scariest fim ever made.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

The original Exorcist is scarier from a "shock" point of view while Exorcist III is scarier from a "dreadful and creepy" point of view.

[sgt.null]

Eraserhead

saw it once will not watch it again...

[ItisWritten]

Frailty

The ending on that one put a sharp grey edge on Good vs Evil that was uber creepy.

[Cagliostro]

So I gotta ask... is Exorcist III better than the Exorcist?

It's hard to answer this one as they both creep me out. What gets me everytime in the original is the sounds, particularly when he is listening to the tape of Reagan speaking in different languages and talking backwards. That and when things are really ramping up and that "alternate face" of hers starts occasionally flashing on screen.

Exorcist III is frequently funny, which the original isn't, and has some powerful scares. But mainly it just showcases how good at being creepy Brad Dourif is. In many ways, it is a much more entertaining film, but has a couple of moments that are a little bit dippy. But it is one film that makes good use of long pauses.

[lucimay]

The Haunting (based on Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House)

the original, NOT the horrifyingly terrible remake



scared the holy hell out of me when i was a kid, altho, the book is even scarier.

[peter]

So I gotta ask... is Exorcist III better than the Exorcist?

Ditto that.

I thought the Exorcist was a great movie, and the book was one of the very few reading experiences that had me not wanting to turn out the light at night. I can't remember the details of Exorcist III though and it's possible I haven't even seen it. if it's that good I clearly need to. By the way contrary to the girls view, I found Paranormal Activity deeply unsettling and the Blair Witch Project very scary as well. Go deep into a wood at twilight on your own and start thinking about the Blair Witch and I defy you not to start heading back to your car with alacrity!

[Hashi Lebwohl]

"Found footage" films succeed at capturing the older style of horror, which has its foundation, the three key elements of creepiness/dread, the unknown, and causing us to use our imaginations to generate the fear, by not showing us everything or showing us or showing it to us in quickly-flashed and/or somewhat staticy or blurry images. Yes, they can be difficult to watch because of overuse of "shaky cam", but this is simply the film being true to its own genre--if you were carrying a camera while walking quickly it would definitely shake. Found films' greatest strength is its verisimilitude.

One new motif I saw this weekend--I watched a lot of horror movie trailers to see where the genre is these days--is the "ghost face", where the eyes turn black and the mouth opens into a gaping hole wider than a natural mouth can open. Although startling at first, after the third or fourth time of seeing it you quickly realize that it destroys the effect of horror because it looks obviously fake--the CGI ruins it. In found footage or EVP films it would be better to see the actual thing(s) causing the horror only briefly or when reviewing the film. An even better effect--and this would be completely creepy--would be to have the characters review the footage, attempting to figure out what they saw, find the ghost in a still image and then the ghost steps out of the picture in the still frame. Similarly, the ghost could step into the still frame, playing of game of "peek-a-boo"; this would work well for ghosts of children.

I actually separate horror into two genres: true horror, which relies on suspense, isolation, and dread, and gore, which relies on "in your face" and usually the hunter/prey chase.

[peter]

Interesting post Hashi. I was trying to get straight in my head the idea of where horror and thriller meet. Most horror (but not all) has a supernatural element but it is entierly possible to have a supernatural film that is not in the slightest horror. Fear must be part of the key here. A horror film must induce fear. if that fear follows you out into your post suspension of disbelief world, when the movie has ended, then it is succesful indeed (though not pleasant). It is possible that horror is just a specialised 'sub-set' of the thriller genre I suppose, though at what point thriller becomes horror I would find it hard to say. Thriller perhaps gives a 'frisson' of fear (like a fair ground ride) where the fear induced by horror is more visceral.

[I'm Murrin]

An even better effect--and this would be completely creepy--would be to have the characters review the footage, attempting to figure out what they saw, find the ghost in a still image and then the ghost steps out of the picture in the still frame. Similarly, the ghost could step into the still frame, playing of game of "peek-a-boo"; this would work well for ghosts of children.

Sounds a lot like the iconic scene in Ring. (That, and several other scenes in the film and it's remakes and sequels.) And yeah - that scene worked, very effective.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Sounds a lot like the iconic scene in Ring. (That, and several other scenes in the film and it's remakes and sequels.) And yeah - that scene worked, very effective.

I had almost forgotten about that scene! Yes, it really creeped me out the first time I saw it, mostly because I had never seen something like it before. I think there is a new film, Sinister, that relies on a similar effect.

I was trying to get straight in my head the idea of where horror and thriller meet. Most horror (but not all) has a supernatural element but it is entierly possible to have a supernatural film that is not in the slightest horror. Fear must be part of the key here. A horror film must induce fear. if that fear follows you out into your post suspension of disbelief world, when the movie has ended, then it is succesful indeed (though not pleasant).

It is also possible to have a horror film that has nothing to do with the supernatural. A well-done stalker film can be effective whether the stalker was actually after someone else but got discovered (as in Rear Window), the stalker is after a particular person (many films like this), the stalker is a creepy neighbor (as in Pacific Heights), or--this is the recent trend--the stalker is anonymous and random (as in The Strangers). Stalker films usually cross over into gore, though, at which point they are really "slasher" films.

I think is what many people disliked so much about Shayamalan--he was trying to make films in the style of Hitchcock and rely on suspenseful horror rather than going for shock value. To date, his best films have been Unbreakable and The Village.

In the best horror films the gore is only implied or barely seen.

[I'm Murrin]

(I just went and watched the original and US versions of the Ring scene on youtube to refresh my memory. Ugh, the US one is awful - it interrupts the suspense to cut to Watts in a speeding car, and the scene itself is full of tracking shots that are way too cinematic to be creepy.)

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Agreed--Sadako is clearly scarier than Samara.

The number one thing that ruins horror movies are sequels. Invariably, the sequel tries to tell "how such-and-such became an embodiment of evil" or "how the story began" or some such nonsense. No, no, no, no, and no. If you explain it then it isn't scary anymore. If the movie is designed to allow for figuring out why the ghost is haunting and then resolve the issue, fine--it's all part of the plot, even if this plot is told over two movies (so leave the audience on a cliffhanger until the second movie comes out). No, it is always scarier to have the nameless or faceless terror come out of nowhere, scare the pants off the characters and the audience, then leave without giving anyone any answers; this opens the door for a return scare at any point in the future. Besides, it maintains that dreadful feeling of "what *was* that?!" and "is it coming back?".

[peter]

Here's an interesting one - 'Mulholland Drive'. Lynch's surrealist masterpiece has enough of a crawling sinister build to qualify in my book, with a few scenes (particularly those involving the 'thing' behind the cafe and the stetson toting cowboy) that definitely cross into the genre. Love that film!!! (Damn - got to start a discussion thread on Mullholland Drive vs Inland Empire!).

[Cail]

No, it is always scarier to have the nameless or faceless terror come out of nowhere, scare the pants off the characters and the audience, then leave without giving anyone any answers; this opens the door for a return scare at any point in the future.

Absolutely. Reminds me of a line from the excellent TV show Millennium.....

"What does he want?"

"He doesn't want anything. He's insane."

[Orlion]

No, it is always scarier to have the nameless or faceless terror come out of nowhere, scare the pants off the characters and the audience, then leave without giving anyone any answers; this opens the door for a return scare at any point in the future.

Absolutely. Reminds me of a line from the excellent TV show Millennium.....

"What does he want?"

"He doesn't want anything. He's insane."

You get that in science fiction as well. Aliens are more interesting/scary/unsettling/whatever when they are...well, alien. The worse thing to happen to the Alien franchise was an overdevelopement of the Xenomorph life cycle. It's much more frightening not knowing why something does what it does... and it makes more sense that we wouldn't understand because it isn't human. It doesn't have human motivations.