Scariest movie: Rosemary’s Baby. A bit surprised this hasn’t been mentioned yet.
Scariest scene: The Exorcist Part III - You guys know the bit I’m talking about :eek:
The Day After– all too realistic, in the Age Of Reagan.
See post #75.
I envy you guys. Scary movies just don’t scare me, for some reason. I just can’t get into them.
The one thing that really got me going was Marble Hornets on Youtube. Well, the first season of it, anyway. There are a few others that have had their moments, but nothing else that really got to me. But Marble Hornets was somehow able to capture my imagination and raise the hairs on the back of my neck.
I am discovering, however, that scary video games can do it for me. I played *Amnesia *for a few minutes, and I was actually pretty scared for some reason. But I kinda found it more jarring or annoying than scary, so I stopped playing. Lately, I’ve been playing Metro 2033. I don’t know what it is, but, damn, that is scary stuff. Every single encounter has me jumping and hyperventilating. The music, the background sounds, the visuals, everything comes together just right somehow to get me well and truly creeped out.
Just an hour ago I was playing, and I kept getting distracted by something in my peripheral vision. I kept glancing over, but of course there’s nothing there. Then, just as I’m being swarmed by the monsters in the game, my chair is jerked backwards and I screamed! My cat had jumped up on the back of my chair to hang out with me. It’s going to be a while before I can bring myself to fire up that game again.
Yeah, just watched Gaslight. Why again is that scary?? Not a half bad movie, but edge of your seat scary?? Puh Leeease.
Just about every horror movie I ever watched has scared the crap out of me.
In a supremely ill-advised move, I had the temerity to watch The Exorcist when I was about 15. Life has never been the same again… I must have slept with lights on, and someone for company, for months afterward. To me, that face is the face of horror. Can’t forget. Even today in times of stress I can have nightmares where that grinning malevolent face is staring at me.
Been scared silly by Jaws, Aliens, assorted B-grade gorefests, Evil Dead, Omen, Nightmare on Elm Street… Braindead was a particularly gut-churning movie.
Of late, I have grown up a bit and actually enjoyed watching the Alien movies again. But I’ll stay the hell away from Exorcist for the rest of my life.
Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark. Interestingly, the person who told me about it scoffed at it as being pure cheese. Not even. Three big reasons why it terrified me:
-
Uncanny valley. The creatures are played by heavily costumed and made-up dwarfs, so they retain just enough human characteristics to be creepy. Plus, they talk, which non-humanoids don’t usually do in these movies.
-
Creepy, Poe-ish house. When you live in a big old house in a forest, as I did, you have fear built in.
-
No one believes the main character that something creepy and bad is happening, because of course, only she can see or hear it. That’s another reason why children/teenagers are more susceptible. Not being believed is par for them.
And the runner-up would be Phantasm. Which I didn’t see until I was an adult. Which just proves how powerful it is.
That was my experience also. Watched it alone on TV at a young age. I was looking at the back of my parents necks for weeks.
Another vote for Kubrick’s The Shining.
Although, if we talk about scenes instead of movies, the ending of Carrie would win hand down.
The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane. 14 year old Jodie Foster has never acted better or more frightening.
Is that deliberate?
Ever been “gaslighted” and you couldn’t easily get out of the situation? I have, and that’s why it was so scary for me. It falls into the category of psychological thriller.
I was completely freaked out by that ending. It still gives me goose bumps.
Burnt Offerings has a similarly upsetting ending–not to mention the rest of the movie.
A documentary on Guinea Worms.
Wow.
I will never look at bait the same way again.
It sure made me grateful I live in an area with safe drinking water, that’s for sure.
I Tivo’d this a few days ago, and watched it earlier this evening.
I was a kid too when I first saw that one…I thought it was just weird; and I hated that mastermind-in-a-bubble and his/its android servants. What I most remember was the scene near the end where the kid’s face appears like a bobblehead (I guess he was running from something).
Of course. 
As a teen in the 90s I watched all the Nightmare on Elm Streets, Pet Semetary, Friday 13ths, and various other sleepover classics.
So don’t think I’m an *utter *lightweight when I say the scariest film I ever sat through in the cinema, sneaking glances at my watch to see if it would be over soon so I could escape, was Jurassic Park.
I saw Jaws 2 before I saw the original.
It was at a drive-in. I was 9.
The scene where the teenagers are on an upturned catamaran and they’re trying to get the youngest Brody kid, who’s clinging to the keel of another upturned boat, to catch a rope so they can pull him to their dubious place of safety stuck with me. And then the shark eats a helicopter…
And (please don’t judge me for this), I was in exactly the right mood when I watched Cloverfield. I really got immersed in that movie. A couple of times I had to remind myself to breathe.