and then that last run through the house (with the bloody handprints on the walls)
gaaaaah. Gaaaaaaaaaah.
You see, I used to suffer from a recurring nightmare that would be set wherever I was living at the time. I'd come home to find all the doors open and no one home, but the walls covered with bloody handprints. So that scene in BWP caused me to contract into a little ball and start rocking back and forth. Thankfully, that particular recurring nightmare stopped after Pete & I moved in together.
It's when Elenor says, "Theo, don't squeeze so! You're hurting my hand!" and then it's revealed that nobody was holding her hand.
Oooh, yes.
I'm not scared by gore or monsters. Suspense, things suggested but not seen, and a growing sense of tension and unease, however, will keep me awake long after the movie is over.
"Jump a mile" moments (different from "freak my shit right out!" moments) include Harry Roat (Alan Arkin) jumping out at blind Audrey Hepburn in Wait Until Dark (I love showing that film to WUD newbies with the lights all out, and watching them leap from their seats at that point!), and Carrie's hand grabbing Amy Irving's in Carrie.
I can't think of creepy visual reveals, but the single creepiest factual revelation in a movie remains for me
Santa Sangre's
revelation that his mother's been dead the whole time.
Just horrific.
The Haunting
is an adaptation of a Shirley Jackson story, right? Which one?
that last run through the house (with the bloody handprints on the walls) with the last image of Mike in the corner was completely mindblowing.
I remember that being extremely freaky, but now I have no memory of why. Anyone care to remind me?
The Haunting is an adaptation of a Shirley Jackson story, right? Which one?
The Haunting of Hill House. It's just as creepy in the book.
The Haunting is an adaptation of a Shirley Jackson story, right? Which one?
The Haunting of Hill House,
one of the scariest novels ever. EVER. Do not read it after moving into a new place.
The Haunting is an adaptation of a Shirley Jackson story, right? Which one?
THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE. Everyone here is talking about the 1963 adaption, and not the craptastic recent one with Lili Taylor and Catherine Z-J.
Got it. I recently read
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
and couldn't remember if that was the right one, but clearly not.
The Haunting of Hill House, I think.
As for Blair Witch, I only saw it once so I'm probably misremembering aspects of it, but I think that the Mike-in-the-corner connection was to the serial killer of kids back in the 1940s, who said that he had "been told" (supposedly by the witch) to make one kid stand in the corner while he was killing one of their friends. Just tying that little toss-away fact into the final moment just capped the entire freaked-out feeling I had by the end of that movie.
I remember that being extremely freaky, but now I have no memory of why. Anyone care to remind me?
There was a story told by one of the towns people early in the movie about a child killer hermit (and not the Blair Witch, though she was supposed to have been the force behind it) who always killed two at a time, and made one stand in the corner while he killed the other.
