I saw a clip of a standup routine recently where the comedian said that jump scares are like if he’d start tickling audience members, going, ‘see, I’m funny, you’re laughing’!
Have you ever seen Haunted with Aidan Quinn and Kate Beckinsale? It wasn’t perfect, but it was nice at upsetting assumptions.
Nope, I’ll check it out sometime.
I don’t watch a lot of horror because of my anxiety, but when I do it’s usually weird, atmospheric or psychological horror. I appreciate the slow build up of dread and just being in a really creepy setting. Some movies I have liked (not all horror, but horror-adjacent) are The Omen, Shutter Island, The Lighthouse, The Thing, the Peele movies and my personal all-time favorite, Alien. I also thought the Haunting of Hill House TV series was excellent. Ditto the Silent Hill video games.
I am not bothered by gore but I am extremely sensitive to humans being cruel to other humans. Torture is right out.
I like movies that are at the intersection of science fiction and horror, like Alien, The Thing, and The Fly. There’s something about genetically twisted, scary creatures that fascinates me.
I like horror that doesn’t show the blood/gore/scares right away, but uses suspense. There was a scene in the second Alien movie where the xenomorph rises up behind the pilot bringing in the landing craft. She glances back and the view cuts to the instrument panel as a spray of blood goes across it. Your imagination, (which can produce the worst horrors} fills in what happened.
You didn’t see the shark in Jaws until about a third of the way through the film.
Anthony Hopkin’s acting scared the heck out of me when he simply talked the Jodie Foster
I like the suspense of the Hitchcock movies.
The Man Who Knew Too Much and Rear Window are my favorites.
I avoid watching movies with explicit violence. There’s too much of it in real life.
I’d like to see comedy/horror return. Movies like Re-Animator are still my favorites. The horror is so absurd that it’s funny.
This is exactly how I feel! I can quite enjoy a slasher/serial killer type horror movie, but they don’t scare me.
Did you see “Skinamarink?” If not, give it a go.
Evil Dead 2 is kind of an amazing comedy in its second half.
I haven’t seen Evil Dead 2. I’ll check it out.
I’ve seen Evil Dead. It’s gory but so absurd that I like the movie.
I have two broad categories I like, and three that I dislike.
Like 1. Movies with supernatural villains. The Exorcist, the Conjuring movies, Annabelle, etc.
Like 2. Movies with slasher villains. Friday the 13th, Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, etc.
Dislike 1. Movies where ordinary people act in odd ways. I’m not talking about the typical cliches like splitting up, going out into the woods alone at night, not finishing off the bad guy when they have a chance, and so on. Instead I’m talking about movies where people act as if nothing is wrong even when it’s blatantly obvious that there is something weird happening. There’s a creepy movie from the 80s which is supposedly a children’s movie, but is way scarier than anything Freddy Krueger or Michael Myers can dish out. I present The Peanut Butter Solution as an example.
Dislike 2. Real life crime made into horror. I’m an escapist when it comes to entertainment. I get enough real life in my real life. I don’t need more of it from my entertainment.
Dislike 3. Stuff that is supposed to be for children but is actually psychedelic / creepy. A lot of old Disney movies fall into this category. Dumbo and Pinocchio are some examples. The boat scene in Willy Wonka is another. Anything involving Muppets. I don’t get how this stuff can be considered entertaining for children.
I don’t like gory movies so my pick is The Others starring Nicole Kidman. Set during the last of WWII and very grim.
It’s great if you have insomnia! Otherwise it’s barely even watchable.
I agree. I’m surprised it’s been mentioned twice in this thread.
I’ll watch pretty much any horror movie as long as it’s with other people, and probably some alcohol, so you can talk back and forth, guess who the killer is, guess who get killed next etc. Definitely a group watching experience. If I had to watch a slasher flick by myself I would probably fall asleep.
I disagree, but I also don’t hold it against anyone for whom it was not their cup of tea. Personally I found it powerfully effective, as did those I watched it with.
I recently watched this for the first since the 80s and was amazed how good it was. It was so economical. If it were made today, it would spend 15 minutes introducing Seth and Veronica before they meet, but instead the very first scene is them chatting at a party and the attraction is made obvious without any heavy dramatics.
And later, this exchange:
Ronnie:
I don’t know what you’re trying to say.
Seth:
I’m saying… I’m saying I - I’m an insect who dreamt he was a man and loved it. But now the dream is over… and the insect is awake.
Ronnie:
No. no, Seth…
Seth:
I’m saying… I’ll hurt you if you stay.
Love in conflict with unstoppable instinct? That’s horror.
Like with any other genre, I just want to see something I haven’t seen a million times already. Surprise me, and not with cheap jump scares. Nothing wrong with throwing those in every now and then but if that’s entirely the source of “horror” then you’re doing it wrong.
What bothers me in horror films is shitty writing. Your basic Hollywood summer slasher movie. I Know What You Did Last Summer, Valentine, Urban Legend, the majority of Friday the 13th movies, these movies are total shit. Lazy, cookie-cutter fill-in-the-blanks scripts. You root for the killers because the protagonists are all just caricatures of caricatures, and the killer is easily the most interesting character in the whole thing.
Torture horror doesn’t bother me. It’s just effects, and usually is used as a replacement for decent writing. The Saw movies at least attempted to be clever about it, where the Hostel films did not. The Human Centipede films are actually quite compelling if you can stand to watch them.
I really want to watch this with the commentary tracks of all involved, but I understand that the cast and crew and the director are all on different versions or somesuch.
Because they had problems with the animatronic shark (nicknamed Bruce) malfunctioning. Imagine if Jaws hadn’t been made until the CGI era, it probably would be about as compelling as Sharknado.