Devildriver commit aural assault and battery with each and every record that they put out. The quintet has built its most explosive arsenal to date with Pray for Villains. The album bursts at the seams with incendiary groove metal riffs, double bass witchery and some sinister lyrics about gunslingers. Given their penchant for telling stories with songs, the Devildriver guys sat down with Bloody-Disgusting.com to talk about their favorite horror movies.

Dez Fafara (Vocals), Jeff Kendrick (Guitar) and Jon Miller (Bass) talked about what terrifies them cinematically in this exclusive feature. Read on for their picks.

1. Horror Hotel

The first would be Horror Hotel. I think it’s just classic horror at its best! In the film, a woman goes to research witchcraft in an old town outside of Massachusetts. It’s black and white. With the way Horror Hotel was filmed, there’s anticipation in every shot. I think it’s one of the best movies out there! I could watch this on a daily basis. It never gets old.

2. Viy

This is another movie that I really love. It’s a Russian fairytale—one of my absolute favorite movies of all time. Viy needs to be seen by everybody! This priest kills an old witch—unbeknownst to him it’s a young girl who’s cloaked as an old witch. He tries to disguise it to the people in the village. Somehow, some way, the girl’s father knows it was this priest that killed her. The family needs a holy man to pray over the dead girl’s body for three days. So the priest has to pray over her body for three days, and the things that happen in those three days are unbelievable. You have to see it. It’s one of the best horror flicks that I’ve ever seen. For the time it was done, it’s incredible.

3. Dracula

I’ve got to go with the original Dracula. The Coppola remake was definitely good though too. It’s almost perfect. I think Gary Oldman was probably the best Dracula I’ve ever seen. It’s kind of like Tim Curry in Legend. Are you ever going to make a better devil than Tim Curry in Legend? No, you’re not—you’re just never going to do it.

4. Frankenstein

I’m much more of an alien, sci-fi guy as well, but I love the original three monster movies.

5. The Wolfman

I would say the early Frankenstein, Wolfman and Dracula together. You can’t touch those three movies. I really do think that a lot of the horror that’s been put out lately is kind of schlocky and a re-tread of other movies.

6. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

How many times are you going to redo The Texas Chainsaw Massacre? The original destroys everything. How many movies are going to rip-off that premise and not say that they took it from there? If you want to scare the shit out of yourself, you’ll watch the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and you’ll never want to drive down a dirt road ever again [Laughs]. That’s it. We just spent this weekend watching The Godfather—I & II. The ’70s were great! The filming style—the way the camera shot, the time anticipated between shots and the long shots—was amazing. They weren’t afraid to do long shots. Now everything is spliced up. It’s like Pro Tools with music [Laughs].

1. Halloween

This movie would set the precedent for the slasher genre and prove that low-budget filmmaking could yield massive success. Michael Myers would also become the first horror “villain” that would achieve iconic status.

2. The Shining

Stephen King’s literary masterpiece scares the living shit out of audience’s worldwide. Jack Nicholson’s performance was terrifying to say the least. As he slowly loses his mind during the film, the viewer feels that he is going with him.

3. Jaws

Spielberg’s almost failed venture about a shark terrorizing a small New England beach community. The difficulties of filming the shark made it so they had to rely on camera angles and music to achieve the level of terror it did on audiences worldwide.

4. Amityville 2: The Possession

I just love how demonic this film is. It did not have the success of many other horror films and not necessarily was received that well, but some of the sequences in the film are just down right scary.

5. Friday the 13th

Even though the series idea was spawned by Halloween, you have to love the very first slasher. There was a mystery the entire time about who the actual killer was and the back story about a mother seeking revenge for the loss of her only child. Similar to Jaws, the viewer only becomes aware of the assailant at the end of the movie. Jason like Michael Myers, would eventually become one of the most recognizable characters in the horror genre.

1. Jaws

This movie changed my life at an early age…I became completely obsessed and fascinated with great whites after seeing Jaws and am still afraid to go swimming at night, even in a pool. I have a vast collection of Jaws posters from around the globe and shark tattoos. I love this movie.

2. Pet Semetary

I grew up with cats my whole life and Stephen King definitely tapped into the dark corners of my brain when I saw this movie at age 9. The whole Indian burial ground concept is super creepy.

3. Candyman

Clive Barker really fucked my head up with this one when I was a little kid. I would break into cold sweats for years when I walked past mirrors at night.

4. Children of the Corn

The idea behind this flick (which was originally a short story found in Stephen King’s NIGHT SHIFT) is just straight up horrifying. I saw this when I was about eight-years-old and the image of Isaac, the boy preacher, haunted me for years.

5. Jacob’s Ladder

I don’t even know if this film can be categorized as a horror movie, but it has some of the darkest imagery I have ever seen in a movie. Tim Robbins does an exceptional job for the role of Jacob. There are some straight up terrifying scenes in this flick, like when his girlfriend grows demon wings…or when the receptionist’s hat falls off, revealing her horns.

By: Rick Florino (www.bookofdolor.com)