h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

*spots gap in market*

What are your Top 5 Scariest Films*? And why - briefly...

1. The Shining (genuinely psychologically damaging - superb remote style of direction)
2. Salem's Lot (I was quite young, and really felt the vampires could get me)
3. An American Werewolf in London (I watched it for the first time out in the country - adds a real frisson!)
4. Stephen King's It (made me see in a whole new way)
5. Silence of the Lambs (watched Flatliners as well that night - I was well freaked out after those two!)

*TV movies included

Only one - 'Alien'.

Because it's about being in a place you can't get out of (the spaceship) with a terror (being eaten alive) you can't beat. We consider ourselves to be at the top of the food chain, and being seen as food by another species, especially one which doesn't feel the need to kill us before it eats us, is something a lot of people (myself included) don't care to think about too much. The three sequels were nowhere near as scary - I can watch those any number of times, but I haven't been able to force myself to sit through the first one again ever since I saw it at the flicks more than 20 years ago

I suppose 'Jaws' for the same reason, but there's too much wry humour in that film for it to be truly scary. In fact the scariest thing in 'Jaws' is not the shark attacks, it's the intransigence of the Mayor and his insistence that the beaches must be kept open at all costs no matter how many people get swallowed. Typical small-minded local politician

Of all the horror movies I've seen, I can only think of two at the moment which were truly scary, as opposed to gory, campy, or just plain silly.

"The Exorcist" is really creepy, and it still scares the h*** out of me. Also, while the movie in its entirety is not a scary one, the first twenty or so minutes of "When A Stranger Calls" build up to one of the most frightening scenes I have ever seen. While you don't actually witness any violence, the suspense is unbelievable.

Alien and The Exorcist are about the only ones I've ever found truly scary.

Event Horizon nearly managed it but unfortunately had a pants ending which spoiled it.

The Shining - Hmmmm, yeah, I'd go with that too

In no particular order;

Halloween - featuring king lurker, Michael Myers. Now you see him, now you don't, now you're .
Ring - just keeps cranking up the tension notch by notch until I nearly ed myself at the end.
Blair Witch Project - something about this *really* unsettles me. Those handprints...
American in London - It's ok, it was dream, now your awake...'You made me miss'.
Night, Dawn and Day of the Dead - 'When Hell is full, the dead will walk the earth.' 'Nuff said.

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One day, Mr Shark, I will disagree with you completely. Today is not that day, however.

Got to agree with Alien, Halloween, and especially Jaws. As for the Blair Witch, I recently saw that bit at the the end on its own, and an involutary shiver went up my spine.

I tend not to like horror films generally, mostly because I'm a bit of a wimp. I almost caused a young lady gangrene of the hand when watching Jaws, simply because I was squeezing it too hard. And that was when I'd seen it several times before. Also, I leapt several feet in the air at that bit on Lord of the Rings, with the cave troll.

Alien.


I saw that alone in a dark room, sittimng on the floor and had to stop my knees from shaking.

Shining and Excorcist were both .
Sam Raimi's Evil Dead was rarther nice, too. Especially the beginning with the camera moving over the surface of the water.
Event Horizon turned out to be better than I expected.

Rosemary's Baby.

Alien was always kind of spoiled for me because of the gross unprofessionalism of the characters, all of whom DESERVED to die for being idiots.

Giger is the main man though.

If Alien was made today, it would feature much younger, perkier actors. It would be all self-referential jokes and fake tension. There would be oodles of CG and gore.

It would, in other words, be rubbish...

Got to agree about Giger. His design work is at least as important as the premise of the film itself in making it what it is - bloody scary!

Without a doubt. I had the dubious pleasure of seeing resident Evil last night.

It aspires to be as dumb as box of rocks, but falls short by not having any rocks, or indeed a box to keep them in.

It is a very badly disguised, y remake of Dawn and Day of the Dead, without the subtlety of either.

I quite like Alien as a technical exercise, it just never scared me, because I was too busy thinking that people really did deserve to die for being so idiotic.

I agree with Orcus on the Event Horizon thing - very spooky but spoiled at the end.

Blair Witch scared me so I wouldn't see it again. I keep thinking of them in the tent and the boy in the corner at the end.

Sixth Sense, the first time round, gave me goose-bumps.

I saw IT when I was 11 - very scary then but doesn't do anything for me now.

The Haunting (remake) made me jump in places but wasn't as disturbing as House on Haunted Hill - the bit with the operating theatre and the video camera really freaked me out.

Liam.

Umm -
13 Days - scary in a different way
Alien - The cat scares the s*** out of me
Action films withe really bad actors - (that someonme made them)

Incidentally some computer games can be seriously scary.

Don't want to sound like a stereotype here, but the movie It is nowhere near the book; which, BTW, was great.

>Incidentally some computer games can be seriously scary.

Quake 2 used to scare the c**p out of me. RTC Wolfenstein has it's moments.

Liam.

Silent Hill was *seriously* spooky arsed in the dark with stereo up full blast, or close to...

I got motion sickness watching Blair Witch at the flicks and had to look away from the screen after about half of the film. I was ready to barf

I've heard that the same thing happened to many people.

My wife and I went to movies to watch the 20th anaversary release of the Excorcist and the whole place were laughing their a***s off.

Event Horizon creeped the hell out of me reguardless of the ending.
House on haunted hill was scary because "they" were looking back at be, eg the part with the woman filming the ghosts operating and then the look at her.

Rose Red - a recent 4hour epic by stephen king

Sixth Sense - the first time, in an under filled cold movie theater.

Evil Dead - was the first horror I saw where the "evil" got the main character in the end and it was daylight

Playing Doom and Doom2 in the dark with stereo headphones. No computer game was scary after that. Until Undying by clive barker - played in a dark room with stereo headphones

Thinking of clive barker - the hellraiser movies, esp the first ones

The Barney the dinosour movie - for wholely different reasons.

The first time I saw 'Carrie' (at the pictures) the ending made me jump a mile. It loses its impact second time around. I found 'It' quite disturbing, and 'Candyman' is another good 'un.

One of the creepiest films I know is an oldie - 'The Birds'. Hitchcock knew a thing or two about tension. Often the scariest stuff is what you don't see.

"The Sixth Sense" really freaked me out. I remember after I watched it I popped into a pub, ordered a Guinness and sat starting at the back of the bar, trying to take it all in. That film reminded me of being a kid in ways that are very hard to explain. I completely understood why the wee boy found the cupboard at the top of those stairs frightening, even if I hadn't heard voices coming from it.

"Mulholland Dr." also freaked me out. It scared you by suggesting stuff and by being generally ethereal and creepy.