For me, Blair Witch started out really scary, then I realized that for all the buildup of tension, there was no payoff yet, and there was going to be no payoff. Anticipation is a great scare-tactic, but it stops working when the viewer figures out there isn’t anything to anticipate.
A technique that always gets to me is the inanimate object that only moves, and moves closer, when you take your eyes off of it for a second. Knowing that you can’t possible watch something constantly, and knowing that as it gets closer you are soon going to die, is a very creepy feeling.
I have seen this done with something as small and innocent as a childs doll, or a large stone statue. Always scares the hell out of me.
Ever seen the Dr. Who episode “Blink” (from the new series)?
There’s nothing more dreadful than anticipation. That’s because, no matter what horrible thing they show you on the screen, it can never compare to the awfulness you create in your own mind, wondering what’s about to happen.
Lots of people are talking about The Blair Witch Project; I think putting it on a big screen kinda ruined the effect they were going for. I saw it on a relatively small screen in a little art-house theater, and there was one moment that stands out: toward the end, as they get more and more hopeless, and their friend has now been missing for two days, they follow the sound of his voice through the woods at night, and suddenly, before you see anything, they say, “Oh shit.” “What?” “It’s a house.” The whole theater cringed, such that you could hear it; that’s the anticipation, knowing that something bad is going to happen in the house, but not knowing what.
H.P. Lovecraft was a master at describing terrible things without really letting you know exactly what they look like. That lets your imagination work, and that is what can really creep you out.
See Shining and Scary Mary.
I didn’t really think The Exorcist was that scary, maybe because it had already become part of the culture and I’d seen so many parodies of it beforehand.
Yeah, I agree with this. Like the girl in the closet in The Ring or the guy behind the parking lot in Mulholland Drive.
Yeah, I really was annoyed by the characters for most of the movie, but the house was unnerving, and the very last scene made me literally gasp.
I think a lot of the problems of that film could have been fixed by having a proper script, instead of relying on improv acting and general directions to go to certain spots (where they’d encounter stuff set up for them). The actors weren’t that good at doing improv dialogue, and it got really stale and annoying.
I’ll add an element from one of my favorite horror/crime films, Seven. A psychopath is punishing people who commit one of the “seven deadly sins” in terrible ways, and the cops are finding these horribly deformed/mutilated/etc. corpses in terrifying scenes. One scene involves an emaciated corpse still bound to a bed, with a photo taken every day for a year, showing the man’s deterioration.
Then the corpse gasps.
Mrs Bates?..Mrs Bates!..
True enough. I don’t like looking at mirrors in the dark (like when you get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom). I know there isn’t anything in there, but what if there was?
You guys are hitting on a lot of the things that make a movie truly scary. It really is an artform - not everyone can make a scene truly scary. “Disturbing” is something else - supernaturally disturbing is scary; just showing the most messed-up things you can think of is not scary. Showing someone cutting off limbs with a chainsaw is messed-up and disturbing, but not necessarily scary or creepy.
AHHHHHHHH!
These are definitely two of my favorite, scariest moments, although I think it *was *the *anticipation *of the Winky’s guy that made that scene so terrifying.
Speaking of The Ring, though I think the American remake was vastly superior, the girl in the original (Sadako?) was wayyyyyyyscarier than her American counterpart. They didn’t put any garish makeup on her, or the corpses for that matter, but the way she moved and her eyes, oh god, they way they’re bugged out and looking down is so freaking unnatural. I can’t even bring myself to link to it. That’s the kind of thing that scares me most. When an actor can make themselves look utterly frightening without the benefit of makeup or special effects. See also the scene in Inland Empirewhere Laura Dern is walking down the path and there’s a closup of her face that just . . . gah. I did try to find that one but no luck.
Another chilling visual that stuck with me for days was the last shot in Roman Polanski’s “Repulsion”
The camera closes in on a picture of the main character as a child and the look on her face is absolutely unforgettable /spooky / scary.
That’s what every character in the room, and everyone watching the movie, did as well! :eek:
He was still alive. Barely. Heavily drugged, body and mind just about gone.
I was in high school when it came out, and was watching it with a bunch of friends, sitting on the floor.
I’m not ashamed to admit that scene caused me to dive for cover behind the couch.
heh, that’s awesome. The effect is even more striking than I imagined. Great links.
Anticipation and the truly unexpected do it for me. Paranormal Activity was truly one of the scariest movies I have seen. Whenever they got to another bedroom scene, I seriously considered leaving the theatre.
And zombies. shudder
Here’s that scene from “The Exorcist” I was talking about- it still creeps me out!
I was assuming it was this scene from Exorcist 3. :eek:
That’s the only time I’ve ever felt the particular sensation of all my skin levitating about an inch off the rest of my body.
Well, that one is certainly about anticipation!
In addition to other elements people have mentioned (mirrors, anticipation, things unseen or barely seen), I find recordings to be really creepy, for no reason I can define. Like, the video of Samara’s interview in The Ring and the tapes in Session 9. You can imagine how I liked Paranormal Activity! It should have made Blair Witch really scary, but I hated the “protagonists” too much to care.
Hey, isn’t there a “found footage” movie involving the Jersey Devil? I forget what it’s called.
That would be The Last Broadcast, and it’s even more cheaply made than The Blair Witch Project, if you can believe that. It also contains a logic/perspective shift that, I feel, makes it quite inferior. But, I guess it’s interesting in its own way.
You don’t see it all that much anymore, but I used to be afraid of quicksand in movies. I think the worst case was in some thing taking place in the Sahara or other big desert and right out in the middle of all these sand dunes for miles in all directions some character got swallowed up in quicksand. I had always thought of swamps and wet places as where the quicksand threat would lurk. Not deserts.
But, as I said, I can’t recall a recent movie with a quicksand event. Good thing.
Was it an Indian that got slowly sucked in and at the end you saw his skull sticking out of the ground?