There’s a reason Prozak is called The Hitchcock Of Hip Hop. The Saginaw,MI native has long been student of cinema, having directed several films and music videos, including Tech N9ne’s “Bout Ta Bubble”. Prozak’s love for movies has also heavily influenced his music, as evidenced by his 2008 release, Tales From The Sick. As both a director and avid fan of movies, Prozak has a distinct perspective on what goes into making a classic film.

We recently caught up with Prozak and asked him to share his top 10 films of all time. From innovative horror films to unforgettable crime-dramas, Prozak ran down his Hollywood favorites and showed that his taste in movies is just as diverse as his music.

The Evil Dead

Evil Dead is a pure masterpiece. Strangely enough, Evil Dead 2 is probably my favorite. Although, they’re all incredible – Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2, and Army Of Darkness. Sam Raimi directed. Sam Raimi is a Michigan native, all of the cast were from Michigan. Interestingly enough, Mike E. Clark was actually asked to do score for the first Evil Dead movie, but wasn’t necessarily sure that he wanted to. He didn’t really know the people making it and was busy doing other things. God, looking back that I’m like, “Why didn’t you do it?!” Anyway it‘s incredible, it’s almost like slapstick meets horror meets…it’s unexplainable. If you haven’t seen The Evil Dead, do drugs and watch The Evil Dead. If you don’t want to do drugs that’s fine because you’ll feel like you are anyway when you watch the film. It’s a masterpiece, that’s just my opinion.

Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas

Arguably the best movie ever made. Terry Gilliam is a phenomenal director, Johnny Depp plays the part of Hunter S. Thompson, and Benicio Del Toro is his trusty lawyer and sidekick. If you don’t know who Hunter S. Thompson is, he is the Doctor of Journalism. Go read The Rum Diary or anything else he’s ever done. Basically, Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, even though I am a huge horror movie lover and I really do love the dark shit, Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas is definitely my favorite movie of all time.

JFK

JFK is a pure fucking masterpiece. It’s pretty long. If you’re not interested in the JFK assassination, I don’t care, go watch it anyway. It’s a phenomenal movie and you will care after you watch the film. It’s got an all star cast. You got Kevin Costner, a quick appearance by John Candy, I believe Jack Lemmon is in it. The movie has got a ton of people. All A-list phenomenal actors, Joe Pesci for god sake, and Kevin Bacon. A lot of these actors are doing characters that are way out of their element. They were doing roles that you would never expect them to do. It’s very accurate. I believe it was Oliver Stone that directed it. The editing, the lighting – you feel like you’re really there. It’s a long movie, but I’ve never been able to not watch it. Even if I’m at home flipping through channels and that fucking movie is on, I’ll sit and watch the whole thing. I’ll even miss things I’m suppose to go do to just sit there and finish it. I don’t know, it’s just incredible.

GoodFellas

This, in my opinion, is the best mob movie ever made. I have much respect for all The Godfathers and the ever so popular, now trendy, Scarface movie, but GoodFellas – incredible. Martin Scorsese directed the movie. He also of course directed Casino and many other films. It has De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Ray Liotta, who is one of my favorite actors. It’s a very realistic, brutal look into the world of organized crime. It’s incredible. So much memorable dialogue in that movie, “Go home and get your fucking shinebox” is one that always sticks out to me. You cannot not see this film.

A Clockwork Orange

Is a true psychotic film. It’s an interesting movie to say the least. It’s become a kind of a cult classic- shit, it is a cult classic film. It’s basically about an experiment gone wrong. I don’t even want to ruin it for you, that movie is such a fucking insane nightmare put together on film that you just have to go watch it yourself.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

The best horror movie I think ever made. Hands down if someone said to you, “What is the best horror movie ever made and you can only choose one”, it would be The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. It’s a groundbreaking film, it changed the face of horror movies forever. It was the first of its kind, so to speak. Horrified audiences, way ahead of its time. It’s brilliant, it’s gritty, you will feel like you need to brush your teeth and shower afterwards. It will fucking terrify you.

A Bronx Tale

I believe that was actually directed by Robert De Niro. That, to me, was one of the really interesting things because it’s awesome to see De Niro take the helm and direct a film. Honestly, the movie is fucking phenomenal. A Bronx Tale touches on race, there’s a lot of emphasis on the racism going on at the times. Of course, an emphasis on organized crime and multiple worlds colliding. I guess you could say it’s a love story. It’s almost like a Romeo & Juliet meets GoodFellas meets Mississippi Burning all into one package. It’s incredible and it’s always going to be one of my favorite films.

The Usual Suspects

The best crime movie ever made. The best shock twist ending ever. Some of the best editing ever seen. The best script, in my opinion, ever written was The Usual Suspects. It has a phenomenal score, I can’t rate that movie any higher. It’s one of the best movies ever made in the world. Again, with an all star cast. It’s fucking incredible, I can’t say that there’s one thing about that movie that I would change. It’s truly a masterpiece.

Pulp Fiction

Jesus Christ, a schizophrenic nightmare masterpiece by Quentin Tarantino. Say what you want about the guy, but he’s revolutionary in the film world and he’s phenomenal. Pulp Fiction, to me, is like imagine somebody wrote a film and then took the pages of the script and then unfastened the clip there and then just threw the papers in the air and then swept them up into a pile in random order and then shot the movie. Actually, a friend of mine, Tim, has taken the movie and edited it in chronological order which is kind funny when you watch it that way. Look at how brilliant that movie is just in the fact of how it bounces around and how it all comes together. That alone makes it a masterpiece, but besides that, just the crazy insane and witty dialogue. All of it is a masterpiece.

Psycho

My god, what more could you want out of a movie than Psycho? To me, it’s the best psychological thriller I’ve ever seen. Again, it was ahead of its time. It was done by, to me, the best director that ever lived. The only thing that I can say about Hitchcock is that I hope everybody in Hollywood that ran the game during his career, I hope they all burn in hell. This man didn’t get any of the credit he deserved until well after his death. The more you research about Hitchcock and the more you learn about him from the truer sources, you realize that that’s truly what happened. One of the things that always blew me away was that people told him that if he did Psycho, his career would be over. That it was appalling, disgusting, morbid, and terrible. He actually invested a huge portion of everything he was worth, as well as that of close friends, and he did some super interesting campaigning such as massive billboards on the side of buildings that said “Do Not Watch This Film.” Think about how genius that is. It’s incredible. He gambled and he believed in something despite everybody else’s multiple reasons of why not to do it. He stared in the face of all of his advisors and everybody in the business and said, “Fuck this, I believe in it. I don’t care, I’m going to do it anyway.” Sure enough, to this day there are still people who can’t go in the bathroom without opening the shower curtain first and peeking in it because it’s somehow in their thoughts. That’s amazing that something somebody did so many years ago can still have that effect. He revolutionized it, not only that, but he brought classy elements to horror movies. He taught people that building suspense is where it’s at. He taught people that you don’t have to see all the gore, the mind could paint a picture that special effects couldn’t touch.

Here’s a Hitchcock thing that I just want to say for the hell of it, it’s one of my favorite things. One of the people, I think it was his Assistant Director, on Overboard if I’m no mistaken, but he was doing some PR with press, and somebody said to him, “You know in regards to that movie, when you were shooting out there on the water, the one thing I don’t understand is how were you able to see the people? Where did the light come from out there at night on the ocean?” Then Hitchcock paused for a second and adjusted his tie, he looked the guy in the face and said, “The light came from the same place the music did, asshole.” That’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard in my entire life.

Don’t forget to follow Prozak on Twitter – @TheRealProzak