Top Tens – Film: Top 10 Horror Films (Special Mention) (4) Slasher Horror

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2010 film poster

 

(4) SLASHER HORROR

 

“Here, we can see a slasher movie killer in their natural habitat, stalking the final girl.”

I tend to prefer other sub-genres of horror to slasher horror but the latter is so iconic of the horror film genre in general that I have to rank it in my S-tier or god-tier special mentions, particularly with the iconic visual design of their slashers.

Also, like zombie horror films, they have become so prolific as to define their own film genre, one worthy of their own top ten list many times over just for their themes, tropes and types, as well as by iconic slasher.

Interestingly, on the subject of type, according to Wikipedia “the slasher canon can be divided into three eras: the classical (1974–1993), the self-referential (1994–2000) and the neoslasher cycle (2000–2013)”.

Given my preference for supernatural (or SF) horror, I tend to prefer the more supernatural slashers. More overtly supernatural slashers that is, as all slashers tend towards supernatural – at least in terms of their superhuman ability to, well, slash, stalk, and all other ancillary abilities associated with them.

It’s like the film Taken – slashers tend to have a very particular set of skills. Hmm…now there’s a story idea concept, Taken as slasher film (or vice versa from the slasher’s perspective).

“The killers, mostly driven by revenge, are also typically somewhat made of iron, at a minimum, and frequently implacable to boot. Slashers prefer melee weapons that let them get up close and personal with their victims and almost never use firearms. Many are borderline (or explicitly) supernatural, having the ability to appear and disappear as if by magic. The corpses of their victims tend to be equally elusive; a slasher killer can whisk away a fully-grown adult’s body in seconds, leaving not a single drop of blood behind, or swiftly arrange all their victims into an elaborate tableau, without ever being seen lugging the dead bodies around”.

Anyway, here’s my Top 10 Slasher Films (and their iconic slashers) on the spot.

 

1 – WES CRAVEN – NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (FREDDY KRUEGER)

 

My favorite slasher film franchise – the combination of slasher horror with supernatural dream-haunting demon is hard to beat. Wes Craven has also proved one of the more capable directors as creators of slasher horror (and horror in general)

While iconic, Freddy is not the most iconic slasher – that title has to go to the duo of my next two entries

 

2 – JOHN CARPENTER – HALLOWEEN (MICHAEL MYERS)

 

That iconic William Shatner mask. And hello again, Mr Carpenter.

 

3 – FRIDAY THE 13TH (JASON VORHEES)

 

That iconic hockey mask

 

4 – TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (LEATHERFACE)

 

Title says it all really – as does the slasher’s nom de slash.

 

5 – WES CRAVEN – SCREAM (GHOSTFACE)

 

Hello again, Mr Craven. Yeah – we’re very much in the self-referential phase of slasher canon here, with Scream as its definitive franchise

 

6 – CHILD’S PLAY (CHUCKY)

 

If a dream-demon like Freddy Kreuger can be a slasher, why not a possessed doll. Well, apart from the size thing, which makes Chucky a little hard to take seriously – hence why he’s not in the top iconic slashers

 

7 – WES CRAVEN – THE HILLS HAVE EYES

 

Hello again, Mr Craven. I’ll rank this here – namely because of the lack of a similarly iconic slasher among its hillbilly mutant cannibal tribe (and also because said tribe strays somewhat from the archetypal slasher film)

 

8 – I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER

 

A distant second to the Scream franchise as representative of the self-referential phase of slasher canon – also that hook guy just doesn’t have the same iconic status or visual design as the top slashers

 

9 – SAW

 

Yes – less slasher and more torture p0rn but I’m still ranking it here as close enough, if only for the iconic puppet used by the killer.

 

10 – WOLF CREEK

 

Australian slasher horror!

 

HONORABLE MENTION

 

PSYCHO

 

Precursor and inspiration for slasher horror – it also gives us an iconic horror figure with Norman Bates

 

THE HITCHER

 

As I rank it in my Top 10 Horror Films and it definitely overlaps with slasher horror, I have to give it a shout out here.

 

SILENCE OF THE LAMBS & AMERICAN PSYCHO

Two of the most (in)famous serial killers in cinema – Hannibal Lecter and Patrick Bateman – influenced and an influence on slasher horror films, although they obviously depart from the slasher archetype in a number of ways.

 

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (GOD TIER)

Top Tens – History (Rome): Top 10 Best & Worst Roman Emperors (2) Best: Trajan

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Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome XII: The Five Good Emperors

 

(2) BEST: TRAJAN –

NERVA-ANTONINE DYNASTY / FIVE GOOD EMPERORS

(98 -117 AD: 19 YEARS 6 MONTHS 10/14 DAYS)

 

The Optimus Prime of Roman emperors. No, really, as in the Senate gave him the title of Optimus or Optimus Princeps, “the best” or “the best emperor”, one of the two benchmarks or gold standards invoked by the Senate for every new emperor thereafter, wishing them to be better than Trajan…but none were (with the possible exception of Aurelian). A little like Jedi wishing may the Force be with you.

Everybody loved Trajan. The army, with whom he was popular as he had distinguished himself in military campaigns against the Germanic tribes. The Praetorian Guard, whose revolt had forced his predecessor Nerva to adopt him as heir and successor. The people. The Senate, who deified him after his death, and as I said, invoked him thereafter for new emperors.

“As an emperor, Trajan’s reputation has endured – he is one of the few rulers whose reputation has survived 19 centuries.”

“Even Christian historians saw him as a virtuous pagan, among other things for not persecuting them too hard during his reign (Catholic tradition holds that Pope Gregory I briefly raised Trajan from the dead in order to convert him). He is immortalized in Heaven in The Divine Comedy”.

He was a successful soldier-emperor, who took the Roman Empire to its greatest territorial extent by the time of his death – a greater area is argued on occasion for Septimus Severus, although that is not clear and just extended worthlessly further into the Saharan desert at most.

Famously, he extended the empire by the conquest of Dacia in his wars against it, and by his annexation of Mesopotamia, Armenia and Assyria as Roman provinces in his war against the Parthian Empire. Less famously, he seems to have quickly and quietly annexed the Arabian client kingdom of Nabataea, possibly because they were just signed up from his pure awesomeness because little else is recorded of it.

And his general Quietus suppressed a widespread revolt by the Jews in the eastern provinces that henceforth bore an adaptation of the name Quietus – the Kitos War, yet another of those recurring revolts by the Jews against the empire before Hadrian wiped Judaea and Jerusalem from the map.

It wasn’t just all conquest or war – he was also a philanthropic ruler, albeit at some cost in debasing the currency. He oversaw prolific building projects and social welfare policies.

May Trojan’s force be with you, indeed.

 

EMPIRE-MAKER

 

Making the Roman Empire to its greatest extent.

 

MAXIMUS

 

Germanicus, Dacicus, Parthicus – and of course, Optimus or best

 

DEIFIED

 

By the gods and divine Trajan, yes!

 

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

 

The chad-est of the five chad emperors – and as Dovahhatty laments, “it’s all downhill from here”.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (GOD TIER)

Top Tens – Film: Top 10 Horror Films (Special Mention) (3) Zombie Horror & Zombie Apocalypse Horror

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Public domain image from George Romero’s 1968 Night of the Living Dead

 

(3) ZOMBIE HORROR & ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE HORROR

 

“Braaaiinnnns!”

If vampire horror is the blood of horror films, zombie horror is the flesh.

Zombie horror films, tending as they do to involve the trope (or tropes) of zombie apocalypse have become so prolific as to define their own film genre, one worthy of their own top ten list many times over just for their themes, tropes and types.

One thing that surprised me looking it up was that they originate almost as early as Dracula or vampire films – with the first zombie film often cited as White Zombie in 1932.

That surprised me as one usually associates zombies – at least in their cinematic incarnation as opposed to their origin “in the vodou beliefs of Haiti, referring to a body ‘revived’ and enslaved by a sorcerer” – with George A. Romero’s 1968 film Night of the Living Dead.

That film defined the cinematic incarnation of zombies – “usually portrayed as reanimated corpses or virally infected human beings” and commonly “cannibalistic in nature” (or “ghouls” as Romero preferred to call them in that film). Usually depicted as shambling en masse, invoking metaphors of mobs or proletarian masses.

However, “while Romero is responsible for most of the ‘general’ zombie conventions, the more specific and visible zombie tropes are more often inspired by the later works of John Russo, Night‘s co-writer. Most zombie movies mix-and-match conventions from the Romero and Russo canons. The Russo canon in particular…is the reason most people will respond with “Braaiinnnns” when zombies come up in conversation”.

Zombie horror films have subsequently ramped up the traditional slow zombies with fast ones – “super-fast and super-angry zombies” that make death (or viral infection) look like a positive boon for Olympic-level athletic performance, better than steroids. Not to mention other elite zombies, with other qualities such as intelligence.

 

Similarly to vampire horror, I’ll probably flesh this out but for now this is my zombie horror film top ten on the spot:

 

1 – EVIL DEAD (1981-1992 / 2013-2023)

 

Not really zombie horror as such since the titular evil dead are killed and reanimated by demonic possession…but I can’t not mention my favorite horror film franchise here now, can I? Particularly when there is a large overlap between the two, not least the reanimated corpses

 

2 – DEAD & BURIED (1981)

 

Fourth place in my top ten horror films – like the Evil Dead film franchise, not quite your archetypal cinematic zombies but close enough I have to mention it here

 

3 – SHAUN OF THE DEAD (2004)

 

“Go to the Winchester, have a nice cold pint, and wait for all this to blow over”.

Similar to my third place vampire horror entry Fright Night, Shaun of the Dead is probably my favorite zombie horror film to watch – classic pulp fun, but incredibly layered with easter eggs and shout-outs to zombie apocalypse horror.

Billed as a RomZomCom – or romantic comedy with zombies.

 

4 – 28 DAYS LATER (2002)

 

Arguably the most definitive modern zombie horror film after Romero and Russo – certainly bringing new life (heh) to the fast zombie trope. It helps speed them up that the zombies aren’t actually dead but virally infected. Also like other zombie apocalypse films in general that show the real enemy is not so much the zombies as one’s fellow humans – here it’s animal rights activists (and children in the sequel film 28 Weeks Later). Okay, fine – it’s also mad horny soldiers (and sheer military ineptitude on the same level of having a button marked push for zombies in the sequel).

But seriously, animal rights activists are to blame for the release of the virus in the first place. In fairness, I also blame the scientist for obtusely telling them the laboratory chimpanzees are infected with “rage” rather than a lethally contagious disease that can spread in seconds. It practically begs the skeptical response – “Yeah, I’d be pretty angry too!”

 

5 – LAST TRAIN TO BUSAN (2016)

 

Zombies on a train!

East Asian film and TV – in this case Korean film – have taken to the zombie genre with a vengeance.

 

6 – BRAIN DEAD (1990)

 

Before Peter Jackson did The Lord of the Rings, he did splatterpunk schlock like this – and it’s a hoot.

 

7 – CEMETERY MAN / DELLAMORTE DELLAMORE (1994)

 

Probably the most ”artsy” zombie horror film you’ll see (with Anna Falchi as one of the hottest female characters in a zombie film) – good luck keeping track of the plot.

 

8 – ZOMBIELAND (2009)

 

One of the better known zombie apocalypse films – and one of the most fun to watch.

 

9 – CARGO (2017)

 

Australian zombie horror films are surprisingly prevalent – this is one of the more highbrow (and emotional) ones, starring Martin Freeman

 

10 – ALIVE (2020)

 

Another fun zombie apocalypse horror film from Korea, using its highrise setting to good effect.

 

HONORABLE MENTION

 

(1988) THE SERPENT & THE RAINBOW

 

Stretching the definition of zombie horror film – going back to the origins of the zombie in Haitian vodou belief.

 

(2003-2014) UNDEAD & WYRMWOOD

 

More Australian zombie horror films – if Cargo is the highbrow end of the spectrum, these are more to the lowbrow end (and filmed on shoestring budgets to match). Pulp fun!

 

(2007) PLANET TERROR

 

Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino do for zombies what they did for vampires in From Dusk Till Dawn.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (GOD TIER)

 

Top Tens – History (Rome): Top 10 Best & Worst Roman Emperors (3) Worst: Elagabalus

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Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome XIII: The Severan Dynasty

 

(3) WORST: ELAGABALUS –

SEVERAN DYNASTY

(218 – 222 AD: 3 YEARS 9 MONTHS 4 DAYS)

 

With great power comes great degeneracy.

Certainly one of the weirdest emperors, Elagabalus is what happens when you let an omnisexual teenager of dubious mental stability loose with absolute imperial power AND his own cult. It’s like Elagabalus read Suetonius’ The Twelve Caesars with its lurid depictions of imperial depravity and said hold my beer.

And so “Elagabalus developed a reputation among his contemporaries for extreme eccentricity, decadence, zealotry and sexual promiscuity” – “his short reign was notorious for sex scandals and religious controversy”.

It does however make for entertaining reading – indeed one of the most entertaining entries in either my top ten worst (or best) emperors. It’s a pity Suetonius wasn’t around to write the tabloid history of Elagabalus.

Elagabalus was his god name – literally. He was born Sextus Varius Avitus Bessianus, a relative (by marriage) of the Severan dynasty – a family connection which his grandmother (and emperor-maker) Julia Maesa boosted further by spreading the rumor that he was the illegitimate son of the emperor Caracalla. His family held hereditary rights to the priesthood of the syncretized Syrian-Greek-Roman sun of the same name (or variants of it) he adopted, having served as high priest from his early youth.

So naturally he brought his god with him to Rome, in the form of his pet rock – again literally, a black conical meteorite from the temple of the god in Emesa, Syria.

The new god of itself was not so weird, since it was readily assimilated to the Roman sun god Sol – the worship of whom had become increasingly prevalent under the Severan dynasty, becoming known as Sol Invictus or the Unconquered Sun (and which would be redeemed by far superior emperors).

What was weird was Elagabalus installing his god as the chief deity of the Roman pantheon and suborning that pantheon to his god – compounded by equivalent of forcing Roman Senators to go to his church and watch him as he danced around the god’s altar, which was hardly conducive to imperial dignity.

Speaking of the Severan dynasty, it’s something of a running theme in my top ten worst Roman emperors, with Elagabalus as the second entry from that dynasty.

Perhaps the most entertaining part of this emperor’s history are the lurid tales of his sexuality. However, “the question of Elagabalus’s sexual orientation and gender identity is confused” due to the salaciousness of the sources, which includes accounts of him asserting and adorning himself as a female, to the point of reputedly seeking out sex changing surgery (and offering half the empire to anyone who could pull it off). Hence some have asserted or claimed him or her as the transsexual Roman emperor.

I am not sure that one should want to claim Elagabalus as one’s poster boy or girl, but moreover, I am not sure that these accounts are accurate to that extent, smacking as they do of Roman hyperbole to characterize someone of, ah, unmanly conduct – un-Romanly conduct that is. However, I do think that the historical sources are clear enough to say that Elagabalus swung every which way, hence my omnisexual quip.

Which has gone down a treat with historical writers. As per Edward Gibbon – Elagabalus “abandoned himself to the grossest pleasures with ungoverned fury” – and Barthold Georg Niebuhr – “the name Elagabalus is branded in history above all others” because of his “unspeakably disgusting life”.

Even Sir James George Frazer, author of The Golden Bough, got in on the act – “The dainty priest of the Sun [was] the most abandoned reprobate who ever sat upon a throne … It was the intention of this eminently religious but crack-brained despot to supersede the worship of all the gods, not only at Rome but throughout the world”.

A more neutrally stated modern assessment is by Adrian Goldsworthy -“Elagabalus was not a tyrant, but he was an incompetent, probably the least able emperor Rome had ever had.”

Interestingly, some have sought to reclaim his reputation. It’s a running theme throughout my top ten worst emperors that almost every entry – or at least almost every entry of major significance – has some advocate for them, as indeed it is for my top ten best emperors to the converse of people querying their legacy or reputation, arising as it does for figures that lack the comprehensive documentation of their contemporary counterparts.

In particular, modern historian Warwick Ball has picked up the Elagabalus ball (heh) and run with it, describing him as “a tragic enigma lost behind centuries of prejudice” – and one whose religious syncretism was ultimately successful in the long term, “in the sense that his deity would be welcomed by Rome in its Sol Invictus form 50 years later” and “came to influence the monotheist Christian beliefs of Constantine, asserting that this influence remains in Christianity to this day”.

 

EMPIRE DEBAUCHER

 

No surprise there, surely?

 

MAXIMUS:

 

No victory titles as such but he did claim the title of Pontifex Maximus as high priest of his god – and did have something of a regular annual triumph for his god, parading his pet rock about the city.

 

DEIFIED AND DAMNED:

 

It was a fine line between the divinity he claimed for his god and that for himself. When marrying a Vestal Virgin – outraging Rome yet again – he claimed the marriage would produce god-like children. And of course after the usual assassination by the Praetorian Guard, the Senate rolled out a damnatio memoriae on him.

 

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

 

Dovahhatty had one of his (funniest) tongue-in-cheek portrayals of Elagabalus as a chad in drag.

“Why is it that divine emperors only rule for a couple of years, I wonder?”

 

RATING: 1 STAR*

F-TIER (FAIL TIER)

Top Tens – Film: Top 10 Horror Films (Special Mention) (2) Vampire Horror

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Screenshot of Christopher Lee as Dracula in the 1958 film (public domain image from Internet Archive)

 

 

(2) VAMPIRE HORROR

 

Vampire horror films originate among the first horror films – and indeed in the dawn of the film industry itself.

My pet theory is that this is the product of happy coincidence between the publication (and popularity) of Bram Stoker’s Dracula in 1897 and the origins of the film entertainment industry, particularly in Hollywood.

Dracula was theatrical in its very conception – not surprisingly given Stoker’s background in theatre – and hence readily cinematic for adaptation. Dracula often reads like a play – and indeed Stoker himself adapted it as one in its first year of publication.

After that, you have the 1922 film Nosferatu directed by F.W. Murnau, infamous as essentially a version of Dracula with the serial numbers filed off, before the iconic cinematic incarnation of Dracula with Bela Lugosi in the title role in 1931.

From there, the rest is vampire horror film history – whether featuring Dracula himself (including Christopher Lee being as iconic in the role as Lugosi) or any number of vampires drawn from an almost infinite variety of vampire folklore, including the folklore attached to Dracula in the novel or its adaptations.

As with my SF horror special mention, I’ll probably flesh this out but for now my vampire horror film top ten on the spot:

 

1 – LET ME IN (2010)

 

Presently sixth place in my Top 10 Horror Films – you can read more about it (and vampire horror films in general) there

 

2 – THE HUNGER (1983)

 

One of the more ‘artsy’ vampire horror films out there – with a cast of beautiful people (Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie and Susan Sarandon). Based (loosely) on a novel by Whitley Streiber, it features a love triangle between a doctor specialising in ageing research and a vampire couple.

 

3 – THE KEEP (1983)

 

Vampires and Nazis – what more do you want? How about Gandalf vs Dracula? (Well, before Gandalf facing off with Dracula actor Christopher Lee as Saruman in the Jackson Lord of the Ring films).

Okay – technically it’s not a vampire (or Dracula) but something posing as one, adapted from the novel by F. Scott Wilson. Still, I’m counting it as another of the more ‘artsy’ vampire horror films out there, albeit somewhat lacking in coherence for anything but cult following. Some big names among its actors – including Ian McKellan obviously for my Gandalf vs Dracula joke.

 

4 – FRIGHT NIGHT (1985)

 

Probably my favorite vampire film to watch – classic pulp fun! What do you do when a vampire becomes your next door neighbor? Call on the celebrity film vampire hunter turned late night horror TV host, of course.

 

5 – THE LOST BOYS (1987)

 

Classic 80s vampire film, albeit trying a little too much too be cool for my taste and not as fun as Fright Night, that other classic 1980s vampire film.

 

6 – LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM (1988)

 

Stoker strikes again! A film adapted from his 1911 novel – I suspect very loosely, borrowing from his more famous novel to feature snake-vampires in a pagan cult to a snake-god. Snakes for the snake-god! Slither in!

 

Directed by Ken Russell in his characteristic controversial flamboyant or psychedelic style – not to mention kinky, hence coiling itself deep in my psyche

 

7 – BRAM STOKER’S DRACULA (1992)

 

Apocalypse Now in Transylvania!

(Amusingly, Kim Newman did a short story doing just that inspired by the film).

Yes – that’s a quip based on the same director, Francis Ford Coppola, but captures the same cinematic visual style he brought to both. Also – it wouldn’t take too much to rewrite it as Apocalypse Now, except going upriver in Transylvania to take out Dracula.

That said – it’s still my favorite cinematic adaptation of Dracula, albeit playing somewhat loose with the novel at times, and Gary Oldham assumes a place close to Lugosi and Lee as iconic depictions of Dracula.

 

8 – FROM DUSK TILL DAWN (1996)

 

A vampire horror film by Robert Rodriguez (and Tarantino) so iconic that it has spawned a whole franchise – mostly lacklustre film sequels but I liked the TV series adaptation.

Gangster criminals on the run in Mexico vs stripper vampires? What more could you want? Well, apart from Salma Hayek’s Santanico Pandemonium, whose snake dance will be hot-branded in my psyche forever.

 

9 – 30 DAYS OF NIGHT (2007)

 

Technically this should be in my comic book films as it is based on a comic series of the same name but it’s one of my favorite vampire horror films to watch so I’m ranking it here instead.

The title says the plot and premise – vampire congregate on the Alaskan town of Barrow for an all you can eat buffet opportunity of the titular thirty days of night in the depths of winter.

 

10 – ABIGAL (2024)

 

My present wildcard tenth place entry in my Top 10 Horror Films as best horror film of 2024 – you can read about it there.

 

HONORABLE MENTION

 

(2000) SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE

 

Speaking of F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu, the premise of this film is that it got a lot more real than you’d think. Willem Dafoe shines as usual, as does John Malkovich.

 

(2021) BLOOD RED SKY

 

Putting the red into red-eye flight when hijackers take a plane with a surprise among the passengers.

Top Tens – History (Rome): Top 10 Best & Worst Roman Emperors (3) Best: Aurelian

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Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome: Crisis of the Third Century

 

 

(3) BEST: AURELIAN –

NON-DYNASTIC / CRISIS OF THE THIRD CENTURY

(270 – 275 AD: 5 YEARS 3 MONTHS)

 

Restitutor Orbis and Sol Invictus, the Restorer of the World and the Unconquered Sun.

 

“Flash

Ah-ah

Saviour of the universe

Flash

Ah-ah

He’ll save every one of us

Flash

Ah-ah

He’s a miracle

Flash

Ah-ah

King of the impossible”.

 

Really, I could just continue with the lyrics of Queen’s Flash Gordon theme song for the rest of this entry…and I will!

 

“He’s for every one of us

Stand for every one of us

He’ll save with a mighty hand

Every man, every woman, every child with a mighty Flash.

 

Flash

A-ah!

Flash

A-ah!

He’ll save every one of us.

 

Just a man, with a man’s courage

He knows nothing but a man

But he can never fail

No one but the pure in heart may find the golden grail

Oh-oh-oh

Oh-oh-oh-oh”

 

Aurelian, Aurelian, we love you

But we only have five years to save the Roman Empire!

 

It was the darkest depths of the Crisis of the Third Century, the Roman Empire was on the brink of doom as Germanic barbarians and Sassanid Persians rampaged deep within it, while the empire itself had broken into three parts, the western and eastern parts all but seceding as or conquered by the Gallic Empire and Palmyrene Empire respectively.

And then Aurelian became emperor.

“As emperor, he won an unprecedented series of military victories which reunited the Roman Empire after it had nearly disintegrated under the pressure of barbarian invasions and internal revolts…During his reign, he defeated the Alamanni after a devastating war. He also defeated the Goths, Vandals, Juthungi, Sarmatians, and Carpi. Aurelian restored the Empire’s eastern provinces after his conquest of the Palmyrene Empire in 273. The following year he conquered the Gallic Empire in the west, reuniting the Empire in its entirety.”

Or in the characteristic eloquence of Edward Gibbon, “every instant of that short period was filled by some memorable achievement. He put an end to the Gothic war, chastised the Germans who invaded Italy, recovered Gaul, Spain, and Britain out of the hands of Tetricus, and destroyed the proud monarchy which Zenobia had erected in the East on the ruins of the afflicted empire”.

All under the guise and wearing the mask of Sol Invictus, the divine Unconquered Sun. Yeah – that’s right, the same deity of Emperor Elagabalus, but cool and badass in battle from one end of the empire to the other rather than dirty dancing around an altar.

I can’t resist quoting Dovahhatty on Aurelian, as he transcends mere Youtube and becomes art:

“The empire was now at the mercy of evil and chaos, enemies within and abroad, tearing it apart. And in these darkest of times, the greatest of all men arose…Aurelian. At the start of the crisis, he enlisted in the legions to serve Rome when she needed him most. Battle after battle, he defeated Rome’s enemies with talent and skill never seen before. Emperor after emperor he served, killing barbarians and traitors alike, always loyal and victorious.”

The preceding emperor chose Aurelian to be his successor on his deathbed – “With tears in his eyes, Claudius begged Aurelian to save Rome as its emperor with his last dying breath. For God and Empire, he put on the mask, marching on Italy and deposing the usurper Quintillus. When the Vandals dared invade his home, he marched back and slaughtered every last one of them. And as the Germans invaded Italy itself, he crushed their hordes against the ocean, denying them any mercy”.

“Once in Rome, he restored the economy from decadence, cleansing the city of all corrupt senators. To make Rome eternal, he ordered built the Aurelian walls, so that it would stand a thousand years more. After decades of terrorizing the Danube, Aurelian crushed the Goths and delivering justice to Cniva. For the empire’s sake, he evacuated the citizens of Dacia, strengthening the Danube against invasion”.

“Sailing east, Aurelian gathered his cavalrymen and slaughtered Zenobia’s army, making her flee away. Palymyra was then destroyed for all time, Zenobia captured before fleeing to the Sassanids”

“Returning west, he defeated Tetricus’ legions of traitors, making him bow again to the light of Rome. Restoring the empire from the brink of collapse, Aurelian was acclaimed Restitutor Orbis, the Restorer of the World…In only five glorious years, Aurelian had made Rome one empire with one emperor under one god”.

Sadly however, we come to Dovahhatty’s postscript – “Setting sail for the east, Aurelian engaged in one final campaign, seeking to destroy all of Rome’s enemies. But just as his unrivalled accomplishments made him a hero, so did it fill others with envy and resentment. As Aurelian built a world of good and order, their evil and chaos grew more and more threatened. Through lies they convinced themselves, a perfect man could not be allowed to exist. In the darkest of nights, the Praetorians gave in to their evil and committed their worst crime…the world is stilled”

Alas, that’s right – his reign was only for a “short period”, as he was betrayed and assassinated while on his final campaign to settle scores with the Sassanid Empire. But for the short duration of his reign – only five years, cut short by his untimely assassination – he might well be top entry.

Even so, but for Aurelian, the empire may well have fallen in the third century, instead of falling in the fifth as it did, with its eastern half enduring for a millennium beyond that. His reign may not have quite ended the crisis, but it saved the empire and came close enough to give his successors the opportunity to end it.

 

EMPIRE-SAVER – THE GREATEST OF THEM ALL

 

MAXIMUS

 

Gothicus Maximus, Germanicus Maximus, Parthicus Maximus. Hell – Maximum Maximus, Restitutor Orbis. Okay – that last one is mine.

 

DEIFIED

 

Of course!

 

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

 

Given that I quoted the script from Dovahhatty’s video for Aurelian, Dovahhatty did indeed do right by Aurelian – as a chad so glorious you can’t ever see his face above his chin (not unlike Judge Dredd) and other historical figures have visions of him. However, I don’t quite so far as Dovahhatty, who ranks him as luckier than Augustus and greater than Trajan.

 

RATING: 5 STARS*****

S-TIER (GOD TIER – OR IS THAT SOL INVICTUS TIER?)

Top Tens – Film: Top 10 Horror Films (Special Mention) (1) SF Horror (Body Horror & Cosmic Horror)

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Poster art for the 1979 Alien film with one of the most iconic SF horror film taglines – “In space no one can hear you scream.”

 

(1) SF HORROR (BODY HORROR & COSMIC HORROR)

 

My preferred horror films tend to be supernatural or SF horror, but I tend to rank the latter as SF rather than horror.

The dividing line is partly my idiosyncratic opinion that the science fiction elements predominate in SF, such as where the sources of horror are aliens or time-travelling killer robots, but is also partly to preserve the SF entries in my Top 10 Fantasy and SF Films.

Alien, The Terminator, and The Thing are my holy trinity of SF horror but since they are all entries in my Top 10 Fantasy & SF Films I won’t feature them again here.

Well, except to note that Alien was essentially haunted house horror IN SPACE, with a spaceship for a haunted house (neatly solving the so-called haunted house problem of why the protagonists simply don’t leave the house) and the titular xenomorph for the ghost. In a sense the whole franchise is this in one way or another.

The Thing is also another alien haunted house horror story, except with an Antarctic base as haunted house – with the haunted house problem posed by the onset of winter as well as by seeking to avoid the Thing infecting the outside world.

Alien and The Thing also illustrate the subgenres of body horror and cosmic horror that recur with SF horror.

The Terminator was essentially robot slasher horror – okay, technically cyborg slasher horror.

 

I’ll probably flesh this out (heh) but for now my SF horror top ten on the spot (consisting of entries not featured in my Top 10 Fantasy & SF Horror Films):

 

 

1 JOHN CARPENTER – THEY LIVE (1988)

 

Of course, John Carpenter’s SF horror magnum opus is The Thing (featured in my Top 10 Fantasy & SF Films) but I had to feature him here with this entry as one of my two leading SF horror directors.

 

Which brings me to my next entry…

 

2 DAVID CRONENBERG – THE FLY (1986)

 

Yes, it’s a remake – but what an entry! Also representative of David Cronenberg, the other of my two leading SF horror directors – and whose work embodies (heh) body horror, so much so that Rick and Morty referenced it (as Cronenberging their world when they turn Earth into a population of body horror monstrosities).

 

3 – INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS (1978)

 

Yes – the original was in 1956 (based on the 1954 novel by Jack Finney and symbolic of Cold War paranoia) but this is my favorite of the “franchise”, particularly for its downer ending (with that shriek).

 

4 – PREDATOR (1987)

 

Probably more people think of this film and its subsequent franchise as SF action, but the Predator is essentially an alien slasher stalking humans for prey – not unlike the franchise with its audience at this point.

 

5 – TREMORS (1990)

 

Like the previous entry, probably more people think of this film (and its franchise) as comedic SF action but there’s enough of a horror element for me to count it.

 

6 – THE FACULTY (1998)

 

Fun spin on The Thing in a high school – including a fun spin on that blood sample test for the Thing.

 

7 – SLITHER (2006)

 

James Gunn does an SF horror alien invasion – with doses of body and cosmic horror.

 

8 – CLOVERFIELD / 10 CLOVERFIELD LANE (2008-2016)

 

I’m counting these as the same franchise for production rather than plot – the first is upated alien kaiju horror, the second is survival horror with one hell of a twist at the end.

 

9 – LIFE (2017)

 

Ah, Calvin – you rubbery rascal. Essentially another alien haunted house horror story IN SPACE.

 

10 – A QUIET PLACE (2018-2024)

 

Shhh – essentially alien slasher horror stalking by sound.

Top Tens – Film: Top 10 Horror Films (Special Mention)

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One of the most iconic silhouettes in horror film history – Count Orlok from the 1922 German film Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror directed by F.W. Murnau, essentially a version of Dracula

 

“Horror is a genre of fiction that exploits the primal fears of viewers” – “that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes”.

It’s also a genre in which I watch a lot of films, so I don’t just have a Top 10 Horror Films – I also have my usual twenty special mentions for my top tens, including sub-genre or thematic entries as about half (or more) of my special mentions.

Top Tens – History (Rome): Top 10 Best & Worst Roman Emperors (4) Worst: Honorius

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Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome XVIII: Barbarians at the Gates

 

(4) WORST: HONORIUS –

THEODOSIAN DYNASTY

(395 – 423 AD AD: 28 YEARS 6 MONTHS 29 DAYS)

 

Chicken boy.

Dovahhatty summed him up best – “Honorius continued on living as he always had, laying around, babbling like an idiot as the world around him fell apart, but for one exception. One day Honorius turned it all around and decided, for once, to do the best possible thing he could do for the empire and died, after ruling Rome for a godawful thirty years.”

Getting up there as candidate for the worst Roman emperor ever, although you could easily shuffle him with Valentinian III – a.k.a Honorius II – for that spot, as they are so uncannily similar as to be interchangeable. I know I said it before for Valentinian III but it’s worth saying again for Honorius – each was a model of supine inactivity as the empire crumbled, except for betraying the loyal subordinate who was the one holding things together and stabbing that man in the back, as well as each with one of the two notorious sacks of Rome following shortly afterwards. Between the two of them and their inexplicably long reigns, almost 60 years in combination, they broke the western Roman empire and presided over its fall. It’s like the Roman Empire cloned its crappiest emperor, just so it could have him reign twice to ensure its own fall.

Now I have ranked Honorius as worse than Valentinian III as Honorius came first and you know how it is for the diminishing returns of sequels – Valentinian III hit all the same beats and even tried to have some new twists but it just wasn’t up to the original. Less flippantly, Valentinian III inherited the wreckage of the western empire from Honorius – in particular, the barbarians firmly ensconced within the empire as they had not been before Honorius. Not that Valentinian III would do or was ever going to do anything but wreck it further.

In the case of Honorius, the loyal subordinate was his general Stilicho, who had also been his regent and was his father-in-law. Now I have argued that Valentinian’s betrayal of Aetius was worse, but that is more a matter of his direct personal involvement – killing Aetius himself – being more despicable. The betrayal by Honorius of Stilicho was more destructive for the empire.

Firstly, at least Valentinian III waited until the threat of Attila and his Huns had receded from Italy (and the empire itself as it turned out) before his betrayal of Aetius. Honorius betrayed Stilicho when the threat of Alaric and his Visigoths to Italy and Rome was still very much dire. Secondly – and worse – Honorius’ betrayal of Stilicho strengthened that threat, both by removing Stilicho as the effective deterrent to it and with the defection of Stilicho’s foederati troops en masse to Alaric following Honorius’ massacre of their families as Stilicho’s camp followers.Thirdly, at least Valentinian’s betrayal of Alaric had the prompt consequence of Valentinian’s own assassination, where Honorius continued to burden the empire with his reign for another fifteen years.

Although Honorius didn’t have to wait that long for the sack of Rome which followed as a consequence of his betrayal of Stilicho. That betrayal led in a direct line to the sack of Rome by Alaric and the Visigoths in 410, which again was arguably worse than the corresponding sack of Rome by the Vandals in 455.

Firstly, the sack of Rome by Alaric in 410 was a profound shock to the empire, the first such sack for eight centuries. While the sack of Rome by the Vandals was more destructive – such that the Vandals lent their name as a synonym for destruction ever since – it lacked that same sense of shock given the recent occurrence of the first sack. Secondly, at least Valentinian wasn’t still alive to injure Rome further with his continued existence for its sack in 455 AD. Thirdly, Honorius added insult to injury with his initial alarm that Rome had “perished” was a reference to his favorite pet chicken he had named Roma, where he was relieved to find out it was only in reference to the actual city. That story has been identified to be likely an apocryphal one, but it’s just too true to his character and symbolic with respect to it involving a chicken that I accept it anyway.

The only distinction between Honorius and Valentinian III that led to the former reigning fifteen more years after his betrayal of Stilicho was that Honorius was fortunate enough to have a capable general (and briefly co-emperor) in Constantius III to substitute for Stilicho propping up him and the empire. All Valentinian III had after Aetius was Petronius Maximus and we’ve seen how well that went – his own assassination and the sack of Rome.

Also, Honorius was literally the creepy uncle to Valentinian, albeit more to Valentinian’s mother (and his half sister), so I blame Honorius somewhat for how Valentinian turned out.

As usual, Edward Gibbon had the best snark about Honorius, which I can’t resist quoting in all its glory –

“His feeble and languid disposition was alike incapable of discharging the duties of his rank…the amusement of feeding poultry became the serious and daily care of the monarch of the West, who resigned the reins of empire to the firm and skilful hand of his guardian Stilicho…The predecessors of Honorius were accustomed to animate by their example, or at least by their presence, the valour of the legions; and the dates of their laws attest the perpetual activity of their motions through the provinces of the Roman world. But the son of Theodosius passed the slumber of his life a captive in his palace, a stranger in his country, and the patient, almost the indifferent, spectator of the ruin of the Western empire, which was repeatedly attacked, and finally subverted, by the arms of the barbarians. In the eventful history of a reign of twenty-eight years, it will seldom be necessary to mention the name of the emperor Honorius”.

 

EMPIRE BREAKER

 

Arguably the emperor who broke the empire more than anyone else.

I’m not going to even bother with imperial victory titles or deification – he had none and deserved less. I’m not sure the Senate was doing damnatio memoriae by then.

 

DID DOVAHATTY DO RIGHT?

 

Probably the virgin emperor Dovahhatty did best – and said it best, as evidenced by the quote I featured at the outset.

 

RATING: 1 STAR*

F-TIER (FAIL TIER)

 

 

Top Tens – History (Rome): Top 10 Best & Worst Roman Emperors (4) Best: Hadrian

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Dovahhatty – Unbiased History of Rome XII: The Five Good Emperors

 

 

(4) BEST: HADRIAN –

NERVA-ANTONINE DYNASTY / FIVE GOOD EMPERORS

(117 – 138 AD: 20 YEARS 10 MONTHS 29 DAYS)

 

The definitive Roman emperor, exceeded as such only by my top two entries.

That’s notable in that he did not add any conquests to the empire, but instead withdrew from the conquests of his predecessor, particularly in Mesopotamia but to some extent in Dacia as well. Although the Romans themselves tended to esteem expansionism, Hadrian focused on the consolidation of the empire – “Hadrian preferred to invest in the development of stable, defensible borders and the unification of the empire’s disparate peoples”.

It is hard not to see that as the correct focus, as Hadrian presided over an empire at its peak strength and stability, without any adversary of real substance let alone rival or threat to it. Otherwise, it might have become overstretched (or more so) – and it’s possible that even his predecessor who had conquered Mesopotamia (from Persia) “may have thought his gains in Mesopotamia indefensible and abandoned them shortly before his death”.

As such, unlike other emperors in this top ten Hadrian did not even have to engage in any robust military action in defense of the empire – with one notable exception where he was very robust indeed with the one substantial adversary that revolted against the empire during his reign, which we’ll get to shortly.

However, Hadrian didn’t just sit on the empire’s laurels. He “also developed permanent fortifications and military posts along the empire’s border (limites, sl. limes) to support his policy of stability, peace and preparedness”, including the wall in Britain that famously bore his name. “Hadrian’s policy was peace through strength”, emphasised by discipline – “troops practised intensive, regular drill routines” and historian Cassius Dio “praised Hadrian’s emphasis on spit and polish as cause for the generally peaceful character of his reign”.

Fortifications weren’t all he built or rebuilt – Hadrian was famed for his building projects throughout the empire. To that end, Hadrian “travelled almost constantly throughout the empire” and “was to spend more than half his reign outside Italy”.

Hadrian was notoriously fond of Greece and the Greeks – the Historia Augusta opined he may have been “a little too much Greek” – and fond of a Greek in particular, the youth Antinous.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that but I would say that Hadrian deifying Antinous after the latter’s untimely death as a gay god was a step too far. Some men will literally apotheosize their dead catamite instead going to therapy.

The other notorious aspect of Hadrian’s regime was wiping Jerusalem and Judaea off the map in response to the Jewish Bar Kokhba Revolt. The Caledonian chieftain Calgacus as quoted (or concocted) by Tacitus had seen nothing yet when he said the Romans make a desert and call it peace – Hadrian showed how it was really done.

Hadrian was also initiated into in the Greek Eleusinian Mysteries – which I’d like to think of as the classical equivalent of the Illuminati, or perhaps just the actual Illuminati as who knows how far back that secret society and their conspiracies go…?

 

EMPIRE BASER:

 

Arguably the most based of them all.

 

MAXIMUS:

 

I don’t think he claimed any – putting down revolts isn’t quite the same thing

 

DEIFICATION:

 

O yes – although his successor had to insist on it to the Senate

 

DID DOVAHHATTY DO RIGHT?

 

Yes – as another one of the five good chad emperors, aptly depicted in my feature image with the Wall from the Game of Thrones TV series – itself influenced by Hadrian’s eponymous wall in Britain.

I particularly like Dovahhatty’s joke about Hadrian being infra-gay – at the opposite end of the spectrum to Elagabalus being ultra-gay. Indeed, as I understand it, that joke reflects the dichotomy the Romans themselves drew for sexuality – between the active, dominant or masculine role and the passive, submissive or feminine role. Or to put it bluntly, between the giving and receiving roles. Men could engage in the former “without a perceived loss of masculinity or social status” – hence infra-gay rather than ultra-gay – although deifying your dead ultra-gay lover was probably pushing the boundaries of Roman social acceptability.

 

RATING: 4 STARS****

S-TIER (GOD TIER)