"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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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I loved The Others. One of my top five of that year.

Also love the Deep Blue Sea moment. The entire audience jumped out of their seats; it was great.

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.

Right, and the brilliant thing was that, of course, you're seeing the movie through a first-person camera. So when you see someone else standing in the corner, who does that mean is about to get—BAM.

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I don't think The Others scared me, really. But there were some moments of bone-deep freakiness. It's a totally different thing for me. The Shining has both, in spades. The Ring scares me, but long-term doesn't freak me for some reason. The Exorcist is more of a freaky, with a couple of scenes of gruesome that increase the emotional impact.

The Others was odd because it combined this sort of tragic family drama with the scary. The religious fervor of the mother character added a lot to the general dismal feel, combined with the dark sets (keeping out the light for the children). The characters made it interesting by being generally realistic, but a little off. Both Nicole Kidman and the little girl were fabulous, I thought, which always helps.

I should watch that movie again soon. I have it on DVD.

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