I’ve heard great things about In the Mouth of Madness, and I intend to see it eventually. I hate gore and sadism and nastiness, but I like truly chilling stories, or even “normal” stories with dark twists at the end. I’d rank Seven (Se7en) as one of the scariest movies I’ve ever seen, especially because we see so little of the murders themselves, only the aftermath from each. Angel Heart is an excellent detective movie, but turns out to be much darker and scarier than you’d expect. I recommend it highly. Dark City and Donnie Darko, as Darkhold mentioned, are great as well, although I wouldn’t call either a “horror” movie.
Is Clive Barker’s Lord of Illusions a good movie? Keep in mind I hate scenes of gore, torture, mutilation… I already know I’d hate the Hellraiser series, which originated with Clive Barker as well. But I heard Lord of Illusions is almost a film noir take on the horror genre, with a heroic magician as the central character. I found this interesting because so many horror movies seem to have the villain as the “main” character, and I just can’t get into that.
And what about The Prophecy? I kinda want to see it just because it has Christopher Walken as an angel and Viggo Mortensen as Lucifer. But is it cheesy and gory, or actually COOL?
Dung Beetle, I’ll bet anything N. Sane is referring to the earlier version of The Haunting instead of the recent craptastic remake.
Lou, in my opinion In the Mouth of Madness is the last movie from the hand of Mr. Carpenter that makes a legitimate claim to greatness, or at least near greatness. There’s a lot of it that doesn’t work, but it has a way of getting under your skin. And if you find the first hour effective, the last five minutes will blow your mind.
I’m going to follow up on something mrunlucky started by nominating a psychological horror film without supernatural elements. (I don’t understand why so many horror movies feel the need to include demons or vampires or ghosts or whatever. All you have to do is frighten and/or disturb the audience, right? Texas Chainsaw Massacre, anybody? Isn’t Silence of the Lambs a horror movie? And yet when we think of modern horror we have stuff like The Ring and The Others and (yak) Event Horizon.
My nominee for a movie that will freak your shit out:
Das Experiment.
It’s a German film from a couple of years ago. It explores, fictionally, the scenario behind the famous Stanford Prison Experiment: A group of volunteers is placed in a fake prison setting by researchers, and divided into guards and inmates. And that’s all I’m going to tell you.
There isn’t really a lot of gore, but the movie is fucking intense. And yes, I consider it a horror movie, because it’s horrifying what human beings are capable of doing to one another and then rationalizing away. At the end, I was quite literally shaking; I felt like my soul had been dropped into a swimming pool full of broken glass.
Don’t Look Now might be worth your time. Real creepy and unnerving throughout, lots of nice camera work to emphasize the suspense and psychological truama.
Hey, nobody’s mentioned The Hitcher yet. I thought it was really creepy. And from about the same time period, The Stepfather was pretty good small movie with a couple of good jumps.
Clive Barker and ‘good’ movie are two different categories. You only watch Clive Barker movies for the style and the excellent quotes (“I was a man that became a god…and changed his mind”) The ‘main’ character is a detective the magician guy is at best a secondary character.
Interesting dialogue? Yes
Interesting style and direction? Yes.
Stupid plot? Yes
Good movie? Not really.
darkhold: I’m a fan of the Evil Dead movies. Scary they’re not, but Bruce Campbell as Ash is the MAN, man. I heard that Bubba Ho-Tep, in which Bruce plays an elderly Elvis, finally got a theatrical release. I’ll probably snatch it up once it comes to DVD, because I highly doubt it’ll hit the cities nearest to me in the theatres. I’ve also seen bits and bobs of Dark City.
A couple of good ones from Stephen King:
The Stand was an admirable movie. I’d read the book first, and it amazes me that someone actually made a six-hour long movie that doesn’t drag anywhere.
IT made a fairly decent movie. They had to cut out a lot of stuff, but some of it was understandable. Particularly the smoke-hole ritual (don’t want some dumbass kids trying it), the explanation of the cosmos which lead to IT (God is a turtle? BLASPHEMY!), and of course the pre-adolescent gang bang (fucking DUH)
if you watch this movie, be sure to have ALL of the lights turned off. Yes, ALL. no pausing, you must watch it straight through. it’s the only way to go.
Again, not horror, but my favourite psychological thriller is definately the original The Vanishing. Not the silly remake with Jeff Bridges - although Jeff Bridges, to be fair, did an okay job.
Also a big fan of The Hitcher. Personally don’t think this is horror either. I got the DVD this Christmas, and it has some nice extras, including a full-length commentary I can’t wait to get stuck into. I love the music in the film. Rutger’s finest hour IMO.
And C Thomas Howells… I swear he’s pissed on the DVD!
Since my girlfriend barely got through it with me last night, I’ll recommend the Shining. A lot of psychological stuff, and the best part is that there isn’t much gore (ok, so there is blood pouring out of elevators, but there isn’t much death). My girl had to continuously talk to Jack to lessen her fear of him.
I’m on board for Polanski’s Repulsion and Rosemary’s Baby…
How about Brian DePalma’s ‘Sisters’ (1974?) - that’s psychological horror, albeit in an LSD-meets-Hitchcock kind of way.
Also of note:
‘The Stepford Wives’ (1974), curently being remade by Frank Oz, w/ Nicole Kidman in the lead
‘The Man Who Fell To Earth’ (or maybe it was just my own sleep deprivation)
and, one of my all time favorites,
'The Haunting of Hell House (1973) - script by Richard Matheson, starring Roddy McDowell and Pamela Franklin. Word is that Matheson grew frustrated with inferior adaptations of his work, and made an effort to set things right, by writing this one himself. Now on DVD (widescreen!).
I’m always creeped out by The Changeling with George C. Scott. He’s a bereaved musician who moves into a big creepy old Seattle mansion, all by himself, after the death of his family. Bad stuff ensues.
Dead Again with Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson is fun too.
Of unmentioned films:
More suspence than thriller, but it is a Hitchcock film after all. Vertigo is awful and disturbing if you empathise with the main character, and it was one of the rare occasions that happened to me.
*The Ring * I watched just going into the theatre because I came across a friend who was also going. It starts in a way that made me think ‘bad scream clone’. Then it became apparent to me it was a japanese remake (which my friend later confirmed), and I spent most of the movie looking for the cultural references. I may have well been engaged in that activity because , for all the travelling that takes place, the film exuded a diluted sense of being locked in a toilet with a rabid pitbull. (As opposed to say, what is that creepy noise behind me.) It was only when I had walked a good ten minutes away from the cinema that I felt a CHILL. So yes, I recommend it .
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