[John Robertson]

So I'm educating myself--I'm taking the genre seriously. I'm serious. I would enjoy your comments.

I'm interested for a couple reasons: A new horror movie, The Grudge, is turning out to be an enduring hit, and that piqued my curiosity. It also reminded me of my two most horrifying experiences with horror movies. When I was 14, my parents let me see an evening showing of The Blob...at a theater three miles from my home. I grew up in a town and a time where there was no problem or danger with my getting myself home. The deal was, I could go to the movie, but I had to walk home. I broke the deal: I ran the three miles so fast I wish I'd been timed, because I would have qualified for the olympics. I also ran the three miles with my head turned almost all the way around--checking behind me for that freakin' blob!

My other experience that is unforgettable? The Exorcist. Saw it when I lived in the country. Twenty miles to the theater. I was driving, and went to a midnight showing. Exhausted (sleep deprivation ruins logic, of course, and self-control), and spooked from that spooky movie, I drove the twenty miles home...with my head turned all the way around! Kept imagining things in the back seat! Hmmm...maybe I've been avoiding horror films because I'm so damned suggestible.

Freepers...your thoughts?

[rwa265]

I don't know if anyone mentioned "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (so many posts, so little time). While it's not technically a horror flick, what they did to the Jack Nicholson character haunted me for weeks.

[Old Phone Man]

Some favorites:

The Shining (the actors make it great, especially the actress who plays Jack Nicholson's wife. I forget her name, but she also played Olive Oyl in Popeye. The scene of her goofy face running with the knife out of the house/hotel into the night is all time)

Hitchcock's The Birds (great scenes of the California along the coast highway)

The original The Thing (not Carpenter's, which is horrible)

[backhoe]

The Black Cat (1934)
... finally in RKO producer Val Lewton's The Body Snatcher (1945) with Karloff in a ... combined
Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher and The Black Cat, but Ruric's ...
www.filmsite.org/blac.html - 28k - Nov 22, 2004 - Cached - Similar pages

[DTA]

THE DEVIL IN WHITE HOUSE

Directed by: George Soros
Starring:Hitlery Clinton

Music score: Barbra Straisand

This is so scarry, you get chills even without the movie being made.

[pro libertate]

One more. There is a movie called, "The Town that Dreaded Sundown." It's based on a true story of a hooded killer who went on a killing spree in Texarkana, Arkansas post WWII. I was watching this late one night when I still lived with my parents. After it was over I could see a white hooded figure on our deck through the curtains. It turned out that my mom had a sheet hanging out there to dry and forgot about it.

The movie itself is actually pretty good, but I'll always remember it for what happened afterward.

[stbdside]

"Beast from Haunted Cave" - had the ugliest, creepiest looking monster, a cobweb covered spider-like thing.

[MayflowerMadam]

The Exorcist. Left me sleepless for a solid week. While growing up, friends and family who were foreign missionaries told stories of their dealings with demon possession on the mission field. Seeing it up close and personal on the big screen was just too scary for words!

[BobS]

Hellraiser II - Hellbound

[libertylass]

John: Sorry I'm late getting to this post, but it depends on what kind of horror flicks you like. I'm a lover of scary, haunted house, types of films so "The Changeling" with George C. Scott is my all time favorite. The Exorcist terrified me when I saw it at the ripe old age of 21 in 1975. I still have a hard time watching that one.

http://www.cinemusic.net/reviews/2002/changeling.html

Another great thriller is "The identity" which is from last year I believe. More of a "who's doin' it, keep ya' guessing" type of movie with a group of folks that were drawn to an out of the way motel in Nevada during a flood. Very good actually.

And of course "The Entity", from the 70's, is a great incubus/demon ghost story. This actually happened to a woman in San Pedro, California, not far from where I live. I have the true documentary of her ordeal.

Last, but surely not least, is a documentary off of Discovery or A&E called "A Haunting in Connecticut" and another called "A haunting in Georgia." Both very good and VERY frightening.

Hope this helps. I think I'll pull out my old VHS videos this long weekend.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING FOLKS. BE SAFE.

[justshutupandtakeit]

The Exoricist for me. My buddy claims he wasn't frightened as much by the body of the movie as he was by the hospital scenes when they are examining the little girl.

[Paperdoll]

The Red Dawn

[savedbygrace]

Anything with Kevin Costner.

Oh, wait. You said horror, not horrible.

[Junior]

Alien

[k omalley]

As an adult, Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist, and Sixth Sense are three movies which gave me the the creeps.

When I was 10 yrs old I went to see The Blob. It kept me awake many a night. I kept checking my bedroom door to make sure it wasn't oozing under the door into my sanctum sanctorum.

[nopardons]

Horror movies,like fairy tales and the earliest myths,serve many different purposes;not the least of which is the cathartic release of pent up tension and/or fear and hatred of the unknown an terrifying.As Bruno Bettlheim explained,re fairy tale monsters (be they monsters in form or monsters of evil in human form),they allow a child to transfer feelings (in the real world) to those in a fantasy and thus,exculpate them.

Human nature makes one thrill to the fear and revulsion...in safety,delivering a guilty pleasure. Unlike those feelings induced by reality,the reader/listener/viewer of horror tales,knows,KNOWS, that when it's all over,it's just been a fantasy.

There have been many books written on this subject and if you would like a book list,I'd be happy to give you one ....once I return home. :-)

Some of THE best horror movies I've seen are : "THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI","THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER"(a black & white British one made in the early '50s),"THE CAT PEOPLE" (the original one),"PYCHO",and "FREAKS".

[RepoGirl]

I'll throw my hat in the ring. I'm a BIG horror film fanatic. My top ten, because I can't narrow down to just one.

1) Nosferatu*
2) Alien
3) Halloween
4) Phantasm
5) Jaws
6) Night of the Living Dead*
7) Dawn of the Dead*
8) The Fog
9) Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things
10) Texas Chainsaw Massacre*

Note that all films with asterisk are the Originals. The only decent remake was for Dawn of the Dead and it was still no where near as great as the original.

[ChadGore]

Q: What's Your Favorite Horror Movie?

A: Primary Colors

[Long Cut]

WOW! This thread should be interesting. I love good (and even BAD, on occaision) horror movies. Here's a couple of my favorites...

ALIEN - true Gothic horror with a space twist...an awesome monster, and tension so thick it sings like a guitar string.

HELLRAISER - Excellent horror in all ways, truly disturbing.

THE "DEAD" SERIES - "Night", Dawn", and "Day of The Dead" - George Romero's zombie trilogy is a benchmark of modern horror, at all times brutal, serious, and nihlistic.

ZOMBIE - Lucio Fulci's response to Romero. Vicious gore, creeping fear, and terrifying atmosphere.

THE BEYOND - Fulci's supernatural thriller whose tension and fear never let up, with enough shocking, close-your-eyes moments to really stick.

JUNGLE HOLOCAUST - Ruggero Deodato's first cannibal flick, still one of the best, with a truly disturbing descent of a man into savagery as a means of survival, and with gore that must be seen to be believed. Some Jump-Out-Of-Your seat moments, as well. A great prelude to his penultimate...

CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST - Without doubt, one of the most violent, disturbing, and vicious movies ever filmed. Also, incisive in its portrayal of documentary filmmakers, over two decades before Mikey Moore. In this one, the villains are all too scary...they are "normal people", not some masked murderer. Do NOT see this if you are easily offended, under 18, or have a weak stomach. Serious gorehounds avoid this one. It's that vicious.

MEN BEHIND THE SUN - This movie depicts the ACTUAL horrors inflicted by the Japanese during WWII at their infamous Camp 731 bio-weapons research labs. Mengele would blanch.

IMHO, the finest horror of the latter 20th century can be found by checking the films made from about 1969-1985. They were serious, and vicious in their assault upon the senses. Few movies of the '90s come close. I'm off to read the rest of the thread!

[k omalley]

Does anyone remember "The Crawling Eye?" It was a giant eyeball with long tentacles and it hid up in the mountains, the Alps I believe. It attacked hikers and people on ski lifts. Yeah, you might laugh but when I was a kid back in the 1950's I thought this movie was terrifying.

[muir_redwoods]

"Exit to Eden"

A movie with Rosie O'Doughnuts in leather lingerie has to take the horror category