Halloween film fest

[VF21]

Okay, we've all got memories of that one movie that scared the living poop out of us the first time we saw it. I know mine is probably way too early for most of you, but I still cannot watch this B-movie classic from 1951 without remembering how much it scared me.

The Thing (from Another World)

I can still recall peeking at the movie from the back seat of my parents' car at the drive-in. It was the third movie on the bill that night and I was supposed to be sound asleep. I think I was about 5 at the time. I was busted by Mom and Dad when I started to cry.

I've seen it many times since then and still enjoy it, although I have gotten over the crying part. Dated? Sure. Done better by Carpenter? I don't think so. There's just something about the original that tingles the spine... and made it almost impossible for me to walk down our long hallway to my bedroom without all the lights on AND a flashlight in my hand.

So, what movie out of all the ones you've seen would you pick as the one that scared you the most?

 

[RookieOfTheDay]

The Thing (from Another World) is the one my dad says scared him the most as a kid, too. For me I don't think it was any single movie. It was a few movies that were out in the early 80s. Namely The Shining, Friday the 13th, and Poltergeist. Those are the ones i really remember being petrified by. I would have been traumatized by The Exorcist but I was actually too scared to watch that one until I was older.

I also remember being pretty scared by the Carpenter remake of The Thing. I was about 8 when that came out, prime age for being scared silly by horror films. I remember being particularly freaked out when the dogs started turning into things.

 

[Warhawk]

I watched the 1951 Thing with my dad as a kid and while it didn't "scare" me, it was a WELL done movie.

I generally don't care for "horror" movies. I don't enjoy them. I also don't see the point. What I do like are sci-fi movies with horror elements, if well done. For that reason, one of the movies I always remember liking when I was younger but also being on the horror side a bit is Alien. Aliens, however, is much more to my liking and one of my favorite films ever. More action than suspense.

I also remember seeing Jaws in a drive in (I was watching the screen next to the one I was supposed to) and that had me a bit freaked out as well.

 

[Löwenherz]

Certainly "Jaws" for me.

I'm not sure if my intense galeophobia came as a result of that movie or was merely exacerbated by it (I HATE Animal Planet's "Shark Week" *shudders*). Either way, I would pick to watch any horror movie, probably including Human Centipede ... maybe, before Jaws.

Also, "Odison" (The Audition) and "Ringu" (Original Japanese version of The Ring) both thoroughly creeped me out, the former for being painfully disturbing, enough so to force me to leave the room twice, and the latter for Sadako alone.

Still, the all-time champ for a movie inducing terror in me is Pee Wee's Big Adventure and the less than five minutes Large Marge is on screen.

 

[Bricklayer]

I'm on record about thinking Carpenter's The Thing might be the scariest film of all time. That got me from an early age. Alien was brilliant too. My dad took me to see that in the theaters in a move he said he regretted. Then to top things off they got me a glow in the dark alien model for Christmas that used to sit up there on the top shelf of my dresser and keep me up as I watched the dark crack in the ajar closet door. Also remember a major impact for the 1977 Invasion of the Body Snarchers -- like Carpenter's The Thing the theme of paranoia/not being able to trust people you've known your whole life as something unseen takes over is deeply unsettling.

As an aside those movies have held up as some of the scariest of all time from any age, but their first viewings for me all come at the same 8-12 year age where I think so many of everybody's nigtmares come from, even the ones that look silly years later. My mom was so terrified of The Creature From the Black Lagoon that she and my uncle ran out of the theater and all the way home. Try watching Creature From the Black Lagoon today with modern adult eyes and its kind of comical. BUt horror appears to be a relative thing. Under earlier standards, catching somebody right at the right age, its scary.

 

[Glenn]

This is probably an age thing but Creature from the Black Lagoon scared me a lot. I was probably 6 or so. The ages 8-12 may be the years we are the most susceptible to this kind of thing. Heck, the MGM lion brought me to tears of fright. A more modern movie (in my life time) is Alien. Human Centipede is just plain gross and ranks as one of the most disgusting I have seen. I am from the City of Lakes and was scared to enter the water after seeing Jaws and believe me folks, I was NOT a youngster. There was this creepy feeling ....

The greatest horror movies are masterpieces in my mind.

 

[kennadog]

First movie I went to without grownups along, maybe 10 or 11....The Blob. I watched most of it from the door to the lobby. Now days it looks utterly comical and fake. May have been the beginning of a long crush on Steve McQueen, though.

Really one of the most frightening to me of all time was The Haunting with Claire Bloom and Rosemary Harris (two exceptional actresses). Robert Wise directed it. It's scariest the first time of course, but I still get a good scare watching it. It was on late TV tonight. This one really got to me. It's the scariness of what will happen next and the scariness of things heard, but never seen. What you imagine is what is scary.

Aliens was great for a number of reasons, but the suspense was top-notch. And I only wish there had been a heroine like Ripley in any one of the movies I'd seen as a girl or teen. Back then girls always 1) screamed hysterically; 2) ran or tried to and 3) invariably fell down like a klutz. What role models of sheer stupidity and helplessness. Ugh.

And Jaws really terrified me. Was at a drive-in in a '56 T'Bird convertible. Really no where to hide from the scene on that huge screen. The opening scene has to rate as the single most terrifying scene I've ever watched. I have never felt quit so carefree swimming in the ocean, since I saw that.

I did like The Thing. Probably Carpenter's version, although at the time of the original is was a parable for the fear of communists spies amongst us, who could be your neighbor of best friend. Paranoia at the extreme.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

Really the only thing that scared me for whatever reason was Friday the 13th Part 3. I was like 8 or 9, had seen the first 2 on TV and we rented it, couldn't finish it and I had nightmares for weeks that Jason was in the house. Come to think of it this may have happened with the baddie from a Disney movie when I was even younger.

Jaws was maybe slightly scary for me if only because they actually killed a kid. But I went to the ocean without fear all the time.

I enjoy horror flicks and I guess I am fairly desensitized to them. But for whatever reason I can't watch more realistic medical procedures in non-horror.

Only scary movie I watched this season was Trick 'r Treat on Halloween night, something of a new tradition for me. Its an anthology movie a la creepshow, but the stories are woven together, about a town on Halloween night. More clever than scary, though not for kids.