Looking for streaming, preferably free. I don’t watch scary movies often but get the itch every now and then. Sorry I don’t have much to give you as far as what works, but the only two films that I recall having the desired effect recently are: Absentia, the first half of Insidious,
Years ago, the American version of The Ring also creeped me right out. The first Scream, too, though I’m not really looking for a slasher right now. Creepy ghosts n’ stuff.
Anything you’ve seen recently that made you reluctant to go to sleep?
Just last night I watched Event Horizon. Most “scary movies” are scary because there’s a lot startle-the-audience moments and gore. That’s it. I thought Event Horizon was actually scary, in a true psychological thriller sense.
Have no idea if it’s streaming, I picked it up at the library so it was free for me.
Mothman Prophecies, maybe not scary but is creepy and puts you in a weird “everything that I know about reality is wrong and I’m being watched” mood. Especially good if music and soundfx creeps you you out.
The Thing (1982), for paranoia.
Jacob’s Ladder
Session 9
[Rec] is probably the best found footage horror movie, although that may not be saying much.
The '80s version of The Blob is more B-movie shlock than outright scary, but the way the monster kills is nightmarish. Then again, I saw it as a kid, so YMMV.
I recently watched The Babadook (from Australia), but I still haven’t decided if I liked it or not.
It had some genuinely terrifying moments, but in the main it was more said than it was scary. And it completely stopped making sense about ten minutes before the end.
If you’ve been menaced by a paranormal entity bent on destroying you (or at the least, driving you to madness), once you gain control over it you don’t imprison it and care for it. You exorcise it (or whatever).
The TV show Twin Peaks creeped the hell out of me. I was checking all my closets for killer Bob [not a spoiler] and triple checking the door and window locks before I could go to bed every night right after watching the show.
The French film Diabolique is pretty edge-of-seat, but you have to be able to deal with subtitles on TV. Big plus is that Simone Signoret is in it. The original Alien is scary, but you’ve probably already seen that.
Both take a little while to get going, so be patient. The premise is a hoaky, fake ‘paranormal investigators’ TV show that go into an abandoned hospital that turns out to actually be haunted. VERY scary.