scariest movie

[billydkid]

What is the most frightening movie you have ever seen. I remember being extremely disturbed by Jacob's Ladder - not really a horror movie, but pretty damn scarey to me.

[Scott]

Jaws, hands down. I was afraid to get anywhere near the water - swim in the pool, take a bath or take a c#$p after that movie.

[Dorian Gray]

The Omega Code - that it was made, I mean.

[Marc]

Prince of Darkness - that film just creeped me out

[Abdul Alhazred]

The Masque of the Red Death.

[fhios]

Soylent Green--ICK!

[SRW]

The Exorcist, when it first came out was very scary.

[Some Friggin Guy]

Jaws, but only one time I watched it.

My freshman year in college, on our first day, they had a freshman mixer where they set up a projector and a lrge screen and we watched Jaws...from inside the swimming pool.

You ever imagine watching Jaws from in the water? About a freaky situation as possible.

[Brian]

Jaws freaked me out when I was younger, but after watching it years later it just looks like a big rubber shark with a good story attached.
I'm a huge John Carpenter fan, but Prince of Darkness didn't stand when I watched it again years later. He's got better movies (The Thing, They Live)
Jacob's Ladder is great in its way, but not scary.
Exorcist was more like Lit. I was to into the themes to be spooked by the occasional flash of Dick Smiths make up effects.
The first Nightmare on Elm Street did it for me when I was 17 or so.
The last movie that I found at all scary (I'm pretty numb at this point) was Blair Witch Project. It was all about waiting for something to jump out at you when the characters were running into the woods in the dark. As one blurb put it "It does for the woods what Jaws did to the ocean".
Only works one time though.

[jallenecs]

Don't laugh at me. "Psycho"

I can't remember the last time I took a shower that I didn't flash on that movie at least once (and lock the bathroom door in response! :rolleyes: )

[Garrette]

Scariest when first seen:

The Haunting (the original only--not the crappy remake)
Jaws
Prince of Darkness (I'm glad someone else has said this; most people disagree with me)
The Exorcist
Alien


Of those, the ones that are still scary upon re-viewing are The Haunting, Alien and Exorcist, Alien being the more scary.

I'm a John Carpenter fan, too. I liked his The Thing with Kurt Russell. Also enjoyed Vampires though it was more of a thrill ride than a scary movie and he should be lashed for Ghosts of Mars.

Others that rank up there include:

Night of the Living Dead (if the setting is right)
Blair Witch Project (but only the first time and the setting is right)

[SteveW]

Forbidden Planet (not a horror show but it scared me when I saw it as a kid)

THe Haunting (original)

Diabolique (again the original)

And I don't remember the name, but a TV movie with Robert Culp and Gig Young about demon worshipers in England - years ago but it scared me.

[Brown]

Two movies I saw as a kid really scared me.

I saw the climax to "Jason and the Argonauts," in which a character scatters something on the ground (the "something" was hydra's teeth) and intones "Rise up, you dead...." Immediately my young mind started to get scared. "They aren't really going to show dead people rising out of the ground," I thought, "are they?" Well, they did. Skeletons rose up from the ground.

And the skeletons came after the good guys. And I actually saw the skeletons thrusting swords into the good guys. It was very graphic. (In those days, TV never showed a bullet hole, or spurting blood, or a person actually being run through with a sword.) Man, did that scene ever rattle me.

The other movie was "The Birds." The scenes of birds attacking kids was bothersome (I was a kid myself), but the scene of the dead man with his eyes pecked out scared me about as bad as I've ever been scared. That image kept me awake that night, and I could not shake it. Decades went by before I had the nerve to watch that movie again, and I still found that dead man scene unnerving. Incredibly, "The Birds" is rated only PG, and is shown at times when kids can watch it.

[Glory]

I saw a couple of movies that just terrified me when I was a kid. I doubt very seriously that they would bother me so much today. One was called "Burnt Offerings" and another was called "Ligea's Tomb." They were bad '70's horror flicks. I also saw "The Omen" and "The Omen II" when I was a kid and those freaked me out. I saw them both recently and I didn't see anything particularly frightening about them The catch there, though, is that the devil isn't scary to me anymore because I now know that he doesn't exist. So much horror comes from Judeo Christian beliefs that most of this stuff has little or no effect on me.

"Aliens" scared me. That was a very tense movie. "The Ring" scared me. "Seven" disturbed me. I can't really say it scared me. I gotta go with "The Uninvited" as the scariest movie I have ever seen. That was a good, scary ghost story. It's old so it's not a special effects extravagansa or anything. It's just a good story well told.

Glory

[Brown]

"The Omen" creeped me out when I first saw it. The previews in the theaters (which were surprisingly graphic) made me think that I would never want to see this movie. And then one day, I was watching TV with my girlfriend, and she turned to that movie on HBO, and I started watching it without knowing what I was watching, and OH MY GOD DAVID WARNER JUST GOT DECAPITATED.

[Glory]

Originally posted by Brown
"The Omen" creeped me out when I first saw it. The previews in the theaters (which were surprisingly graphic) made me think that I would never want to see this movie. And then one day, I was watching TV with my girlfriend, and she turned to that movie on HBO, and I started watching it without knowing what I was watching, and OH MY GOD DAVID WARNER JUST GOT DECAPITATED.

Okay, that is pretty shocking when you don't know it's coming! I can't go back in time and watch it fresh as an adult so I don't know how I would see it today. But heads roling are shocking no matter what. What I preferred about the first one when I compare it to the second is that Damien in the first one seems like he might be evil. He seems so unperturbed by the death that surrounds him. It is creepy seeing this little kid just accepting the deaths of everyone who cares about him. The audience is left wondering wether or not he is aware of his fate or even consciously killing people. In the second it is revealed that he doesn't know and that he isn't killing people directly. It's far less menacing.

Glory

[Peach Jr.]

There are only a couple of movies that have really scared me. "Night of the Living Dead" (still one of my favorite zombie movies), and "Nightmare on Elm Street". In fact, "Nightmare on Elm Street" frightened me so badly at the time that I haven't watched any of the sequels. I hear I haven't missed all that much :)

One movie that I wouldn't have thought was that scary when I was younger was "Don't Look Now". I saw it late one night after a late-night baby duty when I couldn't go back to sleep. I sometimes still have nightmares about it (I saw it roughly a year ago).

[Brown]

Another movie I saw as a kid was "20 Million Miles to Earth." I didn't know it at the time, but the creature in this movie and the "Jason" skeletons were both created by Ray Harryhausen. The creature was scary, but more sympathetic than the skeletons, so he didn't scare me as much as the skeletons did.

There was another movie that I saw as a kid that really creeped me out. I do not know the title, but the plot was that ordinary men were being turned into mindless, murdering zombies. One of the scenes involved a little girl playing in the same room as one of these zombies, and she didn't know that he was a zombie.... Man, that's still chilling today. The other thing about this movie was that it showed the zombies actually being shot by guns. In those days, television NEVER showed bullet holes, but this movie showed bullet holes forming on the back of the zombie's suitcoat as he was repeatedly shot. Today, this sort of thing is commonplace. But when I saw this movie, this sort of thing was shocking, and it sure shocked me.

[EvilYeti]

"Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory".

I shudder just thinking about the kid drowning in the chocolate.

[UnrepentantSinner]

The movie Zombie (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080057/) scared the crap out of me when I was a kid. I haven't seen it in years though and wonder if the shock value of 1970s production values still holds up.

Halloween scared the crap out of me too. John Carpenter created the perfect combination of suspense and mayhem and the music, though very seventyish, added to the chill factor.

I recently caught bits and pieces of Phantasm II and III on Sci-Fi channel. I wish I'd tuned in earlier for I as that movie gives me the willies to this day.

[Checkmite]

Burnt Offerings...help me out, is that another "all the teens are dying" flick, in which there is one scene where the kids order a pizza, and when it arrives, they don't realize that the pizza man is actually the Bad Guy - or that the real pizza guy (or the guy that really USED to be the pizza guy) is now the tasty bits of sausage on their pizza? If we're thinking of the right movie, that's surprisingly the only scene I remember from it.

A Nightmare on Elm Street was highly creepy - and original for its time. A dead child killer who comes back and stalks kids in their dreams? Still love that theme music! None of the sequels were impressive.

One of the scariest movies I saw when I was a kid was Poltergeist. It's not so disturbing now; however, it still has one of the best "ghosts" in the history of movies. Towards the end, after they think their house is "clear", all hell breaks loose, and Diane (the mother), after being attacked by the invisible entity, finds the door to her childrens' room blocked by a towering, glowing ghostly white skeletal-beast-thing. This is from the days before computer-generated effects, when all the special effects were done with either puppetry or animation, or both; yet I have never seen a "ghost" that looked so realistic or as genuinely frightening as that one. If I had a pic, I'd post it...but alas, I cannot find one on the net.

The Omen won an Academy Award. Without cheating and looking it up, who can tell me what it was for?

[Glory]

Originally posted by Joshua Korosi
Burnt Offerings...help me out, is that another "all the teens are dying" flick, in which there is one scene where the kids order a pizza, and when it arrives, they don't realize that the pizza man is actually the Bad Guy - or that the real pizza guy (or the guy that really USED to be the pizza guy) is now the tasty bits of sausage on their pizza? If we're thinking of the right movie, that's surprisingly the only scene I remember from it.

No,that one is different. The Burnt Offerings I am refferring to is about a family who moves in to a house they have rented. The house is very old and the family has pictures all over the place. The only catch for the family is that there is a matriarch in one of the bedrooms and they have to bring her meals. It doesn't take long for the family to realize that there is something really weird about the house. For instance it seems to get less and less dilapidated as time goes although they haven't been fixing it up. Soon the mom character starts getting weird and dressing in old clothes she finds inn the attic and eventually the family get swallowed up by the house which waits for it's next occupants. The families photos are now displayed in the house along with the rest of the "family".

I have heard about that pizza one but I haven't seen it.

One of the scariest movies I saw when I was a kid was Poltergeist. It's not so disturbing now; however, it still has one of the best "ghosts" in the history of movies. Towards the end, after they think their house is "clear", all hell breaks loose, and Diane (the mother), after being attacked by the invisible entity, finds the door to her childrens' room blocked by a towering, glowing ghostly white skeletal-beast-thing. This is from the days before computer-generated effects, when all the special effects were done with either puppetry or animation, or both; yet I have never seen a "ghost" that looked so realistic or as genuinely frightening as that one. If I had a pic, I'd post it...but alas, I cannot find one on the net.

I was in high school when "poltergeist" came out. That one was scary but I was easier to scare back then. That was the movie that introduced me to the concept of foreshadowing. I love it when the dead bird gets unearthed when they are digging the swimming pool. Also, the little boy asks if he can dig it up later and see the bones. I think we can arrange that *wink, wink*. There was also Carrol Anne demanding the closet light be turned on. Who didn't know that that ugly clown doll was going to be an instrument of death? This movie also gets credit for having the scarriest chairs. That scene when Jo Beth Williams turns a way and then turns back a second later to see that the chairs are stacked on the table; loved that.

Glory

[Glory]

Originally posted by Joshua Korosi
The Omen won an Academy Award. Without cheating and looking it up, who can tell me what it was for?

Score? The music is the most memorable thing about the film.

Glory

[Glory]

Originally posted by Joshua Korosi
If I had a pic, I'd post it...but alas, I cannot find one on the net.

Here you go (http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Set/8476/)

Warning: Site features Jesus Popups.

Glory

[Garrette]

I'll agree with Omen, Poltergeist, and Halloween as being up there in scare factor. Poltergeist doesn't work on second-viewing, though. But I admit that the chair-stacking scene was a killer.

A movie that absolutely creeped me out as a kid was the original "House of the 13 Ghosts." A good B movie, Fright Night kind of flick.

[Glory]

Originally posted by Garrette
A movie that absolutely creeped me out as a kid was the original "House of the 13 Ghosts." A good B movie, Fright Night kind of flick.

I didn't know that 13 Ghosts was remake. I'd like to see the original. The remake was okay buit I git tired of looking at the set.

Glory

[JAR]

The scariest movie I've ever seen is "Evil Dead."

That movie put me in a state of shock, I kid you not.

When I first saw it, it was at night and it was so scary that I turned it off and continued watching it the next day.

I was amazed at the effect that movie had on me. I found myself pressing my back against the couch I was sitting on, trying to get as far away from the TV screen as possible.

[JAR]

Originally posted by Brown
[snip]And the skeletons came after the good guys. And I actually saw the skeletons thrusting swords into the good guys. It was very graphic. (In those days, TV never showed a bullet hole, or spurting blood, or a person actually being run through with a sword.)
[snip]
My dad told me something similar. He said that him and his brothers considered the Sam Fuller war movie Merrill's Marauders gory when they were kids. I saw it myself a couple of years ago and didn't see any gore in it. I think that seeing a lot of people killed in short periods of time was considered gory in my dad's day.

[alfaniner]

A movie that everybody seems to remember that was only on TV once in 25 years or so. Part of the Trilogy of Terror where Karen Black played three different roles in this anthology -- everybody only ever talks about the third one -- "Devil Doll". I can still hear the screaming, shrieking doll chasing her through the house.

[UnrepentantSinner]

Hey JAR, I figured your scariest movie would be White Mans Burden (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114928/)

[Brian]

Originally posted by alfaniner
A movie that everybody seems to remember that was only on TV once in 25 years or so. Part of the Trilogy of Terror where Karen Black played three different roles in this anthology -- everybody only ever talks about the third one -- "Devil Doll". I can still hear the screaming, shrieking doll chasing her through the house.
That doll story is by Richard Mattheson, one of the best horror writers out there. He also wrote that episode of the Twilight Zone with the thing on the wing of the airplane among others. He wrote I Am Legend, which is a great book despite its flaws and a mediocre movie- The Omega Man. He also wrote What Dreams May Come.

[Garrette]

I Am Legend is an absolute classic, though not scary in the traditional sense. Matheson, imo, ranks among the two or three greatest horror writers ever.

--

Just remembered another one or two. Both of them television movies:

The Duel
The Nightstalker

The Duel may be the greatest made-for-television movie ever.

{edited to add that on reading this post reveals an overuse of the word "ever." I'd apologize, but I think I may be the greatest ever user of the word "ever" ever.}

[Checkmite]

Originally posted by Glory


Here you go (http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Set/8476/)

Warning: Site features Jesus Popups.

Glory

Yep, that's the thing. Isn't it wild?

But, those aren't Jesus popups... :)

[Glory]

Originally posted by Joshua Korosi


Yep, that's the thing. Isn't it wild?

But, those aren't Jesus popups... :)

Well, I didn't click on them to find out what they were.

Glory

[Glory]

Originally posted by Garrette
I Am Legend is an absolute classic, though not scary in the traditional sense. Matheson, imo, ranks among the two or three greatest horror writers ever.

--

Just remembered another one or two. Both of them television movies:

The Duel
The Nightstalker

The Duel may be the greatest made-for-television movie ever.

{edited to add that on reading this post reveals an overuse of the word "ever." I'd apologize, but I think I may be the greatest ever user of the word "ever" ever.}

I remember Duel. Speilburg's first major job for TV. I love the scene in the diner where The guy knows that the truck driver is in there but has absolutely no idea who he might be. His fear and anger are palpable.

Glory

[Glory]

If you guys want to get into TV shows, then you open the door to The Twilight Zone(pun intended). Everyone has had the bejeezus scared out of him by at least three seperate episodes. There really was something for everyone on that one.

The ones that kept me up at night:

Room 22 aka "Room for one more, honey".

Hitchhiker turns out to be death.

Weird religious guy keeps Satan locked up behind door bound with a shepherd's staff. Traveller lets him out.

Glory

[zakur]

Alien (http://alien.com)

I saw it when I was 10 years old on HBO at a friend's house. Absolutely scared the sh*t out of me. I didn't sleep for days.

[JAR]

Originally posted by UnrepentantSinner
Hey JAR, I figured your scariest movie would be White Mans Burden (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114928/)
Oh my God! :roll:

When I read the plot summary I laughed my head off and ran downstairs to tell my brother about it.

I wonder what the movie is trying to get at.

[Azathoth]

John Carpenter's Thing

Runner up: Alien

[Ed]

Originally posted by Scott
Jaws, hands down. I was afraid to get anywhere near the water - swim in the pool, take a bath or take a c#$p after that movie.

I hated "Jews", it was about accountants. Try watching that on April 15

[Ed]

On a more serious note:rolleyes: I think the scariest movie that I ever saw was The Haunting. Anyone see it?

[MoeFaux]

I now consider the scariest movie I've ever seen would be The Ring.

But...when I was still a believer, I saw a movie that terrified me so much I would't watch any more of it. And it was such a lame movie, too. It was the House on Haunted Hill. I thought it was full of demons. I couldn't watch it, I was too creeped out.
How embarassing. :o

[Ed]

Originally posted by MoeFaux
I now consider the scariest movie I've ever seen would be The Ring.

But...when I was still a believer, I saw a movie that terrified me so much I would't watch any more of it. And it was such a lame movie, too. It was the House on Haunted Hill. I thought it was full of demons. I couldn't watch it, I was too creeped out.
How embarassing. :o

Moe, are you sure you don't mean the Haunting?

[MoeFaux]

Originally posted by Ed


Moe, are you sure you don't mean the Haunting?

Nope:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00003CWRF/ref=pm_dp_ln_d_7/103-7526379-0885457?v=glance&s=dvd&vi=contents

[MoeFaux]

Originally posted by Ed


Moe, are you sure you don't mean the Haunting?

But, my friends and I watched this a few months ago, and I thought it was good. It had a nice pace and a good look about it.

[Garrette]

Ed

On a more serious note I think the scariest movie that I ever saw was The Haunting. Anyone see it?

Hey, I thought you were omniscient...

The Haunting has been mentioned a couple of times (once by me). The original has to be considered at least in the running for scariest movie ever.

---

Glory:

Weird religious guy keeps Satan locked up behind door bound with a shepherd's staff. Traveller lets him out.


That episode is from a story by Charles Beaumont who is another one to put in the pantheon of Matheson and Lovecraft. I can't remember the name of the story, but it's superb, as are most of his others. Beaumont is one of those authors little known by the public but influential among writers.

[Brian]

Originally posted by Garrette





That episode is from a story by Charles Beaumont who is another one to put in the pantheon of Matheson and Lovecraft. I can't remember the name of the story, but it's superb, as are most of his others. Beaumont is one of those authors little known by the public but influential among writers.
Ohhh yeah. If you dig horror put him on the reading list. I think he's the guy who wrote a story called Hunger. It's in an anthology called "Shock". About a lonely woman and a psychotic human animal.

Man, that's one of the best stories out there.

It's a twisted story with a strong theme.
Like Frankenstein, which is about being alone, despite anything else.

[Candace]

There was a b/w movie, released in 1962, made for about $3.76 called Carnival of the Damned. Features Candace Hilligross as a ghost who doesn't quite realize she's all dead yet. The sets (an abandoned amusement pavillion in Utah, called Saltaire, it's real) are abstract in a Cabinet of Dr. Caligheri vibe. Very disturbing, but no gore. Not one drop.

The scene in Exorcist III where the white robed killer cuts the nurse's head off with the trochar snips is one of those *gasp* moments. It comes up so fast, then it's over. Camera doesn't linger a second.

Ditto the appearance of one of the ghosts in Sixth Sense, I can't remember which one right now, but it walks past the boy who is facing the camera, so the audience sees it, but the character doesn't.

Watching the door ooze outward in the b/w version of The Haunting is another moment.

I can't remember a name or who starred in this one, but it came out in the early 70's, involved a woman buried alive near a gazebo in a park, and part of the ads had her head emerging from the ground during a rainstorm, covered in mud, with something like a gimp mask on. I jumped into my bed each night for the longest time, convinced things like that just erupted from the ground at random.

Horror is a very subjective emotion. My personal trigger is something, someone, or some place abandoned and decaying in total isolation. Now, that's scary!

[Mercutio]

Absolute best scary B-movie ever: Let's Scare Jessica To Death. She's recently released from a mental hospital, so is she seeing things, or are they real? Hippies vs. New England Vampires. Amazing.

Side note...I saw The Exorcist with a tough-as-nails friend, a devout catholic, who was of the opinion that it was a documentary. He was considerably scarier than the movie itself. He was terrified, and terrifying.

[Garrette]

Candace,

I think that was "Carnival of Souls" wasn't it? Some call it one of the scariest movies. It's certainly creepy, but I didn't rate it up there with the others. Worth watching, though, if we're talking about the same one.

[Candace]

Originally posted by Garrette
Candace,

I think that was "Carnival of Souls" wasn't it? Some call it one of the scariest movies. It's certainly creepy, but I didn't rate it up there with the others. Worth watching, though, if we're talking about the same one.

Yeppers, that'd be the one! Ok, I had two of the words right... :o
And yes, it's way more creepy than "Look out for that axe!" scary.

[Wudang]

Originally posted by Peach Jr.

One movie that I wouldn't have thought was that scary when I was younger was "Don't Look Now". I saw it late one night after a late-night baby duty when I couldn't go back to sleep. I sometimes still have nightmares about it (I saw it roughly a year ago).

Ditto - the only movie that ever left me feeling creepy. I've jumped a little at a couple of horror movies but that left me nervous for a couple of hours.

[joyrex]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this.. The Others (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0230600/)

[dbuxtehude]

"Frailty" was quite disturbing.

[Hexxenhammer]

Originally posted by dbuxtehude
"Frailty" was quite disturbing.
Agreed. A perfect B-grade horror movie. And it has an axe names Otis. Too cool.

[kittynh]

To myself as a skeptic the movie, "The Innocents" is still the most frightening.

As a child I saw it and kept saying, "The governess is crazy!" To me she still is the what can happen when the religious right takes over! Henry James "the Turn of the Screw" is the basis for this film, and I know what he meant! The woowoos are dangerous! to me, realistic films like Jaws are far more spooky than spooks. I fearlessly tramp into haunted places where I live. But, "The Innocents" that can REALLY happen (that sweet governess is as Snoop would say ,"A Beee- atch")

http://www.thezreview.co.uk/reviews/i/innocentsthe.htm

[smalltlalk_2k]

it was actually a mini series but when I was a small kid I watched Stephen Kings Salem's Lot on TV. That was a huge mistake. My mom was so mad because I couldn't get to sleep for 2 weeks. I would wake up screaming about 4 times each night. I think I was in the 4th grade. The vampire kid scratching on the window was very traumatic for me. I still enjoy watching it to this day.

The Night of the Living Dead movies still scare me. I just have an aversion to zombies.

[Bluegill]

Originally posted by joyrex
I'm surprised no one has mentioned this.. The Others (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0230600/)

Yes. That was a very well-put-together movie. Definitely on my top-10 list of horror films. That scene where Nicole Kidman is playing with the conservatory door is great. I hope I get a chance to watch this movie again before Halloween.

[Glory]

Originally posted by Bluegill


Yes. That was a very well-put-together movie. Definitely on my top-10 list of horror films. That scene where Nicole Kidman is playing with the conservatory door is great. I hope I get a chance to watch this movie again before Halloween.

I quite enjoyed The Other's. I got the one twist without understanding the other one for most of it so I had the satisfying experience of feeling smugly superior and being utterly mystified simultaneously. It did not scare me particularly, though. It was creepy but it didn't keep me awake afterward so I didn't mention it.

Glory

[Brian]

Originally posted by Glory


I quite enjoyed The Other's. I got the one twist without understanding the other one for most of it so I had the satisfying experience of feeling smugly superior and being utterly mystified simultaneously. It did not scare me particularly, though. It was creepy but it didn't keep me awake afterward so I didn't mention it.

Glory

What's the other twist?

[Temporal Renegade]

Night of the Living Dead (original version from '68).
My mother and her friend took my brother, myself, and her two sons to the drive-in. I have NO idea what the other film was, but I do remember that NOTLD put me off ANY kind of chips for about twenty years! Hell of a way to celebrate my 7th birthday!
And, no, I'm not traumatized by it. In fact, I'm asking for the George Romero DVD set for the Holidays.
:D

[Glory]

Originally posted by Brian


What's the other twist?

I got that they were dead, I just didn't pick up on who the "other's" were. I was thinking that they were other ghosts. I admitt that I can be a bit slow sometimes.;)

Glory

[JAR]

Originally posted by Temporal Renegade
Night of the Living Dead (original version from '68).
My mother and her friend took my brother, myself, and her two sons to the drive-in. I have NO idea what the other film was, but I do remember that NOTLD put me off ANY kind of chips for about twenty years! Hell of a way to celebrate my 7th birthday!
And, no, I'm not traumatized by it. In fact, I'm asking for the George Romero DVD set for the Holidays.
:D
I was introduced to "Night of the Living Dead" by my father. It's his favorite horror film. It was the first really gory horror movie that I saw and I after I saw it, horror movies had to be much more scarier to scare me. Due to that movie, it became a thing at halloween that my father would go to extra trouble making a zombie costume for me or one of my two brothers. One of his touches included taking meat, putting fake blood on it, and somehow attaching it to our torso or one of our feet or arms.

My dad said when he saw it years ago with his buddies in high school on the cross country team, he was the youngest one there and one of the older guys said that they shouldn't go see it because my father was too young and it would be too scary for him. The guy who said that ended up being the person who kept saying during the movie, "Oh, this is just sick. Come on guys, we shouldn't stay here to see this. How could they show us stuff like this."

My father said there were tales in the newspaper when the movie came out of children being so scared after seeing the movie that they wouldn't leave the theater.

[BTox]

I can hear the guffaws already but I have to be truthful... Blair Witch creeped me out. I'll return when the laughter dies down...

[JAR]

Originally posted by BTox
I can hear the guffaws already but I have to be truthful... Blair Witch creeped me out. I'll return when the laughter dies down...
I saw it with my parents and brothers and me and my older brother were the only ones who liked it. It wasn't the so much the scariness of the movie that we liked, but rather the dialogue. The movies portrayal of young people's conversation was rather accurate. Young people where we live say stuff like, "He's called the skipper, not the captain you TV generation people" and "If I had heard a crackling noise, I would have cr@pped my pants." Lines like those cracked us up.

[Checkmite]

Originally posted by BTox
I can hear the guffaws already but I have to be truthful... Blair Witch creeped me out. I'll return when the laughter dies down...

The Blair Witch Project got a bad rap about 2 days after it hit the theaters. The producers decided to promote the movie with a website and "mocumentary" alleging the "truth" of the events (a la Texas Chainsaw Massacre). It worked outrageously, because a large percentage of the people who went to see the movie believed that the events were real. But the success of the premarketing campaign actually worked against itself, because when the "reality" that the tapes were not authentic became general knowledge, a lot of the people who had believed became angry, feeling used, and probably like asses (since many of them had probably defended the "true story" against some of their more skeptical peers). This led to a backlash against the movie itself, and after a successful first weekend, the bottom fell out of the box office on this one.

All that notwithstanding, I felt that Blair Witch was an excellent movie; original, with a compelling premise, and the knowledge that the tapes aren't "real" shouldn't detract from your enjoyment of the film. I absolutely loved the scene in which the characters find themselves in a region in which there are a multitude of odd stick figures hanging from all the trees. Superb!

[jackel88]

There was a 1972 movie called "The Other" about twins that represented good and evil in 1930's Connecticut that had some good scares in it.

There is also a movie from 1975, called "The Wicker Man". Christopher Lee is excellent as the leader of a strange little group. Had some really creepy stuff going on in it, and the ending was great!
Beware of shortened versions of this. The 103 minute restored version is the one to see.

There is one more little tidbit that is a bit hard to find. It's an episode from "The Twilight Zone". The episode is called, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge", based on a short story from Ambrose Bierce. The episode was shown on network TV only once and due to many complaints concerning the disturbing ending, it was never shown again on the network. I saw it on Showtime network some years back. I have a friend that saw it in a psychology class. It is well worth seeing if you can get a copy.

[Checkmite]

Originally posted by jackel88
There is one more little tidbit that is a bit hard to find. It's an episode from "The Twilight Zone". The episode is called, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge", based on a short story from Ambrose Bierce. The episode was shown on network TV only once and due to many complaints cocerning the disturbing ending, it was never shown again on the network. I saw it on Showtime network some years back. I have a friend that saw it in a psychology class. It is well worth seeing if you can get a copy.

That kicked ass...they showed us that tape in school. COOL episode! I didn't know that it was only shown once on TV.

[Hannibal]

"Carnival of Souls" had a remake that Clive Barker had a hand in. Not great but watchable.

My FAVOURITE horror (as opposed to scariest) is "In the Mouth of Madness". Great, Great, Great film!

"Exorcist" is still creepy and is a good film in its own right - not just as a horror. I don't think it as aged really. "The Omen" was remembered with awe - and I made the mistake of watching it again recently. IT'S CRAP!

Top five in no particular order:

1. "In the mouth of Madness" (I just love this film)
2. "The Exorcist" (great plot, great film truly quite creepy)
3. "Hellraiser 2" (I know it is a sequel but it is sooo.. NASTY!)
4. "Evil Dead II" (The film Sam wanted to make the first time)
5. "Blair Witch Project" (what you can imagine is more scary than what you do - or don't- see)

I haven't seen "The Ring" yet, but I understand it is very good. Undr no circumstances should anyone ever watch "Driller Killer" - quite possibly the worst film I have ever seen

[Martin]

Originally posted by Marc
Prince of Darkness - that film just creeped me out I'm glad that one came up. I really liked it when I was a kid, but I haven't seen it recently. Must track down a copy. I occasionally find myself using that line, "common sense breaks down on the sub-atomic level". Breaks down long before that, of course - but what the hell. It sounds good.Originally posted by JAR
The scariest movie I've ever seen is "Evil Dead."

That movie put me in a state of shock, I kid you not.Yeah. Me too. I watched it with a friend, late at night. My parents were away for the weekend, and my friend went home straight after the movie, so I was alone all night. In a big, turn of the century bungalow which always creeped me out a little in any case. And my bedroom was the dark, cold room way out at the back of the house. Oh, and it was a cold, windy night, so the trees were rustling and casting ominous shadows on the curtains.

I didn't get much sleep til the sun came up, for some peculiar reason.

Embarrasingly enough, that wasn't when I was a kid. That was earlier this year :D


One that got to me when I was a kid was...I think it was called 'Bugs'. It was about these...well, these bugs that went around setting fire to stuff. Mainly, people. It seemed pretty graphic to me at the time, although it was a long time ago and I haven't seen it since. I was always a little scared of fire in any case, which didn't help much.

The Ring is damn good too. The original, anyway. Haven't seen the remake.

[alfaniner]

Originally posted by smalltlalk_2k
it was actually a mini series but when I was a small kid I watched Stephen Kings Salem's Lot on TV. That was a huge mistake....

I recall that as being one of the scariest TV movies ever. My creep-out scene is the vampire holding the parents in the kitchen with the kid watching. Another one is the ghouls slowly getting up and crawling towards the kid with the injured leg, from behind.

[wilzoid]

from my youth...

The Crawling Eye with Forrest Tucker fighting a giant octopus that lives in the mountain fog

The original "Thing" although the John Carpenter remake is also very good

The Shining...Nicholson is a genious

[JAR]

Originally posted by Martin
Embarrasingly enough, that wasn't when I was a kid. That was earlier this year :D

I too was not a kid when I saw first saw "Evil Dead." I was either 19 or 20 years old. I saw "Army of Darkness" when I was in elementary school and then I later found out from my older brother who found out from a friend that it was actually the third movie in a horror movie series called "The Evil Dead". It was years later before I would finally get to see the first two Evil Dead movies.

[JAR]

Originally posted by wilzoid
[snip]
The Shining...Nicholson is a genious
I agree. Jack is great in that movie. I didn't get to see it when I was a kid because my father wouldn't let us because according to him, Jack overacted in it.

[Martin]

Originally posted by JAR
I too was not a kid when I saw first saw "Evil Dead." I was either 19 or 20 years oldHeh. I don't feel so bad anymore, then. I'm 21.I saw "Army of Darkness" when I was in elementary school and then I later found out from my older brother who found out from a friend that it was actually the third movie in a horror movie series called "The Evil Dead". It was years later before I would finally get to see the first two Evil Dead moviesSimilar for me, actually, except I still haven't seen the second. Is it more like the first or the third?

[JAR]

Originally posted by Martin
Heh. I don't feel so bad anymore, then. I'm 21.Similar for me, actually, except I still haven't seen the second. Is it more like the first or the third?
The second one is not nearly as scary as the first. It goes more for comedy. As my older brother put it, the Evil Dead trilogy is one of the strangest transitions for a film series. It starts with a hard-core horror movie and ends with a film in the fantasy genre.

[UnrepentantSinner]

Hey JAR, I bet this movie (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114928/) would scare the crap out of you.

[JAR]

Originally posted by UnrepentantSinner
Hey JAR, I bet this movie (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114928/) would scare the crap out of you.
The movies that scare me are Sidney Poitier movies. I liked "Lilies of the Field" but pretty much none of his other stuff. I saw clips of movies he was in when they had that celebration of Sidney Poitier on TCM.

The clips that scared me were the one from "The Defiant Ones" where he grabs the white guys hand, the clip from some movie of his where a blind white girl tells him that he is beautiful, and a clip from another movie where he slaps a white guy. When I saw those clips I was put into a state of shock and was beside myself with grief.

Those things freaked me out. Stuff like that shows that the U.S. is heading towards a scenario similar to the one in the silent movie "Birth of a Nation" where blacks have tooken over(thanks to white people) and are abusing their power.

[UnrepentantSinner]

Jeeze, I post way to often to recycle a joke. I didn't even remember posting the link I did on the first page.

I do find these more elaborate comments to be a tad disconcerting.

[JAR]

Originally posted by UnrepentantSinner
I do find these more elaborate comments to be a tad disconcerting.
In what way?

[DoNotDisturb]

Not meant to be a scary movie, but Identity is pretty 'spine-chilling' at times.

[JAR]

"Dawn of the Dead" would make it on my list of greatest horror movies.

Me, my siblings and my father all think it is not only one of the greatest horror movies, but also one of the greatest movies ever made.

[Brian]

Originally posted by JAR
"Dawn of the Dead" would make it on my list of greatest horror movies.

Me, my siblings and my father all think it is not only one of the greatest horror movies, but also one of the greatest movies ever made.

I tend to agree.

Has anyone else ever seen Romero's latest "Bruiser"? I doubt it. I saw it in Chicago when it was realesed and got to meet him. Never made it to the major theaters. I saw it at the art school.
Ok movie. He gets his theme out. Really way too goofy at parts though. And he borrowed too much from the film "Vannila Sky" is a remake of.

[Temporal Renegade]

Originally posted by JAR
"Dawn of the Dead" would make it on my list of greatest horror movies.

Me, my siblings and my father all think it is not only one of the greatest horror movies, but also one of the greatest movies ever made.

That reminds me, I have to hit the mall for Holiday shopping soon--don't know which zombies are more terrifying, Romero's, or the 'Real' ones! :D

[TwoShanks]

Ring, the original japanese version rather than the poor hollywood remake, is absolutely terrifying. Brilliant atmosphere, and the best "monster scene" in any horror film.

[Halbert]

Dawn of The Dead is a GREAT film. Not very 'scary' though, I would say.

Poltergeist probably scared me the worst of any movie I have ever seen. I was just the right age (maybe 10, say) when it came out to still easily believe all of that was possible. I have, to this day, totally blanked out parts of that movie from my mind. I'd like to see it again actually. I *do* remember never being happier that it was still daylight outside when the movie ended.

The Thing (Carpenter version) is great, and fairly scary. The scene where they test the blood with the heated wire is fantastic.

Night of the Living Dead is quite frightening.

28 Days Later I would have to put up as possibly the third best zombie movie of all time (right after Dawn and Night). I hear good things about an italian movie, though, 'Del Amore, Del a Mort' or something like that, that I have not been able to find.

[Peach Jr.]

Originally posted by Halbert

28 Days Later I would have to put up as possibly the third best zombie movie of all time (right after Dawn and Night). I hear good things about an italian movie, though, 'Del Amore, Del a Mort' or something like that, that I have not been able to find.
I think the English title for "Dellamore, Dellamorte" is "Cemetery Man". You could try searching under that title. It's certainly worth the trouble to find, I think. I don't think it gives too much away to say the main character is a gravedigger.

[Temporal Renegade]

...still can't believe no one's said GIGLI...
Oh, I'm sorry, this thread's for scary movies people have *seen*:D

[PygmyPlaidGiraffe]

The movie Andromeda Strain enthralled me, and scared me. I was quite young and had not read Crichton's novel. I almost couldn't bear to watch but I had to watch it to see what was happening to the people.

Not a horror movie, but it got to me. Any similiar movies released after I watched A S, like Outbreak, were easy to watch. Pfft.

BTW, Andromeda Strain was directed by one of my favourite directors. Robert Wise also directed:

The Day the Earth Stood Still (not scary, just great! It is an all time favourite of mine, ).

The Haunting

The Sound of Music

Unfortunately he directed StarTrek: The Motion Picture, but this is forgivable.

[Johnny Pneumatic]

The Phantom Menace; Jar Jar scared the crap out of me.

[specious_reasons]

No Dario Argento fans here?

Suspria and Inferno freaked me out. Most of the special effects were cheesy, but the suspense was genuine.

[Ossai]

Halbert
I hear good things about an italian movie, though, 'Del Amore, Del a Mort' or something like that, that I have not been able to find. If it's the one I'm thinking of Dellamorte Dellamore, it was released in the US under the name Cemetery Man. (http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0109592/) It's more of a comedy though, but still well worth watching.

Ossai

*edited for code and because I skipped the post directly under the one to which I was responding.

[SteveW]

Originally posted by specious_reasons
No Dario Argento fans here?

Suspria and Inferno freaked me out. Most of the special effects were cheesy, but the suspense was genuine.

He made great movies but his daughter is one hot fox (IMHO).

[RebeccaBradley]

"Threads" was a Brit movie made in 1984 about the effects of a nuclear war - it depressed and terrified me then, and it's haunted me ever since. Not a horror movie per se, but done in a flat journalistic style that makes it even more horrifying, because it seems so real.

[Glory]

Originally posted by RebeccaBradley
"Threads" was a Brit movie made in 1984 about the effects of a nuclear war - it depressed and terrified me then, and it's haunted me ever since. Not a horror movie per se, but done in a flat journalistic style that makes it even more horrifying, because it seems so real.

I stumbled across that one on PBS. I had nightmares about it. Half way through I realized how much it was affecting me and I switched it off. Maybe I would have dealt better with it if I had seen it through to its conclusion. " Threads" tapped into a very real terror of mine. That is a different kind of fear altogether.

Glory

[alfaniner]

I've only seen Threads one time and think I blanked out a lot of it. One I always think about when that comes up is Testament, starring Jane Alexander and William Devane, done in suburban USA. Quite chilling some of the matter-of-fact scenes. No gore, minimal effects, the actual nuke scene is quite horrifying, much more than the higher-profile The Day After.

[RebeccaBradley]

Oh, man. Never heard of Testament, so I had a look at the IMDb reviews: honestly don't think I could bear to watch it. Though I probably will...

[Checkmite]

Originally posted by Glory
I also saw "The Omen" and "The Omen II" when I was a kid and those freaked me out.

Wow, just caught this.

I have to say that the second one frustrated me. Think about it - first one, Gregory Peck's character and his wife become slowly but inarguably terrified after a series of bizzare deaths close to home. It's one of the things that drives Peck insane.

In the second one, William Holden's character witnesses or is informed of death after death after death and dismisses them all with an "oh, that's too bad" nonchalance. Every time somebody gets killed, his chatty wife even cluelessly blurts out the connection to the previous deaths (for the benefit of the audience, naturally), but "Mr. Thorn" is apparently too stupid to get it.

"Oh, Aunt Marion is dead. Wasn't she carrying on last night about Damien?"

"Oh, that reported girl got hit by a truck after being attacked by a crow. Wasn't she saying something like "beware of Damien" the other day?"

"Oh, the doctor at the hospital was cut in half in a bizzare elevator accident. Didn't he want us to bring Damien in for more tests, something about an unusual cell structure?"

...and so forth. It's not until the end that Holden actually catches on. Meanwhile there's a distracting subplot in which a "Thorn Industries (oh, please)" employee who is also an apostate of Satan kills off several people opposed to some kind of "land deal" in India. I felt my intelligence was insulted by the writers.

[RebeccaBradley]

This one's not a movie exactly, but it was damn scary - "The Invisible Enemy", an episode of the Outer Limits first aired in 1964. The story-line was sort of like "Jaws" meets "Tremors" on Mars. It scared me silly when I was a kid, and stayed with me for years; recently I was lucky enough to find a video copy in a flea market, and it was still damn scary. Some of those old tv chillers were pretty good.

Another scary movie: The Shining - but not that recent tv miniseries abomination with the excruciatingly soppy ending. I mean the Kubrick version with Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall.

[BTox]

I remember many of those Outer Limits episodes scaring the bejesus out of me. Of course I was only 6-7 at the time. I have to find a DVD compilation to see how they fare today.

[Bluegill]

Originally posted by Garrette
Candace,

I think that was "Carnival of Souls" wasn't it? Some call it one of the scariest movies. It's certainly creepy, but I didn't rate it up there with the others. Worth watching, though, if we're talking about the same one.


Last night I was in the check out line at the grocery, and gasped when I saw what was next to me. "Carnival of Souls" (plus a second movie, I forget the title) on DVD.

For $3.99.

Even though I knew my wife would roll her eyes, it was impulse buy time. :)

[Tanja]

I avoid watching scary movies as much as I can, but I remember "Misery" as the scariest film I have seen. Probably even more so because a week or so after watching the film, while in a tram going to school, I was physically attacked by a mad woman who looked exactly like the leading character.

[Hutch]

Just a couple already mentioned and one that hasn't:

Aliens--Even more so than Alien, the buildup just tightned me up--I had to turn it off the first time I watched when Ripley tells the little girl that it'll be all right and Marines will stop them she says in that little-girl voice "they can't". Creeped me out severely.

Seven--The movie itself wasn't all that scary, but the killer (whose name escapes my three surviving brain cells-was it Kevin Spacey?) played around with my head for nearly a week after that.

Schindler's List--Because this was a real horror done by real human beings.

Rebecca, be glad you didn't watch the end of Threads--it didn't get any better. I remember a guy worked for me, ex Career Army MSGT, a real tough nut, was shook up for days after that.

[El Greco]

I always liked scary movies but they almost never scared me... strange... anyway, some great movies have been mentioned so far, but I'm really surprised that noone has mentioned Rosemary's Baby (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063522/). This movie is still unique in that is was incredibly scary without actually showing something scary or gross. Everything was insinuated in a frightening way.

With most horror movies, no matter how scary they are, you know that such things can never happen so you don't feel so connected to the story. But one movie that scared me because it was made in a very realistic way was D.O.A. (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042369/), a 1950 film-noir. I could almost feel Frank Bigelow's agony myself.

[Soapy Sam]

"Sleeping Beauty" . The Disney cartoon version.
Of course, I was a lot younger.

[kevinsbikes]

Gargoyles...
I saw this movie when I was pretty young and it scared the bejezus out of me. I couldn't walk in the woods alone at night for about 10 years!!!
Now that I am older, I saw it on very late night television and laughed at how stupid the movie was. The gargoyles actually had carpet for costumes... very silly.

[kevinsbikes]

Fatal Attraction... Who made this training film for philanderers anyway?!?!?! Scared me straight I tell you. :D

[hawkins_anderson]

Hellraiser 2. LOL.

[kevinsbikes]

O.K. this time for real...
I don't remember how young I was, but while I was visiting my big brother in Michigan, I was watching Children of the Corn on cable. It wasn't a very scary movie as a stand alone movie, however! I was alone, waiting for my big brother to come home. Setting: Night time in a small dark house, BY MYSELF, surrounded by corn fields on all sides! I was scared out of my brain!!!!!

[Ossai]

Phantasm and Phantasm 2, the other two sequels didn't really do that much. I know they are b grade horror movies but the concept behind the grave robbing and removal of the brains leaving those little odd people.

The best scene is in the second movie where the two main characters find a person (alive) with odd bits grafted on. The person was left as a warning.