Nicolas Cage Shares His All-Time Favorite Thrillers
Thursday March 19, 2009
Nicolas Cage
Ray Tamarra/Getty
In his new movie Knowing, Nicolas Cage plays a teacher who discovers some chilling predictions in a time capsule. The star, 45, likes a good scare himself: When PEOPLE asked him to name his all-time favorite thrillers, he included some of the most terrifying movies ever made. "I only left out King Kong, Terminator 2 and Gojira (the original Japanese version of Godzilla) because I wanted to focus on performance," Cage says.
1. The Exorcist (1973) Truly terrifying, largely because of extraordinarily realistic performances by Jason Miller and Ellen Burstyn. The sound work is extraordinary.
2. The Phantom of the Opera (1925) There is only one Lon Chaney, he is the king and this is his finest work. The phantom's face is arguably the most terrifying image on film, but Chaney somehow still makes him sympathetic.
3. The Shining (1980) Superb [Stanley] Kubrick-ian enigmatic filmmaking – plus a knockdown, drag-out uber Jack Nicholson and a phenomenally real Scatman Crothers. It doesn't get any better then this.
4. Ringu (1998) Truly disturbing, abstract, dream-logic filmmaking. There's nothing else like it. [Director] Hideo Nakata is an original voice in modern film.
5. The Tenant (1976) Roman Polanski directs himself in cinema's ultimate paranoid performance and one of its most suspenseful films. Great supporting actors.
Rounding Out the List
6. The Haunting (1963) 7. Frankenstein (1931) 8. Nosferatu (1922) 9. Repulsion (1965) 10. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
from people.com
-- Edited by Lady Trueheart on Monday 11th of October 2010 03:50:25 AM
This is such a cool read, I wonder if he himself wrote the movie descriptions? ( I admit I have a hankering for anything Nic himself has written )
There are a few movies I've not seen in his list Ringu, Repulsion, The Cabinet of Caligari and I've still not seen all of Nosferatu! My bad. I was really happy to see he'd mentioned Terminator 2, that movie is one of my secret indulgences!
I think he did write the descriptions, sounds like him to me. I would call these horror movies, though, not thrillers; most anyway.
The Exorcist scared the **** out of me when I saw it at the drive-in, of all places. I literally could not sleep in my own bed for months after, slept on a cot outside my parents bedroom. I kept imagining I saw things out of the corner of my eye, horrible devil faces. I will never, ever see this movie again and I avoid posession-type horror movies now.
I never saw the Tenant by Roman Polanski, but if it is anything as good as Rosemary's Baby it will rock your scary socks off.
Nosferatu is just plain creepy, I had to stop watching it.
I like the first Terminator the best, one of my favourite movies. I don't remember Terminator 2 being that frightening? Been a long time since I saw it.
The Haunting with Julie Harris is awesomely scary, really good movie.
The Shining, freaky good, "Redrum, redrum, redrum!". Oh, My, God, I am scaring myself again, got to go drink some hot chocolate.
The truly scary thing is I know someone who does the terrifying Exorcist tongue sticking out sound thing to a tee. Enough said.
Hmm yeah Terminator 1 and 2 are the best but there is something very powerful for me in the concept of someone being locked away for years because they thought she was psychotic but turns out she wasn't..and the Mother and son journey is nothing short of adrenalised drawn out suspense..Lol I think I hold my breath for most of the movie and only notice when I breathe out at the end. Perhaps action thriller would be better for that..these movie categories often never seem to hit the nail on the head satisfactorily enough do they? Maybe Nic's list should be horror thrillers?
And I've thought of another I'd add to my own list of thrillers, maybe not the top but for me it was a disturbing thriller story when I first watched it: 'Misery' with Kathy Bates and James Caan!
Oh, yes, Misery, Kathy Bates rocked that movie! I think I read somewhere that Stephen King chose it as one of his fave book adapted movies because of her performance.
The Changeling with George C. Scott is one of my favourite scary movies.
Oh, yes, Misery, Kathy Bates rocked that movie! I think I read somewhere that Stephen King chose it as one of his fave book adapted movies because of her performance.
The Changeling with George C. Scott is one of my favourite scary movies.
I have never seen The Changeling Lady T, that sounds like a solid recommendation!
Wonder what it is we like about these kind of movies.....? Is it the adrenalin, the relief factor afterwards, the escapism... I don't actually like really horrific movies but I do love well written suspense especially if it has a slightly weird flavour. Lol!
Ok risking all kinds of comments back here, I would put The Wicker Man in a list of horror / thriller, the original and Nic's version!
I don't like horrific movies at all, but I do like ghost stories such as The Others with Nicole Kidman. Subtler but even more frightening to me.
Hmm, how about Nic playing a ghost, maybe a remake of The Ghost And Mrs Muir with Rex Harrison, a wonderful old classic movie. Would he make a good sea captain? Probably not. But a different kind of ghost, maybe.
I enjoyed The Wicker Man, Nic's version, I haven't seen the other one. Those kind of cult-type horror movies I avoid because I find them silly so I probably never would have seen it if Nic wasn't in it. I will confess, I laughed all the way through it, the plot is so preposterous to me. But Nic is so good in it, and it has some wonderful over the top scenes. I love me some Nic over the top! (Or I can get on top if he likes, I'm easy. )
-- Edited by Lady Trueheart on Thursday 14th of October 2010 04:30:26 AM
I thought of another one, The Silence of The Lambs. Brrrrrr You have gotta see the original Wicker Man meg, it's one of those movies that cannot be described because it is it's essence and aura that pulls you through it. Nic's Wicker Man is an entirely different movie in my mind. And I did experience it as horror. Only retrospectively when I read the whole hype around it could I see the humour. There was something about the pacing of it that didn't work for me, it feels like they tried to dehorrify it a bit, until the end, which gave it this diluted feel somehow and the parts that are actually truly horrific then seemed misplaced somehow? Maybe that's why people found them funny, because the context was mismatched. Personally i saw a man beginning to lose it more and more, but somehow it didn't quite come off as it could have done..and i'm still scratchin my head as to why. Except..as i said there felt to be something missing from the context but not Nic's performance or the actions of his character! It still left me with that feeling of sustained shock that a good horror movie does.
Going back to what you said Lady Trueheart, I do think most of his list are horror not thriller, and if I was to do a thriller list I might include Red Rock West on there. Thriller in the noir sense, more like a suspense than a adrenalin pumping hide behind the sofa thriller! .
)
