I have a terrible time watching Misery, but it’s mostly because Kathy Bates looks a great deal like my mother.
I thought Blair Witch Project was brilliant when it came out, but I would say now that most of the brilliance had more to do with how it was marketed. Still get the shivers every time I think of that last shot of the guy standing in the corner, though.
When I was about 20, my friends and I thought it would be a great idea to get cataclysmically stoned and watch In the Mouth of Madness. I cannot remember a single detail of the movie, but to this day, the trailer scares the shit out of me.
A lot of movies have given me starts and surprises, but only one movie has ever kept me up all night, even after I had taken 3 showers.
Arachnaphobia just scared the bejezus out of me and I swear there were little spiders all over my body.
The second scariest was The Awakening from the early 80’s. It was the first horror movie I saw at a sleep over and I don’t know how much of the terror was from the film and how much was from the group, because we did everything we could to creep each other out.
The only movie I couldn’t finish watching though (Gross not fear) was The Human Centipede. That movie really disturbed me.
The Ring is certainly in my top three, along with The Descent (the sense of claustrophobia is about as bad as the monsters for me) and, strangely perhaps, A Stir of Echoes. I think that last one is partially because I first saw it after a few (lot) of beers and in the opening sequence, where the kid is facing the camera and talking to a ghost, asking “does it hurt to be dead?” I could have sworn he was talking to ME. That, and the flashing red sequences freaked me out a bit.
The 1979 version of *Salem’s Lot *scared me so much as a kid that for years I couldn’t go to bed without imagining that floating vampire kid scratching at my window.
Duel, one of Stephen Spielberg’s first movies, also scared the bejeezus out of me because you never saw the psychotic truck driver’s face, and because it could so easily happen in real life.
There’s a scene in Caltiki, The Immortal Monster that gave me nightmares for many, many years. An unfortunate scuba diver is attacked by the monster and frantically tugs on his safety rope…to no avail. His lifeless body is pulled to the surface and his buddies are greeted by his horrible fleshless skull.
The Haunting (1963) still holds up - that demonic pounding on the door puts my heart in my throat no matter how many times I’ve seen it.
Poltergeist REALLY freaked me out. A snowy TV even today gives me the creeps.
And of course, The Exorcist. A girl I used to wait at the bus stop with before and after work one night said, why don’t we go up to the university section and see it? OK, sez I, what a capital idea!..Jeez. Louise…We went to the bar across the street, shaking. I had to call my mother to come get us (mother was not pleased driving across town to pick up two tipsy girls and then take one of them across town the other way and drop her off at her home.) Can’t ever watch that ever again.
Alien. Hands down. Saw it with my cousin when we where 18.
Going into the theater I had NO idea what we were in for. We could not go home afterwards, we lived in a very old apartment FULL of hiding places. We ended up in a nice brightly lit McDonalds for an hour or so.
Three films I saw within weeks of each other as a young teenager still remain as the scariest.
Alien (obviously)
Poltergeist (again, obviously) Special Bulletin (not so obvious, but a very unsettling fake TV news broadcast on a terrorist nuclear threat)
Not quite lifeless, his eyes are twitching. Caltiki didn’t scare me so much, but is by far the creepiest, most disturbing creature feature I saw as a child. (Nine years old at a Saturday morning Kiddie Matinee.) I actually have a tenth-generation copy of it on DVD.
A Nightmare On Elm Street. First watched it while babysitting, 15 years old, after I’d put the kid to bed. Being home alone when you watch a movie practically triples the effect.
The Shining. Everything about this movie is creepy and scary. The music, Nicholson’s transformation, the settings, the snow…and more than anything else, the noise that Danny’s big wheel would make while riding it through the hallways on and then off the carpets.
Halloween (The original from 1978 with Jamie Lee Curtis) Again - watched it alone while babysitting. Since the majority of the movie takes place while several teens are babysitting, it scared the hell out of me.
I can second several of the movies already mentioned, and I’d like to add one that no one’s mentioned, yet I’m sure will draw lots of “oh yeah, THAT thing…” comments:
The third segment of Trilogy of Terror. The one with “He Who Kills”.
A lot of these choices just don’t hold up if you watch them again as an adult. I would go with the following as scariest:
The Descent
The Ring
High Tension (ignore the last 10 minutes, please)
Woman in Black
I think setting the mood and then delivering with genuine scares very sporadically throughout the movie actually makes it scarier than CONSTANT HORROR and blood. The Ring and Woman in Black are excellent at this.
Just remembered another one that is creepy-to-the-max and criminally underrated: When a Stranger Calls Back (sequel to the original)
Two new movies I think look like they might be scarificaly awesome are “Sinister” and “Mama”. Can anyone post a spoiler-free review of those?
I like sf, mysteries and thrillers, but not horror, as such. I saw Alien when I was probably too young, and it scared the pants off me. Likewise Poltergeist, which I saw in college. I saw The Shining for the first time just a few months ago in a restored print, and although I admired Kubrick’s chilly artistry, I can’t say it scared me all that much.
The Conversation, with Gene Hackman as a professional eavesdropper, is more of a political thriller, but has some very scary, harrowing scenes and had a big impact on me.
Still haven’t seen The Exorcist or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but I’m sure they’d be very effective even now. Not for me, thanks.
Somehow I ended up watching that at about age… maybe 10 or 11? By myself. At night. Sitting in the dark living-room on a sofa that had a space underneath it.
The remote was sitting on a glass-top coffee table juuuust out of reach.
Ohgodohgodohgodohgodohgod. :eek:
I’ve only seen it maybe one time since then, and it was not a comfortable “Oh, haha, I was so silly to be scared” thing. It still freaked me right the hell out (inside at least).
No Country for Old Men has the honor of having the only villain who has literally given me nightmares.
Jacob’s Ladder was both horrifying and terribly sad. After I’d watched it all I could think was “Christ, no wonder my Death and Dying professor kept pushing this movie on us.”
Watching The Shining while slightly tipsy is…an experience, to say the least. Same with Eyes Wide Shut–the masked ball scene gave me the mega-creeps. Wasn’t quite the same watching it in the middle of the afternoon while stone-cold sober, though.
Noroi (The Curse) had me saucer-eyed the entire time. While the Japanese are typically very good at this (with a few clunkers here and there), I thought this one was particularly effective.
Insidious was very good up until the last 15-20 minutes or so.
Blair Witch was good, but don’t make the mistake of watching the director’s commentary, because it will completely ruin everything.
