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.
Oh, another truly creepifying moment is the end of The Haunting of Julia with Mia Farrow.
Is that the one where Mia's blind, and she fills up the tub, not knowing there's a dead body in it? That freaked me out when I saw it on TV as a kid.
Oh, I also remember some color version of Frankenstein (I'm guessing a Hammer version?) that had a pretty woman in Regency garb with her head sewed back on, and a very gross scar hidden under her velvet choker. Seeing that before age 10 left a mark on my brain, even though I have no clue what the name of the movie was.
I saw parts of Psycho when I was really young. I think I was at a church thing where we were being "babysat" by older kids and it came on. Not all of it, not the stabbing scene, the one where "mother" turns around. I had nightmares about that for years, decades even. I've never seen Psycho, I know it's not as scary as what I built up in my mind, but I still don't want to see it.
"Jump a mile" moments (different from "freak my shit right out!" moments)
Yeah, and I normally hate those because you always know they're coming. I mean, they work on me, but even if I don't know if it'll be a cat-scare or something actually scary, they're usually preceded by several minutes of build-up and spooky music so everyone knows that
something's coming. I tend to sort of disconnect when that's happening, because I'm busy preparing myself to be scared, which makes the reveal less effective. In ISOYG, I thought it was over and was finally starting to relax and then -- geeeaaah!
If I remember right, I had to pause the movie for a minute until I could calm down.
My favourite "Oh, fuck I did not see
that
coming!" moment was when the shark got Samuel L Jackson in that shark movie. It was beautiful. I squealed, jumped, and howled with laughter.
Speaking of Vincent Price, you must all see House of the Long Shadows. Well, if you're up for cheese (think Desi Arnaz Jr.). I can't tell you more, but the ending is fantastic. Particularly 1 word from Vincent Price.
My favourite "Oh, fuck I did not see that coming!"
Double ditto. I was slack-jawed when Samuel L. bit it...or rather...was bit. Absolutely howled.
A favorite squeamy moment was in Carpenter's The Thing, which I loved in general.
The moment when they put the hot needle into the petri dish o blood. That sound!
I'm not sure how they produced the effect, but it freaked my shit all the way out. Single most effective sound effect ever...in my universe.
I don't watch many horror movies. I don't enjoy being scared and (for slasher flicks and the like) I find gore very disturbing. However, I do remember making the mistake of watching the original (I think) Amityville movie late at night on TV when the spending that night at a friend's house as a kid and it freaking me the hell out.
Most recent "horror" movie I've seen would probably be "Fallen", which I found creepy and disturbing, but didn't actually freak me out.
I just saw an excellent sneak preview review of Harry Potter over at Oscarwatch--it's non-spoilery (although some of the succeeding questions in the thread were spoilerish), and very favorable indeed. I like what he said about how the other films lacked grandeur, which this one has. I think I'd agree with that for all of them, even HPIII, which I loved. Then again, the books themselves didn't have that level of sweeping epicness until GoF (at least, in terms of length!), so maybe it's just a matter of the waiting for this film to exhibit that trait in the Potterverse.
Samuel L. Jackson's death in
Deep Blue Sea
really is one of my favorite screen deaths ever. Fantastic.
The Others
didn't scare me that much, and I figured out the ending, but it was a great movie experience because I saw it sitting outside at the drive-in, and it was foggy, so it was like the screen just didn't end. Perfect atmosphere.
Also, this movie used to come on when I was little- maybe it was a movie version of
Night Gallery?
I just remember that the first story had something to do with this guy in a mansion and it had a painting of the grounds and this dude's grave, and the guy would look at the painting and saw the grave empty and the dude walking toward the house and up the stairs and then you heard steps on the stairs...I may have blocked the details. I probably haven't seen it in 15 years, but it scared my little brother and I shitless. It probably goes in the same category as
The Hand
with Michael Caine. They'd probably make me laugh now if I ever had the guts to watch them again.
Edit: I just checked imdb- it
was
Night Gallery, and it looks like it came before the show. Shows what I know.
Edit 2: Further investigation into movies that scared me as a kid has revealed that next year Creepshow 3 is coming out. I know I shouldn't bother hoping its any good.
Is that the one where Mia's blind, and she fills up the tub, not knowing there's a dead body in it? That freaked me out when I saw it on TV as a kid.
No, in this she's a bereaved mother who moves into a haunted house and is fixated on by the ghost of another kid who's basically the Bad Seed.
Speaking of Vincent Price, you must all see House of the Long Shadows.
Best. Entrance. Ever.
Plus, that hilarious diatribe against the barmaid who's told him to piss off.
