Flipside Movie Emporium

[Fred C. Dobbs]

I'm not talking about your favorite horror films, but the ones that actually SCARE you.

Here's a list from me:

1. The Sixth Sense - actually scared the shit out of me in the theatre, I was holding my heart the whole way through because I thought I was going to have a heart attack.

2. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) - Very intense, nerve wracking, unsettling, but it also scares me. Not in a "boo!!!" type of way, but it really, really, really gets under my skin.

3. The Old Dark House - This James Whale classic is very unsettling, and really creeped me out.

4. The Tenant - Confusing, claustrophobic, and makes you think. You feel paranoid, just like the protagonist.

5. Persona - One of the most unsettling, thought-provoking, and depressing films ever made.

6. Tomb of Ligeia - A very moody and spooky Vincent Price film, one of my favorites, although the ending is typical of Roger Corman, very formulaic.

7. Night of the Living Dead (1968) - Very scary, disturbing film. You feel trapped while watching the film, at points.

8. Suspiria - Loud, ferocious, colorful, violent, and very, very, very scary.

I'll add some more when I get the chance.
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"Pino, fuck you, fuck your fuckin' pizza, and fuck Frank Sinatra."

[matt header]

Coincidentally, a friend and I were discussing tonight the lack of really terrifying horror movies in the last couple years (and, I might add, the scarce amount of truly terrifying horror films of the last couple years). Ones I came up with were The Others, Lost Highway, Funny Games, Requiem for a Dream, and Clown, a short film in which old men dressed up as clowns do sexually suggestive things with childhood toys. Yeah.

I also posed this question: out of all of directors working today who haven't already done so, who would you like to see make a pure horror movie? My choice: Jim Jarmusch.

[Fred C. Dobbs]

[beltmann]

It's very rare for a picture to actually get my stomach and mind churning simultaneously. Perhaps I could list Rosemary's Baby, Cronenberg's The Fly, eXistenZ, Funny Games, Bunman: The Untold Story, and the scene in A Simple Plan where Bill Paxton has to decide whether or not to leave with the fraudulent sheriff.

I wouldn't say those are necessarily the best horror movies ever made--where's Peeping Tom, Psycho, Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Vampyr, Dawn of the Dead, American Psycho, Bride of Frankenstein, Jaws?--but they are the ones that had me shaking, at least momentarily.

I'd love to see a horror picture directed by Jarmusch, or Scorsese. I'll add Lukas Moodysson, Tom Tykwer, Atom Egoyan, Wong Kar-Wai, and Richard Linklater.
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"When I was in Barcelona they showed pornography on regular television. I'm assuming it's the same way in Mexico since they also speak Spanish." - IMDb user comment

[beltmann]

As for Scorsese, does Cape Fear not count?
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"When I was in Barcelona they showed pornography on regular television. I'm assuming it's the same way in Mexico since they also speak Spanish." - IMDb user comment

[the night watchman]

?Do I believe in ghosts? No, but I'm afraid of them.?

-Marquise du Deffand

in no order:

Kairo (Pulse)

The Shining (?80)

Sixth Sense

Candyman

The Thing (?82)

Ringu

The Haunting (?63)

Lost Highway

Ju-On (?00)

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (?56)

The uncanny and the inexplicable are the elements that send shivers up my spine. I suspect experiencing the supernatural, if the supernatural existed, would be much like going mad. As for directors who ought to work in the horror genre, I think Quentin Tarantino could make the splatter flick to end all splatter flicks, and the Coens could fashion a creepy, Val Lewton-style chiller.
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"If you're talking about censorship, and what things should be shown and what things shouldn't be shown, I've said that as an artist you have no social responsibility whatsoever."

-David Cronenberg

[beltmann]

[Fred C. Dobbs]

[beltmann]

I suppose I too would categorize Scorsese's Cape Fear as a thriller or suspense picture, but it crosses over into horror with regularity, especially in the last third. I certainly agree that it does not rank among Scorsese's most memorable pictures. (If I remember right, though, Owen Gleiberman awarded it an "A" at the time, and wasn't alone in his admiration.)
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"When I was in Barcelona they showed pornography on regular television. I'm assuming it's the same way in Mexico since they also speak Spanish." - IMDb user comment

[the night watchman]

I'm paranoid of loosing control -- of mental faculties; of a situation; etc. -- so I think the supernatural strikes me a metaphor for the violation of reason. I do agree supernatural tales are incredibly difficult to pull off, and tropes tend to become over-familiar and hoary in a very short time; in fact, it seems to me the supernatural tale, more than any other genre, runs an inordinate risk of collapsing into unintentional humor. I think that's often why a) many audiences tend have a hard time taking horror seriously, and b) horror films are often approached with a significant degree of laziness by filmmakers. As you said, I think human drama is of primary importance to a successful supernatural tale. After all, a ghost or bogey isn?t necessarily scary in and of itself; rather, what the ghost or bogey means to the character on a psychological level is what gives it an aura of fear.

The three most absolutely nerve-shattering short stories I've read are ?Seaton?s Aunt? by Walter de la Mare, "The Yellow Wallpaper? by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, ?The Terror? by Guy De Maupassant, all of which draw no line between the supernatural and insanity. Indeed, "Seaton's Aunt" offers no overt supernatural incidences at all, and yet achieves the absolute pinnacle of a sense of the uncanny as I have ever read. I recommend them.

Rosemary's Baby is quite good in that regard, since Rosemary sounds like she's having paranoid delusions when she's trying to explain that a coven of witches are out to get her, even though we the audience know she's being completely rational. BTW, does anyone but me see the ending as happy? Not in a saccharine "everyone lived happily ever after" kind of way, but in the fact that Rosemary successfully finds a niche in the narrative, which, up until then, has been against her?
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"If you're talking about censorship, and what things should be shown and what things shouldn't be shown, I've said that as an artist you have no social responsibility whatsoever."

-David Cronenberg

[beltmann]

[the night watchman]

[Erickson]

Even though there really isn't a plot, The Very Worst of Faces of Death freaked me out more than anything else I've ever seen.
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I hate quotations; tell me what you know

[Dr Giggles]

1. Texas Chainsaw Massacre

2. Suspiria

3. Ju-on: The Grudge

4. Los Sin Nombre

5. Audition

6. Repulsion

7. The Omen

8. The Exorcist

9. The Shining

10. Last house on the left - this one was more repulsing/disturbing,

but got a powerful reaction from me anyway.

I guess its all subjective at the end of the day.
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walking on air, up from the wheelchair,

I'll find the suicide, that I deserve.

[HoRRoRFaN]

The scariest movies I've ever seen are THE SHINING, THE EXORCIST, ROSEMARY'S BABY, and TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE.