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Scariest movie?


Chris in VA
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What is the scariest movie you have ever seen? Why was it scary? What sort of scares are there init? (Psychological, sudden jump-outs,gore,etc.)

Lastly, if it is one from your childhood or teenhood, do you think you would still find it scary today?

Oh, and one more question...What age would your child have to be to watch it, if you would let them?

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I'll preface this by saying I don't typically watch scary movies.  I don't like the horror genre but I will watch shows like Walking Dead (although there are tense moments that I don't particularly enjoy).  The scariest movies I've ever seen were I am Legend (Will Smith) followed closely by the newest King Kong.  I watched them both when they first came out, so early adulthood I guess.  Yes, I think they would still terrify today.  My kids don't like scary movies and these two would be far more than any of them could handle for many, many years to come.

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What is the scariest movie you have ever seen? Why was it scary? What sort of scares are there init? (Psychological, sudden jump-outs,gore,etc.)

Lastly, if it is one from your childhood or teenhood, do you think you would still find it scary today?

Oh, and one more question...What age would your child have to be to watch it, if you would let them?

We do not ever watch horror movies.

 

I have not seen one since my adolescence.  The scariest one I ever saw had George C. Scott in it, as a man who moved into a creepy old house, in which a young boy had been drowned in the attic.  He heard all these screaming and banging sounds in the night, and one day he was in his foyer, and saw a ball bounce alone down the steps toward him.  I still get chills when I think of that movie.  Never again.

 

 

I also was dumb enough to go on a date with a guy who took me to see "The Exorcist" in my teens.  We sat silently through most of the movie and at the end,  he turned to me suddenly and yelled (what the demon had yelled at the ineffectual priest trying to cast it out), "Your mother s#%&*# c*&^5% in HELL!"

 

I didn't sleep with my light off for a month. 

 

We just don't roll that way.  I will never watch a  movie with any supernatural element, though we do love exciting mystery type stuff (without supernatural components).  Our kids want nothing to do with that either. 

Edited by TranquilMind
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The Hitcher- I saw it in high school and it was so scary. I don't know if it was really that scary, or if I just bought into it.

 

Silence of the Lambs- it grossed me out so much that I left the theatre. I still don't like to think about it.

 

ETA- I'm fine with Criminal Minds and similar shows now, but I don't watch scary movies now. When I was young, even Scooby Doo scared me.😂

Edited by Jan in SC
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I didn't follow directions well-

 

I would still find them scary today! My oldest is 15 and he limits himself to shows like The Walking Dead. I think a couple of old X- Files creeped him out, so I don't worry too much about what he watches. My DH loves scary movies, so every once in a while he'll meet a friend to see one. I'm way too chicken.

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I feel subtly chastised...

 

 

That's not what I was getting at at all!!!  I just mentioned we don't watch horror movies so perhaps my two "scary" movies aren't really all that scary.  I still think "I am Legend" was terrifying.  I almost got a bladder infection because I couldn't get up and go pee by myself at night until my memories of the movie faded.  :huh:  :lol:

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I don't get scared by Horror movies.  They seem way too easy to predict to me and tend to be boring or unnecessarily gory.

 

The scariest movies to me are the real ones talking about history (WWII, Rwanda, Cambodia, Erin Brockovich & more) because I know what happened then can happen again given the wrong mindset of the population.  My mind will continue on with the "What ifs?"

 

We've introduced our kids to those fairly young so we can discuss the "what ifs" and try to see to it that the next generation doesn't let them happen - or just to beware that the real world is out there.

 

My youngest will watch Horror movies and generally feels as I do about them.  My older two don't care for them at all.

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1.  Halloween

2.  The Shining

3.  Nightmare on Elm Street

4.  I Am Legend

5.  Some Parker Stevenson movie with a house that tried to kill him

6.  The Car

7.  Pitch Black

8.  The Silence of the Lambs

9.  Halloween 2

 

I tend to like scary movies, but only up to a point.  I can handle TV shows like Supernatural just fine.  It is the psychological ones that usually got/get to me.

 

I think most of the ones listed above I would not be nearly as scared of now.   Halloween and the Shining were probably my first true scary movies and they frightened me terribly.  I have not watched either one since, but I don't think it would be an issue now.  Would I get scared?  Yeah, probably.  But not terrified.  :)

 

As for the kids, DD can watch some episodes of Supernatural and has watched World War Z and Pitch Black and did fine but is not terribly interested in watching other horror movies. 

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I watched Children of the Corn in 8th grade, and was terrified. I tried watching it a few years later, and couldn't even finish....it was way too corny. (Ha.)

 

I had forgotten about watching The Hitcher until a pp mentioned it. Yikes. I don't think I could even watch it again, it scared me so much. That was probably the last horror movie I've ever watched.

 

For the most part, I just can't do horror movies. I do like a good suspenseful movie, but when the movie tips over into reliance on blood and gore for the shock value, it's either really boring or really gross or both.

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Good cerebral frights - Signs and The Village. I remember the first Jurassic Park being a jump-from-my-seat sort of scary.

 

I don't do slasher or horrible ghost flicks. I did enjoy Sixth Sense, but that was on the edge of ghostiness for me.

 

Can you tell I miss the OLD era M Night flicks?

 

ETA I think 12-13 for Signs. A bit older for The Village because the plot's more intense. Fifteen for Sixth Sense because of the graphic images and sometimes slow plot pace. Admittedly I am conservative about when my kids see films that others allow theirs to see at a younger age.

Edited by Seasider
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1.  Halloween

2.  The Shining

3.  Nightmare on Elm Street

4.  I Am Legend

5.  Some Parker Stevenson movie with a house that tried to kill him

6.  The Car

7.  Pitch Black

8.  The Silence of the Lambs

9.  Halloween 2

 

I tend to like scary movies, but only up to a point.  I can handle TV shows like Supernatural just fine.  It is the psychological ones that usually got/get to me.

 

I think most of the ones listed above I would not be nearly as scared of now.   Halloween and the Shining were probably my first true scary movies and they frightened me terribly.  I have not watched either one since, but I don't think it would be an issue now.  Would I get scared?  Yeah, probably.  But not terrified.   :)

 

As for the kids, DD can watch some episodes of Supernatural and has watched World War Z and Pitch Black and did fine but is not terribly interested in watching other horror movies. 

I am one who avoids horror movies and Halloween didn't bother me at all.  It was just some creepy guy.   I remember thinking the teens were really dumb for going to explore this stuff on their own.  Who does that? 

 

I don't remember The Shining as being particularly scary, but then, I don't always remember the details.

 

I did see that The Exorcist came on a few months ago, so I wondered if it would bother me now as much as it did in my teens.  I wasn't two minutes in before I had to switch it off and the parents were just sitting around the house - I didn't even see the girl!

 

We are all different. 

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What's the one with the killer clown?  It's a Stephen King story.  I watched that movie as a kid and it was the scariest thing I remember.  No, I don't think any scary movies are scary now.

 

I think the best scary movie I ever saw was Seven, which was really more of a thriller than a horror, and I loved it because it surprised me, which is rare.

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I regret ever watching Saw. And I regret even learning about the plot of Saw 2. I wish I could unsee and unhear. 

 

Scary because of psychological torture. Yes it would still scare me. I would never let my child watch it so long as I have the power of decision or influence.

 

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What's the one with the killer clown? It's a Stephen King story. I watched that movie as a kid and it was the scariest thing I remember. No, I don't think any scary movies are scary now.

 

I think the best scary movie I ever saw was Seven, which was really more of a thriller than a horror, and I loved it because it surprised me, which is rare.

It?

 

Seven definitely made me hold my breath.

 

And I don't do demons. Don't need that stuff keeping me awake at night.

Edited by Seasider
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I am one who avoids horror movies and Halloween didn't bother me at all.  It was just some creepy guy.   I remember thinking the teens were really dumb for going to explore this stuff on their own.  Who does that? 

 

I don't remember The Shining as being particularly scary, but then, I don't always remember the details.

 

I did see that The Exorcist came on a few months ago, so I wondered if it would bother me now as much as it did in my teens.  I wasn't two minutes in before I had to switch it off and the parents were just sitting around the house - I didn't even see the girl!

 

We are all different. 

You are right, we are all different.  My BFF can't watch clown movies, even if they are funny.  :)

 

Monster movies don't bother me but creepy people bother me more.  I hadn't really seen scary movies before I watched Halloween and The Shining.  Being an idiot teenager I decided to watch both back to back on Halloween night with my mother (who hates scary movies and avoids them).  They really scared us both.  I bet we were heard for miles, LOL.  I don't think either would bother me now.

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I must've blocked the scariest movie I've seen out of my brain because I can't even remember. I don't watch any horror movies now because I'm a fraidycat, but my DH and kids love that kind of stuff. The kids really want to watch some horror movies, but I'm trying to put it off as long as possible - hopefully until at least age 15 for the really creepy/scary ones. They are 10 and 13. My DD watches Supernatural on tv and even that creeps me out. I wouldn't even go to see Goosebumps at the theater with them and leave the room if they watch it on t.v.. LOL I'm SUCH a chicken.

 

Eta: I remember Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street being gory, but laughably predictable so not as scary.

 

Cujo and Pet Cemetery creeped me out, though. Maybe those are my scariest.

Edited by fraidycat
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We love horror movies here but we don't like gore. Dds both liked The Ring and The Woman in Black.

 

It has been fun to watch movies I watched when young and that scared me. Watching them now with my teens make them more corny than scary because we laugh all the way through them. We recently watched Children of the Corn, which I haven't been able to watch since I was little, and it was hilarious. We also had a Scream marathon and laughed a lot.

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I must've blocked the scariest movie I've seen out of my brain because I can't even remember. I don't watch any horror movies now because I'm a fraidycat, but my DH and kids love that kind of stuff. The kids really want to watch some horror movies, but I'm trying to put it off as long as possible - hopefully until at least age 15 for the really creepy/scary ones. They are 10 and 13. My DD watches Supernatural on tv and even that creeps me out. I wouldn't even go to see Goosebumps at the theater with them and leave the room if they watch it on t.v.. LOL I'm SUCH a chicken.

 

Eta: I remember Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street being gory, but laughably predictable so not as scary.

 

Cujo and Pet Cemetery creeped me out, though. Maybe those are my scariest.

We all did recently watch Cujo but I can't watch Pet Cemetary again yet. I also have put off dds from watching it so far.

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The Masque of The Red Death- the 1964 version with Vincent Price.  I watched it late one night when I was a teenager.  I was babysitting very late that night... Seriously scared me out of my pants.  I didn't sleep for weeks after watching that one!  I thought it would be safe since it was old and in black and white...

 

The old TV movies Ants and Tarantulas terrified me as well. 

 

A close second would be Aracnophobia.  I should not have watched that one.  Tarantulas pretty much cemented that I would never, ever be calm and rational about spiders again.  This one gave me nightmares for a very long time.  I still shudder when I think about that movie.  But I watched it with friends and we all screamed and pretended we loved it...

 

My kids have never had an interest in scary movies of any kind.  If we were going to go there, we would probably try some classics or something like Signs- which I thoroughly enjoyed, but didn't really find too scary.

 

I read a family movie review that the new Cloverfield 10 movie is supposed to be very good in the suspense department.  It had surprisingly few family-friendly flags, though the reviewer did say the adrenaline rush is pretty intense and didn't recommend it for young viewers.

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I feel subtly chastised...

 

I was getting that vibe too. 

 

The scariest movie I remember watching in the last decade or so was probably "The Abandoned." It's a Spanish-British-Bulgarian horror movie made in '06, and it scared the crap out of me. I watch a decent amount of horror- the creepy paranormal kind, not the gory slasher flicks- and it takes a lot to freak me out, but that one did it. It's one of those movies where you aren't really sure what's going on most of the time, and you need the light on for a couple nights afterward. 

 

I probably wouldn't let dd watch it until she was fifteen, but she's fairly sensitive to that kind of thing.

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A little CC and SPOILER ALERT (and repetitive alert, as I think I've shared this, but I'll share again)

 

I went alone to see Blair Witch when it came out. I just sort of snuck off and went to watch it late one night--kinda rare for me to do that!

The movie theater was packed, and everyone was joking and talking back to the screen. Until they weren't.

The movie picked up in intensity, and all of the sudden, things got silent in the theater.

Then the scene came where she's in the house, and you see all those dried-blood child handprints going down the stairway to the basement--hand after hand, and you know DANG this is freaky stuff.

It scared EVERYONE in the theater,

Best ending ever!

 

When I got home, it was after 11, but I didn't want to go to bed, because I was curious and wanted to visit the website, where they really built up the whole "found footage" aspect, and marketed the movie as though it were a real documentary. I got so scared I couldn't even leave the chair in the office to go into the bedroom next door!

 

It haunted me for years. Fast forward about a dozen years or so--

We went to Israel for the summer, and visited the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. In one section, where you can go underneath the altar built over the rock of Calvary, there is a staircase. I went down it to see the chapels underneath, including one to the Holy Innocents. On the way back up, I looked over and noticed the walls in the stairwell. There were hundreds of crosses etched in the stone, all the way up the stairs. Cross after cross, just like a counterpart to those bloody handprints. I know, weird that I thought of it that way, but it was such an enormous comfort, and practically erased all that fear I had had from that image.

 

 

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We do not ever watch horror movies.

 

I have not seen one since my adolescence. The scariest one I ever saw had George C. Scott in it, as a man who moved into a creepy old house, in which a young boy had been drowned in the attic. He heard all these screaming and banging sounds in the night, and one day he was in his foyer, and saw a ball bounce alone down the steps toward him. I still get chills when I think of that movie. Never again.

 

 

I also was dumb enough to go on a date with a guy who took me to see "The Exorcist" in my teens. We sat silently through most of the movie and at the end, he turned to me suddenly and yelled (what the demon had yelled at the ineffectual priest trying to cast it out), "Your mother s#%&*# c*&^5% in HELL!"

 

I didn't sleep with my light off for a month.

 

We just don't roll that way. I will never watch a movie with any supernatural element, though we do love exciting mystery type stuff (without supernatural components). Our kids want nothing to do with that either.

I haven't read all the replies yet...

The George C Scott movie you are talking about is The Changeling. It was actually the movie I thought about when I read the OP!

 

The first scary movie I ever saw was called The Watcher in the Woods. I think I was 8. I don't know what Disney was thinking was that one.

 

I completely avoid movies like The Exorcist or Saw. Some campy horrors are fun though.

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I did find it funny when we bought the Halloween dvd and watched it when dds. I had watched it several times but only on TV and I didn't think of the editing. Halfway through one dd made a remark about "how many times can they show boobs and why!?!". I honestly had no idea. That one used to scare me too but now it's rather silly.

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The Shining. I watched it as a pre-teen/teen and found it terrifying. If I watched it today, I'd still find it terrifying. :) I don't do scary well. I probably won't even rest well tonight just from reading this thread!

 

ETA: My kids are many, many years away from wanting to watch scary movies. We watched Zootopia today and they thought it was a bit 'scary'. :)

Edited by MMASC
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Pan's Labrynth. Someone told me to watch it for its gorgeous cinematography. Um. Ok, it was beautiful. But it also had some of the most creepy, disturbing imagery I have ever seen. *Shivers*

 

I'm not sure when I'll let my kids watch Sixth Sense... But I can't wait. That's my kind of scary movie. ;)

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I couldn't watch horror movies when I was young but now, as an adult, they don't seem to bother me as much.

 

Are we talking movies or TV series as well?  I liked the first season of AHS but they've definitely gone downhill since then.

 

"The Ring" is last movie I can think of that really creeped me out.  I'm not much for slasher-type films - I prefer psychological horror.  "The Woman in Black" had some great creep-vibes to it, as well.  I just recently watched "The Visit" and thought it was pretty good, too.

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I remember being pretty freaked by Lady in White as a kid. Not sure if I'd think it was scary now. I remember nothing about the actual movie.

 

I saw something as an adult that freaked me out but can't remember the name. Apparently I have a terrible memory! ETA It was The Ring, someone up above mentioned it and reminded me.

 

I find suspense and sudden jump outs scary. I don't care for monster scary, they seem cheesy. It's the stuff that COULD happen in reality that really scared me.

Edited by UCF612
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The Exorcist got me the worst too because I believe in that sort of thing......but I still read the book after I saw the movie. My mom has a signed copy. :) The entire premise scares the crap out of me. I haven't really watched scary movies since my teens. I do watch TWD, but I don't consider that really horror, or scary.

I've never watched the Exorcist, and I have no desire to. We had a resident priest at our church who was actually on a Vatican exorcism committee (or whatever it's called). Just knowing that in real life is scary enough.

 

The one scary movie that scared me the most was "Night of the Living Dead." We watched it at a friend's 10th birthday party sleepover, with her mom's approval, and I had trouble sleeping for weeks. I also still wonder what that mom was thinking showing that movie to a bunch of ten-year-old girls. I'm sure I wouldn't be scared by it if I saw it now, but I have no desire to spend my time watching it again.

 

I also remember being scared after watching "Interview with a Vampire," also at a sleepover, but I was 16 then. My friends and I slept as close as we possibly could together and watched "White Christmas" at 1:00am, in August, to try to get happier thoughts before going to sleep.

 

I really don't like horror movies, but my tolerance for violence and go has gone down even more since having kids.

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