Discussion Forums - Horror

Someone mentioned Session 9...that one did get very eerie but I was a little disappointed at the end...or just in shock :)

I agree, The Ring was very scary in that it was creepy.  There weren't a lot of "jump" moments, but it just got weirder and weirder.  I've only seen the American one...it's a bit slow, but my friend & I kept saying "OMG! WTF?! OMG! WTF?!" and were both afraid to sleep.  When we hung out exactly 7 days later we were very nervous.

Jennifer,

I just watched the Descent as well and enjoyed it. If you watch the "Unrated version" it has the ending the director really wanted - and I think was much better.

As for the scariest for me personally - well it was in my senior year and our high school had a late night screening in the theater of a little movie you might have heard of - Hitchcock's original Psycho - on the big screen. I had never seen it before. Hands down the scariest movie I have ever seen. One of the four of us had to go home to an empty house since his parents were out of town for the weekend. I swear it took him 10 minutes to get out of my car...lol. Hitchcock was...and still IS the master.

Recently a movie that creeped me out and I think has one of the most frightening endings, and disturbing, is "the Mist".

I loved the short story by Stephen King and love the ending that Frank Darabont came up with.  Even King wishes he had written the ending of the movie.

A Tale of Two Sisters (asian horror), Donnie Darko (funny enough your avator jogged my memory for this one) and I second The Devil's Backbone recommendation.

I don't remember the exact release date but there was an Italian made horror movie called "Demons" and I will not watch it again.  Ran out of the theatre and didn't look back it freaked me out so much.

Only other movie that did that to me, and I didn't stick around for the credits was "Hellraiser" and I liked the first 3 of those.

I can't believe people actually get scared anymore.  I've never been scared and I've been watching horror movies since I was 4 or 5 yrs old. The only thing that came close to scarring me was when I was little and watched "american werewolf in london" and while trying to sleep, I got scared that Griffin Dune (as a zombie) was gonna sit on my bed while I was sleeping.  Other than that I can't get scared and I can't think of any movie that is scary. The only thing to suggest is look for psychological horror. Check out this website and find a movie from the 70's. Movies were more "scary" then.

http://www.buried.com/horrormovies/year.php

You will really like The Ring.....it's not too bloody but is scary as all heck!!!!

CherS

The Exorsist is a fantastic horror flick.It should be watched at leaset once in your life time ;)

I have 12 horror films (VHS format) offered for 2 DVD

The Asian horror classic "Audition", un-freaking-believable. I was watching this one peeking out behind my fingers.

Also The Descent.  That one made me jump. More than once.

I was just checking around for a good scarey movie when I thought I would look here first.  I like scarey and suspenseful but no gore which seems to be hard to come by.  The Ring is good, House on Haunted Hill is a good one too.  It seems lame, but I liked The Others also.Amityville Horror was good, but only the first one and only the original.  I thought Poltergeist 2 was a little bit better than 1.  That preacher is creepy!!!  What about The Village?  Kind of slow, but not too bad.  I would appreciate any suggestions too.  I'm never quite sure what genre to look in for scarey, suspensful, non-gory movies.  Oh yeah, Dark Water is pretty good too. Not a lot of people see this, but it IS good.

My favorite horror movie is all the Holloween's. He's better than Jason in that when someone is just standing there and waiting for something to happen Michael just slowly appears behind them. Creepy! 

Then also one of my other favorites is 13 Ghosts! The guy that played Shaggy in the Scooby Doo movies was awesome in this! And i loved all the ghosts. Not knowing when they were there unless you wore special glasses was pretty scary. Especially watching it in the dark. And it takes alot to get me scared!

I woudn't call it the scariest movie, but if you can get your hands on [Rec] somehow, it's pretty scary and the last five minutes really freaked me out.

It's never been released in the US, but the American remake is out next month. I suggest trying to see this one first though, because the trailer for the new version really ruins the ending of the original.

If you're into asian horror movies (they always tend to scare me more than American made horrors) I would suggest Reincarnation. It was one of 2006's 8 Films to Die For. Let me tell you, I'm a horror movie fanatic, but never has a movie creeped me out so much. And it takes a lot to get to me. After watching that movie, I wanted to go outside and hang myself just to forget about it. I swore I was seeing things in the garage when I went to take the dogs out right after, and couldn't sleep because I kept hearing weird noises. DEFINITELY worth trying.

You cant go wrong with Texas Chainsaw #1, The remake, The prequel..I watched The hills have eyes 2 the other night and it was good. Wolf Creek is also good, a little slow going but still good. Jeepers Creepers 1 & 2.  If you want to be a little freaked out get The Last House on The Left.

The first 2 Hellraiser flix rocked. As well as The Entity,  Suspiria, The Fog, Phantasm, The Evil Dead... lots of the older horror movies were creepy, unlike nowadays stuff.

james

I'll add my recommendation of the original The Haunting; for me, the scariest movie that I have ever seen. But I prefer suggestive, "atmospheric" horror to explicit, in-your-face "slasher,"  "splatter," and "gore" trash. I'm also not at all fond of the "torture porn" subgenre (Hostel, Saw, Turistas).

Besides The Haunting, check out the following chillers:

The original, 1925 version of The Phantom of the Opera, starring "The Man of a Thousand Faces," Lon Chaney. Yes, it's o-o-l-d. Yes, it's silent.  And yes, it's flawed. Nevertheless, the unforgettable unmasking of The Phantom still packs a wallop. Horror writer Robert Bloch described his reaction to beholding Chaney's living skull  as "gazing upon the naked face of terror."

Speaking of Bloch, Alfred Hitchcock's adaptation of Bloch's Psycho is also good for raising goosebumps.

Although I found William Peter Blatty's novel scarier than the cinematic rendition, The Exorcist did have one scene -- Regan's eerie 360 degree head turn  -- that gave me nightmares. Blatty's literary description of young Regan bent over backwards and descending stairs like a spider made my skin crawl more than did the movie special-effects execution.

The original, low-budget "cult classic" Carnival of Souls successfully depicted a strange, otherworldly nightmare.

On that note, The Twilight Zone episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" might still be potent enough to scare the pants off you . . . if you're in a susceptible state of mind.

Michael,

First of all - Welcome!

Secondly, couldn't agree with you any more on your entire post. I love horror movies and hate the slasher/torture ones. You are absolutely right about Phantom of the Opera, Psycho, The Exorcist, Carnival of Souls, and the Nightmare episode of Twilight Zone. All are excellent in my opinion. The only one you listed that I have not seen is "The Haunting." However, I recently added it to my collection. Now I want to watch it soon after reading your post.

SInce our taste in horror movies sounds so similar, I have some more suggestions for you. If you haven't seen them already I would recommend to you: The Descent, Frailty, The Mist, Rosemary's Baby, and The Thing (1982). Would really like to hear what you think of some of these after viewing.

Again...welcome aboard. I hope you find this to be a great site and lots of fun like so many of the rest of us have.

Darwin

Darwin,

Thank you for the courteous and greatly appreciated welcome.

Regarding your suggestions, I own Rosemary's Baby and The Thing, both of which are superior horror (or in the case of The Thing, science-ficition-horror) movies. Neither scared me (and truth to tell, I don't scare easily . . . at least while watching movies), but each contained haunting moments that permanently remain in my memory.

In Rosemary's Baby, it is Rosemary's initial reaction to her (blessedly unseen) devil-spawn. No goofy, animatronic, special-effects monstrosity (a la It's Alive) to spoil the movie-goer's, I'm certain, far more imaginative and hellish conception -- a major triumph by Polanski considering that his producer was The Super Showman of Shlock-Shock, William Castle.

In The Thing (one of the few successful and laudable remakes, in my opinion), it is the outdoor scene during which MacReady (Kurt Russell) suspiciously addresses his colleagues-- their faces hidden and bodies bundled up in protective (and concealing) clothing, and looking creepily . . . "alien" -- wondering who among them is human and who is . . . not.

I have not seen Frailty and never even heard of The Descent until I joined SwapaDVD. I'll be on the lookout for both. Ditto The Mist, which came and went so fast in my neighborhood that I . . . ummm . . . "missed" it.

Here's another recommedation: Seconds, starring Rock Hudson, screenplay by Lewis John Carlino, and directed by John Frankenheimer. I saw it as a child during its original theatrical release, and the ending immensely terrified me. Of course,  I own it on DVD, and even after repeated viewings, the powerful finale still makes my pulse pound.

http://www.walruscomix.com/rollovers/seconds.jpg

I read everyones postings here and I'm wondering if any of you know a movie thats real scary? I own a little over half of the movies here and I think they are good flicks but no where near scary. Does anyone know anything REALLY SCARY? I do want to recommend "The Town that dreaded Sundown" Its very hard to find but is seriously creepy; a true story about a serial killer in Texarcana, Texas!!

Punkin,

"REALLY SCARY" is subjective. What is scary to you might not be scary to someone else, and vice versa.

What scares you? What taps into your fears?

Personally, watching news coverage on Sarah Palin makes my flesh crawl, but that's just me.

Provide some helpful clues, and maybe someone will be able to recommend an effective, REALLY SCARY movie.

IDK...There have actually been very few movies that do..True stories do I guess but it depends on how much they went from the truth (think Texas Chainsaw Massacre where they took one tiny fact (ed gein made furniture out of human flesh) and built it into something that had no other fact! that was totally lame) Freddy always kinda freaked me out because they built that out of your dreams which you have no control over, and for some reason that Pascow fella on Pet Semetary gives me the creeps. I don't like the "scary" movies with the women who run upstairs and always seem to find the woods to run in (even though they live in Suburbia) Creepy things scare me obvious lame attempts at fear do not!

Punkin,

Thanks for the clues.

I too have difficulty being genuinely s-c-a-r-e-d by a movie. I (perhaps unfortunately) am unable to "suspend my disbelief" and totally surrender myself to cinema. That is, I am always aware that I am watching a movie (in which, most times -- per "Hollywood formula" -- everything will either be okay in the end or there will be a tiresome setup for the inevitable sequel).

Similarly to you, it is "real-life horror" that most effectively "touches a nerve," so to speak, in me. LIke for instance, in Pulp Fiction, the vignette when a gagged and trussed-up Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis) and Marcellus Wallace (Ving Rhames) are being terrorized in the pawn shop. As I recall, the scene is preceded, or momentarily interrupted, by an outdoors shot of the shop. Outside, it's "business as usual" in the big city. People and cars pass by the shop, everyday activities proceed at their quotidian pace;  life "goes on." Meanwhile, behind ordinary, closed doors: horrific violence is happening.

For me, such horror touches upon Lon Chaney's oft-cited "clown at midnight" theory, which Psycho author Robert Bloch described as "the essence of true horror":

"A clown is funny in the circus ring, but what would be the normal reaction to opening a door at midnight and finding the same clown standing in the moonlight?"

Indeed.

The following movies have moments that made me (sometimes literally) grip my seat out of tension or anxiety.

*** SPOILER ALERTS! ***

Don't read the following examples if you have not seen Reservoir Dogs, Seconds, Scarface (with Al Pacino), Le sang des bêtes, and Andy Warhol's Bad.

In Reservoir Dogs,  Mr. Blond (Michael Madsen) torturing the captive cop had me sitting on the edge of my seat the first time that I watched it. When Blond poured gasoline over the poor, maimed devil, I thought, "Oh no . . . !"

In the aforementioned Seconds, the sound of the drill as Tony Wilson (Rock Hudson) is "euthanized" always unnerves me.

In Scarface, I close my eyes during the chainsaw murder in the bathroom, even though the actual violence is only suggested.

I've seen Georges Franju's slaughterhouse documentary, Le sang des bêtes, (The Blood of the Beasts) once, and once is enough for me. If I hadn't already been a vegetarian when I watched it, I would have become one instanter.

In Andy Warhol's Bad (truly sick "entertainment," in my opinion), two vignettes greatly distubed me: the hit on the garage mechanic and the notorious "baby-throwing" scene.

*** END OF SPOILERS ***

None of my examples are "horror movies" . . . which might be why the (more) realistic, horrific moments in them worked on me.

The Strangers

Ju-on

Ringu

The Messengers

~These creeped me out....

~Brenna Ravyn Moon Fyre~