What about movies scares you?

[Varaj]

I don't want to crap up the other thread what what movies do.
This is more to try and understand normal folks since movies don't scare me. I can get startled by something jumping out but that isn't the same as scary. (or maybe I don't understand what people mean)

So I guess also what do you mean by a movie scares you? Is it just that it has startle scenes (those that make you jump in your seat because something suddenly jumps out on screen) or is it something more?

I don't mean to imply there is something wrong with being scared at movies I'm strange in that regards.
Exorcist is a good example for my reaction I hear all the time it is a scary movie but damn that movie makes me giggle. If I hadn't heard other people's reactions I would have put it in the Evil Dead II category ("scary" movies that actually intend to be "funny" movies)

Just trying to understand.

[Glass]

Hellraiser hits me on a fear level. I was raised Catholic by a real bitch of a hellfire-and-brimstone "if it feels good you will BURN FOR IT!!!!" woman, and Hellraiser got me early when I was a kid. Barker seems to have just the right touch with his horror, it's tinged with enough sexuality to set of the Catholic guilt and make me both squicked and a bit aroused.

Candyman does the same thing, for the same reasons; a blend of sensuality and horror, sex and death. Plus, the bees. I've got this thing with bees.

[TiQuinn]

I was also raised Catholic, so movies like The Exorcist, or more than that, The Omen, hit home for me. The idea of the Devil, or losing your soul, or people being tortured for all eternity used to scare me on a level that my rational mind couldn't completely calm down. But that was when I was 10, and what the hell were my parents doing letting me watch those kinds of movies! :D

Now it takes a combination of originality (rare in horror movies) combined with a great story that engrosses me and a setting that invokes a particular mood. Ghost Story was great because of its bleak winter setting, and its feeling of isolation. I have to give a shit about the characters, and then and only then, do the scare tactics, i.e. the things that make you jump, become really scary. Nowadays it seems most movies gloss over the latter, or they make the visuals so over the top that it just seems unreal. It doesn't help that the casts are basically a who's who of anyone who's ever been on the WB network.

The sad thing is I can't really think of very many movies that do all of those things anymore.

[Northcott]

I don't want to crap up the other thread what what movies do.
This is more to try and understand normal folks since movies don't scare me. I can get startled by something jumping out but that isn't the same as scary. (or maybe I don't understand what people mean)

So I guess also what do you mean by a movie scares you? Is it just that it has startle scenes (those that make you jump in your seat because something suddenly jumps out on screen) or is it something more?

I don't mean to imply there is something wrong with being scared at movies I'm strange in that regards.
Exorcist is a good example for my reaction I hear all the time it is a scary movie but damn that movie makes me giggle. If I hadn't heard other people's reactions I would have put it in the Evil Dead II category ("scary" movies that actually intend to be "funny" movies)

Just trying to understand.

I think that the Exorcist was far more powerful when originally released; both because it pushed the envelope of the standards of that time, and because it tackled horror from a relatively new perspective. Also because, apparently (and I'm not sure if this is urban myth or not) in the theatres they were using little tricks to raise the hair on the back of people's necks. I can't remember what the rumours were, now: whether it was ultrasonics (sounds too deep to hear, but you can -feel- it, which freaks some people out), or whether because they had subliminal images, etc.

I think if you layer an odd physical sensation overtop that kind of a story, timed just right, you can elicit some strong reactions in people. Particularly when the type of horror tropes in question were still fairly new to the medium.


I can't think of any movies that really scared me off the top of my head. Blair Witch Project creeped me out a fair bit, but that's because we were living on the Rez at the time and the drive back through the woods looked an awful lot like the scenes in the movie. The dead calm and utter blackness of the forest at night, with just enough movement to let you know that there are other things out there which might well dine on you -- we had bears living behind our place.

That feeling only lasted that immediate time after the movie, though. It was gone by the next night.


Silence of the Lambs failed to even creep me out, but the book sparked my paranoia but good. I find the idea of "realistic" horror to be far nastier than anything else.

[GreyOne]

NOTE: I ain't putting spoiler tags on old movie reflections.

For me it's the creation of a pervasive feeling of menace and looming doom, coupled with horrifying (to my tender sensibilities) images. When they're mixed right, they are terrifying. Often there is an element of paranoia thrown in, such as in The Thing.

Example of images:

In the Ring:
When she crawls out of the well and keeps coming. The Ring had an assload of images like this. I was truly freaked by this movie when I saw it in theatres and this was despite the cockhead teens behind me jibber-jabbering.

In the Blair Witch:
When she turns around and there's her friend standing in the corner, his face unseen.

Alien
The descent into the ancient ship and the chestburster scene. Who saw that coming?

I hate slasher movies for the most part. Mindless killer violence for the sake of mindless killer violence is lame and shows no craft. That's partly why I despise Rob Zombie. Psychological horror is far scarier.

A movie I just saw, Vacancy, worked for me, because it built up a sense of claustraphobia and impending menace. The sense that you are watching other people die on videotapes and are about to join the collection got to me.

Other movies that gave me some chills:

The Omen
Hallowe'en
The Shining
The Grudge


Supernatural, the show can sometimes be freaky too.

[Black Angel]

For me it's the creation of a pervasive feeling of menace and looming doom, coupled with horrifying (to my tender sensibilities) images. When they're mixed right, they are terrifying.

Example of images:

In the Ring:
When she crawls out of the well and keeps coming. The Ring had an assload of images like this. I was truly freaked by this movie when I saw it in theatres and this was despite the cockhead teens behind me jibber-jabbering.


Have you ever seen that as the Japanese original? Now that is DAMN creepy. That and Black Water (which I think was also re-made as an English movie, not so effectively though). Much more effective in Japanese, and therefore VERY scary (to me anyway).

I agree with your definition of scary too. Mine is somewhat similar.

[Dacke]

In the Ring:
When she crawls out of the well and keeps coming. The Ring had an assload of images like this. I was truly freaked by this movie when I saw it in theatres and this was despite the cockhead teens behind me jibber-jabbering.
The creepiest instance in the Ring was actually a "startle" moment for me. The heroine, whose name I can't recall at the moment and I'm too fucking drunk to bother with looking it up, is visiting the chick in the mental hospital, and asking what happened to her friend. You get a very brief flashback to the scene at the start of the movie, and you see the friend's body in the closet, her face disfigured by her encounter with Samara, and the head just dropping. The flashback is only like one second long, but it sure put me on the edge.

[Sobek]

I think The Ring is a good example of something that sometimes gets me with horror movies: wrongness. Things like the crawling out of the TV are just wrong (in that case, it was the way it was filmed). I'm totally able to let myself be absorbed into a fantasy world (in a non-psychotic way), so if the acting and directing are done right, with the right build up and timing for the reveal, I can get the heebies from a "wrong" concept.

The Messengers was an example of something hitting just right, despite being only mediocre. I don't know if the whole movie would have played out creepy, but I could really see my two-year old acting like the little kid in the movie, so it struck a nerve. I was also a bit sleep deprived when I watched it. My wife got hit harder and asked to turn it off, so I did.

One other thing that I know can get to me is playing on the fact that I have a semi-phobia of amputations. Actually watching the image isn't so bad, but the build-up and hinting will freak the fuck out of me. When I was seven and my dad told me, mid way through The Empire Strikes Back, that he'd heard that Luke's lost his hand, it set me into a total fit and he had to carry me out of the theatre.

For the record, that scene doesn't bother me anymore. But, for anyone who has seen The Last Mimzy, the plot of needing a biological sample combined with the little girl getting her hand trapped in the time bubble was a total white-knuckle event for me, almost as bad as anything I've seen in a horror movie. Being a kids movie, I really didn't have anything to worry about, of course.

[Varaj]

Sometimes I wouldn't I wonder what it would be like to be a little more normal. The stuff you guys talk about sounds so alien. :sigh:

[shabois]

I saw Alien as a kid when I had no business watching an R rated movie, that was the scariest of all time for me.

Most movies don't scare me as an adult, I think it is the anticipation of something bad happening. The music comes up and you know something bad is going to happen, it is the expectation that makes me jump more that the actual act. The build up is the worst part for me.

Event Horizon Was the scariest movie I saw as an adult. Sci-Fi horror at its best. Very tight movie that had a countdown, Sci-fi aspect and a horror aspect for a nice blend.

[GreyOne]

I saw Alien as a kid when I had no business watching an R rated movie, that was the scariest of all time for me.

Most movies don't scare me as an adult, I think it is the anticipation of something bad happening. The music comes up and you know something bad is going to happen, it is the expectation that makes me jump more that the actual act. The build up is the worst part for me.

Event Horizon Was the scariest movie I saw as an adult. Sci-Fi horror at its best. Very tight movie that had a countdown, Sci-fi aspect and a horror aspect for a nice blend.



I loved Event Horizon. It definitely had a sense of pervading menace coupled with sudden horrifying imagery.

[GreyOne]

I guess it's suspense with a little something extra. The most scared I remember being during a movie is the scene in The Haunting (the original, not the craptastic remake) where something is banging on the hallway wall and getting closer while the heroine is laying in bed, frightened out of her mind, and she's talking to her roommate, who is apparently holding her hand but being completely silent. The little something extra is after the banging stops, the girl rolls over to see that roomie is completely asleep in her bed too far away to have been holding her hand. Scared the bejeezus out of me.


/pees himself.

[Northcott]

I forgot this one! You guys'll love it. :D

One of my friends is a bigwig at RIM -- that's right, she's in charge of your Crackberry. Her business card reads, I shit you not, "Harbinger of Reason". She's a hard-ass to her employees, is a project manager, and somebody not given to taking shit. She can be startled, and sometimes even scared by a movie, but generally doesn't freak out.

So a couple buddies are over watching The Ring with her and her husband -- all old highschool friends. After the first scene with the phonecall, George excuses himself to head on up to the bathroom. Little did anybody realize that George had swiped Kim's cell phone. So while he's upstairs, he rings up their home phone. Kim answers... and flips the fuck out when she hears "You have seven days!" whispered in a rasping voice. Completely bugged out!

[Sobek]

The Grudge one one of those flicks that was creepy, but had no real lasting effect on me. Except....

Two evenings later, while my wife and I are just sitting around, I hear the sound. You know, the one the little kid makes as he's crawling down the stairs. Then, my eldest daughter come crawling down the steps, somehow freakishly mimicing the way the creepy little fuck moved. She was five and definitely hadn't seen the movie, but it was dead on.

My wife, who hadn't gone to the theatre with me had no idea why my jaw hit the floor.

[GreyOne]

The Grudge one one of those flicks that was creepy, but had no real lasting effect on me. Except....

Two evenings later, while my wife and I are just sitting around, I hear the sound. You know, the one the little kid makes as he's crawling down the stairs. Then, my eldest daughter come crawling down the steps, somehow freakishly mimicing the way the creepy little fuck moved. She was five and definitely hadn't seen the movie, but it was dead on.

My wife, who hadn't gone to the theatre with me had no idea why my jaw hit the floor.



/pees himself.

[BOZ]

I don't want to crap up the other thread what what movies do.
This is more to try and understand normal folks since movies don't scare me. I can get startled by something jumping out but that isn't the same as scary. (or maybe I don't understand what people mean)

i know what you mean. i haven't been actually *scared* by a movie since i was a kid. yeah, if i get drawn into a story enough i can get startled by noises or even a bit on edge, but actually scared? no, can't say i know that feeling.

[Sobek]

I guess it depends on what you mean by "scared". I haven't had bad dreams or been worried about the monster under the bed, etc. since, oh, never. When I was listing stuff, it was more having the hair on the back of my neck stand up, etc. Some gut feeling that this ain't right that makes me say a movie is something other than action/adventure, drama, etc. that just happens to have supernatural elements.

[Space Cadet B^3]

I don't like being startled, and my suspension of disbelief is such I get really uncomfortable when I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. I have similar anxiety in watching stupid comedies where the level of ridiculosity rises to painful levels. I literally want to leave the room or cover my face because it's just so bad.

In one example, I had a bad experience with Signs, and it fouled out the movie for me.

[Sobek]

In one example, I had a bad experience with Signs, and it fouled out the movie for me.

Unless your bad experience was watching it, I'm going to go with "It wasn't you, the movie was foul."

[Space Cadet B^3]

Nah, you see, part of having a suspension of disbelief as loose as (contact's) mom is that you're easy. The last big 'jump' scene with the defingered alien made my heart skip a beat, my bladder contract, and I didn't feel right for an hour after the movie... That coupled with the atrocious ending just made me want to punch a bitch.

[Steampunk]

Usually the acting scares me far more than the plot line or the supposed "suspense" they made up.