The three horror movies Quentin Tarantino calls “perfect”
Cinema, just like every other form of art, has always been a subjective medium, with one man’s favourite being another man’s flop. Such is what drives so much debate online, where fans of Quentin Tarantino argue about what’s better Pulp Fiction or Once Upon a Time in Hollywood or lovers of John Carpenter dispute which of his horror films is the most spectacular, when, at the end of the day, it’s all just a matter of personal taste.
Still, even with that being said, there are some voices in the landscape of cinema we’d be far more inclined to listen to if they give us a movie recommendation. Take the aforementioned cinematic maestro Quentin Tarantino, the famed director of countless contemporary classics, as well as an individual well-versed in the history of cinema, boasting an encyclopaedic knowledge of everything from the stop-motion horrors of Jan Švankmajer to the romantic beauty of the films of Woody Allen.
An obsessive viewer of world cinema, as well as a supremely curious individual who ponders the human mind, Tarantino once said of his fanatical knowledge of the silver screen: “[My] head is a sponge. I listen to what everyone says, I watch little idiosyncratic behaviour, people tell me a joke and I remember it. People tell me an interesting story in their life and I remember it”.
Therefore, when he was asked about the movies he considered to be “perfect” in an interview with Jimmy Kimmel, film fans across the world sat up to listen.
“Look, when you say perfect movies, you’re talking about any individual person’s aesthetic but even trying to account for all aesthetics… perfect movies kind of crosses all aesthetics to one degree or another,” the director tells Kimmel before getting on with his choices, picking out three iconic horror movies.
The first he opts for is Tobe Hooper’s terrifyingly gruesome 1974 flick The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, an influential slasher movie that would go on to inspire the creation of such franchises as Halloween, Friday the 13th and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Introducing the villain Leatherface to the world of horror, the film follows a group of teenagers who were lured to the house of the cannibal and their attempts to escape from his grasp.
The second horror film that Tarantino calls “perfect” is the Steven Spielberg shark movie Jaws from 1975. Though some may not consider it to be a horror film, Jaws certainly contains a number of visually scarring scenes, with the blockbuster-coining movie telling the story of a shark attack that forces a small coastal town to consider whether or not to close their beaches during the profitable summer months.
Lastly, the Pulp Fiction director chooses the William Friedkin ‘Best Picture’ nominee The Exorcist as his third “perfect” horror film. Often called the scariest movie of all time, Friedkin’s complex horror is adapted from the novel of the same name by William Peter Blatty and tells the story of a young girl who becomes possessed by the devil and the priests who must question their faith to save her life.
Take a look at all the horror movies Quentin Tarantino calls “perfect” below.
Quentin Tarantino’s horror recommendations:
- The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973)
- Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975)
- The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974)
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