[Martinus]

[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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[FireCrack]

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.

[Nuclear1]

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.

[Martinus]

[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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[Mefustae]

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...

[Ford Prefect]

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.

[mikhael]

I thought "The Others" was probably the best "scary movie" I'd seen in a long time.

[Jetmech Jr.]

I thought Cabin Fever was incredibly stupid, but meh, that's just me.

[NGTM-1R]

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.

[ShadowWolf_IH]

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.

[Fineus]

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.

[Ransom]

Originally posted by nuclear1
The Thing

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.

[Kosh]

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.


EDIT: I think the scariest film I have ever seen was Kazam. Shaq trying to act is terrifying.....

[Clave]

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...

[Mefustae]

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 ...

[TrashMan]

F.E.A.R.

[Black Wolf]

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.

[Flaser]

H.P. Lovecraft

[Nuclear1]

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.

[Martinus]

[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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