If, like me, you've been stuck at home today (I've been comforting dogs because Halloween in England is now just another opportunity to let off fireworks), then you've probably seen your fill of horror films already on the television. But what are the scariest films that you have ever sat through? Which ones actually managed to give you nightmares and why?
The film that scared me the most whilst watching it was the original version of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" which I saw, in a cinema near Kilburn tube station shortly after it came out. The film that gave me the most nightmares afterwards and which literally made me feel sick was the uncut version of "Soldier Blue." I saw it in a double feature with "Straw Dogs" back in the mid seventies. It was probably the most miserable time I have ever had at the cinema but I still regard "Soldier Blue" as one of the most important films ever made.
The original Alien. My girlfriend and I sat at a bar after catatonic not knowing where we were or if we were safe. Really.
ReplyDeleteAgreed, Lois - "Alien."
ReplyDeleteEither that or "Mary Poppins," as I was pretty sure that movie was never going to end. In fact, perhaps the life I think I'm living, I'm just creating right inside my head and Mary Poppins is still playing.
Oh, and Mad One, I don't think that you can blame us Americans for fireworks on Halloween. At least in the Pacific Northwest, at least so far, it's a firework-free event.
I slept very badly for several nights after first seeing "The Silence of the Lambs".
ReplyDeleteSad, but true.
If I had sat through the whole thing, "Natural Born Killers" would have had me checking into Chestnut Lodge for therapy. In fact, I think just making the film did drive Woody Harrelson into therapy after filming was complete. There was nothing of normalcy about that film or the way it was shot or anything. I left the theatre about 20 minutes into it. That movie was *seriously* fucked up.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, wth is with this fireworks obsession y'all have over there? Seems to me you people light fireworks more often than we Americans do. There are no fireworks to be found anywhere around here at Halloween. Kids in funny costumes, yes. Candy galore, yes. Pumpkins and witches and ghosts and skeletons and all that awesome stuff, yes.
ReplyDeleteFireworks?
Apparently we need to teach you folks how to do Halloween right.
Me, I just offered some white wine to my ancestors, in a quiet moment of rememberance. I wish I'd got to know some of them better, before they all passed away.
The original Holloween. I hated that movie. I slept with lights on for weeks after that one.
ReplyDeleteI watched Halloween 2 specifically hoping it resolved the original. It did not!
I no longer watch these types of movies. Ever.
I didn't blame the Americans, KJ. This firework thing appears to be our own invention.
ReplyDeleteNo fireworks down here in the rural wilds last night, and only three village children calling at the door, which means I have 7 bags of sweets left over for ME!
ReplyDeleteFilms have never given me nightmares since my mother told me, as I watched the first Dr Who episode, to remember that it's just a story, and there are a whole crew of cameramen and director etc. standing where you are with each shot. Since then I have been able to distance myself from the scary bits. Even so I find the "Final Destination" series a bit twitchy.
I'm with Dah*veed. Never had to sleep with the lights on, but those gory movies nauseate me. DOWN with that sort of thing!
ReplyDeleteTracie, I think the fireworks are really for Guy Fawkes night on November 5 but for some reason people start letting them off pretty much every night for about a month leading up to it - in London they do, anyway. There have been attempts in recent years to curb this because it's a nuisance but people still do it. Halloween has got mixed up in it because it's just before Guy Fawkes night.
ReplyDeleteSeven.
ReplyDeleteWhy? It was so utterly convincing, I guess.
Ellie, the first time I saw Seven it felt like a huge kick in the gut. I was stunned. It's a really good film.
ReplyDeleteNight of the Living Dead. It was also the funniest horror movie I ever saw, because while I was watching it a young man in the audienced yelled "finger-lickin' good!" (a reference to a fried-chicken commercial).
ReplyDeleteI think that beats the bloke shouting "Judas" at Bob Dylan, Ormonde.
ReplyDelete(a reference to a fried-chicken commercial)
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately Ormonde, we all know which nightmare fried chicken; tasteless cabbage salad, powdered potatoes and the tiniest little pieces of chicken that you ever did see. It all tastes like cardboard.
They have translated that slogan all over the world. Here is the closest that it gets in Spanish;
¡Para chupar los dedos!
The original, made-for-TV movie of "Satan's School for Girls", when I was 11 (parents happened to be out that night, of course, or I probably couldn't have seen it. Was SO glad when they got home . . . but didn't sleep that night anyway)
ReplyDeleteAlmost 20 years later, Silence of the Lambs brought back that sleepless feeling (esp. the "Grand Guignol" scene. You know the one! :-0)
[Re Seven. I was spoiled about it---including the last scene---before I ever saw it. Ergo, its shocking impact was diminished. That---and I don't think Brad Pitt can actually act. It's well-made though.]
The fantastically-low-budget The Lost Continent; there was this man-eating seaweed, and I was living in Florida, and it looked like the stuff that floated around our vacation spot in the Keys. It was also one of my first "Hi there!" moments, with 17 year old Darryl Read playing a Spanish prince sort of deal.
ReplyDeleteAnd Attack of the Mushroom People - seriously, still creepy, despite the goofy name.
I solicited Joe's opinion on this meme yesterday while driving home, and he immediately said "MISERY" just utterly terrified him.
ReplyDeleteIt's not slasher flicks that scare the piss out of him. It's psychological thrillers like Misery that do it, because it's just entirely too realistic.
Jaws - still can't swim in the ocean.
ReplyDeleteHalloween 3 Season of the Witch - very disturbing for a bad movie
At last! Someone else who remembers "Soldier Blue". Seeing it gave me a horror of violence, and made me never want to watch any film with violence in it. Ever.
ReplyDeleteI saw it in the huge Odeon cinema in Glasgow. It was a Saturday evening and there were more than 2000 people watching it. There was complete silence towards the end, when the cavalry were preparing to attack an Indian (or Native American, as we didn't say then) village containing mostly old men, women and children. As the order was given to charge, one anguished voice in the audience cried "No!".
After that came graphic horror, which I can still see.
No subsequent exploitative, violent flicks could match the effect of those scenes, based as they were on the events at Wounded Knee. Gratuitously violent films are just pornography.
Strangely, I seem to recall that the beginning and end of the film were very violent, but that, in between, it was quite lyrical, which only emphasised the horror when it came. Do you remember it that way?
Yes. I have seen the film a few times, but the uncut version only once. Between the two acts of violence it is mostly just two people falling in love and coming to understand the other's culture.
ReplyDeleteI have a strong stomach but I actually felt physically sick watching the second massacre. And I'm so glad I did. At least I came out of the cinema knowing I was human.
But as the film was really about the Vietnam War and that massacre in that village, I don't think they could have made it without the violence.
Agreed. There is cinematic violence which is justifiable, and this a a case in point.
ReplyDeleteI have seen it only that once. I couldn't bear to see it again. It did its job well.
I couldn't have watched the cinema release more than once, but it's been on television a few times since its release in a heavily censored form.
ReplyDeleteI solicited Joe's opinion on this meme yesterday while driving home, and he immediately said "MISERY" just utterly terrified him.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand why. I thought you said he liked being tied to the bed :-)