Playing a bit of catch up...
Night of the Living Dead (George Romero, 1968)
Enjoyable enough, and fun to see it set the standards for zombie movies to come. It feels a little dated, but I think it still works very well. Not as much with the scares, but with showing people dealing with the situation, which is always the most interesting part of a zombie movie anyways. I thought the end was pretty great.
The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973)
Pop culture did this movie no favors for me. I couldn't help but have a mental checklist as I watched it. Crucifix, check. Vomit, check. Head spin, check...Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised, but knowing pretty much the entire movie secondhand made it a very ineffective experience. From a film making perspective I can admire it, but I think I just missed the boat on it.
The Abyss (Special Edition) (James Cameron, 1989)
I might equate watching this to watching A.I., both are very ambitious movies that contain a lot I loved, but ultimately fail because of that ambition. The difference being a spectacular failure with A.I. vs. a more nuanced failure in The Abyss. Really, I'm not sure I can point at anything in particular and say, "This is why The Abyss didn't work." Individually, most of it did. I loved the setting, the mystery, the action, the characters, and even the whole end segment (although, like A.I., the last 20 minutes or so felt like a different movie). But when put together those things didn't all work together how they needed to. I'm curious if the theatrical cut mitigates this problem, because I think it just does too much.
But even so, I'm staying pretty positive on it. Some of the things it does it does so well that it really is magical in the "I've never seen this before" sense. I also spent a lot of time just in awe of the technical achievement.
Drag Me To Hell (Sam Raimi, 2009)
I had a great time with this. Raimi's technical skill at shooting horror is exceptional, he is very creative, and it's effective without using all those horror conventions that I get annoyed at. The camp and humor are exactly what I wanted from it, it's over-the-top just the right amount, and I was impressed with how it can take simple scenes and build them into something really fun. At the same time, there is some truly creepy material (mostly atmospheric) that got to me more than a lot of the serious straight-up horror I've been watching lately.