# Scariest movie **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [July 14, 2025, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-movie/1020831 "2025-07-14T01:56:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![WOOKINPANUBv.2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wookinpanubv.2/32/3260_2.png) [@WOOKINPANUBv.2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WOOKINPANUBv.2)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2025, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-movie/1020831/21 "2025-07-14T06:21:22Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > While watching _The Wizard of Oz_ sometime in the 1980s, my father told me when he was my age the flying monkeys scared the hell out of him. I was perplexed because nothing in that movie was frightening. I first saw NotLD circa 1986 and I was 9 or 10. Was it scary? Not in the least. Same here, except the teller was my mom. It seemed legit at the time- when I was six. It wasn’t until much later that I understood the context in which she’d watched it. You and I and everyone here have been watching all manner of scary movies and tv shows, right in our own living room for as far back as we can remember. TWOO would have been quite a a spectacle. And I can see how The Wicked Witch of the West could freak a kid out. Getting back to the OP, the only way I can answer these kind of questions without loosing my mind is to say whatever comes to my mind, which is usually going to be the best, _most recent_ that scared me. That would be **Oddity.** I mentioned it in the movie thread. It’s well acclaimed by viewers who are into the genre but I don’t know how wide it’s release has been. Anyway, on a rare " actually watch and get into it" movie night, I turned off the lights and let myself get immersed. Holy feck, just the opening sequence had me _not quite looking directly at the screen_ It’s one of those films that _can’t not_ sound stupid on paper. “Blind, psychic uses cursed objects to solve the murder of her twin sister”. What an original, frightening, satisfying film. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Wiggler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/red_wiggler/32/13190_2.png) [@Red\_Wiggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Wiggler)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2025, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-movie/1020831/22 "2025-07-14T11:04:53Z")
Maybe because of the time and place but **The Exorcist** shook all four of us who went to the theatre that night. Second place might go to **Alien** or its sequel because of the masterful buildups. ---
**Author:** ![MacDoc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/macdoc/32/18696_2.png) [@MacDoc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacDoc)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2025, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-movie/1020831/23 "2025-07-14T11:25:46Z")
My partner could not handle this movie…very disturbing to her **For the movie buffs** - this is in three parts that will play in sequence and increased my respect for what Michael Mann et al created One of my all time fav movies, cast, director and score Stowe is gorgeous Well worth watching the three parts Thumbs up (y) [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/AEXWcT5idQ8/maxresdefault.jpg "Making "The Last Of The Mohicans" Part 1") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEXWcT5idQ8) ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2025, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-movie/1020831/24 "2025-07-14T11:42:57Z")
Since it seems like this thread is leaning towards older movies, I’ll go with the 1955 version of The Night Of The Hunter. ---
**Author:** ![Crane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crane/32/3495_2.png) [@Crane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crane)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2025, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-movie/1020831/25 "2025-07-14T11:49:28Z")
Diabolique ---
**Author:** ![Llama\_Llogophile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@Llama\_Llogophile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Llama_Llogophile)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2025, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-movie/1020831/26 "2025-07-14T12:09:49Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > [When the Wind Blows (1986 film) - Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_the_Wind_Blows_(1986_film)) The Day After? On the Beach? Pfff. > **[Threads (1984 film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threads_(1984_film))** > > Threads is a 1984 British-Australian apocalyptic war drama television film directed and produced by Mick Jackson and written by Barry Hines. A dramatic account of the potential medical, economic, social, and environmental consequences of a nuclear war in Britain, it follows two families in Sheffield as a confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union erupts into war and a general nuclear exchange between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. > An international co-production between the BBC, N... Threads makes other nuclear war movies look like Disney musicals. Talk about bleak… ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2025, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-movie/1020831/27 "2025-07-14T12:27:33Z")
The scene that got me was when she was signalling with horn honks while he was pissing. Lynch really had a way with building tension. ---
**Author:** ![XOldiesJock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/ec9cab/32.png) [@XOldiesJock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XOldiesJock)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2025, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-movie/1020831/28 "2025-07-14T12:32:09Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#): > > _I really like Failsafe, but On the Beach, also packed quite the punch and was even more bleak._ **On the Beach** has always been a favorite of mine. I first saw it on TV when I was about 9 or 10 years old, just a few years after its theatrical release. I consider it the first adult-themed movie I ever saw. Steeped as we were in the fears of the Cold War, it really made an impression on me. It was too real. I’ve read and re-read the novel many times. Fine performances by all, including Fred Astaire in his first dramatic role. The film differs from the novel in some respects, but the end is every bit as bleak. “There is still time…Brother” reads the street banner seen at the end, but every night when I watch the world and national news, I come away with the feeling that madness has taken over, and we are soon to run out of time. Have a nice day! ---
**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2025, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-movie/1020831/29 "2025-07-14T12:35:43Z")
Other than nuclear war movies the one that scared me the most when I saw it was the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The girl popping up out of the freezer was shocking as all get out scary. And him placing the guy on the meat hooks was bone chilling. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2025, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-movie/1020831/30 "2025-07-14T12:48:10Z")
It’s not the scariest film I’ve watched. But the bleakest and most depressing film I’ve watched is [The Grey Zone](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0252480/). ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2025, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-movie/1020831/31 "2025-07-14T12:48:46Z")
At one time I would have said ‘The Exorcist’, but after I became a father, it became movies, not necessarily horror movies, in which children came to harm. I rented ‘Funny Games’ (American version) and only about 15 or 20 minutes in, I realized I could not watch it because there was a family with kid about the age of my kids at the time, and I knew in a general sense what was coming. A few years ago I couldn’t sleep, so I got up and found the movie ‘The Exorcism of Emily Rose’ on a streaming channel. I was watching it all alone, in the dead hours of the early morning, when there was a scene where Emily, sleeping in her college dorm room, started to experience a possession, which caused her to contort and writhe in agony. The camera panned to a digital clock radio on her night stand-- the red digital numbers showed 3:00 am, the ‘witching hour’ time the possession events would happen. Which caused me to reflectively look up at the time on the same model of digital clock with the same red numbers we had sitting above the TV-- and it showed-- yep, 3:00 am. I thought it was a funny coincidence. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2025, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-movie/1020831/32 "2025-07-14T13:03:28Z")
_Zombieland_. Sorry, but if its primary aim is not to make me laugh, it’s not even on my radar. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2025, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-movie/1020831/33 "2025-07-14T13:16:01Z")
> [@Llama\_Llogophile](#): > > Threads makes other nuclear war movies look like Disney musicals Though i can’t speak to how terrifying this is to as a kid growing up under the threat of nuclear apocalypse, as there was zero chance of my parents letting me stay up to watch it. Hell, i wouldn’t have wanted to, which says a lot as to how terrified i was of such things, I would have happily watched the goriest video nasty if I’d been allowed. Though TBH i am skeptical it would be more terrifying than When The Wind Blows, as it deliberately leaves the horrors of nuclear war to your imagination, which as any good horror movie maker knows, is always going to be scarier than actually showing you “the monster” ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2025, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-movie/1020831/34 "2025-07-14T13:19:56Z")
> [@Llama\_Llogophile](#): > > Threads makes other nuclear war movies look like Disney musicals. Talk about bleak… Nuclear war movies, true. I do think Come and See was worse, but it is a WW2 movie. ---
**Author:** ![JoePockets](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8dc957/32.png) [@JoePockets](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoePockets)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2025, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-movie/1020831/35 "2025-07-14T13:47:46Z")
The Thing. _The Thing from Another World_ Was the first science fiction that I watched and had my full attention as a youngster im sure it had movie and drive-in goer’s at the edge of there seats back then! ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2025, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-movie/1020831/36 "2025-07-14T13:58:52Z")
A nuclear holocaust seemed so inevitable as a kid, realistic movies about such an event just weren’t that scary to me unless it involved elements like post apocalyptic mutants or crazed cannibal biker gangs and the such. We reassured ourselves by noting likely nearby targets that would make our end a quick one, ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2025, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-movie/1020831/37 "2025-07-14T14:13:20Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > movies about such an event just weren’t that scary to me Absolutely not the case for me. I was utterly terrified of anything related to nuclear war, even radiation related plot lines not related to nuclear war were scary. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2025, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-movie/1020831/38 "2025-07-14T14:15:07Z")
By virtue of that one scene alone: **Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure**. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2025, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-movie/1020831/39 "2025-07-14T15:29:00Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > _Zombieland_. Sorry, but if its primary aim is not to make me laugh, it’s not even on my radar. I can understand that you didn’t find it funny, but do you really find it to be one of the scarier movies you’ve seen? ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2025, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-movie/1020831/40 "2025-07-14T15:30:56Z")
Hitchcock’s _The Birds_, seen at age 13 one night on TV. I had to go down to the basement (in our home, a creepy place) afterwards, which was not pleasant. The original _The Shining_, viewed in the theater was scary, the book as least as much, especially when reading key parts alone in the house after dark. Don’t even get me started on _The Sound of Music_. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-movie/1020831.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scariest-movie/1020831.md?page=3)