74+ Scary Movies, 10 scary scenes
Two years ago I threw down my top 74 horror movie list. Given the list is 2 years old now, I'd like to retroactively add a few more movies to that list, but do it without retroactively removing some of the old titles. That doesn't make total sense, I know, but I'm doing it anyway.
Movies I've seen after I made the list:
--Lake Mungo goes in my top ten. No movie in the past two years has moved me the way that sad, creepy movie did. Link to my review. Clicky.
--May. Top 30. Finally got around to watching it this past weekend. Funny, sad, and disturbing. Like Mungo, the sadness comes from the characters' authentic emotional lives and how those lives are broken or are being broken. The horror, of course, comes from the same place.
--House of the Devil. I'd put it somewhere in the late 60s of my list. The retro-horror movie dares to take its sweet ass time, and it looks real pretty. Effective enough to make the list.
--S&Man. Places in the early 60s of my list. A faux-documentary about extreme indie horror movies. Metafictional fun with a horrifying ending. Made doubly horrifying because REDACTED.
Oversights:
Ginger Snaps (Heathers with werewolves?) should've been on my list, and I should've given Clive Barker flicks some love toward the end of the list. Maybe Lord of Illusions (Scott Backula!) and/or Nightbreed.
TOP TEN SCARY SCENES
Two years ago Stephen Graham Jones copied my list of top 74 movies. So this year, I'm copying his top ten scary scenes.
My criteria for top ten scary scenes is purely subjective. I'm going by number of nightmares given to me along with a quotient involving factors of I-think-about-this-when-I'm-in-the-basement-alone and how fast do I then run up the stairs, plus the cover-my-eyes constant multiple, which can't be forgotten. Anyway, enough math. The list.
1) Quint buys it in Jaws. I'm posting this scene but I'm not watching it. I saw it in fifth grade. I had twenty plus years of shark nightmares after. I've seen Jaws maybe 40 times since, but I won't watch the Quint scene again. I never do. I cover my eyes or change the channel.
2) Donald Sutherland now playing for the other team in Invasion of the Body Snatchers:
3) Nightmare on Elm Street. Freddy visited my nightmares almost as much as Jaws did. So much so, I really only watched the first and third of the Nightmare movies. His first kill messed me up good.
4) The end of Blair Witch project. So, yeah, anyone standing alone in the corner freaks me out. No one puts baby in the corner.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMQQpmm5u3w
5) Event Horizon. The scene is when they find the film of what happened to the previous crew. This clip isn't quite it, but you get the gist. When I saw it at the time, I resolved to never watch it again.
6) 'Salem's Lot. The kid at the window. I still sleep with my windows locked.
7) Lake Mungo. Finding the of footage on the cell phone. I watched this movie by myself and when this happened I moaned out loud to no one. An existential moan.
8) Rec's final scene. I'd seen Quarantine first. So I figured I knew the ending to REC. Yeah, um, I was wrong.
9) Fright Night. The original. Sure it's campy now, but the big-teeth reveal (much like Karen Black at the end of Trilogy of Terror) scared the kid that was me witless.
10) The Ring. Still too scared to watch the original version (which I own on DVD, but haven't watched yet).
Movies I've seen after I made the list:
--Lake Mungo goes in my top ten. No movie in the past two years has moved me the way that sad, creepy movie did. Link to my review. Clicky.
--May. Top 30. Finally got around to watching it this past weekend. Funny, sad, and disturbing. Like Mungo, the sadness comes from the characters' authentic emotional lives and how those lives are broken or are being broken. The horror, of course, comes from the same place.
--House of the Devil. I'd put it somewhere in the late 60s of my list. The retro-horror movie dares to take its sweet ass time, and it looks real pretty. Effective enough to make the list.
--S&Man. Places in the early 60s of my list. A faux-documentary about extreme indie horror movies. Metafictional fun with a horrifying ending. Made doubly horrifying because REDACTED.
Oversights:
Ginger Snaps (Heathers with werewolves?) should've been on my list, and I should've given Clive Barker flicks some love toward the end of the list. Maybe Lord of Illusions (Scott Backula!) and/or Nightbreed.
TOP TEN SCARY SCENES
Two years ago Stephen Graham Jones copied my list of top 74 movies. So this year, I'm copying his top ten scary scenes.
My criteria for top ten scary scenes is purely subjective. I'm going by number of nightmares given to me along with a quotient involving factors of I-think-about-this-when-I'm-in-the-basement-alone and how fast do I then run up the stairs, plus the cover-my-eyes constant multiple, which can't be forgotten. Anyway, enough math. The list.
1) Quint buys it in Jaws. I'm posting this scene but I'm not watching it. I saw it in fifth grade. I had twenty plus years of shark nightmares after. I've seen Jaws maybe 40 times since, but I won't watch the Quint scene again. I never do. I cover my eyes or change the channel.
Click to view2) Donald Sutherland now playing for the other team in Invasion of the Body Snatchers:
3) Nightmare on Elm Street. Freddy visited my nightmares almost as much as Jaws did. So much so, I really only watched the first and third of the Nightmare movies. His first kill messed me up good.
4) The end of Blair Witch project. So, yeah, anyone standing alone in the corner freaks me out. No one puts baby in the corner.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMQQpmm5u3w
5) Event Horizon. The scene is when they find the film of what happened to the previous crew. This clip isn't quite it, but you get the gist. When I saw it at the time, I resolved to never watch it again.
6) 'Salem's Lot. The kid at the window. I still sleep with my windows locked.
7) Lake Mungo. Finding the of footage on the cell phone. I watched this movie by myself and when this happened I moaned out loud to no one. An existential moan.
8) Rec's final scene. I'd seen Quarantine first. So I figured I knew the ending to REC. Yeah, um, I was wrong.
9) Fright Night. The original. Sure it's campy now, but the big-teeth reveal (much like Karen Black at the end of Trilogy of Terror) scared the kid that was me witless.
10) The Ring. Still too scared to watch the original version (which I own on DVD, but haven't watched yet).