Dan lists the three scariest movies he has ever seen.
Sinister little girls are now on the list of Wrong Things Best Avoided right alongside clowns and mimes.
And please read Dan’s terrifying description of watching the COMMERCIAL for The Changeling, as a 10 year old. He has never even seen the damn film, people, but the COMMERCIAL left such an imprint of terror that he has included it on his list of “scariest movies ever”. Now that’s one frightening-ass commercial!
I remember that I was absolutely haunted by a commercial for “Magic” when I was a kid – the marionette’s eyes gleaming through the dark. I still, to this day, have never seen that film.
Okay, so my 3 scariest movies ever?
1. Rosemary’s Baby. Believe it or not, I have put myself through the torturous experience of that film a COUPLE of times. Because it’s so damn good, and because it’s like needing to touch a hot stove or something. You WANT to be scared. This is # 1 on my list because the film is unpleasantly frightening. It is agony. There are so many levels to the scariness. Even the camera angles are designed to keep you on your edge.
2. The Exorcist Again with the scary devil theme. But I’ve seen The Omen as well – and that’s just kind of cheesy and bad. The Exorcist really seems to BELIEVE in the devil. The devil exists. Again, there is nothing pleasant about this film. It is like being locked in a tiny cobwebby basement, with no light, knowing that there’s some beast in the darkness. You cannot get away, you are trapped, you cease being a human being, and just become a racing heart-beat. This movie is an assault. One of the scariest movies ever made. (I’m sure it can’t hold a candle to The Changeling, Dan.)
3. The Ring I know, I know, you could drive Mack trucks through the plot holes. Who WAS that woman on the phone?? It makes no sense. But this is the first “horror movie” I have seen in a long time which seemed to dedicate itself to the “art” of the horror movie – like Polanski did in “Rosemary’s Baby”. Not relying on special effects alone to get your screams – but to create terrifying camera angles, to use music sparingly, to go completely for atmosphere – which wraps your audience in a horrified blanket. I made the mistake of renting it by myself, and watching it alone. I had heard people say, “That is one damn scary movie” – but it made me curious to see it, rather than terrified. HUGE mistake. I had to turn the damn thing off, and take breaks, where I would breathe deeply, turn on all the lights, reassure myself: “It’s just a movie … it’s just a movie …” Even now, I am not sure what exactly I found so scary. I’ve already blocked the whole thing out.
Re: The Ring – it’s funny but the movies that scare me don’t have to ‘make sense’ – it’s not the plot or ideas that creep me out, but the images on screen. It’s a purely visceral reaction, a question of whether the director and the actors via their performances) manage to trigger something in the lizard brain that says ‘danger Will Robinson, danger!’
Oddly enough the film of the Exorcist did not scare me. Probably because I had already read the book – which kept from sleeping the night I finished it.
I think the difference between a good horror film and a bad one is that good ones do sweep you away, via your senses – and no WAY will you sit back EVER and think: “Wow. That is so implausible.” How many times have you sat in a bad horror movie, just laughing at the plot holes? They haven’t created that terrifying world – and so the audience has time to scorn the plot holes.
I only noticed the plot holes a couple of days later, when I was back to normal, and I couldn’t answer the question: Who was that woman on the phone?
Do you know??
I never even thought about it, truth to tell. I guess I just assumed it was the sinister little girl making a well-to-house call.
“well to house call”
Now that’s funny.
“Yes, Ms. O’Malley – I have a well to house call … will you accept the charges?”
“God, no. Don’t put that little drowned bitch through, please.”
Heehee. Almost makes me want to get Caller ID.
‘Uh oh, it’s that 9355 number again; better let the machine get it.’
hahaha
Meanwhile, there’s a pissed-off rejected sinister little girl leaving you messages from the bottom of the well.
“Pick up – pick up – I know you’re there – pick up!!!”
‘Hi. It’s me again. Well Girl. You seem to be avoiding me – does this mean we’re breaking up?’
Something tells me the mini-hosebeast would take that more like Glenn Close a la Fatal Attraction than some weepy rejected mouse.
Yeah, you do not want to fuck with that drowned little girl.
Alien tops my list. The other two that come to mind are utter schlock, but they scared me anyway: It’s Alive (1974 starring John P. Ryan, and a creepy commercial, too: “There’s only one thing wrong with the Davis baby–it’s alive”) and Mission Mars (from 1968, starring Darren McGavin and Nick Adams).
For me it was John CArpenter’s The Thing. God, it was nauseating AND scary and creepy as all shit. Blleeehhh – make me wiggly to think about it!
–Liz
Signs with surround sound, huh? Sounds kind of trippy.
I really wasn’t drunk when I wrote my other comment! I just can’t tYipe.
Anyway, I put up my three on Truly Bad Film and linked back to both of you. Good thread!
methodology, the deliverance, even) poker as about a lot of other music – we practiced web casino several flows over the track before gambling we actually recorded the raps – the slot machine finished product was surprisingly credible