Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Martinus on October 14, 2005, 06:30:41 pm
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[color=66ff00]Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream, I know what you did last Summer; not scary. What I'm looking for is your idea of scary movies, movies that make you feel edgy, nervous or strike terror into your gentle hearts.
The Japanese version of the Ring is a good example of a movie that made me feel uneasy but I haven't seen anything properly scary since I played the first Silent Hill game on the PSX.
Halloween is coming. :)
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Not to start a debate or anything, but the ring (both jap and eng versions) were the least scary most boring things i had ever seen.
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Creature/slasher flicks aren't really all that scary, IMHO (the only exception being Alien, which scared the piss out of me). Psychological/supernatural stuff, on the other hand, is good. Exorcist, Body Snatchers, The Thing, and Solaris (believe it or not) are good examples of these.
The only thing that I think the Jap horror movies have going for them are the dead/possessed/supernatural looks that their villains have (i.e. Samara from The Ring, or any of the corpses in The Grudge). Those really are all the movies have for them, but that's just my opinion.
If you want a movie to just plain unnerve you, try Requiem for a Dream. NC-17 for the unedited version here in the US, but even the edited R-rated version is scary as hell.
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[color=66ff00]Requiem for a dream is more depressing than unnerving, as you say slasher fliks pretty much suck. Alien had a good dose of pscyhological horror to it so I wouldn't call it a creature slasher.
Fallen is a good example of a thinking man's horror film.
The horror genre can't be that limited... Can it?
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Originally posted by nuclear1
If you want a movie to just plain unnerve you, try Requiem for a Dream. NC-17 for the unedited version here in the US, but even the edited R-rated version is scary as hell.
Mate, that is one messed up movie. It isn't scary, it's just plain... crazy... y'know?
There really aren't many good horror movies out now come to think of it... and with relatively recent horror attempts like Freddy vs. Jason... I sincearly doubt that the horror drought will end anytime soon...
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I thought The Exorcism of Emily Rose was pretty scary, especially by supernatural thriller standards.
But in the more pure horror genre, I simply must point you to Cabin Fever. That movie raped my mind. It did what I think horror movies are supposed to do: It didn't startle or use cheap suspense; it sickened with exceedingly disturbing imagery.
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I thought "The Others" was probably the best "scary movie" I'd seen in a long time.
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I thought Cabin Fever was incredibly stupid, but meh, that's just me.
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Truth is, I've never actually seen something I regarded as creepy in a permanent manner. Creepy at the time, but making me jump out of shock just doesn't cut it.
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I was once watching an interview with Alfred Hitchcock, and the lesson was grand for this thread. he said...you can have some businessmen sitting at a meeting, and a bomb goes off...everyone jumps.
But if you show the audience the bomb beforehand, it builds the suspense, and as it winds down to 1 second, the audience realizes that they aren't going to escape, and in that 1 second, whether they remember it or not, it strikes terror. That terror permeates the subconscious mind, and sets the tone for the entire movie.
Exorcist scared the piss out of me......
Gothica was a great tale...not true horror, even with the ghost...but a grand adventure in suspense...
and of course...the Shining with Jack Nicholson
Mostly, as is obvious, it is the supernatural tales that get to me, i think one of my favorites was Dragonfly, it wasn't horror, but it scared the crap out of me.
In the mouth of madness...for one of those "is this really reality" movies.
and my vote for the worst horror movie ever made......any of the unstoppable slasher movies...except for the first halloween, i like the way Michael Meyers messed with her mnind before coming for her.
If you get the chance, and can get past the religeous foundation, i highly reccommend Bless the Child, with Kim Basinger. A very good movie.
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I'd have to say...
The Exorcist - but not for the usual reasons (IE: the little girl doing horrible things). I found it to be at its most unpleasent/frightening during the medical experiments that were carried out on her. That sort of thing really scares me I guess.... as there's no question about how real they are - they're real tests and such.
Requiem For A Dream - Following on in similar themes, while 95% of the film was quite watchable for me, the final scenes where each character gets their respective "end" was one of the most disturbing scenes I've ever seen in a film.... to the extent that don't like watching it as I end up feeling a bit unhinged myself at the end of it all. Scary? No. But Utterly utterly un-nerving.
The Grudge - Alright so it starred Sarah Michelle Gellar. That aside though, I did find it scary. Predictably scary in some places - but still scary.
Now that I come to think about it though.. there aren't many films that genuinely scare me (aside from Britney Spears "Crossroads"). I guess I've seen one too many ghost / haunted house movies and now find them predictable rather than frightening. They might make me jump but they're not enough to infuse terror.
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Originally posted by nuclear1
The Thing
:yes:
Films that use 'boo' tactics irritate me. Mainly because a lot of people call them horror films, but most of the time they don't actually cause much fear and just try to surprise the audience with loud noises.
Dead Birds - This is one of the few new films that managed to genuinely scare the hell out of me.
Below - Has several creepy moments, but mainly it's just a really cool horror themed WW2 film. Though it did scare me when I first saw it, but having watched it about 10 times I've become desensitised to it.
Darkness - Story's a bit obscure near the end (though I liked that about it), but it's got some really creepy camera work. Some parts are very Silent Hillish. Speaking of which...
Jacob's Ladder - Honestly, if the town this film was set in was called Silent Hill, that's what it would be. A Silent Hill film. Because that's exactly what it feels like.
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For it's time Alien and Aliens was scary (not anymore though).
The chestburster scene in Alien had people running out of the theaters when it was first shown.
Btw I found a VCD of Aliens here and I am showing it to all of my classes. Most of my students are not scared, but some are. Almost all of them seem to like it. It is good to be an English teacher here. :D
EDIT: I think the scariest film I have ever seen was Kazam. Shaq trying to act is terrifying.....
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Hellraiser had it's moments, so did Carrie, but The Thing was more scary.
Scary Movie has shown us the clichés of terror, so taking away a lot of fear.
Stephen King and Clive Barker books seem more scary to me than any film...
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I seem to remember two movies called 'The Leprechaun' & 'The Leprechaun II', scared the hell outta me, like when the Leprechaun in question did the saw a guy in half magic trick... only he used a Chainsaw and it wasn't a trick... trust me, it's scary as hell for a 12 year-old :nervous:...
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F.E.A.R.
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Originally posted by Maeglamor
[color=66ff00]The Japanese version of the Ring is a good example of a movie that made me feel uneasy [/color]
I don't get why people thing the Japanese Ring is scary. I spent a fair portion of that movie laughing at the dodginess of it all, which took away a lot of the fear.
Mothman Prophecies was one that made me feel very uneasy the first time I saw it, but it loses the vast majority of its ability to scare you on the second viewing. Signs had a similar effect until pretty near the end, when the ridiculousness of the plot made it difficult to be scared. The suspense parts were good though.
I like movies that don't show the bad guys - just their effects. Those are the ones that scare me.
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H.P. Lovecraft
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Originally posted by Black Wolf
I like movies that don't show the bad guys - just their effects. Those are the ones that scare me.
The human imagination can think of things far worse than a movie can show you. That's what makes movies with hidden villains the most scary. Very few movies (Alien included; sorry, I really love that movie) can actually show the creature or force and be truly scary.
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[color=66ff00]Too true, the thing that terrified me most as a kid was imagining the preacher from Poltergeist hovering over or beneath my bed in the darkness.
I couldn't go near a mirror for the best part of 6 months.
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Read Lovecraft's thesis on horror.
The supernatural, odd or inhuman must never be portrayed as part of the general storytelling, for it's the very inpossibility of depiction, understanding or connecting with the phenomenon that strikes the chords of our fear.
Film though are hunted by their own medium - you show, depict, visualize. That's anathema to fear.
Therefore the rest of the tale must stritcly adhere to a firm structure and hold an iron grip on being as realistic as possible in every imaginable aspect.
When showing the very matter of our fear, it must be so earth and soul shattering that even the storytelling will crack - loose cohesion - and our protagonist will be scared and incapable of ever retelling or relating to the incident.
It's impossible to get over 'it' as you never grasp what 'it' is....
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Oddly enough, walking into a Room and seeing a monster that is there isn't nearly as scary as walking into a room and realising a common household object that's always been there, isn't, and you think you know who's got it...
No matter how creepy a 'Horror' creature is when you see it, it will never live up to that tingling feeling you get when you don't know what it looks like, but you know it's there.
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Wait until dark. It wasn't a horror movie and starred Audrey Hepburn of all people, but that's just to lure you into a false sense of security when you first watch it.
I think I could have called guinness and made a record for highest nonassisted altitude when I jumped out of the seat. :shaking:
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I have never been scared of a movie... there is no emotion, there is peace. :D
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Originally posted by Kalfireth
Requiem For A Dream - Following on in similar themes, while 95% of the film was quite watchable for me, the final scenes where each character gets their respective "end" was one of the most disturbing scenes I've ever seen in a film.... to the extent that don't like watching it as I end up feeling a bit unhinged myself at the end of it all. Scary? No. But Utterly utterly un-nerving.
Have you seen Pi? If not, I recommend it.
The whole last half hour is really wierd/scary, even more so than the rest of the movie.
*bzzzzzzzt*
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Originally posted by Flipside
Oddly enough, walking into a Room and seeing a monster that is there isn't nearly as scary as walking into a room and realising a common household object that's always been there, isn't, and you think you know who's got it...
No matter how creepy a 'Horror' creature is when you see it, it will never live up to that tingling feeling you get when you don't know what it looks like, but you know it's there.
that's true in the movies, yes, but if you saw a monster in real life, it would be much scarier.
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I still prefer the mind rape tactic: Force the audience to see and hear things that are as disturbingly incongruous, horrific, brutal, and gruesome as the mind can possibly conceive. Cross every line of decency, show things that should never be seen, and burn sick, wrong things into the audience's visual and audial memory that will never wash away. Some dark humor is also good.
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Any and all Richard Simmons work-out tapes.
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(http://personales.ciudad.com.ar/simpsonitos/Robot.jpg)
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Originally posted by Ransom Arceihn
Jacob's Ladder - Honestly, if the town this film was set in was called Silent Hill, that's what it would be. A Silent Hill film. Because that's exactly what it feels like.
That just arrived in my box from Netflix. I'm looking forward to it.
I dont' find slasher/gore/overstep the bounds of decency flicks scary, disturbing or even remotely horrific. There's never a moment where I can forget that I'm watching a quote-unquote scary movie.
Give me something like "The Others" (suspense/twist) or "Dark Water" (psychological/suspense) and the like. Make the force fundamentally all too human with a twist (none of that stuff like in White Noise, where the antagonist was... what? why? a complete cop out).
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I havn't really seen any movies I'd say were scary. Excorcist was just disturbing and twisted and the Ring was just stupid and boring.
When I was younger, Jaws was pretty scary and Relic had its moments.
Poltergeist was scary with the clown and the tv voices. Darkness Falls, although a pretty stupid action film had one scene where a boy(and his mother?) was in a lit bathroom and the tooth fairy was clinging to the ceiling in the dark hallway that was oddly unnerving.
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This is a cool thread. It's always interesting to get a feel for what scared people in a movie. The original "Ring" for example not only creeped me out (I got a chill every time the phone rang for weeks) but absolutely scared the hell out of me. My partner on the other hand just things it's "stupid and boring". I kid you not. Exactly what MicroPsycho said. Word for word. Conversely my partner thinks The Exorcist is the scariest thing ever and I think that's stupid and boring. So there you go.
Other films that have scared the hell out of me? Poltergeist I, Hellraiser I, The Thing, Grudge, and (prepare to laugh hysterically at me, I'm such a wuss) War of the Worlds. Oh and I never ever found Aliens scary. My theory is Aliens is far too cool to be scary.
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Somehow I found the Hollywood remake of "The ring" quite scary and the Japanese version mostly boring, althouggh that's one of the movies that's only good the first time you watch it. (Like "The others" or "Blair witch project")
The last movie that had a big impact on me was "Donnie Darko", which is not a horror movie at all.
I watched it alone in a dark room late at night and I had no idea what the movie was about (I just got it from a friend that told me that it was good and I should watch it)
So, there I was sitting..... and nothing could have prepared me for Frank, that 6-foot-tall bunny rabbit.
Sidenote: All good horror flicks have to be watched alone, in a dark room, preferably at night. All the scary-ness is lost, as soon as another person is there with you, which somehow reassures your subconciousness that it's just a movie you're watching.
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Haven't seen Ringu, but the Hollywood version wasn't scary at all. It was certainly creepy, and full marks go to it for that; atmosphere matters a lot more than the oh-so-predictable 'creepy music stops so something's about to burst out or appear in front of the protagonist' crap.
It might not be a movie, but try playing Thief III's abandoned orphanage/asylum levels late after midnight with no-one else around. Probably the most horrifying game experience I've ever had, and brilliantly so. :)
(I can't believe someone mentioned Cabin Fever seriously. It wasn't even slightly disturbing, it was a joke movie that was exemplified by the ending.)
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Yes...alone in a dark room on a stormy/cloudy night..
any movie with any horror elements comes to to life in those conditions. If it can't scare you then it never will.
Try playing undying, thief, Doom3 or FEAR in those conditions.
and I agree that the greatest fear is from things you don't see or can't explain but know that they are there...waiting and watching...
RANT:
I recall as a kid watching a movie about large mech fighting in an arena (mechs had no head and were MASSIVE - controlled from a pilot cabn somewhere on the chest and the mech mimiced the pilots movements)
There was this red-white meach that fought with the a big black one. the red one lost and the black one stomped all over it, chrushing the pilot. I watched that at night, alone and that scene disturbed me enough to stop watching...
I never got the films name touhg...too bad.
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Trashman: It was probably the utterly craptastic movie called RobotJox.
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I really could care less for horror movies, but one of the movies that unerve me is not a horror film at all, The Stand, I guess what makes it so bad, is knowing that it could happen.:nervous:
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Event Horizion still scares me to this day. The airlock scene is plain creepy. For people who scare easily, Seven (se7en) is a great movie as well.
A recent film I saw that gave me the chills was a japanese film called Audition. Gotta give credit to my sister for this one. It wasnt scary like sleep under the covers scary, but deeply, incredibly disturbing in my opinion.
I was freaked out at points watching Memento. I have NO IDEA Why, but I constantly broke out in goosebumps and had to look away.
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Originally posted by Ace
Trashman: It was probably the utterly craptastic movie called RobotJox.
don't know - I do know the effect were good and that later than black mecha fights another red-white one..
I was told the black onetransforms into a scorpion or something and hte w/r one into some tanks thingy..
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(I can't believe someone mentioned Cabin Fever seriously. It wasn't even slightly disturbing, it was a joke movie that was exemplified by the ending.)
I found it highly disturbing, despite the humor.
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Ring was crap, Japanese and American. Seven wasn't close to scary, but it was satisfyingly dark. So was Donnie Darko.
But dude... Event Horizon? The producers owe me money for the wasted moments of my life. The only scary part of that movie is knowning that I'll go to my grave regretting forever the time I wasted on that complete piece of foetid feces. Only Neon Genesis Evangelion can come close to sucking more than EH.
That said, game wise, all the Thief games are collectively the second scariest thing I've ever played. Nothing, however, can beat the raw atmospheric intensity and deep, abiding fear of System Shock 2.
"We are we are we are.... your song is not ours!"
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Oh man, system shock two. The only game to actually make me scream. I remember at one point I was hiding under a desk as I watched zombie after zombie roam by, hoping, WILLING them to go away. Then one sees me and 5 or 6 zombies all run by the window.
Ok, I'm a little shaky but I can take 'em. All I need's my trusty pistol and
*click*
OH GOD IM GONNA DIE :eek2:
As the screen turns black, I hear "iiimmm sssooorrryyy"
:shaking:
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Originally posted by Nix
Audition. Gotta give credit to my sister for this one. It wasnt scary like sleep under the covers scary, but deeply, incredibly disturbing in my opinion.
Yes Audition is really nasty. One of the nasiest movies I've ever seen.
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I was surprised no one mentioned event horizon earlier, and surprised again that someone found it pants. It scared the pants off me first time.
And again, not slagging anyone for liking it but I thought Cabin fever was a comedy. I mean every scene just made me crack jokes. Bad, bad jokes, but still not the effect that it was supposed to have. I mean that kid that for no reason starts doing the slow-motion kung fu dance number? What was that?
Jacobs ladder was pretty freaky.
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Originally posted by Rand al'Thor
I was surprised no one mentioned event horizon earlier, and surprised again that someone found it pants. It scared the pants off me first time.
Event Horizon had good special effects and Lawrence Fishburne, which sums about up all the pros.
It built up good atmosphere at the start, but from the point where they docked to the Event Horizon it went downhill ....actually the level of suckage grew exponentially with every minute from there on.
It was supposed to be "The Shining" in space, but failed miserably.
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I thought Event Horizon was excellent. Though it kinda dropped the horror aspect in the last half hour or so.
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Originally posted by Col. Fishguts
Event Horizon had good special effects and Lawrence Fishburne, which sums about up all the pros.
It built up good atmosphere at the start, but from the point where they docked to the Event Horizon it went downhill ....actually the level of suckage grew exponentially with every minute from there on.
It was supposed to be "The Shining" in space, but failed miserably.
No, it stops at "Lawrence Fishburne". The special effects were bad. The compositing was singularly horrible, especially in the zero-G sequences.
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I remember when I played thief. All was ine until lthat mission in an abandoned city with those zombies and spectres. Didn't see that coming..undead and demons.. and all that dark atmosphere.
System shock 2 was even scarier - especially in the begining wiht a crowbar (or whatever that was) and a pistol with only one clip..and a horde of zombies to go trough...
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Originally posted by mikhael
No, it stops at "Lawrence Fishburne". The special effects were bad. The compositing was singularly horrible, especially in the zero-G sequences.
I don't really remember the quality of the zero-g scenes.
I was more thinking of the exterior shots of the ships. The rescue ship looked neat and the lighting was good and moody. The atmosphere of the nebula scenes when they find the Event Horizon had me all going "Ooh, aah, this is gonna be great." ...which turned out to be not the case.
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War of the Worlds, actually. It scared me because I could actually see that stuff happening. Bringing fear and reality together was a trick that Spielberg, say what you will about Tom Cruise and the plot, did too damn well.
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... you can just leave now. :wtf:
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Completely agreed on System Shock 2. Only game that made me run (my character, at least) under a table and hope that the damn monkeys and zombies would go away.
Event Horizon had a great premise, the beginning was very good and set up the mood greatly, but when the action really started, it was complete and utter crap. Good concept, poor execution.
The Shining is just crazy. Some scenes seem totally disconnected. But I liked it, especially the way the scary music built up to absolutely nothing. The old woman part was gross, though.
Aliens isn't supposed to be scary, I think, it's a lot more of an action movie than a horror one. The first one, though, is awesomely scary the first time you watch it.
The Ring didn't really do anything for me. It just dragged on slowly, it felt like four hours long. Nothing happened most of the time, and then this grayscale girl comes out of a TV. Hmpf.
Been a looong time since I last watched Poltergeist, but I remember being utterly terrified by it. Probably because I was still a child, I must have been 7 or something. Gotta watch it again.
Can't think of anything else right now, really. Will try to check some of the movies mentioned on this thread. :)
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Actually, War of the Worlds hit me in the gut too. I didn't like seeing humanity getting rolled over by a seemingly unstoppable alien invasion. I felt the movie very well executed.
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Thunderchild > Screaming little ***** child
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Originally posted by TrashMan
F.E.A.R.
I'll have to second this. Granted its not a movie, but it plays out like one and I've jumped a few times and yelled out "Holy ****" a few times too... all the while my hearts pounding like crazy...
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I'll be honest - I'm a wuss. I hate watching horror-type films. I think the main problem is that I've usually seen the film, then gone to bed fairly soon afterwards. So I dream. And I don't like the dreams that that kind of movie gives me.
Case in point: Dawn of the Dead (remake), at the start. The little girl opens the door into the bedroom, and her face is shadowed apart from the eyes. Then she steps forward, and you see the bit of her skin that's missing, and the expression on her face. Same with 28 Days Later. That kind of imagery sticks with me, and then I dream about it (usually the nasty stuff that happens in the movie happens to me), and I can't stand it. I was waking up sweating for days afterwards...
I enjoyed System Shock 2 scaring the hell out of me, though. Don't know why it was so different, but it didn't affect my sleep at all.
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Originally posted by pyro-manic
I enjoyed System Shock 2 scaring the hell out of me, though. Don't know why it was so different, but it didn't affect my sleep at all.
Maybe because you could fight back, and not just helplessly watch a messy death approach :eek2:
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I finally got my hands on FEAR. Save for the flashes of what's coming around the next bend, it's not as atmospheric as System Shock 2. (personally, I hate the flashes. I just hate flashes of up close strange looking stuff.. that and spiders.) Sure, it's scary, has the creepyness of a good horror game, but the action in it.. I'm shooting at soldiers controlled by one dude I'm supposed to assasinate? I'm not up against former good guys turned bad by this growth of parasitic life forms... or monkeys with odd psy powers. Or giant spiders (YUCK!!) I remember playing the demo of SS2 and that first zombie dood running at me with a wrench, that aarrRRRRRKILLLMEEEE voice.. god I about jumped out of my seat. All the humming noises sound like the coke machine in the first floor level of our campus's business building. I stay out of that room.. lol.
And yeah, I can understand why Event Horizion sucks to some people, but like Styxx said, it was the concept that was good. I liked the story and it got into my head when I watched it. Last half hour yes, looked like your typical horror film. Your slasher, burning people, we're all going to hell type film.
The method of time travel was interesting, and using that method of time travel, taking you to a place where you really dont want to go.. that was what did it for me. That, and as I said before, the decompression scene.. for ME, that's scary.
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Originally posted by Ransom Arceihn
Jacob's Ladder - Honestly, if the town this film was set in was called Silent Hill, that's what it would be. A Silent Hill film. Because that's exactly what it feels like.
I watched that last night. You're dead on the money. Its like Silent Hill (visually) was "Jacob's Ladder: The Game". :D
It wasn't scary, so much as disturbing (human bodies moving in unnatural ways disturb me, what can I say). I was sad, though, that I called the ending within the first five minutes of the movie. I wish I'd seen it when I was more innocent. :(