Dowdles pick top terror flicks

THE DOWDLES SHARE THEIR TOP TERRORS

While Drew and John Erick Dowdle have made a splash with documentary-style spine-tinglers, their favorite horror movies cover a wide swath of styles, themes and moods:

"THE SHINING"

"I love it for its sense of the surreal and its slow-building rising tension that you don't even quite know why it's in the fabric of the film," said John. "It's just beautiful and an incredible piece of filmmaking. It's terrifying. Something about the halls. Kubrick had a way of making everything scary. A doorknob is terrifying. The sound effect of the Big Wheel on the carpet on the floor is terrifying."

"SEVEN"

"We love the procedural-type horror film that creates a moody world," said Drew. "We love serial-killer stuff obviously, but especially something that is investigative and procedural like that or even 'The Ring,' where there's a mystery to be solved that gets you deeper and deeper into something supernatural."

"THE EXORCIST"

"It's a wonderfully dramatic story that the scariness just enhances," said John. "It's a beautiful drama outside of the fact that it's just absolutely terrifying. In a lot of ways, it's a family drama with incredible cinematography and amazing performances. Some of that level of quality has been lost in a lot of the current crop of horror films. And that's a quality to strive for."

"HALLOWEEN"

"It was really the groundbreaking subjective film," said John. "It's the first time I'm ever aware of that the camera was put in the eyes of the killer. So you're actually tracking with the killer, hoping the characters stay away from the lens. That was a huge inspiration to us for 'The Poughkeepsie Tapes.'"

"THE OMEN"

"We come from a Catholic-school background and anything involving religion, involving demonic possession, we find kind of cool," said John. "On the one hand, it's supernatural, but on the other, you can ground it in reality and make it feel real. That's always a great, great device."

"JACOB'S LADDER" AND "ANGEL HEART"

"Both tap into the surreal, and a big part of our fascination with horror is really experimenting with the surreal," said John. "Both films have that real sense of the absurd and the bizarre in a wonderful artistic way."