# What movie scared you the most? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 19, 2007, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-scared-you-the-most/427055 "2007-11-19T18:08:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2007, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-scared-you-the-most/427055/82 "2007-11-22T16:23:47Z")
For me, it has to be _The Changeling_. I’m a sucker for that sort of traditional ghost story. ---
**Author:** ![Das\_Glasperlenspiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/das_glasperlenspiel/32/2944_2.png) [@Das\_Glasperlenspiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Das_Glasperlenspiel)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2007, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-scared-you-the-most/427055/83 "2007-11-22T16:52:18Z")
Hands down - _The Omen_ - the original. Creepy black dogs. :eek: Really scary music. :eek: :eek: I can’t watch it. I can’t read it. I get nightmares whoknowshowmany years later. ---
**Author:** ![MoodIndigo1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e8c25b/32.png) [@MoodIndigo1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MoodIndigo1)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2007, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-scared-you-the-most/427055/84 "2007-11-22T17:09:15Z")
[QUOTE=lieu] The Exorcist. To me, religious themes have the potential to be far scarier than some masked boogyman or slasher du jour. When this movie first came out its effect was absolutely sensational on the public, myself included. Many of us knew little of the full story behind Revelations and this seemed mystically terrifying, even if we knew better. People were barfing at the appearance of the subliminal face, that ghastly, putrid, submerged for a couple of weeks w/ leaches face. I’ve not seen the movie since, nor do I care to. Everything else has, in my mind, paled in comparison. [/QUOTE] When I got home from seeing the Exorcist, I couldn’t sleep for hours. Finally I dozed off, and towards morning, I dreamt that the windows of my house had all blown open and that the wind was howling through. I woke up, and the wind was blowing the sheer curtains into billowing shapes in my bedroom. I went cold. I got up, went into the living room, got a book, and spent the rest of the night up. I’ve never seen any other horror movie that scared me as much, even though I always remember Psycho whenever I see a shower scene in a movie. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2007, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-scared-you-the-most/427055/85 "2007-11-22T17:14:28Z")
[QUOTE=bobkitty] I was actually coming back to claim this one. It wasn’t until 2-3 years ago that I was able to re-watch it (a good 20+ years after seeing it the first time), and those scenes STILL scared the hell out of me. The pool scene was one of the contributing factors to my ongoing fear of water. And at the end- They killed the kid! They’re NEVER supposed to kill the kid! :eek: snip. [/QUOTE] And…Karen Black’s face at the end, after she’s been possessed. Goodness, that woman could look scary. She mentioned in the DVD commentary that some people have told her this movie is the scariest thing they’ve ever seen. So we’re not alone. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Wing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/51bf81/32.png) [@Little\_Wing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Wing)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2007, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-scared-you-the-most/427055/86 "2007-11-22T19:01:30Z")
Like several others, I have to say the last story in _Trilogy of Terror_ with that damned Zulu fetish doll or whatever the hell it was, running across the room after Karen Black, making those horrible _noises_. I haven’t seen it in years but it stands out in my mind as the most frightened I’ve ever been, watching a movie. And it was a TV movie, too! ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2007, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-scared-you-the-most/427055/87 "2007-11-22T22:08:18Z")
**Eraserhead**. I almost got sick in the theater, and had to avert my eyes. Several times. Man that movie just freaked me out. I was in college at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Rachael\_Rage](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/71c47a/32.png) [@Rachael\_Rage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachael_Rage)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2007, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-scared-you-the-most/427055/88 "2007-11-23T04:51:15Z")
[QUOTE=WOOKINPANUB] Though I didn’t see the movie when it first came out, the \*commercial \* for Suspiria could send me running out of the room. [/QUOTE] I felt this way about the commercial for **Phantasm**. It seemed to be on all the time when I was a kid and I would have to run out of the room and hide. I never managed (nor much wanted) to see the movie, but I have a feeling it wouldn’t be quite as horrifying today as it was then. Around the same time, I begged my mom to take me to **The Amityville Horror** (the 70’s one) because I liked “ghost stories.” I don’t think I had quite realized the difference between “spooky” and “horror” at that point. During the opening shooting sequence, I buried my head in my hands and didn’t look up for a long time. I think I asked my mom to leave and she was kind of like “look, kid, you asked for it and I paid for it. We’re staying.” To her credit I do think she tried to warn me if she thought anything gross was coming up. I ended up reading the book three times and eventually saw the whole movie, so I don’t think I was too traumatized. It was scary, though. As an adult the one that really scared me was **The Omen** , which I had seen before but chose to watch on Halloween night because I thought it would be amusingly ‘retro.’ I don’t want to spoil a thirty-odd year old movie, but there’s the thing about the guy’s photo that predicts death? And then a falling pane of glass? Oh my! ---
**Author:** ![Lady\_Venom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9fc348/32.png) [@Lady\_Venom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lady_Venom)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2007, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-scared-you-the-most/427055/89 "2007-11-23T17:33:00Z")
Top 4 for me… Trilogy of Terror (still can’t walk down a dark hallway) Blair Witch Project (the part at the very end freaked me right out) The Grudge - scared me to the very core Thirteen Ghosts ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2007, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-scared-you-the-most/427055/90 "2007-11-23T18:05:37Z")
My criteria for being really terriying means that even if it’s the third or twentieth time you’ve seen a movie, it _still_ scares you. I think all of mine have been mentioned. \* Alien\*, _Silence of the Lambs_, \* The Exorcist\*, and _Jaws_. Oddly enough, in _Jaws_ the scariest scene for me was one in which you never saw the shark and nobody was hurt. Remeber the night scene in which two guys used a roast to try and lure the shark. Seeing that dock go out to sea, and then turn around again and head for shore was the most suspenseful, scariest scene in the picture. ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2007, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-scared-you-the-most/427055/91 "2007-11-24T01:35:32Z")
As a kid: ‘Phantasm’. Kids making sense while the adults were stupid? Driving muscle cars, hearses, toting .45s, and being chased by dwarf-parent corpses? Coool!!! As a teenager: Halloween (1977). Donald pleasance putting (6) .357 slugs through the chest of Michael Myers. [JLC] “…it Was the boogieman.”[/JLC] [Donald Pleasance]"…as a matter of fact, it Was."[/Donald Pleasance] Scroll back to the color draining from his face and his eyes growing wide when he sees the body has gone… As a parent: Spielberg’s remake of ‘War of the Worlds’. The Train scene. Every. Time. (Oh, and Newark getting de-populated. “Daddy…whats that in your hair…?”) ---
**Author:** ![Ruffian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/71e660/32.png) [@Ruffian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruffian)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2007, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-scared-you-the-most/427055/92 "2007-11-24T05:21:24Z")
I just remembered one not yet mentioned here (that I’ve seen): _ **The Day After** _. I saw this during the heart of the cold war, and as a pubescent kid just starting to realize that The World is a Scary Place, this film scared the snot out of me. It still haunts me. I’ve only seen it once, but I remember several lines and scenes very clearly. The film takes on new significance to me in this latest The World is a Scary Place setting; one nuke takes on LA, and I’m living that nightmare. :::shudder::: ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2007, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-scared-you-the-most/427055/93 "2007-11-24T05:37:41Z")
[QUOTE=Malthus] For me, it has to be _The Changeling_. I’m a sucker for that sort of traditional ghost story. [/QUOTE] Oh yeah. I watched it again recently, and it really holds up well. If I remember right, there were two versions of _Dracula_ where he climbs up a wall – the one with Louis Jordan and the one with Frank Langella. I’m thinking it’s the Langella one, because of the “blooful lady” quote – the earlier Draculas didn’t use that. I thought for sure someone would mention _Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark_ by now. Kim Darby and the little people? Uh huh. As a kid, _Them!_ scared me bad. I had to walk home alone afterward, at night, and the cicadas were chirping. They sounded an awful lot like those big ants. ---
**Author:** ![lobstermobster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobstermobster/32/10033_2.png) [@lobstermobster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lobstermobster)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2007, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-scared-you-the-most/427055/94 "2007-11-24T05:39:17Z")
2 girls 1 cup. Seriously though, there is just something about _The Ring_. The way it’s filmed with basically no color, that horrible tape of the little girl at the institution, the faces of the victims. I was really stoned and was in the fetal position in my chair in the theater. Someone in the theater screamed out “THAT NUT BITCH!” during the tv scene at the end. Always stuck with me. I know I got in trouble for calling a child an asshole but that little girl was a nut bitch. The most long lasting scariness for me is definitely _The Exorcist_. I used to think my bed was shaking on its own and would make my mom come in and sit on it with me to make sure it was still. I’m always really scared by ancient or made up languages coming from the source of fear. Something about it just really upsets me. The Exorcist, Event Horizon, Stigmata all had some of that. Satan really needs to learn English. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2007, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-scared-you-the-most/427055/95 "2007-11-24T06:01:57Z")
The original [Invaders from Mars](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045917/) was my first one. I was about 8 or 9, so only maybe a little older than the kid in the movie. I was staying with my grandparents, but I was alone in the house at the time. It was the middle of the afternoon, but that one really got me. First was the horrible idea that there may be some times when you can’t trust your own parents (unthinkable to me up to that time). Then there was the wonderful and sinister twist on the “it was all a dream” theme at the end. Oh, yeah, and I liked the way they pronounced “mutants” (mew-tants - rhymes with ants). Even I knew that was wrong. My second one was when I was around 20, Wait Until Dark (already mentioned). The sinister buildup, and the first (that I remember) relentless killer who wouldn’t die. The scene where said killer leaps out at Audrey Hepburn from the dark caused a lot of screaming in the theater from the girls, and a lot of guys (including me) who sank down in their seats. Really got the old heart pumping. I won’t look at slasher films, I just get too sucked into the well-simulated reality of it. Psycho was ruined for me by the realistic knifing scene - I thought it went on too long. So I can’t remember being really scared since I was 20, just grossed out when I am unintentionally exposed to gore. Roddy ---
**Author:** ![Kythereia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e8c25b/32.png) [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2007, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-scared-you-the-most/427055/96 "2007-11-24T17:36:23Z")
[QUOTE=lobstermobster] 2 girls 1 cup. [/QUOTE] Oh my God I just Googled the definition of that [here](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=2+girls+1+cup) oh my God oh my God oh my God _runs to bathroom_ For me? [The Craft](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115963/). (I was twelve!) ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2007, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-scared-you-the-most/427055/97 "2007-11-26T02:50:36Z")
[QUOTE=Proudest Monkey] Going back a ways (though not as far back as Psycho), I recall a 60s thriller that kept me awake nights as a wee pre-teen: **Wait Until Dark**. Audrey Hepburn, Alan Arkin, hunting for the blind lady in a dark apartment . . . scary! Gasoline, fire, him jumping out and grabbing her ankle–guess it pales in comparison to the likes of movies like Hostel and Saw (neither of which I’ve seen), but the suspense was killer! [/QUOTE] Stephen King, in Danse Macabre, pointed out that they used a gimmick in that movie. At the end, when the lights are out and the hunt is on, they turned off _all_ the lights in the theaters. Normally, the lights are turned way down, but not off. In this case, the only lights in the house were the mandatory Exit signs. He said it was a highly effective gimmick, increased the horror level greatly. IMDB mentions it in the trivia: > [@](#): > > When the film was released, the theatres darkened all their lights “to the legal limit” during the last twelve minutes of the film, each light going out as Audrey Hepburn smashed each light bulb. The one remaining light in the theatres would be switched off as the last light source in the film went out. ---
**Author:** ![Stauderhorse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce7236/32.png) [@Stauderhorse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stauderhorse)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2007, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-scared-you-the-most/427055/98 "2007-11-26T02:54:00Z")
Child’s Play movies and impressionable five-year-olds who believe in monsters should not mix. No, they should not. I had a phobia of Chucky until I was about 12. Every night when I closed my eyes, I was afraid that if I opened them, that doll would be right in front of my face, grinning and holding a knife. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![BrknButterfly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/439d5e/32.png) [@BrknButterfly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrknButterfly)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2007, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-scared-you-the-most/427055/99 "2007-11-26T03:08:08Z")
[QUOTE=DocCathode] Killer Klowns From Outerspace. [/QUOTE] I am right there with you! That movie totally terrified me. To this day I hate clowns and still refuse to watch the movie. ---
**Author:** ![Moirai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/96bed5/32.png) [@Moirai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moirai)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2007, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-scared-you-the-most/427055/100 "2007-11-26T03:23:13Z")
[QUOTE=Stauderhorse] Child’s Play movies and impressionable five-year-olds who believe in monsters should not mix. No, they should not. I had a phobia of Chucky until I was about 12. Every night when I closed my eyes, I was afraid that if I opened them, that doll would be right in front of my face, grinning and holding a knife. :eek: [/QUOTE] There is a red-headed kid in my son’s class who looks _just like Chucky_. :eek: Seriously. My brother came to a school play and when I pointed the kid out, bro just about jumped out of his skin. And guys? I watched that goddamned _Exorcist_ trailer with the face **once**. Years ago. And I’m still not over it. Gah. I have never seen _The Changeling_ but I have seen the scene where the old wheel chair comes around suddenly and chases that guy out of the attic- holy crap! _Event Horizon_ scared me. A lot. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2007, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-scared-you-the-most/427055/101 "2007-11-26T06:00:27Z")
I know this might sound lame, but honestly, **The Mothman Prophesies** gave me the willies for about a week. Something about those scenes in the dark, or looking into the mirror, or on the phone as Indrid Cold talks to him. Mama. Don’t know why it hit a chord, but it did. Also, another vote for that scene in the **Communion**. I thought I was the only one who thought about that from time to time! Scary as hell. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-scared-you-the-most/427055.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-movie-scared-you-the-most/427055.md?page=6)