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Scariest Movies of All Time

It is very much a matter of perspective. The world was a very different place when "Jaws" or "The Exorcist" came out in theatres. That much explicitness was still quite new in mainstream films. And if you're under 35 they are almost a cliche; you already know what to expect and the initial shock value isn't there.

One "scary" film on my list is "The Changeling" with George C. Scott, and another solid contender would be "The Shining"; they both still hold up after all these years

And if you really wanted to you could include the first 20 minutes of "Saving Private Ryan" on the list of really scary, horrifying films.
 
Scoopicman said:
As for your list, I think that's a good one. I also like the running around and getting chased, which is why I love a movie called MUTE WITNESS.
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I think I saw that years ago (if it's the 1994 version then 94 or 95 I saw it) and I think you're right, it was very good. I'm gonna have to check that out again.

They're actually pretty scary/funny in a bizarre way, and the acting is tremendous. Whatever happened to Baby Jane and Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte are two really great ones. Bette Davis rules in both.
 
droowl said:
Horror movies have an awful trend of ugly things popping out at you because they can't really scare you. I don't think that movies that only have things pop out to surprise you shouldn't be called horror. They should be called surprise movies. Another good example of this is "The Descent". There was nothing scary about that movie at all, it was just surprising.
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I was in a cave, near Tucson, AZ. We went through a small branch, called "The Rabbit Hole." I ended up getting stuck in a small, circular opening - the kind where you have to put one arm and shoulder through and then squeeze the rest of your body past. I was hyper-ventillating and finally got pulled through by much effort from a friend. Absolutely horrifying! Anyway, THE DESCENT did a good job of recreating this claustrophobia. That part of the movie scared me. It has become one of my all time favorites.

THE DESCENT is absolutely a horror movie, just by having the crawlers in it and the atmosphere it creates. On the other hand, I used to think movies with just "Murder" should not be lumped in with horror movies. I used to work at a video store in the early 80's and I hated to see the "Horror section" turn from monsters, ghosts and zombies into all the new slasher movies that came out, but that's what happened.

To me horror is supernatural, monsters or science gone amok (experiments and freaks). Though HALLOWEEN really got the slasher ball rolling, Michael Myers was the boogieman. The doctor saw pure evil and he couldn't be killed (supernatural).




BTW, I don't always want horror to scare the crap out of me! I like the fun of KILLER KLOWNS or AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON. CREEPSHOW is one of my favorite movies, as is PREDATOR and ALIENS. NEAR DARK isn't scary, but it's my favorite vampire movie! UNDERWORLD 2 was great fun. Throw in several zombie movies, like DAWN OF THE DEAD and its remake. Some fairly recent others that I like:

ZOMBIELAND
ALTERED (4 guys capture an alien)
ABOMINABLE (REAR WINDOW meets Bigfoot! Lots of fun.)
30 DAYS OF NIGHT
DRAG ME TO HELL
ALIEN RAIDERS (quite good, despite the title!)
THE MIST
SPLINTER (shift changing organism traps people in a gas mart)
OUTLANDER
PANDORUM (THE DESCENT in space!)
P2
TIME CRIMES (murder and time travel)
ROGUE
EDEN LAKE




Oh, George - you would probably appreciate SEED. It's hardcore slasher and crosses a lot of lines. Yes, Uwe Boll directed it, but most of it is competently done and it is one of the darkest movies you will see. Total depravity.
 
Scoopicman said:
THE DESCENT
ZOMBIELAND
ALTERED (4 guys capture an alien)
ABOMINABLE (REAR WINDOW meets Bigfoot! Lots of fun.)
30 DAYS OF NIGHT
DRAG ME TO HELL
ALIEN RAIDERS (quite good, despite the title!)
THE MIST
SPLINTER (shift changing organism traps people in a gas mart)
OUTLANDER
PANDORUM (THE DESCENT in space!)
P2
TIME CRIMES (murder and time travel)
ROGUE
EDEN LAKE
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I loved The Descent, Zombieland, P2 and Drag Me To Hell, oh and Zombie Strippers. It's funny as sin. Myers is also my favorite between Freddy, Myers, Krueger, and Pinhead. But, these movies are great horror movies, just not really scary, scary. Battle Royale is also a classic horror. A really sick premise, high schoolers forced to kill each other.

Good horror to me, gives you an adverse emotional response. Shock, disturb, frighten, scare, make you want to vomit. Turning your head, or shutting your eyes is always a keeper. Us Sinners went for shock and disturbing. Which I think I achieved on a micro-budget.

I hated Eden Lake.

Then there's MARTYRS.

I've gotten into so many arguments about Martyrs. It is by far the most graphic and violent movie ever made. There is nothing but pain and suffering throughout. It had potential to be the greatest horror movie ever made. Before the pay-off you have to sit and wonder "Why am I watching this?" It's beyond brutal. Then comes the pay-off. It was the most pathetic explanation I've ever seen. When a movie is so brutally realistic in its violence. When you can imagine this happening in real life, the reasoning should be realistic also, and this wasn't in the least. Even in the documented horrors of man's brutally to man, there's nothing this far-fetched.
 
Yeah Us Sinners has its moment lol.

Seed has a pretty disturbing (Shock Value) opening piece.

It’s scary in a whole other way, but you ever see Wedding Trough?
What a work of art that thing is.

-Thanks-
 
I'm someone who really doesn't get gratuitous horror. Gore for the sake of gore is very rarely art and usually panders to the worst side of human nature.

There are exceptions to that. The first SAW movie (and I would stress, only the first) was an inventive way of using torture porn. I think that the darkened room scene is one of the finest in horror. But on the whole movies that portray violence for the sake of violence, and particularly those who seek to elicit their thrills from the disembowelment of attractive young women, don't work for me on any level.

I'm not averse to horror movies on the whole. I never saw Paranormal Activity, but I'll see the sequel some time this week. If you can make an opening and closing door genuinely scary then that is, in my opinion, a considerably more admirable feat than having someone saw off a backpacker's head. I think that the benchmark for good horror can be set by The Shining and Nightmare on Elm Street, both work from original pretences and only use violence were it is justified by the plot.

Even better are films that make people leave thinking that they've witnessed a slaughter but which really have no on screen violence at all. Blair Witch Project and The Sixth Sense spring to mind. Both give off the same queasy feeling as having watched someone being hacked to pieces with an axe, but use much more intelligent means of getting there.

That said M Night Shymalan's hands should be cut off so he can never type out a terrible script again.
 
ussinners said:
We are polar opposites. :yes:

The first Saw movie is everything that's wrong with editing and stylizing. IMO.
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I would stress that I don't really like Saw :D

To be honest none of these movies ever appeal to me, but I thought that the premise of Saw was inventive and a genuinely disarming way of using the violence.
 
NickClapper said:
I never saw Paranormal Activity, but I'll see the sequel some time this week. If you can make an opening and closing door genuinely scary then that is, in my opinion, a considerably more admirable feat than having someone saw off a backpacker's head.
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I know a guy who makes that kind of suggestive horror. Speaking of DOORS....

http://vimeo.com/2794940


Just so you know, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2 explains what happens before and after PARANORMAL 1. Katie and Micah are in both. I would suggest seeing the first one, otherwise, you might be confused near the end. Or, watch the end of the first one on youtube, then watch the second movie:

PA ending


Part 2 is has the same style and is better acted, I think. It might be a good choice to watch first, if you understand what happened in the original. Whichever one you see first, is the one that should get you.




As far as gore, I think there is a difference between a really effective makeup gag and gore for gore's sake. Also, I don't want to see innocent people get tortured, but I do like seeing a bad guy getting his just desserts.

I've followed artists like Tom Savini, Rob Bottin and Rick Baker, so I have a keen interest in seeing cool makeup. That is as much of an art to me as any other filmmaking element. That doesn't mean I want to see "torture porn," but I love all the original gags in movies like DAWN OF THE DEAD, specifically the effect where a zombie stands up into the rotating blades of a helicopter! To do that, the blades were animated and the zombie actor was given a high forehead that could be pulled off with fishing line. Very clever!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55fMHSA-16c



Movies like Peter Jackson's DEAD ALIVE have so many funny gore gags that it is amazing to watch a zombie's intestines chase after the protagonist throughout a few scenes! :lol: Of course, the Kung Fu priest is awesome:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zvt1ZM1_5Ao



Credit John Carpenter's THE THING for some of the best makeup fx gags ever. The head that sprouts spider legs and walks off, is classic!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TevQS4qgE_Q


I also like anything transformational like werewolves in THE HOWLING or James Woods sticking a pistol into his stomach, in VIDEODROME.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3RuGJCMVAQ
 
Those are some great videos :D

But in those cases it's either surreal violence or comic violence. I just don't see where people get kicks from seeing people being tortured by serial killers.

If people saw someone in real life footage being cut up with a circular saw they would be horrified. Yet when it's in Hostel II they think it's great. Something doesn't add up.
 
NickClapper said:
Those are some great videos :D

But in those cases it's either surreal violence or comic violence. I just don't see where people get kicks from seeing people being tortured by serial killers.

If people saw someone in real life footage being cut up with a circular saw they would be horrified. Yet when it's in Hostel II they think it's great. Something doesn't add up.
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I find realistic horror (like serial killers killing) much more disturbing then Hostel type horror. It's the pit in the stomach syndrome. This can literally happen to you. That's scary. For me, that's what makes Henry POASK so frightening. There's a scene in the beginning where he's sitting in a mall parking lot. All these women pass, finally he picks one, follows her home. That's terrifying and 1000% true. For me that's horror.

With gore it really depends on how it's being used. If someone is cut up in Hostel using a saw it's titillating (which makes us a really warped society). You don't know how it's coming, but you know there's going to be something sharp/cutting and blood. Put that against the chainsaw scene in Scarface. Which was used to show the outrageous violence of that real-life underworld. Which is more chilling and disturbing?
 
Murdock said:
When Leatherface hangs that chick on the meat hook in Texas Chainsaw Massacre.:no: Gives me the heebeegeebees.
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One of the greatest horror scenes ever.

I went everyday to see that in the theatre. I wasn't even old enough to get in by myself, but I was friends with everyone that worked there. I did magic tricks for them. It's the only movie I ever looked behind me while walking home. Scared the hell out of me. Loved it. Still love it.
 
Actually, those last few posts make some good points. I'm not saying you have to be gratuitous, but a filmmaker's job is to put you (the viewer) in a situation where you think anything can happen. Your protagonist is vulnerable. Often times the danger of the killer has to be established and even repulsive. There is life and death at stake for the survivors. I'm reminded of the scene, in WRONG TURN, where the characters hide under the hillbillies' beds, as their friend gets carved up. Very intense, especially as they try to escape the house, without making a sound.

HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER is different, because it puts you in the killer's shoes, without glorifying what he does. It is a disturbing movie (especially the family video). It put Michael Rooker on the map, because he seemed so real. It is based on real killer, Henry Lee Lucas. It also came out at a time when there was a lot serial killer interest. People wanted to know what made them tick and this movie is a pretty objective look. Contrast this with the character of Hannibal Lector, who audiences fell in love with.

If you look at reality TV and a lot of the crime shows, there has always been a tremendous fascination with killers. People love to look, but not get too close. I remember when BODY PARTS (Jeff Fahey) was about to come out and the Jeffrey Dahmer case broke open. Paramount pulled a lot of the commercials and the movie flopped.

The cow hammer/sliding door part of CHAINSAW was what got me.
 
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Scoopicman said:
Actually, those last few posts make some good points. I'm not saying you have to be gratuitous, but a filmmaker's job is to put you (the viewer) in a situation where you think anything can happen. Your protagonist is vulnerable. Often times the danger of the killer has to be established and even repulsive. There is life and death at stake for the survivors. I'm reminded of the scene, in WRONG TURN, where the characters hide under the hillbillies' beds, as their friend gets carved up. Very intense, especially as they try to escape the house, without making a sound.

HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER is different, because it puts you in the killer's shoes, without glorifying what he does. It is a disturbing movie (especially the family video). It put Michael Rooker on the map, because he seemed so real. It is based on real killer, Henry Lee Lucas. It also came out at a time when there was a lot serial killer interest. People wanted to know what made them tick and this movie is a pretty objective look. Contrast this with the character of Hannibal Lector, who audiences fell in love with.



If you look at reality TV and a lot of the crime shows, there has always been a tremendous fascination with killers. People love to look, but not get too close. I remember when BODY PARTS (Jeff Fahey) was about to come out and the Jeffrey Dahmer case broke open. Paramount pulled a lot of the commercials and the movie flopped.

The cow hammer/sliding door part of CHAINSAW was what got me.
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When I saw Henry there was a sign posted as you bought tickets "No refunds for Henry once you enter the theatre". It sat on the shelf for years before being released, so there was a demand to see it. That video scene is utterly disturbing. Just think of how true it is now with criminals videotaping their crimes. But, then the genius' put them up on youtube for all to see.

I forget what movie it was, but these girls were held captive. One was locked inside a bureau. I remember thinking how messed up that was. It's so simple, bizarre and disturbing.

Us Sinners goes the Henry route. Only Tim still lives with his mom, and a lot has to do with their lack of a normal relationship. There's a scene (I'll post for a day) that many people think I went too far with (how can micro-budget go too far? You have so little to work with). Yet, if you take it in context it makes perfect sense. I call it the toe scene. It was made to show a little blood. But, also show his escalation in violence.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eSD43XhlGs
 
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THE scariest movie of all time is...

When a Stranger Calls BACK ( the 1992 sequel) NOT the original but the sequel that went direct to cable!

That movie, the first 40 minutes is awesome! The whole end is really creepy too ;)

Check it out ;)
 
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