frightening horror movies (1 Viewer)

[Perry Jonkheer]

I agree with "The Others" suggestions... Great twist too.

 

[Mark Dill]

When a Stranger Calls Back

It has some fantastically tense scenes and is overall pretty suspenseful - some scenes, you keep thinking "Oh man, something's gotta happen here..." and then nothing does, but in other scenes you will get a huge payoff.

 

[Blaine Skerry]

I'm a sucker for a good seance so a couple of films I would recommend are Full Circle(aka The Haunting Of Julia)from a Peter Straub novel and Night Of The Demon based on the short story Casting The Runes from the amazing M.R. James. Kate Bush fans will recognise a line of dialogue from the NOTD seance sequence.

 

[Kevin M]

One very creepy film that is not on DVD and deserves to be is Let's Scare Jessica to Death (1971), I haven't seen this in years but it has stuck with me ever since childhood when I first saw it on latenight TV.....very good paranoid thriller of the "are they all against me or is it just in my mind" vein, creepy to say the least.

 

[WilliamMc]

The only scary movie I've ever seen is also the only really good horror movie I know of. It's the Exorcist. Why is it so hard to make a good scary movie? Am I too picky? I also like a couple of Of the nightmare on elm street movies in a less scary kinda of way. Fredy is a much better character than that borish Jason guy!

 

[Kain_C]

No one has mentioned Jacob's Ladder? Even the deleted scenes are scary!

And even though it's popular to hate it, The Blair Witch Project is very scary and probably my fav scary movie besides Jacob's Ladder, even though the 'horror' genre is my least favorite genre.

 

[Greg Black]

I agree with Richard, and I will second The Exorcist III: Legion as having quite possibly the best "jump scare" moment in any movie. The rest of the movie is excellent. George C. Scott delivers a terrific performance (of course), as does Brad Dourif.

 

[Malcolm R]

Laughable film overall, but "Darkness Falls" has some great surround sound.

Then there's one of my faves, "Mimic". Good film, IMO, with nice surround effects.

 

[Scott L]

House on Haunted Hill has some really great moments for full surrround sound. I can pick out 3 choice scenes off the top of my head in fact.

As for the movie itself, it's nothing legendary like the Excorcist, but much of the movie will just plain freak you out, right from the beginning too. Totally worth the price of seeing a really crappy ending.

 

[David Rogers]

Event Horizon. Only time I've ever seen an actual realistic moment in a horror flick. Laurence Fishborne plays the captain of a rescue ship, and eventually he and his crew examine a log fragment of the abandoned ship they've boarded. The log shows a scene of hell, people bleeding from the eyes, gore everywhere, horrible screaming and wailing. Larry snaps the log off and goes "that's it, we're leaving!" Exactly right response.

Also Prophecy. During a scene where Viggo Mortensen (playing Satan) is trying to persuade and threaten a character. He suddenly looks up in dark frustration, clenches his fists, and whispers "I love you more than Jesus". Shivers up and down the spine.

Also Sixth Sense, pretty damn scary.

 

[Linda Thompson]

Not "horror" in the gore or supernatural sense, but Jurassic Park has some moments that you'll definitely appreciate through a good home theater system. Your neighbors might not appreciate the T-Rex's roars, though...

 

[Denny_S]

Horror is about my most favorite genre and I've seen my share of scary moments in film. The scene described by one poster above from 'Exorcist III' still scares me even though I know it's coming.
I've recently seen a Thai film called 'Shutter' which was really really freaky, but I don't believe that this might be available in R1 as yet.
Some other films I think that do offer a few chills (and in no particular order) are :
- Candyman (candyman...candyman..)
- Poltergeist (now children, hold on to yourselves..)
- The Legend Of Hell House (welcome to my house..)
- The Others
- The Entity (freaky soundtrack!)
- The Changeling (...joseph......)
- The Shining (.come and play with us..)
- Prince of Darkness (..faaatherr....)

 

[Mark Dill]

Saw is a really good one

 

[Tommy G]

I still think Jaws is the scariest movie I ever saw. However, Onibaba definitely ranks up there. I think if I had to make a list of scary/disturbing movies ever, my list would be as follows:
1. Jaws
2. Psycho
3. The Vanishing (Spoorlos not the stupid remake) this to me is the most disturbing ending in film history
4. Se7en
5. Alien
6. The Thing
7. Eyes Without a Face
8. Onibaba
9. The Others
10. The Haunting

You can probably tell from my list that what is not seen scares me so much more than what I do see.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Being raised Catholic and having suffered under the teachings of "Our Lady of Perpetual Guilt and Shame"(tm), The Exorcist scares the life out of me. I know it may not have the same effect on non-religious persons, but it really gets to me. All other horror genres; slasher, ghosts, creatures, etc., do nothing to me (except for Alien, a truly horrifying movie), but sit me in front of "an old priest and a young priest" and I won't sleep for days.

 

[Stevan Lay]

One to look out for is an Australian feature called Wolf Creek.

 

[Kevin M]

Dark Water (2002) creeped me out, a very well crafted asian horror film.

Along the same lines as The Devil's Backbone, both had great spook moments and both had deeper allegories going on underneath the surface ghost story....although perhaps DW was a bit more heavy handed about it than TDBB.


In fact, ChrisTes the more I think about it the more I strongly recommend Dark Water for at least a rent, it really does have some tense moments in it.....quite scary.

 

[Inspector Hammer!]

Make no mistake, Chris, there is alot more to The Exorcist III than just that one scene mentioned, it is one of the most sinfully underrated horror films ever made and is also one of the more intellectual, which is where it's tense and terrifying atmosphere comes from. It's all in the dialogue in this one, so listen close for maximum impact.

Other can't miss shockers include The Changling, Carnival of Souls (the original), The Fog, The Entity, Salems Lot (the original, avoid that God aweful remake from last year at all costs), Fright Night, The Shining (again, original), Jeepers Creepers and of course Halloween.

 

[JohnMor]

I also agree about The Exorcist III (especially the scene referred to above

) and also about The Others, which I think is a really top-notch ghost story. Also worth checking out are The Haunting, The Legend of Hell House, Se7en, and in a similar vein, Copycat, which is also about the search for a serial killer. I think all offer some legit scares or intense creepiness.