Solaris, if watched alone, in the dark, with the volume up, will always creep me out. And keeping with the sci-fi theme, although getting high and watching 2001 is one of my favorite things to do, there’s always a 50/50 chance that the last twenty minutes will either be a time of pure elation, or absolute, seemingly unending horror.
Last night it was horror.
Irreversible was one of those films that made me cringe when i witnessed the brutality and the unflinching manner in which the camera photographed everything. How ugly and real the world Gaspar Noe creates and how that world crushes someone and we are forced…. or is it ourselves that want to watch one of the most horrific things that can happen to another human being. A film that haunted me for a very long time.
“Night of the Living Dead,” for its shoestring shivers; “The Innocents” and the original “Wicker Man” still do it for me. When I was younger, I was creeped out by “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane,” “Hush … Hush, Sweet Charlotte” and William Castle’s “The Night Walker” and “Strait-Jacket.” (I’d like to think I’m over that now, but I’m afraid to test that theory.)
Seven Costanza: I completely agree about Irreversible, but the last shot always brings a tear to my eye with it’s sheer beauty. After I first saw it, I actually turned around and walked right back into the theater to see it again, mainly because of that.
Did you hear about how at the premiere, Noe underscored the soundtrack with the audio tones police use to cause crowds of people to vomit and become incompasitated?
Hi everybody,
im happy to give my opinion on this topic as my first post…
1st one: House of a 1000 corpses
2nd: The Descent (which is not scary but leaves me breathless and uncomfortable each time as well as Butterfly effect.
I also remember that i was so scared watching Stephen King’s “IT” & Night of the Demons back in the days LOL!!!
I ain’t anymore
Inland Empire is the only movie thus far to make me cower in fear.
Zombies just creep the hell out of my for some reason. Ghosts and all the occult stuff is scary but it’s also fascinating. There is nothing good about zombies.
Les Diaboliques!
Lost Highway – Purely because Lynch somehow directly tapped into my subconscious mind and I saw images from my nightmares up there on the screen.
The Audition – “Kiri Kiri Kiri”, nuf" said
Perfect Blue – Excellent animated horror movie, delivers the fucked-up psycho horror with the good old fashion jump-scare
Night Of The Living Dead – Very traumatic ending for a ten year old
Suspiria – Argento never before or since managed to create such an overwhelming sense of dread
Devil’s Mountain – I think that’s what it’s called. An Australian movie about kids who go looking for some lost horses and venture into tunnels under the mountain. It only has one pay-off shot but it’s a corker.
Barracuda – Just pure crazy. I can’t believe the movie really exists. A young man is kidnapped by an insane old fellow named Monsieur Clement, who proceeds to psychologically and mentally torture the man until he breaks and infantalises, all to complete his “family” with a Mannequin for a wife and Fred Astaire as Monsieur Clement’s “adviser”, always swinging upside down of course.
28 Days Later – absolutely terrified me. The genius of zombies that were A: not zombies, and therefore believable, and B: fast, along with characters that were really believable and likable, made me fear for the protagonists safety more with each passing minute.
The Shining – of course, left a permanent scar in my brain.
Inland Empire
Evil Dead 1
I could not sleep for two days after Salo! The eyeball bit. :(
In addition to all these great recommendations, I’ll throw in The Exorcist III and The Changeling – both starring George C. Scott and both relatively unseen.
For my money, Alien is the most perfectly-paced thriller of them all.
like many, the Shining for me is the freakiest.
Favorites: Suspiria, The Shining, The Exorcist, Blood and Black Lace. I find none of these movies scary, but there is so much more to them than just to shock. At least I think so.
Scariest: The Ring (lost two nights of sleep over it), Signs(checked my room every night just to make sure no aliens were blending in with the wall) and The Mothman Prophecies (can’t look out the windows at night. I don’t want to see huge red eyes looking back at me)
Kairo (2001) was the last movie to actually frighten me.
Alien is just a great film. The perfect thriller in space.
thanks for all ur responses! keep em comin! :)
lynch’s inland empire, im a grown man and i had to fall asleep with the television on after watching it
Definitely THE SHINING, THE EXORCIST, and HALLOWEEN.
More recently JU-ON: THE GRUDGE
And David Lynch has always gotten into my nightmares.
Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, also I would add “Maniac”.
The Shining literally changed my life—I caught it on its world television premiere when I was 11 or 12. Before that I was afraid of scary movies, scary stories, etc. Couldn’t take any of it. Then I saw that with a friend and from that night on I became a horror movie junkie. Because I have such a steady diet of horror films, I don’t really get scared anymore. I will say that for me Halloween has the most unnerving moment I know—the moment where we see Michael out the window, his face turned upward as he stands amongst the laundry drying outside. Curtis looks again and he’s gone. Beautiful.
Audition has an amazing moment as well—when they’re on the phone and it sounds so sweet and innocnet and in the background is a body in a burlap sack.
But Funny Games (Austrian version) is the scariest, most disturbing film I know.
I’m sorry but nothing will ever be as frighteningly disturbing as Eraserhead.
I consider Eyes Wide Shut one of the scariest I’ve seen.
I had to pause Dead Ringers, just to breath, it got so intense.
This was actually a double post, so I am going to point out Rosemary’s Baby for the sake of it.
Anyone have thoughts on Jacob’s Ladder?
Silence of the Lambs
The Lady in White
Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me
Session 9
28 Weeks Later
Solaris (2002)
As a kid, Making Contact (1985) scared the bejeesus out of me.
Valerie & Her Week of Wonders
The Shining
The Exorcist
Inland Empire
Repulsion
I’ve liked scary movies practically since birth and I believe in the creepier, the better- but these actually, legitimately scared me.
A Tale of Two Sisters
The Tenant
Them (The french movie, not the giant ant flick from the 50’s)
Haute Tension
[Rec]
Twin Peaks: Fire walk with me
Blair Witch, Ichi The Killer and some very bad snuff-like thing I saw called “Slaughtered Vomit Dolls”. Avoid it.
Aaron B. Smith
As I remember it from childhood – The Watcher in the Woods.