In companion tothis thread, I’m looking for suggestions of good, gripping ghost stories in film.
My problem is that my partner LOVES horror films. No matter how bad, how predictable, how corny, she’ll watch them all. I pretty much can’t stand them.
However, I’m very happy with a good ghostly thriller, as is she, and am hoping I can find some films that we can both enjoy. A stand-out one for me is The Others. I did also really enjoy The Orphanage, which crosses into horror-land. I also enjoyed the recent remake of the Woman in Black.
What I enjoyed, particularly with the first two, is the genuine suspense and twist in the tail.
Are there other similar films I should be looking at? They don’t have to be recent releases.
I’ve never really been one for actually scary ghost films—heck, I don’t find too many films that scary to begin with, even with horror aside—but 2002’s Below I found genuinely chilling.
(This year’s The Grey, however, was the scariest movie I’ve ever seen.)
The only movie that scared the living bejeezus out of me was the old “The Changeling” with George C. Scott.
I saw one recently that was really good but I can’t remember the name of it. It’s from the olden days, black & white, and it’s the story of a teacher who gets hired to look after a brother and sister because their rich absentee father can’t be arsed with them. She goes to live in the mansion with the kids and their housekeeper and all sorts of scary things happen involving the kids. It was on TCM a few months ago. I bet fellow dopers will figure it out - I think it was made in the 1930’s or early 1940’s.
Reviewing this thread, I was reminded of Insidious– it’s 95% a great movie (the ending falls apart a little bit for me). There’s a scene in *Insidious *that chilled me like none other I’ve ever seen – and I don’t think most viewers see it.
Spoiler for *Insidious *(and maybe something new for those who’ve seen the movie):
[spoiler]The “Tiptoe” newsie was disturbing, all right – here’s a YouTube cut of it.
The uploader of that video noticed that same thing that really got me (at about 38 seconds into the clip).
What’s really great about that is that it gives the audience an uncomfortable thrill without Rose Byrne’s character noticing anything out of the ordinary. There is no way to describe it in words as effectively as it works on screen (“She put the clothes in the hamper, not noticing the ghost of a little boy three feet away” doesn’t quite work)-- it’s something that can only be conveyed visually. I was really unsure of what I’d seen the first time, and I ended up seeing the movie in the theater again to confirm it. It’s an example of one of the (few) advantages that visual media have over the written word.
[/spoiler]
I’ve heard good things about *Sinister *before – will have to check it out.