Just sitting here talking to my son about the most frightening film ever. We have agreed that it must be The Exorcist.

What would you say? Give a title and (if you wish) reasons.

I’ll be hiding under the covers, waiting for your responses.

Hard Candy.

Not a horror, but it’s the only film which has a scene I simply can’t watch.

I couldn’t get Midsomer out of my mind for days afterwards. Long time since a film’s done that.

I made the mistake of watching the French & Saunders Exorcist sketch long before watching the film. Didn’t find the film that scary after that and I’m a complete wuss.

The Ring

Mini Series rather than a film, but the Haunting of Hill House scared me more than my film I’ve ever seen.

A Serbian Film  You’ve probably never heard of it, I would strongly recommend you never watch it. Read the plot of the film on the Wiki page…That’s bad enough

It’s got to be a kids film. Labyrinth, The Never Ending Story, or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory even. Who’s not had nightmares about Oompa Loompas?

‘1408’

It’s never mentioned in any lists but I just found it scary, and I was spooked by the woman in black too

On the other hand ‘sinister’ which was full of jump scares was meh for me

Someone will be along in a minute with the top trump ‘a Serbian film’ but don’t intend ever to see it, plus more disgusting than scary

Agree about the haunting of hill House. Unfortunately the ending was a cop out but the first half of season was great

At a bad point in my life I saw Cronenburg’s Videodrome. That really screwed me up for a year or so.

The vanishing

The original dutch version not the hideous Hollywood remake

It’s very subjective, for me I wouldn’t class a typical horror film as frightening, or even the more recent films like Saw or hostel, which to me are just gratuitous gore and cheesy ‘jump’ scenes.

I’m a huge lover of ‘classic’ horror films but they are also not very frightening.

If I really want to be disturbed, and have something to think about, something like crash (2004) would tick the list.. not really a horror but the characters and the drama and it’s just a really psychological heavy film.

Or another that really made me think about things, ‘unthinkable’ a Samuel L Jackson film, that was very hard watching.

Mini Series rather than a film, but the Haunting of Hill House scared me more than my film I’ve ever seen.

I generally agree with you here, but in memory, there are certain decisions made by the director that detracted from it.

I still give it an ‘A’, but it loses the ‘*’.

Not a horror fan as they scare the bejesus out of me. Of those I have watched; has to be
The Ring
The Haunting (1964)
Candyman.

^^^^ I find that I’m desensitised to horror now.

Seen it all before. A bit of suspense is enjoyable but the finale is generally an anti-climax.

Horror worked best when it was an escape from reality. Without a new concept, I find modern horrors rather humdrum.

‘It’ was good in its day but I find it laughable now.

The less said about the remake then the better. Purely IMHO.

Eden Lake. Because it could happen to any of us. Tomorrow.

Eden lake it’s plausible

Jaws was pretty effective when it first came out.

It’s ultimately subjective at most levels, ie your personal beliefs.
what time of your life you see the film that scared you,
When I was younger (was a massive horror fan) it was The Shining. Couldn’t watch it alone hahah. Same goes for The Haunting (Robert Wise), dated but genuinely horrible and creepy.

Exorcist OTOH I found to be mostly amusing OTT. The Omen I found more disturbing as I could imagine someone being that misanthropic/cold/malignant in real-life. Since confirmed 😬

Nowadays I’d be hard-pressed to be terrified by anything fictional. But if I could find a film that does I’d be thrilled!

The spec was ‘frightening’.
Not nesseserilly horror fiction .

Watch crash and unthinkable.

Both top notch films and not horror in the traditional sense.

^^^ Hence my response of ‘Hard Candy’ 🙂

Yeh sorry @eyestwice

I guess what i was trying to say is gritty modern realistic drama is more frightening than your average ‘horror’ film. 🙂

My sister took me to see Jaws when I was about 7, I’m still not mad keen on sea swimming. During the video rental heyday me and a pal watched The Shining one Saturday afternoon. As it happened it was mid December and I had to cycle home in the dark and snow, must have been about 11/12. Pedaled the whole way home down the middle of the road.

I’m a total jessie these days, I think I got to the door shaking scene in The Walking Dead before giving a firm ‘Nope’

“The others” properly terrified me.

I hate horror films, and I dislike anything that is too nasty because it really upsets me. I avoid them, so I am not qualified to answer your question.

I have however read many ‘horror’ books because they tend to be about humanity rather than shock and gore. I have seen the Exorcist though and I liked it, because it is much closer to the kind of horror that I have read. It was not particularly scary to me perhaps because I was familiar with that kind of story.

The films that shit me up the most were probably the beginning of Robocop where they shoot the cop, which I saw when I was about 15; and aged about 21 I had to leave the room when Reservoir Dogs was on when they torture the cop. It’s not that I particularly love cops, but it’s about nasty people being really very nasty indeed for fun.

Wolf Creek. Tense and plausible. I’ve been stranded in the middle of nowhere in Australia so this true story is all the more chilling.

Has to be The Bloodening

Or failing that, The Ring. Actually, probably The Ring.

I think Alien is up there – a truly scary film is a combination of tension and a bit of gore.

As a kid growing up on an RAF base in the 80s, Threads was pretty frightening to me.

Scaredest I have ever been? Toss up between the ring and Texas chainsaw massacre. The second one more because I was about 12 years old, on my own at home and definitely shouldn’t have been watching that shit. Best horror? Exorcist, hands down.

Or another that really made me think about things, ‘unthinkable’ a Samuel L Jackson film, that was very hard watching.

Yep. Posted that in one of the film threads about a month ago. Very disturbing.
I tried to watch Midnight Meat Train recently. I like Clive Barker but the film lost all the subtlety of the story and just threw in gore. Not scary, just unpleasant.

Blair Witch really disturbed me for some reason….couldn’t stop thinking about it for ages 🙁

Don’t really find films overall frightening, probably the way my brains wired. Yea one or two scenes may make me jump but not frightened.

Blair Witch just bored me to tears and is responsible for every **** with a camcorder thinking they can make a lost footage movie.

I skipped lectures to go and see The Exorcist. I should have stuck to doing the maths. I thought it was dreadful. But I have no belief whatever in religion, demonic possession, or exorcism so it was a bit of a cartoon really. Alien, equally unlikely, but much scarier. However, if we are actually talking disturbing, then Pan’s Labyrinth by a mile.

Kill List, truly nasty.

Can’t stand Eden Lake, chav porn for the distressed middle classes.

Kill List is a very unpleasant film, brilliant but really unpleasant

Kill List, truly nasty.

if we’re doing ‘nasty’ then there is a near endless list…

‘Funny Games’ (1997 Michael Haneke) jumps to mind

Then there are those mock-docu films such as Cannibal bolox where the line between fiction and really disturbing gets blurred, along with real animal-cruelty, (depicted) rape and some eerily disturbing soundtrack. ‘Video nasty’

+1 for Wolf Creek. Deeply distressing and put me right off going to Australia. A lot of people just disappear in Australia.

The floating kid in Salem’s Lot scared the shit out of me as a kid. As an adult I don’t find any scary.

Not frightening but watching Eraserhead by David Lynch for me was very disturbing. I was a teenager when I first saw this & the image of the deformed baby is stuck in my head….probably forever. Nightmares for me tonight :o)