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Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Which Movies Scare You to Death?
The "Freaks" of Tod Browning's 1932 film made "normals" look aberrant.

What makes your skin crawl? Ghosts? Monsters? Bio-horror?

What unnerves you? Terror without a face? That figure in the shadows? Gore?

No sooner did my colleague, John, and I debate nominations for scariest movie ever than totalscifionline.com e-mailed its slate of The Hundred Greatest Horror Movies. I'll let you guess what tops the list. But while I find said movie completely creepifying, it doesn't give me the shivers the way that Freaks (1932) -- cast with real-life sideshow grotesques who take revenge on a devious "normal," Olga Baclanova -- or Psycho (1960), where the horror is less in what is shown and more in what you imagine in your head.

Horror should be heard but not seen. I realize this is counterintuitive -- especially for the fans of modern torture horror, or "gorno," flicks, as the wags call gore that verges on the pornographic.  The more the viewer has to infer from what is suggested, the more the movie worms its way into said viewer's nervous system and psyche. For this reason I've always been more vulnerable to the implicit horror in the 1940s movies from producer Val Lewton (Cat People, I Walked With a Zombie, The Seventh Victim) and the hints of horror in Steven Spielberg's Jaws than I am to the explicit horror of The Exorcist and Hostel. Of the more recent terrormeisters, no one creeps me out as thoroughly as David Cronenberg, the implications of whose bio-terror flicks such as Rabid, They Came from Within and The Fly give me night terrors. For me, the threat of the monster or violence is much more unsettling than its results.

So, what scares you? Why? Your nomination for scariest movie?

Posted by Carrie Rickey @ 1:58 PM  Permalink | 18 comments
Comments   
Posted 02:33 PM, 10/27/2009
garyk
I remember watching WENDIGO on DVD once and having to stop the film, walk around the room, and catch my breath before I could continue it (which I did). I also love to scream at WAIT UNTIL DARK by--as Stephen King suggested--turning off all the lights so the ending is super scary. Lastly, I didn't see much of ILS (THEM) a French thriller because my hands were over my eyes for most of it. I also had my feet pressed against the back of the seat in front of me (so I could curl up easily into a ball). Scary Gary!
Posted 02:37 PM, 10/27/2009
UncleEddie
Legally Blonde. Utterly horrifying.
Posted 02:43 PM, 10/27/2009
cuso20
The Original Halloween. No other movie compares.
Posted 02:50 PM, 10/27/2009
NJA Jr.
If you are a guy, the sex and the city movie is bone chilling!
Posted 02:51 PM, 10/27/2009
JasonRosenstock
Kyoshi Kurosawa's Japanese film KAIRO (remade into a horrible American version called PULSE). It may not win overall scariest, but it has one scene in it that will stay in my head forever. I went to see a screening of it two years ago and I watched in delight/dread as everyone in the theater lurched in their seats or looked around for the exits, transfixed but trying not to look. Also, I did see the original cut for PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, and though I cant speak to the theatrical release, I was genuinely disturbed to my very core. Really.
Posted 03:14 PM, 10/27/2009
John Brumfield
I agree about the Val Lewton films. They implicitly invite you to visit your own primal horrors. For some real-life scariness though, and on different magnitudes of dread, I like "Straw Dogs" and the French film, "Army of Shadows".
Posted 04:10 PM, 10/27/2009
Pash
Easy, Carrie! Charles Laughton's "Night of the Hunter"; Bryan Forbes' "Séance on a Wet Afternoon"; J. Lee Thompson's "Cape Fear" (the original, not Scorsese's - sorry, Carrie, I know you love Marty); Georges Clouzot's "Diabloque"; Georges Franju's "Eyes Without a Face"; David Miller's "Sudden Fear," and, of course, two by Hitch, "Psycho" and "The Birds."
Posted 04:16 PM, 10/27/2009
eaglesfillthesky
I saw it when i was a little kid, but it still scares me: "the other." not that i've watched it again since then, but when it recently came out on DVD i had the box in my hand and had to put it back on the shelf because just reading the back of the box gave me the heebie jeebies.
Posted 04:31 PM, 10/27/2009
Nancy KC
Wait Until Dark; Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte; Jaws (no one can tell me that dismembered head floating out of the sunken boat isn't a screamer--not to mention the shark's first appearance!); Dressed to Kill (brilliant Psycho homage); Invasion of the Body Snatchers; Night of the Living Dead; Rear Window. Re: Night of the Hunter--it scared the pants off me when I was a little kid, but when I saw it again as an adult, it just fell flat.
Posted 05:26 PM, 10/27/2009
Masswhole
I know this will get laughed at, but I'll cast my vote for homeboy's "Signs" - the only movie I've ever come very close to turning off because I was so frightened.
Posted 05:40 PM, 10/27/2009
carrierickey
Masswhole -- I am very frightened by Signs and The Sixth Sense Pash -- yes on Night of the Hunter, which made me sleepless for a month when I was ten; no on the Cape Fear remake, except for Juliette Lewis Uncle Eddie and NJA -- Wild Hogs scares me, but we're talking about intentional horror movies, are we not?
Posted 06:00 PM, 10/27/2009
cynthiamc
Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte scared me, my sisters, and my mom so badly back in the '60's we had to pile into the car and drive to a great aunt's house for the rest of the evening. When I was in high school, Carrie made me come out of my skin; but Sixth Sense is the only movie I've ever seen where someone actually got up in the middle and ran from the theatre. The Shining must not have lingered for us; we've considered staying at the Stanley Hotel recently. :)
Posted 09:07 AM, 10/28/2009
WisshickonGirl
what, no "Exorcist"? scared me sleepless for a week. still can't look at images from it. also, john carpenter's "the Thing." and the moment in "Signs" when the tv transmission goes dead.
Posted 10:09 AM, 10/28/2009
Alice215
Supernatural thrillers like The Sixth Sense and The Ring really frighten me for some reason. I also have a very distinct memory of seeing The Innocents as a kid and being absolutely terrified. All three of these movies feature very bizarre children (both alive and dead) that I find unsettling. . .
Posted 11:22 AM, 10/28/2009
heregoes
"Dressed to Kill" with Michael Caine and Angie Dickinson; and the original "The Haunting" (Kim Hunter?) ......
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About Carrie Rickey

Carrie Rickey has been The Philadelphia Inquirer’s film critic for 21 years. She has reviewed films as diverse as Water and The Waterboy, profiled celebrities from Lillian Gish to Will Smith, and reported on technological breakthroughs from the video revolution to the rise of movies on demand. Her reviews are syndicated nationwide and she is a regular contributor to Entertainment Weekly. Rickey’s essays appear in numerous anthologies, including The Rolling Stone History of Rock & Roll, The American Century, and the Library of America’s American Movie Critics.

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All blog items posted before May 23, 2008, can be accessed at http://blogs.phillynews.com/inquirer/flickgrrl/.

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