Scary Movies!

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What movies, if any, have successfully terrified you? Whether a “fun” scary, or did they really chill you to the core?

I used to LOVE horror flicks and now I look back on them more with an eye to the filmmaking and the critique of the genre more so than the “blood n guts” I used to be out for. sigh Guess that means I’m not a teenager anymore.

Anyway, the movies that have actually scared me:
  • Arachnophobia…I saw this in the theatre and I was scrunched so low in my seat near the end of the movie my friends had to pry me out. I hate spiders. :eek:
  • Blair Witch Project…while I saw this as an adult, when it came out a few years ago it still scared me. Maybe because I didn’t expect it to, but I loved the suggestion and suspense created on a string budget. They used the old filmmaking trick of never showing the face of evil. To me, this makes it more real because in the real world, we only see evidence of evil…we never see the demon’s face.
  • Nightmare on Elm Street…the first 3 movies. I think it was the 1st and 3rd…whenever the main character was in the psych ward and her friend became the puppet with her circulatory system as the strings for Freddy the puppeteer…wasn’t that the 3rd movie? Anyway, I actually had “Freddy” dreams. But it was more entertainment than horror after the first time I saw it.
  • The Ring. I first saw it last winter when I picked up the DVD at a half-price books store. I made the mistake of watching it by myself on a lazy Sunday afternoon…with the drapes wide open. It was a gloomy day, and that night I could not sleep. This movie, for some reason, terrified me to the core so I haven’t watched it since. I’m saving it for a “scary movie” fest, hoping for a time to pick it apart with other people to make it less scary.
I know I’ll think of more, but those are off the top of my head.

Right now we are watching Bravo…100 scariest movies, so decided this could be a good topic. Anyone else?
 
I grew up watching horror movies from the time I was 7 or 8 years old. The only one that ever actually scared me however was the Exorcist. I had nightmares for weeks after seeing it and I was already in my early 20’s. Went back and saw it again a year or so later to see why it had bothered me, and it scared me just as much. I was never able to see any of the sequels, and couldn’t go to see any of the Omen movies after that. :o

Saw the Ring with great expectations after several friends told me how scary it was, but it had no effect on me at all.
 
Oh, Yeah! Duh! The Exorcist…I remember seeing it, and it scared me, but it didn’t hang on. Maybe when I saw it I was “critiquing” with friends…always helps to downplay the horror aspect of it to focus on the externals. But that one scared me, too, and I did not go see the remake.

I’m afraid to. Besides…I already know about the actual existance of the devil and so the reality of posessions is terrifying in and of itself without such a horrible reminder.

The Exorcist 3 was on last night and it was scary but lacked an ingredient of reality so it didn’t really have an effect on me. i did say teh St. Michael prayer a lot while watching it.

When I saw The Ring, it was long after the hype so I was able to just focus on the movie and make my own decisions…I’ve always found this to be helpful in any genre.

For example, I had no interest in “Titanic” and the hype did not impress me. I heard decent reviews from people I knew without the hype, and so finally, I went to see the movie…and loved it. I actually walked in wiht low expectations, as I did with the Ring…and bot affected me in a major way.

The verdict from Bravo on the top scariest movie scenes:
  • Jaws (I didn’t think so)
  • Alien (I didn’t think so)
  • The Exorcist (Yes, should have been #1).
  • The Shining - 1980 version- came in 4th, I think.
 
" The Night of the Living Dead", way back when it was really scary!!!
 
But still not scarier than the 5 O’clock news… 107 murders in our fair city as of today!!!
 
I agree with The Shining and The Ring. The Shining is definitely a classic; the mood and atmosphere created was amazing.
 
I was a child when I watched It. It gave me nightmares and a fear of clowns killing me in my childhood. 😛
 
Here’s my list:

Salem’s Lot (TV movie - really, really scared me!)
Nightmare on Elm Street
It (another TV movie)
The Ring
The Omen
Psycho (classic!)

and here’s an old movie from 6th grade camp:

I Saw What You Did, and I Know Who You Are (
 
The Body Snatchers (the original)
Them (about giant ants)
Jaws
Alien
 
I react differently to horror movies now then when I was younger. As a teenager and young adult even the tamest of horror movies could terrify me. I slept with the lights on until I turned 19.

I still love horror movies but now I enjoy the suspense a little bit more. I rarely get frightened although, I do get disturbed. Silence of the Lamb and Seven disturbed me.

The Ring didn’t bother me but I think that is because of the Scary Movies spoofs that I watcheed before hand. Those spoofs sort of ruined the movie for me. All the funny scenes kept running through my head.
 
When I was a kid, the original “Frankenstein” with Boris Karlov used to scare the heck out of me whenever they put it on TV.
When the original B&W version of “The Haunting” was first shown on TV I had to watch it from behind a chair in the living room.
Someone once said, about movies, that subtlety is the essence of horror, and I believe it. Sometimes the less you show the scarier it is.
 
I forgot about Poltergeist! It was the first scary movie I ever saw, and because I was young and believed (somewhat) in the monster under the bed, the clown scene freaked me out…and then when the tornado came and the tree “ate” the kid…well…I was terrified of storms already and that scene did not help!

I did not let my Mom know how much that movie scared me. She was mad enough already at the person who showed my brother and I the movie! 😛
 
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donosti:
The scariest movie I had ever seen is The Exorcist!!!:bigyikes:
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I think tha tthe Exorcist would still scare me but because I am a mother now and worry about my kids. There was a television movie called a Haunting in Connecticut. It was supposed to be a true story of demonic possesion. Scared the wits out of me.
 
Does anyone get freaked out by “Rose Red”? I’m watching it now. Fascinating…but extremely scary and IMHO a good reason and warning to avoid “psychic” activities.

Thirteen Ghosts is another one which never fails to give me chills.

Wow, the more I think about this, the more movies I remember.

I remember watching a documentary one year in which Stephen King and Clive Barker, among others, were interviewed. They talked about our “psychological need” to be frightened…and horror movies provide an outlet for that, feed our imaginations and get our blood running in a manner which is “safe” because what we are seeing is not really happening.

The goriest thing I’ve ever seen, though, was not a horror movie, but a (excuse the pun), butchered autopsy performed by a certifiably insane medical examiner. The instructor for our class explained what was going on and said he was showing that particular case so he could point out what was wrong…what should have been happening (or not happening), and he had another motive as well…since he could not bring us to a real autopsy and it was likely in our career futures, he brought us the closest thing possible to creating the feelings we would likely experience in the future. But after seeing the worst, then maybe an autopsy properly done would not affect us so much.

I am not kidding, this video was horrible…and I actually fell back on my “slasher movie” desensitization in order to handle the autopsy video. Every time I thought to myself, “It’s Hollywood, it’s makeup, it’s not real…” I was OK. Every time the reality hit me that this was a real person wiht a botched autopsy being performed…I felt physically ill.

So it seems that horror movies can serve that kind of “useful” purpose as well.

I’m not sure I can classify an autopsy video from a class as “horror”, but that one sure was! I hope Hollywood doesn’t get their hands on it (thank God it’s considered to be evidence and not available to the general public!)

But I digress…

Any other movies?
 
I agree with everyone on The Exorcist; to this day I’ve never watched the entire movie and do not intend to ever do so.

The Shining creeps me out more than any other movie, besides of course The Exorcist.

I loved the Blair Witch Project…so believable…getting lost in the woods or anywhere is one of my greatest fears.
 
I have never been scared of any movie, except the original 1931 Dracula with Bela Lugosi…He was absolutely terrifying! I watched it on TV (about a million years ago), & nearly jumped out of my chair…

I am very, very hard to scare. I keep trying to find something that will do the trick, because I love scary books, but movies just don’t do it for me…Books often scare me a lot…Anything by Stephen King will do it–especially Pet Sematery.
 
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Zooey:
I am very, very hard to scare. I keep trying to find something that will do the trick, because I love scary books, but movies just don’t do it for me…Books often scare me a lot…Anything by Stephen King will do it–especially Pet Sematery.
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I just LOVE “The Stand”…I love the division between good and evil, those drawn to the evil “civilized” side, and the good people who lived more simply, struggled wiht technology but were not living in terror. The humble vs the prideful.

I love Stephen King’s usage of the elderly, poor, country black woman…would have to say among the most humble of people in the world and King exalted her as the leader of the “good side” because she was led by God.

Clearly Satan led the other people.

What scares me about his book, though, is that it’s beginning more and more to look like a manual for what is to come…have you seen the stuff on the bird flu? I think King actually painted a good picture of what could happen…only he callled it “Captain Trips”.

His book is beginning to seem a bit too real, and that scares me.

I love scary books also. 🙂
 
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Zooey:
I have never been scared of any movie, except the original 1931 Dracula with Bela Lugosi…He was absolutely terrifying! I watched it on TV (about a million years ago), & nearly jumped out of my chair…

I am very, very hard to scare. I keep trying to find something that will do the trick, because I love scary books, but movies just don’t do it for me…Books often scare me a lot…Anything by Stephen King will do it–especially Pet Sematery.
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I agree. The written word is much more frightening then the movies. I read IT as an Adult and to this day, I can not stand on a rain gutter. I even caught myself warning my daughter not to stand on one.:o Here I am a grown woman afraid that some imaginary creature.

I think that Stephen King is so scary because his characters are so normal. He gets into their heads and hearts which makes them seem real.
 
Growing up I was a big fan of Creature Features.

But the two movies that really scared me were Mark of the Devil. My aunt took my cousin and me to see this and it was so inappropriate for children. It must have been rated R or even X. It was so horrific. I just remember the torture the poor women had to suffer at the hands of the puritans.

And, the other was the Curse of Dracula. I believe they changed the title of the movie and I haven’t been able to find it but I remember a blind girl named Jenny and Cousin Bellac (the vampire). It was an old black and white and very scary.
 
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