I am not a big horror person, so I don’t read or watch it that much.
With that said: The Relic. Do not watch it at 10:00 at night and then drive home.
For movies: Island of Terror, which I saw when I was a kid, about a bunch of vacuum-cleaner monsters who went around sucking people’s bones out. Scared me to death. Also in the running was a movie where a dog got lost, the locals went looking for it and found a hole in the ground from which a groaning sound was issuing. They eventually lowered a man down into it, and when they brought him back up, he was driven crazy with fear and ran off into the woods, screaming. I don’t remember the name of it, but it freaked me out.
Books: Christine by S. King. Also, House of Stairs, a juvenile book about a group of kids who wake up one day in a place where there are only stairs, and find themselves the subjects of a behavior-modification experiment. Creepy.
Definitely, It and The Shining. I also thought Bag of Bones was very creepy- a good ghost story. I read the Amityville Horror when I was seven; that scared me for a long time.
The movie that scared me more than any other was Jaws (though I was six when I first saw it, so it impressed me more deeply than it would an adult; I was terrified there might be sharks in the bathtub). Interestingly, when I read the book much more recently, I thought it was nowhere NEAR as good as the movie. Poltergeist was also great, at least until the end when things just turn weird. Remember the mom in the kitchen, and when she turns around, the chairs are stacked up on the kitchen table? And when the little boy is counting “one, one thousand, two, one thousand” while the thunder is approaching? (Those subtle things are scarier than any computerized special effects.) Between that movie and Pennywise, I don’t care if I never see another clown again.
The movie that kept me and my cousins indoors at night for a long time was Alien.
Snarkberry I remember Island of Terror from when I was a very young child. The monsters reminded me of turtles with snake heads. Didn’t they use that magic thing of early science fiction called radiation to kill them.
Lovecraft’s “At the Mountains of Madness” is very frightening – if you’re not familiar with his work, please don’t read it unless you can do so without distraction. His style isn’t for everyone but if you’re calm and relaxed, and not expecting 90’s type blood and gore, you’re in for a true chill.
I’ve read and collected horror for years, and sadly, can recall just a few real thrills. Like many of you, the topiary scene in The Shining stands out(and do you remember the uncoiling fire hose?), as well as a scene in Peter Straub’s Ghost Story, in a car, and there’s something in the back seat.
Movies! Haven’t been scared since I had to walk home alone at age 9 after seeing “Them” (giant ants, James Whitmore, you remember).
Some nice touches in movies already mentioned here in The Haunting, Repulsion, Alien (the sense of claustrophobia).
A few movies made me jump – “Carrie”, “Evil Dead”, “Nightmare on Elm Street”, and some had awesome gross-outs – what was that Cronenburg movie where the guy’s head exploded?
Forbidden Planet was just on TV last week – for sci fi in the 50’s, that was pretty creepy.
And the incest factor in Hellraiser certainly raised the ewwwwww level of that movie.
But I still prefer the older movies – Dracula, Frankenstein, the Mummy and the Werewolf. If you didn’t grow up with those, you missed out.
Phobia wrote:
I can’t remember how it ended, but I’m glad I’m not the only one who remembers it. Yep, turtles with snake heads are what they most resembled. They gave me nightmares for weeks.
Oh, one other old SF movie that scared me was Day of the Triffids.
The movie was Scanners Auntie.
Books: I am Legend by Richard Matheson. Anyone who thinks they have read vampire stories and have not read this one is a idiot. Plus it has one of the uber cool endings. Scared the crap out of me
The Mist by King. My favorite and simple one of the best short stories I ever read. It has tension, breakdown of traditional humanism and one hell of a creepout enemy, a thick mist that houses horrors. My stomach went cold when they found the two soldiers from the military facility. Highly recommended also is the audio “3-d surround” where you are part of the story of “the Mist”. Very Very Freaky.I dare you to listen to it in the dark.
Movies: Night of the Living Dead (original),
The Sixth Sense (serious-scared the crap out of me)
BONE SUCKING TURTLES!!!
This is interesting - my wife and I were BOTH terrified by this movie (“Terror Island” or “Island of Terror”) when we were kids. Two people here mentioned it as well. Yet, this is the cheesiest, schlockiest horror movie you’re ever going to see. We recently found a copy and rented it. You know that scraping sound the monsters made when they moved? That sound is the plywood base of the prop being dragged across the studio floor…
So why is it that this movie scared so many kids? Is it because it was on TV a lot when we were young? Or is there something in the child psyche that is terrified of having its bones sucked out?
Books -
Pet Sematary (Originally, King was not going to release this movie. His editors wanted him to make it less grusome but he refused. Eventually, he won out and the book was released in the original version. He has said (a few years ago) that out of all his books, Pet Sematary scared him the most.)
Any and all true crime non-fiction (The Perfect Victim, Kids Who Kill, anything by Ann Rule.) I am addicted!
Movie -
Show Girls
>^,^<
KITTEN
Coarse and violent nudity. Occasional language.
Really scary books, as are the buyers:
Astrology for idiots
Finance for Dummies
Thanks, Heath – I was thinking Reanminator but that didn’t seem right.
Island of Terror – saw it on release at a drive-in – the stuff that oozed from the dead critters looked like chicken noodle soup.
Anyone here see The Boogens? A yappy little wannabe dog got it in that one. I think it was yanked through a heating vent or something.
King’s short story The Raft was okay too.
Certainly no Academy Award winner, but have a sick love for the Creapshow movies (The Raft is on one version). They are like a Tales From the Crypt, King-style.
“Thanks fer the ride, laaaaa-dy.”
>^,^<
KITTEN
Coarse and violent nudity. Occasional language.
Jerry Lewis was in “Creepshow”?
Movie: “The Blair Witch Project”, “The Abominable Dr. Phibes” (particularly the scene where the guy is put to death by scorpions), “The Legend of Boggy Creek.”
Book: “The Amityville Horror”–read it as a boy and every night for months kept an eye out for red pig’s eyes in my bedroom window.
Tim
“My hovercraft is full of eels.”
My favorite scary books have already been listed, but as far as scary movies are concerned, did anyone see Prince of Darkness? (John Carpenter, 1980’s, Alice Cooper had a bit part in it.) It was cheese, but the part with a video of the future, full of static, really gave me the chills.