Talkback: What is the Single Scariest Movie of All Time?
Please hold your ironic responses like Sex and the City 2 and Under the Cherry Moon, because we'll get to that prompt later this weekend. As we approach another Halloween full of mediocre scares like vampires, ghouls, and Braeburn apples outfitted with razor blades, it's time we get definitive about the most chilling Halloween treats -- les films d'horreur, of course. You can only pick one: What's the single scariest movie ever?
I assume we've all been through that stage in life where we decide horror movies are the coolest, most interesting things on earth, and all we want to do is see every highbrow and lowbrow piece of Fangoria smut on the planet. Seventh grade? Tenth grade? Somewhere in between? I went through that phase, and the one movie that has truly planted a seed of fear in my nerve center, germinated, lived, thrived, and made me terrified ever to see it again -- is Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Unlike the smooth and swift killers of later horror films, Texas Chainsaw Massacre presents a family of lunatics who gallop and guffaw like inbred animals, and their insanity feels like that of true, warped, Manson family freaks -- while remaining "backwoods" in a believable way. It's a movie where even the final shot -- one of shock and triumph as our hero flees the scene -- is mesmerizing and scary. I don't think it's been topped. Also, though Leatherface is the legendary psychopath of the film, he's not even the scariest thing about it. The movie finds dozens of ways to be scary without resorting only to a weirdo leaping from the shadows. So impressive and traumatizing.
What do you think? You prefer something woozier like Nightmare on Elm Street, more wicked like Scream, or more obscure and cool like -- well, you tell me. You're the cultured one!
Subscribe to the new Movieline on YouTube
Comments
A Nightmare on Elm Street (the original) for its time it had everything a horror film required.
Dreams? Check
Boogeyman? Check
Blood/Gore? Check
REAL teens (not TandA stand ins)? Check
Mythos to stand on? Check
I am going to forgo any analysis, and go with "what freaked me out the most as a kid"
-Night of Living Dead: Relentless, scary, gross, and depressing.
-Jaws: Swimming, even in a pool, suddenly became terrifying the summer I saw it.
-Honorable mention - Trilogy of Terror: The segment with the Zuni fetish doll. Checked under my bed for a very long time after that one.
The (un)holy trilogy of Exorcist, Poltergeist and The Shining creeps me out every time. I can't even watch them if they're on tv.
Disturbing Fact: I worked as a Projectionist at a movie theater when the Exorcist Director's Cut was released, and there would always be weird things happening by the projector whenever it played, like the lights would be on, or things undone that were done. And it was impossible for anybody to be screwing with me, because they'd have to go right by me to do so.
Single most unnerving title sequence that leads into one of the scariest movies of all time goes to "The Innocents" with Deborah Kerr. Nothing sets the stage better for the film then "O Willow Waly" being sung over a black screen. The horror is found in the ideas of the film, which I prefer to the unambiguous horror of a monster movie or slasher film. "The Innocents" provides no easy answers for it's characters or story, but that is what keeps me coming back to revisit it. It is a deeply unsettling piece of cinema that will stick with you long after the final shot. Bonus: It was also written by Truman Capote, I wish he had written more horror scripts.
I have an affinity for ghost stories and The Innocents is one of my all-time favorites. I think Alejandro Amenábar's The Others is another spectacular take on the Henry James story.
Spanish horror: Rec 1 n 2!! amazin!!
the orphan was freaky
the shining
Japanese horror- Norai!!
I think scary is a matter of experience more than objective deconstruction. 1979's Salem's Lot is horribly goofy by today's standards but as a nine-year-old boy it scared the crap out of me. So much so that I carried a cross around with me, day and night, for weeks.
The next movie to scare me was Halloween, which I saw on cable sometime later. From an objective standpoint I still think it's one of the best and most frightening horror movies around but it didn't have the effect on me that Salem's Lot did.
After that, horror movies became more 'cool' for me than scary. Alien I seem to remember scaring me when I first saw it on cable.
The last film to scare the pants off me as an adult was The Blair Witch Project but I'm not prepared to defend it as the scariest movie of all time.
Movies that are deemed 'scary' are often mostly gory or just disturbing. I don't think The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is any scarier than Halloween but it gets to you on a deeply psychological level that kind of messes you up, much like Seven. I also never understood what was so scary about The Exorcist. Shocking, sure (and really just kind of noisy), mostly because it was hard to fathom this little girl being so vulgar, but not scary.
For pure old-school scary factor, I would have to say the Shining, followed by The Omen/Omen 2. The latters freaked me out when I was younger and the former just is an amazing horror film.
For all-around creepiness, however, House of 1000 Corpses is just very disturbing to me; I saw it with/at the suggestion of a girlfriend I was seeing at the time who just loved all sorts of horror movies.
I must admit, I preferred Quarantine to [REC]. Sure it might have something to do with the fact that I saw Quarantine first and the films are virtually identical. However, I preferred the 28 Days Later...-influenced explanation for the zombie outbreak than the more supernatural one implied by [REC].
The movie that has scared me the most was Pet Semetary which I saw on VHS when I was 12. It just unnerved me so much. The dread, the zombie WWII soldier coming home to his mother, that horrible sister, the dead baby, Fred Gwynne and that accent. It was just too much. I haven't seen it since then, partly because I don't want to be disappointed that it didn't hold up, and partly because I'm afraid it could still be as scary.
I know it's not strictly horror, but the '78 "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" completely wigged me out when I saw it as a 10-year-old, right up to the last shot. I'm not sure which nightmare is worse: the one where I wake up a pod person; or the one where I'm trapped inside Donald Sutherland's mouth. And here's a weird one: "Suspiria" scared me before I even saw it. I would dream of witches clawing at my legs at night. Wish I could say that finally watching it was somehow therapeutic ... but no.
For me, it has to be Poltergeist probably because I was just a kid when I saw it, but also because it is awesome. I spent weeks making sure my sister didn't get too close to the television, and I never looked at pools or trees the same ever again. That movie...you know you think it's all over until you realize as JoBeth Williams is drying her hair that if it were really over, the movie wouldn't still be going on and holy crap why is it so quiet? Then all hell breaks loose. Also-little kids singing creepily.
Aaaaaaaamen, sister.
I never saw the movie but I remember seeing the preview for Deranged as a kid and that last shot of the weird freaking creature chasing the girl from the cabin scared the hell out of me.
I know I'm in the minority but I just never thought Poltergeist was scary.
HERETIC!
Oh that f*#king clown.
I prefer godless, split-footed heathen but I accept your compliment. 🙂
I think The Exorcist is the scariest for me, if only because it was in my third viewing of the film that I was most horrified, when with all other horror films there was nothing to scare me on my second viewing.
The themes in The Exorcist are really mature that only a grown person may understand. The gentle nuances of the struggle inside the deepest issues of the human psyche, the disturbed relationship of the forces in our culture, not mentioning most excellent technical and artistic work by all. I couldn't understand all in my first viewing, but when I finally watched it with real knowledge - that was the horror impact that actually stunned me.
The difference of The Exorcist from all other horror films is the intellectual weight, and while other dumb slashers only play on superficial emotions, gore and visual suspense, The Exorcist goes deep into the mind and actually about something. About something truly terrifying.
I also think, From Beyond was pretty scary, The Descent is also amazing, and I really liked creepy 30 Days of Night, [REC] and 28 Days Later.
Zelda from Pet Sematary is the scariest thing ever put on film.
Alien.
Ohhh, _The Descent_. That's a freakout and a half.
Did here ever see _Inside_? The French one about the pregnant lady at home alone and tormented by a strange woman? Utterly harrowing and nasty. I think _Poltergeist_ has the edge simply for the maggot scene, which I cover my eyes through to this day. Nothing in _Inside_ quite gets me that way.
One of the scariest moments in any movie ever is when Alan Arkin jumps out at Audrey Hepburn at the end of "Wait Until Dark." But the rest of the movie is so cheesy. Why did they have the elaborate disguises when they were tormenting a BLIND woman? And how did they find the most annoying child actress in the history of cinema?
I was going to go with Barbara Streisand directing herself as a "sexy" therapist in "Prince of Tides", but I get disturbed by different things than most people.
Alien.
Next »