The Lord of the Flies
The use of regular children in their first and/or only acting role provided tremendous realism.
The original Wicker Man stayed with me like a bad cough for quite a while. Perhaps it was partly due to the mood I was in, or the gloomy weather outside but haunted is a perfect word for it. I had to keep the dvd cover in a drawer until it was time to return it so as not to see the iconic cover (why the hell do they put what amounts to a huge spoiler on the cover for heaven’s sake?)
Requiem for a Dream was another one I couldn’t shake. It’s certainly not the first drug themed film I’ve seen- hell, I’ve *lived *my own true life drug drama -but that would just not wash off. I thought it was well done, and brilliantly acted and directed but the thought of watching it again makes me a little queasy.
Lord of the Fliesespecialy Piggy’s death
The Talented Mr. Ripley the scene after the contact with the oar
Dumbo It breaks my heart
Absolutely.
Worst part was realizing that, slight surrealism aside, it wasn’t fictional - it actually was like that, only probably worse
For popular films, Seven and Schindler’s List were both superb films that I am glad I have seen and have no wish to ever see again…once was plenty.
For a less well-known film, Threads, a British film about nuclear war, left even a hard-bitten Army Sargeant upset and is another one I tried very hard to forget…
And if you don’t want to watch a full-length feature film, this little 20-minute jewel (The Lottery) should provide suitable haunting… The Lottery - Part 1 of 2 - YouTube will get you part 1, you can find part 2 yourself–I know it is there, but I haven’t watched it in 50 years…and won’t. Once was enough.
Heh, the school playground the day after that was first broadcast was really quite shocked.
Under the Skin - Scarlet Johansen is a alien roaming around Scotland abducting various loners and drifters who cross her path. The film has an overwhelming tone of alienation, isolation, nihilism and just general creepiness.
The Nicolas Cage remake stayed with me like a bad…something.
Screamers:Peter Weller. Underground robot thingies on the mining planet that eventually learn to mimic humans.
Natural Born Killers. (Yeah, I know this movie gets a lot of hate)
Then there’s that one movie, I can’t remember the name, but It’s about a family (absent father) that moves into a house. They think they’re are being haunted but it isn’t til the very end of the movie that the family discovers, that they are not being haunted, they are actually ghosts, and the people they thought that were haunting them, were actually living people that had just moved into the house. (What the heck was the name of that movie? That’s going to bug me now.)
Broken Blossoms
The Story of Women
Also, The Blair Witch Project seriously creeped me out to the point of checking the doors and windows a couple of times before I could go to bed, but “haunted” isn’t quite the right word.
Housekeeping was a movie that really got under my skin, although again, I don’t think “haunted” is quite the right word, but I was the projectionist, and felt compelled to watch it every time I showed it, which was about 8 times.
The 1979 version of Nosferatu. The 1922 version was great, but Isabelle Adjani’s performance haunted me. I didn’t find the actress in the '22 version as compelling.
Metropolis is a film I can’t look away from, and it sticks with me. Maybe it haunts me. Not sure that it’s exactly the right word, but it does “get” to me in a way that few films do, and films in general affect me.
I ever thought something could haunt me. More until I saw Dear Zachary.
The Cube was a real movie, not a. Scifi channel one.
The Others? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0230600/
It was a made-for-TV movie, so I hope that’s not a problem. Gotham (1988) still floats into my consciousness from time to time. It has some things in common with Somewhere in Time (1980) but Tommy Lee Jones and Virginia Madsen make it more “haunting” than these other two do.
Brokeback Mountain hit me hard. So did Leaving Las Vegas. No desire to ever watch either one again.
This is what I was going to post.
The Others with Nicole Kidman.
Well, it was essentially a documentary, I guess, but “Imagine: John Lennon” stayed with me for quite a while. I mean, I knew (obviously) how it was going to end, but the ending just killed me. It’s the only movie I’ve ever openly weeped over. I watched it alone, thankfully.
Life is Beautiful with Roberto Benigni.
That’s it. Thanks guys.
I grew up in the part of Florida where Aileen Wurnous was captured. A few weeks before her capture, Wurnous had visited the church my parents attended, and discussed being tormented by demons. (This is a very straight-laced Presbyterian church in a small town; I can’t imagine that most of the members had much experience with seriously crazy people.)
*Monster *was a scary, scary movie about a scary woman.