Scary Movie

Lets talk scary movies. Its Halloween and its time.

Ringu - Lisa woke me up in the middle of the night after watching the scene where the Japanese girl with the black hair over her face creeps out of a TV. Lisa doesn't scare easy, so when she woke me up it scared me so much that I couldn't get back to sleep even after she went back to bed.

the Shining All work and no play keeps me up at night.

Blair Witch Project Lisa disagrees, but I think this movie is really tense and scary. It didn't hit me right away but after watching for the first time and coming home to an empty house, I went out to a bar til my roommates came home and turned all the lights on before I would come home.

Jaws Spielberg exploits a primal fear, we may not be at the top of the food chain.

the Birds What is it about the Birds? Anything in massive numbers is scary. Especially when it's not human. King Kong isn't as scary as the Birds because we understand a monkey going crazy. Birds are so foreign to humans, we don't have a way of communicating with birds, they cant be reasoned with, and they are everywhere!
Maybe we fear what we are doing to birds (the love birds in the cage early in the film). Then why wasn't the Happening scary?

Aliens Horror films often recall scary stories. Aliens reminds me of the spider that lays eggs in people, gross and scary. (james cameron, really?)

Invasion of the Body Snatchers My family watched the 70's version of the Body Snatchers in a motel room that had a pay phone and magic fingers on the beds. I kept telling myself "it's ok, movies always have happy endings". gulp.

the Exorcist(director's cut)- The director's cut has additional scenes of a posessed Regan (Linda Blair) that had the whole audience at the theater gasping and hiding their eyes.

Rosemary's Baby "More conspiracy thriller than horror movie, Baby nurses a mother lode of phobias. As Rosemary (Mia Farrow) slowly intuits she's been raped by Satan, she wrestles a myriad of believable demons: uncaring doctors, intrusive neighbors (primarily Ruth Gordon, who copped an Oscar), and a monstrously self-centered husband (John Cassavetes)." entertainment weekly

the Sixth Sense

the Silence of the Lambs Hanibal "the Cannibal" Lector is one of the best drawn and acted of the movie vilans. Anthony Hopkins gave us a a sociopath that we love to hate and can't get enough of.

Jeepers Creepers The first half of Jeepers Creepers is so tense and fun it makes up for the disappointing second half.
Nosferatu

Se7en

Vanishing (aka Spoorloos) Not the underwhelming American version, the Dutch version.

Dead Calm

Night of the Hunter Robert Mitchum predates Hannibal Lector, Jason and Michael Meyers in his portrayal of the highly religous and highly psychopathic Harry Powell. Charles Laughton's only directorial effort is rumored to be so disturbing he wasn't allowed to get behind a camera ever again.

Picnic at Hanging Rock Peter Weir's dreamlike movie about a party of schoolgirls who disappear after being drawn into a mysterious rock formation in Australia in 1900 hangs over you long after viewing. The unresolved story adds to its creepiness.

the Bad Seed The little blonde Damien.