Scary movie thread

slowtrain

Well-known member
I have made it my mission in life to watch as many scary movies as I can this year.

I mean genuinely scary movies.

Terrifying movies as opposed to horrifying

So far I saw [rec] which did really freak me out at the end but was overall maybe a 6 out of 10.

The type of movies I find scary are not jump out of your seat ones, but ones that make you incredibly tense and stressed out.

I found Mulholland Drive quite scary.

I would like to take recommendations in this thread, and I will also report back here on my findings.
 

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
I think The Shining is the only truly terrifying film to have been made.

Fire Walk With Me came close, but it's really only The Shining. There's something truly wrong about that film.
 

slowtrain

Well-known member
Thank you guys for the input.

I have seen The Orphanage - it was good. Quite scary.

The first half of Fire Walk With Me is incredibly good. It could have been good all the way through but the fake Donna ruined it. The bits where she gets that painting are very very good.

Jacobs Ladder is also very scary, but the ending kills it.

I don't remember The Shining being that terrifying. May have to rewatch it.

I will give The Witches and Return to Oz and The Spiral Staircase all a watch.

I have written them down.
 

slowtrain

Well-known member
I have a feeling I have seen Spiral Staircase before.

Also I thought Suspiria was very good.

It made my girlfriend of the time feel sick though so I never saw the last five minutes.
 

slowtrain

Well-known member
I have looked up Return to Oz and might have concluded that yes you were.

I found Fantasia quite scary when I was five or six.
 

bruno

est malade
i would add masaki kobayashi's kwaidan to the list. these are ghost stories, not horror, but unsettling and eerie. the use of music (an electronic-tinged score by takemitsu) and silence to convey mood/tension is perfect. it's an incredibly beautiful film, well worth seeking out.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I found Mulholland Drive quite scary.

Funny, that's the film I thought of when I saw the title of this thread.

I remember being in a state of absolute suspense right from the start of this film. Even in the earlier parts, where on the face of things it's all sunny and bright (despite Harring's amnesia and occluded past), there's a subtle but thrilling horror at work, just under the surface. I was on the edge of my seat for pretty much the whole thing.

I found it disturbing in a somewhat similar way to 2666, actually. That book's pretty much unfilmable, I'd have thought, but if anyone came close to capturing the feel of it on film, I reckon it'd be pretty damn chilling.

I thought Paranormal Activity was quite good and effective - there are sequels, aren't there? Any good?
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Jacob's Ladder is definitely disturbing - Threads even more so although in a different way.
A lot of films have maybe one truly scary moment. I remember watching Ring in the cinema with my girlfriend and feeling her fingers grip my arm in true terror as SPOILER IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT the monster comes out of the telly. Similarly there is one moment in Onibaba that I found genuinely creepy (and it's a fantastic film so watch it if you haven't seen it).
Blair Witch I thought was the scariest film I'd seen when I watched it in the cinema, I don't know if I'd think the same now.
The Shining has a few creepy bits at the start but I think that by the time Jack is running aound with an axe it's descended into a kind of farce.
There must be other properly scary films but I'm struggling to think of them at the moment to be honest.
 
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Great thread.

Yes, my friend keeps on talking about Threads - the synopsis alone is enough to make one baulk. Must see it.

Fire Walk With Me is one of the best films ever, but I found it as much incredibly, outrageously sad and beautiful as scary.

Would agree with Paranormal Activity, but had that conversation on another thread. Blair Witch was brilliant, but I'd heard too much about it by the time I saw it. Certainly a game-changer in horror terms.

Scenes in Audition creeped me out in a way few films have managed (and not talking about the torture). Spanish shockers - Abre Los Ojos is pretty scary in a broadly similar way, Rec in a more conventional way, plus the sequel is possibly better.

Polanski - The Tenant, Rosemary's Baby obviously.
The Last Wave has scenes that are creepy as fuck, and also brilliant in many other ways. Outback is scary in a different way. Sure there're lots more Aus and NZ films - they do horror very well.
'New French horror' - L'interieur, Ils (up to a point), Switchblade Romance (though ending is, um, flawed), 29 Palms.
Martyrs - the first half is about as visceral as any film I've ever seen.
The Dead Zone - certain scenes are terrifying. Very underrated...similar to Fire Walk With Me in its overwhelming sadness.
Section 9 was underrated initially, maybe slightly overrated on the internet.
The end of Don't Look Now never fails to send chills up my spine, and the first scene too.
The Conversation is chilling in an altogether different way. Very insidious.

The bar scenes in the Shining affect me a lot - he's doing something weird with time and place that is the same thing I got from Audition, using possibly the scariest thing of all, subtle but effective disorientation - but the rest of the film, not so much.

Also, not a film, but the 'Jake' episode in Six Feet Under.
 
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Arghh - too many films! What's The Dead Zone Baboon?

Stephen King adaptation from 1983ish. Christopher Walken being good (not always true), Martin Sheen being routinely excellent, as is the lead actress (forgot her name). Could've been be schlocky, but I thought it was way better than that.

Yeah, Mystery Man scenes in Lost Highway should be up there in any unsettling/terrifying list. What the fuck is that guy's deal?

In a different, much more psychological way, Amos Kollek and Lodge Kerrigan make fucking terrifying films. And Michael Haneke of course.
 
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Corpsey

bandz ahoy
My vote goes to the made for television film The Woman In Black (1989). I think they're doing a remake of it soon with Harry Potter in the lead role. Either get a good copy or stick with this one, turn off the lights and watch it ALONE. I tend to find ghost stories scarier than slasher films, much more emphasis on suspense and ambiguity. See also the BBC version of ''Whistle and I'll Come To You'', ''The Orphanage'' (produced by Del Toro)...

''The House of The Devil'' is a quite recent horror film which pastiches 80's horror films. The first half of it I found unbearably creepy and it stays that way right up until the last ten minutes or so, when it descends into (period-perfect but atmospherically ruinous) farce.

''Suspiria'' scared the shit out of me. The fact that it makes little to no sense only heightens the horror. ''The Blair Witch Project'' is one that I know many find absurd but personally I found it it very frightening, almost nauseatingly so.

As a side note, if you want to feel horribly terrified and uneasy for hours at a time, play Amnesia: The Dark Descent for the PC. It's a Lovecraft inspired first person puzzle game in which you wake up in a castle full of unspeakable things, carrying no weapon and liable to go insane if you either a) stay in the dark too long (you have to hide in the dark in order not to...) b) look at any of the unspeakable things for too long. There are a lot of great videos of people playing it online and screaming a lot. Truly scary video games are, I think, scarier than films.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Little Otik is a very disturbing film but I'm not sure if it's the right kind of thing. Can you tighten up the criteria a bit?
 
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