Kevin's Watch

We have a new kid at work. She's 18 yo and pretty full of herself and good fun. She says she wants to be *really* scared by a film, but all of the stuff I reccomend she has seen and doesn't seem to find scary. Paranormal Activity and the Blair Witch didn't cut it. Shutter Island and The Fourth Kind were a bore. (I wonder if Cape Fear might work).

Any Suggestions Guys - I'm not a massive horror fan myself and my limited repetoir is rapidly becoming exhausted.

Yea, Hostel and the First Saw are very disturbing and scary, but, for me, not something I can enjoy, because the Torture Porn is too graphic and sickening

High Tension is pretty scary, as are Vacancy, P2, The Strangers and Five Across The Eyes.
Five Across The Eyes may work for her, since it's Five Girls who get carjacked and submitted to some scary abuse.

Vacancy is Motel and Video cameras

P2 is a girl trapped in a Parking Garage with a psycho

The Strangers is a couple invaded in their home out in the sticks

Edit - Oops, I originally typed When a Stanger Calls, but, I meant the Liv Tyler movie The Strangers

I think that everyone has a "thing" that scares them in a completely irrational way. Like spiders and snakes.

peter, you need to find what that "thing" is.

I'd tell you all what my "thing" is ... and I have one ... except then you would all be scaring me all the time.

wayfriend wrote:I think that everyone has a "thing" that scares them in a completely irrational way. Like spiders and snakes.

peter, you need to find what that "thing" is.

I'd tell you all what my "thing" is ... and I have one ... except then you would all be scaring me all the time.

Yea, some folks who aren't bothered by Zombies laugh at the original Night of the Living Dead, while others are absolutely petrified by it

perfect for an 18 year old

When a Stranger Calls. (the original)
www.imdb.com/title/tt0080130/


have you checked the children tonight?????

wayfriend wrote:I think that everyone has a "thing" that scares them in a completely irrational way. Like spiders and snakes.

They don't make movies about the things that scare me. Sometimes, though, I can be made to "jump" when something "pops out", especially if I didn't out-guess the director.

Hashi Lebwohl wrote:

wayfriend wrote:I think that everyone has a "thing" that scares them in a completely irrational way. Like spiders and snakes.

They don't make movies about the things that scare me. Sometimes, though, I can be made to "jump" when something "pops out", especially if I didn't out-guess the director.

They make movies featuring typical Politicians all the time

Don't Look Now (1973)

When I first saw it was terrifying.

30 Days of Night was one I recommended to some young broad that said she liked scary movies. Couldn't get past the menu.

Of course, there's still the whole 'suspension of disbelief' involved, so I'd try something more psychological (and therefore older) like Legend of Hell House or the original Haunting.

You could also try Killer Clowns From Outer Space.

The original Halloween or The Exorcist III.

wayfriend wrote:I think that everyone has a "thing" that scares them in a completely irrational way. Like spiders and snakes.

peter, you need to find what that "thing" is.

I'd tell you all what my "thing" is ... and I have one ... except then you would all be scaring me all the time.

\



Lets see...

The Thing.
Alien.
Rose Red.
the Evil Dead(?)

Hmm...

the Sphere(?)

Thanks for the suggestions Guys. I think these days the edges seem to be bluring between 'grusome' and 'scary'. Torture porn (aka 'gorno') is grusome - but is it really scary. I think some of the older directors in the days before special effects had a much more insightful grip on the 'psychology' of what makes us afraid. Examples might be the Robert Mithum film 'Night of the Hunter' in which he plays a serial killer targeting two children, or Olivia de Haviland in 'the Snake Pit' where she wakes up in a lunatic asylum and has no memory of how she got there.

Clearly these will be 'to old' for this lass - but I think these old directors were the masters of fear (take the creepy old film 'Gaslight' where a murderer trys to drive his recently wed wife to insanity and suicide to secure her fortune). Come to think of it 'the Lovely Bones' is weirdly scary in it's own way - perhaps that will hit the spot.

BTW, I'm sort of in the same boat as you peter, except it is my 13 year old daughter who is challenging me to find a movie that's scary. So far we've seen movies like The Thing, Alien, Pet Semetary, The Mist, and she claims that they aren't scary enough. However, for the obvious reasons there are certain kinds of scary movies that I just won't bring to the table. It's a tough challenge to meet.

sindatur wrote:They make movies featuring typical Politicians all the time

*laugh* You know me, it seems.

While some movies stand out for me — The Amityville Horror, Nightmare on Elm Street, Superstitions — I think that's mostly because I saw them at an age young enough to still be scared by that kind of thing. By the time I saw Witchboard when I was 10 or so, that was fading, so it started to be a mix of cool, comical, and scary.

How about Hellraiser? I haven't seen it in several years, but it's just surreal enough to escape problems of suspension of disbelief, weird enough for that kind of creepy feeling.

I think that serial killer movies that focus on the historic/realistic aspects tend to be pretty scary sometimes. Zodiac and Memories of Murder being the two that come to mind for me.

The bug scene in the newer King Kong movie was super scary!

'Good Night and Good Luck', the George Clooney fim about the McArthy witch hunts was a scary film (obviously for different reasons than above) as indeed was the newish film 'Contagion'. Maybe sometimes these 'real life' scenario films are the ones that can bite the hardest.

I found Red State pretty frightening, at least up until the ending where it got a little dippy. I second Exorcist III.
Falling Down was also a movie that creeped me out pretty good.

It seems like what scares a person though is pretty particular. What movies has she mentioned that did do it for her? Knowing that would make for more accurate predictions of things that might "get her there."

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