Myself & Daughter has been on a bit of a Horror fest lately.
But frankly I'm a bit underwhelmed.?
We watched the Shining the other night - was it even scary in the 80's?
Poltergeist - remember being freaked out by it when I was younger, but again meh...
The Exorcist - again, might have been pant wettingly scary in the 70's but not now.
The Omen - only thing that scared me was the big dog.....
Newer films like the Conjuring, Children of the Corn, Jeepers Creepers and Wrong Turn are OK, but still not "OMG I can't go to sleep without the lights on for 3 weeks...."
Are there any decent horror films?
what type of horror films are you into as there are a lot of different types of horror (psychological, extreme torture type films like martyrs (not for me tbh those), supernatural, lovecraftian, demonic etc.)
some good ones (in my opinion) maybe not terrifying but definitely kept me interested in watching them.
the hitcher (1986 rutger hauer original).
terrifier 1,2 (there's a third one but not seen that yet)
the void
malignant
hereditary
the thing (john carpenter classic remake)
glorious
henry portrait of a serial killer
no doubt others will recommend you films i haven't seen.
The original "The hills have eyes"
The last scene of the original Carrie, if you haven't seen it? The ending of the Donald Sutherland version of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers? They both shat me up at the time.
I watched Talk to Me recently and had actual nightmares for the first time in years.
It's not a regular horror in a 'sexy teenagers being butchered one at a time' way. It just gave me a lot to think about and obviously my brain kept going while I was asleep.
It's What's Inside was good as well. Not scary but an original premise and deliberately confusing as hell.
The eponymous Scary Movie.
YouTube has some pretty good scary films, more the suspense types.
This short film gives you a flavour of the kind of stuff
Event horizon was goong to be my suggestion.
Surely its a problem with the genre you can only really watch it once and find it scary.
+1 more for Event Horizon.
Not necessarily scary, but proper unsettling.
How do you feel about video games? I've been more horror-ified by games than films in recent years.
The demo for Resident Evil Biohazard properly gave me the willies. Some people play that game on VR. ****, and indeed, that.
what type of horror films are you into as there are a lot of different types of horror
Also, this.
The scary part of the Shining was when Jack was talking away, and Lloyd the bartender appeared.
The Willem Dafoe movie ‘Antichrist’ will make you wince. Guaranteed!
Bring Her Back and Longlegs are the most disturbing films I've seen lately.. proper freaked me out. Others feel different course. Each to their own . Not sure if I'd watch either with my daughter (if I had one)
Event Horizon
Autopsy of Jane Doe
Bone Tomahawk (western turns into horror with one really unsettling scene)
Rec (Spanish version)
Hereditary
Mandy (not scary as such, just makes you think wtf am I watching)
The Thing
Audition (Japanese horror. Last 30 minutes are intense)
The Taking of Deborah Logan
The Void
The Blair Witch Project scared the living bejesus out of me when I watched it at the pictures at the time
I talked my partner into seeing Event Horizon at the cinema on the basis that it was a sci-fi. It is still used as an example of my bad judgement now.
I went to watch Mad Max 1 with a girlfriend, she found it disturbing. 30 or so years later I watched it with Madame - same reaction.
I talked my partner into seeing Event Horizon at the cinema on the basis that it was a sci-fi.
Ditto, kinda. Two friends and I went to the multiplex cinema in Stockport with no plans as to what to watch other than 'a film', saw the poster with a space ship on it and thought "yeah, that'll do".
We each left sporting a thousand yard stare.
Thanks all - had forgotten Event Horizon, yeah that's disturbing!
Brilliant film though.
Might have to watch that again.
Have seen both versions of Carrie.
Depends what scares you.
As a kid I was given a book* about "unexplained animals", there happened to be a report of one just up the road from where I lived and so that freaked me out. The story was of a sort of mothlike man... Fast forward 12 years or so and I rented The Mothman Prophecies and watched it alone in the house as an 18 year old.
The hairs on my neck stood up so much my hairline changed to gibbon.
It's rated 12 IIRC
* https://archive.org/details/creaturesfromels0000unse
Try “It Follows”.
Cube (and sequels)
Hellraiser
The Platform - it's not quite horror but it will give your mind a little shake. Watch in Spanish with subtitles not the dubbed version.
Not seen Hellraiser for years - Will rewatch that too.
Rec 2
Hereditary
The Witch
Cube (and sequels)
Whilst not really horror, Cube is phenomenal.
I can't say as I'd recommend any of the sequels though, unless you've watched one I haven't.
I remember watching Ringu with a friend in my parent’s basement in my mid-twenties. We had to watch City Slickers 2 twice before we could remember how to talk properly again.
The Exorcist - again, might have been pant wettingly scary in the 70's but not now.
I skipped a maths lecture to go and see it when it came out. It was far less scary than the maths lecture would have been.
+1 for It Follows: some real uncanny, unsettling scares. Some good underplayed performances too.
The Smile movies have a very similar concept, but are waaaay more schlocky. Still good, trashy fun, I thought.
Not a strict horror, but check out The Survivalist. Post apocalypse thriller, set against a surprisingly lush backdrop: nature has come back in a big way following societal collapse. Starvation Vs cannibalism, body horror, gangs of marauders - it's also just a really tight, tense little movie, again with some great performances.
Honestly though, I think the scariest thing I've seen in the last few years might be the opening sequence from Nocturnal Animals. Genuinely nightmarish.
Annihilation was very unsettling.
Bonus recommendation: The Orphanage. A great ghost story with a genuine emotional punch.
Also rewatched Threads recently and it still holds up really well. Fittingly enough, the doomsday scenario in that one begins with US involvement in a war with Iran.
Event Horizon is on Prime at the moment in 4K
The last film I saw that I found frightening was Free Solo, not horror but the jeopardy was real.
Before that The Blair Witch Project left an impression long after the film had finished but heck that was nearly 30 years ago.
I think once you've been exposed to scary concepts in films and TV they don't have same impact again, but it was fun introducing a few to my kids though my son wouldn't watch anything with a supernatural theme. He couldn't watch Stranger Things as a teenager which my daughter loved, you realise actually how scary something contemporary like that would have appeared in the 80s and 90s when there was nothing else like it.
Neil Marshall's The Descent was a pretty creepy experience.
Hereditary and Lost Highway also stick with me as genuinely spooky too.
There's was also something proper terrifying about the first Texas Chainsaw Massacre - at the time but we've become too sophisticated for these sort old films.
I don't think being made to jump is scary. It's all in the suspense.
The Blair Witch Project scared the living bejesus out of me when I watched it at the pictures at the time
Yes I've got to admit despite its massive hype and el-cheapo 8mm video - it worked very well on the imagination stakes. The woods is the scariest thing in the world at night
Cinema for me too. Made a big difference.
A sideways shout for Cronenberg's Videodrome. Proper under your skin tech-body horror - ahead of its time.
Two which have stuck with me recently have been "The Moor" by Paul Thomas and "The Visit" by M Night Shaymalan.
The Visit starts off with the main characters being beyond annoying so I almost turned it off but it soon turns into a surprisingly good, unsettling film.
The Moor is a UK film and definitely worth a watch.
I watched "Event Horizon" the other night, it's a good film but the special effects are definitely showing their age now.
Threads.
Came to say this. A colleague reckons he couldn’t sleep for several nights after watching it.
I talked my partner into seeing Event Horizon at the cinema on the basis that it was a sci-fi. It is still used as an example of my bad judgement now.
Yes, saw this in the wee cinema in St Andrews and it was terrifying.
a film i forgot to add to my original post but definitely worth watching (especially after the epstein files situation) is a film called society 1989.
awesome film with awesome practical special effects.
Personally I thought the Blurred Witch project was overhyped tedium. It didn't help that the protagonists were hateful, by the end I was cheering on the witch.
IIRC the schtick at the time was it was supposed to be a real documentary, one of the first if not the first "found footage" films. But it plainly wasn't and the cat was out of the bag before it aired in the cinema even. Maybe if you believed you were watching Panorama it might've been different.
Yes I've got to admit despite its massive hype and el-cheapo 8mm video - it worked very well on the imagination stakes. The woods is the scariest thing in the world at night
@rone - years ago (pre LEDs with dinky batteries and iPhones with torches), we were out night riding in Llandegla forest. I was at the back (as usual) on the final descent and my lights just died. I was on my own in the woods, couldn’t even see my own feet it was so dark, and I swear to god, listening to the rustling in the trees around me, all I could think about was The Blair Witch!
It took the lads about ten minutes to realise I was missing and come back up for me, which felt like an eternity. The only thing in my head during that time was me, staring at a wall in the basement of an abandoned house in the final (frankly terrifying) scene from that film. I was absolutely bricking it!
Still gives me the fear now just thinking about it. There is no way I’d ever watch it again. Oh… and from that night on I always carry a back up set of lights with me when I’m out on the bike at night
I had a pretty similar experience just after watching the Blair Witch getting stuck in savernake forest; used to go there late coming back from working in London before going home. Just couldn’t find my way back to the lookout and my car. No gps and all the fire roads looked the same.
Surely its a problem with the genre you can only really watch it once and find it scary.
Please explain; I’m not sure I follow your reasoning.
I’m not interested in scary movies just for the sake of being gory, or just outright violent, but I’ve seen ‘Event Horizon’ recently, having seen it when first released, and it’s a very unsettling film, I can understand lots of people watching it not knowing what to expect, and never wanting to watch it again. I saw John Carpenter’s ‘The Thing’, not knowing what to expect, and there were certainly parts that really made me jump, but I’d watch it again, but there’s one film I watched, and one scene made me never want to watch it again, and that’s ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’; the scene where the army officer beats the person’s head in with a bottle, and is clearly deriving sadistic enjoyment from it is stuck in my mind, and reminds me that most of the time it’s the humans who are the real monsters, and I don’t ever want to watch it again.
The Blair Witch Project scared the living bejesus out of me when I watched it at the pictures at the time
Yes I've got to admit despite its massive hype and el-cheapo 8mm video - it worked very well on the imagination stakes. The woods is the scariest thing in the world at night
When it came out a friend had a great idea of going to watch it at the Kinema in the Woods in Woodhall Spa. A great idea as it was a bleak drive across the Lincolnshire Wolds in November to a cinema that's basically a wooden cabin. Unbeknown to the rest of us, said friend had borrowed a starter pistol from somebody and had planned for us to go for a walk in the dark woodland afterwards where he would brandish the gun and make a big bang and we'd all crap ourselves.
Unfortunately for all of us we got turned away as they'd sold all the seats. So we drove back to the pub, the driver firing the pistol out of the car window.
... I've still never seen that film.
It's scary that people expose children to this.
It took the lads about ten minutes to realise I was missing and come back up for me, which felt like an eternity. The only thing in my head during that time was me, staring at a wall in the basement of an abandoned house in the final (frankly terrifying) scene from that film. I was absolutely bricking it!
@binners I can relate to that.
The only thing worse than the woods at night is an abandoned house in the woods at night.
As for that girl in the corner - god knows what had got her fixated but it was overload on the brain.
When it came out a friend had a great idea of going to watch it at the Kinema in the Woods in Woodhall Spa.
Fantastic little place. And yes what a creepy environment for it to be seen.
Not been for years.
There's a recent probably little seen film called Never Let Go which is pretty creepy and has all of these tropes. (House in woods etc.)
Starring Halle Berry and directed by Alexandre Aja.
Probably one of the better horrors I've seen in the last couple of years.
Heretic was good too. Claustrophobic and darkly funny. Hugh Grant was excellent.
The Descent is top of my list for its ‘location’, its pacing, and its ambiguity. Make sure to watch the UK version rather than the US theatrical release.
Not sure it is truly scary, but The Wicker Man seems to disturb some folks more than others.
if you can get over the accents and mono footage then Night of the Demon is a horror classic imo.
As a child I was somewhat disturbed by The Man who Haunted Himself.
Bring Her Back has a great sense of escalating horror and disgust.
Not so scary perhaps but gory and entertaining is Dog Soldiers.
I don't think it has been mentioned but Wolf Creek seriously freaked me out when we watched it. It was all I could do not to turn the TV off. No other film has affected me like that, both wanting to watch it and not wanting to watch it. I'm sure when it came out there were lots of reports of people leaving the cinema because they couldn't handle it.
Please explain; I’m not sure I follow your reasoning.
The "big scare scenes" are often about suspense. You know its going to happen but you don't know when. Once you have seen ot that element is a bit eroded. The corridor scene in exorcist 2 for example. You know the nurse is going to work her way up the corridor and back down before anything happens.
I'm not suggesting they're one and done, just that the dynamic changes, could still be a good film worth a re watch but if you watch to be "scared" you might come away thinking "lol". The reaction moght come back with time as you forget but with something like the exorcist its probably engrained*
Alot of the films mentioned like the runaway favourite Event Horizon aren't really scary just really unsettling.
*I thought exorcist was pretty boring. I thought Blairwitch project was hilarious.
I thought exorcist was pretty boring
If you forget all the theatrics and focus on the young priest's loss of faith it's actually a pretty good film.
It's always the last post that recommends what I came to say - Wolf Creek.
So I'll add The Road.
Both are scary in a "it could happen" way.
The Road the film doesn't come close to The Road the book I think.
I thought exorcist was pretty boring
If you forget all the theatrics and focus on the young priest's loss of faith it's actually a pretty good film.
The Exorcist was unprecedented at the time causing chaos in some cinemas with a 13 year old girl doing all that devil stuff.
Apart from Rosemary's baby nothing like it had been seen before 1973.
It also won an Oscar for screenplay iirc and was very well crafted.
I'd suggest it seems boring by today's high octane standards and is as close to a masterpiece as horrors get.
The Fog.
I was watching the The Fog with a mate years ago, last century.
It was really late at night and coincidentally really foggy, a proper pea souper.
During the film at a foggy moment with pirates etc. a mad fox decides to launch itself at the sliding door glass with a mega bang. Imagine Wiley Coyote splatted against the glass. I quite literally Jumped out of my skin.
To this day my Dad reckons all he could hear was screaming. Us or the Fox ?.... who knows, probably me.
Pair of tarts.
Great film, well I like it.
I'm not hugely into horror type things, but I remember being freaked the **** out by What Lies Beneath. I can't remember why though!
I thought exorcist was pretty boring
If you forget all the theatrics and focus on the young priest's loss of faith it's actually a pretty good film.
Sorry "boring" as in not scary not as in boring film.
The Road the film doesn't come close to The Road the book I think.
I can't actually remember if I've read the book - probably not in that case. I think I live off the story in my head of a friend who read it on a plane to America once and cried probably a bit too hard to the air hostess when she asked if he wanted a drink.
I don't think it has been mentioned but Wolf Creek seriously freaked me out when we watched it. It was all I could do not to turn the TV off. No other film has affected me like that, both wanting to watch it and not wanting to watch it. I'm sure when it came out there were lots of reports of people leaving the cinema because they couldn't handle it.
Wolf Creek definitely has that 'you've nowhere to run' in the desert vibe.
Sometimes that's scarier than the dark.
The series was good too.
In fact the hill-billy scenario has lots of value.
Reminds me Eden Lake is terrifying as the British 'hoody' horror entry.
Saw Nightmare on Elm Street as a teen, and I'm still terrified of being in a bath!! 🤣
I'm not a horror genre watcher by choice, but Event Horizon was disturbing as mentioned already, and some TV show episodes have left an uneasy mark on me, particularly 2 X-Files episodes - the first Eugene Tooms one and the episode called Detour.
I don't think it has been mentioned but Wolf Creek seriously freaked me out when we watched it. It was all I could do not to turn the TV off. No other film has affected me like that, both wanting to watch it and not wanting to watch it. I'm sure when it came out there were lots of reports of people leaving the cinema because they couldn't handle it.
I’m picturing one particular scene in that film that is genuinely WTF?!!! shocking but the whole thing is pretty terrifying
I will not watch Good Boy - the trailer was more than enough for me. But I am very much a dog person.
Midsommar is supposed to be quite good. Together looks like it could be a fun watch too.
I was surprised that no one had mentioned Midsommar. Properly freaked me out when I watched it.
Its not a horror movie but Ben Kingsley is terrifying in Sexy Beast
Along similar lines, in that it's not "horror" in terms of genre, but the movie "Irreversible" gave me nightmares.
For me it was not so much the subject matter (which is horrible in itself), but the presentation.
For example there is a violent murder and the way the sound, lighting etc captures the essence of rage is like nothing else I've watched- it gave me the electric/hot/shaking/sicky adrenaline feeling you might know if you've ever been close to receiving serious violence. It properly ****ed me up.
In summary, perhaps not one to watch with the kids.
Dog Soldiers
Sausages.
The Others
I think it is only a 12, but it is properly chilling.
I was surprised that no one had mentioned Midsommar. Properly freaked me out when I watched it.
Midsommar is very good. I think ‘creepy’ is the right word for it.
Poltergeist - remember being freaked out by it when I was younger, but again meh...
The Exorcist - again, might have been pant wettingly scary in the 70's but not now.
The Omen - only thing that scared me was the big dog.....
Hang on, aren't these part comedies
Errata.
Its excotcist III not II with the corridor scene
The original Japanese version of the Ring was quite good too (1998)
Classed as a thriller rather than horror, but Clint Eastwood's first film as a director, Play Misty for Me, really freaked me out when I first saw it.