In Torchwood, Children of Earth, the only scary part was when the British government poobahs were sitting around discussing how to best rid the country of the bottom 10th percentile of their children.
I can’t be scared by any supernatural premise at all. All ghosts are exactly as scary as Casper to me. In order for something to scare me, it has to be something that could actually happen.
EXACTLY! I watched this movie on a home theater at a friend’s house. This movie made me scream out loud. We rewound “that part” three times and I screamed all three times. Horrifying!
not scary:
slow things - girl from the ring, michael myers, frankenstein, slow zombies
little things - dogs, cats, birds, assorted woodland creatures
things that turn me immortal - vampires, werewolves
things that aren’t overtly trying to harm me - ghosts, aliens, ugly people
very scary:
fast things - snakes, leatherface in full sprint, fast zombies
big things - bears, sharks, stampeding cattle/people
things that torture rather than kill - buffalo bill, kevin spacey in se7en, the devil.
however, i agree with everyone that cites believability as a big factor for scary vs not. this goes beyond just characters, but also situations. if i’m being told that I (or the protagonist) is going to walk down a dark alley for no reason other than the fact that a dark alley is scarier than a lit one? My mind starts to wander and the entire scariness is totally lost.
In the context of horror movies, bodies of water creep me out because you can’t see what might be lurking below. As land animals, we are used to having to be aware of possible hazards within the “hemisphere” of space around us above ground. When you’re in the water, even at the surface you can be attacked from a whole other hemisphere (below the surface) to which you are effectively blind.
I have an irrational fear of hooded/cloaked figures.
My childhood fear that lurked in dark corners was an amalgam of Jenner and Nicodemus from the Secret of NIHM. A creepy, hooded figure with green, warty hands, glowing eyes, and huge rat teeth. shudder
I’m ashamed to say that The Village actually unnerved me in quite a few places simply because there were creepy hooded figures lurking about all slow-like. And that last bit in the woods where the hooded slow thing is suddenly all fast and chase-y :eek: AHHHHHHHHHHHH!
When I think of scary movies, I think of the first half of Jeepers Creepers. I was squirming in my theater seat and my friend and I almost left. Then we saw the monster. Who sewed. The first half of the movie really got to me. The second half made me laugh at it.
Torture really bothers me. I don’t know if it scares me or pisses me off or maybe it’s a combo of the two.
The other thing I love about J-horror is the inexplicability of it. There is no explanation for the [evil entity/curse]. It just IS.
Hollywood horror feels the need to explain: Freddie was the spirit of a burned pedo, Jason was a psychopath. Meh, whatever. Yet, despite something about Sadako being tested by a creepy psych doctor, there really is no real reason for the nature and indefatigability of her curse (nor the curse in Ju-On). That shit sends shivers up my spine.
As far as ‘startling’, the sudden appearance of the Bad Thing will make me jump for a second, but doesn’t really scare me. All the paranormal stuff doesn’t scare me. But I won’t watch the Saw movies. The evil that is in the human mind is the scariest. What a person would willingly do to another person. That creeps me out.
Creatures that skirt the edge of humanity. The Gimp thinger and those weird human-ish things that chased Sharon outside until the edge of the town with the big canyon in the Silent Hill movie. The way they moved, in that atmosphere it was scary, but at the same time it could have been one of those interpretive dance routines on So You Think You Can Dance. It’s the creepiest part of humanity.
Gotta second (or third or whatever) that NOT showing the monster/bad guy is way more effective in most cases. I had the same reaction to Jeepers Creepers as stpauler, up until the reveal, I thought it was a solid horror flick. After the reveal, it might as well have been on SyFy. This is also the problem I have with most Stephen King horror movies/books; he does a great job building tension and dread, then all of a sudden the monster/demon/whatever is revealed in full daylight and all the mystery (and dread) is gone.
I think the “out of the corner of your eye” type scares are great, as are the ones where it slowly dawns on you that something is just not right or that someone/something is in the room with someone undetected.
I thought maybe 10% of Paranormal Activity was effectively scary, and when it was it was pretty impressive, but the movie as a whole was pretty boring otherwise.
I like monster movies, especially werewolf movies, but they don’t actually scare me; I’m more interested in the creature designs and how cool the transformation scenes are.
Along with the first point about the unknown being scarier than the known, ghost stories where you never actually see the ghost are way more effective to me; the 1963 version of The Haunting is a prime example of this.
Other little things than can be effective: paintings that change in subtle ways, just enough so you know SOMETHING is off; crazy contortions (Exorcism of Emily Rose); POV scenes depicting someone being buried alive.
It’s hard to describe, but any movie that can effectively instill enough suspension of disbelief that I think, “I know [demons/ghosts/etc.] don’t exist, but what if?” There was a scene in The Last Exorcism (a pretty decent movie with a totally crappy ending) that creeped me out more than any movie I’ve seen in the last few years. It was the scene where
they hear the baby crying.
I identified with the protagonist who was a a true non-believer, and I had to ask myself, “How would I feel if I was in the same situation?” Then came the literal goose bumps.
Yes! This is a perfect way to describe some of the better ghostly movies I’ve seen. I don’t believe in ghosts, but I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t be scared shitless if I actually saw one.
See, I actually found Saw to be too unrealistic. (And yes, I can see the irony in that statement given my stance on ghost movies.) Yes, some serial killers are intelligent and make careful plans. (I think the closest serial killer to the one in the movie was probably H.H. Holmes, in that he actually made the effort to build the place where he killed most of his victims.) But just as many others are completely disorganized and unintelligent, something I don’t see very often in films about serial killers. I just thought the whole setup in those movies was too much of a stretch for me to take it seriously.