Scariest movies

[Asher]

Here is a thread for the scariest movies you've seen. I recently watched "Ju-on" or "The Grudge" and DAMN was I scared! I was watching with some from friends and we were screaming so much. We watched it at night (much better effect, especially when the screeen went.....kekekekem you'll have to watch it in the dark). If you have seen it, you may not agree that this is the scariest movie, but I am veging on fear of the dark after watching that. I dont even feel safe in bed after watching that. *shudder* brrrrrrrrr. That was some scary.....shit.

[Edwin]

Hmmmmm...

The last movie that genuinely scared me was Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining". The music helped set the mood quite a bit, and I'd love to get my hands on the Soundtrack. Most so-called "Horror" movies today are just "Psycho" rip-offs with over-the-top violence and special effects tossed in.

[Asher]

Yeah, well this was mostly a psychological thriller, hardly any CG except for the smaky thing that almost jumoed out of the screen. *shudder*

[silverwings]

i watched Ring (japanese version) last halloween, scared the crap out of me

great film though, if a little odd.

[tourist]

The Exorcist. I liked the Exorcist because of the innocence of the girl. It's not something you can simply shoot at and make go away. Thats not to say that all supernatural horror films are great, but they are the ones I prefer.

Off topic - What defines a good scary movie to you? I agree that excess blood and bits and gore spoils it for me. It wasn't the special effects that made the Exorcist scary for me, it was the concept of the little girl and the devil.

[Phenix]

Lets see: Alien(even thought ive not actualy seen it) the whole idea of the parisite scares me.

The Thing is quite scary thought its fun when some one looks away and says "Tell me when this bit ot over" of course you tell them its over half way throught the gruseom mutilation etc.

[Asher]

hmmmm, what makes a movie scary (btw, it's not off topic, this is a thread for scary movies!!! and stuff to do with scary movies so..... :thinking: meh) anyway, well, music definitely creates a scary atmosphere. also, if the movie keeps you gussing, that's really scary....and good! even if you can't go to bed calmly at night!

edit: forgot to add that if it's psychologically scary, that does it for me. excess blood and gore does ruin the atmosphere, i have agree with you there zebra

[Edwin]

Originally posted by zebra@Oct 10 2004, 06:59 AM
Off topic - What defines a good scary movie to you? I agree that excess blood and bits and gore spoils it for me.

Actually, it's what I *don't* see that can make a Horror movie frightening. I once saw The Haunting and it was quite an intense experience. The interesting thing about it was that there is nary a ghost to be seen -- all of the "haunting" is done with sound and lighting effects. I think Stephen King put it best in his book "Danse Macabre" (an excellent resource if you're interested in the genre) when he pointed out that (and I'm taking this from memory, so I *could* be incorrect here) a six-foot-tall cockroach is frightening because it is a relatively common thing (who, after all, has never seen a cockroach?) seen outside of it's normal context. But it's only frightening until a *100 foot cockroach(&#33* comes along. (To which I would add: A 1000 foot cockroach may*sound* scary; but when you realize that it wouldn't even be able to move or breathe because of it's weight, it sort of takes the fright out of the scenario and injects an element of the comical/absurd. Bigger is *NOT* always better...)

[Rovski]

exorcist is plain demonic, it is satanic but it doesn't play with pagan worships

[Hawq]

I agree with Edwin on The Haunting (63 version) from a time when they let your mind conjure the nasty bits & so it becomes as bad as your own mind, House on Haunted Hill (59 version) is another example of this, but avoid the remakes of these two as they take away the edge the older ones have

[Alfonso de Sabio]

It is a simple question. What scares us? Some say evil frightens us. But no one considers adultery themed movies white knuckled thrillers. And there is nothing particularly evil about being killed by exotic animals. If horror were purely based on evil, Anaconda and Arachnophobia would have been labeled dramas or tragedies. And why is death so frightening itself? Not particularly the death of the self, but the deaths of others. It has nothing to do with separation anxiety. Consider two strangers in an elevator. They reach their destination and never see each other again. If the same two strangers are together in an elevator and one starts foaming at the mouth and dies the other is terrified and can not bear to remain there. So what makes death so horrifying? It isn’t just the drama of it, because if one of them left elevator screaming about how their life was over and jumped off the building, it still would lack the depth of watching someone’s body die.
Death has always frightened man because it just seems wrong. Here is something that moved, laughed, cried. And now it doesn’t do anything. It is impossible to summon a response. Imagine Cain’s shock. Death just seems like it should not be. That is the root of all horror. Something is not right. “Something’s rotten in the state of Denmark.” Something should not be, or, to put it in psychological terms, something gives us “cognitive dissonance.” We have some definite that is being toyed with. This is what makes “Les Enfants Terribles” such a great scheme. There is a general cognition, “children should not be evil. ” But when reading The Turn of the Screw or watching The Ring, cognitive dissonance is unavoidable. This disorder horrifies humanity.
Just for the unconvinced, I will go through a list of examples where things frighten us because that is not how they ought to be. Take The Sixth Sense. People should not see the spirits of the dead. It just should not be. Take all Zombie movies. If it frightens us to see people die, we definitely do not want to see them move again. Take Slasher movies. Most of the time the victims have either broken the perverse moral code of the killer or the killer enjoys killing. Both should not be. Humans have what they consider a universal set of morals that should not be toyed with. Whenever a character appears who gives out punishment based on a different set, we have cognitive dissonance. (I could go on and on and point out the dissonance in every horror medium available, but I hope the contention is now understandable.)
It is little wonder then that most horror scores are full of dissonant music. When analyzing the wave lengths of a minor chord, the perfect fifth is perfectly consonant. It is the minor third in between that makes it sound awkward and frightening. It is so powerful that even when the third is absent its presence is still implied and played in our minds due to the minor key’s influence. The idea of dissonance still haunts us even when it is not placed directly before us.
So, what does this say about humanity? Overall, we prefer order. Minor chords have their role in the most cheerful odes and tension is present in all stories. There must be conflict to make something worthwhile. But when the conflict is against something that just ought not be, horror becomes the main event.

Sorry about such a long post. I felt inspired.

[Roy Mustang]

Originally posted by Alfonso de Sabio@Oct 18 2004, 02:55 AM
Sorry about such a long post. I felt inspired.

I can see that It was a good read though...and rather interesting.

[Edwin]

Originally posted by Alfonso de Sabio@Oct 17 2004, 09:55 PM
(...)there is nothing particularly evil about being killed by exotic animals. If horror were purely based on evil, Anaconda and Arachnophobia would have been labeled dramas or tragedies.

As I wrote above (using Stephen King's example), a lot of Horror goes to context: Most people have seen snakes (usually in a controlled environment, like a school or zoo) and practically everyone has seen a spider or two in the basement or laundryroom. But outside of the context of those "safe" environments, both animals have a "menacing" aspect (i.e. both have sub-species known to be lethally poisonous to man) and therefore are feared -- and the fear is exaggerated either by the sheer size and speed of the creature (the 60+ foot snake in "Anaconda") or a percieved "supernatural" intelligence/"group-think" superior to man's own. (The "smart" spiders in "Arachnaphobia".)

One of the scenes that I always laugh at in the movie "Creepshow" is the one where the cleanliness fanatic played by the late E.G. Marshall is over-run and eventually killed by a zillion cockroaches. Cockroaches may indeed be dirty, disgusting insects; but (other than spreading a few diseases with the help of man's own carelessness) they're essentially harmless. They don't bite and inject no venom. It's their sheer *numbers* that scares us! To which I answer, "I have yet to meet the cockroach that can withstand the heel of my boot!" The same is pretty much true of rats and, to a certain extent, mice. Their numbers and reputation for spreading disease (Black Death, anyone? ) are what frighten us -- but not *all* of us, considering that some of us keep them (and cockroaches) as pets...

And, yes, your post was certainly inspired *and* inspiring!

[random_tangent]

The Sixth Sense scared me REALLY bad....but I saw it at the movies (so i was only like 11), and I was pretty sick at the time. Still refused to see it again and see if it really was as scary as I thought it had been.

What Lies Beneath also freaked me. I'm really not a great fan of horror, and never have been.

[souma_hatsuharu]

haha ju-on...and you thought hiding under the covers was safe =D