I'm scared by almost anything. So pretty much any movie that is only kinda scary can get me.

The sound effects in The Grudge (American version) bothered me for days after I saw it.

The part in 101 Dalmatians (animated) where Cruella is telling Horace and Jasper to get the job done NOW has ALWAYS freaked me out and still does. THE MEAN OLD LADY WANTS TO MAKE COATS OUT OF THE PUPPIES.

The forest fire in Bambi legitimately freaked me out as a child.

As an adult it seems to me that Mary Poppins is an evil, evil lady.

The creepy old guy in Poltergeist 2 still freaks me out. Creepy! To be fair - it freaks me out because he seems like a creepy old molester-y guy and less like an evil whatever he was supposed to be in that movie. The scene where the son's braces attack him in that movie also still freaks me out because I hated my orthodontist and have bad memories of braces.

Paranormal Activity freaked me out. Basically, any story that could conceivably happen freaks me right out. The couple in Paranormal Activity reminded me of my husband and myself, and I had trouble sleeping for days afterwards. The first SAW movie was scary in a different way; didn't keep me up at night but it made my skin crawl. Hostel was the same way, only more repulsive and less startling.

Not a movie, but I read Amityville Horror when I was about 10 (stole it off my parents' bookshelf). Boy was that a colossal mistake. Helter Skelter also scared the bejesus out of me.

Also, check out The Exorcism of Emily Rose on Hulu. There's another movie on Hulu that I can't remember the name of - several young adults get trapped in a cabin during a storm, and start dying violently, one by one.

I should add that I have panic disorder, so loud noises scare me, but the items I've listed probably scare most people.

Also, intentionally watching scary stuff when you have panic disorder is stupid.

The Mothman Prophecies is my favorite atmospheric horror movie. There are few if any "jump" scares, and you never even see the monster in question outside of a few evocative sketches, but the tone of the story and the things that happen are so disturbing and eerie that it really sticks with you. I re-watched it a few months ago and really enjoyed it. See this video clip for a great distillation of the film's style.

(Or this one, which puts it in context with a few more great scenes.)

If you thought the movie was scary, you should read the book it was (very very loosely) based on. TOTALLY different story, but one of the creepiest books I have ever read.

As cheesy as this sounds, the movie "Silent Hill" wigged me the hell out. It's not such a great film, but I had nightmares for weeks after seeing it.

When I was 8 years old, I started staying up for the Friday night fright movie, and by the time I was 12, I was inured to the genre. That didn't stop me from watching horror movies, because I was always looking for the well-made ones.

Generally, I find the independents, the most enjoyable because ultimately they did not have to respond to studio pressure, only the MPAA rating board. Movie makers learned early that by throwing in the really grotesque that was meant to be cut to appease the board, they could get away with the gags they really wanted.

I Spit On Your Grave - this is not horror but simply revenge, however it pushed the R rating far into new acceptable territory

Maniac! - Serial killer, only a few kills but some set a new standard for gore. The remainder of the movie is a deep insight into the mind of a true sociopath. Also, one of the best synth soundtracks ever, any genre.

Deadgirl
Dawn of the Dead
Evil Dead II
Ginger Snaps

Mainstream or at least big budget

28 Days Later
The Midnight Meat Train
Scream
The Shining

Oldies but goodies

13 Ghosts (1960)
Bride of Frankenstein

Magic w/Anthony Hopkins and Ann Margaret.

I watched The Orphanage last week. It was good scary.

Ohhh, I loved the Orphanage. I watch a lot of gore movies, but I like the super spooky, less gory ones even better. I have to admit to absolutely loving The Others, each of the thousands of times I have watched it.

(first metachat post ever, whee!)

The Vanishing kept me up at night for a loooong time.

"Haut Tension" / High Tension / Switchblade Romance.
French, in some obscure language.

Thanks, all!

Also, intentionally watching scary stuff when you have panic disorder is stupid.

Hey-hey, panic disorder sufferer here! Yes, watching scary stuff when you have panic disorder is kind of stupid (but maybe also therapeutic?), but I'd have to say the same about drinking coffee, which I've refused to give up after years of being encouraged to do so.

Sometimes you've gotta draw this line where you say "I don't care if you make me more prone to panic, I want/need to LIVE!" Indeed, that seems to the "moral" of many horror films, and I think that impulse is actually a pretty healthy one. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the per-capita rate of horror fans (or horror genre filmmakers/authors/etc) is greater among panic-prone people than others, and that their interest in the genre has something significant to do with grappling with the emotional terrors they experience as a result of the disorder.

"The Mothman Prophecies" for me too. Last movie I can remember that scared me. I don't believe in ghosts or the supernatural and I find stuff like Saw and Hostel just tedious. Mothman was scary because delusion, mental illness, and the madness of group think is all too real.

The Haunting scared me half to death when I was a teenager, and still scared me on a recent viewing. "Whose hand was I holding!"

Spoorloos is one of the creepiest films ever. Oh God, the ending, the ending, don't watch it ...

Also, The Ring. What can I say. Creepy as shit.

Paperhouse

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marianne_Dreams

will f**k up your s**t.

Also, this weird British TV drama thing I have never been able to identify about a woman locked in house with two lifesize dolls of children that died 100 years ago. Sooo many nightmares.

I am so validated to see "The Mothman Prophesies" mentioned twice! I remember it got critically slammed, so I watched it on cable home late alone. So scared. Tangent - my husband met the guy who played Gordon!

The Believers
28 Days Later

Too scary = The Exorcist.

I don't do scary as a rule, but every so often I'll get drawn in. I remember Poltergeist when I was a young'n, more recently Fallen.

I try to watch them with the lights on and the windows open in the middle of the day on a small screen.

The Ring, The Blair Witch Project. Mothman was less scary for me because I watched it as a download, though The Ring was scary as a download. Maybe RIAA could fight downloads with a Ring concept wherein a downloader would die 7 days later.

I think the last movie that actually "scared" scared me was the original Hellraiser.

A few personal favorites: Drag Me To Hell (which I love so much I can't stop telling people to see it), Dead and Buried (written by the recently-departed Dan O'Bannon), The Hills Have Eyes (the original, though the remake has its charms, too), and of course anything by Dario Argento or George Romero in their primes.

Among films not mentioned yet: Se7en, Silence of the Lambs, The Omen (1976).


And especially Pasolini's Salo: 120 Days of Sodom

I've got Jacob's Ladder and Videodrome downloaded, but haven't watched them yet.

For my money, some of the best creepy/scary scenes ever recorded were in Lynch's Lost Highway. The part where Bill Pullman is talking to the guy both face to face and on the phone? And the part where they find the videotape made of them sleeping?

I'd like more of these kinds of moments, if anyone can recommend them. Physical horror doesn't do much for me (you'd be amazed how boring these films can get when you're not afraid of death), but metaphysical horror? Ooh baby, is that ever sweet.

Scary in different ways than horror:

1. The first half of Slumdog Millionaire, when all the nasty stuff is happening to the little kids. When the girl gets separated from the two boys, that movie tanks like Rommel driving into Egypt.

2. Christmas in Connecticut: almost Lynchian in it's complete disregard of how people normally behave. I watched this recently and couldn't get over the It Would Be Best To Not Be In The Same Room Ever With These People feel.

3. I've always thought The Children of Men was as suspenseful and bone-chilling as any horror movie.

Mimic. It's an older movie about 6 foot tall bugs that eat people, living in the NYC subway system. I watched that damned movie in an IMAX theater at Lincoln Center in Manhattan. 18,000 watt 360º stereo surround sound. It sounded like the damned bugs were coming out of the walls. Ugh. My girlfriend at the time loved horror movies, but she spent the entire movie twitching, curled up in a ball in her seat.

The movie wasn't really that scary. But the "creepy crawly" factor was turned up to 11.

I read an interview a day or two later that director Guillermo del Toro gave to the NYTimes. He said that he had paid very special attention to sound production, because "people can close their eyes, but they can't close their ears." Bastard. :D

For one scene, he scattered the crew all over a darkened soundstage with various noisemakers. Then he brought in Sandra Bullock, placed her on the soundstage floor and directed her to walk a certain distance while he shined a single spotlight in her eyes so she couldn't see. She didn't know where the noises were coming from or when, and neither did the audience. She said in a later interview that it was one of the creepiest experiences she'd ever been through. The IMAX theater's surround sound system was particularly effective here -- the bugs sounded like they were behind you, above, below. *shudder*

I don't like to be askeered.

Oh, Children of Men -- I've meaning to see that forever, thanks for the reminder!

BoringPostcards, the original Hellraiser scared me very badly when it first came out. I was like 15, in the closet, a somewhat-recovering Christian fundamentalist, and deeply in love with my best friend who went to see it with me. Somehow it pushed some psycho-sexual buttons that were just waiting to pushed that I didn't even know were there. For years, I had nightmares of being pursued by Cenobites through Escher-like labyrinths.

Eideteker, did you see Inland Empire? Seeing that in the theater (on Christmas Day, in West Hollywood :) really freaked me and partner out. We couldn't talk for like 10 minutes, and I remember one very shaken-up young woman on a cell phone saying something like "OMG I just saw Inland Empire, please come get me, I'm so scared!" I've been moved and mesmerized by the film on subsequent viewings, though not particularly scared.