Writer's Block: Fright Show
I've never seen Evil Dead, so I think my two favorite scary movies are the original 1976 version of The Omen and M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense.
I really like The Omen because it has a great feel of supernatural mystery. Is this kid the Anti-Christ? Could the existence of one little boy really be causing all these horrible things? It presents great evidence for it and it captures you visually. Instead of the typical death scenes with a lot of creepy build-up in the music and a lot of overdone gore, the deaths just happen. They're immediate and you have almost no time to react, which is why they're so shocking. There's not copious amounts of blood, but the deaths are still frightening. And the film also manages to create its own mythology concerning the apocalypse, which is absolutely fascinating.
The Sixth Sense is a great thriller because, though some of the images are disturbing, there isn't a ton of spurting blood (sorry, that's one of my turn-offs in film), yet you're frightened anyway. In fact, I feel that the scariest ghost young Cole (Haley Joel Osment's character) encounters is the angry ghost in the closet at a classmate's birthday party. You never see it, but you do hear a voice filled with vengeful rage, and then Cole walks into the closet and the door snaps shut. We have no idea what exactly happened in that closet, and human instinct tells us that the unknown is the scariest thing of all.
I really like The Omen because it has a great feel of supernatural mystery. Is this kid the Anti-Christ? Could the existence of one little boy really be causing all these horrible things? It presents great evidence for it and it captures you visually. Instead of the typical death scenes with a lot of creepy build-up in the music and a lot of overdone gore, the deaths just happen. They're immediate and you have almost no time to react, which is why they're so shocking. There's not copious amounts of blood, but the deaths are still frightening. And the film also manages to create its own mythology concerning the apocalypse, which is absolutely fascinating.
The Sixth Sense is a great thriller because, though some of the images are disturbing, there isn't a ton of spurting blood (sorry, that's one of my turn-offs in film), yet you're frightened anyway. In fact, I feel that the scariest ghost young Cole (Haley Joel Osment's character) encounters is the angry ghost in the closet at a classmate's birthday party. You never see it, but you do hear a voice filled with vengeful rage, and then Cole walks into the closet and the door snaps shut. We have no idea what exactly happened in that closet, and human instinct tells us that the unknown is the scariest thing of all.