Okay, fave horror flicks - I'm not really a fan of the genre but some stuff really terrifies me (actually, that's why I'm not a fan, because I don't like how the memory of a fear keeps me afraid [yes, Dr. Jung, it goes back to my childhood....]). Anyway -
Alien/Aliens - either one; they scared the pants offa me. Yes, they're Sci-Fi but you just sit there, gripping the arm rests of the seat (or the arm of your date), palms sweaty.
Psycho - not so much due the issue of fear (it doesn't scare me any more, well, not really), but because it's so marvelously done.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (either version) - there's just something about people being replaced that hits a really deep-seated fear.
The Fly (either version) - in the original, as the man-fly is about to be devoured by the spider and you see things from the man-fly's perspective - God! It's the complete terror of the animal kingdom, laid bare. In the remake, it's the scene where he's describing how he eats. I cannot watch that at all, and really can't even listen to it. Fast-forward is a wonderful thing.
Rosemary's Baby - ah, the best film about the Devil, I believe. It's also, to my mind, a story about the personal hell you kind of go through when you're young and inexperienced and everyone else seems to want to tell you what to do. Oy!
With Jespah's last post, it makes me want to move "Alien/Aliens" up on my list and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" is also an excellent choice.
Some of the shots of the little village square were shot in the Hollywood Hills right around the corner from a friend who I used to visit for weeks on end. It was right below the Hollywood sign and I used to hike up to the sign from the back door! That's the stairs in the final scenes! I'd have fun imagining "they're after me!!!!" Is that weird? :wink:
"The Fly," BTW, is also an excellent choice -- who could forget the final scene with the fly caught in a spider web screaming? Yikes!
Also, one has to recall the "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" came out in the midst of the Red scare including the McCarthy hearings. The parable that we were being insidiously infiltrated and replaced was a very effective undertow to the film. There are two different endings to the film -- one where the pods are not discovered! Another studio bad decision which tempered the whole point of the film.
BTW, my pod was beige -- what color was yours?
Rosemary's Baby. Yeah, really good flick. My problem with it was that I had read the Ira Levin book before the movie came out. The problem with that is, when reading a book, you visualize your own version of what things should look like. And, of course, the director has other ideas. So I didn't like it the first time I saw it. It wasn't my Rosemary's Baby. I've changed my mind over the years. Great movie.
You really do have to get tuned into someone's vision of a book in order to enjoy it. If they don't get completely off track, that is. Polanski has a style of directing that throws one immediately off guard and when it's original material like "Chinatown," he really excels. I've found "Rosemary's Baby" has aged well, now seeming to be a period piece!
Maybe the only Mia Farrow performance that I really liked as I always found her to be more or less a piece of furniture in the Woody Allen films.
Lightwizard - my folks grow hubbard squash (which look remarkably like the pods in the original Body Snatchers film). And so, one day I was home from Law School when my Dad brought in one and, in perfect deadpan, began carrying it up the stairs and, in a monotone, said: "I'll just put this under your bed."
And you all wonder where I get this from ...
I saw a sci-fi film when I was a kid which burned a hole in my little brain. I'll describe what I can recall, and see if anyone knows the title. It involved aliens which took control of local town's people (even the parents of the main character, a boy) and they were identifyable by a little scar on the back of their necks. The aliens were hidden underground, and a wooden walkway that had stretched across a field, began to disappear due to the underground activity. They had a nifty Acme ray gun that burned tunnels through the dirt and they looked like Republicans. ???
That was "Invaders From Mars" and was ridiculously remade in the 80's.
The sandpit where the victims fell into the alien's underground tunnels along with the choral, sinking musical score makes that film stick in my mind. It's reshown on the Sci-Fi Channel and AMC at least once a year and is well done despite seeming very derivitive. Too bad when they made Robert Heinlein's "The Puppet Masters" into a film, they missed the mark by a mile. We should have a discussion of alien invasion films in the future!
Lots of scary movies mentioned here. I'll add "The Mummy" (Boris Karloff) and "The Wolf Man" (Lon Chaney, Jr.), which an older cousin
dragged me to see (he was babysitting me). They gave me nightmares for several weeks. And one that keeps running through my mind, is "Bedlam"with Boris Karloff. I think Val Lewton wrote it. It was about inmates in an insane asylum. I don't know whether it was supposed to be in the horror genre or not, but it scared the living daylights out of me. So many horror movies are really very sad, aren't they?
Speaking of films in the genre that are said, "The Unknown" with Lon Chaney, sans little makeup but he plays an armless knife thrower in a circus who is enamored of a Joan Crawford in another of her very early roles. The ending is excrutiating -- it's a silent but all the emotion that wells up from Chaney's soul is a wonder to behold and very saddening.
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0018528
Did anyone catch the Lon Chaney bio on PBS this last week?
You would have to include "Phanton of the Opera" in a list limited to even twenty-five films, IMHO.
Hmm,horror flicks eh?
After reading through all of the posts I´m surprised about The Exorcist showing up so much and Aliens was surely a gung-ho-shoot-em-up-comedy.
Of course I must remember that the age one is when viewing films is important:I saw Jaws when I was 7 yrs old and had nightmares for a week.The Evil Dead when I was 13 with a bunch of friends.We acted like
bad-asses but went home trembling.
No one has mentioned The Blair Witch Project.Is this because the publicity that proceeded it in the media clouded everyones expectations?
I saw none of it,
went to a cinema and sweated like a bastard.A very painful film to watch
I thought but I did enjoy being shook up.
I wondered when "Jaws" would show up, although most might consider it an adventure tale with some horror elements. I agree that "Aliens" isn't nearly as scary as the original and more of an action/popcorn movie -- Cameron's forte. "Alien" was genuienly suspenseful and chilling -- it had a atmosphere of "the old creepy castle" in the beginning section and is arguably the most relentlessly scary film of all time.
I'm back and voting for ALIENNEILA.
I thought you would appreciate Geiger's artistic contributions and it made him a sought after artist in many cult galleries around the country who show fantasy/sci fi art. Really incredible production design in the first films and even though "Aliens" is a good action flick, it lacked the atmosphere and eerie suspense of the first. The subsequent sequels are downhill all the way, at least more me with 3 being more depressing than anything else.
Oldies But Still Chilling
The Body Snacthers, the original.
The Day the Earth Stood Still, Michael Rennie was the perfect alien.
This Island Earth, bad dreams for years.
OK,..slightly off track,..but in the same genre:
Does anyone remember "Trilogy of Terror", it was a tv movie from the seventies starring Karen Black (sounds great already, huh?).
Anyway, my sister was babysitting me when it aired (I was 6), and the last story in the trilogy was about this woman who had a Zuni warrior doll,..that supposedly had the soul of an actual warrior trapped inside of it,..the thing was if you removed the little chain from around its waist, the soul would be released. Well of couse it happens,..the doll chases Karen around the apartment with a knife for the rest of the story.
Well, at 6, I was terrified,...didn't sleep for a month,..my sister got in trouble for letting me watch it.
I rented it with some friends one night,..it was so bad it was funny. Such poor effects, and the screams the doll made were priceless.
It just came to mind, thought I'd mention.
I do remember "Trilogy" and it brought to mind the English film "Dead of Night" which had the story of the living vintriloquist dummy episode long before Twilight Zone and "Magic" (Ira Levin's novel made into a movie with Anthony Hopkins shortly after his debut in "The Lion in Winter.")
Very much like "The Haunting," there's no monsters or gore to frighten you, just metaphysical and chilling storylines.
Now, one, two, three....serious!
