What is the scariest movie you have ever seen?

[steve12553]

Re: The Scariest Movie Ever!

A werewolf film i watched as a child i think it was called the wolfen?

Not truely a werewolf film and the title was Wolfen. Definitely a scary film. A younger Albert Finney and wolves with the souls of Amerinds.

 

[geordie bob]

Re: The Scariest Movie Ever!

Did they crie like children to attract human prey?

sorry about spelling getting tired

 

[Jack]

Re: The Scariest Movie Ever!

Wolfen the film, suffers a bit from age and going too far away from the book by W Strieber. They are meant to be humanoid wolves with talons that have large intelligence, the book is very disturbing.
But yes they cry like babies to lure you in.

 

[Ahm Shere]

Re: The Scariest Movie Ever!

I gotta say, The Exorcist for me. I was terrified and couldn't sleep for weeks after seeing that! I used to be terrified of The Ring (The American Version) but not anymore. I love it now.

I didn't like The Amityville Horror that much, not because it was scary (because I didn't) But I always feel uneasy about films based on True Stories.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was pretty...'Woah' I wasn't scared, just queasy.

 

[scarface]

Re: The Scariest Movie Ever!

Dawn of the Dead was such a great watch in the theater!When the need to feed started....man they ran!I pictured myself running flat out,maybe making it to a tree & then being ripped to pieces...ouch.Fallen scared me in that the demon could go into your own child & being so very hard to destroy.Exorcist(director's cut?)when the kid did her crab walk...yech!I love horror movies but that's all I've got for now~need coffee!!!!

 

[ravenus]

Re: The Scariest Movie Ever!

.Exorcist(director's cut?)when the kid did her crab walk

That's not the DC. In fact, director William Friedkin specifically excised that scene from the original cut because he wanted the film to remain grounded in rationalism for as long as possible and all the supernatural stuff to come in one big blast.

 

[HoopyFrood]

Re: The Scariest Movie Ever!

I've never seen the crab walk! I've always wanted to...right, to YouTube, I think!

Ok, done! Woo, that's weird. Love it! But I don't think it's as good as when The Grudge woman goes down the stairs. As far as stairs walking goes, that's the best one!

 

[MolotovCocktail]

What is the scariest you've seen ever???

I find some of the ones about serial killers quite disturbing (And i don't mean the gory ones).

 

[Nesacat]

I guess a lot depends on what one defines horror as being and you're right; many of the movies touted as being 'horror' movies are anything but horrifying.

One that I find scary is Angel Heart with Mickey Rourke & Robert de Niro. There's also the Japanese version of Dark Water.

Another would be Call of Cthulhu - the old black and white one which looks like an amateur production. There is also Shadow of the Vampire with Willem Dafoe & John Malkovich.

 

[littlemissattitude]

I don't see a lot of horror movies, and most of the ones I have seen haven't been especially scary. So, having said that, I'll first agree with Nesa...Angel Heart was quite frightening. But I'd have to say the films that were "scariest", in terms of making me uneasy, were The Birds and Alien.

Then there are the films I refuse to see becuase just the trailers have creeped me out too much. Those would be Psycho (Hitchcock strikes again) and Night of the Living Dead - the original version.

 

[Curt Chiarelli]

I'm afraid I find most modern horror pathetically manipulative, puerile, inept and ineffectual in both its means and ends.

However, there have been moments where the stale fever dreams of childhood have been distilled in it's purest form and administered to my cortex with devastating effect. Films like Eraserhead and the original Nosferatu are amongst the finest achievements in horror. And then there are particular scenes from a myriad of other, lesser films like Halloween and the 1979 version of Dracula that have seriously unsettled me (Michael Meyers as The-Thing-That-Will-Not-Rest-Until-It-Destroys-You is a potent archetype who can trace his lineage back to Harryhausen's Talos from Jason and the Argonauts and even further to Paul Wegner's Der Golem. And that scene in Dracula where Professor van Helsing confronts the corpse of his own daughter who has become a vampire, an emissary from the Kingdom of Death - "Paaapaaa, come mit me!" - chills me to the marrow because of its queesy blend of child-like innocence in the delivery of that line, tacit incestuousness, necrophilia and corporeal decomposition.)

It should be duly noted that I can no longer watch these films because they disturb me on the most fundamental level. Now that's what I call good horror!

 

[kythe]

I was around 12 or so when I saw "Something is out there" at someone's house. It wasn't my choice, but it was the kind of film that I couldn't stop watching once it started. It scared me for years. I still think about it at times. I probably should see it again, now that I am an adult, to get a different perspective on it.

 

[j d worthington]

The majority of "slasher" or serial killer films bore me. I'm just not one to react with a genuine chill to blatant physical horror/repulsion. I like a little more finesse, myself. I like something that gets in there and niggles at you with intimations and adumbrations, rather than smacking you in the face with a cold mackerel. Not all such films are of that type, no. But a huge majority of them on this theme are, sadly. No reason you can't have a truly disturbing and haunting piece about a serial killer -- it's been done: Robert Mitchum in Night of the Hunter is a good example, for instance; or (again, Mitchum) that throroughly nasty type, Max Cady, in Cape Fear (1962; I've not seen the remake, but Mitchum's was quite nasty enough....).

However... among those that have always haunted me: The Haunting (1963) by Robert Wise. So many superb moments in there because you're never really sure about things... and you don't really see what it is that's haunting Hill House... only hear it, or see its effects; so your imagination can really go to town.

Several of the films Val Lewton produced would be on my list; all understated, but that allows them to get in there quietly and disturb all the more. The Seventh Victim (1943), for instance. Can even seem slow and plodding, a little silly at times... but it builds toward a very ... effective ... ending. That last screen moment still sends a chill up and down my spine.....

Or I Walked with a Zombie (also 1943); I don't know whether Darby Jones' Carrefour or Christine Gordon's Jessica Holland are the more unsettling (or more pitiful) zombies(?) here. But the creepiness here is the pervasiveness of a culture's superstitions, and the question of whether they have a basis in reality or simply in distorted thinking... but how they affect lives, and make monsters of even the most innocent....

There are others I'd put on the list. The original Night of the Living Dead certainly did it for me the first time I saw it -- in a packed-house, primed like a keg of gunpowder waiting for the match. Very effective that way, it is; genuinely terrifying.

I quite like the original Japanese version of The Ring and, as Nesa said, Dark Water. Also Ju-On (The Grudge). All of those were very effectively scary films, much better than the "in-your-face" sort of thing, and can still get the hair up on the back of my neck after repeated viewings. The American version of The Ring left me cold, unimpressed. Too much flash and glitter, not enough subtlety and substance. Alejandro Amenábar's The Others is another one, in some ways. Also Guillermo Del Toro's The Devil's Backbone. And, in some ways, Stuart Gordon's Dagon, though that one had to grow on me. Didn't care at all for it the first time out, but now it's become a personal favorite... and it gets creepier each viewing, as the genuine eerieness factor is understated, and -- appropriately, for a film on that theme -- surfaces when you least expect it....

 

[murphy]

The Haunting, based on the Shirley Jackson novel. That scared me so much I couldn't sleep that night.

 

[ravenus]

I love The Seventh Victim and I walked with a Zombie too, but I think of them as sepulchral and depressing films rather than scary ones.

My fav scary movie = The Innocents

 

[Pyan]

No contest: The Black Cat (1934 version)

Made over 70 years ago, and without much of the gore and splatter that bored me so much that I gave up watching "modern" horror films about the time of the decline and fall of the House of Hammer: without doubt the most genuinely scary film I have ever seen - disturbed my sleep for weeks after seeing it for the first time.

Modern film: the only genre film that I would consider as a scary one would be the original Alien (1979)

The Black Cat (1934)
(contains spoilers)

 

[dustinzgirl]

Any movie with Jennifer (Aniston, Love-Hewitt) in it comes pretty close....

Silent Hill scared the crap out of me, but that was probably because I was home by myself (which never happens) I had all the lights turned off, and was watching that movie. Then there is the old stand by, Nightmare on Elm St., which still gives me the creeps when I watch it, but then again I was way little as a kid when I first saw it. And, I do love the old monster movies, some of them didn't really scare me but got me thinking WHAT IF? Like: Day of the Animals (all the animals go nuts and start attacking humans) THEM! (giant ants) Ants! (little poisonous ants) and that spider movie that wasn't really good, and I can't remember the name of it, but hundreds of normal sized trantulas were making hills and eating people. Then of course, who isn't scared when they see Arachnaphobia? I don't even go into our garage because of that movie (and, there are LOTS of spiders in the garage, it needs to be fumigated).

But as for true, deep down, scare: Cape Fear takes the cake. DeNiro was so convincingly scary in that movie it left an impression on me. And not one I liked, either. That was the first and last time I ever watched that movie.---I never saw the original and likely I will not see the original because the remake was bad enough. I did not like it, not at ALL.



PS: And Night of the Living Dead, original in black and white. Now, there is nothing like zombies and blood in black and white, it has a special kind of scary.

The Others was scary, especially when you did not know what was really going on, but as for leaving a lasting impression of scary, no, because you find out what is going on at the end, and its sad but beautiful in a way. And then, there is that part where the little girl looks old and she says "I am your duaghter" First time I saw that, I nearly peed myself.

 

[HappyHippo]

It's a joke in our house that I can't watch anything scarier than a 12-rating these days...

having said that, the first five murders in Seven scared the poop out of me, I couldn't sleep and I was scared walking back home. I say the first four coz at that point I got up and left. I find it hard that if the writer had done what he wrote in real life, he'd be behind bars, but it's acceptable to sell the ideas to Hollywood and show millions of people your sick side!

Silence of the Lambs also terrified me, not so much the gore but the base-level inhumanity.

Yes, I'm a real wuss...

 

[Talysia]

I don't usually watch scary movies, but I think the ones that left me with goosebumps after watching them were Ring (original Japanese version) and Dark Water (again, original Japanese version.) I won't watch the remakes - they just seem a bit too obvious. If I'm going to watch a scary film, then I want one that's going to make me think and use my imagination, rather than have it splashed across the screen in gore.

 

[dustinzgirl]

It's a joke in our house that I can't watch anything scarier than a 12-rating these days...

having said that, the first five murders in Seven scared the poop out of me, I couldn't sleep and I was scared walking back home. I say the first four coz at that point I got up and left. I find it hard that if the writer had done what he wrote in real life, he'd be behind bars, but it's acceptable to sell the ideas to Hollywood and show millions of people your sick side!

Silence of the Lambs also terrified me, not so much the gore but the base-level inhumanity.

Yes, I'm a real wuss...

Thats funny, I didn't find any of those movies terrifying. I laughed in Silence of the Lambs, because that whole "It rubs the lotion on its skin" and the way Hannibal (hopkins) did that whole slurpy sound thing. That movie had me rolling.

Seven was a horrible movie at the end. I did not like it at all and it made me feel awful.