| Would it surprise any of you to learn that some of my fondest memories of Halloween are of hiding behind pillows with my middle-school friends while we watched wildly inappropriate horror films? After trick or treating or G-rated parties, we'd all gather in my bedroom and turn on some gorefest we'd found at the video store. And shriek at the scary bits until my mother came upstairs and told us to shut up and go to sleep. Ah, memories. Here are my top scary moments (inspired by Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments). Feel free to jump in via comments! The Exorcist Not the vomiting scene or the scene where the priest's mom starts talking through Satan/Linda Blair. No, the thing that got me in Exorcist is when Father Merrin makes a tape (reel-to-reel, baby) of Regan's voice to be analyzed and finds out poor lil Devil Child is speaking English...BACKWARDS! Poltergeist Evil clown doll + girl who hates clowns = AIEEEE! The Watcher in the Woods As a disclaimer, I was six when this happened, but the possession scene where the little girl starts screaming "There is no Karen! Karen's dead!" and flipping her shit and using telekinesis on everyone...scarred me for LIFE. Halloween I wasn't expecting Halloween to be scary-scary, just 1970s John Carpenter scary, so when Michael Meyers comes out of the back seat and kills the crap out of a hapless high school girl--I yelped and grabbed my boyfriend, who was pretending he hadn't just yelped and grabbed for me. Men. The Ring Already primed to hate creepy little girls by Watcher in the Woods, The Ring freaked the crap out of me. The first time I watched it, I completely lost it when Samarra crawls out of the TV...inexorable, unstoppable, EVIL. And then I switched off the DVD player at the end of the movie and MY SCREEN REVERTED TO STATIC. I vividly remember whipping my head around to check for evil little girls coming to kill me with evil little hands. There's my top five...what are yours? |
Blog Archives
Latest Entries
Coming Soon
The Ring is the creepiest thing that ever creeped out of creepyland.
My partner Dara and I saw that thing at the Varsity in the U-district in Seattle, during the winter, on a gray rainy afternoon. And there was a lot of gray and rainy afternoon in the film, so when we came outside...
AIGH STILL IN THE MOVIE AIGH!
And our housemate who lived in the basement studio apartment downstairs from us couldn't watch the movie at all in his space. Not when it was dominated by the GIANT TV facing the sleeping area!
-- Angela (who is annathepiper on LJ, since LJ is apparently broken for doing OpenID right now)
Evil Dead--Forests are a strightly no-fly zone for me since watching the classic scene where a girl and a tree root get to know each other intimately. There are some places splinters just should not be.
Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight--saw what you will, but I'm madly in love with Billy Zane. Because of this, I skipped to the nearest video rental place one Halloween to rent this movie. It has Billy Zane, how bad can it be? I'm sorry, but the scraggly dudes who look like they were skinned alive drinking Jesus' blood just about did me in. As for Billy, I can't watch Titanic without wondering when he's going to turn around and try to eat Rose.
Serpent and the Rainbow-- Bill Pullman screaming, "I'm not dead!" when no one can hear him. *shivers*
Okay, I don't know what "strightly" is. It should be "strictly".
The Changeling's boy-in-the-floor. Or the red ball coming down the stairs. Or the pounding noise. Or the wheelchair. Or the voice on the reel-to-reel tape. Or...
Hell, just The Changeling. Scary as shit from beginning to end.
Slaughter High is probably not something a nine year old should ever watch. It mostly didn't bother me, but the very last shot of Marty, all scarred and cackling like a lunatic, had me hiding behind my sofa. Seriously.
Superman III, and not just because it was kind of a bad movie. For some reason, when the villainess gets turned into a robot...she creeped the holy hell out of me. I ran into the kitchen to hide.
The Exorcist. All of it was pretty dang scary, but that oft-seen shot of Reagan kneeling on her bed, backlit, with fog all around? *shudders* Gives me the willies.
I'm glad Halloween creeps someone else out. I'm a supposed grownup and play the Halloween theme, show me the creepy slow Mike Meyers stalk and I'm under the blankets screaming my fool head off.
~J
I loved The Watcher in the Woods and I have not seen it forever.
I don't really watch too many horror movies but you named some great moments.
Anything with a clown doll always ends with creepy! I just don't get the whole clown thing.
The Watcher in the Woods terrifies me to this day! That movie was just Disney demented... I still can't watch it til this day.
I can't even talk about the Ring. I was in my lonely college apartment all by myself when I saw that. I slept with the lights on for a week.
There are definitely scenes that stay wtith me.
The little girl in the basement killing her parents with a trowel in Night of the Living Dead.
The final scene in Audition with the acupuncture needles and the foot removal.
The moment Michael Meyers face appears from the shadows behind Laurie in Halloween.
Tim Curry's Pennywise pretty much whenever he's on screen in It, but particularly from the storm drain.
Finally, from the little seen When a Stranger Calls Back, the moment the audience realizes the killer is painted like the wall.
In law school, one of my buddies downloaded a Ring screensaver that looked like the images on the tape and put it on a friend's computer without his knowing. The results when friend came home drunk, lay down and looked over to see those horses, etc., flashing by...ah, i think you can still hear the screams.
My exwife was another fan of Watcher in the Woods, so you ain't alone on that one.
There were lots of boo! surprise! moments from horror movies as a kid, but the first thing I remember really creeping me out were the dead Diane Arbus twins from The Shining.