Last Movie That Scared You

[LivingDeadGirl]

clifford43 said:

I think you have to be religious to be scared by religious thrillers.

I consider myself to be somewhat religious, but The Exorcist didn't scare me b/c it was a religion based movie. I think it bothered me more that it happened to a child.
Smitty brought up a good point about books vs. movies, I read "Jaws" yrs. after I first saw the movie & the book scared me a helluva lot more than the movie did.

[Heineken Skywalker]

"Yeah, I saw the Exorcist a good 3 years ago. Didn't scare me, because I read the book before I saw it. But the book itself WAS scary. I suggest you read it, it's excellent."

I read it, but years after I'd seen the movie, so the film made a bigger impact. I agree it's a good book though.

[Fenril]

"Last movie that scared me" Hmm....

The last one I can remember that really scared me in the theathers was "El espinazo del diablo" (i. e. "The devil's backbone" ), and some parts of "The Exorcist (the rerelease)", " Das experiment" and "Un jeu des infants" (the last two were on an euro film festival).

On video... "Frailty" creeped me out. I hadn't seen a movie that powerful in ages (I know a lot of people might disagree). Beyond that I dunno, I can't remember right now.

"The exorcist" novel is indeed quite good, as is "Jaws". I'm not sure which version of the exorcist is better, and I prefer the jaws book strictly because of the ending (didn't like the movie's corny ending at all).

[LivingDeadGirl]

Fenril said:

On video... "Frailty" creeped me out. I hadn't seen a movie that powerful in ages (I know a lot of people might disagree).

I almost forgot about "Frailty"....didn't really scare me, but an excellent movie nonetheless. Bill Paxton's performance was awesome.

[Heineken Skywalker]

livingdeadgirl said:

"Frailty"....didn't really scare me, but an excellent movie nonetheless. Bill Paxton's performance was awesome.

Agreed. Very good movie.

[clifford43]

Heineken - i'm right with you on the childhood thing. There are movies that scared me when i was a kid, and not only would i never watch them again, i won't even talk about them - face to face, at least. This is a rare exception. Just to see if i was game, i watched the trailer for The Withces the other day, and got shivers all over and felt absolutely creeped out. Two big traumatic experiences for me when i was little were:

Return to Oz and
Witches.
If you saw these when you were older you probably thought they were just lame kids entertainment - but let me tell you these things are absolutely terrifying for kids! If you have kids, don't let them see either of these, its not worth it! Instead, let the seem Psycho - they'll get the full value out of it!

You're spot-on about me and The Exorcist too. I'm 21, so i'm much after the fact, and i missed seeing it when i was a kid and have seen clips from it and heard all about it, so there was just NO element of surprise! In many ways i felt totally ripped off. I could appreciate it was a really good film, actually - i think i said its well scripted and directed, and i felt that while watching it... but i missed out on the element of surprise or naivety big time.

[Bartwald]

Hmm - it's different in my case. I saw The Exorcist several months ago for the first time in my life and was quite nicely scared by it. I was actually expecting a letdown after seeing all the clips from the movie and all the spoofs based on its plot (that's why I was hesitating for such a long time whether I should rent it or not), but it was just great! In fact, I consider it one of the greatest horror movies ever made - and believe me, I didn't think I would!

Das Experiment is a very good and realistic movie, and I can see why some people may consider it scarier than all the horror movies around.

On the other hand, I'm not a fan of The Frailty: the start was interesting, Paxton as good as usual, but after some time it ceased being convincing to me.

[mightyalgo]

Ringu = Scary as hell!

Blair Witch = Only scary once!!

The reason I think these movies got to me on that level was because I watched them on my own and late at night. It would be impossible to watch it in a packed theatre (certainly, Blair Witch would be rubbish imho) but then, I'd like them to stick a bit on the end ofthe credits of Ring where you see the girl coming out of the well towards the cinema audience. It would have to start just as people were walking out of the cinema, say a couple of minutes after the film's finished.
That would be quality.

I think there should be a definite divide between Horror and Fear movies. Horror is like zombie movies etc. Fear movies are much more difficult to do - we could watch Hitchcock and put some of his stuff in this category.

P.S. Go and see Shaun of the Dead. It's ver' good.

[ZapRowsdower]

I actually preferred the American version of the Ring over the Japanese version. Maybe it's because the surprise element was taken out of the Japanese version, having seen Gore Verbinski's version first.

[cyber256702000]

I have never really been scared by a movie, but The Ring I thought was really creepy. It just had a creepy atmosphere that really brought you into the story and made you want to unravel its mystery. I saw it and than grabbed as many friends as I could and made them all go and see it on Halloween the year it came out.

[LivingDeadGirl]

Yeah, that relates to what we were discussing on the Village thread, about the importance of atmosphere & tension to a movie. To me that's a better thrill than blood & guts & "monsters".

[Bartwald]

IamTheSmitty said:

I actually preferred the American version of the Ring over the Japanese version. Maybe it's because the surprise element was taken out of the Japanese version, having seen Gore Verbinski's version first.

Same with me - exactly! But I also think that American advantages went a bit futher than this: I loved the horse scene, I liked the American soundtrack way better than the original one, and - hang me! - Naomi Watts appealed to me much more than all the Japanese girls.

[Fenril]

In the case of Ringu vs The Ring

I think it depends completely on which version you saw before --same as with "Manhunter" vs "The red dragon".

Personally I preferred Ringu, but I think the Ring had some pretty interesting ideas: the horse was inspired, the girl in the closet was scarier this time around, and I especially love what they did with the "seven days" thing.
Now I personally (and generally) find asian girls cuter than americans... nevertheless, I agree that Naomi Watts is cuter that --Uh, I forgot the name of the actress that played Reiko in the original. Both are fine actressess, anyhow.

My one problem with the Ring: when compared to the creepy (because realistic) Sadako of Ringu, zombie Samara just doesn't scare me at all. (Particularly with the eye closeup --funny that a real eye turned out to be much scarier than a fake computer-generated one).

Frailty... as I said, it's one of those movies which you either find scary of don't, which you are either convinced by or aren't. It's perfectly okay. For my part, the reason I found it scary is because the basis is that father-son power struggle (not to mention religion vs pragmatism) that here gets deadly repercussions. At times, it hit a little too close at home for me, which may be why I found it disturbing --especially the final twist.

And now that I remember: for my part, I LOVED "at the mouth of madness", but I can see why so many people don't. I'm not even a big fan of Lovecraft, but I think this is his best movie adaptation (yet it's not based on any actual story by Lovecraft... weird, no?)

[LivingDeadGirl]

Fenril said:

I think it depends completely on which version you saw before --same as with "Manhunter" vs "The red dragon".

Which did you prefer Fenril?
I've always leaned a little more toward Manhunter, but that's not to say the I didn't love Red Dragon. Maybe it's b/c as you said, I saw Manhunter first & have watched it several times, whereas I've only seen Red Dragon once. But to me Manhunter was darker & more basic than RD, maybe b/c you didnt' have all the "starpower" as in RD & could concentrate more on the story instead of who was acting in the movie. Don't get me wrong I love both Edward Norton & Anthony Hopkins, I mean Hopkins IS Lector, but I think William Peterson was more convincing as Graham than Edward was. That's just my opinion though.

[Fenril]

I prefer Manhunter, definitely. Firstly, for all the reasons you have mentioned: William Petersen rocks as Graham! Now Edward Norton is one of my favorite actors, but he's severely miscast in Red Dragon; I would have preferred him as the Tooth Fairy.
Hopkins does make a better job of potraying Lecter... which is part of the problem. People keep forgetting that in Red Dragon (the Thomas Harris novel, that is), Lecter isn't the focus, not even a main character. He's simply another dark element in the story. Hopkins performance is good, but he commands so much attention people tend to forget the rest of the story.

And besides that? I LOVE '80's music, so of course I was mesmerized by the soundtrack in Manhunter. And IMHO that creepy opening scene cannot be matched.

On the Red Dragon's plus side... the Tooth fairy got much more development this time around. Love the voices he hears, especially. And that's it.

One gripe with both: neither used the ending of the novel, which so far I thought was the best of the three we have seen so far.
Perhaps it was considered too dark for the movies?