What's Your Scariest Movie Moment

[SKY]

I posted this at the FWIS (http://www.loresinger.com/FWIS/index.php) forum a few months ago and I thought I would repost it here too kinda in the spirit of Halloween. I was watching this program on the Bravo channel called "The 100 Scariest Movie Moments" which counts down what was thought to be the 100 scariest movies or movie moments. I thought it was a pretty good program, but they had things like the tunnel scene from "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" listed as scarier than say "28 Days Later" or "Zombie". I couldn't understand why, but then I started thinking as a child, that tunnel scene is pretty freaky and definitly took the movie in another direction if for a brief moment.

I can watch any horror movie right now because I am a horror movie fan, but it is sometimes the tamer movies that freak people out more. For me, to this day I still cannot watch "The Elephant Man". I know I have only seen it once and cannot remember too much about it except a few scenes here and there, but everytime I think about it for some reason I get nauseous. I really don't understand why I do, and it isn't because of the display of his deformaty, I think it has more to do with one particular scene where some guys teasing him force two women to kiss him. Sounds weird, I know, but for some reason it has put an emotional scar on me since I was a kid.

Another movie that freaked me out, but was actually a horror movie, was "Day of the Dead". Yeah, I know, I actually look back and laugh about it now, but the scene where the Zombies break in and tear the soldiers to pieces, one in particular they have a continuous shot of the soldier being held down and the Zombies tearing away his head while he's still screaming. I just bought Dawn of the Dead (the original) and Day of the Dead on DVD and I watched the bonus features for Day of the Dead and saw how they did the dismemberment scenes and I was pretty impressed with how simple they were. They used animatronics, but I remember when I was younger I couldn't tell they were fake and it freaked me out back then.

Anyway, I was just wondering what movies or movie moments freaked you out the most. Which ones put a permanent scar on your psyche, or a permanent skid in your shorts. :D

[Big Brother Dunk]

I remember many years ago when I was a youngster, the scene in "Sleeping Beauty" when the witch turned into a dragon scared the crap out of me.

Other than that, "Jaws" might be the most frightening movie in my opinion. It's pretty intense.

[SolusLupus]

It's hard to say, for me. I honestly don't think that I have ever been really scared by a "scary movie" or a "horror movie" in a long time. There are a few factors for it:

1) I grew up on horror movies. Literally. I was 8, I think, when I saw Friday the 13th movies. Every one of them. Multiple times.

2) A lot of horror movies are mainly about gore and such. When you get desensitized, you get over it. For instance, some people said that you don't want to watch the movie Ravenous while eating, because it might make you sick. I was eating meatloaf in a nice blood-looking sauce while watching Ravenous and not caring. I'm just too desensitized to go "EWWW! I CAN SEE THE BONE STICKING OUT OF HIS LEG!"

Of course, if I saw this in real life, I probably would throw up. But that's a completely different story.

3) There are "obviously fakey" moments in a lot of movies. 28 Days Later was WAY too unrealistic for me to really be freaked out by it. Overdone actions/reactions by the Infected, no stated reason for them to gang up, and no stated reason for them to be vomiting blood like that, or that quickly, except as a "gore effect" and an excuse to have more Infected. On the other hand, I was emotionally effected when that one guy (I dunno names) turned Infected towards the end. It was sad... but not necessarily scary.

The Ring was pretty freaky overall, but I don't recall if I was really affected by it.

The scariest movie, I think, wasn't a movie, it was a dream. But that's not a movie, so it doesn't count (I'll relate it to you all if anyone's interested).

Other than that, though, the scariest thing for me for a long while was actually games. In the game Deus Ex, for instance, I was scared half to death when I had to crawl through the dark and either fight or avoid the Greasels (don't ask me why, I'm over it now!). Alternatively, the game Silent Hill scared me. It was mainly the suspense that got me, more than anything else. I'm not really a "LEAP OUT AND SCARE YOU!" type of scaredy wulf.

[Argos]

Carrie´s (http://www.briandepalma.net/carrie/carrie.htm)last scene.

[Lianachan]

The final scene in Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (the remake, with Donald Sutherland) is second behind the final scene in the deeply disturbing Threads, for me.

*edited in case non-Brits aren't aware of it - Threads (http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0090163/maindetails) at IMDB. Check the reviews.

[gwiz]

Carrie´s (http://www.briandepalma.net/carrie/carrie.htm)last scene.

Agree with you there, never seen anything else have such an effect on the audience.

[Moose]

My scariest movie moment was the nighttime cornfield scene in ET when I was seven. Had nightmares for months.

After that, I've never actually been scared by a movie (startled, sure, but never genuinely scared by a horror flick). Two admissions, though:

1) I caught myself paying far too much attention to the evening breeze and sky walking home from Twister.

2) I suspect my only genuine fear response was to Anthony Hopkin's Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs. I don't know why he creeps me out so much (to this day when I rewatch the movie) during the scenes while he's safely in his cell and I'm on my couch watching through the magic of DVD.

[NCC-1701]

Carrie´s (http://www.briandepalma.net/carrie/carrie.htm)last scene.

I also have to agree. I still remember when that hand popped up, everyone, and I mean everyone, in the theater screamed and jumped. The house light immediately came on. All of us manly men gave each other sideway glances and kind of laughed, but we all had to go home to change our underwear.

[Swift]

When I was about 7 or so I watched some 1950s black & white science fiction / horror movie about an alien creature that was hiding in a cave just outside of some town and killing people. For most of the movie, all you saw of the creature was two glowing eyes in the dark. That one had me afraid of the dark for months.

The torture scene in Marathon Man, where the Nazi dentist is torturing Dustin Hoffman ("Is it safe?") is so scary because it is so much like our fears when we actually go to the dentist (it certainly had a big effect on my date when I first went to see the movie - which was not a completely bad thing ;) ).

The first time I saw Alien in the theatre, when it had just come out... the scene where the creature pops out of the guy's chest had everyone in the theatre jumping.

I was never a big fan of horror movies and like them even less now. Real life is more than scary enough for me. :(

[hewhocaves]

for me its always been a weird one....
in the late 1970s a "documentary" called "UFOs are Real" always terrified me. Not so much the content as the music. I could watch it in the middle of the afternoon on a sunny day and by the end of the show I was nervously looking over my shoulder every couple of seconds.

I was totally the music. Lots of synthesizer and jarring chords. A very dysfunctional piece. Strange!

john

edited to add:

here's a link to it.
http://theufostore.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=T&Product_Code=Stanton-2
Sorry that it's a store site. It was hard finding hte right video. Lots of places link it to "flying sauces are real" which is a totally different flick. Apparantly, the UFO one has been out of print for years and is really hard to come by. I got mine off the TV

[ToSeek]

I saw The Blob at a very young age, and it traumatized me for months. I saw Carrie a long time after it came out and knew exactly what happened at the end. It still scared the [expletive voluntarily deleted] out of me when it did.

[Gmann]

My scariest moment was from Jaws 2 when the diving class was in the water, there was gentle music playing, then someone jumped on the lowest 2 octaves of the piano with both feet as the shark swam right next to the diver who probably "soiled" his wetsuit (I almost did the same thing to my "dry suit"). But the most frightning thing recently was when the 5 of us went to see a movie. Tickets, popcorn, and drinks...$86.00 you have got to be kidding

[SKY]

1) I grew up on horror movies. Literally. I was 8, I think, when I saw Friday the 13th movies. Every one of them. Multiple times.

I grew up on Horror movies too. I grew up watching the "Nightmare on Elm St" series and of course the "Friday the 13th" series. I loved (and still love) the George Romero "Dead" series.


2) A lot of horror movies are mainly about gore and such. When you get desensitized, you get over it.

A lot of the really bad horror movies are just all about gore, and yup, after a while you can watch any of them without a problem. I personally prefer the horror movies that have less gore, and more subtle horror. For instance (and I know people may think this is cliché or boring), when I first saw "The Blair Witch Project", it was done so well and in such a way that you kinda felt like it really happened. In the last part when they were in the empty house, the camera was panning the stairways and you saw the small bloody handprints on the wall, that whole scene sent shivers up my spine. That's the subtlety I'm referring too.


The scariest movie, I think, wasn't a movie, it was a dream. But that's not a movie, so it doesn't count (I'll relate it to you all if anyone's interested).

By all means. :)


Other than that, though, the scariest thing for me for a long while was actually games. [snip] Alternatively, the game Silent Hill scared me. It was mainly the suspense that got me, more than anything else. I'm not really a "LEAP OUT AND SCARE YOU!" type of scaredy wulf.

I love Silent Hill. I use to stay up late at night in the dark and play Silent Hill 2. It definitely game me chills. Part 4 isn't bad either.

[Gillianren]

I have this thing about cannibalism. It's about the only thing in a movie that can really scare me, and then, only if it's based on real events. (Hannibal Lecter doesn't bother me terribly, for example.)

So a few years ago, my then-boyfriend decided to rent Alive.

I'm sure we can all see where this is going--it was a fascinating movie, but at the end of it, there was Gillian, curled up and twitching in a corner. "Put in something else," I said.

"But it's one in the morning," he said.

"I don't care. If you ever want me to sleep again, you'll put in something else!" (Italics very much necessary to convey my attitude on this.)

So we watched Noises Off!, and I could sleep. (I got out of watching an American Experience about the Donner Party using this particular quirk, since I'd already seen it and convinced the teacher that, if she made me watch it a second time, I would lose it and start screaming in the middle of class. Being a wise woman, she let me go into another teacher's class, provided I could answer all the worksheet questions.)

A teacher of mine from community college saw Psycho in an outdoor theatre in Hawaii. They were sitting under plastic sheeting in the rain. In the dark. She was 8. She still can't watch it a second time.

[Doodler]

Day of the Dead, as one of the survivors has his head ripped off, he lets off a scream that becomes more shrill as the skin at the neck starts to tear.

That was about it for me and George Romero's movies. I was never much for graphic violence.

/shrug

[SKY]

Day of the Dead, as one of the survivors has his head ripped off, he lets off a scream that becomes more shrill as the skin at the neck starts to tear.

That is the exact part of the movie I was referring to in my OP. That part sickened me...that and the soldier who has his eyelid torn off. :eek:

[SolusLupus]

Well, since it HAS been requested, I once had a dream involving me being chased by a creature of some sort. It was a rather "Subtle" horror, because the creature (which I had a vague notion was a man, actually, though a very "spiritual" man), was chasing after me. No matter what I did, I couldn't get to a point where I could stop running. It was an endless chase, and no weapon I could find would possibly stop this "man".

However, this is the scariest part: I couldn't look over my shoulder, or slow down, or stumble for a single instant, for if this "man" reached me, I wouldn't be able to fight back, in any way, shape, or form. There was nothing I could do to stop him from killing me (which I knew was what he was wanting to do), and I couldn't even look over my shoulder to see him (without being killed, at least).

I know it sounds silly now that I say it, but it was *really* scary for me. I hate the feeling of helplessness and hopelessness.

[Paul Beardsley]

I love Silent Hill. I use to stay up late at night in the dark and play Silent Hill 2. It definitely game me chills. Part 4 isn't bad either.
I've been trying for so long to get people to discuss Silent Hill on the BABB!

Prior to Silent Hill, I thought of games as just games - if you're good enough, you'll win through, defeat the baddies, and see the end scene when it congratulates you. If you're not good enough, you keep practising until you get there.

But with Silent Hill, the playing aspect was much more to do with character identification. I rarely if ever get scared by horror movies, but in Silent Hill (especially the second game, which I played first) I was so involved that at times I was really, really scared. (My wife was pretty involved too, although she didn't usually drive when we played.) As well as scared, I was moved to tears - James' inability to cope with his wife's death, Angela's inability to cope with her father's abuse, the sheer hopelessness of fat and ugly Eddie - that was powerful storytelling, and to get such storytelling in a GAME of all things was astonishing.

I'm looking forward to the movie adaptation of the series. I understand this will borrow aspects of the plot of the first game, together with elements of the second (e.g. Pyramid Head), and although I don't expect it to be as good as the games themselves, it should still be worth seeing.

[SolusLupus]

<.< >.> I'm going to have to play the games through. I never finished up One...

[Paul Beardsley]

<.< >.> I'm going to have to play the games through. I never finished up One...
Please do! Invest some time into it, and you will be well rewarded. And don't forget to dim the lights (or play by candlelight).

[SKY]

I love the Silent Hill games. There's something about the grittyness of it. You can almost smell the damp, musty air in the run down buildings. You really feel like your walking through a haunted building when walking around in the game.

I'm looking forward to the movie too. Release will be in April 2006. I just hope you get the same feeling from the movie you get from the game.

[Bob]

The pivotal scene in "The Crying Game"

[Nowhere Man]

Most of the allegedly scary movies bore or disgust me. But, as a kid, back in '68, I was pretty weirded out by the image of Frank Poole's body drifting away into space in 2001: A Space Odyssey (saw it on the first run). It stayed with me for days.

Also, in second or third grade, one of those eddycayshunal movies (Our Friend Mr. Sun?) kept me awake that night with the thought that the Sun would eventually expand and toast the Earth, until Dad reminded me that this would be millions of years in the future.

But what scares me about movies in general is people who think, "Wow, [insert wretched concept here] would make a great movie!" See http://www.jabootu.com for examples.

Fred

[tbm]

Greetings.

A few scenes come to mind:

The scene in John Carpenter's "The Thing" in which the guy's chest-turned- mouth bites off the doctor's hands..........

The scene in "Ghost Story" where the corpse falls from the recovered car.......

I know there are more......

Regards, tbm

[TheBlackCat]

I can't recall a movie that scared me off the top of my head. I generally try to avoid scary movies. The Alien series doesn't count because I already knew pretty much everything about it when I saw it, so it didn't scare me because there were no suprises. The only "horror" movies I have seen are slasher movies like Freddy and Jason, which aren't really scary.

Oh, wait, one movie I do remember that was kind of scary was about a sort of Houdini-type paranormal debunker who gets called to a house. It turns out pretty much everyone at the house is a ghost. But the ghost of his twin sister, who is generally the scary one, is trying to protect him from the other ghosts but he doesn't realize that until it is almost too late. What makes it scary is you have no idea what is going on until the very end, so all these seemingly random ghosts that appear don't seem to have any connection and don't appear to have any purpose that could tell you when they will appear again, and in what form. Although the times when paranormal events occur are somewhat predictable, what happens seems to make no sense.

I also tend to avoid scary video games, but one of my friends convinced me to watch him play Eternal Darkness. That had some scary moments. Like when you character walks into a bathroom and sees her own dead body lying in bathtub full of blood. The fact that you only see it for a split second before it disappears makes it all the worse. Or the multiples times that the centuries-old corpses of characters you had previously played as suddenly spring to life. Or the time demons start slaughtering the people at a hospital, then climb inside their bodies and use them to attack you.

[SKY]

I also tend to avoid scary video games, but one of my friends convinced me to watch him play Eternal Darkness. That had some scary moments. Like when you character walks into a bathroom and sees her own dead body lying in bathtub full of blood.

There's a scene very similar to this in Silent Hill 3. Your character walks into a hospital room where one wall is a mirror. You see your reflection in the mirror and it moves as you move. Then suddenly your reflection freezes and it starts bleeding throughout the entire body. You have to be in the room for a bit before it starts happening, but it is definitly freaky when it does happen.

[SolusLupus]

Jeez, you guys are scaring the feces out of me just talking about it. >.>

I can just imagine it, and I'm shivering.

[Lord Jubjub]

I dislike slasher movies and don't consider them scary, really. I like the slow creeping horror.

I saw Westworld as a kid. Scared for days on end. Saw it as an adult and was much relieved that it was now a whole lot less scarier. Two scenes as a kid that scared me:

The countdown on the remaining oxygen in the control room as people desperately try to open the automatic doors. Slow suffocation gives me the willies.

The last gasp of the gunslinger robot. From his sudden appearence on the stairs to his faceless form on the floor, that whole sequence kept me up the next few nights.

From the American version of The Ring, I'd say when the spirit emerged from the well and started walking toward the TV screen.

[Andromeda321]

I never had a scary moment as I only found movies scary afterwards late at night... I had quite a few nightmares from movies. I got the most from Independence Day by far, probably in part because my dad only let us watch as far as the first cities getting blown up before my mom walked in and got quite upset about this (I was in third grade or so). I then prolly woke up about four times during the night due to nightmares, and I never saw the rest of the movie for years afterwards because my dad learned his lesson after being woken up four times...

[TheBlackCat]

Wierdly enough, The Core gave me nightmares. I was in a ship going to the core, but we kept ended up in caves full of ghosts, and one ghost in particular was chasing us. I know it sounds silly, and even in the dream I knew it was silly, but it still scared the heck out of me. That normally wouldn't be that bad, because as always happens with nightmares I would wake up from the dream with start, then think the dream was over and go back to sleep. Except for this dream it wasn't over, every time I would go back to sleep it would start up again where it left off. After this happened 7 or 8 times I finally gave up, got up, and walked around for a while before going back to sleep again to make suire the dream was gone. That was not a fun night. That is the only movie I can connect to a nightmare, although there are several other movies I have had fun dreams about.

[Paul Beardsley]

There's a scene very similar to this in Silent Hill 3. Your character walks into a hospital room where one wall is a mirror. You see your reflection in the mirror and it moves as you move. Then suddenly your reflection freezes and it starts bleeding throughout the entire body. You have to be in the room for a bit before it starts happening, but it is definitly freaky when it does happen.
Oh yes indeed - and this demonstrates the involvement aspect of playing.

When the mirror image froze, I think I put the game on pause and put the controls down. My wife (who almost always sees any twist coming) asked me what I was doing. I said, "Sorry, it just freaked me out a bit." I think you have to be actually at the controls to get the full impact of that little detail.

[Candy]

Linda Blair puking

[N C More]

For me it was The Blob...the old version, the one with Steve McQueen. My older cousin took me and my other younger cousin to see it. Our parents didn't know, but they soon found out. It really freaked me out, I slept with the light on and didn't eat jello for months! Remember this was way back, long before modern special effects.

[Argos]

Yes, Candy, The Exorcist is my second choice as scariest movie. And there´s also J. Nicholson hacking the door in "The Shining".

[Maksutov]

For me, there's nothing like the monstrous threat that's not seen, as opposed to the monster that's actually viewed and thus can be reduced to an entity with which we can deal.

That's the problem with the gore/guts/blood genre. It's all there in plain sight. Yawn.

Then there's something called potential.

The first time I experienced it was in 1956, thanks to the initial "appearance" of the Id monster in Forbidden Planet. The thought of something invisible causing those footprints, warping the spaceship's stairs, and murdering crewmen who couldn't see their attacker, was incredibly unnerving. For me there's been nothing scarier since.

[Gillianren]

Okay, another chance for everyone to say, "Gillian's so weird."

When I was probably ten, I saw a special on UFOs hosted by Lily Tomlin. They had a group of scientists (no, I don't remember who any of them were) doing the Drake Equation. One guy was the pessimist of the group, and when we got to "intelligent life" or something, they had him answer last, and his answer was, "Zero." Just like that. Scared the pants offa me, and I had a hard time going to sleep that night. Likewise, I can't read the "possibility of extraterrestrial life" bits of Don't Know Much About the Universe just before bed, because I will still, nearly twenty years after the Lily Tomlin special, lie awake thinking about it.

[Paul Beardsley]

The Wicker Man is on ITV3 as I type. It's probably the third time I've seen it - and it is more compelling, more beautiful and more terrifying with each viewing! The music (tho' dated) is awesome, ditto the camerawork (even if the film quality itself is occasionally below par). If only he'd succumbed to Ingrid Pitt...

(Edited to change incorrect actress...)

[Candy]

Yes, Candy, The Exorcist is my second choice as scariest movie. And there´s also J. Nicholson hacking the door in "The Shining".
Here's Johnny! (http://www.moviewavs.com/cgi-bin/moviewavs.cgi?Shining=heresjohnny.wav)

[Paul Beardsley]

The Wicker Man has just been set on fire. Aargh, I didn't want to watch it this time! Why couldn't I just switch it off? It's unbearable every time!

[GDwarf]

I don't think I have ever seen even one scary movie or played any scary video games, I'm just a wimp when it comes to fright. However, one thing that does always get to me when I'm playing a video game would be when you can't see the enemy. For example, in Metroid Prime, after you get the thermal visor and all the lights go out, I'm ashamed to admit I've never gotten past that point, heck, even the fights to get there give me the bejeebes, I know that an enemy is going to leap out at me, I know where from, as well, it's the waiting for it to happen that gets me all nervous. That is the main reason why I shall never play an RE game, too much of that 'comes out of nowhere' fright, AKA, dogs jumping through windows...

As for movies, it's the opposite, if I don't know when or if something is going to leap out at the main character I get nervous, you see, the movie isn't in my control, I can't just inch forward at the ready and let the tension build, so knowing when something is going to happen isn't a big issue, however, not being in control and having no idea when something is going to happen...

[Weird Dave]

When I was much, much younger I was scared by The Little Mermaid - the part when her father starts blasting her collection of junk.

More recently, I was freaked out by A Beautiful Mind.
Spoiler: The idea that you could develop an imaginary friend and believe he was real, I found very disturbing. I don't know how realistic this is as a psychological problem, or how well it follows Nash's true story, but it seems realistic and possible; and hence scary.

[Samara]

Well, I found both the Ring and Ringu scary. Just the last scenes...brrr

And ET scared the beejeebies out of me when I was little (sad but true)

[Paul Beardsley]

As Silent Hill was first mentioned by someone else, and as the thread asks for the scariest moment...

In Silent Hill 2, there's a scene where James, the character you play, is accompanied by Maria, a young woman who just happens to look exactly like his wife who died three years earlier. They arrive at a horrible place called Brookhaven Hospital, which is overrun by violent and horrifically deformed nurses. The two are separated. James encounters a little girl who traps him in a room inhabited by fleshy creatures swinging from man-sized cages. Then the hospital changes into an even worse version of itself - walls covered in sheets, rusty grilles blocking corridors, bloodstains everywhere, and even more deformed nurses.

Brookhaven Hospital is for mental patients. They are all gone - or perhaps they are changed - but they have left evidence of their presence. We read the diary of one, and learn he was responsible for his daughter's death. Now, he will do anything to protect her - which in real terms means he keeps a lock of her hair in a strongbox.

Eventually James and Maria are reunited, and they find their way to their destination - the hospital basement. Just when it looks as if things are going well, they are attacked by Pyramid Head, a grotesque caricature of a butcher or an executioner. They run along the winding basement corridor, a waiting lift offering them salvation.

James makes it. Maria, the double of his dead wife, is close behind... but before she gets into the lift, Pyramid Head spears her in the back. Helpless, James has to watch the lift doors close on her as he makes his escape. To all intents and purposes, he's seen his wife die a second time. The game continues.

Anyway... a year or so later I played Silent Hill 3. A totally new story, with new characters. You play a young woman called Heather, and most of the game is set outside the town of Silent Hill.

But eventually, after considerable emotional ordeal, the story takes us back to that town.

During the course of the game, Heather end up in Brookhaven Hospital. She encounters the deformed nurses. And she ends up in the basement corridor.

It is just a game. But my memories of the previous events in the basement of Brookhaven Hospital were so memorable, so distressing, that I was almost crying at this point. I had no idea what was coming next... But I'd been there before, and it was dreadful, and I thought something just as dreadful would happen again, and...

You'll just have to play the games.

[Nicolas]

that game series sounds quite intriguing!

[SKY]

As Silent Hill was first mentioned by someone else, and as the thread asks for the scariest moment...

In Silent Hill 2, there's a scene where James, the character you play, is accompanied by Maria, a young woman who just happens to look exactly like his wife who died three years earlier. They arrive at a horrible place called Brookhaven Hospital, which is overrun by violent and horrifically deformed nurses. The two are separated. James encounters a little girl who traps him in a room inhabited by fleshy creatures swinging from man-sized cages. Then the hospital changes into an even worse version of itself - walls covered in sheets, rusty grilles blocking corridors, bloodstains everywhere, and even more deformed nurses.

Brookhaven Hospital is for mental patients. They are all gone - or perhaps they are changed - but they have left evidence of their presence. We read the diary of one, and learn he was responsible for his daughter's death. Now, he will do anything to protect her - which in real terms means he keeps a lock of her hair in a strongbox.

Eventually James and Maria are reunited, and they find their way to their destination - the hospital basement. Just when it looks as if things are going well, they are attacked by Pyramid Head, a grotesque caricature of a butcher or an executioner. They run along the winding basement corridor, a waiting lift offering them salvation.

James makes it. Maria, the double of his dead wife, is close behind... but before she gets into the lift, Pyramid Head spears her in the back. Helpless, James has to watch the lift doors close on her as he makes his escape. To all intents and purposes, he's seen his wife die a second time. The game continues.

Anyway... a year or so later I played Silent Hill 3. A totally new story, with new characters. You play a young woman called Heather, and most of the game is set outside the town of Silent Hill.

But eventually, after considerable emotional ordeal, the story takes us back to that town.

During the course of the game, Heather end up in Brookhaven Hospital. She encounters the deformed nurses. And she ends up in the basement corridor.

It is just a game. But my memories of the previous events in the basement of Brookhaven Hospital were so memorable, so distressing, that I was almost crying at this point. I had no idea what was coming next... But I'd been there before, and it was dreadful, and I thought something just as dreadful would happen again, and...

You'll just have to play the games.


Even freakier was later in the Silent Hill 2 game when James finds Maria sitting patiently in a cell like nothing even happened, as though she wasn't just speared through the chest by Pyramid Head earlier. So your mission becomes to try and get her out of the cell, then when you find your way into the cell, she's lying there on the bed dead again and her body is covered in blood!

The creators really know how to create the game well where they can just mess with your mind.

[SKY]

that game series sounds quite intriguing!

It is very spooky and the graphics are very life like, which probably helps you get so deeply involved in it. It is created with some very subtle suprises as well as in your face horror. Things like what Paul Beardsley said about the blood stains everywhere, but they don't just splash a red coloring on the walls, they will weather it, add other stains (dirt and such) to give it a really run down feel. There may be a bright blood stain that looks fresh and it will be streaked across the floor as if someone (or something) dragged the body away. Things like that really get to your head. They go into a lot of detail for the entire game.

[Paul Beardsley]

that game series sounds quite intriguing!
It really is!

I didn't even own a games console when I happened to buy a Playstation 2 magazine. It had a review of Silent Hill 2, and lots of screenshots, and a very intelligent description. I read the review, and my eyes just got wider. I was thinking, "No, games don't do that. Games are about 'left, left, fire, right, left, right, fire'. Games aren't supposed to scare you, or have psychological insight." But the review was fascinating. The PS2 had the graphical capabilities, but Konami, the makers of Silent Hill 2, chose to enshroud the town in fog so you could only see a few feet. The soundtrack changed from mellow and pleasant in one location to so unpleasant in another location that you didn't want to stay there. You'd find a family photograph on a dirty carpet, and when you examined it closely you'd see that one of the family members - the father - had been torn out.

Clare, my wife, picked up on my fascination, and she bought me a Playstation 2 and a copy of Silent Hill 2 for Christmas. And we really got into it.

Early on, James meets a young woman called Angela in a graveyard just outside the town. She's very nervous and he has to reassure her. She tells him she's looking for her mama... then realises how childish that sounds, and quickly corrects that to mother. That's all the clue we get at that stage, yet the suspicion is seeded right from that moment.

When we later discover what's really been going on, it's shocking. I remember thinking, "Come on! Games don't deal with that sort of subject - or if they do, it's not with that level of sensitivity or sympathy!" I showed the scene in question to a friend; she remarked, "They ought to have one of those 'If you've been affected by the issues raised in this game please call the following number...'"

The fourth game is very different to the other three (although there are strong links) and it is very underrated by some fans. A great pity, because it is one of the most powerful of the games other than the second one.

[Paul Beardsley]

It is very spooky and the graphics are very life like, which probably helps you get so deeply involved in it. It is created with some very subtle suprises as well as in your face horror. Things like what Paul Beardsley said about the blood stains everywhere, but they don't just splash a red coloring on the walls, they will weather it, add other stains (dirt and such) to give it a really run down feel. There may be a bright blood stain that looks fresh and it will be streaked across the floor as if someone (or something) dragged the body away. Things like that really get to your head. They go into a lot of detail for the entire game.
SKY, I think we're of accord on this, and it's a real pleasure to discuss it with someone of BAUT intelligence.

Yes, the whole blood-stained thing is not gore for gore's sake. When the floors and walls and the bare reinforcement in concrete is weathered, it's sometimes hard to tell if it's blood or rust you're seeing, and it doesn't matter because it's the sense of decay, of neglect, that really gets to you - not, "Oh gosh, someone's cut themself, I'm going to faint!" In fact, one of the scariest scenes is a hotel with damp wallpaper. That's all!

Going back to films, there's a scene in the film adaptation of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. (There are actually two film adaptations, but the second one is utter rubbish and doesn't count.) In one scene, two women are experiencing a haunting; they clutch each other while the ghost is repeatedly CRASHING against the bedroom door. Then suddenly the two women are somehow... long ago, old news. The scene goes grainy; it's an old photograph, and the people in it are old, possibly long dead, certainly irrelevant. And then they go back to being characters in a film that we're watching in the here-and-now. I don't know if it's deliberate, and I don't know if anyone else felt that way about the scene, but for me it was very unsettling.

Anyway, there are lots of other great moment in the film, and in some ways it surpasses the book.

Samara, which Ring films did you like best? Have you read the books? Have you read/seen Dark Water? (Silent Hill 4 was heavily inspired by Ring.)

[SKY]

Yes, the whole blood-stained thing is not gore for gore's sake. When the floors and walls and the bare reinforcement in concrete is weathered, it's sometimes hard to tell if it's blood or rust you're seeing, and it doesn't matter because it's the sense of decay, of neglect, that really gets to you - not, "Oh gosh, someone's cut themself, I'm going to faint!" In fact, one of the scariest scenes is a hotel with damp wallpaper. That's all!

Yup, those are the subtle little details that I love about the game. A lot of the game has the feel of moving through a haunted house, it's mostly the stuff you imagine that frightens you the most.

[cran]

When I was about 10, I saw a B-Grade Sci-Fi horror flick called 'Demon Planet', where members of the crew started mysteriously dying, and they get buried on the alien planet, then they rise from the dead (yeah, good old zombie stuff) ... the last survivors make a desperate return to Earth, but as they prepare for re-entry, we learn that only one of them remains uninfected - he's killed, leaving a pair of alien-controlled zombies to land ... I couldn't sleep that night, and the moon was so bright that the sky wasn't black ... every noise was one them coming to get me!
Mostly it's not the 'shock' or the gore, but the suspense ... dragging on and on... that finally gets me ...

[paulie jay]

I too love the Silent Hill games, and as some have already said it's the suspense that kills you rather than gory graphics. The sound effects and music play a big role in this - at times you enter a room and although you can't see anything out of the ordinary your speakers will be issuing a jarring and scraping atonal nightmare. Sometimes this is just a red herring to get your pulse up - and it always works!


I've never really been scared by movies, although I did get freaked out by a few of Graham Masterson's horror books when I was younger.

[fossilnut2]

Some interesting themes have emerged. The most obvious is that we're quite vulnerable to being scared out of our wits at an early age. Am I allowed to admit that I had to jump in my sister's bed after watching 'Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein" ? Or Snow White gave me nightmares?

There was a Science fiction movie called 'Devil girl From Mars'... for years afterward I just remembered one or two 'feelings' of a scene. Whole societies could have been paralyzed by the fear that movie could generate.

I never knew what movie it was, etc. Then a couple years ago I was flipping the channels and there was one of the scenes. Trust me, 'Devil girl From Mars is a really bad 'B' movie with a zero fear factor. It's so bad you want to laugh all the way through (or sleep).

As an adult the creepiest scenes aren't horror movies with heads being severed or similar shlock but simple things in a psycho drama such as a bad guy about to probe someone's eye with a pencil or snipping off a toe with clippers...things that I could imagine. There is an oriental film (Japanese?) called 'Audition' which has some real visceral seat-squirming scenes.

For just a good old fashion thrill I like a movie mentioned above, the Wicker Man...nothing over the top or supernatural. Another scary movie with a psychological bend is 'Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte'...when the head rolls down the stairs the line between sanity and insanity vanishes.

[banquo's_bumble_puppy]

chest burster scene in Alien....didn't so much as scare me as it freaked me out...

[Doodler]

That is the exact part of the movie I was referring to in my OP. That part sickened me...that and the soldier who has his eyelid torn off. :eek:

Heehee, I'll have to confess to not having read your post through thoroughly, I caught the first paragraph and got the idea behind it, but didn't catch your pick before I got into mine.

For me, what gets me about Romero's movies is the presentation. I mean, I managed to handle the scene in Poltergeist where the guy tears his own face off in the mirror without any major trauma, but Romero goes the extra mile with the explicitness of his gore. Someone was telling me about a couple scenes from the new Land of the Dead that were shown in the unrated version released recently, and even without having seen them, I'm rolling my eyes like "what the heck is entertaining about this?"

But that's just me...

[Sam5]

There are four or five scenes in the original “Cat People” (1942) that I still find scary. The famous Hollywood story about that film is that it had a low budget and the producer couldn’t afford a lot of special effects showing a big black panther attacking people, so the director did most of the scary scenes with just lighting and unusual situations, such as the girl walking down a lonely street at night, next to a high wall, and the camera showed some of the tree limbs moving as if a big cat were walking along the top of the fence, stalking the girl. Then there was a scene in an indoor swimming pool at night, with one girl in the pool by herself, and they added some big-cat sounds and they did the whole scary scene just with light and moving shadows.

Supposedly, this low-budget effect scared the heck out of the audience because each audience member made up their own “cat attack” scene in their own minds, and the audience participated in scaring themselves by making up mental images of scenes that weren’t actually shown in the movie. Some other directors have tried to copy this style over the years.

[Paul Beardsley]

Another scary movie with a psychological bend is 'Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte'...when the head rolls down the stairs the line between sanity and insanity vanishes.
Ooh yes! I saw that film many, many, many years ago and I found it very scary. I was somewhat young at the time.

Another very scary moment I've remembered was from a mid-1970s TV series called "Beasts". I think they were all written by Nigel Kneale of Quatermass fame. The last episode was called "Baby" and it featured a sinister house. Workmen doing it up first find a bird's nest with eggs in it - and the eggs all contain stillborn birds. They also find a hideous mummified creature bricked up in the wall, which nobody can identify - it can't be a pig because of the remaining traces of fur, and it can't be a sheep because of the claws. Meanwhile, the new owners move in. The wife is pregnant; their cat is also pregnant, but it goes frantic when they arrive, and as soon as they open its carry-case it runs away as fast as it possibly can.

It all builds up to a climax which really terrified me. If I saw it now, I might find it laughable... but somehow I don't think I will.

Other scary TV series include "Jam", a sketch-show by Chris Morris which is different from other sketch shows in that many of the sketches are not intended to be funny, although some are.

[Laminal Cockroach]

When i was a kid i was sh*t scared of chocky and chocky 2 i didnt wanna buy any toys for a long timei was like only 3 years old then.... and i watched it alone...

[farmerjumperdon]

When I was little, the flying monkees in Wizard of Oz.

Nowadays, nothing fictional bothers me in the least. Graphic footage of ripped apart bodies (real stuff from war zones or natural disasters) makes me uneasy.

[JMV]

When I was six my cousins showed me Poltergeist. The scene where that one guy claws at his own face in the bathroom traumatized me badly. I had terrible nightmares for months after that. Then my uncle gave me Critters on video tape as a Christmas present that year :lol: (I know. I have strange relatives). I really liked it, but it ruined my good night's sleep once again. When I was ten I tried to watch The Exorcist, but couldn't bare myself to watch anymore after that crucifix scene. I didn't sleep at all that night either. I was just shaking and sweating in my bed fearing a demon might poses my body too.

[Gullible Jones]

Another very scary moment I've remembered was from a mid-1970s TV series called "Beasts". I think they were all written by Nigel Kneale of Quatermass fame. The last episode was called "Baby" and it featured a sinister house. Workmen doing it up first find a bird's nest with eggs in it - and the eggs all contain stillborn birds. They also find a hideous mummified creature bricked up in the wall, which nobody can identify - it can't be a pig because of the remaining traces of fur, and it can't be a sheep because of the claws. Meanwhile, the new owners move in. The wife is pregnant; their cat is also pregnant, but it goes frantic when they arrive, and as soon as they open its carry-case it runs away as fast as it possibly can.

It all builds up to a climax which really terrified me. If I saw it now, I might find it laughable... but somehow I don't think I will.

Ooh, that sounds like the start of an interesting plot.

[Kebsis]

Scariest movie moment?

Well I wont go into detail about the particular scene but it's towards the end of 'The Crying Game'.

[Gillianren]

Scariest movie moment?

Well I wont go into detail about the particular scene but it's towards the end of 'The Crying Game'.

Feh. That wasn't scary, if it's the one I'm thinking of--and if it is, it's also closer to the middle. It was startling, yes, and no, I wasn't expecting it, but scary? Not in the slightest.

[heyzeus321]

I remember a certain film called 'Arachnophobia'. My older cousins took me, an eight year, to see this in the theatre. Let me tell yah, I checked the inside of my toilet for at least a year because of that one scene where the guy sits on the toilet with a deadly spider in the bowl. Freaked me out.

[SKY]

For me, what gets me about Romero's movies is the presentation. I mean, I managed to handle the scene in Poltergeist where the guy tears his own face off in the mirror without any major trauma, but Romero goes the extra mile with the explicitness of his gore. Someone was telling me about a couple scenes from the new Land of the Dead that were shown in the unrated version released recently, and even without having seen them, I'm rolling my eyes like "what the heck is entertaining about this?"

But that's just me...


Yeah, Land of the Dead is up there on the gore factor (some of it is pretty original too). The think that frightens me about the whole Romero "Dead" series is the Claustrophobia he instills in the series. The first movie was the farm house, second the mall, third the underground bunker, and the fourth was a small city all of which are surrounded by reanimated cannibals. In Land of the Dead it is even more so because the whole world is suppose to be overrun with "Zombies" with only pockets of civilizations left throughout the world. So you’re supposed to feel even more outnumbered and alone.

But, yes the gore is definitely a factor in all Romero "Dead" films.:eek:

[SKY]

By the way, here is the list of "100 Scariest Movie Moments" as listed by the Bravo Channel that I referred to in my original post:

* 100. 28 Days Later...
* 99. Creepshow
* 98. Zombie
* 97. Cat People
* 96. The Birds
* 95. Jurassic Park
* 94. Pacific Heights
* 93. Child's Play
* 92. Village of the Damned
* 91. Shallow Grave
* 90. The Night of the Hunter
* 89. Alice, Sweet Alice
* 88. The Invasion of the Body Snatchers
* 87. Black Christmas
* 86. The Wizard of Oz
* 85. Blood and Black
* 84. Blue Velvet
* 83. The Others
* 82. The Terminator
* 81. The Howling
* 80. Poltergeist
* 79. Dracula
* 78. The Brood
* 77. Signs
* 76. The Evil Dead
* 75. Candyman
* 74. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
* 73. Blood Simple
* 72. THEM!
* 71. The Sixth Sense
* 70. The Stepfather
* 69. Re-Animator
* 68. The Black Cat
* 67. Duel
* 66. Marathon Man
* 65. The Tenant
* 64. Near Dark
* 63. Deliverance
* 62. The Wolf Man
* 61. The Devil's Beyond
* 60. The Beyond
* 59. Fatal Attraction
* 58. Cujo
* 57. House of Wax
* 56. Single White Female
* 55. The Vanishing
* 54. The Changling
* 53. Demons
* 52. The Phantom of the Opera
* 51. The Dead Zone
* 50. The Last House on the Left
* 49. Les Diabolique
* 48. The Thing
* 47. Nosferatu
* 46. The Sentinel
* 45. The Wicker Man
* 44. The Game
* 43. It's Alive!
* 42. An American Werewolf in London
* 41. The Hills Have Eyes
* 40. Black Sunday
* 39. Dawn of the Dead
* 38. Peeping Tom
* 37. The House on Haunted Hill
* 36. Cape Fear
* 35. Aliens
* 34. The Hitcher
* 33. The Fly
* 32. Pet Sematary
* 31. Friday the 13th
* 30. The Blair Witch Project
* 29. The Serpent and the Rainbow
* 28. When a Stranger Calls
* 27. Frankenstein
* 26. Se7en
* 25. Phantasm
* 24. Suspiria
* 23. Rosemary's Baby
* 22. Don't Look Now
* 21. Jacob's Ladder
* 20. The Ring
* 19. Hellraiser
* 18. The Haunting
* 17. A Nightmare on Elm Street
* 16. The Omen
* 15. Freaks
* 14. Halloween
* 13. Scream
* 12. Misery
* 11. Audition
* 10. Wait Until Dark
* 9. Night of the Living Dead
* 8. Carrie
* 7. The Silence of the Lambs
* 6. The Shining
* 5. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
* 4. Psycho
* 3. The Exorcist
* 2. Alien
* 1. Jaws

[Lianachan]

Surely I can't be the only person here who's seen Threads? I must be, because it's almost certain that anybody who's seen it would have mentioned it by now!

[SKY]

There is an oriental film (Japanese?) called 'Audition' which has some real visceral seat-squirming scenes.

I just finished watching that movie. I still don't know what to make of the ending, but it was definitely a disturbing movie.

[Paul Beardsley]

Surely I can't be the only person here who's seen Threads? I must be, because it's almost certain that anybody who's seen it would have mentioned it by now!
Good call - I have seen it and it is quite scary - but I think the 1960s pseudodocumentary about the same sort of thing was more powerful. Unfortunately I don't remember its title, but I remember being very disturbed when a family are outside, there is an airburst, and the baby (being held by its mother) starts screaming, apparently in response to the airburst.

[Samara]

The 2004 version of Phantom of the Opera, when Gerard Butler opened his mouth to "sing"

[Gullible Jones]

The Others was good, but I wouldn't really call it scary. Still, very much worth seeing.

Re-Animator was a load of garbage. Read the original story instead. (Which, BTW, is one of Lovecraft's better stories, actually posessing a certain degree of dark humor.)

Event Horizon has some creepy scenes, and is an interesting idea, but could have been less overdone, especially in the gore department. Even the heavily edited-for-TV version that I saw could have done with less of that.

[sts60]

Jacob's Ladder may have been the scariest movie I've seen, especially the nightmare-hospital scenes; and you just never know what's real and what's not.

The scariest single moment in a move, though, may be in Fail-Safe when the phone the President is listening to shrieks. The Ambassador had been on the other end. Had been.

I also thought The Langoliers (a TV-movie adaptation of the Stephen King short story) was surprisingly creepy and effective, despite the numerous hackneyed elements and bits of dialog. The stillness of the airport trapped in yesterday, the trees crashing in the distance, and the concept of things coming to eat your very existence... pretty well done. "Oooh! Scary!" as Count Floyd would say.

[Gullible Jones]

Looking at The Langoliers Wikipedia entry... That exact plot was used in one of 'em garbagy Critters films!

(BTW: An American Werewolf in London is also garbage. Rather funny, though.)

[Candy]

When i was a kid i was sh*t scared of chocky and chocky 2 i didnt wanna buy any toys for a long timei was like only 3 years old then.... and i watched it alone...
Do you mean Chucky? :shifty:
I think you did, and yes, that is a pretty scary movie(s). Well, I only saw the first one.

* 92. Village of the Damned

I thought I saw this movie over the weekend on the SciFi Channel. I guess what I saw was H.P. Lovecraft's Dagon (http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue278/screen3.html). I can’t seem to find it under any other name. :think:

[Parrothead]

Burnt Offerings still manages to give me the chills for some reason. I love horror movies, the mess with your mind ones over blood and gore. I haven't seen Hammer Studios' Dracula movies in some time. I recall a couple of those, starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, giving me a pretty good scare when watched late night in the 70's. I kinda enjoyed Salem's Lot too, but recall it mainly for the job James Mason and the vampire he "controlled" did. :D

[Lianachan]

Good call - I have seen it and it is quite scary - but I think the 1960s pseudodocumentary about the same sort of thing was more powerful. Unfortunately I don't remember its title, but I remember being very disturbed when a family are outside, there is an airburst, and the baby (being held by its mother) starts screaming, apparently in response to the airburst.
I think that's The War Game (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_Game)?

Personally, I found Threads more... well, "scary" isn't really the right word. I think I'll go for "disturbing".

[mid]

Re-Animator was a load of garbage.

It may not be the scariest film in the world, but it is pretty hilarious at times. If you're of a mildly sick frame of mind, anyway.

Two moments that got to me:

Alien - yes, the dinner scene, but mostly the scene where they're looking at Kane on the operating table, and the facehugger tightens its grip as they try to pry it off. Freaks me out completely, even though I must have seen the film dozens of times (it's one of my favorites). There's just something so real about it even in the SF setting; the thing is completely alive and trying to protect itself.

The Blair Witch Project - the last three minutes. You just know it's only going to end one way, and yet keep trying to convince yourself there's a way out.

On the other hand, for all that I thought it was an excellent film, I didn't find Land Of The Dead 'scary' as much as horribly oppressive. The gore, in either cut, didn't bother me that much. Apart from the bit where one has his hand down someone's throat and comes out with a cluch of innards. Which was even in the theatrical cut, so I didn't quite get the point of the 'unrated' version.

[Moose]

The Blair Witch Project - the last three minutes. You just know it's only going to end one way, and yet keep trying to convince yourself there's a way out.

Blair Witch frustrated me to no end. There is no way those kids should have gotten lost had they displayed even a thimbleful of common sense, no matter they were getting messed with by some unknown agency, even granted they hadn't a clue how to navigate accurately in the woods using a compass.

Gee, Idiotboy threw away the map. What direction do we go now? Duh, the road you came from is a nice long target. You entered the woods north-east, then north. How about going south-by-southwest for giggles?

Alternatively, if that's too easy, well they happened to be standing in a brook at the time. What do all brooks/rivers have in common? They always flow downhill. What else do they have in common? Communities are built next to flowing water, like the one they just came from. Follow the river downstream. You'll end up somewhere, if only the ocean.

And if they're really stuck, Maryland has two big highways heading north-south, and that lies some distance to the east. (And if they miss that, the atlantic coast isn't that much further.) East isn't a terrible choice either if they're really stuck for ideas.

[weatherc]

I also thought The Langoliers (a TV-movie adaptation of the Stephen King short story) was surprisingly creepy and effective, despite the numerous hackneyed elements and bits of dialog. The stillness of the airport trapped in yesterday, the trees crashing in the distance, and the concept of things coming to eat your very existence... pretty well done. "Oooh! Scary!" as Count Floyd would say.
That movie had me pretty hooked until the end when they actually showed the Langoliers. The CGI was just too hokey for me, and I found it very disappointing and distracting, especially considering how well the rest of the movie was done. I think it would have been far more effective to just show a great swarm of indistinct black dots, and show the landscape disintegrating as they approach.

[Doodler]

I always got a kick out of the Blair Witch Project, because I know someone who was in the film. The old guy they interviewed in the movie is an Electrical Engineer whom the architectural firm I work for used to contract projects too. Jim C King of Trecor, Inc. :)

[SolusLupus]

The Blair Witch Project is interesting. People either HATE it or LOVE it.

However, I have to admit that a friend of mine was correct in something: There was no need for the huge budget that went into it. All you needed was two videocameras and a few supplies.

[Swift]

Okay, another chance for everyone to say, "Gillian's so weird."
Gillian's so weird.

Actually I don't think you're weird, but I can't believe I'm the first to spike that lob. :)

[Izunya]

I'd like to nominate myself for Weirdest Childhood Movie Freakout. When I was little--younger than 5, I think--I was terrified by the movie Fantasia.

First there was the dinosaur sequence. Me, I think there's something inherently a bit creepy about Stravinsky music, even though I like it, and the music for the dinosaur sequence is Rite of Spring. The way it ends, a hopeless march with the dinos dying of thirst, and then the sun setting on an apparently empty planet, with that leitmotif repeating . . . brrr.

And shortly after my emotions had been worked over by that bit, they got to the really terrifying bit. The idea that ultimate cosmic power could be conferred upon that idiot mouse.

Even back then, the concept bothered me: someone could create something that's effectively alive, even though he clearly had no idea what he was doing. And then "solve" his problem with an axe. And then, instead of even being angry at being killed, the army of zombie brooms just keeps on trying to follow their creator's instructions . . .

(Yes, I was considered a slightly odd child. How did you guess?)

Not that I grew out of it. When I was in high school, I was badly frightened by Toy Story. Mechanical or moving toys were an early phobia that I thought I'd grown out of, and mutilated moving toys were enough to bring it back for a visit. Mind you, I was very impressed with the movie when I figured out (short spoiler) that the creepy stuff was a deliberate fake-out, and the damaged toys were not villains--I hate the notion that damaged or ugly people/animals/things are automatically evil-- but I finished out the movie pretty shaky all the same.

And this isn't because I'm unusually timid. Although I was impressed by Alien and Aliens, I didn't lose sleep to them.

The worst scare I ever got from a work of fiction wasn't from a movie, though. It was from a short story. When I was nine or ten, I loved to read "true" stories along your average woo-woo lines, from UFOs to psychics to ghost stories. One day at my grandparents' house, I found a book, something like "World's Best Ghost Stories," and assumed it was more of the same. And opened to a story called "The Willows," by Algernon Blackwood, because, hey, trees aren't scary, right?

I tracked down and reread the story last year, and while the style is pretty dated, let me tell you that with a nice leisurely build-up, bushes are scary. And when I first heard about The Blair Witch Project, I remember thinking, "I bet they took some ideas from 'The Willows.'"

Izunya

[SolusLupus]

Not that I grew out of it. When I was in high school, I was badly frightened by Toy Story. Mechanical or moving toys were an early phobia that I thought I'd grown out of, and mutilated moving toys were enough to bring it back for a visit.

I KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN!

I used to have nightmares (at a very young age) of my Toy Soldiers coming to life and coming to get me. I also had nightmares of household appliances coming alive, and everything in the house wanting to kill me.

[TheBlackCat]

I'd like to nominate myself for Weirdest Childhood Movie Freakout. When I was little--younger than 5, I think--I was terrified by the movie Fantasia.

First there was the dinosaur sequence. Me, I think there's something inherently a bit creepy about Stravinsky music, even though I like it, and the music for the dinosaur sequence is Rite of Spring. The way it ends, a hopeless march with the dinos dying of thirst, and then the sun setting on an apparently empty planet, with that leitmotif repeating . . . brrr.

And shortly after my emotions had been worked over by that bit, they got to the really terrifying bit. The idea that ultimate cosmic power could be conferred upon that idiot mouse.

Even back then, the concept bothered me: someone could create something that's effectively alive, even though he clearly had no idea what he was doing. And then "solve" his problem with an axe. And then, instead of even being angry at being killed, the army of zombie brooms just keeps on trying to follow their creator's instructions . . .

(Yes, I was considered a slightly odd child. How did you guess?)

:eh: Yet you had absolutely no problem with "Night on Bald Mountain"? You were definitely odd as a child

[kleindoofy]

I don't scare very easily, well at least at the movies.

I saw The Exorcist on it's first run in the cinema when I was 16 and actually burst out laughing at some of the scenes that were supposed to damage my young brain and turn me into a bed wetter or a mass murderer, depending on which brand of psychology you subscribed to at the time.

BUT, many years later I was at the movies with some friends and we saw Don't Look Now with Donald Sutherland und Julie Christie. Well, when we left the theater, we noticed nobody was speaking. I mean *nobody*, as in none of the people who had seen the movie, not just my friends and I.

It took my friends and I a while to recover. Finally someone said "wow." Somebody else said "let's go have a drink." We all said "yeah!"

I saw the film a number of years later on TV without even an echo of the effect. I had originally seen it in a small 100 seat theater with a large screen. I think that was part of it.

[Lord Jubjub]

This movie is not scary except for its hideous production values. . .but has anyone seen the infamous "Manos: The Hands of Fate"?

[Gillianren]

Gillian's so weird.

Actually I don't think you're weird, but I can't believe I'm the first to spike that lob. :)

Yeah, no kidding. I'm starting to feel ignored around here!

Izunya: Did you know Stravinsky hated that part of Fantasia? The animators abridged his music to make it fit the time allotted. Not a happy composer. Also he wasn't real thrilled with the animation, apparently.

And, finally, I own Manos: The Hands of Fate! (Okay, it's the MST3K'd version, and you can't watch the movie plain like you can on most of their DVDs. But who'd want to?) Yes, it's pretty creepy.

[Izunya]

BlackCat: I think by the time "Night on Bald Mountain" came on, I was having heebie-jeebies in the car on the way home. Either that or I had my eyes closed, my ears covered, and my mom's coat over my head, I'm not sure. At any rate, I don't remember seeing it on that particular trip. (I've seen Fantasia since then and found it un-scary, for the record.)

Gillianren: no, I had no idea that Stravinski objected to that sequence. Looking back on it, the animation does leave a bit to be desired; the lava is very cartoony in spots. Too, the dinos are very old-school, all greens and browns and dragging tails, but at the time I suppose that was the majority view.

Izunya

[Hutch]

When I was about 7-8, my uncle took my brother and I to see "Gorgo", which was a British take-off of Godzilla (except it was London getting wrecked). We walked into the theatre just as the previous show was ending and the Monster was filling the screen roaring and showing a mouthful of teeth....

...they managed to catch me before I made it to the street. Actually sat through the movie without too much trouble, but that first fright..

Arachnophobia is not a film, it is my biography--but the 'big' spiders don't bother me much, but the scene in the house when they are trapped and suddenly hundreds/thousands of spiders come pouring in...I turn the TV off or to another channel.

One last...Aliens, after the buildup and going through the deserted base and finding Newt (all pretty creepy by themselves). Ripley is cleaning and comforting her and says something like "....the troops here will take care of it.." and Newt stares wide-eyed at her and says in that extraordinary serious tone kids have "They CAN'T." Turned it off right then after that the first time I watched it.

[TheBlackCat]

One last...Aliens, after the buildup and going through the deserted base and finding Newt (all pretty creepy by themselves). Ripley is cleaning and comforting her and says something like "....the troops here will take care of it.." and Newt stares wide-eyed at her and says in that extraordinary serious tone kids have "They CAN'T." Turned it off right then after that the first time I watched it.
That is one of my favorite movie lines:
Ripley: These are soldiers, honey, they are here to protect you.
Newt (in a quiet, monotone voice): It won't make any difference

It wasn't a movie, and I was actually to young to remember it, but I hear this story a lot. We were at Epcot, and my parents made the mistake of taking me on "The World of Energy" ride. I was doing all right for a while, but then the giant apatasaurus head appeared out of the gloom and went up to the car right aove my head. I screamed, jumped out of the car, and ran off through the ride. They had to shut the whole ride down and find me.

[Hutch]

Thank you BC, that was it. From the mouth of babes...

[Gillianren]

I was unclear. What Stravinsky actually objected to was the subject matter of the animation. He did not have dinosaurs in mind, thank you.

And I also remember being terrified by Voyage to Inner Space at Disneyland. (But a friend of mine in junior high was freaked out by the Tron part of the Peoplemover, and that was ten years later, give or take, so I don't feel that bad about it.)

[cran]

I think it Sam5 who mentioned the earlier version of 'Cat People' - if it's the one I'm thinking of, I saw it in black&white, the bit that disturbed me was the scene looking at the bottom of the door ... and a dark tongue pokes through the gap and starts moving slowly toward you and gets longer and longer until it reaches the gap in the flagstones ... then it divides and moves along the crack, and that's when I realised it wasn't a tongue - it was blood!
I had trouble coping with Alien the first time I saw it - now I have the complete set (it helped to read the Alan Dean Foster book).
Someone else mentioned 'Jacobs Ladder' - and yes, that really messed around with my head ... but then, so did 'Flatliners' (not to the same extent) ... and the latest version of 'The Manchurian Candidate'.

[mid]

I saw The Exorcist on it's first run in the cinema when I was 16 and actually burst out laughing at some of the scenes that were supposed to damage my young brain and turn me into a bed wetter or a mass murderer, depending on which brand of psychology you subscribed to at the time.

The Exorcist isn't about big shocks and scares, but the terror the priest (and by extension, the audience) feels at seeing the bits of Catholic teaching that everyone tends to ignore as rather silly in the modern age, i.e. Satan possessing the innocent to further his cause, brought to life in front of him in a naturalistic setting. The special effects are very much second to the crisis of faith, and so if you're not an at least lapsed Christian it has much less power.

[LurchGS]

Maybe I'm not so strange as I'd thought. Fantasia bothered the snot out me when I was 3 or 4... but it wasn't the dinosaur scenes or even Bald Mountain - I hated that last bit with Ave Maria... I mean, there are hundreds of ghostly half-seen figures stalking through the forest... each armed with a big burning club... <shudder>

Slasher movies are boring... after all, we watch things like "Trauma, life in the ER", "Paramedics", etc while eating dinner. Hollywood just can't top that.

The most startling movies were Jaws and the original Alien (sequels.. gah)

The most frightening set of movies? Rocky.

and finally, three cheers to Manos: Hands of Fate!

[Sam5]

I think it Sam5 who mentioned the earlier version of 'Cat People' - if it's the one I'm thinking of, I saw it in black&white, the bit that disturbed me was the scene looking at the bottom of the door ... and a dark tongue pokes through the gap and starts moving slowly toward you and gets longer and longer until it reaches the gap in the flagstones ... then it divides and moves along the crack, and that's when I realised it wasn't a tongue - it was blood!


Ahh, that was “The Leopard Man,” which was a sequel to “The Cat People”. Both were very spooky. In “The Leopard Man,” I thought the most frightening scene was when the young girl was walking back from the store late at night and she had to cross under a bridge by herself. That’s when the big cat started chasing her. The blood scene you mentioned came right after that, when the cat caught her while she was trying to open the front door to her home.

I find things spooky in movies if they are realistic. Out here were I live, we have big cats and they sometimes kill small people and kids. A lady got attacked on her front porch about 40 miles from where I live, about two months ago.

[LurchGS]

Permit me a mild deviation from the core topic...

My older boy used to be *incredibly* afraid of things that happened on the TV.. he'd see something - even in a cartoon - that disturbed him and >>poof<< he was out of the room and hiding in his bedroom.

(note, his younger brother did not have this problem)

Now, of course, he watches these nasty movies with aplomb (at 13)

What cured him? The Scary Movie series. It was literally night and day - one day he was terrified of nasty movies, the next, he sat with me and laughed through "Evil Dead"

Just in case you know somebody with similar issues.

--------

we now return you to your regularly scheduled blood-fest

[DonM435]

I still cringe and wince at the scene in *A Clockwork Orange* when Malcolm McDowall has his eyelids held open by mechanical device when he is forced to watch certain film.

I grew up as a monster/horror fan, and can take dismemberments and decapitations . . . but violence to the eye -- or the fingernail for that matter -- makes me nervous.

I'll note the severed thumb in H.G. Lewis' *Two Thousand Maniacs* and the eye-piercing in L. Fulci's *Zombie* as scenes that make grown men flee the theater.

[gzhpcu]

For me, "The Shining". Starts to get creepy from the beginning scene, where Jack Nicholson and his family are driviing up a mountain road towards the lonely hotel, then the huge hotel, the little boy on his tricycle pedaling down the hall way, Nicholson's slow detioration to an murderous maniac. Scary, because it is all so believable.

Scarier for me, than all computer generated monsters....

[eric_marsh]

The end of David Lynch's Blue Velvet was pretty creepy. Nothing like riding around with someone who you think might kill you.

[Romanus]

I'm not much of a horror movie fan *at all*, but I can still list a few.

Squirm: Okay, this is an unbelievably stinky movie, let's get that out in the open. It does, however, have one scene that really did scare me. It's a scene where the main character is in her darkened house, and is looking around the kitchen with a candle (or is it a flashlight?). Just as she's turning around, you catch a brief glimpse in the window behind her of the horribly mutilated face of the man who is stalking her. What works about that scene is that even though we see him, we only do so for an instant (enough to see what he looks like now), and she doesn't at all.

The Ring: Without giving away spoilers, let's just say that I thought the last ten minutes or so were masterful.

Poltergeist II: You know this is coming: the vomit scene. If I remember nothing else about this movie, it'll be the vomit scene.

The Thing (1982): No matter how many times I see it, the blood-testing scene scares the hell out of me.

Alien: (spoiler) The escape sequence--particularly when the pod is racing away from the Nostromo in the last few seconds but through the window the ship just seems to keep going on and on and on--is, IMO, one of the all-time most tense moments in cinema. I remember reading about one movie critic who said that when he left the theater he went to a bar for a stiff drink. :)

[Salty]

I started being scared in movies at a young age.

We all went to see the original black and white "When the Earth Stood Still" in the theater the week it first came out, and the huge robot scared me. I remember sinking down in my seat, and covering my eyes. This was when I was under 10yo.

As an adult, movies which scared me include the original "The Haunting", the scene where the spook was banging on the door and the door bulged. Then, of course, "The Shining", "Jaws", original "Aliens" and I wouldn't even go see the "Chain Saw Massacre".

A lot of supposed to be scarey movies I enjoy for the unintended humor and campy effects.

Oh, yes! I was much disturbed by Fire in the Sky. That's about it.

My edit: Of course, "Psycho", "Birds" and "The Exorcist" all go almost without saying.

[rockinreel]

Witchboard. About calling spirits using the ouiji board. Gives you chills like Rachael did in the exorcist. Some kill scenes creeped me out and that old mean ghost. For a long time after watching that movie, I was scared a demon would fly down from the dark and try to kill me.

Underworld is worth mentioning. It's got a few hair raising scenes. Best vampire/werewolf movie ever.

[Whirlpool]

Think I have posted in the same topic but different thread somewhere . :think:

Scariest Movie : The Ring ( Japanese version) / Exorcist

The whole movie itself is scary .

[Delvo]

I don't do "scary" movies; to me they're just either boring or gross, and even if they were scary, I wouldn't see the point of a movie that has only that and nothing else. But scary scenes in otherwise non-horror movies can be much more effective, while still serving as an important part of the overall story. For example, in "Star Trek: First Contact"'s generally creepy-looking scene with the Borg outside the ship building something on it, my sister (age 30 or so at the time) actually shivered when Worf shot a Borg and it kept walking toward him without any effect but a splash of light on its force shield and a brief low hum.

One that stands out for me was from a movie about the Monitor and the Merimac. Of course, the setting is one in which warships are made of wood and cannon balls don't explode but just smash the wood on momentum alone like a large bullet. The scary scene is when the crew of a Northern ship encounters the South's first iron-clad ship, fires a volley, makes several direct hits, and watches the balls bounce off. There's a wonderful little "oh crap" pause before they start firing again, knowing that it's probably futile.

[closetgeek]

Underworld is worth mentioning. It's got a few hair raising scenes. Best vampire/werewolf movie ever.

I was just forced to watch the first and second of those two films, being prepped to go see the third. I think I annoyed my friend because I spent more time pulling a MST 3000, act. I didn't care for them.
Scariest scene ever, for me, was when I was about 6 or 7, I watched Jaws 2 with my father. When the shark came through the bottom of the boat I jumped clear out of my skin. The rest of the movie, I was on my fathers lap with my face buried in his neck. I wouldn't even put my feet on the floor as I was sure the shark was just waiting in the foundation, to come through the floor and swallow me whole.

[Kebsis]

Feh. That wasn't scary, if it's the one I'm thinking of--and if it is, it's also closer to the middle. It was startling, yes, and no, I wasn't expecting it, but scary? Not in the slightest.

...You're talking about the part where Forest Whitaker tells the story about the frog and the scorpion, right?

[BigDon]

Well it's not only what, but when too.

Back when I was a "tween" both my folks worked evening shift for a while and I watched after the younger ones. On Fridays we got to stay up late and watch Bob Wilkins' "Creature Features" on Channel 2. http://www.bobwilkins.net/creaturefeatures.htm

So I recall sitting with my now NASA workin' younger brother and my kid sister sitting in a big dark house and getting the total begabbers scared out of us by the original House On Haunted Hill and the original The Haunting. Carnival of Souls was another big winner. As was that old black and white dubbed in english Italian ghost story that took place in that huge mansion and had the damn ball bouncing down the hallways and stairs all the time. If anybody has a clue as to the name of that one let me know. I'd like to watch it again as an adult.

[RGClark]

The Thing (1982): No matter how many times I see it, the blood-testing scene scares the hell out of me.

...

I agree with you about The Thing. I can't deal with movies where human body gets used with it's separate parts like you might use some different tools or pieces of garments.
Same thing with the movie Virus with Jamie Lee Curtis.


Bob Clark

[danscope]

Hi, I like a good horror movie, and I think the old gothic horror movies of the past were quite the best . But for myself, " ALIEN " is still by far the most blood curdling movie I have ever seen, No question. For many reasons.
Best regards, Dan

[closetgeek]

So I recall sitting with my now NASA workin' younger brother and my kid sister sitting in a big dark house and getting the total begabbers scared out of us by the original House On Haunted Hill and the original The Haunting. Carnival of Souls was another big winner. As was that old black and white dubbed in english Italian ghost story that took place in that huge mansion and had the damn ball bouncing down the hallways and stairs all the time. If anybody has a clue as to the name of that one let me know. I'd like to watch it again as an adult.

Was it on purpose that House on Haunted Hill were both remade at the same time? The House On Haunted Hill remake was okay, I liked the whole Price salute. If there was ever an actor that could pull off a Vincent Price role, I would nominate Geoffry Rush. Still partial to the original, though.
Never saw the original The Haunting but it can only possibly be better then the remake. That was time lost forever, IMHO.

I did a quick search for that last movie, BD, it wasn't Kill Baby Kill, was it?

[Gillianren]

I've now seen several more of the films under discussion (as long as they start with A-F), and I can definitely nominate Cat People as worth a look. It didn't scare me; movies seldom do. But it was really intense and worth checking out. Ditto Carnival of Souls.

[HenrikOlsen]

Yup, those are the subtle little details that I love about the game. A lot of the game has the feel of moving through a haunted house, it's mostly the stuff you imagine that frightens you the most.
I'll pipe in since I just stared playing Silent Hill 2 (I didn't try the first)

There's two effects you guys didn't mention that helps make things scary, one is camera motion the other is the rather subtle one that the protagonist turns his head towards things of interesting, which means you occasionally have the guy turn his head when you have no idea whether it's because he noticed something interesting to pick up or something that's about to attack him.

It's not common for games that body language is part of the feedback to you.

[Paul Beardsley]

Not movie but TV - just watched the latest Jonathan Creek, and I found some moments quite scary - and one sequence positively nightmarish.

Technically Jonathan Creek is not fantasy because everything in it is at least intended to be possible - if somewhat improbable at times. But to my mind it's got the combination of intelligence and quirkiness that makes it reminiscent of what Doctor Who should be but usually isn't.

[peter eldergill]

Anyone ever see "Prince of Darkness"? I remember vivdly the very last scene of the movie when the guy rolls over in bed and sees who he thinks is his girlfriend....

A bit of a cheesy movie but pretty cool when I watched it

Pete

[cosmocrazy]

Not movie but TV - just watched the latest Jonathan Creek, and I found some moments quite scary - and one sequence positively nightmarish.

Technically Jonathan Creek is not fantasy because everything in it is at least intended to be possible - if somewhat improbable at times. But to my mind it's got the combination of intelligence and quirkiness that makes it reminiscent of what Doctor Who should be but usually isn't.

Just watched Jonathan Creek myself! if its the same episode the one where the bath is mechanically tilted upon someone getting in it! meeting their doom in an hidden water storage tank beneath!

Back to the OP, one moment that sticks with me the most. In the film Cliff Hanger, near the beginning of the film when Stallone is trying to rescue the girl stuck on the rope line across between the 2 mountains. Me and my girlfriend were in the cinema watching, no one in the whole cinema expected the girl to fall to her death! the moment she fell everybody jumped then groaned in shock! It was amazing but scary to. :)

[Paul Beardsley]

I'll pipe in since I just stared playing Silent Hill 2 (I didn't try the first)

There's two effects you guys didn't mention that helps make things scary, one is camera motion the other is the rather subtle one that the protagonist turns his head towards things of interesting, which means you occasionally have the guy turn his head when you have no idea whether it's because he noticed something interesting to pick up or something that's about to attack him.

It's not common for games that body language is part of the feedback to you.

I'm delighted to hear you're giving it a try. (You really don't need to have played the first one first, but I do recommend you play the first one second if you continue with the series.)

The body language thing is indeed an important part of the game. Not giving anything away, but it will become more significant later.

Hope you find the special place!

[closetgeek]

Anyone ever see "Prince of Darkness"? I remember vivdly the very last scene of the movie when the guy rolls over in bed and sees who he thinks is his girlfriend....

A bit of a cheesy movie but pretty cool when I watched it

Pete

That movie was definitely creepy. I love that one, rarely see it on though.

[antoniseb]

I'm not much of a scary movie guy, but the scene that comes to mind that made me jump most was when the nurse opened the window shades in "An American Werewolf in London".

[Hornblower]

My scariest moment was in Jaws, in a crowded theater, when the fisherman's severed head drifted into the hole in the bottom of the boat while Hooper was collecting the shark's tooth. For a moment I felt like I was going to puke. A girl nearby actually tore the armrest off of her seat in a panicky moment.

The second time around, in a nearly empty theater and no element of surprise, it was not anywhere nearly as scary.

[SeanF]

Anyone ever see "Prince of Darkness"? I remember vivdly the very last scene of the movie when the guy rolls over in bed and sees who he thinks is his girlfriend....

A bit of a cheesy movie but pretty cool when I watched it

Pete
"Prince of Darkness" was great fun. A bunch of coworkers and I watched it about twenty years ago. Years later, we'd occassionally ask each other, "Hey, have you seen Susan lately? You know, the radiologist - with the glasses?" but we couldn't do it very often because you had to give 'em time to forget about the movie and wonder who you were talking about. :)

One I thought of for me that just barely qualifies as a "movie moment" - it was a movie, "Creepshow," but I've never actually seen it. I did, however, quickly read through the comic-book adaptation once, and the story with the monster in the crate completely freaked me out (I would've been about 14 at the time). That was the same year as the Hall & Oates song "Maneater," and - to this day - I find that song far creepier than it has any right to be. :eek: