MetaChat - More Creepy: Movies!

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02 July 2008

More Creepy: Movies! →[More:] Inspired by evilcupcakes post the other day/yesterday.

I admit none of the links creeped me out, but I can see how numbers stations would creep me driving alone late at night, for sure.

What are your top three scariest movies, and why?

Me:

3. The Shining (original). It's mostly about the turning the blind corners on the trike, I think. Now, I can watch it, because there is a spirit of fun somewhere in it, and it has a by now dated look to it, so I can remove from it.

2. The Blair Witch Project. Skeeved me the heck out. Possibly the effect was enhanced by having grown up near the environs. But it is so plot driven, it's a one time deal - I could watch it again, in fact I have, and it did nothing for me, so that's that.

1. The Exorcist. I think it's about loosing selfhood. Little girl looks like herself, but ISN'T herself. Plus other very terrifying things. Possibly enhanced by being raised Catholic. I can't watch it to this day. I've tried, for therapy, twice. Once, I only got through five minutes, the second time, until the first time she spits.

Yours?

post by: rainbaby at: 21:27 | 24 comments

I now comes to me, I wonder how much the evnirons have to do with it. Of course I knew from Georgetown too (Exorcist.) And the remake of Cape Fear got under my skin pretty good, but I can watch that now too - again, plot driven, but I knew the general geography.

posted by rainbaby 02 July | 21:37

1. The Shining too. The scene where Shelly Duval finds the hundreds of typewriter papers that all have the same sentence on them. That's where it finally hits her that she's snowbound with a lunatic.

2. Alien, the first one. There's nothing more creepy than H.R. Giger's designs.

3. The Thing with Kurt Russel and Wilford Brimley. The scene with the defibrillator.

posted by octothorpe 02 July | 21:38

Ooh, I'd like to see Altered States again, too. I bet I could handle it, but that got me. That's it. Five scary movies that got under my skin. I like some other scary movies - Jaws, for example, but they don't/never did SCARE ME scare me. What a skill to make something that gets people where they live, under there, somewhere.

posted by rainbaby 02 July | 21:46

The Reflecting Skin, which completely bugged me out both times I saw it. Haven't given it a try in... 13 years now, so it might be time to track down a copy.

posted by jtron 02 July | 21:51

I don't see a lot of movies, but one movie that really messed with me was Silence of the Lambs. Might have something to do with what I was feeling at the time, but it just freaked me out knowing that there are people like that out there. Maybe I'll think of some more. Mostly I remember movies that made me laugh my ass off.

posted by eekacat 02 July | 21:56

3. I'm going to go with Alien, too. The first one is much more suspenseful than gory compared to its sequels. And it has Harry Dean Stanton.

2. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The thought of the electroshock scene still freaks me out. Jack asks "What's that?" and the cold, matter of fact voice tells him "conductant." *shudder*

1. Cape Fear. DeNiro scared the crap out of me. I've only seen it once, years and years ago, and I'm in no hurry to watch that one again!

posted by Joe Invisible 02 July | 22:22

I have walked out of dozens of creepy movies, starting with What Ever Happened to Baby Jane, and Straight Jacket. I can't stand 'em. I do not want to me uncomfortable, in that way, watching a movie. I want to have fun. If I want to be freaked out, real life has plenty of that.

posted by danf 02 July | 22:27

Hmmm... creepy or scary? There's some overlap for sure, but I'll go with more creepy here...

5. Coma. (An oldy but a goody... all those bodies suspended from wires like that... major creeps.)

4. The Omen. (Damien, put the dog down, Damien.)

3. Predator. (Freaked the hell out of some VA Pysch Ward patients, where I was interning for a class... not the best choice in movies, under the circumstances, I'd say.)

2. Poltergeist. (They're here.... I never looked at a snowy TV screen the same way again.)

1. A tie: Clockwork Orange and Freaks. (Great movies, both, but high in creep factor. Clockwork Orange, of all of them, I really can't watch, so I guess it wins.)

posted by Pips 02 July | 22:40

The Mothman Prophecies, Lots of bad things happen to people but all are explainable without the need for ghosts or other mystical stuff.

Night of the Living Dead Saw it in 1973 when I was 11 and it was not like any other horror film I had ever seen and, when we left the theatre we went to my cousin's house for nice, rare prime rib!

Aguirre, the Wrath of God Saw it when I was 14 and found just too much Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski in my own self. Creeped me out for years.

rainbaby: "The Shining (original)" There has been another?

Pips, Clockwork Orange is one of my all time funniest movies ever! Still just cracks me up.

posted by arse_hat 02 July | 23:09

Well, since I helped inspire this thread i should contribute!

1. The Exorcist - Still gives me nightmares. I saw the re-release in the theater with a friend after hours, and when the new "crab walk" scene came on she said I looked like Mr. Bill and slid down in my seat so low she thought I was going to fall on the floor. 0o0

2. Wild at Heart - Not the movie so much, but the scene where Harry Dean Stanton is killed is just... well it's just the worst possible way to die I can imagine. That scene still fills me with a feeling of dread.

3. Silent Hill - I loved this movie. Seriously! It was like the old Hammer films, cheesy, bad dialogue, implausible plot, but man oh man did it scare the holy living hell out of me!

jtron, if you liked The Reflecting Skin you should check out The Passion of Darkly Noon by the same director. Very disturbing.

posted by evilcupcakes 02 July | 23:18

rainbaby: "The Shining (original)" There has been another?

King hated the Kubrick movie and remade the story as a TV mini-series in the 90's staring Steven Weber. It sucked.

posted by octothorpe 02 July | 23:25

evilcupcakes, "That scene still fills me with a feeling of dread." made me think of Nurse Betty. The movie creeped me out and made me feel dirty for days after. A horrid little pill.

posted by arse_hat 02 July | 23:29

"King hated the Kubrick movie and remade the story as a TV mini-series in the 90's staring Steven Weber."

I missed that.

"It sucked."

octothorpe, that makes sense. King movies are good in inverse proportion to how much involvement King has.

posted by arse_hat 02 July | 23:32

What arse, you didn't like Maximum Overdrive?

posted by octothorpe 02 July | 23:37

Maximum Overdrive?

I just wanted everyone to die quickly. The AC/DC music was good.

posted by arse_hat 02 July | 23:50

Jesus Camp made me scared to turn the lights off for weeks.

posted by cmonkey 03 July | 03:51

I want nothing to do with horror movies in general, but I liked The Ring, and I liked The Others. The latter probably gave me more of a scare, but that's at least partly due to seeing it alone; with the same atmosphere I think The Ring could have "got" me just fine.

The most cumulative scary I think I remember was reading It while I was alone on the farm for a week. (At the time, being alone was a bigger deal than it is now - but in any event, it's harder to get creeped out when there are other people about.) I can still remember that more than anything it was the flashbacks to Derry's history that built up the creepy feeling for me; the idea that the whole place had a malevolent air or even intent was pretty effective.

posted by Wolfdog 03 July | 05:33

I think the thing about the DiNiro Cape Fear and The Shining, is that the acting is all around so good, it's like a master class - when I re-watch them, I can just tell how much fun they are having relishing those roles, as they do their part to scare us to death. The Exorcist lacks that spirit of fun within the scary. It just seems so. Serious.

Fun side note - my co-worker recently had her fourth and last child, a third girl. We all had name game fun, and I pointed out that her other two daughters have names that appear in Shakespeare, so I printed a list of female Shakespeare characters. The father really liked this idea, and they did go with Regan. They messed with the spelling a bit, but rightly figured that The Exorcist was so long ago, she won't get any grief for it.

posted by rainbaby 03 July | 07:37

I've still never seen The Exorcist and waffle about it a bit from time to time. I think I probably would like it.

posted by Wolfdog 03 July | 07:55

Oooo, two more... Angel Heart (De Niro does great evil) and Crash (not the more recent one about race relations, this one (much different) -- both sexually mind bending, but interesting, I think. They stay with you.

(Clockwork Orange funny? Yeah, I could see that. You're a twisted sort, a_h ; )

posted by Pips 03 July | 07:59

1. I'm also down with Alien. No matter how many times I've watched it, when the Alien unfurls itself, it's always scary.

2. Cabin Fever-Particularly the leg shaving scene in the bathroom. It gets me because it's such a human thing to do-she's scared so she seeks solace in a habitual act, but she is really making things much worse.

3. The Exorcist III. There is a scene in which Brad Dourif describes paralyzing someone and slowly draining their blood. I have an intense fear of needles and somehow the way Dourif describes the scene makes it really vivid. I turned on the TV late one night and just happened to see this scene out of context-I didn't sleep for a VERY long time. (The same goes for the alien surgery scene from Fire in the Sky-I saw that one scene ONCE and it still haunts me.)

posted by miss-lapin 03 July | 09:20

This scene from Exorcist III is creepier.

posted by kirkaracha 03 July | 11:23

1. The Haunting

2. The Ring

3. Spoorloos Scariest. Ending. Ever.

posted by essexjan 03 July | 11:41

Silent Hill - I loved this movie. Seriously! It was like the old Hammer films, cheesy, bad dialogue, implausible plot, but man oh man did it scare the holy living hell out of me!

The video game silent hill 2 was one of the few things in my life that made me sleep with lights on. I think the music had a lot to do with it.
I have two older half-brothers. Their favorite game was "make kelly watch fucked up horror movies" when I was little. I was desensitized to horror before middle school. although catholic-horror still gets to me just because the part of my brain that fell hook, line, and sinker for everything Sister Mary Margaret taught me says "but, but... it could happen!"

posted by kellydamnit 03 July | 12:54

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