Is "War of the Worlds" scary?

[Cockatiel]

I know there have been and still are threads on War of the Worlds, but I just want to know if the movie is actually scary. People have told me it is, and I cannot deal with scary movies.

So how about it?

[VarlosZ]

Only if you consider being vaporized by unmerciful, xenocidal aliens to be frightening.

In other words, yes. Scary, loud, pretty, and very good.

[Improv Geek]

It isn't a horror flick. There isn't overt gore. But it is intense and can be suspenseful.

I avoid horror movies, I obstinantly refuse to see them. I saw War of the Worlds and it didn't bother me after I saw it, but during it I was gripping the arms of my chair.

[Zebra]

What movies do you find too scary?

[Queen Tonya]

My son is 12 1/2 and he was very frightened during quite a bit of it. There's a lot of flowing red liquid that he figured was blood, makes sense in context, and he was horrified.

The effects are pretty good, it's not like watching Michael Myers and being scared just because the scary music is playing, y'know?

[PapSett]

It sure scared me ....the intensity of the movie had my heart thundering throughout the movie , and I had a definite uneasy feeling at home alone that night . I kepy waking up all through the night expecting to see the eye-thing staring at me :eek: .

With this said , it is one of the best movies of the genre I can imagine .

[athelas]

It's not "Wow, there are zombies running around with bad prosthetics. Brr. Ooh! Gratuitous violence and unrealistic amounts of blood lost! Brr." It's scary in the same way that 9/11 was (sorry to make the cliched connection, but Spielberg does explicitly make use of that imagery), because of the depiction of tremendous powers outside human control - not only the Martians but also fate and the panicking mobs.

[MovieMogul]

It isn't a horror flick. There isn't overt gore. But it is intense and can be suspenseful.Actually, I have to disagree--WotW is a horror movie in the classic sense, because everything depicted is genuinely horrifying. Unfortunately, the horror genre has been corrupted to the point that people associate it with Bullshit-jumps-out-and-scares-you-BOO! scary. The great horror movies were about more than simply ratcheting up suspense or gratuitous gore--anyone can do that it in the most of hackneyed of ways.

Real horror settles in your gut, providing scenarios that are equally riveting and disturbing--a mix of fascination and repulsion. That's what great horror does, and WotW is unrelenting in this sense. Scary? Bah, that's a dime-a-dozen. What Spielberg does is, in a sense, much harder and purer. It's by no means a perfect movie or one devoid of problems, but it is most definitely a Horror movie more, even, than a SciFi film, I'd say.

[fubbleskag]

i was more 'scared' (in the sense of suspenseful chair-arm grabbing, nail biting, etc) by batman than WotW, to be honest.

[msmith537]

I have to say the sound the tripods make is pretty much one of the scariest things I've heard in the movies. It's big...it's loud...and it's mechanical in a way that you are quite certain the machine was not designed to spray confetti or dispense coffee and donuts.

(that would be an amusing story - our military wages war against a towering scary as fuck indestructable robot that aliens planted as a concessions stand for their peaceful visit to Earth).

[RikWriter]

I don't scare easily at movies, but WOTW was pretty damned intense.

[teela brown]

Here's a good comparison - did you find Close Encounters Of The Third Kind scary? There was no gore or hideous monsters jumping out at one in that movie, yet it had me gripping my armrests throughout in suspense. This is similar, although there is a bit of gore factor. That part, however, is not what's scary. It's the director's skill in creating primal fear from the circumstances that's scary. I wouldn't miss it because of the fear factor, by any means.

[FriarTed]

yes- scary AND unsettling

most unsettling part without spoiling it- Dakota at the river. whew!

[Sage Rat]

I thought the Blair Witch Project was a humorous story about the Darwin Awards--so all I can say is, it didn't scare me any.
The current vote seems to be going the other way though, so probably best to swing thataway.

[FilmGeek]

It's intense, but there is little or no "jump out and scare you" but lots of "are they gonna get away" scares and one scary-ass farmer.

[Zebra]

Yes, I would say the word intense. Or FRICKING INTENSE DUDE!


I was really excited through the movie. When I left I was just excited. Kind of like Dash at the end of the Incredibles "AND THEN WENT WHOOSHE AND THEN IT WAS LIKE, AND THEN THOSE GUYS TRIED TO KILL US! IT WAS THE BEST MOVIE EVER!


(not seriously the best movie ever but you get the idea)

[sciguy]

I went a few days ago with my girlfriend, and she found it scary (enough to have to close her eyes a couple of times).

I certainly found it intense, but not really gory (except for the...."fertilizing" scene).

[rjung]

Not gory, but definitely intense and scary. I'd peg it more as a horror movie with a sci-fi protagonist than a straight-up sci-fi movie, actually.

[Lobsang]

I watched it today, and if you can immerse yourself in a movie (forget you are watching actors and CGI) then it is scary.

The fat kid sat next to me had his hands on his mouth for parts of the movie. And people behind me shrieked a few times. Here the movie was classified 12a.


The tripod machines are orgasmically scary. Brilliant stuff from Spielberg again. Only wish the film had lasted longer... IN fact I almost wish it was real. How that must have felt when people did think it was real years ago...

[SolGrundy]

Actually, I have to disagree--WotW is a horror movie in the classic sense, because everything depicted is genuinely horrifying. Unfortunately, the horror genre has been corrupted to the point that people associate it with Bullshit-jumps-out-and-scares-you-BOO! scary.[...]
Real horror settles in your gut, providing scenarios that are equally riveting and disturbing--a mix of fascination and repulsion.
Very well said. War of the Worlds most definitely is a horror movie. Gore and surprises don't make a real horror movie, since gore isn't really scary, and cheap surprises don't last. Real horror movies put people into horrible situations where they don't know what caused them and they don't know how to stop it -- The Shining, The Exorcist, The Birds, etc. I think War of the Worlds delivers on that.

But damn, it's bleak. I was just saying a little while ago that Spielberg would be an unqualified genius if he could just let go of the schmaltz and stick to the action scenes, because even in an otherwise bad movie he makes action scenes that are unforgettable. This one is just one of those after the other; you keep hearing "intense" and "relentless" in reviews, and it's pretty accurate.

[sturmhauke]

But damn, it's bleak. I was just saying a little while ago that Spielberg would be an unqualified genius if he could just let go of the schmaltz and stick to the action scenes, because even in an otherwise bad movie he makes action scenes that are unforgettable. This one is just one of those after the other; you keep hearing "intense" and "relentless" in reviews, and it's pretty accurate.
Yeah, but the ending still had some of that schmaltz.
The son survives? And he gets to mom's house first? Hell no, that pissed me off.
I liked it overall though, much more than I thought I would. The sound effects were awesome at creating a totally weirdass and unnerving mood, and a lot of the things that happened were made more horrifying precisely because the gory details were obscured from view.

[SolGrundy]

Yeah, but the ending still had some of that schmaltz.
I can understand the complaint, but I don't think that was "schmaltz" and was in fact necessary for a couple of reasons:
First, after all that destruction and death, the movie needed something positive to happen. At that point, I would've been fine if Lassie and E.T. had shown up at the doorstep.

Second, it just makes sense as a story. If the ending to your movie is just "Germs have killed the aliens! Go on about your business." then there's no real point to the story except to see people getting zapped and stuff blowing up. Why follow this one guy's story at all; he was just an average guy who didn't really do anything exceptional except kill Tim Robbins. Unless he comes out of it learning something -- that it takes more than just being complacent to be a father -- then there's no reason to pay attention to him instead of any of the other millions of victims of the invasion.

[JohnT]

I don't think it's schmaltzy that Robby lived, for the simple reason that his actions compare favorably to Cruise's. Cruise was about running and hiding, and if that meant killing people along the way, so be it. As long as he and his kids were safe, then who cares?

Robby though saw the issue as bigger, recognized that his father really had no idea what he was doing, and Robby wanted to do whatever he could to help. He was also a "hero"as well as Tom Cruise. When they were on the hill at the battle he wanted to off and help - not one specific person, but all of humanity. If he just died immediately it would send the message of "don't stick your neck out, just take care of yourself, don't be a hero", which probably isn't the best moral.

Though, in this situation, probably the most easily-followed.

[Zebra]

Robby was also more heroic on the boat.

[MovieMogul]

I think Robby's survival was, while still a bit of a cop-out, still essential from one storytelling perspective:

If Cruise comes to Boston w/o Robbie, do you think Miranda Otto's going to be grateful that at least one kid is alive? No, she's going to tear her ex a new one and writhe in anguish over the loss of her son. She didn't seem like somebody who had a lot of faith in her ex, so it would've been wholly in character based on what we've seen thus far. So even though the aliens are dead, we end on an incredibly bitter note--certainly more of a downer than I think anyone wants to walk out on.

Also, by Robbie getting to Boston first, we can assume that he's told his mom and grandparents about Cruise's heroic efforts to save them, so when she sees them both finally arrive, the reunion is more credible because she has already adjusted to seeing her ex-husband in a new light.


And certainly, this ending isn't nearly as bad, gratuitous, schmaltzy, or unnecessary as Saving Private Ryan's.

[JohnT]

I don't know... a bunch of people die so you can go home to mother and you spend the rest of your life wondering if the life you lived was worthy of their sacrifice? I don't see anything shmaltzy about that.

For WOTW, my fave ending would've been

Robby goes off. Dakota later dies. Tom, in a last desparate attempt to reclaim his sense of manhood, takes responsibility for losing both kids and goes to Boston to tell his wife. He tells her. Then... Robby shows up at the door, goes to his crying mother, takes her by the shoulders and walks her back inside the house, never looking back at Dad, with the last shot reminiscent of The Godfather - the door shutting on Tom Cruise's shattered expression as he realizes how badly he failed, that his kids were safer without him than with him.

[sturmhauke]

Robby was stupid. Ray told him to stay away from populated areas, so he drives right into a crowd and they lose their wheels and almost get trampled to death. Then he feels like he has to be a hero by attempting to jump in with a combat unit right in the middle of a battle, rather than trying to stay with his little sister, who incidentally nearly got hauled off by a well-meaning family while he argued with his dad. Shortly afterwards the entire battle line goes up in flames, tanks and Humvees roll downhill ablaze, and the aliens emerge triumphant. So tell me again how he was supposed to survive? Yeah, Ray dodged a bunch of death rays earlier in the movie, but he wasn't the only survivor either. The way this scene was presented, it didn't seem possible for anyone on the battle line to survive.

[Crowbar of Irony +3]

Robby could have been picked up by the Tripods as 'meat fuel', and was lucky to last through till the point when all the Tripods start dying off from natural sickness. And again, it seems possible he find a nice hidey-hole like his dad.

[AngelicGemma]

Like everyone else, I found the film very intense. And yeah, scary. More scary then a lot of "horror" films I've seen. My heart was racing a lot throughout the film. Great film, as long as you choose to ignore the ending.

[Wile E]

Intense yes, but to me the scariest/creepiest part was when the spider crawling on Dakota. Three legs? No problem. Eight legs? EEEK!