mess. Like this movie doesn't make any goddamn sense.

The script is awful if there is a script. You're right, Lee, the sandwich is the real ghost. It is so incomprehensible. Like this is one of those things that is barely a movie. I mean, it is a movie, but it's just barely a movie. It's really, really rotten. So when we look at it from a purely scientific point of view, bad performances, bad or no script, completely wasted premise. I mean, there's just, and an incomprehensible plot that leaves you just confused and a little dumber.

Is it Bad Ben stupid? Bad Ben, which I haven't watched a lot of those movies. I've watched most of the first one, I think. And I've cherry picked a little bit, not because I heard one was better than another, but occasionally I'd be like, so does anything ever happen in these movies? It's not that it's stupid, it's just incompetent. It's incompetent is the problem. Bad Ben has some competency. It's a little, you know, hammy, for sure, but there's some competency to it.

This is just unwatchable nonsense is what this is. All right, all right, let's, look, let's waste no more time. Let's put this on the list. Okay, let's start with Exorcist Believer or Midway Point. Certainly worse than that. Certainly worse than Chasing the Devil. Is it worse than Devil Inside? Yes, yes. The Devil Inside is dull as dirt, but it's, you know, like it hangs together, there's stuff that happens in it. It's not good. And it sends you to a website, which is infuriating.

But it's somewhat competent. Likewise, Blackwater and Abyss. Then, I mean, again, we're fighting for the bottom here. Is it better than Gods of the Deep? Is Gods of the Deep a better movie than Unknown Visitor? I mean, this is where the science is strained to the point of being almost theoretical. Neither of these movies are things that you should be watching or spending your time with.

You leave that to the professionals like myself, the scientists who have to do this, who go to the labs to take care of this. Hmm. Gods of the Deep has a discernible, if utterly derivative, story. It's a ripoff. It's an AI pastiche of Lovecraft, like Six Fingers and Two White Smile and all. But there is a story that I could basically describe to you. I cannot do that for Unknown Visitor. Unknown Visitor is the worst movie of all time, as our list stands. And so, there you have it.

There is your list of the best and worst horror films of all time. Best horror film ever made, The Omen. Number two, Near Dark, Late Night with the Devil, The Cleansing Hour, The Exorcist Believer, Chasing the Devil. Number seven is The Devil Inside, Blackwater Abyss, Gods of the Deep at number nine. The worst movie ever made in the horror genre, Unknown Visitor. I think it's going to be tough to crack Unknown Visitor out of that spot. It's real bad. It's real bad.

It's going to take Crowbar to get Unknown Visitor out of that seller. Okay, so Jaws 4. Jaws 4, again, discernible story. I can tell you basically what happens in that. It's ridiculous, but I can kind of tell you. I mean, look, obviously, we have not taken Jaws 4 to the lab yet. We have not done the pure science, but as a professional at first blush without doing the real work, I would say Jaws 4 is probably better than Unknown Visitor. Okay, look, we're going to do this again in a month.

I appreciate you guys coming and hanging out. Please drop by the Facebook page over on facebook.com forward slash dark parade. Is that right? That feels right. I don't know that I actually looked at that before. I probably should have. Groups, forward slash groups, forward slash dark parade. And drop me a line. Let me know what movies I should be ranking and I will get to as many of them as I can. In the meantime, a lot of stuff coming up. I'm going to be doing some teapot stuff.

We'll have another Heart of Horror coming soon. An actual Honest to Goodness episode of The Dark Parade. I got to ramp up the guest host machine and get some folks in on the show. So all that is in the works. And again, a month from now, we'll come back together and we'll do some science. Thanks for hanging out. And please, if you're listening to this on the audio, hop over to the patreon.com/LegionPodcasts Become a supporter, help keep this whole thing afloat. It's all independent.

And you can watch the archive of the video there. All right, gang, until next time, remember, horror and science are strange bedfellows, but that's what makes it so damn sexy. All right, talk to you guys later.