Buffista Movies 4: Straight to Video
A place to talk about movies--old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
Sadaka (I think that's her name) coming through the tv in Ring, definitely. I've never seen the American version though, so that could be creepier.
The movie that kept me up nights when I was a kid was When the Wind Blows. Nuclear holocaust! Cartoons! Public ignorance! Government lies! What's not to scare an eight year old kid?
As a kid, seeing the Wicked Witch of the West melting into a puddle scared the bejeezus out of me.
Lots of the visuals in
Jacob's Ladder
freaked me out, but it was an audio cue and following reaction that was the most frightening. The Tim Robbins character seems to finally have broken out of an increasing spiral of hallucinations involving demons, monsters, etc., and he's lying in a hospital bed explaining to his wife how it's all over now, etc., when
a mocking voice from off-screen says "Dream on." Robbins then turns to face the camera (and the viewing audience) as if turning to the source of the voice, and the look of fear, dread, and despair on his face is breathtaking. Freaked my shit big time.
Just saw
Where the Truth Lies,
Egoyan's new movie. SO SO SO bad. It was nice to see my Boyfriend Colin Firth playing something other than handsome well-mannered guy. He was skeevy and scary and very good. Kevin Bacon, fabulous. Alison Lohman was the core character of the film and she was horribly, horribly watch from the hall bad. I've seen her give good performances before, so I'm gonna blame Egoyan for this one.
The first glimpse of the alien in Alien.
Mmm, I'd say the scene in
Aliens
when they've locked themselves down into a room and they're tracing the aliens and realize they've breached the perimeter, and they can't figure out how and then they poke up through the dropped ceiling/vent and you get this nightmare vision of onrushing aliens clambering toward you at high speed? Yeah that one.
Most of the scenes in Arachnophobia freak my shit right out.
In the last few minutes of The Blair Witch Project, when you see Mike standing in the corner. Don't ask me why, but just thinking about that scene freaks me out.
Yup. It's the only thing that scared me about that movie, but it gives me the wiggins big time.
The thing standing on the roof of the barn in
Signs.
The last seconds of
Pet Sematary
where the wife picks up the knife off the table and starts to swing. (That one's left over from childhood for sure- there's scarier imagery in there, but that's the vision that sticks with me.)
When the spiders all come out of the trees in Harry Potter.
Samara coming out of the tv in
The Ring
and the way the woman crawls down the stairs in
The Grudge.
The last shot of
Night of the Living Dead.
I watch an awful lot of horror movies, so I'm sure I'm missing a ton.
In the last few minutes of The Blair Witch Project, when you see Mike standing in the corner. Don't ask me why, but just thinking about that scene freaks me out.
After the credits began rolling, I noticed that my right hand was asleep. Because I'd been gripping the wrist with my other hand so tightly.
The last seconds of Pet Sematary where the wife picks up the knife off the table and starts to swing. (That one's left over from childhood for sure- there's scarier imagery in there, but that's the vision that sticks with me.)
Dude! I remember that image too! I don't know why. And it ends with just a freeze before the credits.
Sadaka (I think that's her name) coming through the tv in Ring, definitely. I've never seen the American version though, so that could be creepier.
I think Sadako's emergence in Ringu is the creepier moment of the two, although overall the American version is scarier start to finish.
Back when Pet Semetary came out an aquaintance of mine had a little boy who looked and sounded like the Gage actor. One night when she and her husband were out having dinner, the toddler said "I want to play wif you" to his babysitter in exactly the same tone as from the movie and the halfwit locked herself in the bathroom until his parents came home. They were far more forgiving than I would have been, as the story would have ended—also like the movie—with a knife-wielding parent had it been my kid left frightened and unsupervised for over an hour.
And it ends with just a freeze before the credits.
Either that, or an abrupt cut to black before she makes contact. Then maybe a scream? But I think the
Night of the Living Dead
is a freeze. The freeze always gives me the wiggins. Likewise with a well used slow motion.
Have you guys seen the promo for the new Jennifer Anniston/Clive Owen movie?
Is that supposed to be an American accent? Because if so -- not very good.