Scariest Horror Films of All Time
by Jaden
What do you do when a stranger calls on Halloween, says her name is Carrie, she’s from Texas, she auditioned for your film last summer, and she’s been dreaming about you ever since?
Hang up!
1999, Ôdishon (aka Audition)
Audition was one movie I did not have to see. This Japanese film was unforgettably unsettling. A nice man loses his wife many years earlier and is encouraged by his son and sleazy friend to start dating again. The sleazy friend sets up a fake film audition where the nice man finds the talented pretty Yamazaki Asami. The young woman, who was abused as a child, tortures the man in ways that are unbearable to watch. Novel by Ryû Murakami, Daisuke Tengan wrote the screenplay.
1979, When a Stranger Calls
As a young child, I saw the original When a Stranger Calls. The majority of the film is not gory, but the suspense and real time of the movie sure make going to sleep difficult. Written by Steve Feke and Fred Walton, the story is: the kids are in bed sleeping while the babysitter receives scary menacing phone calls. This one hit a little too close to home. Forever in my head, I will hear that creepy voice asking, “Have you checked the children?”
1974, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
When I was a kid, this was rumored to be a true story. Apparently, it is loosely based on the real crimes of Ed Gein, a real life killer who also inspired the movie Psycho. Deviant: The Shocking True Story of Ed Gein, the Original Psycho
1976, Carrie
This is the kind of scary movie all kids should be forced to watch. A high school girl has magick powers and does terrible things to people when they are mean to her. Like a Disney movie, Carrie teaches a good lesson: be nice to your classmates. Novel written by Stephen King, screenplay was adapted for screen by Lawrence D. Cohen.
1984, A Nightmare on Elm Street
For horror film ideas, Wes Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street is genius. Freddy Krueger is a phenomenon who comes to kill you in your nightmares. My childhood friends and I pondered endlessly: Would you die in real life if you died in your dream? It was the big question. We all have had dreams about dying, but no one ever hits the ground! When good ol’ Freddy started entering my dreams at night, that was it, the end of my horror film parade.
What horror films traumatized you?
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Audition was pretty great. I love how it makes you feel like you’re watching another movie and totally turns it upside down after that. Kiri kiri kiri.. And the scene where the telephone is ringing. Wow.. Just like that one scene in Mulholland Drive where you’re going to look behind a wall. Both masterly done.
I remember when I was young I saw a movie about the Black Death. I think it was called that too. People started coughing blood and dying. I couldn’t sleep for days, thinking I had to cough and would die too. =)
Luckily I’m over it now.. ;)
Hilarious intro Jaden, LOL!
These days, I’m not what you would call a huge fan of the horror genre–especially the gory ones like Saw. Yet, there are some instances where I’ll watch certain ones, or especially psychological thrillers.
I think Carrie and the Exorcist are the movies that scared the crap out of me in my childhood. It seems to me the scene in Carrie, where the hand comes out of the grave, I was too scared to even put my hand/arm over my bed, out of fear someone would grab it from underneath my bed, LOL.
Jaden, you are so right that all kids should probably be forced to watch Carrie as a lesson in life, and hopefully would scare them senseless into not becoming a bully or being mean towards their classmates. Bullying has become an epidemic these days in schools. Parents should even scare their kids more and tell them, “see what could happen if your mean to kids in school”! Guess I’d be a scary parent huh, LOL?!
Wasen’t there another movie with the same principal as well depicting that if you dreamed about dying, would you actually die in real life as well? I strongly seem to remember there was another one like that, but the title escapes me.
I gather chances are its just a matter of time before there will be a movie made about serial killer/cannibilist Jeffrey Dauhmer.
JAN & JAMES: I thought I was the only trouble-maker allowed to watch horror as a kid. I think you are the missing twins of my triplet! Am really sorry now that I convinced mommy to put you 2 up for adoption when you were 14. *wink* Giving me good laughs. I think you’d be a great parent Jan, just my style.
Yeah, so many modern horror films are like modern punk rock – following some shitty basic design lacking originality and true grit, they just throw blood around like strumming on three chords.
The Japanese though, boy, they make some scary freaky weird films. They also have crazy style and music and everything. The Japs are the cutting on the edge these days. That’s why we’re remaking all their films.
Here’s what I could find on Dahmer: jeffrey-dahmer – Serial Killers: The Real Life Hannibal Lecters (2001)
(Jan, I was thinking more about me directing… could you imagine it? “Ok, Mr. Clooney, now start undressing slowly… A little slower… Women like to be teased. That’s good. Oh, the rest of you, just go stand over there, I will be with you shortly after I am done coaching here.” …Geeeezzzz.)
Anybody remember that super creepy film from the 60s or 70s, takes place in Venice, Italy. A couple’s child is murdered, and then at the end is some freaky midget woman wearing her red cloak??? That was scary weird. Had to watch that one in film school.
You guys missed Dahmer (2004).
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0285728/
I seem to remember the lead actor being on a reality television show on E! that filmed a group of actor hopefuls.
However, this film did not traumatize me. I left that to The Ring. I now cannot watch a television that is projecting a staticky mess for fear of Amanda creeping out of my television. Walking into a closet will never be the same, either, now that I can only envision a mummified Amber Tamblyn, a loud screeching noise, and the ruination of my alligator pennyloafers.
But now that has me thinking of what you are all talking about, which is that Amer. horror is greatly inferior to that of the Jap. horror. This is merely a remake, albeit good, but still only a remake of a wickedly terrifying original Jap. scary movie.
I wish someone would come up with the next Evil Dead type originality. The problem with this genre is that you have to pretty much follow the standard stereotypes of horrors unless you do something unique as Evil Dead had and infuse something different into the culture (in their case – comedy). Anyways, it is all just blood and gore nowadays, that and speed. Zombies seem to have gotten quick and the “rage virus” storyline is being grossly overused. Think about the old days when running through a woods was scary. Nowadays a powerdrill through the calf is scary and it is, just not in the same way that sticks with us and haunts our dreams and our thoughts when we are alone. It is now a quick scare, a fright, a “what was that.!!” type of deal.
anyone else see that trend?
SHANE – Thanks! I remembered there was a Dahmer movie, but I couldn’t find it when I looked.
Yeah, even the zombies of I Am Legend were total Meth-heads.
The American version of The Ring I didn’t find very scary, but the Japanese one was scary. Also, the Japanese version of Dark Water was super creepy. I don’t know specifically what it is about American films makes them so light and fluffy, maybe too much life comfort for the makers and fear of public backlash so they walk a more careful line, even remakes of old American films don’t strike the right chord.
Interesting….I didn’t realize that a Dahmer movie had been made, since obviously I hadn’t heard about it/them. I also found 2 other Dahmer related movies on IMDb as well:
The Secret Life: Jeffrey Dahmer (1993)
Raising Jeffrey Dahmer (2006)
I was also perhaps sort of getting at and wondering if maybe a well known Hollywood or international actor would ever take on the Dahmer role if there would happen to be one in the works sometime, since the movies we’ve mentioned here, the actors in them aren’t actors familiar or well known to me at least.
(Jaden, yes as the director, you would certainly have to make Mr. Clooney realize and coach him on the fine art of undressing slowly….much more seductive indeed, and would certainly play out very well onscreen! LOL)
i’ll agree with TCM, and WASC’s did have a wonderful opening. I’ll also agree with Carrie. The end scene with the mother stabbing her, and the catholic imagery scared the shit out of me as a kid. I’ll agree to some extent with ANOES, but it’s way down on the list.
Where’s WPB’s The EXORCIST? HALLOWEEN? NOTLD ’68? SUSPIRIA? BLACK CHRISTMAS ’74? SILENT NIGHT BLOODY NIGHT? Ok, I’ll stop now, but some, if not all of those films should have been listed.
RENO SEBASTIAN — I absolutely agree with your other scary movie selections, but I didn’t want this post to be too long. Exorcist and Halloween were TOO scary for me! Aaaaah!
Texas Chainsaw Massacre was scary as hell during its day, but when you look at it now, it’s almost comic.
The cheesiest scene is when they hold down the poor girl and try to get “Grampa” to chop her head off with an axe.
Holy shit, I’m still laughing out loud when I think of this. Grampa is so feeble, sitting in his chair, he can’t even hold the axe. He drops it after barely touching the girl, who continues to over-act and scream.
Doing this once would be fine. But they put the axe back in his hand and make him try again. And again. And again…(I forget HOW many times). The old mummified coot keeps dropping the axe, and nothing is really happening to the victim.
Suddenly the bad guys don’t eem quite as scary. Now they’re just kinda stupid and pathetic. It’s almost like a bad SNL skit. …Classic!
Still, I really enjoyed the movie when I saw it for the first time.
Throughout all this, the victim is screaming and overacting. But
FRIAR — Laughing here. Yeah, I saw those older movies when I was a kid, home rentals. As a little kid, they are terrifying. As an adult, yeah, I have seen some again and they are comic. My mom said THE BLOB was the scariest movie of her day — to us, it is pure comedy. Audition is really awful though, currently. The Japanese movies are super scary at any age.
Psychological horror films really scare the hell out of me. Gaspard Noe’s Irreversible or I Stand Alone, Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salo, Jörg Buttgereit’s Nekromantik, Edwin Brienen’s Terrorama!, Richard Kern’s Fingered. TCM might be the most disturbing film of all times, its nihilism slams in the face.
Murray — The ones you mention really disturbed people, from what I heard, so I couldn’t even bring myself to watch those. Thanks for adding them. I’d be all for it, if you want to do a guest post in the same format as this post, “Movies Too Scary for Jaden.” ;-)
ok this is the most scary movie ever, Stephen King’s IT. PennyWise the clown made me not sleep for months when i watched it! thinking he would show up in my dreams, and my photo albums, and kill me when im having a ceremony! so if u do another post like this, put Stephen King’s IT!
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