As a kid I had vivid memories of watching IT. I wasn't scared of clowns at all but was frightened of the film.

Most of the movies that were able to truly terrify me did so when i was really young (too young to appreciate movies). I could not even remember what some of these movies were


1) Exorcist: For months I could not get the image of Linda Blair stabbing herself with a knife.

2) One of the Amityville based Movies: I couldn't remember exactly which one except it had a dollhouse.

3) Carrie: I had a phobia of blood. The movie didn't help.

4) Forgot about this one. Tried searching using relevant keywords but didn't get anywhere. It was about a killing doll (not Chucky) wearing a red dress. She was possessed by this demon who was born half-goat. They found his remains/bones in a mining site and burned it.

5) The Fly 2 : Had my face in my hands most of the time. I can take zombies or vampies anytime but a human turning into cocoon scared me shitless! What was ironic was that I watched the Fly much later and wasn't scared at all (when it was much scarier movie in makeup and theme)

6) Chucky. Killing dolls ain't my cup of tea.



Movies that disturbed me: (could be due to objectionable theme or violence or any other reason)

1) The Cell: Intestines on a sewing machine and lots of freaky stuff.

2) Nightmare on Elm Street: That ugly face disturbed me when i was a kid but not by much

3) Labyrinth: For some reason, David Bowie made me uncomfortable.

4) Saw 4: Violence turned me off. First 2 Saw movies weren't this gory

5) 24 Weeks Later: Opening scene = wow!


that's about it i guess. Horror movies don't really scare me these days, maybe because I don't watch that many to begin with.

Candyman
Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh(even more so than the original)
Scream trilogy
Halloween
Halloween 3: Season of the Witch(the cliffhanging ending really has been thinking about it to this day)

Great topic , although the ones I mention mostly scared me as a kid:

1) The exorcist
2) The omen
3) Night of the Living Dead (1990 version)
4) Chucky 1

Regards,
Eder

Films don't usually frighten me these days (mainly because they're not made very well), but recently The Ring and 28 Days Later gave me the shits.

Hey all, I'm not sure if I should be proud or ashamed to bring up Disney in this thread. I was born in '89, so I saw a lot of those films at a young age, and I have to say:

The Little Mermaid - A creepy octopus lady who keeps a pack (school?) of ferocious eels?
The Rescuers Down Under - That giant iguana/lizard gave me nightmares.
The Great Mouse Detective - A giant bat with a peg leg that steals children. Great memories.

Some others:

Jaws
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Labyrinthe

And more recently:
The Descent (never sat through it)
The Ring

And movies that disturb me:
Audition
Funny Games

I'll have to agree with the board on this one as well. When you're a child or younger at least, things tend to get to you alot more than they do now a days. When I was a teenager, I went through a huge horror movie phase. The ones that got under my skin were the most popular ones, The Exorcist, Amityville Horror, and etc. Now that i'm in my mid 20's I can only remember a couple of new films that have gotten to me. The Cell is of course completely underrated. When I watched this movie, I remember thinking, in someone's mind, there really is no limitation to the horrors one could imagine and that idea really really creeped me out.

Side Note:This Board just proves that horror makers of today need to step up their game. This whole Torture Porn thing needs to go, bring back true horror films.

Dude, I feel you completely, on all counts, though I found the Ring to be absolutely terrifying. I also found a movie called Session 9 to be freaky.

Like many before on this topic, I was more easily scared when I was younger. It really is not the case now. I guess we become desensitized when aging.

I do have to say that I was recently impressed and as close as I can get to being scared with El orfanato by Juan Antonio Bayona.

A few movies really disturbed me for different reasons :
- Irréversible;
- Naked Lunch;
- Funny Games;
- La pianiste (The Piano Teacher).

Like many people on this board, these movies terrified me as a kid:

- Alien
- Jaws (It's pretty obvious, but I was so afraid of sharks that I didn't even want to flush the toilet for fear one of them would jump out of the bowl and bite my head off)
- Hellraiser (Pinhead just creeps the hell out of me more than any other movie monster)

I don't get scared as much nowadays, but maybe that's because I've watched too many movies. I recently saw John Carpenter's Halloween for the first time and I wasn't scared one bit on account of having watched too many slashers. But the movie was still so well made that I could imagine people watching it for the first time in the 70s pissing their pants. (And, compared to the original, Rob Zombie's remake was garbage)

Plenty of movies have managed to disturb or creep me out, though, just not outright scared. Like Requiem for a Dream: technically not a horror movie, but it's far more horrifying than any fictional monster. I was speechless and in shock for about an hour after watching that film, and to this day I haven't been able to see it again.

Exorcist Exorcist Exorcist. Haven't ever made it through the whole thing.

Two other movies that I love, but have still made me readjust my life:

Psycho. I had a hard time taking a shower behind an opaque curtain for a long time. Now that I have my own home, I have a glass shower door, so no one can sneak up on me.

Jaws. Whenever I'm swimming in the ocean, I still get a creepy feeling when I get in deep water. Legs hanging down, treading away, signalling for the sharks....if I think about it, I can still feel that old anxiety creeping in.

Weird, huh? Just shows how effective those movies are.


Peace.

Hey Homer,

wow - the first person who builds his home based on Hitchcock

I was a diving instructor for several years and once encountered a whale shark at about 40/50 feet down off the coast of Cornwall - UK. My partner and i were totally freaked out. it looked more like a submarine than a fish!

As diver I recommend that you don't wear a black wet suit and swim horizontally in shallow water. I live in california and Great White's love seals that are black and shiny

Rob

You know, I have never found the Exorcist to be scary in the least. I am always amazed to see it praised so highly. I guess to each is own. With you on Jaws though.

Like many others, seeing some of these films for the first time, in a cinema, certainly made me jump (sometimes more than once)

The Exorcist - my wife was actually upset that I had even brought this film into the house!
Alien - let's face it, the John Hurt scene, when you have no idea what's going to happen, is awesome.
The Evil Dead - bit lame perhaps, but watching in a packed cinema - there were cretainly some real "boo" moments.
Silence of the Lambs - I would say it was more creepy than scary - kind of gives you shivers rather than makes you jump.

Bear in mind that I saw all these when they were first issued - and that makes a difference (plus I was a good deal younger then as well... )

Seriously, though, isn't that the case more often than not? When I was looking at new houses, every master bathroom had a clear glass shower door and/or glass partitions all around (in some cases, no door at all). I think, on a subconscious level, that's a nod to the genius of Hitchcock.

Or maybe I'm just weird.

Thanks for the tip about ocean swimming. "Try to stay horizontal" will be my new motto.

By the way, nice story about the whale shark. I bet that was sweet, once your heart started beating again!

As a child, nothing scared me more than Jaws. To this day, I refuse to swim in the ocean.

Alien is a close second, followed by The Amityville Horror.

As an adult, the only movie that really frightened me was the 1982 remake of The Thing. The blood-testing scene and ensuing chaos did a number on me.

The Blair Witch Project. I was the only one in the theater, and during those last ten minutes I was so frightened that I nearly ran out of there. The atmosphere definitely got to me.

The Strangers. It's like the Peter Gabriel song "Intruder"--your home is your sanctuary. It's where you're supposed to feel safe and comfortable. But when someone breaks in and violates that sanctuary, where can you feel safe?

28 Days Later

Alien is pretty creepy

This thread has been dead a long, long time but I've been looking for something in the horror genre to add to the list of greats. Nothing new herein save for Candyman and that can wait a few years for me to get around to.

But, The Piano Teacher is a horrifying movie that I'd forgotten about until reading the title in this long dead post.



It's a great movie as far as visceral, frightening character studies go but it may be the most unpleasant motion picture in Haneke's unpleasant, depressing history.

Majoraphasia -

Have you seen Black Christmas? I finally saw it for the first time, and thought it was a very effective slasher movie, ahead of its time. Check it out.

I'll have to look into The Piano Teacher.