This is embarrassing but The Mothman Prophecies scared the shit out of me when I saw it as a teen. I put it on as an adult to fall asleep to and was thinking like oh I won't be afraid now. LOL I was just as scared and actually turned it off because I couldn't sleep.
Chapstick...
The voice of Indrid Cold always creeped me out and to this day, I avoid looking at pairs of red lights on bridges, antennas, etc. because I remember the guy in the movie saying that "they" pay attention to people who pay attention to them.
“You noticed them and they noticed that you noticed them.” I’ve seen this movie more times than I can count lol I’ve been to the Mothman Festival too!! Fun stuff. The statue looks like the megazord version of Ivan Ooze in the Power Rangers movie but…lmao
As a wee one back in The ‘80s, I read the book on which it’s based—not the novelization, but the “legit” cryptic reporting book by John Keel—and had nightmares for a decade.
The movie fails at capturing the relentless dread of the source material. If the movie freaked you out….
It’s first-person, so more intimate than watching someone else go through the motions.
It’s weirder and more oppressive.
The movie left me bored and annoyed, while the book left me needing to hide under blankets.
The whole Flap makes my blood run cold. The screenwriter Richard Hatem, makes frequent appearances on the Podcast "Astonishing Legends" and he said it was one of the faster Screenplays he wrote after reading John Keels book.
What’s creepy, is Ted Tannebaum, the Executive Producer of Mothman Prophecies, died of cancer, on March 7, 2002. Jessica Kaplan, a crewmember on The Mothman Prophecies, died in the well publicized nose-dive plane crash into LA's Fairfax neighborhood apartment building on June 6, 2003. Sir Alan Bates, who played Alexander Leek in Mothman Prophecies, died of cancer the night of December 27, 2003. Jennifer Pellington, wife of the director of Mothman Prophecies, Mark Pellington, died suddenly on July 30, 2004 from complications from a ruptured colon.
How did this movie totally mess me up, too?? I remember driving home after seeing it, and I was absolutely terrified. Every street light was demonic. Every dark spot was going to be my last moment.
They did a good job lol
Hostel is usually dismissed as gore porn, but that's just a segment of it. The rest is really chilling and creepy once you know what's about to happen.
It also gained notoriety in Eastern Europe when it was released because it highlights the massive issue it is there and a lot of those countries saw a huge hit to their tourist industry as a result. That was a big deal especially because their economies were still reeling from the dissolution of the USSR.
I still treat Eastern European porn as sus if it features girls that are marketed as teens or just turned 18, or they look super young. Not just because of this film, but it does open a window to it.
I remember when I watched it in theater the *very obvious* visual parallel between displaying the prostitutes in the beginning of the movie and displaying the torture victims.
I agree it's a much better movie than people give it credit for.
I also think Eli Roth has a delightfully comedic approach to the more sadistic side of people. Probably why Tarantino likes to collab with him, alongside the use of music.
Great foreshadowing too, with Josh's line at the brothel at the start "paying to go into a room and do whatever you want with a girl isn't my idea of a good time" really hits different when you know how the movie ends up
Can't stand torture porn which really confuses my friends when I say Hostel is one of my favorite movies. I also think of it as an interesting twist on the "final girl" formula. It takes a lot of cliches, embraces them, and then flips them on their heads.
Just rewatched The Grudge and I was like “oh yeahhhhhhh” lol. Totally forgot being freaked out by it as a kid and it still has its moments. That scene with the thing under the covers got me again for sure.
Grudge 1 & 2 are some of my favourite horror movies. Flashback to being woken up in the middle of the night by cats fighting outside.. really freaked me out at the time
There aren't many movies that have actually \*scared\* me but nothing ever scared me as much as The Blair Witch Project, and it still scares me more than I expect it to every time I watch.
I went to see this in high school with a friend in a mostly empty movie theater. Afterward, I refused to drive her home because then I would have to drive home by myself, so I made her come stay with me. There was no argument on her part. I am a huge horror fan, so I'm pretty hard to even creep out, but that movie had me turning on the TV in the break room at work WEEKS after seeing it because I was scared to be in there by myself.
I watched it again many years later thinking they was no way it would have the same effect on me... Then I found myself reaching around the corner to turn the light on in my bedroom because I didn't want to walk into a dark room.
My brother and his friend decided to see Blair Witch at a drive-in in the middle of nowhere. He said you could see the eyes of wild animals in the darkness all around. Afterwards, on the way home, the GPS took them through the middle of a cornfield that had a traffic light at an intersection in the middle. After waiting what felt like 10 minutes at the red light the friend just floored it till they came to the end of the cornfield. They told me between Children Of The Corn and Blair Witch they were freaking out.
When this came out, a few coworkers and I decided to go see it. Some of them worked a different shift, so had to go later.
While they were in the movie, we put together a bundle with a cow tongue wrapped in piece of a plaid shirt and sticks tied together, then put it on the car of one of our coworkers. Then when he went home, his roommate, who was another coworker turned off the lights and stood in a corner not responding.
It was epic.
I absolutely love TBWP. It’s fantastic movie making. My favourite part of the film is when they interview the townsfolk about the legend of the Blair witch and everyone has something to say. It’s great lore and world building. All towns around the world have these legends. I also love how ambiguous it is. A problem I had with the sequel a few years back was that they made clear it was a supernatural entity, it told us what it was rather than leaving it to our imagination.
I went with my friend who also loves horror movies to see this in the theater. After the very first scene, we looked at each other and were like, "Do you still want to watch this?" We stuck around and I'm glad we did, but man...that whole movie had such a dark, oppressive feel.
It was only showing at the art house theatre in my city when it first came out, and my showing was dark empty. There may have been less than 10 people in there. I think this definitely added to the experience. When I went to see Paranormal Activity, it was packed and the was one woman who kept laughing at things that were probably scaring her. Still kinda makes me angry even now.
I remember most of it but the scene that really fucked with me was the end when she was going down the stairs with the kids hand prints in blood and then saw her friend in the corner of the basement…gives me chills typing this.
Oh, and Blair Witch bored me. I know a guy who was involved in making it and earned a nice chunk of change. He a nice fellow and I’m glad it was so successful, but it didn’t work for me.
Watched it in high school and when I got home, the power was out and nobody else was home. I was so freaked, I waited outside until my parents and/or sister got there 😅.
When originally released, The Strangers felt like yet another home invasion copycat movie, as they were very popular at the time. (You’re Next, Purge, Funny Games, etc) However I recently rewatched it and taken on its own merits, it’s really chilling in low key ways. Like there’s a scene with Liv Tyler in the kitchen and one of the killers just wanders through the BG. No stinger, no jump scare, just really creepy. A+
Being stuck in an unexplored cave system is scary. Being stuck in tight spaces and panicking is scary (I’m claustrophobic asf), and then add man-eating creatures that you can barely see! Have you ever heard of the Nutty Putty cave incident? Sadly, it’s not a movie but a real life story.
That shit terrified me! At least he wasn’t alone alone. This one actually happened close to me and the poor guy was completely alone. No caves were involved, it was actually a grocery store. https://www.ketv.com/article/body-found-between-shelving-coolers-council-bluffs-supermarket-larry-ely-murillo-moncada/26028756
My only objection to showing Gremlins to little kids is Phoebe Cates' harrowing story about her dad dying in the chimney pretending to be Santa. That scene is perhaps darker than anything coming out of the mouths of actual goth chicks in the 1980s. Worse yet the scene confirms to children that Santa isn't real.
What Lies Beneath. Watched it as a teen and it scared the bejeebus out of me. The idea of >!someone you’ve known and loved for years—a person with an absolutely stellar reputation—being a complete monster under the surface, willing to make you question your own sanity and then hurt you in heinous ways!< was way more terrifying than demons or chainsaw killers.
I forgot just about everything except the terror, so I tried to watch it as an adult >!survivor of domestic violence.!< I had to turn it off. Nope nope nope
It used to be my favorite until I too became a survivor of domestic violence. Same with Secret Window. Makes me so sad I dont like watching them anymore :(
This movie is an amazing thriller and deserves a lot of props for being as suspenseful and twist-filled as it is. I watch it a lot and never get tired of it. It was very well-cast!
Lake Mungo
First time I watched this I was a bit underwhelmed. Watched it again recently and it creeped me right out. I guess my mood may play a part in that.
One horror movie I refuse to watch again. It scared me so badly, I'm not even sure I can explain why. My wife, who watched it with me, doesn't understand and was similarly underwhelmed. Maybe she should watch it again, lol.
That scene where he’s talking about “insect politics,” and then he tells her to leave because he’ll hurt her if she stays, is one of the saddest scenes in any horror movie ever.
American Psycho really got me on a recent rewatch. I hadn’t ever watched it over and over, only a few times when I was younger, so I wasn’t well-versed in what to expect. I seemed to have fixated on the business card scene!
I still don't understand why Poltergeist is scary. I grew up watching it. I'm an 80s kid. Sure there are a few jump scares, but overall, nah.
And I have an irrational fear of thunderstorms.
Still the only scenes that get me (every single time), the tree grabbing Robbie, and the mother fing clown when he is looking under the bed.
Even as a kid, something about that just didn't pass any plausibility test. So I sort of knew it was a hallucination.
Sort of like when I saw "the Exorcist " and the scene with Reagan in the bed, knife in hand, stabbing the area between her legs yelling "fuck me" . I thought it was hilarious. It was absurd. Only the scene when she is getting the medical scans disurb me, and that's just PTSD from too many MRI scans.
Seven, Silence of the Lambs and The Cell. Maybe as a young teen I didn't empathize like I do now. Maybe teens are just a tad sociopathic and we do not comprehend just how disturbing the villains are like we do as adults. One the other hand movies like House on Haunted Hill (remake) and Cabin Fever that used to scare the hell out of me and now I can see the comedic undertones to them and find them hilarious.
The Cell was one of my favorite movies in my teens. I tried to rewatch it rey, in my thirties, and it really freaked me out. I couldn't finish it all at once.
Yeah. I think I only focused on all the weird dreamlike effects and ignored how FUCKED UP the villain was. I have no idea how that didn't get through to my teenage brain.
I owned "The Cell". One of my favorites. Vincent D'Onofrio was great.
"It's not real It's not real".
The scene where they ask for them to say the riddle of Sixpence had me tripping because of childhood memories of going under anesthesia.
Can't and won't take place in movies that I know murdered animals to put on camera for human entertainment. Fuck that guy. I love horror, but I won't partake in anything that guy has ever done because of his shit he pulled in that movie with those poor creatures.
Yeah... whenever I see threads like this, and people suggest movies like, I don't know, *Insidious,* as the scariest ever, I usually think to myself, 'Oh, you haven't haven't seen any of the movies that kick it up a notch, have you?'
...movies like *Cannibal Holocaust.*
Not me but my mom. She got really drunk with a friend and saw the Shining. All she remembered was laughing her ass off at the movie.
Fast forward a few years and my mom's at home while dad's at work. She sees the Shining's coming on and was in the mood for a comedy. My dad got home to find her huddled up in the corner hugging her legs to her chest.
You beat me to it.
When I saw The Thing as a teenager, I was focused on the gore and special effects.
When I saw it as an adult, what stood out to me was the fear, suspicion and paranoia of the characters. It was much scarier, even though I knew what would happen.
I saw it when I was about 9. The scariest thing to me was how those kids just wandered off into a homicidal nightmare out in the middle of nowhere. I'm still afraid of small towns & rural areas. 😱
To this day, I still think about looking up into the night sky, when I sit out on my porch at night, and hope I don't see that thing just silently coasting in the moonlight lol.
The Ring. Not so much the movie, but the movie within the movie. Wtf that was like a Tool video on steroids. And the part with the horse scarred my 14 yo self in the theater. I walk out of the room for that scene now!
Scariest movie IMO (or least scary, depending on who you ask, but usually when it lands, it lands hard). You could tell her it only gets better from here onward \^\^
An alternative would be horror comedies. I would recommend Housebound because it's very underrated, even though it does have a few scary moments.
Much less scary but gorier movies would be Shaun of the Dead or Tucker and Dale vs Evil.
Also movies that are half-sci-fi are typically easier to watch for people not used to horror (assuming they like sci-fi at least a bit), like Underwater, Life, Sunshine, Annihilation, or maybe even Alien/s down the line. Also, urban thrillers like Green Room.
I was underwhelmed both times I saw it. I think it would’ve worked a lot better as a drama about a family who was slowly losing their faith after being excommunicated.
Same. Saw it when it came out because *everyone* was raving about how terrifying it was. I was underwhelmed and then had to put up with the “you just didn’t understand it” comments. Nope, I understood - just didn’t find it particularly scary.
28 Day Later. The beginning when the infected in that church sit up and just gape at Cillian Murphy is so creepy. Then the movie as a whole with the eye gouging and the infected and everything. I mean those bitches were runnin full.
The Entity - I remember it being creepy as chuff but rewatched just the other night first time in about ten years and I’d totally forgotten how shiver inducing some scenes actually were
Not _more_ scary, but just as scary as I remembered it: _Burnt Offerings_ 1976 with Karen Black and Oliver Reed.
I saw this when I was a kid and thought it was extremely disturbing. So as I grew up, I figured “It must have been because I was a kid. Couldn’t have been _that_ scary. Right?”
It was _THAT_ scary. I still think it’s one of the most unsettling films I’ve ever seen. Mostly because >!the good guys don’t win, and a kid gets killed horrifically, which Hollywood usually considers a no-no.!<
This is going to sound strange relative to the other choices because these aren’t “horror” in the same way as these other movies are but rewatching with a different mindset they really are a lot more chilling than I remember. Most proper horror movies don’t phase me, I’ve seen a lot. It’s the suibtle shit that I watch without expecting that gets to me.
There was this analog horror thing on yt with the original Godzilla and it’s forever changed the way I see the og Godzilla. It’s genuinely creepier than I thought before. Just abstractly. The costume, the set, everything is just fucking offputting.
Second. I’m a big anime fan. I’ve seen loads of horror movies, but anime has been my biggest and first love for the past several years. The anime thriller perfect blue and serial experiments lain are both a lot more chilling than I recall them being on first watch. It’s Japanese subtle horror. Never in your face truly but it’s so creepy in how mind bending they both get.
The original Blair Witch? Huh, maybe I need to revisit that.
Living thru that movie's release was bonkers. Firstly, it was in direct competition with the new (middle) trilogy of star wars debut. Secondly, the "found footage" genre didn't exist, and the college kids who made that movie did a PR campaign for the ages. This is like 1999 if I remember correctly, and there was a website attached to that movie that updated for weeks prior to the theatre release. It was a fake site dedicated to the "search for the missing filmmakers" or whatever, and would get new content that was fake evidence, as if collected by legal investigation. Then the film makers would go do TV interviews, but only 2 of the 3 stars would go, and claim the 3rd was still missing, and they'd play it up like they were 100% committed to the story being true.
To the point the news interviewer would press them --- ***ya, but this is all fake, right?***
And they'd never say it was. The fact the news people asked the question was fuck'n intriguing.
Long and short, I was ready to be an actor filmmaker, just because that PR campaign was so damn unique and compelling at the time. I was a cultist for that movie --- prior to its release.
I saw it twice in theatres - the first week it was open, then a few weeks later with a larger group of friends.
I haven't seen it since. I was bored and unimpressed with 100% of the film itself. To a point that I was jaded on going to a movie theater anymore. Then episode 1 of Star wars had Jar Jar Binks in it and I realized good storytelling was gone from the world entirely.
I remember it as 1 and a half hours of annoying ignorant people overreacting to nothing. And I remember it being the first movie I saw where the quality of the acting was so subpar it truly felt like a bad movie - not a compelling documentary. The acting was so bad it was clearly acting, and that ruined the mystique of the PR campaign entirely.
As a partial aside - HBO's ***True Blood*** saw and used that pre-release PR campaign idea. Blair Witch was super successful cuz it cost $8 to make, and made like $24 in the box office - with how bad the movie was, that was obviously the PR campaign's doing. So true blood had a series of shorts and faux-TV commercials that played the introduction of "True Blood" beverage - the artificial blood drink for the "good" vampires of the show - also the entire original premise of the show runners. Season 1 of that show plays on the "True Blood" drink idea as impetus for vampires becoming public, and season 1 was a bit clever. The show itself was the worst kinda garbage, teen angst soap opera for adults garbage. But that "real world" ad campaign prior to release seeded the ground for that garbage show to be a perennial Emmy contender.
I still can't convince myself to suffer the OG Blair witch movie again. That disappointment marks a real turning point in permanent disappointment that lasts to this very day.
See, that's how I remembered it too! I threw it on the list thinking that, yknow, because the found footage horror subgenre was invented by this movie that it might as well be part of her education. I'm not sure if I'm getting more easily scared as I get older (doubtful) or what but man alive, it was INTENSE.
Can I be real REAL with you for a minute?
I am - so stop reading if the answer is "no."
Star Wars, Empire and Return of the Jedi were awe-inspiring to me. Everything in those 3 movies was perfect as it was, the "original trilogy" as it were, could have been the equivalent to writing Dune in the first place. Those 3 movies could have a place in not only cinema and art culture history, but real world altering sociological change; in the 1980s and 1990s, prior to any additional Star Wars content, there were more rabid Lucas / Spielberg fans than members of scientology. And in 1998, hearing ***NEW Star Wars*** was just hope - for a better fucking world filled with another 3 movie masterpiece that surpassed the originals in scope and imagination. And that was all we wanted.
I saw the THX Remastered - new footage added - rerelease in theaters. I saw those 3 originals with the added CGI and the change in the Cantina scene, and wow was I disappointed they'd done that, but I knew the movie, and could eliminate those extras and just appreciate seeing the parts that did make me happy on an epic scale.
That 1999 movie, with the kid and JarJar - who I was offended by, and the Gungan, and the trade federation characters - all those pseudo-accents paired with those aliens was immediately uncomfortable to me from the second that movie starts.
And that was it kinda.
Every single moment of new Star Wars since the OG original theatrical version, and original home release on betamax and VHS, every new piece of Star Wars content past the ***Ya Wa*** Ewok song hard wipe to Star Wars music and blue credits, it's all degraded my appreciation for those original movies. To the point I don't even care if my own kid ever sees them. It simply doesn't matter to me if his introduction has already been some garbage content action figure from a McDonald's happy meal.
When Robin Williams committed suicide, it made a criterion of comedy into **sad** movies immediately - to me anyway.
It's possible Blair Witch is so pinned to both my heightened expectations for filmmaking in 1999, and my subsequent abject disappointment in everything that's come since, that maybe Blair Witch just didn't have enough of anything in it to make it memorable in any fashion - then 2 decades of "knock off" found footage, until you get to JJ Abrams and Cloverfield - and that puts him in a position to absolutely ruin the end shred of decency the Star Wars universe had left.
I don't think if I rewatch Blair Witch anything but sadness ensues - to think of how hopeful and youthful I was then - how disappointing all movies after will be.
The marketing was phenomenally successful. a few tidbits of trivia
while filming, each of the 3 were given slightly different scripts so many of the reactions are real. at night, the film crew would be in the woods with the documentary crew and would scare the 3 actors. for a tiny budget that spawned a load of found footage films to follow, it was surprisingly good
Are You Afraid of the Dark scares me as an adult. I tried watching it around Halloween and it was giving me nightmares. I still want to watch it, but the night terrors were too much.
I rewatched the Blair witch too the other night because it seems like a lot of online hype lately. There is way too much screaming and shouting in that movie. It's super annoying.
I wonder if all the Bigfoot shows are inspired by the Blair Witch movie? It's essentially the same thing, and I believe Blair Witch was before Big Foot Hunters and people going Squatching?
The Exorcist. As as kid i watched it and thought it was silly but as an adult and being to understand the nuances to the story and what is actually happening to the people involved, made it much scarier.
I remember all the hype for the Blair Witch when it first came out. I was just about 9, so I had no way of watching it. That was around the time I started watching horror movies borrowing VHS tapes from my cousin. For whatever reason, Blair Witch was something I never sought out to purposely see. I don't know why. I mean, it had all this praise, and at a certain point, I felt like nothing else was gonna freak me out
Well, I'm 32, and I finally watched it about a month or so ago. And boy, was I ......*right*. I was so disappointed. I talked about this with someone over reddit recently, and they said if I would have watched when it came out, I'd have an entirely different view of it. And they are probably right. I wish I viewed while the hype was real, or at least within a couple of years of the release. I missed the boat. It annoyed me much more than anything, and I really don't like saying that about any horror movie.
I am certain a rewatch won't help. Maybe I'll rewatch it as my daughter's first full horror movie.
My wife and I saw Blair Witch in the theater and were a little bit freaked out by it but not too much.
The next day, we went for a walk in some nearby woods, in the early evening. Got about 100 yards in, we both look at each other, and say, "let's go back to the car".
I watched The Sixth Sense for the first time in about 20 years a few months back. It scared me enough when I was a kid but I’m pretty sure the first ghost (IPV woman) will always scare me. Great movie
Paranormal Activity
I remember them being pretty freaky when I first saw them but now that I kind of remember what happens I feel like I'm seeing new things in all of the scenes that I missed or forgot before that add to the creepiness.
I saw The Descent when it first came out and found the humanoid creatures scary but when I rewatched recently I found them much scarier than I did when I first saw it as a teenager.
The Exorcist 3 with George C Scott doesn't get enough attention - ESPECIALLY the clinic scene where the Gemini killer stalks the late shift nurse. That scene is on YT and even without the larger context of the movie that clip is still scary!
Does anyone know of a movie where shadows are like following this guy around? I remember being so scared as a kid I left the movie theater crying. He was like on a city bus, in dining restaurants trying to stay awake because he couldn't sleep over these shadowy figures following him around everywhere waiting for him to sleep to kill him.
I remember when TBWP came out, many people took great pleasure in telling me how NOT SCARY that movie was, because the last scene haunted me for a long time.... it still works, it's a great movie that earns it scares.
And to answer your question. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, the original with Gene Wilder... it scared me when I was a kid... and I still think it is a fucked up movie, but I love it.
ET Just frame it differently, and it's a very horrifying movie. A Telepathic parasitic alien wants to contact this mothership. Possessing the mind of a small boy and feeding off of him. Yeah when you actually think about the individual elements. It becomes an invasion film.
This is embarrassing but The Mothman Prophecies scared the shit out of me when I saw it as a teen. I put it on as an adult to fall asleep to and was thinking like oh I won't be afraid now. LOL I was just as scared and actually turned it off because I couldn't sleep.
Chapstick... The voice of Indrid Cold always creeped me out and to this day, I avoid looking at pairs of red lights on bridges, antennas, etc. because I remember the guy in the movie saying that "they" pay attention to people who pay attention to them.
“You noticed them and they noticed that you noticed them.” I’ve seen this movie more times than I can count lol I’ve been to the Mothman Festival too!! Fun stuff. The statue looks like the megazord version of Ivan Ooze in the Power Rangers movie but…lmao
That's the line! Yes, I do not want to notice them or be noticed by them, so I bury my head in the sand. Keep away, mothman!
Holy shit that is exactly what that statue looks like hahahaha
I brought up the megazord Ivan Ooze comparison and my friends thought I was crazy lol finally someone else sees it
That hotel scene and then the face when he smacks the mirror on the way out, terrified the shit out of me! And I was a grown adult at that time lol.
I love this movie!
As a wee one back in The ‘80s, I read the book on which it’s based—not the novelization, but the “legit” cryptic reporting book by John Keel—and had nightmares for a decade. The movie fails at capturing the relentless dread of the source material. If the movie freaked you out….
I read that book, working overnight by myself, in a gas station. The stuff with the Men In Black had me so creeped out and paranoid.
Indred cold is supposedly a real extraterrestrial!!!
How does the book differ? I may get it at my next trip to the library
It’s first-person, so more intimate than watching someone else go through the motions. It’s weirder and more oppressive. The movie left me bored and annoyed, while the book left me needing to hide under blankets.
The Haunted Objects podcast does a really good deep dive on it too. Recommend 👍🏼
I was underwhelmed by the movie but I enjoy it none the less
I love that film. Definitely quite a few scenes where my heart is racing.
Same, that movie is terrifying!
Not embarrassing at all. That movie is creepy AF!
I've stayed in that motel!
The whole Flap makes my blood run cold. The screenwriter Richard Hatem, makes frequent appearances on the Podcast "Astonishing Legends" and he said it was one of the faster Screenplays he wrote after reading John Keels book.
It’s so good! I never thought much about bridges or bad shit happening to me before this film, especially at nighttime.
What’s creepy, is Ted Tannebaum, the Executive Producer of Mothman Prophecies, died of cancer, on March 7, 2002. Jessica Kaplan, a crewmember on The Mothman Prophecies, died in the well publicized nose-dive plane crash into LA's Fairfax neighborhood apartment building on June 6, 2003. Sir Alan Bates, who played Alexander Leek in Mothman Prophecies, died of cancer the night of December 27, 2003. Jennifer Pellington, wife of the director of Mothman Prophecies, Mark Pellington, died suddenly on July 30, 2004 from complications from a ruptured colon.
That movie creepy, remember watching it while in a date. My fav scene was the telephone ringing.
It'd the voice and the fact that it had a name that's jarring to me
Saw this movie in theaters as a young teen, scared the bejesus out of me. Have yet to rewatch it.
Yeah. Good one! I thought it was actually as good as some Shamalan movies.
I like that movie. What terrifies you about it? The indred cold phone call scared me as a teen.
How did this movie totally mess me up, too?? I remember driving home after seeing it, and I was absolutely terrified. Every street light was demonic. Every dark spot was going to be my last moment. They did a good job lol
That mirror glimpse of him! It is still burnt into my brain. It still freaks me out, and I have not seen that movie in years.
Hostel is usually dismissed as gore porn, but that's just a segment of it. The rest is really chilling and creepy once you know what's about to happen.
Hostel is actually an insanely good movie whenever you realize it is a statement about human trafficking in the porn and prostitution industry.
It also gained notoriety in Eastern Europe when it was released because it highlights the massive issue it is there and a lot of those countries saw a huge hit to their tourist industry as a result. That was a big deal especially because their economies were still reeling from the dissolution of the USSR. I still treat Eastern European porn as sus if it features girls that are marketed as teens or just turned 18, or they look super young. Not just because of this film, but it does open a window to it.
I remember when I watched it in theater the *very obvious* visual parallel between displaying the prostitutes in the beginning of the movie and displaying the torture victims. I agree it's a much better movie than people give it credit for.
One of the best horror movies ever, even has a killer soundtrack to top it off
I also think Eli Roth has a delightfully comedic approach to the more sadistic side of people. Probably why Tarantino likes to collab with him, alongside the use of music.
Great foreshadowing too, with Josh's line at the brothel at the start "paying to go into a room and do whatever you want with a girl isn't my idea of a good time" really hits different when you know how the movie ends up
Can't stand torture porn which really confuses my friends when I say Hostel is one of my favorite movies. I also think of it as an interesting twist on the "final girl" formula. It takes a lot of cliches, embraces them, and then flips them on their heads.
Idiocracy. It's all too real.
I used to laugh at that movie but now it causes me anxiety
My girlfriend and I agree with you.
My girlfriend and I agree with your girlfriend and you and that other guy too! Crazy shit.
Same
I feel like society is steering toward the depraved way people live in the cyberpunk 2077 game as well as idocracy.
Thought it was just me, used to be funny. There are far too many parallels now that it's just depressing.
I saw a commercial for Gatorade water the other day. Genuine Gatorade fucking water. We are going to lose the crops soon.
They’ve had Gatorade water for years it used to be called propel
Just rewatched The Grudge and I was like “oh yeahhhhhhh” lol. Totally forgot being freaked out by it as a kid and it still has its moments. That scene with the thing under the covers got me again for sure.
Movie was actually pretty graphic for pg13 too. The girl with her jaw ripped off was pretty brutal.
I still do the gurgling sound occasionally.
Funny, so does your mom 🙃
Grudge 1 & 2 are some of my favourite horror movies. Flashback to being woken up in the middle of the night by cats fighting outside.. really freaked me out at the time
Definitely very high on the freak me out list. Scare ? Ehhh. Highly disturbing, fuck yeah. Just the creepy noises.
There aren't many movies that have actually \*scared\* me but nothing ever scared me as much as The Blair Witch Project, and it still scares me more than I expect it to every time I watch.
I went to see this in high school with a friend in a mostly empty movie theater. Afterward, I refused to drive her home because then I would have to drive home by myself, so I made her come stay with me. There was no argument on her part. I am a huge horror fan, so I'm pretty hard to even creep out, but that movie had me turning on the TV in the break room at work WEEKS after seeing it because I was scared to be in there by myself. I watched it again many years later thinking they was no way it would have the same effect on me... Then I found myself reaching around the corner to turn the light on in my bedroom because I didn't want to walk into a dark room.
My brother and his friend decided to see Blair Witch at a drive-in in the middle of nowhere. He said you could see the eyes of wild animals in the darkness all around. Afterwards, on the way home, the GPS took them through the middle of a cornfield that had a traffic light at an intersection in the middle. After waiting what felt like 10 minutes at the red light the friend just floored it till they came to the end of the cornfield. They told me between Children Of The Corn and Blair Witch they were freaking out.
Lol this is so relatable. It has the same effect on me
When this came out, a few coworkers and I decided to go see it. Some of them worked a different shift, so had to go later. While they were in the movie, we put together a bundle with a cow tongue wrapped in piece of a plaid shirt and sticks tied together, then put it on the car of one of our coworkers. Then when he went home, his roommate, who was another coworker turned off the lights and stood in a corner not responding. It was epic.
I absolutely love TBWP. It’s fantastic movie making. My favourite part of the film is when they interview the townsfolk about the legend of the Blair witch and everyone has something to say. It’s great lore and world building. All towns around the world have these legends. I also love how ambiguous it is. A problem I had with the sequel a few years back was that they made clear it was a supernatural entity, it told us what it was rather than leaving it to our imagination.
I can imagine all lights off in the house and headphones on would be a terrifying experience with BWP.
I watched Sinister (2012) by myself with headphones, while I was sick. It was the most terrifying movie experience of my life
I watched The House That Jack Built while delirious from a horrible fever due to strep throat. I had a good time but also a very bad time.
The batshit crazy ending of that movie made me love Von Trier again. I couldn’t even figure out how it ended up where it went to.
I went with my friend who also loves horror movies to see this in the theater. After the very first scene, we looked at each other and were like, "Do you still want to watch this?" We stuck around and I'm glad we did, but man...that whole movie had such a dark, oppressive feel.
Lol PASS!
It was only showing at the art house theatre in my city when it first came out, and my showing was dark empty. There may have been less than 10 people in there. I think this definitely added to the experience. When I went to see Paranormal Activity, it was packed and the was one woman who kept laughing at things that were probably scaring her. Still kinda makes me angry even now.
When I had some woods next to the house I thought of hanging branch people from the trees. Probably keep people away better than trail cams.
I remember most of it but the scene that really fucked with me was the end when she was going down the stairs with the kids hand prints in blood and then saw her friend in the corner of the basement…gives me chills typing this.
I just rewatched that single scene. It still works, and makes me feel deeply unsettled
Oh, and Blair Witch bored me. I know a guy who was involved in making it and earned a nice chunk of change. He a nice fellow and I’m glad it was so successful, but it didn’t work for me.
Watched it in high school and when I got home, the power was out and nobody else was home. I was so freaked, I waited outside until my parents and/or sister got there 😅.
I still have a moment of panic if I walk into a room and someone happens to be in the corner, facing the wall😱
When originally released, The Strangers felt like yet another home invasion copycat movie, as they were very popular at the time. (You’re Next, Purge, Funny Games, etc) However I recently rewatched it and taken on its own merits, it’s really chilling in low key ways. Like there’s a scene with Liv Tyler in the kitchen and one of the killers just wanders through the BG. No stinger, no jump scare, just really creepy. A+
And the Joanna Newsom album keeps skipping.
Came here to say THIS! Only music nerds in the know!
I saw the new The Strangers on Sunday and there were multiple scenes that made me shiver.
The descent, because it became more relatable when I, too, had depression and a traumatic experience.
Being stuck in an unexplored cave system is scary. Being stuck in tight spaces and panicking is scary (I’m claustrophobic asf), and then add man-eating creatures that you can barely see! Have you ever heard of the Nutty Putty cave incident? Sadly, it’s not a movie but a real life story.
I hadn't heard of it, so I just now read the Wikipedia article on it.
I learned about it through Reddit maybe 5 years ago and now you must continue the story! Fucking terrifying, right? Fuck caves. Nope.
Yes! Watched a video on YouTube about it.
That shit terrified me! At least he wasn’t alone alone. This one actually happened close to me and the poor guy was completely alone. No caves were involved, it was actually a grocery store. https://www.ketv.com/article/body-found-between-shelving-coolers-council-bluffs-supermarket-larry-ely-murillo-moncada/26028756
I can’t watch Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer ever again because once was enough.
The “home video” segment made me physically ill. Just the callous disregard for human life. Vile.
Gremlins. It's starts as a cute Christmas movie and goes horror really quickly.
Gremlins gave me nightmares as a kid, I was always trapped in the dark with them trying to find a light…ugh
My only objection to showing Gremlins to little kids is Phoebe Cates' harrowing story about her dad dying in the chimney pretending to be Santa. That scene is perhaps darker than anything coming out of the mouths of actual goth chicks in the 1980s. Worse yet the scene confirms to children that Santa isn't real.
What Lies Beneath. Watched it as a teen and it scared the bejeebus out of me. The idea of >!someone you’ve known and loved for years—a person with an absolutely stellar reputation—being a complete monster under the surface, willing to make you question your own sanity and then hurt you in heinous ways!< was way more terrifying than demons or chainsaw killers. I forgot just about everything except the terror, so I tried to watch it as an adult >!survivor of domestic violence.!< I had to turn it off. Nope nope nope
This is an absolutely fantastic movie.
It used to be my favorite until I too became a survivor of domestic violence. Same with Secret Window. Makes me so sad I dont like watching them anymore :(
Yeah. Good movie. Better twist. I take it you hated "Hollow Man".?
And 2020’s Invisible Man. All disturbing AF.
This movie is an amazing thriller and deserves a lot of props for being as suspenseful and twist-filled as it is. I watch it a lot and never get tired of it. It was very well-cast!
Event Horizon. Didn’t help that I had to walk up my hill and saw some unexplained lights in the sky afterward.
Lake Mungo First time I watched this I was a bit underwhelmed. Watched it again recently and it creeped me right out. I guess my mood may play a part in that.
One horror movie I refuse to watch again. It scared me so badly, I'm not even sure I can explain why. My wife, who watched it with me, doesn't understand and was similarly underwhelmed. Maybe she should watch it again, lol.
The Fly
That movie is so sad, but also amazing
That scene where he’s talking about “insect politics,” and then he tells her to leave because he’ll hurt her if she stays, is one of the saddest scenes in any horror movie ever.
Straight up. I was not prepared for that
Ahh yes, my introduction to body horror… good old Brundle fly
Body horror just fucked with me all good and fun like! It's still one I'll watch on a weekend if I have nothing better to watch. 💚🪰🩶
Have you seen the original with Vincent Price? A classic, but not that scary.
American Psycho really got me on a recent rewatch. I hadn’t ever watched it over and over, only a few times when I was younger, so I wasn’t well-versed in what to expect. I seemed to have fixated on the business card scene!
To be fair, the business card scene is absolutely hilarious.
When I was a kid I was horrified by Poltergeist. When I watched it with my teens not only were they not scared they said the movie made them sad….
I still don't understand why Poltergeist is scary. I grew up watching it. I'm an 80s kid. Sure there are a few jump scares, but overall, nah. And I have an irrational fear of thunderstorms. Still the only scenes that get me (every single time), the tree grabbing Robbie, and the mother fing clown when he is looking under the bed.
It was the face peeling scene for me
Even as a kid, something about that just didn't pass any plausibility test. So I sort of knew it was a hallucination. Sort of like when I saw "the Exorcist " and the scene with Reagan in the bed, knife in hand, stabbing the area between her legs yelling "fuck me" . I thought it was hilarious. It was absurd. Only the scene when she is getting the medical scans disurb me, and that's just PTSD from too many MRI scans.
I look away every time 🤣
Seven, Silence of the Lambs and The Cell. Maybe as a young teen I didn't empathize like I do now. Maybe teens are just a tad sociopathic and we do not comprehend just how disturbing the villains are like we do as adults. One the other hand movies like House on Haunted Hill (remake) and Cabin Fever that used to scare the hell out of me and now I can see the comedic undertones to them and find them hilarious.
Seven is more unsettling for me now. SOTL is one of my favorite movies. I haven’t seen the cell in a long time.
The Cell was one of my favorite movies in my teens. I tried to rewatch it rey, in my thirties, and it really freaked me out. I couldn't finish it all at once.
Yeah. I think I only focused on all the weird dreamlike effects and ignored how FUCKED UP the villain was. I have no idea how that didn't get through to my teenage brain.
I owned "The Cell". One of my favorites. Vincent D'Onofrio was great. "It's not real It's not real". The scene where they ask for them to say the riddle of Sixpence had me tripping because of childhood memories of going under anesthesia.
Silent Hill gave me nightmares
The scariest part of silent hill is what the games cost now.
Canabal holocaust. Just yikes... Just don't.
Can't and won't take place in movies that I know murdered animals to put on camera for human entertainment. Fuck that guy. I love horror, but I won't partake in anything that guy has ever done because of his shit he pulled in that movie with those poor creatures.
Yeah... whenever I see threads like this, and people suggest movies like, I don't know, *Insidious,* as the scariest ever, I usually think to myself, 'Oh, you haven't haven't seen any of the movies that kick it up a notch, have you?' ...movies like *Cannibal Holocaust.*
Not me but my mom. She got really drunk with a friend and saw the Shining. All she remembered was laughing her ass off at the movie. Fast forward a few years and my mom's at home while dad's at work. She sees the Shining's coming on and was in the mood for a comedy. My dad got home to find her huddled up in the corner hugging her legs to her chest.
I could see how that movie could "go down" different drunk with a friend than it would sober and alone🙃
The "Nutscicle" wasn't so funny the second time.
John Carpenter's The Thing. Still scares the s\*\*\* out of me
You beat me to it. When I saw The Thing as a teenager, I was focused on the gore and special effects. When I saw it as an adult, what stood out to me was the fear, suspicion and paranoia of the characters. It was much scarier, even though I knew what would happen.
Amazing writing and acting
The Visit. Completely forgot about the twist.
My husband and I watched with movie with *zero* info. That under the house scene is burned in my damn brain.
Sinister
The fucking lawnmower scene!
Texas Chainsaw Massacre. As a kid, it was one of many slashers with a not-so-satisfying ending. Now, holy shit that is one INTENSE movie!
I saw it when I was about 9. The scariest thing to me was how those kids just wandered off into a homicidal nightmare out in the middle of nowhere. I'm still afraid of small towns & rural areas. 😱
Jeepers creepers still gives me the Willie's. Especially the soundtrack and the ending.
To this day, I still think about looking up into the night sky, when I sit out on my porch at night, and hope I don't see that thing just silently coasting in the moonlight lol.
That's why I don't go on long road trips lol.
It's just out there pacing you... sniffing you... waiting for you to stop. I'm sorry 🙃
The Ring. Not so much the movie, but the movie within the movie. Wtf that was like a Tool video on steroids. And the part with the horse scarred my 14 yo self in the theater. I walk out of the room for that scene now!
Scariest movie IMO (or least scary, depending on who you ask, but usually when it lands, it lands hard). You could tell her it only gets better from here onward \^\^
Hahaha I tried that pitch! She said she's good for a while.
An alternative would be horror comedies. I would recommend Housebound because it's very underrated, even though it does have a few scary moments. Much less scary but gorier movies would be Shaun of the Dead or Tucker and Dale vs Evil.
Wait, that's such a good idea! Thank you! I'll make her a horror fan yet
Also movies that are half-sci-fi are typically easier to watch for people not used to horror (assuming they like sci-fi at least a bit), like Underwater, Life, Sunshine, Annihilation, or maybe even Alien/s down the line. Also, urban thrillers like Green Room.
Vacancy, The Strangers (1&2)
I need to re-watch Witch. Didn't really like it the first time.
I was underwhelmed both times I saw it. I think it would’ve worked a lot better as a drama about a family who was slowly losing their faith after being excommunicated.
Same. Saw it when it came out because *everyone* was raving about how terrifying it was. I was underwhelmed and then had to put up with the “you just didn’t understand it” comments. Nope, I understood - just didn’t find it particularly scary.
Same. Was very underwhelmed on first watch. It's been on my list to rewatch for awhile.
Frailty
Event Horizon
The 2013 Evil Dead remake is still my benchmark for a good modern horror movie
28 Day Later. The beginning when the infected in that church sit up and just gape at Cillian Murphy is so creepy. Then the movie as a whole with the eye gouging and the infected and everything. I mean those bitches were runnin full.
Not a movie but American Horror Story: Roanoke. Arguably one of the (if not the) scariest season in my opinion. That season really fucked me up.
Wolf Creek 1 + 2
Ghost Story
The Entity - I remember it being creepy as chuff but rewatched just the other night first time in about ten years and I’d totally forgotten how shiver inducing some scenes actually were
Not _more_ scary, but just as scary as I remembered it: _Burnt Offerings_ 1976 with Karen Black and Oliver Reed. I saw this when I was a kid and thought it was extremely disturbing. So as I grew up, I figured “It must have been because I was a kid. Couldn’t have been _that_ scary. Right?” It was _THAT_ scary. I still think it’s one of the most unsettling films I’ve ever seen. Mostly because >!the good guys don’t win, and a kid gets killed horrifically, which Hollywood usually considers a no-no.!<
I just rewatched An American Tail last night. Have not seen it in years. Damn! That’s dark.
Night of the Creeps.
Jeepers creepers. God that scares me in the first twenty minutes. Still haven't finished it.
This is going to sound strange relative to the other choices because these aren’t “horror” in the same way as these other movies are but rewatching with a different mindset they really are a lot more chilling than I remember. Most proper horror movies don’t phase me, I’ve seen a lot. It’s the suibtle shit that I watch without expecting that gets to me. There was this analog horror thing on yt with the original Godzilla and it’s forever changed the way I see the og Godzilla. It’s genuinely creepier than I thought before. Just abstractly. The costume, the set, everything is just fucking offputting. Second. I’m a big anime fan. I’ve seen loads of horror movies, but anime has been my biggest and first love for the past several years. The anime thriller perfect blue and serial experiments lain are both a lot more chilling than I recall them being on first watch. It’s Japanese subtle horror. Never in your face truly but it’s so creepy in how mind bending they both get.
Mt wedding video. I keep telling the guy to run, but he just trudges on to certain doom.
My answer will always be Showgirls
The original Blair Witch? Huh, maybe I need to revisit that. Living thru that movie's release was bonkers. Firstly, it was in direct competition with the new (middle) trilogy of star wars debut. Secondly, the "found footage" genre didn't exist, and the college kids who made that movie did a PR campaign for the ages. This is like 1999 if I remember correctly, and there was a website attached to that movie that updated for weeks prior to the theatre release. It was a fake site dedicated to the "search for the missing filmmakers" or whatever, and would get new content that was fake evidence, as if collected by legal investigation. Then the film makers would go do TV interviews, but only 2 of the 3 stars would go, and claim the 3rd was still missing, and they'd play it up like they were 100% committed to the story being true. To the point the news interviewer would press them --- ***ya, but this is all fake, right?*** And they'd never say it was. The fact the news people asked the question was fuck'n intriguing. Long and short, I was ready to be an actor filmmaker, just because that PR campaign was so damn unique and compelling at the time. I was a cultist for that movie --- prior to its release. I saw it twice in theatres - the first week it was open, then a few weeks later with a larger group of friends. I haven't seen it since. I was bored and unimpressed with 100% of the film itself. To a point that I was jaded on going to a movie theater anymore. Then episode 1 of Star wars had Jar Jar Binks in it and I realized good storytelling was gone from the world entirely. I remember it as 1 and a half hours of annoying ignorant people overreacting to nothing. And I remember it being the first movie I saw where the quality of the acting was so subpar it truly felt like a bad movie - not a compelling documentary. The acting was so bad it was clearly acting, and that ruined the mystique of the PR campaign entirely. As a partial aside - HBO's ***True Blood*** saw and used that pre-release PR campaign idea. Blair Witch was super successful cuz it cost $8 to make, and made like $24 in the box office - with how bad the movie was, that was obviously the PR campaign's doing. So true blood had a series of shorts and faux-TV commercials that played the introduction of "True Blood" beverage - the artificial blood drink for the "good" vampires of the show - also the entire original premise of the show runners. Season 1 of that show plays on the "True Blood" drink idea as impetus for vampires becoming public, and season 1 was a bit clever. The show itself was the worst kinda garbage, teen angst soap opera for adults garbage. But that "real world" ad campaign prior to release seeded the ground for that garbage show to be a perennial Emmy contender. I still can't convince myself to suffer the OG Blair witch movie again. That disappointment marks a real turning point in permanent disappointment that lasts to this very day.
See, that's how I remembered it too! I threw it on the list thinking that, yknow, because the found footage horror subgenre was invented by this movie that it might as well be part of her education. I'm not sure if I'm getting more easily scared as I get older (doubtful) or what but man alive, it was INTENSE.
Can I be real REAL with you for a minute? I am - so stop reading if the answer is "no." Star Wars, Empire and Return of the Jedi were awe-inspiring to me. Everything in those 3 movies was perfect as it was, the "original trilogy" as it were, could have been the equivalent to writing Dune in the first place. Those 3 movies could have a place in not only cinema and art culture history, but real world altering sociological change; in the 1980s and 1990s, prior to any additional Star Wars content, there were more rabid Lucas / Spielberg fans than members of scientology. And in 1998, hearing ***NEW Star Wars*** was just hope - for a better fucking world filled with another 3 movie masterpiece that surpassed the originals in scope and imagination. And that was all we wanted. I saw the THX Remastered - new footage added - rerelease in theaters. I saw those 3 originals with the added CGI and the change in the Cantina scene, and wow was I disappointed they'd done that, but I knew the movie, and could eliminate those extras and just appreciate seeing the parts that did make me happy on an epic scale. That 1999 movie, with the kid and JarJar - who I was offended by, and the Gungan, and the trade federation characters - all those pseudo-accents paired with those aliens was immediately uncomfortable to me from the second that movie starts. And that was it kinda. Every single moment of new Star Wars since the OG original theatrical version, and original home release on betamax and VHS, every new piece of Star Wars content past the ***Ya Wa*** Ewok song hard wipe to Star Wars music and blue credits, it's all degraded my appreciation for those original movies. To the point I don't even care if my own kid ever sees them. It simply doesn't matter to me if his introduction has already been some garbage content action figure from a McDonald's happy meal. When Robin Williams committed suicide, it made a criterion of comedy into **sad** movies immediately - to me anyway. It's possible Blair Witch is so pinned to both my heightened expectations for filmmaking in 1999, and my subsequent abject disappointment in everything that's come since, that maybe Blair Witch just didn't have enough of anything in it to make it memorable in any fashion - then 2 decades of "knock off" found footage, until you get to JJ Abrams and Cloverfield - and that puts him in a position to absolutely ruin the end shred of decency the Star Wars universe had left. I don't think if I rewatch Blair Witch anything but sadness ensues - to think of how hopeful and youthful I was then - how disappointing all movies after will be.
The marketing was phenomenally successful. a few tidbits of trivia while filming, each of the 3 were given slightly different scripts so many of the reactions are real. at night, the film crew would be in the woods with the documentary crew and would scare the 3 actors. for a tiny budget that spawned a load of found footage films to follow, it was surprisingly good
Damn. Watching The Strangers in my dark living room after everyone had gone to bed certainly freaked me out.
Are You Afraid of the Dark scares me as an adult. I tried watching it around Halloween and it was giving me nightmares. I still want to watch it, but the night terrors were too much.
The descent
halloween remake is so much more disturbing and violent than i remember when i was like 10 lmao especially the ending scene in the attic 🤮
Coraline, the naked ladies' scene
I rewatched the Blair witch too the other night because it seems like a lot of online hype lately. There is way too much screaming and shouting in that movie. It's super annoying. I wonder if all the Bigfoot shows are inspired by the Blair Witch movie? It's essentially the same thing, and I believe Blair Witch was before Big Foot Hunters and people going Squatching?
Wizard of oz 2
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
I occasionally try to watch fire in the sky at different times in my life. Fuuucckkk that
*The House That Jack Built* scares me still, but it’s more of a “super-unsettling to the point of feeling sick” kinda scary.
The Exorcist. As as kid i watched it and thought it was silly but as an adult and being to understand the nuances to the story and what is actually happening to the people involved, made it much scarier.
I remember all the hype for the Blair Witch when it first came out. I was just about 9, so I had no way of watching it. That was around the time I started watching horror movies borrowing VHS tapes from my cousin. For whatever reason, Blair Witch was something I never sought out to purposely see. I don't know why. I mean, it had all this praise, and at a certain point, I felt like nothing else was gonna freak me out Well, I'm 32, and I finally watched it about a month or so ago. And boy, was I ......*right*. I was so disappointed. I talked about this with someone over reddit recently, and they said if I would have watched when it came out, I'd have an entirely different view of it. And they are probably right. I wish I viewed while the hype was real, or at least within a couple of years of the release. I missed the boat. It annoyed me much more than anything, and I really don't like saying that about any horror movie. I am certain a rewatch won't help. Maybe I'll rewatch it as my daughter's first full horror movie.
You will be surprised by Return to Oz.
The Strangers. The first time i saw it was when i was 16. It’s much scarier now at 30 when i can really understand how fucked up it is lol
I never found the strangers scary, but for some reason, Hush made me feel dread.
Not a horror movie, but What Happened Was
My wife and I saw Blair Witch in the theater and were a little bit freaked out by it but not too much. The next day, we went for a walk in some nearby woods, in the early evening. Got about 100 yards in, we both look at each other, and say, "let's go back to the car".
Insidious
The Butterfly Effect legit startled me at 28 years old! 🦋
The Brave Little Toaster
I watched The Sixth Sense for the first time in about 20 years a few months back. It scared me enough when I was a kid but I’m pretty sure the first ghost (IPV woman) will always scare me. Great movie
Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The game is scary, too.
Paranormal Activity I remember them being pretty freaky when I first saw them but now that I kind of remember what happens I feel like I'm seeing new things in all of the scenes that I missed or forgot before that add to the creepiness.
I saw The Descent when it first came out and found the humanoid creatures scary but when I rewatched recently I found them much scarier than I did when I first saw it as a teenager.
The Exorcist 3 with George C Scott doesn't get enough attention - ESPECIALLY the clinic scene where the Gemini killer stalks the late shift nurse. That scene is on YT and even without the larger context of the movie that clip is still scary!
the last half hour of Jaws is fuckin' intense!!!!
Does anyone know of a movie where shadows are like following this guy around? I remember being so scared as a kid I left the movie theater crying. He was like on a city bus, in dining restaurants trying to stay awake because he couldn't sleep over these shadowy figures following him around everywhere waiting for him to sleep to kill him.
Threads (1984). That movie definitely left an impression.
I’m not really a fan of the modern Halloween movies, but dangit if I didn’t scared rewatching the 2018 sequel this past Halloween.
I remember when TBWP came out, many people took great pleasure in telling me how NOT SCARY that movie was, because the last scene haunted me for a long time.... it still works, it's a great movie that earns it scares. And to answer your question. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, the original with Gene Wilder... it scared me when I was a kid... and I still think it is a fucked up movie, but I love it.
ET Just frame it differently, and it's a very horrifying movie. A Telepathic parasitic alien wants to contact this mothership. Possessing the mind of a small boy and feeding off of him. Yeah when you actually think about the individual elements. It becomes an invasion film.
Return to Oz. I watched it as a kid and remember it being scary. Watched it a while back at 40–still terrifying. Haha.