Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.PCS 1/10/84; site mtgzz.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxn!ihnp4!houxm!mtuxo!mtgzz!leeper From: leeper@mtgzz.UUCP (m.r.leeper) Newsgroups: net.movies Subject: Re: Scariest Movies Message-ID: <1325@mtgzz.UUCP> Date: Thu, 31-Oct-85 23:45:12 EDT Article-I.D.: mtgzz.1325 Posted: Thu Oct 31 23:45:12 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 26-Oct-85 08:33:15 EDT References: <625@h-sc1.UUCP> Organization: AT&T Information Systems Labs, Middletown NJ Lines: 49 >Okay gang. How about a list of the movies we find the most >frightening, terrifying, etc? I really tried to stay out of the bad film listing game, but I suppose being really scary is a virtue. The scariest films would come to people's attention. The one problem is that I haven't been really scared by a film in years. A friend describes when we both saw JAWS for the first time. He describes it as "[He] was scared shitless and Mark was sitting there saying, 'The shark really didn't look realistic in that scene.' I like horror films as a genre because it is interesting to see the techniques used, I even feel a building of tension. But I don't actually get frightened. That may come of having seen too many horror films. Fiction rarely scares me, and if it does, radio horror is much more likely to scare me than film. I am not sure if you want to open this discussion to non-fiction, but the French documentary about concentration camps NIGHT AND FOG, I find pretty frightening. (How pretentious of me to mention it!) As for fiction films that have scared me, my parents claim that when I saw WAR OF THE WORLDS at age 2 it really scared me. I remember being bored by it. Years later, after a period of being willing to hock both my parents for a chance to see the film again, I was surprised at how much of the film I remembered semi-accurately. Still, I don't think that counts as being super-scary. The last film I remember being really scared at was PSYCHO at age 9. Films that I have seen since that have come the closest to really scaring me are NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (some of the scenes still feel very real) and (here comes da' flames) COUNT YORGA: VAMPIRE. The latter is low budget exploitation, but it was also a sharp and interesting contrast to Hammer's vampires. YORGA introduced vampires who were faster, much less sedate, and much more savage. They were much more in the tradition of the real vampire legends. Stoker's cultured vampire was supposed to be a marked contrast to the loathsome creature of the legends. Since then most vampires have been portrayed as cultured gentlepeople. The vampires in the Hammer films would slowly creep up on you looking hungrily at your neck, and perhaps when you weren't looking would slowly take a nip. In YORGA, before you knew there were vampires around they would attack like a pack of wild dogs and start chewing pieces out of you. Two more films to look for in the genre CARNIVAL OF SOULS is a super-low-budget piece that is really, really good. Very eerily filmed. Also look for a film known as either LEMORA or LADY DRACULA. It falls down in the second half, but till then it is really nightmarish. These are both films made on a shoestring that put their higher priced brothers to shame. Mark Leeper ...ihnp4!mtgzz!leeper