I don’t know about scariest, but one of the *creepiest *movies I’ve even seen was Ju-on. But it did scare the fuck out of me.
Probably the horror movie that had the largest effect on me during my formative years was John Carpenter’s The Thing. Perfect blend of mystery, horror, and terror.
Oh, I just remembered. A movie that scared me so much as a kid I actually wet the bed rather than risk getting up in the darkness was the remake of** Invasion of the Body Snatchers**. I was sure a pod duplicate was beneath my bed waiting to grab me if I decided to make a break for the bathroom. I think I was 10.
Invaders From Mars (1954 version) which I saw on TV alone at my grandparents’ house in the middle of the afternoon. I was maybe 8. The scariest parts had to do with not the aliens but the parents, who became monsters (but they were redeemed at the end). And then the ending where it all starts over again.
Rear Window (also 1954 version) which I saw a little bit too young. The tension was more than I was prepared for, and the fall at the end was terrifying to me.
Wait Until Dark - like everyone else in the theater, I jumped at that one point - you know the one. I was in college at the time I saw it, and I saw it on campus. Funny, but although lots of the young women in the audience screamed, all the guys I could see just hunkered down in their seats, as if to cover the backs of their necks (so did I). So macho.
I can’t watch slasher films, they just gross me out (and I can’t seem to be sufficiently detached to think “it’s just a movie”). There’s one, however, that was a bit more subtle than most of them, I don’t remember the name of it, but it takes place in a hospital or insane asylum. Just things being slightly off, and vague shapes moving in the background. Creeped me right the hell out.
Roddy
I forgot one: The Other, which I saw in my early 20’s. Mostly because I didn’t figure out the twist until they actually showed it, and the ending was really creepy. The baby in the barrel - ugh!
Actually, now that I think about it, the most profoundly unsettling movie I can remember ever seeing, which weighed on my spirits for months, was the original Lord of the Flies. I was just slightly older than the boys in that movie, and I found it scary because it was so believable.
Roddy
Me too. I first saw The Shining at ten years old, and I still have the sort of visceral reaction to it that can only accompany something which frightened you as a child. Eighteen years later, I am still irrationally scared of those twin girls in the hallway. If I come across an article on, say, Kubrick, I have to read it by slowly scrolling, just in case. If I’m surprised by a picture of that specific frame of the movie, I feel punched in the gut with fear. I have to shut my eyes and scroll back up, and I wont finish the article.
No other movie has effected me this way. Clown from Poltergeist? Michael Meyers? Jason, Freddy, Alien, Leather face? I outgrew my fear of all of them. Twins in blue dresses? Total panic.
I’d be curious to know everyone’s age and/or particular spiritual beliefs that has posted in this thread. I’ve seen every movie mentioned so far and none of them have scared me at all. The Shining and Jaws probably came closest, but not really. Ghosts/spirits/supernatural entities/huge ass sharks don’t do it for me because I can fairly easily dismiss them as hogwash; don’t get me wrong, they make great entertainment, but scary? Not so much.
The only movies that really disturb me are ones I can…relate to (although ‘relate’ isn’t really the right term). For instance, the scariest movies I have seen are probably: Irreversible, Martyrs, Hostel 2, A Serbian Film, Human Centipede, etc. Many would consider these “torture porn” and dismiss them offhandedly, but I find them more realistic, and thus scarier, than say a ghost that’s wreaking havoc on a family, a la Poltergeist or Amityville Horror.
Yep. It’s a primal fear – people you think you know becoming something else. I think it’s scarier than Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Maybe because I was also 8 or 9 when I saw it. Lots of movies have scared me while I was watching, but few have had any lasting impact outside the theater.
After Cult of the Cobra, the bed covers had to be up around my neck. Still do, and it’s been 50+ years.
+2 on The Changeling for good old-fashioned chills.
Psycho certainly bothered me the first time I saw it. Must have been 1995 or so and…I know this is amazing, but I had absolutely no idea what the twist was.
Seeing Norman in the dress at the end with that wild look on his face…was amazingly shocking and disturbing. I actually let out a brief shout of shock when it was revealed to be him.
I was lucky to experience what audiences in 1960 must have experienced. It was amazing.
I also have a fear of heights and saw Mission Impossible IV(Ghost protocol) on the Imax screen and when Cruise goes out on the exterior of Burj Khalif, both my wife and I freaked out in a fun way. Easily the best in the series and one of the more intense and scary sequences I’ve seen.
For me there are several contenders, but if I can pick just one it’s Silence of the Lambs. With lesser actors it might not have been as good, but Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster were superb, and deserved their Oscars.
It’s a movie where when a guy is simply talking he’s so scary I’m creeped the heck out. I refer to when Hopkins was talking to Foster through the glass cell wall. Shudder.
I saw Jaws when it eventually turned up in my wee town, aged seven or eight. The head in the boat thing is the most shocked I’ve ever been at the cinema. I had bad dreams whwre my bed blankets were the jaws of a shark for a while after.
When Salem’s Lot was shown on British TV, that was a major topic in the playground the days after. Creepy rather than outright fright, but still. Brrr.
Here’s my “Exorcist” story. I was in college, it was the weekend before Halloween, and both of my housemates were gone for the weekend. I don’t remember if it was a Friday or Saturday night but I had to work and got home around 11:30. They were showing “The Exorcist” as the midnight movie on campus, and I’d never seen it before, so I figured what the heck, I’d go see it all by myself.
It was bad enough that that movie freaked me the hell out, but you know how early in the movie (before the full-blown possession stuff starts) they keep hearing scratching sounds coming from the attic? Well, I get home from the movie, I’m trying to go to sleep, and I start hearing this scratching noise coming from somewhere. Scared the living crap out of me! It turns out it was my roommate’s cat scratching at my door because he was hungry or something, but jeezus… :eek:
The Haunting, which I saw when I was in junior high school. I’d already read the book it was based on, Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, so I knew what to expect, but still…