If there's anyone we trust to have good taste in horror films, it's the straitjacket-sporting son of a preacherman who litters stages worldwide with copious amounts of faux blood, snakes, zombies and torture and execution contraptions. Yes, we're talking about The Godfather of Shock Rock, Alice Cooper, who throughout his career, has made horror a key element of his performances and persona.
Back in 2011, in conversation with NME, the shock rocker proved that his interest in the macabre extends into cinema, and named his top five favourite horror films.
"Are you ready? Are you sure?" he warns, before kicking off with his first choice of Stephen King's 1979 film adaptation of Salem's Lot, which he describes as "one of the great vampire movies".
He continues, "I don't think they realised how good this movie was until after they made it. Barlow was the great, maybe the scariest vampire of all time...If you haven't seen Salem's Lot, don't write it off as a TV movie, it's one of the really truly scary movies."
For his next pick, the musician choses 1977's Suspiria, directed by Dario Argento. Speaking of the film, he says, "it's a movie about a little girl in a ballet studio in Italy, and it is just pure creep. It's just creepy."
He adds: "You never do see a monster, and that's what makes it creepy. The really good horror movies are the one's where you don't see the monster."
Next up, Cooper names 1963's The Haunting Of Hill House, otherwise known as just The Haunting. "It was made in the early 60's, Claire Bloom, Julia Harris; another movie where you don't see the monster. But, the way it's shot in just black and white, it is absolutely terrifying."
The singer then goes on to say that he was disappointed by the 1999 remake of the film starring his good friend Catherine Zeta-Jones, as they showed the monster, which "killed all the scariness".
For his final two choices, he shares love for 1981's The Evil Dead, which he describes as "pure fun" and 1962's psychological horror Carnival Of Souls. "For some reason the black and white movies were just grittier" he notes.
Watch the interview below:
