Event Horizon freaked my shit out.

I like Scream, but top 20?

In the last 20 years, though? I can't even think of that many great horror movies released in the last 20 years.

Hey ... Let The Right One In wasn't on there, was it?

Nope, but for some reason From Hell and What Lies Beneath were.

Event Horizon freaked my shit out.

Interesting premise (Solaris as a horror movie would have been better, which is where I thought they were going), great cast, lousy execution.

Nope, but for some reason From Hell and What Lies Beneath were.

Well, I have to admit that I find From Hell lots of fun, and I've never seen What Lies Beneath. But I think they should have bumped Scream for, oh, 30 Days of Night.

In the last 20 years, though? I can't even think of that many great horror movies released in the last 20 years.

There have been, but I'd need to go paw through some back issues of Rue Morgue Magazine to list a bunch.

28 Weeks Later was a weird enough inclusion that I came back here to post about it and then convinced myself they'd actually said 28 Days Later and I'd misunderstood. I was just too lazy to wend my way back through the listing to reread.

28 Weeks Later was a weird enough inclusion that I came back here to post about it and then convinced myself they'd actually said 28 Days Later and I'd misunderstood.

Yeah, I blinked and re-read, because I couldn't figure out why they'd pick 28 Weeks Later, not 28 Days Later.

Huh. I should really watch that copy of Midnight Meat Train we've had from Netflix since before the book tour started.

Other horror movies of the past 20 years they should have picked, that I just remembered:

Gingersnaps. May. Teeth. All far better movies than some of the ones EW listed.

I did like Ginger Snaps but haven't seen the other two.

I was amused and pleased to see Planet Terror on the list, though.

FEARnet responds:

His #1 pick is a pretty bold choice, but for me the biggest surprise is #18. For years, I thought I was the only guy on the planet who liked Event Horizon.

Gleiberman responds to criticism of his list:

That said, a number of you who posted comments about my list raised issues that I’d like to address. That includes some of the movies you felt I’d left out (we’ll get to that in a moment). First, though, I’d like to defend one aspect of the list that seemed to bother a great many people. Namely: Why did I choose a number of films, like The Sixth Sense or From Hell, that struck many of you as thrillers more than bona fide horror movies?

Well, first of all, I did it deliberately, not to be provocative or to “stretch” the definition of horror, but — quite the contrary — to return to an old-school, almost classical Hollywood notion of horror, one that includes films that inspire shock and awe from the inside, nibbling away at our anxieties. There was some debate, for instance, about whether The Sixth Sense is a “horror film” or a “supernatural thriller.” Well, by my lights, it’s about a dead guy who walks around and a kid who’s as creeped out by the otherworldly visions that confront him as the kid from The Shining was. Just because no one ends up swinging an ax doesn’t mean that you don’t get the heebie-jeebies.

He also addresses 28 Days Later vs. 28 Weeks later.

I was not surprised by #1 as it has the single most disturbing image/scene I've watched in a movie, inspiring my lizard brain to scream "No No No! Do not want to see!"

Blair Witch is fascinating to me because I think it's a total dud, but I know a lot of people find it very scary.

Blair Witch did not scare me at all in the theater. Later, after I got home and was left alone with Spooky and the 'Fraidy twins...