Film Frights...

[????]

there's 'scary' and 'disturbing'.....the end of Chinatown is the latter and I've never been able to watch it more than the once...

[jollybaby]

'Watcher in the woods' from the 80s - been terrified of eclipses ever since

[bon3yard]

The end of Chinatown, when Faye Dunaway gets shot...really? Never heard of 'Watcher in The Woods'....is it recommended?

[jollybaby]

It seemed pretty scary when I was 8! Was about a girl being abducted during an eclipse and coming back to haunt people whenever another one came along.

[Keef]

The old man in Poltergiest 2 freaked me out, just because he was a scary old man with a big hat!

http://www.drivl.com/img/articles/poltergeist_2.jpg

Also, "Don't look now" is a creepy film.

[mockney piers]

Picky picky picky. The original one that was about the cold war paranoia, not the one simply made during the cold war that was about the malaise, distrust and fear in domestic politics post Watergate...need I go on ;-P.

Sadly the recent one, for a new generation ripe for a political statement, was, predictably, about well, about zombies...err that's it.

[SeanMacGabhann]

2 for me. .

Dead ringers with jeremy irons

Audition

[Horsebox]

Have to agree with Keef, Don't Look Now has it's moments. It builds a sinister tension throughout until it's unexpected (for me at least) climax.

Must also mention Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. It made me feel particularly uneasy all the way through and David Lynch is a master of imagery and tension. It's not horror so much as horrific.

*Note to self to dig out TPFWWM from the collection*

[mockney piers]

On that line, the first film to really freak me out as a youngster was Un Chien Andalou which is pretty damn grotesque, and that eye slitting moment has basically scarred me for life.

Has anyone else seen that Spanish film about the guy trapped in a phonebox. That's pure brilliant horror as at first you don't know it's a horror, and then it catches you off guard.

Ooh, and Boneyard, I'm happy to stand corrected apparently

"In his autobiography, "I Thought We Were Making Movies, Not History", Walter Mirisch writes: "People began to read meanings into pictures that were never intended. The Invasion of the Body Snatchers is an example of that. I remember reading a magazine article arguing that the picture was intended as an allegory about the communist infiltration of America. From personal knowledge, neither Walter Wanger nor Don Siegel, who directed it, nor Dan Mainwaring, who wrote the script nor the original author Jack Finney, nor myself saw it as anything other than a thriller, pure and simple.""

[Keef]

I loved Twin Peaks, and the film didn't let it down. As an aside, I also love the song "Questions in a world of blue", that Julie Cruise sings in the bar before they go to the club.

[mockney piers]

erewigo

La Cabina. don't read too much as it's full of spoilers, but track it down if you can, here it is on youtube.

[lozzyloz]

Un Chien Andalou - saw that in the days before colour TV and that scene also stuck with me and started my fascination with Salvador Dali.

Most laughable horror has to be The Evil Dead.

[mockney piers]

Laughable as in funny? I love those films (though admittedly not especially scary)

[lozzyloz]

Definitely funny. And most disappointing for me was 28 weeks later.

[Brendan]

The Evil Dead is brilliant. On the subject of comedy/horror has anyone watched Bad Taste?

It will make you want to laugh and puke simultaneously while it happily stumbles drunkenly along the fine line that separates genius from completely rubbish.

[Annasfield]

Keef Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> The old man in Poltergiest 2 freaked me out, just

> because he was a scary old man with a big hat!

>

=======================================

Carol Anne............. (6)

[Keef]

Brendan, Bad Taste is an absolute classic!!! The fakest gore ever!

Better than that though IMO, was another Peter Jackson film Braindead. Comedy zombie stuff well before Sean of the dead. Which reminds me of another comedy zombie one called Boy Eats Girl.

[TillieTrotter]

I remember as a kid being terrified of Edgar Allan Poe films. Particularly The House of Usher (Nicolas) and The Pit and the Pendulum.

[ClareC]

Tales of the unexpected was often scary!!!

[TillieTrotter]

Thats true. Even the start with the naked lady dancing in the fire used to send a tingle down my spine.

[Annasfield]

How funny - I remember watching Bad Taste when I got home from a rather late night out. Assumed I'd imagined it all and had, had a peculiar dream.

[Brendan]

I remember the first time I watched it (also late at night after a party) my friends and I were rendered catatonic from thc induced laughter.

[Annasfield]

Critters scared the crap out of me as a kid. :-$

[SteveT]

I saw psycho and had nightmares for years.

I was working in some cranky womans house rather too close to her tv set and she had texas chainsaw on which was hideously frightening, I could not wait to get out.

I also walked out on a film which started off normal, and then suddenly became a terrifying horror half an hour later.

I will never knowingly choose to watch a horror movie.

I remember (like Peckhamgatecrasher) the scene in Great Expectations, when the convict grabbed Pip it turned my stomach, and it was classed as a 'U' I dont remember what age I was, but definitely far too young.

[mockney piers]

I went to watch the first LOTR film with Huguenot in Peckham. I seem to recall it was PG with extra caveats about some gore, violence and scenes upsetting to younger children and was quite specific in its advice not to bring children under 9.

That didn't stop every parent of a six year old in Peckham bringing them to the film, which they all enjoyed while it was cutesy fireworks. Come the rolling heads and slavering orcs later though and it was a different story.

I have to say the cacophony of bawling tears rather made us laugh, despite the din, but I'm sure there may be some psychological trauma tucked away in more than one or two of those children in years to come.