BS: Scary Films

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: Grab
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 10:54 AM

"Event Horizon" scared the crap out of me at the cinema. I'll second Clinton on "The Thing" as well. Seems like aliens make better horror films than ghosties, in general.

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 10:17 AM

That's the one, Fiolar. Thanks for helping me keep my sanity (?)

Cheers

:D

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: Sam L
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 10:15 AM

Yes the Dutch The Vanishing was excellent, but not especially as a scary movie. The trailers I saw for the schlock American version were scarier. The original struck me more as an intellectual thriller, and one that I liked more than I really should. Notable for the funniest act of heroism I've ever seen, and the quickest feeling that you really know a character--that woman.

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: Gray D
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 09:28 AM

Pah! What a bunch of beginners!

The scariest film ever made is the original Dutch version of "The Vanishing", also known as "Spoorloos".

If you've seen the extremely poor U.S. version they've already ruined it for you.

If you haven't, try watching the original, late at night, on your own. But make sure you have something handy to help you get to sleep afterwards.

Gray D

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: SINSULL
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 09:06 AM

1950s "Invaders from Mars" terrified me as a child. I took my son to see the updated version and he was frightened for the same reason - you could not trust any of the people you are raised to trust. Plus falling in a hole and getting aneedle in the back of the neck.

The original "Cape Fear" terrified me as well. I could never stand Robert Mitchum in any role after that. Once again, the update was too graphic and left nothing to the imagination. Do modern viewers not think or prefer not to?

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: Fiolar
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 08:50 AM

Dave - It was called "Don't Look Now" (1973) and also starred Julie Christie. It was based on a short story by Daphne du Maurier.

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: Sam L
Date: 29 Oct 03 - 03:16 PM

Yes, I think it was Dennis Weaver, and that it was Speilberg's film school grad project. High tension. I loved it.

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Oct 03 - 12:54 PM

Do you mean "Duel"...the one with the guy being pursued by a lunatic in an 18-wheeler? That is a pretty good movie.

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 29 Oct 03 - 12:49 PM

Not a horror as such but a very tense thriller with Donald Sutherland following a little red duffle coat around somewhere in Italy. The only film that ever had me that on the edge of my seat that I fell off when the twist at the end came!

Can anyone remind me what it is called? And don't spoil the end for anyone who ain't seen it;-)

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: Linda Kelly
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 05:31 PM

Definitely The Haunting, but I agree with Jerry, that Dead of Night is still the scariest film I have ever seen. It gives me the creeps just thinking about it. Also The Birds-yuk!

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: Sam L
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 10:25 AM

I tend to agree that awful effects of depiction are over-used, and I think the deepest effects are psychological. That's why I rank Invasion of the Bodysnatchers high--it's a disturbing psychological premise, and the writing really holds up, years later. Some of the most casual-seeming lines are momentous.

   The final image in Blair Witch was nicely disturbing--the map guy standing in the corner, held there by some awful but logical force. It wouldn't have fit any other character as well. It was so nicely prepared, so measured, lingering, poetic. I can't understand how anyone could be disappointed--I fully expected the whole thing to end up stupid, but it kept surprising me by finding nice touches, not trying too hard.

I liked Mel Gibson in signs. I don't mind the director that much--he has a neat comic-book story sensibility. There's something fishy about Kevin Smith complaining, since M.Night S's best qualities are very old school Stan Lee-ish. I suspect a little envy in that, since Smith admires Stan Lee, but has't got the same kind of blatant charm at all. Smith is comic/comedic. M.Night Shwhateveritis is comic like those old comic-book origin stories.

Come to think of it, Speilberg's The Duel is one of the best suspense/scary movies I've seen, and my favorite of all his stuff. Hee did okay with Jaws, I guess. He ought to do a straight scary movie sometime.

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: Fiolar
Date: 28 Oct 03 - 08:56 AM

Thanks Shelley. The trouble with most of the modern "scary movies" is that many of them depend on blood and guts to horrify rather than the sheer chilling effect obtained by the many of the black and white movies such as the first version of "The Haunting" and the great story lines of "The Dead of Night" and what about the 1942 film "The Cat People"? Many of those old films were able to scare by virtue of the fact that they dealt with the unknown or the occult. Very little blood as such was ever shed. I must mention the M.R. James stories which were brilliantly transferred to TV. Who for example will ever forget the ending of "Whistle and I'll Come to You"?

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: Kim C
Date: 27 Oct 03 - 09:47 PM

Signs wasn't a great piece of filmmaking, but I enjoyed it as an entertainment. Especially when the alien hand came out from under the pantry door. :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 27 Oct 03 - 09:36 PM

'Signs' was yet another peice of cinimatic garbage from M. Night... He's so self-indulgent it even bothers Kevin Smith...

Aliens... who are deathly allergice to water, come to a planet mostly covered by water... where the most intelligent creature is 88% water...

The aliens could have been defeated by hords of visually impaired people, cleaning their glasses at them... Or by one good morning fog...

Kingdom Of The Spiders... heh... I own that on DVD believe it or not...

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: Amergin
Date: 27 Oct 03 - 08:42 PM

Signs had a decent premise....but was bungled horribly....

Arachnophobia....that one always freaked me out....so did the bad Kingdom of the Spiders....but then I am arachnophobic my own self....

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 27 Oct 03 - 06:42 PM

Oh man, Tod Browning's "Freaks" wins the contest every time, for me anyway. Here's a blurb from THIS WEBSITE:

"Among classic horror films, FREAKS stands alone as one of the most grotesque and the most controversial. Rarely seen since its 1932 release, and banned in Britain for thirty years, it has achieved cult status as the masterpiece of the macabre.

The film features a cast of actual sideshow freaks, human beings of every conceivable physical aberration. Yet it soon reveals that the normal members of the traveling carnival are the true monsters; pitiless, conniving and murderous. When one beautiful trapeze artist discovers one of the freaks has a small fortune, she lures him into marriage. But when she and her strongman lover plot to kill him after the wedding, the enraged freaks defend their friend and take revenge..." [plot-spoiler warning after this line -bs]

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: Firecat
Date: 27 Oct 03 - 06:23 PM

I've only ever seen one horror film - Stephen King's "It". I decided I hate them!!

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: SINSULL
Date: 27 Oct 03 - 06:14 PM

Liitle hawk,
Did you see "The Arrival"? Super techno killer aliens bungle an assassination which goes bad when the victim hears a BATHTUB DROPPING on hime from five floors above! I was lauching so hard my son changed seats.
M.

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Oct 03 - 06:02 PM

I suspect Blair Witch needed to be seen before the hype and before the reviews to have a powerful effect. There was nothing about it that interested me, but I might have felt different if I'd seen it without any preparation, as I did "The Excorcist". After all, it is fear of the unknown and unexpected that really scares people, as Petr suggested above.

So how can you be scared when you've already heard all about it before seeing it?

Be that as it may, I virtually never go to see horror films anyway, but I don't mind a film with gogo suspense in it.

One that worked hard on the suspense angle was "Signs", but the basic premise (at least to me) was so ridiculous that I couldn't take it seriously. I just don't believe in aliens that come all the way to Earth to do something that trivial and that clumsily executed. They couldn't even get through a locked wooden door, for heaven's sake! Ludicrous. Oh, and the kids were weirder than the aliens too.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: GUEST,petr
Date: 27 Oct 03 - 05:52 PM

I thoroughly enjoyed the Mothman prophecies.
I find fear of the unknown is the best.
p

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 27 Oct 03 - 02:43 PM

"I forgot to mention how much I enjoyed the re-release of the exorcist!"

You mean "The Version You've Never Seen"? Ya... it finally gave me a chance to see one of my fav films on the big screen... and I LOVED it!

Heh

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: Hollowfox
Date: 27 Oct 03 - 02:40 PM

"M" with Peter Lorre. I watched it at 2AM alone, in an unfamiliar house.

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: GUEST,Fred Miller
Date: 27 Oct 03 - 01:19 PM

I forgot to mention how much I enjoyed the re-release of the exorcist! The 70's period details! The doctors offering cigarettes! and prescribing ritalin for demonic possesion! The way they ushered a falling-down drunk out the door to drive himself home, then the shock when he dies! That was fun.

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: GUEST,Fred Miller
Date: 27 Oct 03 - 01:14 PM

Well, Peg, I agree on Blair Witch, it's brilliant and out-classes all the cheesy scriptless techno-schlock that passes for horror these days by many miles. The city kids may be annoying, but they are utterly convincing--something you don't see in many movies of any sort. And for trembling snotty noses there's always John Malkovitch in Death of a Salesman, setting the standard.

    Scary movies don't scare me, so I don't know about that. The ring, the others, the sixth sense, the screams--all that stuff seems just halfway all right, to me, none really better than any other, some a little more clever, I guess. For example, The Others might've been a little better than sixth sense if it had come out first, but instead, it goes the other way. It's all about the same.

It scares me when Oliver Stone wins directing awards, or worse, his writing credits--Scarface seriously frightens me. Not the content, just when people don't think it's hilariously awful. The Michael Douglas part of Traffic scares me. People thinking Tobey McGuire is miscast for Spiderman is scarey. Adrian Lynne's Lolita is scary. And so on.

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: DonMeixner
Date: 27 Oct 03 - 01:10 PM

Jaze,

The Haunting is the one movie I have never been able to watch all the way through. Can't get past the bedroom scene with Julie Harris and Clare Booth sitting terrified on the bed as the walls apper to be breathing.

All the others are just entertaining.

Don

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: AliUK
Date: 27 Oct 03 - 11:30 AM

Try the short story by Fritz Leiber ' Reading the Runes' ten times better than Night of the Demon.

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: GUEST,shelley c at work
Date: 27 Oct 03 - 11:28 AM

Fiolar - so glad you mentioned 'Night of the Demon'. The scariest film I ever saw (mark you, I do have a bit of a 'nervous disposition). I thought everyone else but me had forgotten it. The bit where that bloke's car breaks down and he sees the demon coming out of the woods - it starts as just a tiny little light, and gets bigger and scarier as it approaches. I remember that clearly although I haven't seen the film for ages.
Also, 'The Beast with Five Fingers' is a classic!

Shelley

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 27 Oct 03 - 11:23 AM

There is something about a closeup of a snotty nose that just puts me right off my popcorn... I saw that bit in a trailer and vowed never to bother with the rest of the Blair Witch project.

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: GUEST,Kim C no cookie
Date: 27 Oct 03 - 10:16 AM

Mister and I really enjoyed The Others.

An old movie that creeped me out really bad was Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte. I dreamed that all my friends were trying to drive me crazy.

I am one of those people who hated The Blair Witch Project. I think I might have felt differently if I had seen it early on, before it got over-hyped. I was expecting a lot from it, and it just didn't deliver. There were some good parts in it - but mostly I was annoyed at the little city kids screaming at each other in the woods.

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: Mickey191
Date: 27 Oct 03 - 10:08 AM

When I was a kid we used to have Sat. Matinees where the local theatre would bring back "Oldies" These two pictures should NOT have played for little kids.
"The Curse of the Cat People" with Simone Signoret and "I Walk With Zombies" with Frances Gifford. These 2 movies were THE scariest I've ever seen. When I read the thread title, these were the 2 I thought of. Guess what? Last night they were on Turner movies & they still scared the Beejeebers out of me.

To get back to the old Embassy Theatre, my Mom was the Matron who watched all the kiddies during the Matinee. There were more hysterical,screaming kids during these 2 pictures then one can imagine. The parents were calling all week cause the kids were having nightmares. Mom earned her pay that day.

Anyone remember when there were Matrons in white starched uniforms to control the goings on in the children's section?

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Oct 03 - 09:50 AM

"The Edge" (an adventure movie involving a homicidal bear and 3 men stranded in the woods) has some great scary moments, and is a fine drama as well.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: AliUK
Date: 27 Oct 03 - 08:51 AM

As a horror movie watcher of long standing ' Blair Witch' scared the bejeebers out of me. The Ring is good only in it´s original Japanese version...the Yank version sucks big time ( they did the same thing to "La Femme Nikita"

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: muppett
Date: 27 Oct 03 - 08:12 AM

The same as Liz the squeak, the closing scene of Carrie, where the hand suddenly comes of the grave, that put the Sh**s up me, and still does each time I see it, despite me now knowing what's about to happen.

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: Donuel
Date: 27 Oct 03 - 07:57 AM

Vanilla Sky
Devil's Advocate
9th Gate

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 27 Oct 03 - 06:16 AM

The final frame of 'Carrie' - I'd read the book so much I practically knew it off by heart, but the last frame isn't in the book.... Got me good and proper!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: fat B****rd
Date: 27 Oct 03 - 02:59 AM

As a kid the Laurel and Hardy short where he (Hardy) dreams his fiance is coming to cut his throat and as a big kid 14 the turning body in the fruit cellar in Psycho.
As a so called adult... not much really.

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: Mickey191
Date: 27 Oct 03 - 12:29 AM

Lonesome EJ--Strangers on a train was with Robert Walker (the psychotic killer) and Farley Granger. Hitchcock's daughter had a small part in it. I think her name is Pat.

The GREAT Joseph Cotton was terrific as "Loveable Uncle Charlie" in the Hitchcock "Shadow of a Doubt." Hitche's favorite film. The last scene took place on a train. Teresa Wright was his loving niece who, in the beginning, couldn't quite believe he was a Killer. Absolutely a terrific movie.

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 26 Oct 03 - 09:53 PM

Another vote for the original The Haunting.
You can add:
The Magician by Ingmar Bergman... the scene in the attic doing the
    autopsy scared the Hell out of me
Night of The Hunter is on my list
Dead of Night gave me the Willies
Carnival of Souls, for a cheapie movie still gives me the creeps.
The Innocents with Deborah Kerr (not the Innocent Wannabee, The
    Others with Nicole Kidman

If you want to scare the Hell out of yourself, play the Playstation 2 games of Silent Hill.

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 26 Oct 03 - 08:06 PM

Strangers on a Train is a great scary Hitchcock film. I think Joseph Cotton plays the psychotic killer who insists the bargain be kept.

Interesting that no good film version of any of Poe's wonderful macabre work exists.

The Haunting was a fine film, the original black and white version I mean, keeping to the pschological aspects that Shirley Jackson emphasized in the novel.

I mentioned Barton Fink in the other thread on re-watchable films. John Goodman plays a traveling salesman/serial killer who is both endearing and absolutely chilling. The scene at the end when Goodman appears at the end of the hotel corridor as the building is engulfed in flames is one of the scariest scenes in all of film.

The Serpent and the Rainbow had its moments, with Bill Pullman as a graduate chemistry student investigating herbs used to induce the zombie state.

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: wysiwyg
Date: 26 Oct 03 - 07:43 PM

Last House on the Left

The Tingler

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: SINSULL
Date: 26 Oct 03 - 07:20 PM

jaze got it. I have "The Haunting" on VHS and still have to get my feet up in the chair. That scene where she is holding a hand in the dark gets me every time.

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: Cluin
Date: 26 Oct 03 - 07:20 PM

When I was a kid.... Trilogy of Terror. The one with the little African statue chasing Karen Black around her apartment with a steak knife. It's all laughable now, but it was scary back then.

As for Don't Be Afraid of the Dark... sorry, Peg; even as a kid, I found that one laughable. Didn't understand why Kim Darby didn't just punt the little boogers across the yard. But I see that a re-make is in the works.

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 26 Oct 03 - 07:10 PM

The Omen series got me a little freaked - but they got funnier as the series progressed - it got to be a case of 'spot the victim'.

I grew up with the Hammer Horror/Amicus type movies, some of them were startling to say the least.

I think the one that gave me the most actual nightmares was 'Asylum' with Robert Powell. A series of short stories, strung together as 'case histories' of the patients/inmates at an asylum, the first one, about the voodoo bracelet and the body parts wrapped in brown paper, had the deepest effect on me. I had a brown paper phobia for many years after that!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 26 Oct 03 - 06:33 PM

" Exorcist 3: Legion"

And here I thought -I- was the only one who dug that film!

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: Peg
Date: 26 Oct 03 - 06:32 PM

I would defened The Bair Witch Project as one of the finest horror films of all time. I found it quite scary.

Other faves for the scare factor:
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark
Haunts of the Very Rich
Funny Games (Austrian)
Night of the Living Dead
The Ring
Session 9
Exorcist 3: Legion
When a Stranger Calls
Trilogy of Terror: the third scenario with the doll)
Special Bulletin
Eyes of Laura Mars

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: Alba
Date: 26 Oct 03 - 06:28 PM

Don't watch many "Scarey" Films but Nosferatu is for me pretty scarey as is a French Film called "eyes without a face".
I watched the Sixth Sense and found it....interesting but not too scarey at all.
I did like you did Little Hawk, I went to see the Exorcist and left as the opening scenes started and waited outside for my Friend till it finished LOL and I still haven't seen it. The thought of that Movie just creeped me out for some reason!
JD

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Oct 03 - 05:23 PM

I don't tend to watch scary movies much...

I did find "The Excorcist" very frightening at the time (having walked into the theatre on the first day it opened in Toronto, not having a clue what it was about...). It terrified me. I don't know if it would now, but I wouldn't go to see it in the first place now. Horror movies just don't interest me much.

I do find werewolves intriguing, though, and there were some scary moments in the first "The Howling" and "An American Werewolf in London".

Blair Witch Project was about the biggest waste of time and tolerance that I've ever sat through. I saw the video once at a friend's place.

Want to get scared? Read books about Karl Rove and watch the News.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: Cluin
Date: 26 Oct 03 - 05:19 PM

A little british film I saw that creeped me out considerably in the middle of a summer afternoon: The Woman in Black. I don't creep out easily.

And I agree with Clinton above... "Stir of Echoes" blows away the overated "Sixth Sense".

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: Amergin
Date: 26 Oct 03 - 05:04 PM

the others...that one creeped me out a bit...

the ring....

Subject: RE: BS: Scary Films
From: GUEST,fred miller
Date: 26 Oct 03 - 04:33 PM

invasion of the bodysnatchers, and hamlet.