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.

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.

"Jump a mile" moments

Re: seeing them coming...I saw the remake of The Haunting with a couple. The husband and I were sitting their eye-rolling and thinking how gawdawful it was; his wife is the lucky type who is able to suspend critical thought until after the movie is done, so she was wrapped up in it. There's a "gotcha" moment when Luke's dinking with the fireplace that is totally set up. M caught my attention and gestured at his wife, who was rapt, as was most of the rest of the theater. So I was watching the crowd for the gotcha, and it was awesome to see about 150 people simultaneously leap back two rows.

In The Sixth Sense, when the kid's in the bathroom and something passes by the door - that was a "jump out of my seat" moment. Great sound.

The medium opening the closet where the kids are hiding in The Others was another good one. Incidentally, I watched The Others again last year, and knowing the deal from the outset really changes the feel of the movie. It's still scary, but not as much, and the bit with the husband works a lot better. And I agree with Plei that it's a happy ending, of a weird sort.

The Changling is still the scariest movie I've ever seen, but I can't pin down one scene that made it so.

It certainly contains the scariest scene of a ball bouncing down the stairs I've ever seen.

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.

Oh, The Bad Seed is another one. Probably falls better into the "freaked people out in its day, but events have passed it by" category. Plus the cop-out ending.

The Bad Seed remake, with one of the Carridine brothers as the creepy handymanperson, scared the crap out of me when I was little. I am not sure it would scare me now. I realize that I just don't watch scary things. Or I am not scared by them. Or something, because I can think of no other movie that really scared me, although both Grover on Sesame Street and Puff the Magic Dragon scared me as a child. (I would run screaming from the TV)

Plus the cop-out ending.

I hated that ending. But I guess back then they couldn't let people walk out of the theatre thinking an 8 year old girl was a murderer.

I don't think the play has a cop out ending. My recollection of the play is that the mom killed "The Bad Seed" to keep her from murdering more people.

I don't think the play has a cop out ending. My recollection of the play is that the mom killed "The Bad Seed" to keep her from murdering more people.

Yeah, the play had a different ending. I thought I'd heard somewhere that the movie ended that way because of the Code. 'Course, it's been a while since I saw it. Didn't God (or, you know, lightning) smite the little girl at the end?

My recollection of the play is that the mom killed "The Bad Seed" to keep her from murdering more people.

Like in The Good Son, which I think is an underrated movie.