Scared Straight! What Film Really Spooked You?

[mrsl]

It's not so much the movie that stays with me but certain scenes or sounds. e.g. the 'cricket' sound from Them, the Jaws dum, dum, dum, dum. . . . or the footsteps in a foggy, dark night like in Midnight Lace, although after a couple of minutes of Doris' whining and moaning, I almost wished the guy would get her.

The one that still gets me, even after all these years is the phone ringing on a quiet night in a dark house, ala When a Stranger Calls. I, too used to babysit, and unfortunately I watched it on TV one night when babysitting. Oh brother . . . I don't think I ever answered a phone again at night when alone, unless I knew the parents would be calling.

The psychology of the possibility of that happening is too real. All the others are imagination working overtime during the movie, but certain things come to you in the dark, and these cicadas this year are not helping the situation any.

Anne

[moira finnie]

The first movie that really spooked me completely was William Cameron Menzies' Invaders from Mars (1953) about the space ship that lands in the sandpit beyond a kid's backyard and proceeds to take over the neighborhood, including Mom & Dad.

The other way-too-effective spooky movie was Robert Wise's brilliantly done original version of the Shirley Jackson story, The Haunting (1963). I literally couldn't go to sleep at night after seeing these films on the tube.

I've since seen them again and I realize that the Menzies' film is powerfully effective because the movie is largely filmed from a child's POV. The Haunting is so good because Wise used the b & w cinematography, sound, the viewer's imagination and a great cast, (Julie Harris, Claire Bloom, Richard Johnson, Russ Tamblyn), to bring this story to imaginative life. I wouldn't recommend the remakes of either of these classics. They had much bigger budgets and much smaller talents behind the scenes.

All the others are imagination working overtime during the movie, but certain things come to you in the dark, and these cicadas this year are not helping the situation any.

Anne,
I heard the "call of the cicada" in the Chicago area on a feature on NPR over the weekend! You're not kidding about this hauntingly creepy sound! I'm thankful that I've never lived in an area where the 17 year cicada returns and I'm sure that you're pretty glad that this only lasts for a few weeks. One can hear the sound of the cicadas here. I wouldn't watch Them! (1953) just now either...

[traceyk]

The psychology of the possibility of that happening is too real. All the others are imagination working overtime during the movie, but certain things come to you in the dark, and these cicadas this year are not helping the situation any.

Anne

I'm from SW Ohio and we had the cicadas 3 years ago. Man, they were intense! Everywhere you looked, there werre hundreds of them. And so LOUD. My daughter was 9 or 10 at the time and was terrified of them.

Tracey

[jdb1]

The psychology of the possibility of that happening is too real. All the others are imagination working overtime during the movie, but certain things come to you in the dark, and these cicadas this year are not helping the situation any.

Anne

I'm from SW Ohio and we had the cicadas 3 years ago. Man, they were intense! Everywhere you looked, there werre hundreds of them. And so LOUD. My daughter was 9 or 10 at the time and was terrified of them.

Tracey

Does that mean you have no cicadas at all at other times? Where I live we have them every summer (not in hoardes, though). They don't become active until the weather is really warm, generally beginning in late July. They are pretty darn noisy pretty darn early in the morning once they get going. Sometimes they fall from the trees. In larger movie form they must look ghastly.

[SSO Admins]

Does that mean you have no cicadas at all at other times? Where I live we have them every summer (not in hoardes, though). They don't become active until the weather is really warm, generally beginning in late July. They are pretty darn noisy pretty darn early in the morning once they get going. Sometimes they fall from the trees. In larger movie form they must look ghastly.

Three years ago Maryland had them too. We have them every year, but this was a invasion that happens like every 20 years or something. The noise was LOUD, and when you'd walk on the sidewalks they'd crunch under your feet like dead leaves.

[feaito]

A movie made for TV titled "Don't Be afraid of the Dark"scared me to death when I watched it as a kid. Those ugly small beings which came out of the fireplace!!! Spooky!! I'd like to watch it again!

There was other English speaking horror film which I saw as child titled in my country (in Spanish) "Ultratomb Lovers" of which I can only recall a scene in which a man or a couple tied to a chair near a fireplace are burned alive!!! I've never forgotten that particular scene.

Last but not least, there was yet another extremely atmospheric film I watched in the second half of the 1970s, that told the story of a House that was "alive" since it was built by their initial owners. They were en route to the house (during the 1800s) and their carriage crashed and turned over; only their young daughter survived and she spent her whole life in bed inside the house!!! Then I can't remember well what happened, but I had to turn off the TV, cuz I could not stand it anymore.... all my borthers were sleeping and I was sweating and suffering covered to my head, inside my bed.....seeing all kinds of shadows moving, hearing all types of noises and imagining the worst possible. I really was in state of shock!

[benwhowell]

I've always been spooked by movies/TV with ventriloquist dummies that come to life. I remember an episode of "The Twilight Zone" (I think) with a creepy "dummy" and, of course, "Magic." I don't know if I'm more freaked out by the possibility of a dummy coming to life or by the ventriloquist's disturbing belief that the dummy is real. I used to feel "sad" for Bob (and Chuck) on TV's "Soap."
I remember being spooked by mannequins too...as a child I was scared to even walk by one!

[feaito]

I remember being spooked by mannequins too...as a child I was scared to even walk by one!

Me too Ben!! I even had a recurrent dream in which armies of dummies chased me and I escaped & escaped forever......trying to hide from them.

An elderly great aunt of mine had a headless dummy for clothing fitting and I was scared to death of it!

[benwhowell]

Fernando, I found this on YouTube. Thought you might "enjoy" it.

[feaito]

Thanks Ben. Really disturbing clip! Creepy music! If I had seen this as a child I could have not sleeped tonight. Period.

I remembered something else that gave me the creeps as a teenager. Roald Dahl's "Tales of the Unexpected", which I watched for a time, every sunday night.