Blogcritics Scary Movie Poll is — cute

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• 1 - Eric Olsen

  Oct 24, 2003 at 7:52 am

  I am trying to understand why there are two of these - doesn't make sense

• 2 - Eric Olsen

  Oct 24, 2003 at 7:53 am

  now I see

• 3 - Bill Sherman

  Oct 24, 2003 at 9:02 am

  Since it's done on the list with The Haunting, you sould probably clarify which Invasion of the Body Snatchers you mean (the movie's been made three times, though once as just Body Snatchers. Me, I'd go for the original Don Siegel version, though the Philip Kaufman remake has its admirers. . .

• 4 - Dawn

  Oct 24, 2003 at 11:42 am

  BTW - Temple that was the poll I put up there, and I appreciate you calling it lame.
  
  Blair Witch wasn't scary, unless you consider getting a piercing migraine from the camera angle scary - because I could see that being frightening.

• 5 - Tom Johnson

  Oct 24, 2003 at 11:49 am

  I don't understand why Alien and Aliens aren't on the list. That's sacrilege to me.

• 6 - The Theory

  Oct 24, 2003 at 12:20 pm

  DAMN YOU! What the heck? I got on the site today, saw the scariest movie poll and thought, WHY ISN'T BAMBI ON THERE!?
  
  Freakin blogcritic beating me to the punch. *grumble*

• 7 - Temple A. Stark

  Oct 24, 2003 at 1:08 pm

  LOL No problem Dawn. :)
  
  Sorry TT it's rare that I beat anyone to the punch.
  
  I watched Blair Witch Project at about 3 a.m. I also hadn't heard much of the hype (I find films are better when you ignore it) and so was able to get drawn in.
  
  
  Of course when I was a young 'un, the first time I saw the Thriller video I was scared spitless.

• 8 - Tom Johnson

  Oct 24, 2003 at 1:24 pm

  I know it's not a hugely well-known movie, but Jacob's Ladder freaked the crap out of me. The shaking thing in the bedroom mirror . . . damn.

• 9 - Mark Saleski

  Oct 24, 2003 at 1:31 pm

  i've gotta agree about Blair Witch...the first time i saw it i got freaked out by the flashes of my headlights hitting the roadside trees on the way home.
  
  and Jacob's Ladder....man, that needle-in-the-forehead thing. icky.

• 10 - Eric Olsen

  Oct 24, 2003 at 1:33 pm

  My older daughter who is jaded as hell about scary movies said Blair Witch was the scariest she had ever seen. She and my son love "Mothman" too.

• 11 - Mark Saleski

  Oct 24, 2003 at 1:44 pm

  ...i got to see Blair Witch a second time at a midnight showing up in bar harbor, maine. it was at this really cool old art-deco theatre.
  
  we used to do a lot of camping up there but were staying at a hotel.
  
  so it was me, my dad and one of my stepsons.
  
  when we get out of the movie the entire town had completely fogged in. you literally could just barely see across the street.
  
  the first words out of my stepson's mouth were:
  
  "Man, I'm sure glad we're not camping"

• 12 - Rodney Welch

  Oct 24, 2003 at 1:48 pm

  Well I voted for the original The Haunting, basically because of my age when I saw it -- seven or eight -- and that eye in the wall thing creeped me out bigtime. I thought Carrie and Rosemary's Baby were fine fright films, too -- I've seen them since and they still hold up remarkably well.
  
  I was less impressed with the original Texas Chainsaw, which I thought was just a bland gorefest. Tobe Hooper's Poltergeist, on the other hand, I found really, really scary. I saw The Shining when it first came out, and thought it was a complete disaster; a fright movie that promised the world and delivered nothing. I've seen it since and slightly reversed that opinion; it's a moody, kind of abstract scare film that is affecting in a kind of distanced way.
  
  And yes, Blair Witch scared me too. No accounting for taste in these things is there? One man's "scary as hell!" is another man's "what's the big fucking deal?"

• 13 - Mark Saleski

  Oct 24, 2003 at 1:53 pm

  exactly. i didn't get to see The Exorcist until freshman year in college...on the TV.
  
  i think the commercial breaks ruined it...'cause all i did was laugh at everything.

• 14 - Tom Johnson

  Oct 24, 2003 at 2:30 pm

  I don't know if I can say the movie version of The Shining scared me, but the book sure as hell did - I read it on a vacation while we were staying in an old hotel that was purported to be - you guessed it - haunted.
  
  I did find Blair Witch scary. Forgot about that one.
  
  I guess I like "spooky" more than out-right "scary" in terms of movies. I liked The Others because of that. It's the stuff you can't explain that gives me the creeps - ghosts and stuff. Murderers with axes, chainsaws, etc, that does nothing for me, and is usually laughably excessive. That's why I like the first Alien so much - that's a long, slow movie that builds and builds the tension until that final showdown at the end. Good stuff. Be sure and catch the "Director's Cut" in theaters next week.

• 15 - Temple A. Stark

  Oct 24, 2003 at 2:34 pm

  Yeah I did forget to mention I voted. I voted for Carrie, though I haven't seen them all. The whole persecution thing really is "real world" scary. I didn't see it when it first came out. I wouldn't know about the Shining (Jack Nicholson version). Everytime I have tried to watch it - four different times - I have fallen asleep. It is a long film.
  
  I imagine as Mark says above, it made a difference whether you saw on the big screen on TV with ad breaks or on the small screen on VHS/DVD/BETAMAX etc etc.

• 16 - duane

  Oct 24, 2003 at 2:40 pm

  The Shining is an excellent movie, but it's not particularly scary. The only scenes that are close to being scary are those of Danny exploring the hotel hallways. Jacob's Ladder inspires a sense of dread. The subway scene, just for starters, is enough to make you close the windows and lock the doors. I love that movie. I thought The Blair Witch Project was extremely effective in portraying helplessness in the face of an unknown, borderline omnipotent power. And those wooden witch figures hanging from the trees provided a great example of having the crap scared out of you in broad daylight. Daytime scary is worse than nighttime scary. And don't let's forget the musical scores. When they're done right, they add so much to creating tension -- my favorites are from The Shining, Alien, and The Thing (1982), if those can properly be called scores. Blair Witch was unique in that it had no background music to clue one in. Also very effective, in this case.

• 17 - Rodney Welch

  Oct 24, 2003 at 2:40 pm

  Tom, I haven't seen The Others but I checked it out yesterday from the library to see this weekend. I prefer that kind of scary too.
  
  > Murderers with axes, chainsaws, etc, that does nothing for me ...
  
  Me either. There was a similar movie, quite popular back in the day, which I'm surprised no one has mentioned: Last House on the Left. Wes Craven's first movie, and to me quite dull (I liked the Scream pictures by the way.) Roger Ebert loved it, citing in particular the scene where the bad guy is chasing someone with a chainsaw, and she keeps putting all these things in front of her to keep him at bay, which of course, he cuts in half. Some people think of this as mounting terror; I thought I was watching a Poulan commercial.
  
  

• 18 - duane

  Oct 24, 2003 at 2:53 pm

  Rodney, you might also want to check out The Innocents with Deborah Kerr, which is from the 60s, I think, maybe 50s. It's an adaptation of Henry James' novella The Turn of the Screw. The Others has many similarities. Speaking of which, I thought The Other with Uta Hagen (60s, I think) was excellent. I'll say no more about it, in case anyone wants to check it out.
  
  Last House on the Left left me feeling depressed for about a week after I saw it. I was in high school when I saw it at a drive-in movie. Maybe I was too young. But it made me want to puke. It was a little over the top.

• 19 - Rodney Welch

  Oct 24, 2003 at 2:59 pm

  I've seen those, both excellent. The Other was I think from the early 1970s; I know I was in Junior High then.

• 20 - Al Barger

  Oct 24, 2003 at 4:14 pm

  I'll defend this list of scary movies. There are always going to be a thousand other possible good choices when you narrow the list down to only 10 choices. I'm not totally impressed with every single choice on the list. Further, I haven't seen all of them. However, you sure can't argue against Carrie or The Birds, especially.

• 21 - Chris

  Oct 24, 2003 at 4:20 pm

  Ok, I am opening myself up to severe flaming, but I can still watch Poltergiest and get the living daylights scared out of me.
  
  

• 22 - Eric Olsen

  Oct 24, 2003 at 4:32 pm

  I love the intersection of funny and really scary, like the old Night Gallery series or the first year of the Night Stalker series. Of course I was a kid, but both of those series were funny and scary.

• 23 - Temple A. Stark

  Oct 24, 2003 at 4:36 pm

  Chris - what a wuss. Nah, just joking. I still react badly to spiders in real life so I have no place to say anything.

• 24 - visualsimplicity

  Oct 24, 2003 at 4:40 pm

  I thought The Birds was hilarious, especially when the girl (I forget her name) was on the small boat and she gets pecked in the head. Then again maybe I thought it was funny because of Mel Brooks.
  
  Anyway, strangely, the most creeped out I have ever been after watching a movie was (believe it or not) The Sixth Sense. Something about that late night bathroom/mother scene freaked me out big time. It was eerie.

• 25 - visualsimplicity

  Oct 24, 2003 at 4:43 pm

  By the way, I'm shocked, no one has written a review about the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre on blogcritics yet. That or I'm blind.