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I saw a still in the "Picture War" thread from The Grim Reaper, a movie that REALLY creeped me out when I was 17.  And I was wondering - what movies really scared you guys?  That one majorly freaked me out, it was, I think, the first true horror film I ever saw on the big screen, and I was really petrified of it for some reason.  Some that have scared me since then -

"Hellnight" with Linda Blair.  It is something of a formula movie, yet the mutant monsters in it totally freaked me out, and the "shotgun at the foot of the stairs scene" remains one of the most suspenseful moments I've ever seen in any film.

"Jeepers Creepers" - many of my students thought this film was DUMB, but the opening encounter with the Creeper's truck, and the scene of him dumping his victims down that chute outside the old church were INCREDIBLY scary!  Might I add, the sequel to this excellent horror film was hardly worth watching.

and . . . .

"The Ring".  I LOVED this horror film!  It has become the standard of scariness that I have judged all subsequent scary movies by, and not one made since then has lived up to it, although I must admid "Silent Hill" was pretty darn creepy.

So . . . . what movies scared YOU?

 I'm not sure,as an adult,that Iv'e been scared of any movie.But a few have truly DISTURBED me...which,for me,is WORSE than scared...
.I saw a movie once called MAN BEHIND THE SUN...about the Japenese torturing Chinse prisoners during WWII...UGH! I never want to see that again! I shut it off in mid-veiwing.
. I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE was too much for me...I felt sick afterwards...I had bought it,and gave it away to someone.
     On a different note...I was totally tensed up and jumpy when I first saw the TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE as a kid in the 7O. I jumped right outta my seat ....after the movie I couldn't sit still,I was so jumpy! It still has the power to creep me out....

              [youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0UVK_q5_zg

     EDIT: I was rewatching the clip...I STILL gotta swallow a lump when Hitch says "Hey Grandpa! We gonna let you have this one!!!" Dam...I got goose bumps!                                

I agree with RCMerchant that all grown up now, not too many films even come close to being scary, but disturbing occasionally happens (I too hated I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE, but it's not scary, just offensive.) 
Films I know I actually found scary? 
NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD
DAWN OF THE DEAD
TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE
CARNIVAL OF SOULS
THE INNOCENTS
CHILDREN SHOULDN'T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS
DEAD OF NIGHT (aka DEATHDREAM)
DEAD PEOPLE (aka MESSIAH OF EVIL)
LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (both disturbing and scary)

You've seen the original, Ringu, right?  By comparison, I hated the American version.  I thought it lost a lot of suspense somewhere in the translation.


Gah!  I haven't thought about that movie in years!  The melted-arms stuck with me for some time after... it seems Mondo Cane was the only semi-legitimate Shockumentary... Faces of Death, Traces of Death, Death Faces, etc., were so schlocky!  Haha.

But as for what scares me, I disagree with RC and Allhallowsday; films are much more frightening to me now than when I was younger.  As a kid I don't think I properly empathized with the characters or situations.  Brutal murder?  Cool!  Kill the baby?  Sure!  Haha.  This applies equally to all emotions.  I never used to cry at movies, but now I can't watch Monster's Inc without becoming a slobbering mess when the little girl opens the empty closet, "Kitty?"

Scary might be too extreme a word, though.  Here are some films that certainly left me chilled.  And more importantly, chilled on subsequent viewings!  A lot of movies lose their punch the second time around...

Dark Obsession (1989) - Nick Broomfield (slow-moving British drama, but what an eerie ending!)
The Devil's Backbone (2001) - Guillermo Del Torro (most of it anyway)
Heavenly Creatures (1994) - Peter Jackson (this movie is spectacular on all fronts!)
The Miracle Worker (1962) - Arthur Penn (this particular Helen Keller adaptation is quite freaky...)
Night of the Hunter (1955) - Charles Laughton (Robert Mitchem's incredible!)
Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) - Peter Weir
Prince of Darkness (1987) - John Carpenter
Ringu (1998) - Hideo Nakata
Spoorloos (1988) - George Sluizer
Sweet Hereafter (1997) - Atom Egoyan (haunting... Felicia's Journey and Exotica are spectacular as well)

The melting arms...the skin ripped off...right after THAT scene is when I shut it off...UGH.

Chilled...thats the word! Thinking back...a lotta films gave me the hebbie jebbies....
JAWS- "May Be Too Intense for Younger Viewers." That would of been me!I seen it in our local movie house as a teen....I was so jumpy I Nervously  tore my ticket stub into little pieces!
.Saw the EXORCIST in the 70's too...with my big brother Mike. And he was only about 13! (The movie house saw dollars...they let us punks into all sortsa mind warping junk! Bless the good ol' Strand!
.The BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE- Yeah...I know...but as a kid,seeing this on TV,when the folks weren't home-and the monster in the closet...the whole movie was buillding up to that last scene...'Knock if you can hear me!" BAM!BAM! BAM! And when the monster did bust out....!AHHHH! He bite the doc! And that face! that hideous pointed head! SH!T! Still my favorite movie of ALL TIME...bar NONE!!!  (thats sad,isn't it? Yes...I really am that warped.)

RC, you just mentioned the two that messed with me the most.  I saw Jaws when I was just six, I'm not sure why my mother allowed me to see that one!  And one of my brothers decided it would be funny to give me a rubber shark for Christmas that year........but you know, my kids have seen it, at least they've seen the edited version that Ted Turner's channels were playing non-stop for awhile, and they thought it was cool but not scary.

I still can't watch The Exorcist unless I have someone with me.    And the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre was scary to me too.  Another one that scared me was The Sentinel, about an apartment building with a portal to hell in the basement or some such, it's been a long time since I saw it.

The SENTINAL! Jebus! I havn't thought about that movie in YEARS!!! John Carridine!!!! Now I want to see it again!!! :thumbup:
And I know what you mean by kids not being scared...I watched the BEAST WITHIN with my son Jed...another one that gave me the jitters...the transformation scene...Jed says to me-"This is so fake!" I saw it at the movie house on it's release...I freaked out!!!

     [youtube=425,350] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pz1GbwZIGpA

There are moments that I find scary in a lot of films. In The Thing, (original) the count down on the Geiger counter,
"our visitor is moving around, .5 .6, it's off the scale!", Tom Skerrit in the air ducts in Alien, Karen Black in the final scene from Burnt Offerings, The little girl crawling out of the television in The Ring. In Godzilla 1985, the moment the security guard at the nuclear power plant runs outside, is knocked off his feet by the earth tremors and then slowly looks up and up till he sees the eyes of Godzilla looking back at him. The biggest scare I ever got was because of a movie, although I didn't find the movie itself to be scary. I've seen Jaws at the theater 17-20 times at least, I have it on VHS and I watch it 2-3 times a year. The film is one that I can watch over and over again, it's that fascinating to me (I once started a talk at a sales meeting with "ya all know me, ya all know how I earn a livin")
I was surfing with a couple friends, both of whom were aware of my Jaws addiction, we were sitting on our boards, I was kind of facing towards the beach when John says "OH CRAP !!!!", at the same time Don yells "DON'T LOOK BEHIND YOU GO, GO !!!!!" and they both take off, so I assumed that a great white shark, at least a 35 footer, was about to have me for breakfast. I've never tried to move so far, so fast under my own power, I think I hydro planed the surf board halfway to the beach, it's one of the few times in my life that I've been panic stricken, at one point I was neck deep in water, trying to run and carry my board at the same time, didn't work to well. I get to the beach and my 2 pals are not around, so fearing the worst I looked back and saw my friends sitting on their boards, I went back out, as I got closer I began to hear laughter and for about a month afterwards I had to put up with all sorts of stupid pranks, like a rubber shark in my lunch box, or a sign on my windshield "Chicken of the Sea". Fortunately both my tormentors have since gotten married and moved away or I'd probably still be hearing about this.

Dennis, your story reminds me of the time I was out on my board and had just paddled back out after catching a wave. I was pretty pooped and while I sat there trying to catch my breath and waiting for the next set to come in, I happened to look down through the clear water and saw a shark about 8 to 10 feet away from me. The only reason I did not instantly jump up and do a Christ-like run across the top of the water for shore was because I was still very tired from paddling out, plus the shark wasn't a great white. It was some smaller variety - perhaps about four feet long. I sat and watched it as it swam under me and away. I nonchalantly told my friend that a shark had just swam under me and he just shrugged his shoulders.

What did scare the bejeesus out of me was the time a seal stuck its head up out of the water to look at me...from about 10 feet away. Something suddenly rising from the calm water so close like that nearly made me soil my wetsuit. :teddyr:

Phantoms, believe it or not. People like to knock it because it features Ben Affleck as the town sheriff, but it honestly scared the living daylights out of me. It's to the the screenwriter's credit that the first act of the film is spent doing almost nothing but building up the mood and suspense and mystery, all without any need for monsters or anything. The noises over the phone, as well as the idea of a killer that could get at you no matter where you hid, really made an impression on me.

The book does an even better job of the fright aspect.  If you have not done so, pick it up and give it a read.

I totally agree. That was the very first Koontz book I ever read and it remains my favorite one. I could not put it down once I started and read it in a single sitting. I will never forget the scene early in the book when the main character and her sister were walking down the alleyway bewteen stores and both could sense that there was something in the dark. With that scene I was hooked and was unable to put it down.

Hmmm, lemme think... movies that actually creeped me out...

Well, I gotta agree with Indy, provided he's talking about the original Ring and not the remake. I seem to be amongst the minority on this, but Ringu definitely spooked me more with it's washed out looking film, low budget lighting and ghost girl's final emerging-from-the-TV scene. Also, I've been told this is a racist comment (though I don't agree), but the twisted faces with the gaping eyes is much creepier when it happens to Asian people than to white people. It's more unnatural due to the Asian eye structure...

As far as other movies that creeped me out, I've said before that my original viewing of Legend terrified me as a kid thanks to Meg Mucklebones, the first time I watched It in an unlit room spooked the crap outta me (I think I was 13 at the time), and the first time I saw Return of the Living Dead I thought I was gonna have a friggin' stroke. That last one requires set up though, because it's the context in which it was seen that helped make it so damn freaky: I was home alone on a Saturday night. I was probably 14 or so at the time and had fallen asleep watching a Children of the Corn sequel on the Sci-Fi Channel while it was still light out (no idea which one, I just remember there being an old man under an elevated house and he sees the titular kids' legs standing around before they squash him with it...). When I woke up it was about 1:30am, the only light in the entire house was coming from the TV and I'd managed to wake up just in time to meet the f*cking tar man... come on, tell me nobody here would've p**sed themselves waking up suddenly in pitch black surroundings only to see something like tar man staring at you and hissing for brains!

Brrrrrr, did it just get cold in here?...  :buggedout:

Actually, I think the effect is so much more impacting because historically Japanese culture has restricted facial expression.  The extreme OOOH face is therefore all the more unexpected.  This modesty and restraint has been steadily declining since WWII, but our perceptions are still heavily based on stereotypes and caricature (as are theirs of us).

Ranked among the most surreal things I've seen was a snippet in a BBC program where Japanese business people were attending a seminar to learn how to smile in order to improve their relations with western companies. 

Oh yeah, that reminds me, Uzumaki freaked me out for the same reason... that and the centipede-in-the-ear part... yikes.

I definitely think that "Ringu" is a much better film than "The Ring."  Along with the hideous death grimaces on the faces of the victims, I preferred how the original version did not feel like it had to completely explain everything to the viewer.  The one thing I did like about the American remake was the addition to the story of the horses.

Has anyone else noticed how a number of Japanese horror movies like to leave parts of their movies open for interpretation, especially the endings? Though it can seem kinda frustrating, it's fun to watch a movie that does this while in the company of somebody who has a good imagination so you can spend the afternoon arguing about what certain things did or didn't "happen" in the movie, heh heh. I used to think this was just lazy storytelling until I realized that it was happening too much not to be intentional. After that, I think the lightswitch in my head clicked on.

I always love to watch films with other people who have their brains switched on.  Movies like "Ringu" and my recent viewing "El Topo" turn into conversation pieces for days, comparing this and that, talking about the way a certain scene or part of the story could be seen.  My friend's Todd and Gary (and long lost Steve) are those sort of people.  Probably one of the other reasons I love chatting on the board, because a lot of us are moviephiles.

Way ahead of you. First thing I did after I saw the movie, I dug out my mom's old copy and read it. :)

Not me, I'm just here for the free refreshments and to meet chicks. heh heh  :drink:

Wait, you mean there are drinks around here somewhere...? :teddyr:

Duel
Jaws
Long Weekend
Scanners

Well, I certainly hope whatever it is people keep giving me to drink is meant for consumption...  :buggedout:

bad movie juice? lol...

nah..

YES, actually.

bad movie juice.

I got to see a Korean flick recently called A Tale of Two Sisters that really got under my skin at numerous points. 

It's not really what I could call a flat out horror film but more of a psychological thriller with horror & mystery  underpinnings.

The version I saw was the unrated director's cut which is what I would seek out as I don't know what was cut out of the edited R rated version. 

Anyone wanting to see something different that will more than likely creep you out should watch it.

The following scared me enough to seriously creep me out, keep me awake, give me nightmares and/or leave me staring blankly I was so disturbed by what I just witnessed on the screen:

PREDATOR (1987): gave me a recurring nightmare about being hunted down.

INTRUDERS (1992): a TV Movie that gave me the worst alien aduction nightmare I've ever had.

RINGU (1998): agree with the comments made about this one so far. One of those that leave you almost slightly shell-shocked at the end.

JU-ON: THE GRUDGE (2003): another very disturbing, unsettling Japanese ghost story.

THE TERMINATOR (1984): an unstoppable machine hunting you down. Yep, freaked me out first time I saw it at a young age.

THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME (1932): the granddaddy of "someone trying to  hunt you down" movies.

THE INNOCENTS (1961): very disturbing film. The menacing Quint is unforgettable. Extremely creepy and thoroughly unsettling adaptation of THE TURN OF THE SCREW.

THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT (1972): extremely unpleasant film. Another than left me staring blankly ahead for a while after viewing.

STRAW DOGS (1971): another unpleasant viewing experience. Shows humanity at its ugliest too.

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971): an ugly future that seems all too plausible.

1984 (1984): bleak and hopeless, another all too possible tomorrow.

THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE (1974): do I really need explain how this one if terrifying?

NOSFERATU (1922): stunning visuals create a surprisingly realistic vision of horror IMO.

VAMPYR (1932): another case of visuals helping create an unsettling feeling the events we see unfolding on screen are all too real.

Oh and I agree with the mentions of DUEL and JAWS too.

I was disappointed by this one.  The charcoal-colored ghosts were neat, even spooky some of the time, but overall it felt like the creators were unable to control the direction (and flow) of suspense.  Choppy, that's the word.  But not Chopping Mall fun.

I'm with you on THE GRUDGE - it had a few scary moments, but the plot was just too incomprehensible for me.  What did you guys think of the recent remake of TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE?  It lacked the shock power of the original, but it still had some pretty spooky moments.  I also liked the SAW trilogy, although I must say the first one was FAR better than the two sequels.

I refused to see the remake of Texas Chain Saw Massacre.  It's never a good thing when Jerry Bruckheimer and the cast of 7th Heaven remake a horror classic.  I didn't want my patronage to be misinterpreted as support for this sort of thing.

The Saw movies were depraved, and slightly entertaining, but Jigsaw is one of the cheesiest and most blatantly contrived franchise villains I have ever seen.  I couldn't take him seriously.  I would have preferred if they dropped all pretense of a story and just tortured people for an hour or so.  But I did appreciate the films' wide release; it was good to see tasteless shock horror making a comeback.

Descent was probably the last unique and worthwhile horror film I saw theatrically.  It seemed to be pretty much universally hated but I enjoyed it thoroughly.  Neil Marshall has a fresh approach to horror, namely in that he doesn't really set out to make horror movies.  Dog Soldiers was particularly excellent.

Everything else recently released seems to be a remake or a sequel or just plain terrible.  28 Weeks Later was much better than I thought it was going to be, as was the remake of the sequel of Hills Have Eyes, but neither were particularly groundbreaking or amazing.  These are dark days...  Case in point, last week I was so horror-starved I actually watched the first five Howling movies back-to-back!  Werewolves to marsupials to castle freaks to vampires... :drink:

Now if it's cheesy werewolf flicks you like, you gotta check out  BIG BAD WOLF!


Not only is he ugly and bloodthirsty, he can talk and he's pretty darn sarcastic.

This might take a lot of thought...the most recent example of a really unsettling movie for me is a japanese flick called "Splatter: Naked Blood". Part horror film, part surreal art film, the effects were fairly well done, a little fake in some areas, but what really got to me - what actually made me feel physically sick to my stomach (something no movie has done to me before or since) was the concept - people intentionally harming themselves in unimaginable ways (one scene in particular, of a girl eating herself, was hard to watch) to cause pleasure.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0217679/

Or you could just watch Cannibal Holocaust again.  :tongueout:

:thumbup:  One of my all-time favorites!  When I put together The Movie Vault, the first two films I reviewed were Casablanca and Cannibal Holocaust.  Both classics in their own right, though I suspect CH was more influential.  :drink:  My ex got me the Riz Ortolani score on vinyl a few birthdays ago.  I also used to have an original Chilean lobby poster, but I had to sell it when I was poor.

Wait, are you suggesting CH was just a venue for brutal rape and torture, devoid of any likable characters or coherent plot?!  It is certainly intellectual leagues beyond the works of Kevin Smith, my friend!  :teddyr:

Speaking of which, what're your feelings on Vulgar?

A lot of movies herein mentioned I may never see, simply because of how they're billed -- and I know that's a mistake, as I frequently get something I wasn't expecting out of films either billed to me as "really stupid" or "really gross!" or what have you.
And, some of the films mentioned I really love, eg. Night of the Hunter, but didn't wring that FEAR response out of me.
That said, the original question here is "What movies REALLY scared you?", as opposed to disturbed, grossed-out, greatly amused or entertained, etc.
Okay, so movies that made me experience FEAR when I first saw them/really SCARED me:
Kiss of the Vampire (Hammer)
The Exorcist
The Innocents (I was actually pleasantly shocked as to the number of people listing this one . . . "Enter, My Lord!" you know the scene.  Jeez, I just got a genuine adrenal shiver just typing those words . . .)
Dracula, Prince of Darkness (Another Hammer)
The Reptile (Sense a pattern?)
An American Werewolf in London
Alien
Salem's Lot (A bit of a cheat here.  Not the movie adaptation, but the real 3 and a half hour TV serial -- The "movie" they made of the TV show lacked any setup tension, therefore an inferior scare).
I'm sure there are others, but these occupy the "scary" parts of my brain when I think of a "scary" movie.

Watch this one on a good  screen because the cinematography is simply superb. The direction itself is likely to creep you out as well.

I can't believe no one, when speaking of Asian Horror, hell, let's not belittle it, HORROR period, has mentioned...


"AUDITION"


One of the best Horror Films from anywhere.

   

...but if we are going to talk Japan, I almost forgot to mention:


SUICIDE CLUB.


I seriously don't know why I haven't purchased these yet.

I am a huge fan of Takashi Miike!  But I don't think any of his films qualify as horror.  Audition is really more of a midlife crisis romance picture, like Broken Flowers or Lovely & Amazing.  :teddyr:  It just happens to get a bit horrific in the last five minutes.


:thumbup:  Haha.  Suicide Club is a comedy, albeit a dark one.

The last two movies to really creep me out were Session 9 and Alice, Sweet Alice. I watched both of them alone, really late at night. i know that's what you're supposed to do when watching horror movies. Thing is, I didn't set out to watch either of them, I just happened upon them. Not knowing what I was in for really helped. Session 9 creeped me out, and Alice, Sweet Alice just plain disturbed me... A day or two after seeing ASA I saw a little kid in a yellow rain coat out of the corner of my eye as he was running toward his mother (who was right behind me). It scared the p**s out of me! I broke out laughing because it really did frighten me. 

The Grudge usedto scare me but now I think of it as a woman whose husband tried to kill her. And when everyone thought she was dead, she tried to tell everyone that she was okay. But she looked like a zombie so everyone ran.

As I child, I was scared at pretty much anything... specially stuff I had been told about but not seen by myself. I was afraid of "Alien" without having ever seen the movie, only based on what people told me about it and the first chapter of a comic book adaptation I was bought.

These days, the stuff that scares me is either very vague in its horror elements ("Session 9" is a prime example) or stuff that almost crosses the line into explotation, but it is still sophisticated enough, like "The descent", "Haute Tension" or "Wolf Creek".

Jurassic Park. That movie scares the crap out of me.

J/k

Exorcist, that movie still creeps me out. Plus, I admire that since it came out quite some time ago and still frightens people.

The only other movie that I'd say I'm scared of is Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. Not that the whole movie is scary or anything, but in the beginning with that lady in the red dress an something about "My brother's sister's gal..." (whatever he says) is just eerily creepy to me. *shudders*

The movie "Signs" really creeped me out, probably because I really didn't expect it to. The part where they briefly see the alien in the cornfield, or where they saw it on the news, walking down the street, , was just too creepy.

No horror movies really scare me, but the first "Poltergiest", when it was first out startled the crap out of me. .

As a kid, "Return of the Living Dead" scared the hell out of me. It wasn't supposed to be like that, you know, that movie is more like a comedy, but I got really scared when I first watched it. The same happened with "Poltergeist"!

Actually, I've yet to see Vulgar. I've been told it's brutal and nigh-unwatchable and since it's not really Tomb material I don't think I'll get around to it any time soon. Your thoughts Grunge?

As far as Cannibal Holocaust, I personally dig it and love the reactions my friends give me when they see it, asking if it's a snuff film or something. If a movie can still get that kind of reaction from people 30 years later in this age of big budget special effects that still don't look realistic, that's the hallmark of a definite classic. Although, let's not forget the senseless slaughter of otherwise innocent animals amidst the rape, torture, bastard characters and aimless plot.  :teddyr:

Don't go out of your way.  It isn't a terribly interesting film and relies mostly on shock value.  Younger viewers may still find sodomy shocking, but this isn't exactly Pasolini's Salò.  It's just a choppy, underfunded R-rated clown revenge epic produced by Kevin Smith.  Though I do give him props for tackling a project like this inside the modern Hollywood system.

Speaking of which, I think I've made fun of you enough for liking Kevin Smith.  I'll have to move onto new material.  You wouldn't happen to be a fan of Steven Soderbergh by any chance?  :tongueout:


Aside from the shooting (and kicking) of the Yacumos' pig, the other deaths seemed to serve dual purpose:  cinematic realism and craft service catering.  The turtle and the muskrat were both eaten, not unlike the Taco Bell I ate for breakfast.  The trend became unfortunate in subsequent films like Cannibal Ferox, when the setups became trite and undeniably exploitative.

But really I think killing is killing.  Maybe I am just overcompensating for wasting a decade of my life on vegetarianism, but if you are gonna shoot a mole anyway, why not work it into a movie?  CG hasn't really advanced enough to animate decent mammals.  Hair is a b***h.  Take a look at the death of the chickens in Pink Flamingos, and then look at the squirrel Ray-Ray runs over in Dirty Shame.  A regression, no?

This is not to say you should just go kill animals and film the results, but presumably the cast in Cannibal Holocaust was hungry and would have killed something anyway.  It was, after all, the jungle.  And their conditions in civilization were less than civilized.  They were filming amidst a coup d'état and at one point were actually evicted from their hotel when the army showed up.  Isn't Columbia great?

Wow.  Off topic.  Haha.  Scarrrryyyy!  Sorry folks.  So... anybody else like John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness?  That's a movie I've always found strangely unnerving.  :teddyr:

Personally, I like it when a movie leaves it to the audience to figure things out- that's what made THE SIXTH SENSE good. You made assumptions- but in being wrong, you got a bigger suprise from it...

I can think of many moments in both good & bad films where I could see a plot choosing a certain path that decided how good the movie would be... when left open, it creates more interesting scenarios.

There are a lot of movies that have made me tense, particuarly anything with really sadistic stuff, but there are two movies I can say scared the s**t out of me.

One was Rawhead Rex.  Okay, so I saw it when I was seven.  Even still, the idea of a 7-8' tall demon killing people was just terrifying to me. 

The last one to truly scare me was City of the Living Dead.  I did not think at all that i could be frightened.  I thought I was desensitized to everything.  Then, I bought this and watched it.  This was my first Italian horror film, and later that night I was laying in bed, motionless, with the light on.  The only thing I could think was, "Teleporting zombies...  F**king teleporting zombies... So help me God, teleporting zombies!"  I was 20 at the time, and I eventually coaxed myself into sleep.

Arcanaphobia, well I really don't like spiders so when I see this film it gets to me.  I almost got bit by a spider when I was younger so I've kinda had a semi fear of them through out most of my life. 

We are different animals, because there are films I still won't look at, that I saw young and found upsetting (LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE).  Sh*t like "kill the baby" "brutal murder" were extremely upsetting to me when I was old enough to look at such drek (THE HILLS HAVE EYES, but I was and am able to recognize that it is hot damn great cinema).  It is true, that I'm more likely now to get teary watching a film, but empathy was never difficult for me. 

THE MIRACLE WORKER is a miracle of a film.  I think you're right to describe it, in part, as "chilling."  You can see it's influence in much later films like THE ELEPHANT MAN.  It's a wonderful play, and Penn created a masterpiece with the help of two very talented actresses.  I think one of the best American films yet made. 
THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER is damned scary, and probably my second favorite film, but I forgot all about it.  Robert Mitchum is also scary in CAPE FEAR (though Robert DeNiro succeeds in the remake- with fewer limitations- to be even more threatening)  PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK I saw long ago and don't remember well except that it was the great mystery film and SPOORLOOS, which I thought of long after and found here reading your contributions.  As I'm sure you know remade with Sluizer at the helm as THE VANISHING with Kiefer, the original is superior in every way, particularly in its purpose. 

Young Frankenstein ... scared the pants off me.


That's Homer Simpson to Mel Brooks if anyone was wondering.

 As a child, the Hammer Phantom Of the Opera gave me the creeps. Not so much the movie as a whole but Herbert Lom's phantom mask, which I found scarier just to look at than anything I could imagine (or indeed saw) underneath. The final sequence of the Roger Corman Tales Of Terror ended on a disturbing note, which, given my age, I didn't see coming. Putresence never makes for a pleasing sight. especially when a body is decomposing before your eyes.  Strong stuff for a ten year old. The early, black and white Francis Ford Coppola Dementia 13 was like one long nightmare. Extremely well made, not terribly good storytelling, its elliptical nature kept the viewer on his toes. Some strong shocks in this one, especially for a mainstream film from 1963. It doesn't play nearly as well on the small screen, and the few times I've watched it, or tried to, on the tube, the poor quality of the film stock detracted enormously for the picture's overall impact. This one needs a good transfer.

More heebie jeebies: on TV, The Mummy's Ghost is the one entry in the franchise that unsettled me. The last (roughly) twenty minutes are intense, or maybe I should say intense for a child. Overall, I didn't find the classic horrors from the 30's and 40's they used to show on TV Shock Theaters frightening so much as engaging fun. I liked their atmosphere, the dialogue, the art direction, the actors, their foreboding aspects. A few jolts here and there but nothing serious. I liked them the way I liked swashbucklers and pirates pictures; they were a delightful change of pace from the usual western and detective fare that dominated the tube way back when. Great thrills in the previews for Caltiki, the Immortal Monster, the scariest coming attractions I can remember seeing as a child.  I waited a whole weak in eager anticipation, expecting the scariest movie imaginable, only to find the actual film a huge letdown, with maybe five good minutes.

two movies that really scare(d) me:

* CHILD'S PLAY:   my sister took me to see it and I was only six years old. she told me it would be about "a bad doll." it scared the crap out of me-- for years I couldn't sit in a dark room alone without hearing little footsteps.

*HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (REMAKE): the darkness that moves in that film freaks me out. maybe it's because of all the acid I was taking back then but the concept of that all-encompassing darkness really messed with me.

*NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD: saw it when I was a little kid and the idea was scary

i guess what many mainstream filmmakers fail to realize is that it's really the concepts that scare us, not fancy special effects alone.

ALIEN was the big one for me as a kid.  I accidentally saw part of it when I was younger (I think you can guess which part) and it scared the living daylights out of me.  I wasn't able to watch it, or see anything associated with it for years.  It didn't help that I saw bits of the trailer as well, with that freaky synth music a little bit later. 

But, I got over my extreme aversion to the film about 7 years ago, and own all four movies on DVD.  But still, even though I can watch it, I can't quite fight off the feelings of unease that the original film still tends to give me.   

In terms of what actually gave me the worst full blown nightmares in childhood, teenage years and adulthood, it would be these films/TV mini-Series/TV movies:

Salem's Lot (1970s TV Mini)
Poltergeist
Predator
Intruders (I was an adult for this 90s TV Movie about alien abductions)

That was the first movie I ever saw on a VCR. It was a top-loading type that had a WIRED remote. We watched the infamous "exploding chest scene" forward, backwars, at every speed imaginable, paused, stepped in both directions, every way possible DURING DINNER. . . Lol

Burnt Offerings scared the poop out of me as a kid, as did Kubrick's The Shining. As an adult, I haven't found too much that genuinely creeps me out. The French horror flick Ills (aka Them) managed to get under my skin a bit, but nothing on par with what I experienced during childhood.

On it's first release in theatres,the BEAST WITIN transformation scene bugged me out!

 The trailer....
 [youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRGIG-ZXGcA

...and the transfomation scene...!

   [youtube=425,350] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pz1GbwZIGpA

I've never seen The Beast Within. I'll have to search it out.

A Nightmare on Elm Street ( The whole this guy can get you even in your dreams schtick was very scary and when poor Tina saw him step out into the alleyway and then his arms extended it was creepy as all get out)

Poltergeist (everything from the soundtrack to the sound effects to the special effects made this one very scary for ol 'Kroo, the ethereal hand darting out of the TV was brilliant)


Night of the Living Dead (not scary per se but i still get left with a odd unnerved feeling after watching it.)

Jeepers Creepers freaked.me.out.  I don't remember another movie that has ever had me holding my breath.

Wrong Turn.  Man those inbreds are nasty!

The Ring.  When the girl cralws out of the telly.   :buggedout:

Dawn of the Dead.  But zombies  movies in general have me clawing at the ceiling.  And I love them all dearly  :teddyr:

Silent Hill.  All that fog combined with not really seeing what's up ahead until it's nearly too late.

In The Mouth of Madness.  I noticed this movie in my local dept store.  Sam Neill, John Carpenter directing, cheap price of $12.95.  I bought it on those strengths alone, having never seen it before.  LOVED it!

Also, The Others with Nicole Kidman.  Not really a fan of hers, but watched it at night by myself.  When the servants are walking up to the front door... I nearly wet myself with fright!

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8EVGHIg9e0

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zH8ynu0jRvY

And finally, "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer". I haven't seent his movie in years but i still have been unable to shake the "feeling" it gave me from some of the scenes. There's just something shocking about true stories because you see how it happened to a regular person, something so horrid

Also I decided to pick the review of the movie vs scenes. Some of the scenes are too graphic - but i wanted to post this because I MISS the siskel and ebert team, as much as we used to make fun of them. And I love the rant about the MPAA..lol This movie got an "X" rating on it's release.

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMZIE4m3PXg

 Henry. UGH! Classic film...scary as all HELL!!! Excellent choice. I felt scummy just watching it. I felt I needed to scrub my brain with Ajax after the home invasion scene!

strangely it's one of those films that has just disappeared. Yet people get creeped out by Silence of the Lambs.

Whether or not there's truth to the actual story of Henry and to what extent, the fact remains that this movie is simply scary because it exposes the deviant nature of murderers and the wa they see women, or others, as inanimate objects. And it does so in a very, un-hollywood, realistic way. To me that makes it just one notch scary under the real thing

I saw both Killer Klowns from Outer Space and Stephen King's IT when I was about 6.

Haven't been a fan of clowns since.

I saw The Exorcist when it  was first released and it was very frightening to watch in a theater, especially one packed with people scared out of their wits. It worked like a charm in its day, doesn't hold up on television. Now I find it almost comical. That it's been parodied so much doesn't help.

From the same period, the crime thriller Klute had some scary scenes and an unsettling ambiance, and still does, even on television. It really captured a certain mood of big cities in America around the time it was made. The tension,--sexual, racial, you name it--was so thick you could cut it with a knife. It's all there in Klute.

Miss Congeniality probably scared me more than just about every film I've ever seen.

Agreed!  Love this & it's spooky as hell!  :cheers:

Candyman - I watched it late at night in my dorm room, not thinking I was scared, but then I went to brush my teeth in the communal bathroom and it was just me and a giant wall of mirrors ..... :buggedout:

No Country For Old Men - not strictly horror but there's a scene where Josh Brolin's character has just realized that Sigur is able to track him and he dials the front desk in the hotel he's staying in, and you can hear the dial tone as well as the phone itself ringing in the other room - freaked me out in a big way

Nosferatu - speaks for itself

Zodiac - amazing how a movie that's 85% guys shifting through mail could be so
intense

Only 2 movies that made me jump... because of the 'cheap jump scares'. :twirl:

Dead Silence

Stay Alive

The Others kinda creeped me out because it was, just, well, scared me then! :buggedout:

I have not been scared by alot, but there is one film that scarred me . It's a short called Cutting Moments, have any of you seen it?

It's not a horror, but man is that messed up.

As a pre-teen, I remember being scared by The Boogyman (1980). The last film that scared me any was the first Nightmare on Elm Street movie.

The Believers
The Hitcher :buggedout: :buggedout: :buggedout: :buggedout:
Jannie Totsiens
Prince of Darkness
The Medusa Touch
The Sound of Music
Event Horizon
In The Mouth Of Madness
The Shadowed Mind
Race With The Devil (1975)

To a lesser extent but still scary:

Baffled! (1972)
Ghostwatch
Horror Express
Stephen King's IT
Salem's Lot

Not a movie, but Ghost Watch.

 

 :bouncegiggle:

I'm not being snide (or not entirely snide) when I say the Marvel movies scare me, because their rampant popularity says uncomfortable things about the state of western civilization.

I suspect they have an all-controlling mega-corporation behind them that is the real power and danger. ;)

The remake of The Blob from the 80's.

When she was a little girl, my Mom saw "Frankenstein meets the Wolf Man" at a birthday party and was so scared she threw up.

As a young girl my aunt had snuck out to see The Tingler with some friends. The movie terrified her, but what really put the icing on the cake is that they walked home part of the way through a cemetery. When one of the girls asked what time it was, someone doubtless laying flowers or whatever, raised up their hand from the other side of a gravestone to show them the time on his (or her I guess) wrist. This sent them home screaming.

After I heard the story I always used to torture my aunt Janice about how I was going to put the film on. Sadly she died recently and I never did get the chance to put it on and make her watch it again.

It's probably best. She might've laughed.  THE TINGLER is pathetic, not scary.   :bouncegiggle:

I've been trying to keep it almost 100% positive on here and not get too reactive/overly opinionated about movies I legitimately think are bad, but since you opened this can of spinal parasites... MAN, was I ever disappointed by THE TINGLER when I finally got around to it 5 or so years ago. I think every other one of Castle's films has SOMETHING positive going for it, but THE TINGLER....... I have to think Castle was so satisfied about the premise and the in-theater gimmick that he just decided to phone in the rest of the movie w/ no thought or effort whatsoever. Illogical, slow, fails to even play by its own rules... not scary... and even Vincent Price seems unmotivated to invest in the rock-bottom screenplay. I've seen even more dull horror movies from the 50s, but I don't know if I can think of one, ONE that's more mindless and - to use your word - "pathetic" than THE TINGLER! Even if I didn't authentically like Ed Wood's movies....... THE TINGLER would make his 50s horror entries look good/better! THE TINGLER was appalling.

And yet the radio ads really sold it and got you (the royal "You", me, all of America) reeeal psyched up for some terrifying tingling, didn't it? Sigh.

But returning to the bright side of getting scared...

I have been scared at / during / by lots of stuff - however no one has scared me more and better than David Lynch. The 2 scenes from his filmography I always cite (though there are handfuls) are:

...The scene in TP:FWWM where Laura returns to her house mid-afternoon, alarmed that there is an intruder, and enters her bedroom... where everything appears perfectly normal............

...And of course the Winkie's Diner scene in MULHOLLAND DRIVE. That one is pure filmmaking craft - in the face of most conventional logic about setting up a jumpscare. It shouldn't still work on me, maybe shouldn't have even worked the first time, but it does the job, every time.

The scene of the crab-walk in the stairs in THE EXORCIST freaked me out to no end.
The ending of SLEEPAWAY CAMP caught me off guard for sure. I will speak of it no further.
IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS still has the power to make me feel uncomfortable, it's such an amazing movie, filled to the brim with details.

Carpenter's last truly great movie.

Not exactly scared, but The Killing of a Sacred Deer creeped me out no end.

The Devils (1971)

A slight aside. I wonder if I'll ever see another movie that genuinely scares me?

The SA film Jannie Totsiens will do that: very disturbing, very eerie and also very funny.