What's your favorite scary movie?
October 28, 2024 10:14 AM Subscribe
This week is Halloween, and we seem overdue for a free thread. So, in honor of the the season and as Ghostface once famously asked, what's your favorite scary movie? If you're not a horror person, feel free to name any thriller, disturbing drama, unsettling documentary, or whatever. Or anything else you like, it's a #freethread.
Maybe the scariest movies I have seen were Hereditary and The Descent. But I wouldn’t call either one my favorite, especially since Hereditary made me feel ill enough that I sat outside the theater doors thinking of walking out.
I might say it was Midsommar or perhaps Skinamarink. Ghostbusters and Beetlejuice are comedies, but they were a formative source of terror when I was little. Naturally I loved them immediately.
posted by Countess Elena at 10:24 AM on October 28, 2024 [4 favorites]
I might say it was Midsommar or perhaps Skinamarink. Ghostbusters and Beetlejuice are comedies, but they were a formative source of terror when I was little. Naturally I loved them immediately.
posted by Countess Elena at 10:24 AM on October 28, 2024 [4 favorites]
Oh and while I'm here I'd also like to request that the studios just give Jordan Peele all of the buckets of money he wants to do however he pleases forever.
posted by phunniemee at 10:26 AM on October 28, 2024 [10 favorites]
posted by phunniemee at 10:26 AM on October 28, 2024 [10 favorites]
The "jump scare" kind of thing doesn't get to me, and not even all psychological horror gets to me. There usually has to be some kind of imagery combined with the psychology that gets under my skin. The three that properly freaked me out were Us, 28 Days Later, and Session 9.
And in case anyone wants a puppy break: on Saturday my neighborhood had a dog Halloween costume contest. The dog dressed as the Babybel Cheese won the whole thing - it actually unwrapped, and the red case even "unzipped" and came off too (you can see that here). The Babybel didn't even make it into the finalist's circle initially, but when the crowd heard the other finalists and heard it was missing, they started up a loud chant of "BAY-BEE-BELL! BAY-BEE-BELL!" until the judges relented.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:26 AM on October 28, 2024 [16 favorites]
And in case anyone wants a puppy break: on Saturday my neighborhood had a dog Halloween costume contest. The dog dressed as the Babybel Cheese won the whole thing - it actually unwrapped, and the red case even "unzipped" and came off too (you can see that here). The Babybel didn't even make it into the finalist's circle initially, but when the crowd heard the other finalists and heard it was missing, they started up a loud chant of "BAY-BEE-BELL! BAY-BEE-BELL!" until the judges relented.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:26 AM on October 28, 2024 [16 favorites]
I watched Alien and Poltergeist at a very young age - 8 or 9. They remain cherished classics for me.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 10:27 AM on October 28, 2024 [7 favorites]
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 10:27 AM on October 28, 2024 [7 favorites]
My partner and I follow #monsterdon on Mastodon, which is a weekly horror/monster watch party. For October we had four 70s vampire movies, including Nosferatu and Scream Blacula Scream. (We watched Blacula earlier this year.) If you're on the 'Don and like classic monster movies I highly recommend participating, it's a big fun party with bingo cards and fun quips and sincere appreciation for the genre.
There's a vote each week to see what movie is next and the strong favourite for the coming weekend is Them!
posted by seanmpuckett at 10:29 AM on October 28, 2024 [7 favorites]
There's a vote each week to see what movie is next and the strong favourite for the coming weekend is Them!
posted by seanmpuckett at 10:29 AM on October 28, 2024 [7 favorites]
Harry and the Hendersons scared the shit out of me when I was five. Does that count?
posted by downtohisturtles at 10:30 AM on October 28, 2024 [8 favorites]
posted by downtohisturtles at 10:30 AM on October 28, 2024 [8 favorites]
Oh and while I'm here I'd also like to request that the studios just give Jordan Peele all of the buckets of money he wants to do however he pleases forever.
I'm amazed that the studios aren't making/distributing more scary films. They're low cost and low risk.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 10:31 AM on October 28, 2024
I'm amazed that the studios aren't making/distributing more scary films. They're low cost and low risk.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 10:31 AM on October 28, 2024
I'm actually more or less useless at answering my own question, because I watch so much horror that I have mentally divided what "scary movie" even means to me into like 30 subcategories. Tragic horror, traumatizing horror, sad horror, unsettling horror, sleazy horror, WTF horror and on and on.
I will say though that while I actually watch a ton of movies across a wide variety of genres (and I probably watch as much or more bleak Eastern European stuff these days than horror), horror will always remain a favorite of mine as one of the only genres where films still regularly get made off of the strength of an original idea and/or via the efforts of an energetic newcomer.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:34 AM on October 28, 2024 [4 favorites]
I will say though that while I actually watch a ton of movies across a wide variety of genres (and I probably watch as much or more bleak Eastern European stuff these days than horror), horror will always remain a favorite of mine as one of the only genres where films still regularly get made off of the strength of an original idea and/or via the efforts of an energetic newcomer.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:34 AM on October 28, 2024 [4 favorites]
I'm amazed that the studios aren't making/distributing more scary films.
Hallmark Christmas movie equivalent of horror? I would stream.
posted by phunniemee at 10:34 AM on October 28, 2024 [3 favorites]
Hallmark Christmas movie equivalent of horror? I would stream.
posted by phunniemee at 10:34 AM on October 28, 2024 [3 favorites]
"Let the right one in" (Swedish original) has a good blend of vampire scare, and a more philosophical approach, that actually had me thinking about the movie for several days.
posted by Rabarberofficer at 10:35 AM on October 28, 2024 [15 favorites]
posted by Rabarberofficer at 10:35 AM on October 28, 2024 [15 favorites]
Never been a horror movie fan, so my knowledge is limited.
But, John Carpenter's The Thing has terrified me for many years...
posted by Windopaene at 10:35 AM on October 28, 2024 [7 favorites]
But, John Carpenter's The Thing has terrified me for many years...
posted by Windopaene at 10:35 AM on October 28, 2024 [7 favorites]
Hallmark Christmas movie equivalent of horror? I would stream.
Wait, answering my own comment with a plug for the Lifetime TV movie Amish Witches.
posted by phunniemee at 10:36 AM on October 28, 2024
Wait, answering my own comment with a plug for the Lifetime TV movie Amish Witches.
posted by phunniemee at 10:36 AM on October 28, 2024
I'm not a horror fan at all. But replace "orr" with "um", and I'm your guy!
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:37 AM on October 28, 2024 [3 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:37 AM on October 28, 2024 [3 favorites]
I'm amazed that the studios aren't making/distributing more scary films. They're low cost and low risk.
Exactly! I would love to see the horror model more freely applied to every genre of film. Make ten $10 million movies instead of one $100 million one. Or go even cheaper - Terrifier 3 cost $2 million and is sitting at $45 million in box office now.
I think you can get that kind of investment/return with rom-coms, buddy comedies, gross-out comedies, historical dramas, etc... it's just horror seems to be the only place where people are willing to gamble on tiny-budgeted things.
posted by skullhead at 10:40 AM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
Exactly! I would love to see the horror model more freely applied to every genre of film. Make ten $10 million movies instead of one $100 million one. Or go even cheaper - Terrifier 3 cost $2 million and is sitting at $45 million in box office now.
I think you can get that kind of investment/return with rom-coms, buddy comedies, gross-out comedies, historical dramas, etc... it's just horror seems to be the only place where people are willing to gamble on tiny-budgeted things.
posted by skullhead at 10:40 AM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
Why don't we just... wait here for a little while. See what happens.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 10:41 AM on October 28, 2024 [10 favorites]
posted by BitterOldPunk at 10:41 AM on October 28, 2024 [10 favorites]
I’ve seen too many to pick a favorite, or, maybe, my favorite is the one I’m thinking about at any given moment. Lately, I’ve been thinking about Host, about a group of friends who do a seance over Zoom during the early lockdowns with predictably bad consequences. It was filmed at the time, with all of the actors isolated and handling their own cameras and special effects. It’s not the best film I’ve ever seen, but it’s economical and effective and it captures the claustrophobia of the period really well. Perfect for viewing on your own computer screen as well.
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:41 AM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by GenjiandProust at 10:41 AM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
Oh, and favorite horror:
Scariest: Ouija: Origin of Evil. That sumbitch goes way harder than a prequel to a horror movie about a video game has any right to.
Most fun: The Final Girls (2015). A group of modern teens gets sucked into an 80s slasher movie--meta, hilarious, heartfelt and glorious.
Recent fave: The Substance did a lot of neat stuff, even if it dragged a little at the end.
posted by skullhead at 10:42 AM on October 28, 2024 [4 favorites]
Scariest: Ouija: Origin of Evil. That sumbitch goes way harder than a prequel to a horror movie about a video game has any right to.
Most fun: The Final Girls (2015). A group of modern teens gets sucked into an 80s slasher movie--meta, hilarious, heartfelt and glorious.
Recent fave: The Substance did a lot of neat stuff, even if it dragged a little at the end.
posted by skullhead at 10:42 AM on October 28, 2024 [4 favorites]
The floating vampire child in Tobe Hooper's TV movie version of Salem's Lot scared the shit out of me at the time. The latest version not so much...
posted by aeshnid at 10:43 AM on October 28, 2024 [3 favorites]
posted by aeshnid at 10:43 AM on October 28, 2024 [3 favorites]
And in case anyone wants a puppy break: on Saturday my neighborhood had a dog Halloween costume contest.
We had one in my 'hood as well. Highlights:
posted by Mayor West at 10:43 AM on October 28, 2024 [9 favorites]
We had one in my 'hood as well. Highlights:
- Family dressed as Storrow Drive, including "Cars Only" warning sign, with dog dressed as a U-Haul truck with its roof peeled off
- Taco truck dog
- Band of silver-painted War Boys with dog dressed as Furiosa in an amazing wagon festooned like the rig in Fury Road
posted by Mayor West at 10:43 AM on October 28, 2024 [9 favorites]
if you really want a stream of horror delivered straight to you, you don't need to hope the studios come around and put more in theaters, you just need the streaming service Shudder. Although they can be up and down at times, depending on their luck at uncovering and licensing new stuff, they are doing pretty well again of late and in any case have a terrific back catalog you can dig in on.
Right now, for instance, you can stream all of these on Shudder: Possession, Evil Dead 2, Deep red, Ghostwatch, Black Christmas, Audition, Carnival of Souls, Candyman, The day of the Beast, Ginger Snaps, Mandy, The Changeling, When Evil Lurks, Mute Witness, It follows, Kill List, Oddity (my favorite horror film of 2024 so far), Dead & Buried, eyes of fire, Late Night with the Devil, Dog Soldiers, The Babadook, Resurrection, Speak No Evil (the original 2022 version), House of the Devil, A Dark Song, Vermines, Deadstream, Satan's Slaves I & II, Hush, Host, Terrified, The Relic, Hellbender, Caveat, Come True, The Prowler...
And a fun fact is that while you can absolutely get a 7 day trial for free through Shudder directly, you can also get one through AMC+, Apple TV, and Amazon Prime, and as far as I know getting a trial at one doesn't keep you from getting a trial at another.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:44 AM on October 28, 2024 [4 favorites]
Right now, for instance, you can stream all of these on Shudder: Possession, Evil Dead 2, Deep red, Ghostwatch, Black Christmas, Audition, Carnival of Souls, Candyman, The day of the Beast, Ginger Snaps, Mandy, The Changeling, When Evil Lurks, Mute Witness, It follows, Kill List, Oddity (my favorite horror film of 2024 so far), Dead & Buried, eyes of fire, Late Night with the Devil, Dog Soldiers, The Babadook, Resurrection, Speak No Evil (the original 2022 version), House of the Devil, A Dark Song, Vermines, Deadstream, Satan's Slaves I & II, Hush, Host, Terrified, The Relic, Hellbender, Caveat, Come True, The Prowler...
And a fun fact is that while you can absolutely get a 7 day trial for free through Shudder directly, you can also get one through AMC+, Apple TV, and Amazon Prime, and as far as I know getting a trial at one doesn't keep you from getting a trial at another.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:44 AM on October 28, 2024 [4 favorites]
I watched 'Deadstream' again last night with Mrs. Coke Spoon. Great fun!
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 10:48 AM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 10:48 AM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
My basically-everyone-on-Mefi-should-see-this-one horror rec for 2024 is Oddity which is free on Shudder and available to rent elsewhere.
In short: two sisters are obsessed with the supernatural. One marries a local doctor and they buy a historic property, which she begins studying for signs of paranormal activity. The other, who is blind, opens a store selling cursed antiquities. [Plot stuff happens] and then sister number two shows up at the old house with a trunk, to settle some things.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:50 AM on October 28, 2024 [7 favorites]
In short: two sisters are obsessed with the supernatural. One marries a local doctor and they buy a historic property, which she begins studying for signs of paranormal activity. The other, who is blind, opens a store selling cursed antiquities. [Plot stuff happens] and then sister number two shows up at the old house with a trunk, to settle some things.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:50 AM on October 28, 2024 [7 favorites]
I don't like scary stuff and barely made it through Stranger Things and the flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz terrified me as a child so y'all have fun with your spooky time!
posted by cooker girl at 10:55 AM on October 28, 2024 [6 favorites]
posted by cooker girl at 10:55 AM on October 28, 2024 [6 favorites]
If anyone wants a recco for kind, gentle spooky, allow me to recommend the series Ghost Whisperer starring Jennifer Love Hewitt which slaps way harder than you would expect.
Featuring:
- a love interest who immediately believes her
- incredible 00s fashion
- cozy small town mysteries
- what if the real haunting is all the friends we made along the way
posted by phunniemee at 10:59 AM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
Featuring:
- a love interest who immediately believes her
- incredible 00s fashion
- cozy small town mysteries
- what if the real haunting is all the friends we made along the way
posted by phunniemee at 10:59 AM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
few more ideas that I haven't seen mentioned
1. let's scare jessica to death - hard to be objective about how this holds up now, because things that left an impression on us as young kids somehow still trigger us in some associative way even decades later ... but I always thought this was worth viewing because a) the music was unsettling and helped make the move (it follows succeeded partly due to music too imo) and maybe more importanly b) the horror could work both on level of supernatural and/or not, given the perspective you want to take .. much like how the shining worked if you just consider the horror of an alcoholic abusive Dad at a remote location, that is more than enough unsettling to experience without needing to buy into the additional angles
2. dead end - much more recent than the former (but hardly new) because there is some creepiness to it and it's not just any ol' slasher movie
3. it's what's inside - new(ish) addition to netflix that wasn't all that *scary* per se, but certainly entertaining enough and at least has an original take on what might not be an entirely new idea
posted by clandestiny's child at 10:59 AM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
1. let's scare jessica to death - hard to be objective about how this holds up now, because things that left an impression on us as young kids somehow still trigger us in some associative way even decades later ... but I always thought this was worth viewing because a) the music was unsettling and helped make the move (it follows succeeded partly due to music too imo) and maybe more importanly b) the horror could work both on level of supernatural and/or not, given the perspective you want to take .. much like how the shining worked if you just consider the horror of an alcoholic abusive Dad at a remote location, that is more than enough unsettling to experience without needing to buy into the additional angles
2. dead end - much more recent than the former (but hardly new) because there is some creepiness to it and it's not just any ol' slasher movie
3. it's what's inside - new(ish) addition to netflix that wasn't all that *scary* per se, but certainly entertaining enough and at least has an original take on what might not be an entirely new idea
posted by clandestiny's child at 10:59 AM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
hmmm I don't think I can pick one. I am only a moderately invested horror fan but I do love...
Alien
The Shining
The VVitch
Jordan Peele's 3 so far (more please!)
although The Descent doesn't get on my fav list I do want to chime in on it here because its so rare to have an all woman cast and the hubristical leader who brings them all to peril is also a woman. Its a good fun scare of a flick!
posted by supermedusa at 11:00 AM on October 28, 2024 [3 favorites]
Alien
The Shining
The VVitch
Jordan Peele's 3 so far (more please!)
although The Descent doesn't get on my fav list I do want to chime in on it here because its so rare to have an all woman cast and the hubristical leader who brings them all to peril is also a woman. Its a good fun scare of a flick!
posted by supermedusa at 11:00 AM on October 28, 2024 [3 favorites]
I think "Fallen" with Denzel Washington counts. "Deadset" which is like a British mini-series is good. The Zach Snyder "Dawn of the Dead" was great. I thought "Black Phone" hit all the right notes and "Willy's Wonderland" was not good, but it was thoroughly enjoyable.
posted by BeReasonable at 11:00 AM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by BeReasonable at 11:00 AM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
oh, and if series are allowed ... (are they?)
4. haunting of hill house - because it has a lot going for it, and in a lot of ways has horrors that are real enough (family dysfunction among them :) ) ... It's so good that I'm sure it's been covered prob even more than once here, but in case there's anyone who missed out ... and it has some genuinely very creepy scenes in a few episodes that exceed the creepiness of many films
posted by clandestiny's child at 11:03 AM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
4. haunting of hill house - because it has a lot going for it, and in a lot of ways has horrors that are real enough (family dysfunction among them :) ) ... It's so good that I'm sure it's been covered prob even more than once here, but in case there's anyone who missed out ... and it has some genuinely very creepy scenes in a few episodes that exceed the creepiness of many films
posted by clandestiny's child at 11:03 AM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
The Babadook probably stayed with me the longest, largely because it's such an effective vehicle for ramping up your stress levels that (Spoilers!) by the end, when the protagonist is ready to murder her innocent child, you feel like you totally get where she's coming from. Also, an unexpected ending that totally makes sense and is kind enough to relieve the tension of the previous 90 minutes (which shows a lot of confidence, I think. A lot of indie horror will end more nihilistically whether or not the story calls for that because it subverts expectations, or might get more buzz, or just because the creators can't imagine their way out of that tone. The Babadook knows that it's effective and absolutely fucking terrifying, though, and can end on a more hopeful note without diluting that.
Shaun of the Dead isn't really horror, but it's gotta be one of the best-written movies anywhere in that universe. Just a funny, compelling, absolutely air-tight script where seemingly everything that happens in it ends up mattering later.
I watched The Menu and Bodies Bodies Bodies pretty recently, and both were nastily fun black-comedy takes on the genre. Of the two, The Menu is definitely the scarier (on a psychological horror level) but Bodies Bodies Bodies is the more fun.
posted by Navelgazer at 11:03 AM on October 28, 2024 [5 favorites]
Shaun of the Dead isn't really horror, but it's gotta be one of the best-written movies anywhere in that universe. Just a funny, compelling, absolutely air-tight script where seemingly everything that happens in it ends up mattering later.
I watched The Menu and Bodies Bodies Bodies pretty recently, and both were nastily fun black-comedy takes on the genre. Of the two, The Menu is definitely the scarier (on a psychological horror level) but Bodies Bodies Bodies is the more fun.
posted by Navelgazer at 11:03 AM on October 28, 2024 [5 favorites]
Also, more Americans need to watch the UK TV movie classic Ghostwatch.
Basically--and stop me if I have this wrong UK folks--in the 80's/90's there was a trend to have one-off reality shows called ____watch. They would follow a fire station, a hospital, cops, whatever, with cameras and famous TV presenters.
The clever people who made Ghostwatch hired a bunch of those presenters and had them play themselves in what starts out as a spot-on recreation (bordering on parody) of those cheesy TV spectacles, in this case spending the evening with a single mother and her daughters in a supposedly haunted row house. It starts as mundane, even mildly boring, takes a few left turns, but then gets steadily more and more unsettling, then frightening.
It is SO GOOD. It's on Shudder, but it's also free on Tubi and Hoopla. Bonus, here's a doc on it: Ghostwatch: The BBC Halloween Horror That Went Too Far.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:04 AM on October 28, 2024 [11 favorites]
Basically--and stop me if I have this wrong UK folks--in the 80's/90's there was a trend to have one-off reality shows called ____watch. They would follow a fire station, a hospital, cops, whatever, with cameras and famous TV presenters.
The clever people who made Ghostwatch hired a bunch of those presenters and had them play themselves in what starts out as a spot-on recreation (bordering on parody) of those cheesy TV spectacles, in this case spending the evening with a single mother and her daughters in a supposedly haunted row house. It starts as mundane, even mildly boring, takes a few left turns, but then gets steadily more and more unsettling, then frightening.
It is SO GOOD. It's on Shudder, but it's also free on Tubi and Hoopla. Bonus, here's a doc on it: Ghostwatch: The BBC Halloween Horror That Went Too Far.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:04 AM on October 28, 2024 [11 favorites]
I am Not Into Horror. That said, I will watch Blair Witch because it's a comedy, Cabin in the Woods because it's well done, and I forget what else I could tolerate. I think I'm more into sorta-horror TV/books than horror movies, because I watched Buffy and Supernatural and read a lot of Anita Blake back before that series curdled. But super grossout shit, no thank you, and terminally dumb people, ugh.
Is the appeal of horror movies to watch people do dumb shit and then get killed? I ask this seriously, having watched "Jekyll and Hyde" recently and wanting to yell, "DON'T SING A SONG RIGHT NOW! DON'T TELL HIM WHERE YOU'RE GOING!" at the people onstage.
Other than that: saw 3 shows again this weekend.
* Come From Away, brilliant as always
* Puffs: had the best set design I've ever seen in my life
* The Wiz: way more fun than the original.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:06 AM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
Is the appeal of horror movies to watch people do dumb shit and then get killed? I ask this seriously, having watched "Jekyll and Hyde" recently and wanting to yell, "DON'T SING A SONG RIGHT NOW! DON'T TELL HIM WHERE YOU'RE GOING!" at the people onstage.
Other than that: saw 3 shows again this weekend.
* Come From Away, brilliant as always
* Puffs: had the best set design I've ever seen in my life
* The Wiz: way more fun than the original.
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:06 AM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
I am joining the chorus of those who watched such-and-such at a young age, and while these films are not my favourite scary movies they left a mark on me for the time I watched them:
Jaws, at the drive in, younger than 7 yrs. Deep dark water still gets me.
Live theatrical production of And Then There Were None (it had a different title at the time). I think I was younger than 6 yrs and the plot twist blew my mind, and I'm not sure my appreciation of real vs. staged was quite mature enough.
Halloween 2. Nothing about this film should stick out, but we'd returned from overseas and it was back when families rented a VHS player and 3-4 movies for a weekend and that film scared the shit out of me. I couldn't be alone in a dark room for ages.
28 Days Later disturbed me in entirely different ways, but the visceral fears of youth cannot be matched
posted by ginger.beef at 11:11 AM on October 28, 2024 [3 favorites]
Jaws, at the drive in, younger than 7 yrs. Deep dark water still gets me.
Live theatrical production of And Then There Were None (it had a different title at the time). I think I was younger than 6 yrs and the plot twist blew my mind, and I'm not sure my appreciation of real vs. staged was quite mature enough.
Halloween 2. Nothing about this film should stick out, but we'd returned from overseas and it was back when families rented a VHS player and 3-4 movies for a weekend and that film scared the shit out of me. I couldn't be alone in a dark room for ages.
28 Days Later disturbed me in entirely different ways, but the visceral fears of youth cannot be matched
posted by ginger.beef at 11:11 AM on October 28, 2024 [3 favorites]
The Changeling, with George C Scott, is a perfect haunted-house slow-burn thriller.
posted by jpeacock at 11:12 AM on October 28, 2024 [10 favorites]
posted by jpeacock at 11:12 AM on October 28, 2024 [10 favorites]
Is the appeal of horror movies to watch people do dumb shit and then get killed?
No, for me the appeal of horror movies is to deal with fear and anxiety in a closed environment. This turns out to be pretty common. Link. Link 2. Link 3. Link 4. Link 5.
As Wes Craven once said, "Horror movies do not create fear; they release it."
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:14 AM on October 28, 2024 [6 favorites]
No, for me the appeal of horror movies is to deal with fear and anxiety in a closed environment. This turns out to be pretty common. Link. Link 2. Link 3. Link 4. Link 5.
As Wes Craven once said, "Horror movies do not create fear; they release it."
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:14 AM on October 28, 2024 [6 favorites]
I'm not usually all that into horror, and even less so gory splatterhouse. But Ash Vs. Evil Dead was hilarious and so over the top that it was just funny-gross instead of gross-gross for me.
posted by biogeo at 11:14 AM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by biogeo at 11:14 AM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
Alien and it's not even close.
posted by saladin at 11:15 AM on October 28, 2024 [5 favorites]
posted by saladin at 11:15 AM on October 28, 2024 [5 favorites]
I have given people copies of Ghostwatch as random gifts because I want everyone to watch it. I'm looking forward to watching my Blu-ray of it this year (I haven't explored the extras but I'll be doing that).
I think my favorite scary movies are the original Halloween and (the original) The Haunting.
(I love Alien and I agree that it's horror but I feel like it's in a separate category for me.)
I didn't go as hard on spooky season this year when it came to movies, although I did do a Witch Week (but those were just fun ones overall rather than horror). I'm still watching my favorites this week and I'll be seeing Young Frankenstein at the AFI Silver on Halloween itself. That's not really a horror movie but I always check to see what will be at AFI on Halloween and I was delighted that was for this year.
posted by edencosmic at 11:19 AM on October 28, 2024 [3 favorites]
I think my favorite scary movies are the original Halloween and (the original) The Haunting.
(I love Alien and I agree that it's horror but I feel like it's in a separate category for me.)
I didn't go as hard on spooky season this year when it came to movies, although I did do a Witch Week (but those were just fun ones overall rather than horror). I'm still watching my favorites this week and I'll be seeing Young Frankenstein at the AFI Silver on Halloween itself. That's not really a horror movie but I always check to see what will be at AFI on Halloween and I was delighted that was for this year.
posted by edencosmic at 11:19 AM on October 28, 2024 [3 favorites]
omg funny horror is it's own thing
Evil Dead 2 was so much fun, esp. having watched it with the right gang of friends
then I watched an early Peter Jackson film, Dead Alive, and nearly peed my pants laughing. when a putrefied boil ejects pus into a bowl of custard and the local vicar proceeds to slurp it up, you know it's quality
posted by ginger.beef at 11:21 AM on October 28, 2024 [4 favorites]
Evil Dead 2 was so much fun, esp. having watched it with the right gang of friends
then I watched an early Peter Jackson film, Dead Alive, and nearly peed my pants laughing. when a putrefied boil ejects pus into a bowl of custard and the local vicar proceeds to slurp it up, you know it's quality
posted by ginger.beef at 11:21 AM on October 28, 2024 [4 favorites]
edencosmic: "It's just pipes."
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:22 AM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:22 AM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
rewatched Wes Craven's Scream (the original) recently and it's an absolute masterpiece
posted by dis_integration at 11:25 AM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by dis_integration at 11:25 AM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
If anyone's looking for something a little more off-the-beaten-path, I saw Encounters Of The Spooky Kind last week and had a fucking blast. Hong Kong action legend Sammo Hung in a very goofy kung fu horror comedy. Completely unhinged.
posted by sunimplodes at 11:25 AM on October 28, 2024 [3 favorites]
posted by sunimplodes at 11:25 AM on October 28, 2024 [3 favorites]
No, for me the appeal of horror movies is to deal with fear and anxiety in a closed environment.
No thank you, I had enough of that at my old job. :P
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:25 AM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
No thank you, I had enough of that at my old job. :P
posted by jenfullmoon at 11:25 AM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
The stages of Ghostwatch:
-Goddammit, did I get talked into watching some quaint TV-movie about ghosts?
-OK, so it's maybe fine, in a TV movie way, I guess. WAIT. What in the fuck was that? Rewind. Rewind now. Do you you see that?
-OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:26 AM on October 28, 2024 [8 favorites]
-Goddammit, did I get talked into watching some quaint TV-movie about ghosts?
-OK, so it's maybe fine, in a TV movie way, I guess. WAIT. What in the fuck was that? Rewind. Rewind now. Do you you see that?
-OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:26 AM on October 28, 2024 [8 favorites]
@edencosmic @dirtyoldtown I was so disappointed by Late Night With The Devil because I saw it just a few days after discovering Ghostwatch. It absolutely rules.
posted by sunimplodes at 11:27 AM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by sunimplodes at 11:27 AM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
It was my turn on Friday to pick something to watch for family movie night, and I thought that a gory, suspenseful whodunit about an evil cult which takes over a small town would fit the bill, so that's why we watched "Hot Fuzz".
posted by vverse23 at 11:28 AM on October 28, 2024 [7 favorites]
posted by vverse23 at 11:28 AM on October 28, 2024 [7 favorites]
I could devote the rest of my viewing years to watching DOT's recommendations and never get to the finish line
posted by ginger.beef at 11:28 AM on October 28, 2024 [3 favorites]
posted by ginger.beef at 11:28 AM on October 28, 2024 [3 favorites]
Get Out remains my favorite.
posted by kylefreund at 11:38 AM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by kylefreund at 11:38 AM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
My favorite horror films I've seen in the last couple of years:
Possession (1981) is amazing. It was free on Kanopy this summer. Hopefully it still is!
Barbarian (2022) is also amazing, but differently amazing. Ridiculous in the best possible way.
I Saw The TV Glow (2024): I keep thinking about this film, months after seeing it. Truly haunting.
I think there's an argument that Under the Silver Lake (2018) is a scary film. I saw it for the first time last summer and have watched it several more times since then. It is flawed but somehow at the same time perfect?
Would watch any of these again in a heartbeat. Have been strategizing carefully about how to get my wife to watch any of these with me...
posted by evinrude at 11:41 AM on October 28, 2024 [5 favorites]
Possession (1981) is amazing. It was free on Kanopy this summer. Hopefully it still is!
Barbarian (2022) is also amazing, but differently amazing. Ridiculous in the best possible way.
I Saw The TV Glow (2024): I keep thinking about this film, months after seeing it. Truly haunting.
I think there's an argument that Under the Silver Lake (2018) is a scary film. I saw it for the first time last summer and have watched it several more times since then. It is flawed but somehow at the same time perfect?
Would watch any of these again in a heartbeat. Have been strategizing carefully about how to get my wife to watch any of these with me...
posted by evinrude at 11:41 AM on October 28, 2024 [5 favorites]
Paranormal Activity works well for me. The film invites the audience to "be the detective" and watch for the signs of Activity. Wait! What is that shadow? Did you see that? The toy moved by itself! The best "jump scares" are the ones where the audience itself opens the closet door.
posted by SPrintF at 11:41 AM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by SPrintF at 11:41 AM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
> Alien and it's not even close.
I watched Alien on a big screen in Oakbrook IL during opening week, getting driven to the theater because I'd prepared by consuming 4 tabs of the rather weak blotter that was available in 1979 about an hour before showtime.
Not even close.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 11:43 AM on October 28, 2024 [5 favorites]
I watched Alien on a big screen in Oakbrook IL during opening week, getting driven to the theater because I'd prepared by consuming 4 tabs of the rather weak blotter that was available in 1979 about an hour before showtime.
Not even close.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 11:43 AM on October 28, 2024 [5 favorites]
Late Night With The Devil
So you're saying, it's not a biopic about Jay Leno...?
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:44 AM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
So you're saying, it's not a biopic about Jay Leno...?
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:44 AM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
Silent Hill. It's not a "good" movie but it was upsetting and disturbing in a way that left me a bit weird for a couple days.
posted by constraint at 11:47 AM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by constraint at 11:47 AM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
At the Movies showed a clip from Videodrome that gave me nightmares as a kid (the tape suddenly coming to life in James Woods' hands), but I later saw as an adult and was OK with it. Wish we'd gotten more of the wisdom of Brian O'Blivion.
I saw The Thing as a teenager--on network TV--and they didn't bleep the "Fuck you!" which good for them.
Hellraiser 1-3 were big faves in my twenties because of the oddly sexy monsters.
The Cornetto Trilogy mixes comedy and horror well.
I have a rewatch of Over the Garden Wall every year now in October. And the MST3K version of The Mask. Love the big Mask puppet at the end, equal parts creepy and goofy.
posted by The Ardship of Cambry at 11:48 AM on October 28, 2024 [4 favorites]
I saw The Thing as a teenager--on network TV--and they didn't bleep the "Fuck you!" which good for them.
Hellraiser 1-3 were big faves in my twenties because of the oddly sexy monsters.
The Cornetto Trilogy mixes comedy and horror well.
I have a rewatch of Over the Garden Wall every year now in October. And the MST3K version of The Mask. Love the big Mask puppet at the end, equal parts creepy and goofy.
posted by The Ardship of Cambry at 11:48 AM on October 28, 2024 [4 favorites]
@SPrintF: Paranormal Activity was a more recent one that gave me nightmares! I kept thinking something was going to drag me down the hallway by the ankle.
posted by The Ardship of Cambry at 11:50 AM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by The Ardship of Cambry at 11:50 AM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
The Haunting (1963 version) scared the bejeebers outta me when I saw it as a kid and I think it's still pretty creepy.
posted by jabo at 12:00 PM on October 28, 2024 [5 favorites]
posted by jabo at 12:00 PM on October 28, 2024 [5 favorites]
Many, many years ago, more than 50 at least, I came across an image of Boris Karloff as The Monster from Frankenstein(1931) in the back of a comic book. It's one of the most important moments for me in my aesthetic life, and triggered a lifelong interest in the classic monsters. I was a monster kid, but living in small towns in BC in the '70s meant I was never going to see any of these films, except King Kong, which popped up from time to time on local TV. So, I bought monster books as a child, filled with lurid, wonderful pics of the old classic monsters. Pretty tame stuff now but to a 10 year old boy amazed by monsters it was pretty darn extraordinary.
I also learned to draw, in part, by endless drawing monsters from the photos in the books.
But Frankenstein was the favourite.
To this day I still draw Karloff as the Monster from the '31 film, it's one of my obsessions as an artist.
So, yeah, Frankenstein will always be my favourite horror film. Karloff is stunning in that film, and those first few seconds when you him turn around and reveal his face for the first time are incredible; his eyes were so evocative.
There are so many truly scary and wonderful films out there but I will leave off now.
posted by Phlegmco(tm) at 12:01 PM on October 28, 2024 [8 favorites]
I also learned to draw, in part, by endless drawing monsters from the photos in the books.
But Frankenstein was the favourite.
To this day I still draw Karloff as the Monster from the '31 film, it's one of my obsessions as an artist.
So, yeah, Frankenstein will always be my favourite horror film. Karloff is stunning in that film, and those first few seconds when you him turn around and reveal his face for the first time are incredible; his eyes were so evocative.
There are so many truly scary and wonderful films out there but I will leave off now.
posted by Phlegmco(tm) at 12:01 PM on October 28, 2024 [8 favorites]
I have many thoughts.
I'm a big fan of The People Under the Stairs. It is a weird movie, but it has its heart in the right place. It is a lot more direct about the whole "the real horror is conservative America" stuff that shows up in Craven's other work.
Wes Craven's New Nightmare is a really fun, at points genuinely creepy bit of clever horror metafiction. It sort of does what In the Mouth of Madness does, but using the actual Nightmare on Elm Street movies as source material rather than the fictional Sutter Kane's work.
David Lynch's Rabbits is always good to put on for a bit of low key creepiness at two in the morning. It is a surreal set of shorts that is like the hollowed out shell of a sitcom that something awful as has taken up residence in. And everyone is wearing weird rabbit costumes.
And my. one of my favorite bits of seasonal comfort food, the much maligned Halloween 3: Season of the Witch. It scared the pants off me as a kid, but as an adult it is just comfortably spooky and very seasonal.
A big bunch of old spooky Vinvent Price movies is also good for that spooky but not scary background atmosphere.
If you like or horror, or don't like horror but still want to see someone passionate about it talk thoughtfully about it the Dan Drambles youtube channel is great. Especially his "Wholesome Halloween" series.
Other fun ones are Goose Boose who does a series most Octobers called Traumathon, about things folks saw as kids that spooked them badly. Most of the stuff on there is a decade or so too late to have spooked me, but the videos are fun.
And Christine McConnell's channel, which has lots of lovely things, including creepy baking and crafts. If you have a chance to watch her Netflix series, it is only one season of six episodes, but it is a hoot.
posted by pattern juggler at 12:02 PM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
I'm a big fan of The People Under the Stairs. It is a weird movie, but it has its heart in the right place. It is a lot more direct about the whole "the real horror is conservative America" stuff that shows up in Craven's other work.
Wes Craven's New Nightmare is a really fun, at points genuinely creepy bit of clever horror metafiction. It sort of does what In the Mouth of Madness does, but using the actual Nightmare on Elm Street movies as source material rather than the fictional Sutter Kane's work.
David Lynch's Rabbits is always good to put on for a bit of low key creepiness at two in the morning. It is a surreal set of shorts that is like the hollowed out shell of a sitcom that something awful as has taken up residence in. And everyone is wearing weird rabbit costumes.
And my. one of my favorite bits of seasonal comfort food, the much maligned Halloween 3: Season of the Witch. It scared the pants off me as a kid, but as an adult it is just comfortably spooky and very seasonal.
A big bunch of old spooky Vinvent Price movies is also good for that spooky but not scary background atmosphere.
If you like or horror, or don't like horror but still want to see someone passionate about it talk thoughtfully about it the Dan Drambles youtube channel is great. Especially his "Wholesome Halloween" series.
Other fun ones are Goose Boose who does a series most Octobers called Traumathon, about things folks saw as kids that spooked them badly. Most of the stuff on there is a decade or so too late to have spooked me, but the videos are fun.
And Christine McConnell's channel, which has lots of lovely things, including creepy baking and crafts. If you have a chance to watch her Netflix series, it is only one season of six episodes, but it is a hoot.
posted by pattern juggler at 12:02 PM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
These aren't the scariest movies, but I really like them;
The Terrortory 2: It's an anthology that takes place in a forest. It's not stated explicitly, but the monsters behave like dark fey. If you know the rules, and behave appropriately, you're OK. If not, you're dead. And if you're clever, you can use the rules to your advantage.
Dave Made a Maze: It's more amusing than scary, even festive in parts, but the "Hey Guys! High Five!" scene is really creepy.
Savageland is a good fake documentary about a western (USA) town being destroyed, and the man held responsible for it.
And since other people mentioned them, Lake Mungo's good. I didn't find it scary at all, but it's just really melancholy and sad. Willy's Wonderland is a trip.
posted by Spike Glee at 12:03 PM on October 28, 2024 [4 favorites]
The Terrortory 2: It's an anthology that takes place in a forest. It's not stated explicitly, but the monsters behave like dark fey. If you know the rules, and behave appropriately, you're OK. If not, you're dead. And if you're clever, you can use the rules to your advantage.
Dave Made a Maze: It's more amusing than scary, even festive in parts, but the "Hey Guys! High Five!" scene is really creepy.
Savageland is a good fake documentary about a western (USA) town being destroyed, and the man held responsible for it.
And since other people mentioned them, Lake Mungo's good. I didn't find it scary at all, but it's just really melancholy and sad. Willy's Wonderland is a trip.
posted by Spike Glee at 12:03 PM on October 28, 2024 [4 favorites]
I was cool on it at first but over time Noroi has won me over and become my favorite horror movie. I love the way it starts with a bunch of disconnected threads and follows them back to their source, the slow mysterious development, the outright freaky weirdness. It's really on the restrained end of Koji Shiraishi's ouvre, and I'm so pleased it's finally getting a physical release in the US as part of the "J-Horror Rising" set.
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:05 PM on October 28, 2024 [3 favorites]
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:05 PM on October 28, 2024 [3 favorites]
If you want some suggestions that are all over the map, you might enjoy SHOCKtober on Final Girl, the blog by Stacie Ponder of Rue Morgue and Gaylord’s of Darkness game. She asks her readers to send her a list of 20 movies, with or without commentary, and then posts them in vote order. It’s fun!
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:05 PM on October 28, 2024 [3 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:05 PM on October 28, 2024 [3 favorites]
Talk to Me was an unexpected treat, particularly the performances from the two (kid) leads. Very atmospheric!
Session 9 is probably my benchmark for horror, but be sure to watch the theatrical release and not the version that "explains" everything.
Blair Witch Project came out my freshman year of college and was the first horror film to really use the internet to create a plausible backstory. I don't think something like that could be replicated now and it's hard to explain how effective it was.
posted by orrnyereg at 12:05 PM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
Session 9 is probably my benchmark for horror, but be sure to watch the theatrical release and not the version that "explains" everything.
Blair Witch Project came out my freshman year of college and was the first horror film to really use the internet to create a plausible backstory. I don't think something like that could be replicated now and it's hard to explain how effective it was.
posted by orrnyereg at 12:05 PM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
Mmmm, so many.
I'll concur with some of those already named: Alien (usually my first pic), The Haunting (Robert Wise), Videodrome (best watched on tape), all Evil Dead, Ghost Watch, The Shining (Kubrick, of course), The Thing.
You want just one? Fine, then I'll take us far afield with The Black Cat (1934). It's an astonishingly weird movie. You've got Karloff and Lugosi battling each other on a haunted modernist castle over a WWI atrocity. There's a death cult, possibly poking at Crowley. There's cruelty and cruel revenge. And the titular black cat is just a random wandering thing. Oh, and you get to hear Lugosi speaking Hungarian.
posted by doctornemo at 12:08 PM on October 28, 2024 [8 favorites]
I'll concur with some of those already named: Alien (usually my first pic), The Haunting (Robert Wise), Videodrome (best watched on tape), all Evil Dead, Ghost Watch, The Shining (Kubrick, of course), The Thing.
You want just one? Fine, then I'll take us far afield with The Black Cat (1934). It's an astonishingly weird movie. You've got Karloff and Lugosi battling each other on a haunted modernist castle over a WWI atrocity. There's a death cult, possibly poking at Crowley. There's cruelty and cruel revenge. And the titular black cat is just a random wandering thing. Oh, and you get to hear Lugosi speaking Hungarian.
posted by doctornemo at 12:08 PM on October 28, 2024 [8 favorites]
The original Alien . First and only time I saw people in a theater literally jump out of their seats. Something like The Thing or American Werewolf in London were scary but not quite in the same "oh shit!" way.
posted by tommasz at 12:16 PM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by tommasz at 12:16 PM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
This is as good a place as any to announce that our weekly riffing watch group, MST Club, which we still post infrequently to Fanfare when there's a good excuse after watching every Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode, twice, is for Halloween doing an all-day watch of Halloween-related media, mostly special and short films, leading up to, at 9 PM Eastern (6 PM Pacific), the Rifftrax (paid for of course) for 1978's Halloween, a.k.a. the Michael Myers movie, and with DONALD PLEASANCE, one of MST Club's favorite actors. Leading up to the movie the specials we have are the Peanuts one, the Garfield one, and both of the Far Side ones! That's at https://cytu.be/r/metafilter_mst3kclub, as usual. If you can come, great! If you can't/won't, it's okay!
We'll probably do something for Christmas in a couple of months too, although it's truthfully a lot of work to do the three day thing we usually do over the holidays. We're thinking it over.
posted by JHarris at 12:17 PM on October 28, 2024 [7 favorites]
We'll probably do something for Christmas in a couple of months too, although it's truthfully a lot of work to do the three day thing we usually do over the holidays. We're thinking it over.
posted by JHarris at 12:17 PM on October 28, 2024 [7 favorites]
I watched The Exorcist, for the first time in... a lot of years, this weekend. I was surprised at how well the movie holds up; I think due to it's focus on character development as much as on horror. Also, the shocking scenes are still fairly shocking which given current horror movies versus a film from 1973 is kind of amazing.
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 12:17 PM on October 28, 2024 [4 favorites]
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 12:17 PM on October 28, 2024 [4 favorites]
Karloff's Frankenstein (I should say Whale's) is soooo beautiful. definitely a(nother) fav!
posted by supermedusa at 12:24 PM on October 28, 2024 [4 favorites]
posted by supermedusa at 12:24 PM on October 28, 2024 [4 favorites]
Zombieland, not because it's scary but because it's a great movie.
posted by signal at 12:27 PM on October 28, 2024 [5 favorites]
posted by signal at 12:27 PM on October 28, 2024 [5 favorites]
I gotta give it to "Alien," but I love "It Follows" and "Exorcist" as well.
I love "Hereditary" as a horror film about how families are the very embodiment of "horror" as a concept. The first 45 minutes of that movie is probably the most effective bit of filmmaking I've ever seen. I wanted to leave my body entirely, the agitation and anxiety were so extreme. They didn't really know how to land the plane though, they just sorta turned it into garden variety Aleister Crowley New Englandy witches type of stuff. Which is for the best because I would have not survived intact if the film kept on the way it started.
In general I like a movie that starts with extreme terror and ends way over the top and cartoonish. It helps make it more manageable. I recently watched "Barbarian" and it was exactly like that.
posted by kensington314 at 12:31 PM on October 28, 2024
I love "Hereditary" as a horror film about how families are the very embodiment of "horror" as a concept. The first 45 minutes of that movie is probably the most effective bit of filmmaking I've ever seen. I wanted to leave my body entirely, the agitation and anxiety were so extreme. They didn't really know how to land the plane though, they just sorta turned it into garden variety Aleister Crowley New Englandy witches type of stuff. Which is for the best because I would have not survived intact if the film kept on the way it started.
In general I like a movie that starts with extreme terror and ends way over the top and cartoonish. It helps make it more manageable. I recently watched "Barbarian" and it was exactly like that.
posted by kensington314 at 12:31 PM on October 28, 2024
I thought the first Smile was done pretty well (there is a sequel currently in theaters -no idea about that one), Hocus Pocus is still awesome (saw that one in a theatre last week), and The Omen was a little bit actually scary when I was a kid.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:37 PM on October 28, 2024
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:37 PM on October 28, 2024
I'm amazed that the studios aren't making/distributing more scary films. They're low cost and low risk.
I tried and tried to find the link, but a film production LinkedIn I follow recently had bar graphs of films made by genre and by year, and "horror" is one of the biggest ones right now. If you mean the big studios as "the studios", no, they're not putting them out as much as mass-market fare, but it seems like independent studios are doing a lot of horror features.
I, too, am not a horror person, but it turns out I like a lot of horror. Blood and guts, no; jumpscares, roll my eyes. I didn't like The Shining.
But -- two of my four favorite movies according to my Letterboxd profile, which makes it official, are Se7en and Pitch Black -- both are horrorish, but they're another genre (thriller and scifi) with some very horror elements in it.
I also liked the original Hellraiser (I need to watch it again), and I saw Cuckoo recently and liked it too. I saw Immaculate at a film festival and liked it once it got past the jumpscares and red herrings and into telling a story.
So, maybe it's not that I don't like horror, but like very specific horror.
My Letterboxd watchlist has several things on it that were recommended me by film people I trust; Hereditary is one; Get Out is another. Also, I have not watched The Thing, but that's probably the next thing I'm going to watch when I have time.
One thing I've found in film school -- have I mentioned I go to film school in these free threads yet? -- is that there is a category of prospective filmmaker that is the "Horror Guy". Everything about them is Horror, and horror-adjacent edgy/violent films (they often overlap with Tarantino Guys). They spend their time outside of school making bad horror films with their friends. They only want to watch horror films when asked for their opinion. The more blood and guts and violence, the better; they never seem to be into psychological horror. They're always men, too.
You do not want these Horror Guys working on the same project as you, because they will undermine everything, to try and turn your film into a horror movie. It doesn't matter what film you want to make; they feel entitled to try to put whatever derivative, cliched horror tropes into the film that they can. The Horror Guy cannot make a non-horror film; it is not in their nature. This isn't just a one-off thing; several projects across years, different Horror Guys, all the same situation. It's good I learned this now so I can be prepared.
posted by AzraelBrown at 12:38 PM on October 28, 2024 [11 favorites]
I tried and tried to find the link, but a film production LinkedIn I follow recently had bar graphs of films made by genre and by year, and "horror" is one of the biggest ones right now. If you mean the big studios as "the studios", no, they're not putting them out as much as mass-market fare, but it seems like independent studios are doing a lot of horror features.
I, too, am not a horror person, but it turns out I like a lot of horror. Blood and guts, no; jumpscares, roll my eyes. I didn't like The Shining.
But -- two of my four favorite movies according to my Letterboxd profile, which makes it official, are Se7en and Pitch Black -- both are horrorish, but they're another genre (thriller and scifi) with some very horror elements in it.
I also liked the original Hellraiser (I need to watch it again), and I saw Cuckoo recently and liked it too. I saw Immaculate at a film festival and liked it once it got past the jumpscares and red herrings and into telling a story.
So, maybe it's not that I don't like horror, but like very specific horror.
My Letterboxd watchlist has several things on it that were recommended me by film people I trust; Hereditary is one; Get Out is another. Also, I have not watched The Thing, but that's probably the next thing I'm going to watch when I have time.
One thing I've found in film school -- have I mentioned I go to film school in these free threads yet? -- is that there is a category of prospective filmmaker that is the "Horror Guy". Everything about them is Horror, and horror-adjacent edgy/violent films (they often overlap with Tarantino Guys). They spend their time outside of school making bad horror films with their friends. They only want to watch horror films when asked for their opinion. The more blood and guts and violence, the better; they never seem to be into psychological horror. They're always men, too.
You do not want these Horror Guys working on the same project as you, because they will undermine everything, to try and turn your film into a horror movie. It doesn't matter what film you want to make; they feel entitled to try to put whatever derivative, cliched horror tropes into the film that they can. The Horror Guy cannot make a non-horror film; it is not in their nature. This isn't just a one-off thing; several projects across years, different Horror Guys, all the same situation. It's good I learned this now so I can be prepared.
posted by AzraelBrown at 12:38 PM on October 28, 2024 [11 favorites]
I ran into that type of horror guy studying film once a time as well. (Weirdly, I wasn't really even into horror back then.)
What's wild is that large swaths of horror fandom are now very fun and chill, not just personally but politically. Folks are very much pro-feminist, pro-LGBTQIA, very much into racial justice, body positivity, etc. It's fun to have a subculture/hobbyist space that's chockablock with people every bit as big of pinkos as I am. There are backwards creeps in some online forums so I know they still exist, but at least in Chicagoland, the shows/fests/events have a very strong do not bring your incel bullshit here vibe.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:45 PM on October 28, 2024 [8 favorites]
What's wild is that large swaths of horror fandom are now very fun and chill, not just personally but politically. Folks are very much pro-feminist, pro-LGBTQIA, very much into racial justice, body positivity, etc. It's fun to have a subculture/hobbyist space that's chockablock with people every bit as big of pinkos as I am. There are backwards creeps in some online forums so I know they still exist, but at least in Chicagoland, the shows/fests/events have a very strong do not bring your incel bullshit here vibe.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:45 PM on October 28, 2024 [8 favorites]
I watched Nightmare on Elm Street when I was a pre-teen and that eff’ing movie kept me from taking a bath for almost 15 years. I can’t even enjoy meta-horror and that would normally totally be my jam. Unless you count Titus Andronicus (the one with Hopkins, I argue it is a horror film). I’m more about suspense. Charade, To Catch a Thief, Silence of the Lambs, The Long Goodbye, Key Largo.
Vaccine recovery aside, this past weekend saw us dealing a couple of seemingly unrelated incidents that intersected in a really weird, thematic way.
posted by theBigRedKittyPurrs at 12:46 PM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
Vaccine recovery aside, this past weekend saw us dealing a couple of seemingly unrelated incidents that intersected in a really weird, thematic way.
posted by theBigRedKittyPurrs at 12:46 PM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
Besides the ones that others have mentioned (The Thing, The Descent, Session 9) a few more obscure ones I enjoyed:
The Last Winter, while highly evocative of The Thing, runs off in different directions.
Eyes Without a Face is just one of the most haunting and spooky films.
Jacob's Ladder is, IMO, the secret ancestor of Silent Hill and a lot more of 90s horror.
Also, surprised that no one so far has mentioned either Ringu or Gore Verbinski's The Ring.
posted by LeRoienJaune at 12:48 PM on October 28, 2024 [5 favorites]
The Last Winter, while highly evocative of The Thing, runs off in different directions.
Eyes Without a Face is just one of the most haunting and spooky films.
Jacob's Ladder is, IMO, the secret ancestor of Silent Hill and a lot more of 90s horror.
Also, surprised that no one so far has mentioned either Ringu or Gore Verbinski's The Ring.
posted by LeRoienJaune at 12:48 PM on October 28, 2024 [5 favorites]
I never tire of Near Dark or Alien, or The Frighteners. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen those.
Night Watch is more of a dark fantasy movie than straight up horror, but it remains one of my favorites. I have an import dvd which is a very different cut than the American release. Both are great.
Over the last handful of years, I’ve watched a few things that stand out to me:
Saloum was good and weird. It goes in some directions.
When Evil Lurks was really bleak and strange. I like a horror movie with clearly stated rules, where you can watch for when and how characters will break them. You know everyone is in trouble when the rule-giver breaks the rules in the process of giving them.
Magic, a movie whose ads and poster got my attention when I was a kid, and which I finally watched a few years ago, is a different kind of scary than I expected, but is definitely very creepy and sad.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 12:52 PM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
Night Watch is more of a dark fantasy movie than straight up horror, but it remains one of my favorites. I have an import dvd which is a very different cut than the American release. Both are great.
Over the last handful of years, I’ve watched a few things that stand out to me:
Saloum was good and weird. It goes in some directions.
When Evil Lurks was really bleak and strange. I like a horror movie with clearly stated rules, where you can watch for when and how characters will break them. You know everyone is in trouble when the rule-giver breaks the rules in the process of giving them.
Magic, a movie whose ads and poster got my attention when I was a kid, and which I finally watched a few years ago, is a different kind of scary than I expected, but is definitely very creepy and sad.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 12:52 PM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
I too vote for the 1963 The Haunting. No hovering ghosts. No monsters. No walking dead. Simply an old mansion with "special features". In high school I was supposed to be in bed on a school night. Instead, I had my small B&W TV tuned in to a late night showing of The Haunting. Just me in my dark bedroom with the sound very low. Definitely a mistake I would make again...
posted by jim in austin at 12:53 PM on October 28, 2024 [5 favorites]
posted by jim in austin at 12:53 PM on October 28, 2024 [5 favorites]
And Christine McConnell's channel, which has lots of lovely things, including creepy baking and crafts. If you have a chance to watch her Netflix series, it is only one season of six episodes, but it is a hoot.
I thought her Netflix series was awesome, but since she bought that mansion her content has taken a hard turn into Restoration Hardware territory. She seems to do a lot more videos these days about staying in some really expensive old world hotel or visiting the mansions in Newport than crafting. Also she doesn't hang out with Jim Henson'smuppets creatures anymore, so that's kind of a bummer.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 12:58 PM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
I thought her Netflix series was awesome, but since she bought that mansion her content has taken a hard turn into Restoration Hardware territory. She seems to do a lot more videos these days about staying in some really expensive old world hotel or visiting the mansions in Newport than crafting. Also she doesn't hang out with Jim Henson's
posted by RonButNotStupid at 12:58 PM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
Jaws. I was so scared seeing this in grade school that I thought a shark might be in my closet after the lights were out.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 12:58 PM on October 28, 2024 [6 favorites]
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 12:58 PM on October 28, 2024 [6 favorites]
Oh and The Devil’s Backbone is one of my favorite ghost movies. I watch enough horror movies I can’t remember them all without keeping a list, which is also hard for me to remember to do.
posted by Mister Moofoo at 12:59 PM on October 28, 2024 [5 favorites]
posted by Mister Moofoo at 12:59 PM on October 28, 2024 [5 favorites]
But after Jaws, Alien. Seeing this as an 8 year old in 1979? When Dallas dies, I couldn't believe it, the white male captain saves the day in movies...always. I was cast fucking adrift. Love it.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 1:00 PM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 1:00 PM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is pretty great.
I recently enjoyed Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls which is more funny than scary. I didn't realize until the end credits that it had been crowd funded.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 1:04 PM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
I recently enjoyed Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls which is more funny than scary. I didn't realize until the end credits that it had been crowd funded.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 1:04 PM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
I was 12 and my parents dropped me off at the theater to meet a friend for a treat. My friend had picked Ben; the one about rats. No idea what I was in for; I kept my eyes closed for most of the movie.
I am way too wimpy for horror.
posted by mightshould at 1:11 PM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
I am way too wimpy for horror.
posted by mightshould at 1:11 PM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
Correction for my statement on how many horror movies are being made today -- I found the statistic, it's about halfway down here which doesn't actually say how it ranks versus other genres, but that the number of horror movies are about 1 out of 6 of all films currently made, up from 1 out of 10 in the 2000s and 1 out of 12 in the 1980s. So, they're on the way up, just no explanation of how that compares to other genres of film. The book, which I have not read, may have more.
posted by AzraelBrown at 1:21 PM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by AzraelBrown at 1:21 PM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
I'm not the biggest horror fan (much to the dismay of my wife and son). Horror comedy is probably the sub-genre I'm most enthused with and Housebound one of my favorites.
posted by audi alteram partem at 1:22 PM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by audi alteram partem at 1:22 PM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
Horror movies are my personal getaway. None of my family likes to watch them, so they are my private roller coaster ride, and afterwards, if it was good, the shadows in my house look different. It's fun.
The Babadook was my first favorite horror movie. I didn't like horror movies growing up, so any accidental horror-adjacent faves don't count as "horror" in my head canon. Even though they totally are. But the Babadook opened the door for me to really get into horror. I followed the director into watching The Nightingale, which sits at the top of my "most uncomfortable movie watching experience" list. Not really horror, but no movie has carved its horrors as deeply into my psyche as The Nightingale. Whew.
I really enjoyed The Lighthouse. A24 has a bunch of horror-adjacent movies I quite liked (Men, VVitch, Pearl+X+Maxxxine, mother!, Talk to me, Hereditary, Midsommar). I liked Get Out more than Us and both of them better than Nope. The Host (Korean movie from 2006) is still one of my very favorite "cool monster" horror movies.
The most "hardcore" horror movie I have watched is Martyrs. I really liked it, but I think I saw the edited version that dialed down the intensity (some scenes I have seen mentioned were not in my watching). It's a challenging movie nonetheless, and it's my limit for the movies of that genre (I won't watch A Serbian Film or August Underground, they are past my limit).
True Detective Season 1 is in my top favorites also.
Horror movies that I haven't yet seen but I am excited to watch: Exhuma, Oddity, The Devil's Bath, Infested, Longlegs.
posted by pol at 1:26 PM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
The Babadook was my first favorite horror movie. I didn't like horror movies growing up, so any accidental horror-adjacent faves don't count as "horror" in my head canon. Even though they totally are. But the Babadook opened the door for me to really get into horror. I followed the director into watching The Nightingale, which sits at the top of my "most uncomfortable movie watching experience" list. Not really horror, but no movie has carved its horrors as deeply into my psyche as The Nightingale. Whew.
I really enjoyed The Lighthouse. A24 has a bunch of horror-adjacent movies I quite liked (Men, VVitch, Pearl+X+Maxxxine, mother!, Talk to me, Hereditary, Midsommar). I liked Get Out more than Us and both of them better than Nope. The Host (Korean movie from 2006) is still one of my very favorite "cool monster" horror movies.
The most "hardcore" horror movie I have watched is Martyrs. I really liked it, but I think I saw the edited version that dialed down the intensity (some scenes I have seen mentioned were not in my watching). It's a challenging movie nonetheless, and it's my limit for the movies of that genre (I won't watch A Serbian Film or August Underground, they are past my limit).
True Detective Season 1 is in my top favorites also.
Horror movies that I haven't yet seen but I am excited to watch: Exhuma, Oddity, The Devil's Bath, Infested, Longlegs.
posted by pol at 1:26 PM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
Ironically, we just watched Scream and Scream 2 yesterday!
We've been watching the old Hammer horror movies -- The Horror of Dracula, Dracula Has Risen From The Grave, and The Curse of Frankenstein so far. They're so good!
I have a deep and abiding love for Event Horizon -- so creepy, and so underrated. I've been meaning to watch The Others again, too.
posted by maryellenreads at 1:31 PM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
We've been watching the old Hammer horror movies -- The Horror of Dracula, Dracula Has Risen From The Grave, and The Curse of Frankenstein so far. They're so good!
I have a deep and abiding love for Event Horizon -- so creepy, and so underrated. I've been meaning to watch The Others again, too.
posted by maryellenreads at 1:31 PM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
Oh, and a plug for your local public library: if they subscribe to Kanopy, you can watch a TON of great horror movies for free with your library card!
posted by maryellenreads at 1:34 PM on October 28, 2024 [5 favorites]
posted by maryellenreads at 1:34 PM on October 28, 2024 [5 favorites]
Oh, and a plug for your local public library
I just checked out and watched season 1 of Northern Exposure on DVD, which I had to put on hold because of the overwhelming popularity (two patrons were ahead of me in line)! Keep your Kanopy, I'm in the trenches with the true believers.
posted by phunniemee at 1:43 PM on October 28, 2024 [4 favorites]
I just checked out and watched season 1 of Northern Exposure on DVD, which I had to put on hold because of the overwhelming popularity (two patrons were ahead of me in line)! Keep your Kanopy, I'm in the trenches with the true believers.
posted by phunniemee at 1:43 PM on October 28, 2024 [4 favorites]
I saw Don't Look Now a long, long time ago and loved it, but also was totally creeped out by it. Even though I now know the twist, I'm afraid to watch it again. Maybe I'll make doing that my Hallowe'en resolution.
posted by pangolin party at 1:45 PM on October 28, 2024 [3 favorites]
posted by pangolin party at 1:45 PM on October 28, 2024 [3 favorites]
I can plus one the vote for Cabin in the Woods, but my real favorite right now is Ritual. I have watched this movie (Netflix) at least a dozen times. Rafe Spall is just fantastic in this film.
posted by MrNoodlePants at 1:54 PM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by MrNoodlePants at 1:54 PM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
Don't Look Now still holds up! I watched it again after Donald Sutherland died and I was glad I did (I mean, I own a physical copy of it so I already knew I liked it).
My fun story about Don't Look Now is the first time I watched it, I realized I had seen parts of it before a long time ago when I was at my dad's house. He was far enough out he could only get satellite TV and this was way before the days of channel guides or anything. So I was flipping channels and stopped on this movie with Sutherland running around the streets of Venice. It was intriguing and creepy but then it went to a commercial and I changed the channel and moved on to something else.
So imagine the very dreamlike feeling I had while watching it for the first time that I had seen some of it before. That really added to the mood for me.
posted by edencosmic at 2:04 PM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
My fun story about Don't Look Now is the first time I watched it, I realized I had seen parts of it before a long time ago when I was at my dad's house. He was far enough out he could only get satellite TV and this was way before the days of channel guides or anything. So I was flipping channels and stopped on this movie with Sutherland running around the streets of Venice. It was intriguing and creepy but then it went to a commercial and I changed the channel and moved on to something else.
So imagine the very dreamlike feeling I had while watching it for the first time that I had seen some of it before. That really added to the mood for me.
posted by edencosmic at 2:04 PM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
The two Addams Family movies get my vote as the best horror movies.
They're only comedies because we're primed to sympathize with the Addamses and believe that, unlike the film's villains, we'd be accepting of how different the family is and that we're deserving of their friendship and gracious hospitality instead of their wrath. But maybe we're the real monsters.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 2:07 PM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
They're only comedies because we're primed to sympathize with the Addamses and believe that, unlike the film's villains, we'd be accepting of how different the family is and that we're deserving of their friendship and gracious hospitality instead of their wrath. But maybe we're the real monsters.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 2:07 PM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
1. let's scare jessica to death - hard to be objective about how this holds up now, because things that left an impression on us as young kids somehow still trigger us in some associative way even decades later
Well, I first saw it in 2007 and I saw it again a couple of weeks ago, and in neither case was I child so I think I can say that it holds up pretty well. I thought it was effective enough that I'd be tempted to include it if I were teaching a class on horror. (It got clobbered on Rotten Tomatoes, but RT betrayed me with Till Death so ... eh?)
I also saw Don't Look Now again recently; yes, it still holds up as well.
On another note, decades ago (70s? earlier?) one of the con-runners decided that if something got enough votes to show up on the ballot, he wasn't going to rules-lawyer about whether something really was or wasn't SFF. In that spirit, I'd say that my favorite horror film (a problematic favorite, to be sure) is The Silence of the Lambs. I have watched it in the traditional way at least a dozen times. I have watched it muted, to force myself to notice the visual grammar (the way men look at Clarice--ugh. That's an entire horror film of its own. And one of the POV shots lies! Direct address throughout the film was a way of saying "this is Clarice's POV," but then in the scene in Gumb's basement, Gumb is shown looking at the camera, and for the very first time in the film, Clarice doesn't see the man looking at her!) I have listened to it, from the other room, to force myself to pay attention to the music and the dialogue, the pacing. I love this film even as I'm disappointed in it every time in its homophobia and transphobia. Tsk.
posted by johnofjack at 2:16 PM on October 28, 2024 [4 favorites]
Well, I first saw it in 2007 and I saw it again a couple of weeks ago, and in neither case was I child so I think I can say that it holds up pretty well. I thought it was effective enough that I'd be tempted to include it if I were teaching a class on horror. (It got clobbered on Rotten Tomatoes, but RT betrayed me with Till Death so ... eh?)
I also saw Don't Look Now again recently; yes, it still holds up as well.
On another note, decades ago (70s? earlier?) one of the con-runners decided that if something got enough votes to show up on the ballot, he wasn't going to rules-lawyer about whether something really was or wasn't SFF. In that spirit, I'd say that my favorite horror film (a problematic favorite, to be sure) is The Silence of the Lambs. I have watched it in the traditional way at least a dozen times. I have watched it muted, to force myself to notice the visual grammar (the way men look at Clarice--ugh. That's an entire horror film of its own. And one of the POV shots lies! Direct address throughout the film was a way of saying "this is Clarice's POV," but then in the scene in Gumb's basement, Gumb is shown looking at the camera, and for the very first time in the film, Clarice doesn't see the man looking at her!) I have listened to it, from the other room, to force myself to pay attention to the music and the dialogue, the pacing. I love this film even as I'm disappointed in it every time in its homophobia and transphobia. Tsk.
posted by johnofjack at 2:16 PM on October 28, 2024 [4 favorites]
I think I've shared this on the site elsewhere (maybe?) and while these aren't all horror movies specifically, this is my list of spooky season movies, in no particular order.
The Wicker Man is on there and while I absolutely love that movie (like top 10 favorites, no joke), that's not really for spooky season. That needs to be watched in full daylight in the spring to be the most effective. But if I'm making a list of horror/horror-adjacent/etc. movies, it really should be included.
posted by edencosmic at 2:24 PM on October 28, 2024 [3 favorites]
The Wicker Man is on there and while I absolutely love that movie (like top 10 favorites, no joke), that's not really for spooky season. That needs to be watched in full daylight in the spring to be the most effective. But if I'm making a list of horror/horror-adjacent/etc. movies, it really should be included.
posted by edencosmic at 2:24 PM on October 28, 2024 [3 favorites]
My least favorite horror film is Reality, that is, the election coverage.
posted by njohnson23 at 2:29 PM on October 28, 2024
posted by njohnson23 at 2:29 PM on October 28, 2024
Wish we'd gotten more of the wisdom of Brian O'Blivion.
The good Doctor was played by Jack Creley, who is fondly remembered by many Canadian kids from his work on TV Ontario.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 2:31 PM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
The good Doctor was played by Jack Creley, who is fondly remembered by many Canadian kids from his work on TV Ontario.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 2:31 PM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
If you need a delightful respite from reality, please give a try to The Wrath of Becky.
It's a sequel, but the only thing you really need to know is that Neo-Nazis keep running afoul of teenage Becky and it's bad fucking luck for them, because she's the angriest, most vindictive person in the world.
So it's a feel-good movie, for people for whom the pitiless slaughter of Nazis makes you feel good.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:32 PM on October 28, 2024 [5 favorites]
It's a sequel, but the only thing you really need to know is that Neo-Nazis keep running afoul of teenage Becky and it's bad fucking luck for them, because she's the angriest, most vindictive person in the world.
So it's a feel-good movie, for people for whom the pitiless slaughter of Nazis makes you feel good.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:32 PM on October 28, 2024 [5 favorites]
We just got a visit by an individual asking us for some information in relation to one of the incidents over the weekend. This individual shared some information which confirmed a few long-held suspicions.
Ya’ll, there is not enough booze or brain bleach in the world at the moment. If any of you still believe in a just universe, send general good vibes for justice over the next few weeks.
Sometimes life is the horror movie.
posted by theBigRedKittyPurrs at 2:55 PM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
Ya’ll, there is not enough booze or brain bleach in the world at the moment. If any of you still believe in a just universe, send general good vibes for justice over the next few weeks.
Sometimes life is the horror movie.
posted by theBigRedKittyPurrs at 2:55 PM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
Criterion had collections of J-Horror and Giallo movies that guided a lot of my selections for the 100 Horror Movies in 92 Days challenge this year.
I really loved all the movies they had by Kiyoshi Kurosawa: Cure (1997), Pulse (2001), and Creepy (2016). I don't remember any jump scares in them, just complicated stories unfolding slowly and carefully with super eerie vibes and a lot of visual detail to look at in the background--tons of everyday texture.
Criterion included Suspiria (1977) in their giallo collection, and even if it's atypical--a supernatural horror film inspired by a sui generis text, it's connected with giallo's gothic mystery roots and the director's giallo films, but it'd be an uneasy fit with mystery/crime films in general--it's easy to recommend as a long-standing all-time favorite. I hadn't spent much time on more typical giallo films before, but I wound up binging several dozen titles.
FWIW I watched Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (1971) recently too, and it was great.
posted by Wobbuffet at 2:59 PM on October 28, 2024 [3 favorites]
I really loved all the movies they had by Kiyoshi Kurosawa: Cure (1997), Pulse (2001), and Creepy (2016). I don't remember any jump scares in them, just complicated stories unfolding slowly and carefully with super eerie vibes and a lot of visual detail to look at in the background--tons of everyday texture.
Criterion included Suspiria (1977) in their giallo collection, and even if it's atypical--a supernatural horror film inspired by a sui generis text, it's connected with giallo's gothic mystery roots and the director's giallo films, but it'd be an uneasy fit with mystery/crime films in general--it's easy to recommend as a long-standing all-time favorite. I hadn't spent much time on more typical giallo films before, but I wound up binging several dozen titles.
FWIW I watched Let’s Scare Jessica to Death (1971) recently too, and it was great.
posted by Wobbuffet at 2:59 PM on October 28, 2024 [3 favorites]
Bopping through formative viewings . . . Them (1954), American Werewolf in London, The Beast Within (1982), Gargoyles (1972), Wolfen, The Thing (1982), Halloween, Trick R Treat, The Witch, The Exorcist, Jaws, Dawn of the Dead, The Fly (1986), Sssssss (1973), Bug (1975), the Universal classics, Midsomer, Carnival of Souls (1962), Duel, The Car, Let the Right One In, Alien, Texas Chainsaw Massacre . . .
posted by pt68 at 3:10 PM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by pt68 at 3:10 PM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
Showgirls.
posted by pxe2000 at 3:13 PM on October 28, 2024 [4 favorites]
posted by pxe2000 at 3:13 PM on October 28, 2024 [4 favorites]
If we’re going to talk about Susperia (1977), let’s also talk about Susperia (2018). The first one is all surface and glow, the second puzzling depths. They both have moments of animal physicality. They both use dance as a backdrop, but 2018 is about dance. It also has some beautiful acting, but JessicaHarper is good in both. Overall, I prefer the 2nd, but they are trying to do different things, so it’s hard to really compare. I loved the scene in 1977 where the blind musician is crossing a real plaza shot to look like a set, and I love all the looking that goes on in 2018. So much looking!
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:27 PM on October 28, 2024 [3 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:27 PM on October 28, 2024 [3 favorites]
Is Kill List horror? I have to assume so. I know that people are hot and cold on it, but I think the way it comes together in the end is perfect. And if we are (I am) talking about Ben Wheatley, then A Field in England also needs a mention.
Also, just for wild stuff, Psycho Goreman and Hellbender, especially if you like your protagonists to literally rock out.
posted by Literaryhero at 3:49 PM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
Also, just for wild stuff, Psycho Goreman and Hellbender, especially if you like your protagonists to literally rock out.
posted by Literaryhero at 3:49 PM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
I really like the idea of Ringu, but it is painfully dated. The Ring, I think, is pretty well done. Weirdly, Juon is a much better film (the story, and the evil, casts a much wider net), but The Grudge was somehow scarier. I've never seen the original Japanese film, but Pulse has some absolutely haunting imagery, even if it's just not very good.
The Descent was the closest I'd come to turning off a movie. Watched it in the middle of the day, bright sunshine streaming in through the window, and my finger was on the Stop button on the remote about halfway through. Just a great, terrifying movie.
It Follows was the movie I couldn't finish. It just hit too many different terror buttons all at once, and I had to stop.
posted by Ghidorah at 3:57 PM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
The Descent was the closest I'd come to turning off a movie. Watched it in the middle of the day, bright sunshine streaming in through the window, and my finger was on the Stop button on the remote about halfway through. Just a great, terrifying movie.
It Follows was the movie I couldn't finish. It just hit too many different terror buttons all at once, and I had to stop.
posted by Ghidorah at 3:57 PM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
I use It Follows to describe the support of particularly nasty and troublesome software products at work. If you are unfortunate or foolish enough to touch it, you own it until either somebody else touches it after you, or until you leave the company, at which point it starts winding back up the chain.
One can theoretically use this for excellent job security, but only at a terrible price.
posted by notoriety public at 4:09 PM on October 28, 2024 [4 favorites]
One can theoretically use this for excellent job security, but only at a terrible price.
posted by notoriety public at 4:09 PM on October 28, 2024 [4 favorites]
What's weird is that I think It Follows kicks ass, but it's also not scary to me. Like, I know it's supposed to be, and it is for a lot of other people, but it just doesn't hit me on that level (and this isn't a brag on my part - I get scared as well as anyone.)
But It Follows, for me, is a super-well-done mood of a movie, that captures a super-specific tone unlike anything else and really maintains it throughout. It's a great movie. Just not a very scary one to me personally, and I don't understand quite why that is.
posted by Navelgazer at 4:18 PM on October 28, 2024 [3 favorites]
But It Follows, for me, is a super-well-done mood of a movie, that captures a super-specific tone unlike anything else and really maintains it throughout. It's a great movie. Just not a very scary one to me personally, and I don't understand quite why that is.
posted by Navelgazer at 4:18 PM on October 28, 2024 [3 favorites]
I'm not a fan of horror, so I'm limited in scary movies, but the one that's never left me was "Don't Be Afraid of the Dark". Those little demons that only came out in the dark! Dragging the poor drugged woman off to the depths of the basement where her husband should NEVER have unblocked that fireplace! To this DAY, I cannot stand glowing lights in my room, as the little demons glowed green.
My only other thing that bothers me about this movie: it was made for TV in the 70s, but I SWEAR I saw the same movie, only in black and white, with 1930s type cars and the big old fashioned camera flash bulbs on the camera she used while being dragged down the stairs. I cannot find any information that this early version even exists.
The other movie I remember best was "Lenore: Queen of the Damned". Watched that with a gaggle of friends having a sleepover at age 12. Some scenes made us scream out loud!
posted by annieb at 4:23 PM on October 28, 2024
My only other thing that bothers me about this movie: it was made for TV in the 70s, but I SWEAR I saw the same movie, only in black and white, with 1930s type cars and the big old fashioned camera flash bulbs on the camera she used while being dragged down the stairs. I cannot find any information that this early version even exists.
The other movie I remember best was "Lenore: Queen of the Damned". Watched that with a gaggle of friends having a sleepover at age 12. Some scenes made us scream out loud!
posted by annieb at 4:23 PM on October 28, 2024
Still remember watching Donnie darko in broad daylight and being scared out of my skin.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 4:43 PM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by St. Peepsburg at 4:43 PM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
for acting, 'The Exorcist 3'
for first time watch by yourself and get scared category. 'let's scare Jessica to death'
for that Sunday fall afternoon or youthful d&d movie The Raven Vincent Price.
my generation youthful best movie: Halloween. my personal favorite Halloween 3.
all time favorite
The Thing (1953)
favorite series American horror story
consider the best and scariest category, 'The Shining'
recent scary movie, 'The autopsy of Jane Doe'
posted by clavdivs at 4:45 PM on October 28, 2024 [5 favorites]
for first time watch by yourself and get scared category. 'let's scare Jessica to death'
for that Sunday fall afternoon or youthful d&d movie The Raven Vincent Price.
my generation youthful best movie: Halloween. my personal favorite Halloween 3.
all time favorite
The Thing (1953)
favorite series American horror story
consider the best and scariest category, 'The Shining'
recent scary movie, 'The autopsy of Jane Doe'
posted by clavdivs at 4:45 PM on October 28, 2024 [5 favorites]
There is no way I could even make a Top Ten Horror Films list; like DOT I would need to make lists of subgenres/tone to begin to attempt anything like that.
Two very gory horror (I hesitate to say horror comedy just because that label has been used a little too widely of late) films that I adored from the past few years, however, never seem to get any mention and I hope to fix that here:
- Let The Wrong One In (2022) - not a typo there; Irish family trouble and love
- Anything For Jackson (2020) - I'm not sure why none of the trailers for this have a hint about its humor; very dark but also gets quite silly in a way that doesn't sacrifice tension
posted by queensissy at 5:00 PM on October 28, 2024 [3 favorites]
Two very gory horror (I hesitate to say horror comedy just because that label has been used a little too widely of late) films that I adored from the past few years, however, never seem to get any mention and I hope to fix that here:
- Let The Wrong One In (2022) - not a typo there; Irish family trouble and love
- Anything For Jackson (2020) - I'm not sure why none of the trailers for this have a hint about its humor; very dark but also gets quite silly in a way that doesn't sacrifice tension
posted by queensissy at 5:00 PM on October 28, 2024 [3 favorites]
Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974). I would usually feel kinda weird about recommending such an infamous film on MeFi but... it's a freaking well made film, and much more arthouse than you'd expect from the title alone. I think it's actually a truly great film, not just a great horror film. The cinematography alone is really striking.
It also manages to be one of the most truly intense horror experiences of all times -- yet with almost zero gore. And it is, arguably, a vegetarian manifesto on top of it all
posted by treepour at 5:54 PM on October 28, 2024 [7 favorites]
It also manages to be one of the most truly intense horror experiences of all times -- yet with almost zero gore. And it is, arguably, a vegetarian manifesto on top of it all
posted by treepour at 5:54 PM on October 28, 2024 [7 favorites]
As a horror nerd, my favorites would either be very well-known classics, or very niche stuff that I think has a very small audience, so here are a few recommendations for good stuff I've seen more or less recently that I think many people have not seen, and that I think is suitable for fairly wide audiences:
The Wailing (2016) and Exhuma (2024)
Both are creepy folk horror films set in rural Korea and featuring Korea's unique folklore and mixture of religions, and both touch on Korea's fraught past relationship with Japan, but they're pretty different otherwise.
In The Wailing, a rural cop deals with a series of strange murders where random people kill their entire families for no apparent reason, and how it might be related to a Japanese tourist who recently arrived in the area. It has aspects of zombie horror, as well as neo-noir police procedural, and a great downer ending that goes much further than you'd expect.
In Exhuma, a famous shaman and her apprentice are hired by a rich Korean-American businessman to investigate an ailment affecting his infant son, which might be supernatural in origin. She assembles a team consisting of a cautious feng shui master and a no-nonsense Christian undertaker, who need to relocate the grave of the man's grandfather, which for some reason is in a very non-auspicious location, but the grave turns out to hold more secrets, and the grandfather's involvement with the Japanese occupying forces and Korea's recent history in general might be intertwined with what's buried on a desolate mountaintop. Has a sweet, upbeat ending, a nice counterpoint to The Wailing.
Cure (1997)
A spooky as fuck Japanese story about weird mind control, inexplicable murders, and a man whose identity can't be resolved, investigated by a cop whose wife is slipping into dementia. Desperately sad, poignant, and in the end nearly apocalyptic in how things go wrong. Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa also directed Pulse (2001) and Creepy (2016), which are thematically similar, spooky, and very much vibes-based. Creepy features a villain who can only be described as Japanese Peter Lorre.
Other random suggestions, old and new, some stone cold classics, others just fun and worth watching, all mostly good for non-horror-nerd audiences, I think: Barbarian, Get Out, The Shining, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Jacob's Ladder, Zodiac, Halloween (1978), The Thing, The Ring (US), The Changeling (1980), Let the Right One In, Ready Or Not (2019).
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 6:38 PM on October 28, 2024 [3 favorites]
The Wailing (2016) and Exhuma (2024)
Both are creepy folk horror films set in rural Korea and featuring Korea's unique folklore and mixture of religions, and both touch on Korea's fraught past relationship with Japan, but they're pretty different otherwise.
In The Wailing, a rural cop deals with a series of strange murders where random people kill their entire families for no apparent reason, and how it might be related to a Japanese tourist who recently arrived in the area. It has aspects of zombie horror, as well as neo-noir police procedural, and a great downer ending that goes much further than you'd expect.
In Exhuma, a famous shaman and her apprentice are hired by a rich Korean-American businessman to investigate an ailment affecting his infant son, which might be supernatural in origin. She assembles a team consisting of a cautious feng shui master and a no-nonsense Christian undertaker, who need to relocate the grave of the man's grandfather, which for some reason is in a very non-auspicious location, but the grave turns out to hold more secrets, and the grandfather's involvement with the Japanese occupying forces and Korea's recent history in general might be intertwined with what's buried on a desolate mountaintop. Has a sweet, upbeat ending, a nice counterpoint to The Wailing.
Cure (1997)
A spooky as fuck Japanese story about weird mind control, inexplicable murders, and a man whose identity can't be resolved, investigated by a cop whose wife is slipping into dementia. Desperately sad, poignant, and in the end nearly apocalyptic in how things go wrong. Director Kiyoshi Kurosawa also directed Pulse (2001) and Creepy (2016), which are thematically similar, spooky, and very much vibes-based. Creepy features a villain who can only be described as Japanese Peter Lorre.
Other random suggestions, old and new, some stone cold classics, others just fun and worth watching, all mostly good for non-horror-nerd audiences, I think: Barbarian, Get Out, The Shining, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Jacob's Ladder, Zodiac, Halloween (1978), The Thing, The Ring (US), The Changeling (1980), Let the Right One In, Ready Or Not (2019).
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 6:38 PM on October 28, 2024 [3 favorites]
"Nosferatu". It's great.
Yesterday I watched "The Great Gabbo" (1929), weirdly as part of a "50 movie musicals" DVD package I got for $9.99. It's the grandaddy of all ventriloquist-goes-mad movies and, yes, it has Busby Berkley-type musical numbers in it, but while they start out like normal song-and-dance numbers, they get progressively stranger as Gabbo loses his mind. It's not a very good movie, but Erich von Stroheim's performance is amazingly scary, and while Otto the dummy is not murderous, he is very disquieting. Much more worth seeing than "Hi Diddle Diddle" with Adolphe Menjou" or "Sing Cowboy, Sing" with Tex Ritter.
posted by acrasis at 7:14 PM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
Yesterday I watched "The Great Gabbo" (1929), weirdly as part of a "50 movie musicals" DVD package I got for $9.99. It's the grandaddy of all ventriloquist-goes-mad movies and, yes, it has Busby Berkley-type musical numbers in it, but while they start out like normal song-and-dance numbers, they get progressively stranger as Gabbo loses his mind. It's not a very good movie, but Erich von Stroheim's performance is amazingly scary, and while Otto the dummy is not murderous, he is very disquieting. Much more worth seeing than "Hi Diddle Diddle" with Adolphe Menjou" or "Sing Cowboy, Sing" with Tex Ritter.
posted by acrasis at 7:14 PM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
Is Kill List horror? I have to assume so. I know that people are hot and cold on it, but I think the way it comes together in the end is perfect. And if we are (I am) talking about Ben Wheatley, then A Field in England also needs a mention.
Yes, they're both horror, folk horror specifically. If you'd like more in that particular weird vein, Witchfinder General (1968), The Blood on Satan's Claw (1971), and The Wicker Man (1973) are generally considered the ur-texts, and recent examples include The Witch, Midsommar, both the Korean films I just mentioned (and a lot of Asian horror in general), and more generally, stuff like Children of the Corn, The Blair Witch Project, etc. also fit the bill. There's a great, if a bit too far-reaching documentary called Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched that's an excellent overview of the genre/mode.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 7:16 PM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
Yes, they're both horror, folk horror specifically. If you'd like more in that particular weird vein, Witchfinder General (1968), The Blood on Satan's Claw (1971), and The Wicker Man (1973) are generally considered the ur-texts, and recent examples include The Witch, Midsommar, both the Korean films I just mentioned (and a lot of Asian horror in general), and more generally, stuff like Children of the Corn, The Blair Witch Project, etc. also fit the bill. There's a great, if a bit too far-reaching documentary called Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched that's an excellent overview of the genre/mode.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 7:16 PM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
Ready Or Not (2019)
Oh, that's a fun one. Incredibly silly, bordering on stupid, premise, but the movie is self-aware enough about that to give it just the amount of comedy that the movie requires. Genuinely scary and squeamish parts, genuinely laugh-out-loud parts, occasionally they're the same parts, and what the hell, Andie McDowell! Definitely worth checking out if you're in the mood for a fun nasty horror romp.
posted by Navelgazer at 7:30 PM on October 28, 2024 [4 favorites]
Oh, that's a fun one. Incredibly silly, bordering on stupid, premise, but the movie is self-aware enough about that to give it just the amount of comedy that the movie requires. Genuinely scary and squeamish parts, genuinely laugh-out-loud parts, occasionally they're the same parts, and what the hell, Andie McDowell! Definitely worth checking out if you're in the mood for a fun nasty horror romp.
posted by Navelgazer at 7:30 PM on October 28, 2024 [4 favorites]
”Many, many years ago, more than 50 at least, I came across an image of Boris Karloff as The Monster from Frankenstein(1931) in the back of a comic book. It's one of the most important moments for me in my aesthetic life, and triggered a lifelong interest in the classic monsters. I was a monster kid, but living in small towns in BC in the '70s meant I was never going to see any of these films, except King Kong, which popped up from time to time on local TV.”
It seems unlikely you don’t know this, but for the benefit of those who may not: Boris Karloff got his theatrical start in Kamloops, BC and performed at a few other towns in southern BC. (This fact was the biggest revelation the Kamloops museum could impart to this monster kid way back when all those movies seemed so far out of reach.)
On the favourite scary movie front, I don’t really play favourites but since nobody’s mentioned it I rather liked Under the Shadow. Similarly, I also quite liked You Won’t be Alone, though I didn’t think it was very scary.
posted by house-goblin at 7:37 PM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
It seems unlikely you don’t know this, but for the benefit of those who may not: Boris Karloff got his theatrical start in Kamloops, BC and performed at a few other towns in southern BC. (This fact was the biggest revelation the Kamloops museum could impart to this monster kid way back when all those movies seemed so far out of reach.)
On the favourite scary movie front, I don’t really play favourites but since nobody’s mentioned it I rather liked Under the Shadow. Similarly, I also quite liked You Won’t be Alone, though I didn’t think it was very scary.
posted by house-goblin at 7:37 PM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
The original Alien . First and only time I saw people in a theater literally jump out of their seats.
Same here. I remember people running up the aisles and out of the theater during the chest-burster scene.
posted by doctornemo at 7:44 PM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
Same here. I remember people running up the aisles and out of the theater during the chest-burster scene.
posted by doctornemo at 7:44 PM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
Exorcist: it holds up brilliantly.
Entertainingly, parts were filmed in Georgetown University, where I now teach. I think of it, smiling, when I walk up to the library or across one walkway. The building my classes are in is alongside the staircase from the finale, and Google Maps literally calls it The Exorcist Stairs.
posted by doctornemo at 7:46 PM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
Entertainingly, parts were filmed in Georgetown University, where I now teach. I think of it, smiling, when I walk up to the library or across one walkway. The building my classes are in is alongside the staircase from the finale, and Google Maps literally calls it The Exorcist Stairs.
posted by doctornemo at 7:46 PM on October 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
This 20 minute freak show revealing an insanely-clown underbelly of decadent culture replete with intimate inside-job, richly colorful shots and NO narration or overt political content is definitely horror show. You won't know what to think or do, but you will enjoy as a guilty pleasure. It is THE PHANTOM OF MAR-A-LAGO. And it is free at this link on YouTube. I bet most folks on here will be enthralled from the get go and will feel that it is an amazing ride......
posted by swlabr at 7:51 PM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by swlabr at 7:51 PM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
I watch a lot of horror movies, and in my post-adolescence I can say that very few of them really scare me, though I have a true and sincere love of the form. (Not that I'm trying to imply that people who don't like horror movies are less developed or anything - this is just how things worked out for me.) But I will also add that one of the few movies that has given me a direct, casual nightmare was Carnival of Souls. I was rewatching it and fell asleep right towards the end, and I wound up with the terrible uncanny sensation that I'd been living in a dream until just that moment, and I literally cried out in my sleep and woke myself up to a thankfully full-color world.
Objectively, Carnival of Souls is not a terribly frightening film. What special effects it has are rudimentary even for 1962, the acting could be better in most cases, and the plot is lifted wholesale from a widely-anthologized short story first published in 1891. It doesn't rely on jump scares, and other movies (like The Haunting, released just a year later) do better at creating a snowballing sense of dread throughout. But it's got a feeling. There's a mood to it that in my mind few other movies have replicated.
posted by whir at 7:53 PM on October 28, 2024 [5 favorites]
Objectively, Carnival of Souls is not a terribly frightening film. What special effects it has are rudimentary even for 1962, the acting could be better in most cases, and the plot is lifted wholesale from a widely-anthologized short story first published in 1891. It doesn't rely on jump scares, and other movies (like The Haunting, released just a year later) do better at creating a snowballing sense of dread throughout. But it's got a feeling. There's a mood to it that in my mind few other movies have replicated.
posted by whir at 7:53 PM on October 28, 2024 [5 favorites]
But It Follows, for me, is a super-well-done mood of a movie, that captures a super-specific tone unlike anything else and really maintains it throughout. It's a great movie. Just not a very scary one to me personally, and I don't understand quite why that is.
I never found this to be this a crazy scary movie either, but it still seems like a great movie to me. I feel like there's a dreaminess in it that is really well-integrated, and that I don't see in a lot of other movies of its genre, like the scene where the protagonist just sort of lolls around in her parent's outdoor pool for a while, contemplating her surroundings, or the low-key alternate-reality bits, like where the protagonist's best friend is for some reason scrolling around on some kind of clamshell ereader/phone device that can research mysteries and (IIRC) pull up the full text of The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock.
posted by whir at 8:45 PM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
I never found this to be this a crazy scary movie either, but it still seems like a great movie to me. I feel like there's a dreaminess in it that is really well-integrated, and that I don't see in a lot of other movies of its genre, like the scene where the protagonist just sort of lolls around in her parent's outdoor pool for a while, contemplating her surroundings, or the low-key alternate-reality bits, like where the protagonist's best friend is for some reason scrolling around on some kind of clamshell ereader/phone device that can research mysteries and (IIRC) pull up the full text of The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock.
posted by whir at 8:45 PM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
"Nosferatu". It's great.
I prefer Knottsferatu.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:26 PM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
I prefer Knottsferatu.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:26 PM on October 28, 2024 [1 favorite]
Way back when I had a movie theater of my own, we would regularly host a themed night where patrons would submit What Scared Them As A Kid. We'd end up showing all kinds of things that weren't strictly horror, ranging from TV commercials to home movies to bizarre stuff that was purposely made for children but.. maybe shouldn't have been (looking at you, The Peanut Butter Solution). Anyway, it was incredibly validating that the cheesy movie that gave child-me nightmares for a month in 1989 still had power and freaked out an entire venue full of adults in 2002. It's called Moon Trap and it sounds ridiculous. It stars Walter Koenig (Star Trek's Chekov) and Bruce Campbell and it's about killer robots on the moon. There's a random sexy space chick. There's a scene that's pointlessly in a strip club. AND YET. It still carries some genuine horror.
Bonus actual scary movie: A Tale Of Two Sisters. When the film was originally released, It became both the highest-grossing Korean horror film of all time and the first one to be screened in American theatres. If it's possible to have a perfect horror movie, this might just be it.
posted by foxtongue at 10:31 PM on October 28, 2024 [6 favorites]
Bonus actual scary movie: A Tale Of Two Sisters. When the film was originally released, It became both the highest-grossing Korean horror film of all time and the first one to be screened in American theatres. If it's possible to have a perfect horror movie, this might just be it.
posted by foxtongue at 10:31 PM on October 28, 2024 [6 favorites]
PRINCE OF DARKNESS. Nothing scarier than those transmissions.
posted by Dokterrock at 11:10 PM on October 28, 2024 [7 favorites]
posted by Dokterrock at 11:10 PM on October 28, 2024 [7 favorites]
Jaws. I was eleven when it came out, and I remember leaving the theater feeling utterly drained. And I wasn't even old enough to fully appreciate Quint's USS Indianapolis monologue, which is just incredible.
posted by Halloween Jack at 4:37 AM on October 29, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 4:37 AM on October 29, 2024 [2 favorites]
Might not be to everyone's taste, but a recent horror which impressed me was Tilman Singer's Luz. Super low-budget body-swapping possession movie with a super-creepy vibe.
posted by aeshnid at 5:35 AM on October 29, 2024
posted by aeshnid at 5:35 AM on October 29, 2024
One random thing I like in horror, when the horror is just announced, right out in the open, but in a foreign language that the filmmakers are guessing the audience doesn't know. The Thing is a prime example, where the Norwegians trying to kill the dog at the beginning are openly saying it's monster from outer space that can change shape.
My own personal favorite was seeing Event Horizon with my girlfriend at the time, who was minoring in classics, and had to take Latin. She understood the Latin in the film right off the bat, and that it Sam Neill's translation was wrong. She low key freaked out in her seat in the theater, but I have to hand it to her, when I asked her what the matter was, she told me not to worry, and just keep watching the movie. The two of us had a very different experience watching the movie. I, of course, freaked out when the mistake in the translation was clearly stated in the movie, but for her, there was the sense of mounting dread at just how bad things were going to be.
posted by Ghidorah at 5:49 AM on October 29, 2024 [9 favorites]
My own personal favorite was seeing Event Horizon with my girlfriend at the time, who was minoring in classics, and had to take Latin. She understood the Latin in the film right off the bat, and that it Sam Neill's translation was wrong. She low key freaked out in her seat in the theater, but I have to hand it to her, when I asked her what the matter was, she told me not to worry, and just keep watching the movie. The two of us had a very different experience watching the movie. I, of course, freaked out when the mistake in the translation was clearly stated in the movie, but for her, there was the sense of mounting dread at just how bad things were going to be.
posted by Ghidorah at 5:49 AM on October 29, 2024 [9 favorites]
And people say studying classical literature is useless!
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:27 AM on October 29, 2024 [5 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:27 AM on October 29, 2024 [5 favorites]
I saw night of the living dead (1968 edition) far too young so that is my formative horror film experience, for sure. But just the commercials for Poltergeist melted my tiny little brain with fear. So much so that I did not actually dare to watch the movie itself until I was an older teen. It was still pretty scary! But not brain-melting, by then.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 7:24 AM on October 29, 2024 [3 favorites]
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 7:24 AM on October 29, 2024 [3 favorites]
A Tale Of Two Sisters is excellent, agreed.
I saw it at a horror convention, which was an ideal setting.
posted by doctornemo at 7:34 AM on October 29, 2024
I saw it at a horror convention, which was an ideal setting.
posted by doctornemo at 7:34 AM on October 29, 2024
(Non-horror content)
In the wee hours last night, as I climbed back into bed after getting up to pee, I noticed how these days I always have to arrange every limb and joint Just So to find a comfortable position.
I remember when I could just get into bed and go to sleep without thinking about any of that. *sigh*
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:53 AM on October 29, 2024 [1 favorite]
In the wee hours last night, as I climbed back into bed after getting up to pee, I noticed how these days I always have to arrange every limb and joint Just So to find a comfortable position.
I remember when I could just get into bed and go to sleep without thinking about any of that. *sigh*
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:53 AM on October 29, 2024 [1 favorite]
ALERT ALERT ALERT
Some sainted person has posted Pontypool to Internet Arcvhive.
As someone who has been reading MeFi for 20+ years, I can tell you that no other single horror film has come up as often between MeFites as an unheralded gem that they cannot wait to recommend. Seriously, it's almost like a running joke how often people recommend that here. MeFites love this movie.
The thing is, it isn't often streaming anymore, and not only has it never even made to Blu Ray, the DVD is out of print and hard to find.
If you haven't seen it (or are due for a rewatch) grab a copy of this ASAP. Don't even assume it will stay streaming, as it will get deleted soon, and that's if IA itself doesn't go down again.
I will not spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it, but I will say that it's about a radio show shock jock, busted down to working in a small town radio station who is on air when something starts happening in town. It makes use some of the beats of a contagion or zombie movie to do something far more abstract and very fascinating. It's based on a play and it's just fantastic.
Instead of a trailer, a there's the opening scene.
Oh, and here's the file itself, for direct download.
It may be available on AMC+ too, if you want to pay it straight.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:57 AM on October 29, 2024 [7 favorites]
Some sainted person has posted Pontypool to Internet Arcvhive.
As someone who has been reading MeFi for 20+ years, I can tell you that no other single horror film has come up as often between MeFites as an unheralded gem that they cannot wait to recommend. Seriously, it's almost like a running joke how often people recommend that here. MeFites love this movie.
The thing is, it isn't often streaming anymore, and not only has it never even made to Blu Ray, the DVD is out of print and hard to find.
If you haven't seen it (or are due for a rewatch) grab a copy of this ASAP. Don't even assume it will stay streaming, as it will get deleted soon, and that's if IA itself doesn't go down again.
I will not spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it, but I will say that it's about a radio show shock jock, busted down to working in a small town radio station who is on air when something starts happening in town. It makes use some of the beats of a contagion or zombie movie to do something far more abstract and very fascinating. It's based on a play and it's just fantastic.
Instead of a trailer, a there's the opening scene.
Oh, and here's the file itself, for direct download.
It may be available on AMC+ too, if you want to pay it straight.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:57 AM on October 29, 2024 [7 favorites]
Thank you, DOT! The only reason I haven't mentioned Pontypool in this thread yet is that it's such a cliché on this site (which is, of course, where it was first recommended to me!) but seriously, y'all, check it out while you can.
posted by Navelgazer at 9:17 AM on October 29, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by Navelgazer at 9:17 AM on October 29, 2024 [1 favorite]
Also check out Rhaomi's excellent post about the film on the blue.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:20 AM on October 29, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 9:20 AM on October 29, 2024 [2 favorites]
my family went to see Poltergeist when I was 14. I loved it. my little sister was only 10 and it permanently scarred her. you can just walk up to her and say "clown" and she will scream.
posted by supermedusa at 12:10 PM on October 29, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by supermedusa at 12:10 PM on October 29, 2024 [2 favorites]
Man, clowns were really doing just fine until Poltergeist and It just came and fucked their shit up forever.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:55 PM on October 29, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:55 PM on October 29, 2024 [1 favorite]
Pretty sure clowns' reputations were tanking long before that.
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:59 PM on October 29, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:59 PM on October 29, 2024 [2 favorites]
Also despite having seen the exorcist multiple times at home, when I saw it in the theater I was terrified like I’d never been. The sound mixing of the theater is entirely different than watching on tv and adding back the cut scene of Regan walking backwards downstairs still haunts my mind it’s one of those images I instinctively jerk away from that’s how horrifying.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 1:08 PM on October 29, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by St. Peepsburg at 1:08 PM on October 29, 2024 [1 favorite]
And fuck event horizon and the friend who’d seen it before and grabbed me right at the end as one of the face reveal was happening I’ll never forgive you for that Carl
posted by St. Peepsburg at 1:11 PM on October 29, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by St. Peepsburg at 1:11 PM on October 29, 2024 [1 favorite]
Pretty sure clowns' reputations were tanking long before that.
'The Last of the Dunk Tank Clowns'
posted by clavdivs at 1:17 PM on October 29, 2024
'The Last of the Dunk Tank Clowns'
posted by clavdivs at 1:17 PM on October 29, 2024
And fuck event horizon and the friend who’d seen it before and grabbed me right at the end as one of the face reveal was happening I’ll never forgive you for that Carl
Carl rocks.
I made my kid watch all of the Final Destination movies and then a few months later, just as we were getting to the top of his first real roller coaster, I looked over at him and asked, "Hey: what's your favorite Final Destination movie? I think mine is the third one. Remember the third one?" (spoilers/horror on that clip, obv)
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:18 PM on October 29, 2024 [1 favorite]
The thing is, it isn't often streaming anymore, and not only has it never even made to Blu Ray, the DVD is out of print and hard to find.
Pontypool has in fact had several European Blu-Ray releases, and if you're willing to resort to somewhat disreputable sources, you can find excellent versions of it sourced from those, in pristine HD.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 2:28 PM on October 29, 2024 [1 favorite]
Pontypool has in fact had several European Blu-Ray releases, and if you're willing to resort to somewhat disreputable sources, you can find excellent versions of it sourced from those, in pristine HD.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 2:28 PM on October 29, 2024 [1 favorite]
I don't love horror the way I love some genres, but the five horror movies that I've five-starred on ye olde Letterboxd are:
Videodrome: the ur-text of media horror. Haneke didn't actually need to make Funny Games because Cronenberg said it all.
The VVitch: already discussed a bit here. I might not rate it five stars if I went back and saw it again, but I certainly don't mind mentioning it because it's great modern folk horror.
Inland Empire: wait, is that a horror movie? Probably. Like Videodrome, it's about the way we construct our own horror out of bits and pieces of media. Lynch's best movie, although I won't argue with people who think Twin Peaks is better as an overall accomplishment.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari: there must always be an Expressionist masterpiece. Come to think about it, this is sort of also about the lines between reality and fantasy. Let's face it, I have a type.
The Wolf House: incredibly harrowing animation that makes the most of the medium. More shifting realities. Also a true story in some sense; at least, the religious cult of Colonia Dignidad was real.
posted by Bryant at 3:08 PM on October 29, 2024 [2 favorites]
Videodrome: the ur-text of media horror. Haneke didn't actually need to make Funny Games because Cronenberg said it all.
The VVitch: already discussed a bit here. I might not rate it five stars if I went back and saw it again, but I certainly don't mind mentioning it because it's great modern folk horror.
Inland Empire: wait, is that a horror movie? Probably. Like Videodrome, it's about the way we construct our own horror out of bits and pieces of media. Lynch's best movie, although I won't argue with people who think Twin Peaks is better as an overall accomplishment.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari: there must always be an Expressionist masterpiece. Come to think about it, this is sort of also about the lines between reality and fantasy. Let's face it, I have a type.
The Wolf House: incredibly harrowing animation that makes the most of the medium. More shifting realities. Also a true story in some sense; at least, the religious cult of Colonia Dignidad was real.
posted by Bryant at 3:08 PM on October 29, 2024 [2 favorites]
Pontypool has in fact had several European Blu-Ray releases
I mean yeah, if you're on the region-free train (and I am) but for like US civilians, not so much.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 3:51 PM on October 29, 2024
I mean yeah, if you're on the region-free train (and I am) but for like US civilians, not so much.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 3:51 PM on October 29, 2024
Re: Pontypool, don't forget your local public library; they might have a copy (mine still does). And even if they don't, if you really don't want to pay for it you can probably ask your library to pick up a copy (Midwest Tape [a DVD/Blu-ray vendor for libraries] has it in stock, though they don't say how many copies).
posted by johnofjack at 4:55 PM on October 29, 2024
posted by johnofjack at 4:55 PM on October 29, 2024
I don't know how we got this far without someone mentioning As Above So Below but goddamn it's good. One third adventure story, one third suspense film and one third horror flick. In order. A visceral experience, and not in the gross sense. You go through hell's digestive tract with those characters.
posted by Leeway at 7:55 PM on October 29, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by Leeway at 7:55 PM on October 29, 2024 [1 favorite]
My favourite horror movies are Cabin in the Woods and Cube
posted by signsofrain at 6:44 AM on October 30, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by signsofrain at 6:44 AM on October 30, 2024 [1 favorite]
Also, audi alteram partem mentioned Housebound above and I'd really like to back them up as that it is legitimately one of the better horror comedies of the last 15 years.
It has a very tasty combination of actually kinda scary (but not disturbingly so) scary and downright hilarious, with each half of that equation well-balanced for maximum enjoyment. Pretty much anyone who likes horror comedies would have a total blast with that.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:29 PM on October 30, 2024 [1 favorite]
It has a very tasty combination of actually kinda scary (but not disturbingly so) scary and downright hilarious, with each half of that equation well-balanced for maximum enjoyment. Pretty much anyone who likes horror comedies would have a total blast with that.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:29 PM on October 30, 2024 [1 favorite]
Nothing scarier than those transmissions.
THIS IS NOT A DREAM
posted by doctornemo at 1:26 PM on October 30, 2024 [1 favorite]
THIS IS NOT A DREAM
posted by doctornemo at 1:26 PM on October 30, 2024 [1 favorite]
just the commercials for Poltergeist melted my tiny little brain with fear
For me it was the ads for Phantasm. Scared the hell out of me.
The movie, when I finally saw it, was also scary, but I don't think anything caught up to that commercial for me.
posted by doctornemo at 1:35 PM on October 30, 2024
For me it was the ads for Phantasm. Scared the hell out of me.
The movie, when I finally saw it, was also scary, but I don't think anything caught up to that commercial for me.
posted by doctornemo at 1:35 PM on October 30, 2024
I had never even heard of Ghostwatch before this thread so we watched it last night. Dayyyum!! It was really scary. Right off the bat and all the way through. It was great!
posted by supermedusa at 3:06 PM on October 30, 2024 [3 favorites]
posted by supermedusa at 3:06 PM on October 30, 2024 [3 favorites]
I mentioned MST Club's Halloween program earlier. Here is what it entails.
It's happening here, as usual: https://cytu.be/r/metafilter_mst3kclub. We're doing 24 hours, starting now and probably will run a bit over later on since the west coast will have to catch up with us. As always, it's intended as a low key kind of thing, there won't be someone in the room at all hours but I'll drop in from time to time. The kinds of things to expect: Vincent Price, Halloween episodes of cartoons, a Paul Lynde Halloween special is in the playlist somewhere, Goosebumps, riffed shorts with a spooky or unsettling theme, Homestar Runner Halloween, and things of those natures. Most of it is scavenged off of Youtube.
The main thing is Halloween specials and the like. Our usual Thursday show will be our riffing item (the Rifftrax for the 1978 Halloween*), at 9 PM Eastern. We'll probably have at least one other movie in there. We're currently planning on doing the two Far Side specials after the main film.
* The Rifftrax is one of the earlier ones they did, with only Mike and Kevin riffing, and dates to 2006. I'm issuing a content warning here, since Rifftrax still had more of a 90's-humor tone back then, regarding gender and such things. I don't _think_ there's anything terrible, but sometimes early RT can be a minefield and I haven't vetted the whole movie. I apologize if any of that turns up in the riff.
posted by JHarris at 9:28 PM on October 30, 2024 [1 favorite]
It's happening here, as usual: https://cytu.be/r/metafilter_mst3kclub. We're doing 24 hours, starting now and probably will run a bit over later on since the west coast will have to catch up with us. As always, it's intended as a low key kind of thing, there won't be someone in the room at all hours but I'll drop in from time to time. The kinds of things to expect: Vincent Price, Halloween episodes of cartoons, a Paul Lynde Halloween special is in the playlist somewhere, Goosebumps, riffed shorts with a spooky or unsettling theme, Homestar Runner Halloween, and things of those natures. Most of it is scavenged off of Youtube.
The main thing is Halloween specials and the like. Our usual Thursday show will be our riffing item (the Rifftrax for the 1978 Halloween*), at 9 PM Eastern. We'll probably have at least one other movie in there. We're currently planning on doing the two Far Side specials after the main film.
* The Rifftrax is one of the earlier ones they did, with only Mike and Kevin riffing, and dates to 2006. I'm issuing a content warning here, since Rifftrax still had more of a 90's-humor tone back then, regarding gender and such things. I don't _think_ there's anything terrible, but sometimes early RT can be a minefield and I haven't vetted the whole movie. I apologize if any of that turns up in the riff.
posted by JHarris at 9:28 PM on October 30, 2024 [1 favorite]
Also: voteskip will be turned on for most of the show (before 7 PM ET), set for if over half of the people currently watching want to skip. The skip button is the bottom-right corner of the video. If something boring or not to your liking is playing, and you're the only one there, skipping is an easy decision!
posted by JHarris at 9:39 PM on October 30, 2024
posted by JHarris at 9:39 PM on October 30, 2024
I just want to stan for the Garfield Halloween Special too. It's solid for a kid's cartoon, starts funny, goes scary, and ends poignant.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:35 AM on October 31, 2024 [6 favorites]
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:35 AM on October 31, 2024 [6 favorites]
Numbers stations creep me the fuck out and I do not know why!
posted by cooker girl at 8:21 AM on October 31, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by cooker girl at 8:21 AM on October 31, 2024 [1 favorite]
Me, on the conference call this morning.
(I really am wearing that costume. Also: Michael Myers is married, apparently.)
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:36 AM on October 31, 2024 [1 favorite]
(I really am wearing that costume. Also: Michael Myers is married, apparently.)
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:36 AM on October 31, 2024 [1 favorite]
I have the makings of a costume, but I'm probably not going to do anything tonight - I have been working for a solid month to get my boss sorted for a trip she's taking, and that ended yesterday. Tomorrow I take my own weekend jaunt and need to pack for that. So that leaves me to spend this lovely Halloween by taking out trash and catching up on housecleaning, yippee.
...It's all good. The dog costume contest is more my jam each year anyway, and I've got until Thanksgiving to submit a picture to a costume contest I'm doing. Have roped the roommate into being the photographer for my turn as the Rider-Waite Empress tarot card.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:45 AM on October 31, 2024 [1 favorite]
...It's all good. The dog costume contest is more my jam each year anyway, and I've got until Thanksgiving to submit a picture to a costume contest I'm doing. Have roped the roommate into being the photographer for my turn as the Rider-Waite Empress tarot card.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:45 AM on October 31, 2024 [1 favorite]
If you're talking about the MST Club thing, not just everyday big moggies (which is a terrific username), it's here.
posted by JHarris at 8:59 AM on October 31, 2024
posted by JHarris at 8:59 AM on October 31, 2024
I think Not Just Everyday Big Moggies is talking about this thread in Metatalk.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:32 AM on October 31, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:32 AM on October 31, 2024 [1 favorite]
My costume is an over-caffeinated WFH drone in sweatpants and a flannel shirt who didn't get around to putting up any Halloween decorations.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:49 AM on October 31, 2024
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:49 AM on October 31, 2024
I did briefly consider buying one of those 12-foot skeletons and cramming it into my undersized deck in a somehow vaguely threatening fetal crouch, but the $300 price tag was more than the joke was worth. Besides, I've got nowhere to store it, and I want to be able to use my deck the rest of the year.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:50 AM on October 31, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:50 AM on October 31, 2024 [1 favorite]
I just saw an article titled "35 Never-Before-Seen Pictures Showing The Origins Of Iconic Memes". But...clearly they've been seen before, or nobody would have been able to make memes from them?
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:05 PM on October 31, 2024
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:05 PM on October 31, 2024
Halloween at the new job has gone excellently. Nobody really gets my costume (which since it's a mashup is kind of to be expected), but that's fine. The Girl Scout decorating theme, even though I ended up not doing much when my coworkers had it handled, has gone over VERY well, as have handing out free cookies and stickers.
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:23 PM on October 31, 2024
posted by jenfullmoon at 3:23 PM on October 31, 2024
For our Christmas photo this year, my kid and I will be wearing these shirts of a Art the Clown dressed as a bloody Santa while my partner will be wearing a shirt we are making to say "I do not know how they watch this stuff."
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:17 AM on November 1, 2024
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:17 AM on November 1, 2024
I don't get the love for Pontypool. It was alright, just standard zombie movie fare.
I actually thought it would have a been a far better movie if they played up the War of the Worlds (only reporting on the action) idea.
Though I must admit I'm not scared of zombies. The movies have to focus on the outbreak, because the next week in, in real life, zombies would be livestock, exploited by corporations in death to eat trash as a part of the recycling revolution.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:28 AM on November 1, 2024 [1 favorite]
I actually thought it would have a been a far better movie if they played up the War of the Worlds (only reporting on the action) idea.
Though I must admit I'm not scared of zombies. The movies have to focus on the outbreak, because the next week in, in real life, zombies would be livestock, exploited by corporations in death to eat trash as a part of the recycling revolution.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:28 AM on November 1, 2024 [1 favorite]
zombies would be livestock, exploited by corporations in death to eat trash as a part of the recycling revolution.
Now that's what I call horror.
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:23 AM on November 1, 2024
Now that's what I call horror.
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:23 AM on November 1, 2024
I just attended a work Zoom meeting where I said exactly four words: "good morning" at the beginning and "thanks " at the end. Best kind of meeting.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:10 AM on November 1, 2024
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:10 AM on November 1, 2024
Okay, I'll bite -
"Good morning" and "Thanks" is three words, what was the fourth word?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:27 AM on November 1, 2024 [1 favorite]
"Good morning" and "Thanks" is three words, what was the fourth word?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:27 AM on November 1, 2024 [1 favorite]
Whoops, sorry - I guess I put it in angle brackets. Rookie move. Should have been (host's name).
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:46 AM on November 1, 2024
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:46 AM on November 1, 2024
What kind of pants does a psychic wear?
A para'normal pants!
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:07 PM on November 3, 2024 [1 favorite]
A para'normal pants!
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:07 PM on November 3, 2024 [1 favorite]
😾👻
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:50 PM on November 3, 2024
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:50 PM on November 3, 2024
It's still a free thread, so here's something really nice! From Projects, where I think it went sadly neglected, there was posted a nice little blog by dobbs called A Tiny Bell. Please have a look at it!
posted by JHarris at 8:59 PM on November 5, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by JHarris at 8:59 PM on November 5, 2024 [1 favorite]
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Also not my favorite, but I just watched Lake Mungo last weekend and thought it was fantastic. Definitely a great one to check out if you're looking for something (not) new to watch and like your spooky movies quiet and sad.
Not sure if I have a favorite, but I think The
WitchVVitch is fantastic. Also love the Insidious movies even if for no other reason than casting a woman in her 70s in the pivotal franchise defining role. More 👏 of 👏 this 👏 please 👏.posted by phunniemee at 10:23 AM on October 28, 2024 [9 favorites]