What are the scariest movies you have ever seen

[Gorgon]

Tough one, maybe it's just whatever scary movie was showing when you were 14.

 

I'm going to say Mulholland Drive, entirely because reality and self perception crumbling is a very scary prospect.

[Walsingham]

A French Canadian film called Sonatine. It made me excited and absolutely terrified and despairing all at once.

[Guard Dog]

I'd have to say "The Exorcisim of Emily Rose". It wasn't scary in that you could not get to sleep afterwards, just disturbing. Especially given the facts about the actual Annalise Micheal case.

 

One of the best movies for creating an eerie atmoshphere was The Village. But it was not scary, or even all that good really. The Blair Witch Project was like that too. Most horror flicks are dumb to the point of being comical. Usually the more serious it takes itself the dumber it is.

[Gorth]

Alfred Hitch****s "The Birds". I was barely a teenager at the time and there was something decidedly creepy about something familiar and normally harmless suddenly becoming a lethal menace. That was of course before I found out about pelicans.

[LadyCrimson]

Demons of the Mind, saw it when I was 12. I'd probably think it was laughable now, but it was really disturbing back then.

First time I saw Alien, too..the scene with the Captain in the duct or whatever it was...

...and of course the maggot meat and the clown scenes in Poltergeist. I still hate clown toys.

 

...as young to current adult...nothing much really. Some films make me feel a little tense or suspenseful, others morbidly grossed out, and of course there's the emotionally wrenching....but scared...not so much.

[Azure79]

When I was a youngster I mostly watched horror movies to get a glimpse of female nudity.

 

So I was more disappointed than scared most of the time. I was a freaked out by the Exorcist, but that was more of a morbid fascination that scared silly.

 

Scariest movie I've seen in recent years is probably the Japanese version of 'The Grudge'. Scoff all you want, but you try watching it all alone in a small confined basement room at night with all the lights out.

Edited February 10, 2011 by Azure79

[Orogun01]

You know what? I'm a big horror fan ever since childhood, I'd say "The silent of the Lambs" just because Hannibal Lecter was one of my biggest idols growing up. That and Bram Stoker's Dracula with Gary Oldman. If I could take Hopkins, Oldman, and Jeremy Irons and merge them into a supervillain I'd be so happy.

[Blarghagh]

Scariest movie I've seen in recent years is probably the Japanese version of 'The Grudge'. Scoff all you want, but you try watching it all alone in a small confined basement room at night with all the lights out.

 

I second this. Actually, only partially. See, I was laughing my head off while actually watching it, but afterwards ideas and images kept creeping into my head and it kept me up the whole night.

[Monte Carlo]

Rosemary's Baby freaked me out when I first saw it, late at night, on my own, having had a drink or three.

 

It's slow-burn spookiness as opposed to visceral horror, but it is scary.

 

Somebody will obviously chip in with The Shining, but having seen it again recently I would question it's status as scary classic.

 

Lastly, and again in a slow-burn spooky / strange type of scary, the part of The Wicker Man (the original, dammit) where you realise what they are going to do to the policeman is also pretty disturbing first time you see it.

[Pidesco]

Alien.

[mkreku]

One of the very first horror movies I saw is still rated as the scariest in my mind. It's probably just ridiculous if you could find it today. Obscure, forgotten and (probably) crappy, I bring you..

 

The Nesting

[Nepenthe]

For some reason, nothing has quite scared me like Mothman Prophecies. It obviously managed to hit a lot of subconscious fears in me.

[GreasyDogMeat]

Alien.

This. Saw it when I was just a little kid and some of those scenes stuck with me. Chest burster scene =

 

Also, when I was young I saw a single scene from a movie and I don't know what the movie was. Poltergeist maybe? Anyway, there is a kid sleeping in his bed and he hears something. Looks under his bed and this creey *** clown drags him under the bed. I didn't see any further but I was worried for years about clowns hiding under my bed.

[HoonDing]

Krull (watched it when I was 5)

[Guest Slinky]

Yeah Alien is one of the few movies that has managed to make me feel scared, but the movie that made me feel REALLY scared was Threads

 

It's a documentary-style drama form 1984, which is based on a report that was made for British government on subject "what would happen if a nuclear war would start". Honestly, I was pretty silent guy the whole day after I saw it.

[Gorgon]

Scariest movie I've seen in recent years is probably the Japanese version of 'The Grudge'. Scoff all you want, but you try watching it all alone in a small confined basement room at night with all the lights out.

 

I second this. Actually, only partially. See, I was laughing my head off while actually watching it, but afterwards ideas and images kept creeping into my head and it kept me up the whole night.

I agree, it worked very well. They remade it about a dozen times each time it got worse and had a bigger budget. The American version wasn't even the worst one. Maybe when you don't have any money you are forced to sit down and figure out how to make a scratching noise the most scary thing in the world.

[Kaftan Barlast]

The two films who traumatized me the most as a child was Alien and Jaws. But the thing is that it wasnt actually the films themselves, but my mothers extremely vivid retelling of the scary parts I wasnt allowed to watch. If they had just let me watch the hillariously crappy rubber shark, I wouldnt have been scared, but instead I laid awake at night imagining it all which was utterly terrifying.

 

 

I couldnt even swim in pools without contantly putting on my scuba goggles and checking that a shark or two hadnt snuck in somehow.

[mkreku]

Bah, this thread sucks. You're all mentioning Alien and Jaws? Geez, I was hoping for some really crappy movies I had never heard of before.

[Gorgon]

Told you it was hard.

[Hurlshort]

Scariest movie I've seen in recent years is probably the Japanese version of 'The Grudge'. Scoff all you want, but you try watching it all alone in a small confined basement room at night with all the lights out.

 

I second this. Actually, only partially. See, I was laughing my head off while actually watching it, but afterwards ideas and images kept creeping into my head and it kept me up the whole night.

I agree, it worked very well. They remade it about a dozen times each time it got worse and had a bigger budget. The American version wasn't even the worst one. Maybe when you don't have any money you are forced to sit down and figure out how to make a scratching noise the most scary thing in the world.

 

Agreed as well. The ending is basically terrible too, no happy resolution that makes all western horror flicks so easy to walk away from.

[Volourn]

I don't get scared watching movies horror or otherwise. I've been watching horrior movies since I was a baby. On the other hand, I have been disgusted by gruesome details shown though. L0L Gross.

[Kor Qel Droma]

Stephen Kings' Pet Semetary still gives me a case of the creeping willies. Most notably any scene with the messed up sister Zelda.

 

As a kid I remember being totally freaked out by When A Stranger Calls.

[Starwars]

Like someone said, Threads was not really scary in the horror sense, just in terms of raw it is. It's great.

 

As far as horror flicks, I must say that the original [Rec] scared the hell out of me. Went in expecting some crappy Blair Witch thing but I was absolutely terrified during some of the ending scenes. The original version of Dark Water also scared me.

 

Eraserhead also had a strong effect on me. Not really in terms of scariness, but that is one film that straight up made me really uncomfortable watching it.

[Raithe]

I always remember first reading Bram Stoker's Dracula as a kid and finding myself terrified by Harker's descent into madness.. and then no film version has really managed to carry that across.

 

Which has always disapointed me on a certain level.

[Gfted1]

The Exorcist freaked me out a bit as did Amityville Horror. Just rewatching the

from The Exorcits makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.