The Silver Screen Oasis

I agree with you complete, Anne. The anticipatory silences in movies get to me every time - I can hardly stand it when there's no sound at all and I know something terrible may happen in the next second. There is something of a feeling of helplessness to the silence.

This is why I find The Sixth Sense such an effectively scary movie. I know there are many of you who didn't like it, but I found the slow pace and long silences extremely tension-building, and the quick and usually loud little climaxes to those pauses made me jump. Val Lewton's movies often used this principle as well.

Very well stated Anne. Karie gets spooked easily and will always grab for my hand when she senses something bad about to happen on the screen so that she can crush it when she gets scared. Every once in a while I'll give her hand a little squeeze just prior to anything actually happening on the screen, which usually results in her jumping and then socking me in the shoulder for being a wise guy.

Probably one of the scariest movies at least for me at the time was the original When a Stranger Calls. Teenage girl, alone in the house, responsible for two kids and some creepy guy keeps calling.

SPOILER


After a while, everytime the phone rings, you jump. The girl finally calls the police and they tell her the call is coming from inside the house. She runs to the door and of course, can't get it open. The camera keeps cutting to the upstairs and you see the shadow of the man coming out and heading for the stairs. The girl finally gets the locks undone and SCREAM! there's a man at the door, who turns out to be a policeman. Then later, the cop is talking about the crime and describes the two children as being so torn up (god, torn up-can you imagine?) they couldn't even fix them up for the funeral...later the Killer gets out of jail and goes after the girl, who's now all grown with children. She goes in and checks her child and he has a sucker in bed, which makes her go, "Hmmm." Then she goes back into her room and she sees the closet door is cracked and she tries to wake her husband and he rolls over and OMG IT'S NOT HIM, IT'S THE KILLER! Of course the police arrive just in time and shoot the killer before he manages to do her in.



Whew. I had trouble babysitting for months after this one. And the best part was you had to use your imagination--no gore was ever shown.

I agree, Tracey, that was one of the most effective openings of any horror film of that time - based of course on a popular urban legend. It's just too bad that the rest of the picture (until maybe the climax) couldn't keep up with that tempo. If I remember correctly (long time since I've seen that picture), the mid-section seemed terribly padded. And the murderer was pretty wimpy. Didn't he get beat up in a bar at one point?