Couldn't agree more with virtually everything you've written here.

Let's take a reasonably effective horror film that has been given the Rifftrax treatment, Tourist Trap.

I certainly agree with you on the last point. I guess I found the earlier straight up mumble core bits rather charming.

Personally I've always thought of Lovecraft like one of those movies you see where you sort of nod along and think "this had some great ideas, and this bit could have really worked in something else" and you store those undeveloped ideas and random bits away because they could be gold if used correctly.

And yet The Thing is easily one of the fifty best horror movies ever made. I'd put it safely in the top twenty.

You may now drop your mic and walk offstage.

West's heart isn't really in the horror. The Innkeepers, for instance, would have probably been a better movie if he had just skipped it entirely.

I like your thought process here, but I'd also like to pose a couple of questions:

If the writer does his or her job correctly anything should be able to scare you because you are invested in the fate of the character(s) being threatened and the threat, even if it is a mutated, bipedal, possessed squirrel, may kill or even visit a fate worse than death upon them.

Philosophically I disagree with your position, but I like your instincts, and you make a better and more focused argument than the piece above.

Fair enough. But that would once again also include not only a large number of the films above but hundreds of others. Neither of the films listed holds a candle to the climax of Rosemary's Baby in the having to live with it/accept it vibe.

This new age apparently began with the release of the original Night of the Living Dead about 50 years ago.

And reveals a certain ignorance about the genre.

And I don't blame you one bit.

It is possible (just barely) to view the Babadook as a manifestation of Amelia's grief that grew so powerful it gained a sort of quasi-corporeal existence. And that Amelia has separated herself from a physical manifestation of her guilt, with the worms being a ritual keeping that estranged portion of herself at bay.

2007 Canadian horror film. But it gets that all the time.

8 of the movies in this top 25 would be in mine, but I would like to present an alternate top 25 list with completely different films that would probably offer a lot more bang for the buck for a serious fan of horror. In no particular order:

16 of the movies on your list would be in my top 25.
28 in my top 50.

There's a lot of argument both ways and I have no idea who was right. It just gave me the eye rolls that it was on the list and Ils wasn't so I took my swing.

That was a pleasant surprise.