Scary Movies

by **lightningBugout** » Sun Oct 04, 2009 6:06 am

Paranormal Activity is a big fat letdown. Bummin....

ps. The Changeling, however, is always good. Always.

by **Maddy** » Sun Oct 04, 2009 10:46 am

Pan's Labrynth. Not horrifying but filled with lots of archtypes, and very artistically created. I think the real horror of the movie is the "real world" part of it. Tears involved.

by **lightningBugout** » Sun Oct 04, 2009 6:30 pm

Leaving off all those obvious smart psychological horror films (Blair Witch, the Exorcist, etc), here are a few slightly less-known ones I love.

Home Movie
A young couple (pastor / psychologist) with two troubled kids (6-7 yo twins) has moved to upstate NY after things have somehow gone wrong in the city. Film is comprised of 1980s style VHS footage of their "home movies." Never overly startling or gruesome, sometimes suffering from rote characterization (ie Faith vs Reason) but profoundly unsettling. No film has illustrated that aspect of RI which relates to the idea of those who "eat the suffering" so well.

Baghead
Mumblecore, yuck. But this film worked for me. Four friends with lots of sexual cross-signals retreat to a house in the middle of nowhere woodland in So-Cal together to write a film over the course of a weekend. They may or may not be being stalked by a psychopath wearing a brown paper bag over his head. I can understand why someone would abhor this movie. It's not entirely defensible but I liked the premise -- something utterly ridiculous (a person with a paper bag on their head) becomes lingeringly dreadful.

Repulsion
Polanski made it. Catherine Deneuve goes crazy alone in her apartment to terrifying effect. Available free (legal) here: http://www.fearnet.com/movies/b16803_repulsion.html

The Poughkeepsie Tapes
I can't stand most slasher movies and was somewhat shocked I liked this but I did. Faux documentary about a brilliant and prolific serial killer. Comprised of interviews with FBI profilers and survivors, etc. The twists are very satisfying. Sort of like a Neo-Realist version of Saw.

* Home Movie and The Poughkeepsie Tapes are very very specifically likely to trigger anyone with a sadistic abuse background.

by **vince** » Tue Oct 06, 2009 5:02 pm

Anyone here enjoyed the late-90's/early 2000's asian wave of horror films?

I did.

Starting with "Ringu", I discovered others that I now consider 'classics':

-"Audition"

-"Suicide Club"
and,
-"3 Extremes"

by **lightningBugout** » Tue Oct 06, 2009 7:27 pm

Audition is a truly incredible movie.

by **streeb** » Tue Oct 06, 2009 7:42 pm

...also Tale of Two Sisters

by **lightningBugout** » Wed Oct 07, 2009 1:37 am

Don't Look Now. (of course)

by **barracuda** » Wed Oct 07, 2009 10:32 am

Movies don't really frighten me, but I love to let them try. I keep a copy of most of these around for those nights when I have trouble sleeping, which is almost never.

Salem’s Lot, the TV mini-series starring David Soul, has some amazingly creepy moments in it. Most of my favorites, though, are pretty run-of-the-mill. I like the campy shit:

John Carpenter's The Thing

M

Rabid, The Brood and The Fly by Cronenberg

Peeping Tom

The Hidden - A psychopathic rock-n-roll space slug takes over Claudia Christian. Really, who cares what else happens?

Lifeforce, of course, of course.

Quatermass and the Pit

But none of these films is even close to as frightening as this.

by **IanEye** » Wed Oct 07, 2009 1:41 pm

by **vince** » Sat Oct 10, 2009 2:06 pm

lightningBugout wrote:Paranormal Activity is a big fat letdown. Bummin....

ps. The Changeling, however, is always good. Always.

Haven't seen it (saw "Capitalism" instead), but from what I've read on the internet, there was an alternate ending. Once the 'small film' got major distribution, they 'changed' it!

by **Alaya** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 5:33 pm

Touch of Evil

Orson Wells

by **Cosmic Cowbell** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 8:49 pm

Trilogy of Terror - 3rd act...

by **monster** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 10:05 pm

lightningBugout wrote:Paranormal Activity is a big fat letdown. Bummin...

Aw, shit I'm about to watch it - it got good reviews, so I'll give it a chance anyway.

by **Nordic** » Fri Oct 30, 2009 3:42 am

A movie that kept me awake some time ago was "The Haunting of Julia" with Mia Farrow. Couldn't sleep afterward!

Have to agree about "The Changeling" also!

by **Peregrine** » Mon Nov 02, 2009 1:30 pm

I found Darkness with Anna Paquin incredibly unnerving. Antichrist also piqued my interest, looks really creepy. I think it was mentioned in Jeff's latest front page entry & that's where I saw the preview.

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