Horror films

[jumpinjackflash]

MP's post in the Top 10 thread got me thinking about this and the other day I was having a discussion on horror movies with some friends..we all agreed that we have yet to see a film that has really scared the bejesus out of us. For me, the scene in the Ring when the girl climbs out of the telly and the 'old woman in bathroom' scene in The Shining were a bit scary (don't laugh!). What do other forumites think are the most frightening movies and movie scenes?

['bout now]

Exorcist, all of it.

[jumpinjackflash]

yeah but when we were about 12!! The quick flash of the devil's face that used to appear every so often got to me!

[SeanMacGabhann]

Audition

And even tho it?s very B Movie, something about Frank Darabont?s The Mist REALLY got under my skin in the second half

['bout now]

I implore you to watch again, still scares the bollox out of me now (30 years on) it messes with yer brain, so it does.

[jumpinjackflash]

oh yes The Mist..watched that couple years back..that was quite good for a straight to DVD film! Good ending!

[Narnia]

I remember the hand coming out of the ground at the end of Carrie.

[DJKillaQueen]

I love horror movies. 'The Haunting' directed by Robert Wise is one of my favs, along with 'The Shining' of course.

I remembered watching 'Salem's Lot' (with David Soul of all people in it) when I was a teen and being terrifed by the vampire child at the window.

And who can forget the final scene of 'The Pit and the Pendulum' with the terrified eyes behind the bars as the room is ordered to be sealed up forever......

'Theatre of blood' is also a fav of mine just for it's ham acting and camp style.

And 'Texas Chainsaw Masacre' has to be one of the best gorefest movies.....low the first 'SAW' too.

[jumpinjackflash]

Yes I was told about the window scene in Salem's Lot - I've never seen it. Gonna buy it on Ebay now!

Also, The Entity was quite scary.

[DJKillaQueen]

Is it on DVD?...I tried for years to find a copy.

[jumpinjackflash]

there are two versions; the 1979 one and the 2004 one with Rob Lowe apparently

[DJKillaQueen]

oooh.....it's the 1979 one I'm after.....truly terrified me.....found it hard to watch during the day let alone at night lol......

[SeanMacGabhann]

That 1979 Salem?s Lot that you remember from TV is different from any DVD you can buy ? the DVD?s are a re-edited ?movie? version which pales next to the longer runningtime of the TV series

(this has been a long-standing bugbear ? it might have changed recently but you may be dissapointed if you buy without checking)

[DJKillaQueen]

Yeah I seem to remember that's all I could find when I looked a few years ago for it.

[jumpinjackflash]

Thanks Sean will search around

[DJKillaQueen]

I just looked...Amazon does have the full length mini TV series to buy on DVD......result....ordering a copy now....yay!

[Keef]

Wolf Creek was horrible, and quite hard to watch at points. Felt like I was watching a snuff movie!

I also loved the first Saw DJKQ, but not sure I'd call it horror, more thriller.

The remake of Tezxs Chainsaw Masacre was also pretty good.

The first half of Jeepers Creepers was actually quite scary, when I thought it was a mad farmer or something, but then it turned out to be a big batman thing, and the film was no longer scary.

[mockney piers]

Ooh good call JJF.

Likewise there are loads of examples from when I was young, though by the time I was 13 I was a pretty hardened horror buff.

Weirdly having fallen out with horror for a while, I'm watching it again but much more selectively.

I'm not a fan of the modern crop of slashers, been there done that, plus the remakes were universally better the first time round.

But I'm finding that now I'm old and closer to leaving this mortal coil, there are films which I find hard to watch. Not so much scary in the roller coaster fashion but scary in a hangover 'the fear' sort of way.

The Orphanage, at least e first half, I found quite tough going.

I watched The Devils Backbone the other night and there were some uncomfortable moments. Likewise Pans Labyrinth, mind you Cronos has them too.

OK Guillermo del Toro must be good then, he has a way of bleeding reality and real evil into fantasy and horror, thats very good. When the tension from the fantasy releases, then the real world has a habit of being even more horrific.

I think the Shining managed that too.

I've revisited the Exorcist and the Omen, and whilst both are excellent thrillers and bits of cinema, neither are especially scary.

I'll have a ponder about some others on my way home.

[Tarot]

For atmosphere, The Fog.

[DJKillaQueen]

ooh yeah 'The Fog' isn't bad. Esp the opening scene where the eye is gouged......

Quite liked 'The Descent' too although it wasn't scary enough.

[computedshorty]

Memories.

Horror film. House on Haunted Hill

I remember seeing this film at the Cinema at Catford 1959 we had been given a pair of 3 D. Cardboard glasses with one green and one red plastic lense these were very frail, the baddi was Vincent Price.

Eccentric millionaire Fredrick Loren and his 4th wife, Annabelle, have invited 5 people to the house on Haunted Hill for a "Haunted House" party. Whoever will stay in the house for one night will earn ten thousand dollars each. As the night progresses, all the guests are trapped inside the house with ghosts, murderers, and other terrors.

A guest had fallen into a vat of acid and as he struggles he was dissolved, Vincent got a long fishing rod and fished into the acid bringing out the skeleton with one yank it came out of the acid, but was sent over our heads with a spotlight shining on it, I was sitting in the circle and it came straight at me, and went over my shoulder, I think every person screamed and ducked, then it all went black after a while the film continued.

At the end of the film when the light came back I could see that there was a wire from the screen to the back of the cinema, and the skeleton was just visible behind a drawn curtain.

[mockney piers]

Vincent Price is a horror god!!!

I love the great films from the fifties and sixties, Hammer and the Roger Corman films.

For atmosphere they just can't be touched.

Mind you, even when I was 11 they just weren't scary were they.

[nashoi]

I've always had a bit of a thing for John Carpenter's The Thing.

[TillieTrotter]

The window scene in Salems Lot is still with me...good choice! The first Omen is till slightly chilling. Funnily enough I've just downloaded THE SCARIEST FILM IN DECADES Session 9. Will write a review.

[mockney piers]

Oooh, I love the Thing, and whilst we talk of Carpenter, Halloween is yet to bettered in the slasher genre a true horror great frankly and was genuinely frightening the first time I saw it, though very much in the roller coaster vein.

But though horror is part of his DNA he doesn't really do intelligent and creepy although Tarot is right saying The Fog had its moments, he does pace and verve (Escape from New York and Big Trouble in Little China are still faves of mine).

For both it's hard to think of beyond Psycho, in fact Hitchcock, whilst rarely doing out and out Horror is surely one of the greats of the genre.