3 Horror Movies Quentin Tarantino Says Are ‘Perfect’
He considers very few films to be flawless.
updated on
Quentin Tarantino is a writer, director, and film buff known for his violent crime films and love of cinema. In addition to being a fan of the horror genre, Tarantino wrote the action horror movie From Dusk till Dawn (1996).
In his new book Cinema Speculation, Tarantino mixes memoir and film criticism by discussing films from the 1970s and his experiences seeing them as a teenager. While doing press for Cinema Speculation, he told late-night host Jimmy Kimmel that he considers very few films to be perfect, but among them are three horror movies from the 70s.
These are horror movies Quentin Tarantino considers “perfect”:
The Exorcist (1973)
This supernatural horror movie about an actress and her demonically possessed daughter (Linda Blair) was the first horror movie to be nominated for an Academy Award. Famously one of the scariest horror movies of all time, The Exorcist is light on Tarantino’s usual blood and gore. At one time he said he aspired to make a “really, really scary horror film, like The Exorcist.”
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is an independent slasher film that purported to show a rendering of true events. Sally Hardesty (Marilyn Burns), her brother Franklin (Paul A. Partain), and their friends take a road trip through Texas and run afoul of Leatherface and his family of murderous cannibals. Surprisingly light on gore, the film was controversial upon its release but is now widely considered one of the scariest and best horror movies of all time.
Jaws (1975)
Steven Spielberg’s thriller about a group of men hunting a giant great white shark with a taste for human flesh. Jaws was the first summer blockbuster ever, with over 67 million Americans seeing the film in the summer of 1975. Tarantino has previously stated that he believes Jaws is the greatest movie ever made, saying “there’s no ‘better’ than Jaws. It is the best movie ever made. And it shows how badly timed most movies made before Jaws were.”
More “perfect” movies according to Quentin Tarantino:
- The Wild Bunch (1969) while not technically “perfect” according to Tarantino, he says this Western is “so unassailable” that it has to be included.
- Young Frankenstein (1974) a Mel Brooks comedy horror following Dr. Frankenstein’s grandson.
- Annie Hall (1977) Woody Allen’s romantic comedy about a man wondering why his relationship with the title character failed.
- Back To The Future (1985) a sci-fi time travel film with Michael J. Fox as Marty McFly and Christopher Lloyd as Doc Brown.
