hi, can anybody tell us any films where there is a scene in which the victim/characters are boarding themselves inside a home for protection?
Thanks

hi, can anybody tell us any films where there is a scene in which the victim/characters are boarding themselves inside a home for protection?
Thanks

That crane shot (bird pov) in opera is camera work at it's best.

All excellent choices, Scott. I would add:

The Innocents - ghosts walking across the hallway or standing stiff by the lake.. CREEPY.. some of the most creepiest images I've ever seen.

Don't Look Now - the ending with Donald Sutherland chasing and ultimately facing the dead red-coated daughter.

The Changeling - the boarded-up attic, the music box, the wheelchair.. enough said.

Friday the 13th - Jason jumping out of the water. I almost died.

Diabolique - the old French film with the great Simone Signoret is scarier than Psycho I think. The bathtub scene with the white eyes...

The Shining - Scott, how in the world did you ignore this? The Grady twins, the bathroom scene.. When Shelley Duvall first sees the ax going through the door, her eyes chill me more than anything in the world every time.

You should defintily see "Dead End" it is a great indie thriller with Ray Wise. Also you should check out "Ghost Ship" and the thriller "The Last Of Sheila".

Yes! I love that you listed that scene from Evil Dead, Scott. I recall seeing that movie on VHS when I was like in fourth or fifth grade. I watched it with my cousin with the lights all off. When Cheryl starts reading off the cards with her voice changing and then that sudden shot to her face and her rising into the air . . . holy crap we both froze. Once we shook off the scare we rewound it many times, and her voice and body movements became funny to us. I still occasionally impersonate her voice and say, "Jack of Spades, Queen of Hearts, AAAHHH!" Great list of horror films in general. I never saw the made-for-TV one with the little creatures coming out of the dark. Perhaps I should check it out. I love that the hedge clippers scene from Exorcist III was mentioned by ttrentham. On a whole, I too was not thrilled with that film, but that scene freaked me the fuck out. I may have screamed out loud while jumping into the air. Oh, and you know what movie caused me to jump in my seat many times when I saw it in the theater, 28 Days Later. When the main character is in his parents' house and one of the zombies jumps through the window, I recall clutching the arm rests and kneeing the seat in front of me. Good fun.

robert

Wow...great reminders from everyone! I will agree with that oversized scissors scene in Exorcist 3--horrifying. Also, the ending of Don't Look Now is great! Scott, you should write a blog soon that includes scary scenes from t.v. shows or movies...I can think of plenty of those too!

As a kid (and a former catholic), I got most freaked by demonic interventions of all stripes. "Rosemary's Baby" was definitely at the top of the list. Also, more recently, an episode of the X-Files called "The Calusari" in which a small child is possesed by his dead brother.

And here's an antidote to all the scariness:
(http://www.ps260.com/molly/SHINING%20FINAL.mov)
Nothing like "Salisbury Hill" to set the mood...

I saw CARRIE when it came out. When the hand shot out the person in front of me leapt about three feet and tore up the aisle like the Tasmanian Devil. The entire audience was screaming.

davidd_13: Thanks for validating my fear of that creepy old woman in House on Haunted Hill! The movie, as a whole, is just so ridiculous that folks often forget that genuinely scary moment.

shit. I used to get so scared about bob in twin peaks. That and Leo swinging round his sock filled with pool balls (?) whilst his wife is in the shower. I was so relieved when I heard that bob had finally died in real life.

Blair Witch freaked me out when I saw it. I like Susperia but I think I like Opera just a smidge more. Halloween is a good one. Fire Walk With Me, Jesus, that's probably Lynch's most intense and horrific movie to date. It's really disturbing. I love it. Phantasm is another creepy one, I haven't seen that since jr. high though so it might not have the same punch now as it did then. My favorite horror movie though is the first Nightmare on Elm Street. The part where the body bag is being drug through the halls of the school, that's a little creepy, I think.

Commenting on Tamyra and ttrentham' comments (now that's post-modernism eh !). Horror movies are all about timing for the viewer, aren't they ?

I remember being scared to death by The Amityville Horror when I was a kid (had my share of sleepless nights because of that one). I had always refused to watch it again until recently.
On second viewing, I realized how cheap the scares were ! And the movie itself was actually quite boring.

ah well... I hate growing up ! ;-)

Here's my contribution to your list of moments that legitimately scared the crap out of me:

DON'T LOOK NOW -- I was younger, switching channels when I happened upon the last few minutes of this one; Donald Sutherland chasing and finally catching up with his dead daughter on the incredibly atmospheric streets of Venice. When he spun her around for the big reveal, I almost wet my pants.

WHEN A STRANGER CALLS -- Not the now-cliche moment when the police tell Carol Kane that the calls are coming from inside the house, but a minute later when she looks up the stairway and the bedroom door flies open, casting the killer's shadow against the wall. Also the very end of the movie when she thinks she's in bed with her husband and it's not him at all.

HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL -- In the classic Vincent Price version, there's a scene where the young secretary is investigating a darkened basement room and the apparition of a white-eyed hag appears before her. That woman's face, mouth frozen in some sort of silent scream, has terrified me for years.

SCREAM -- The opening scene when Drew Barrymore's on the phone and the caller casually says something that let's you know he's outside the house watching her.

THE AMITYVILLE HORROR -- Just the house's windows with Lalo Schifrin's score is enough to scare me, but the voice telling the priest to "get out" used to scare me silly.

THE SHINING -- At the end of the Kubrick film when Shelly Duvall is running through the hotel and starts seeing all the ghosts in all the rooms, especially what appears to be a man in a dog costume fellating another man. Also the scene of the Overlook's ballroom bathed in blue-light and filled with cobwebs and skeletons.

POLTERGEIST -- Jobeth Williams trapped in the backyard pool while skeletal corpses bob to the surface all around her.

HALLOWEEN II -- My mom had worked in hospitals forever, so I was quite used to them, but will never get over seeing Michael Myers stalk the empty, half-lit corridors. Or at the very beginning of the film, when Michael's in the background stealing the old woman's kitchen knife while she's watching the news report about his murder-spree.

This is great!

I think I'll do something similar on my 'blog, soon. Be forewarned that I may have to "steal" some of your moments (or, at least, the films in which they're featured).

These days, I tend to be more "unsettled" by horror films than scared by them. Or I get inexplicably scared by really tepid stuff. (Mothman Prophecies, anyone?).

Shit-- I totally forgot about SEE NO EVIL. I want to see that again; is it on DVD?

Seeing "Rosemary's Baby" as a fairly young person scarred me for life...I also love that Mia Farrow movie "See No Evil." (Is that the right title)? And I'm a sucker for scary houses on stormy nights--the winner would be the original "Spiral Staircase." As for "Halloween," I recently had a friend see it for the first time & she thought it was boring. Not so...I remember people CRYING with fright when that movie first came out!

I don't know if you read Dennis Cooper's latest post, but he's doing something similar: 10 traumas caused by films, books and TV (http://denniscooper.blogspot.com/2006/05/10-traumas-caused-by-films-books-and.html).

We've talked about this before, but the Blair Witch trailer that I saw at least 6 months before it came out really scared me. Unfortunately, I didn't see the movie until it came to video, long after the hype had ruined any chance of my enjoying it.

One of my earliest memories of going to a movie with my parents involves them leaving me to go get some popcorn or something during the trailers for something I can't recall. I was probably three or four. My luck, the trailer for The Exorcist ran while they were gone. I nearly shit myself. That scene with Max Von Sydow walking up to the house in the dark with the light coming from the window and all of the mist is forever burned into my brain.

Exorcist III, a mediocre film overall, has one of the scariest moments on film for me. The scene where the nurse is walking from the hall into a hospital room and the gowned figure with the giant hedge trimmers suddenly appears behind her with the clippers raised, following her into the room is giving me goosebumps as I write about it.

Halloween is pretty much the ultimate. I was seeing Michael Myers around ever corner for at least a year after seeing that for the first time at age 10 or 11? I don't know what my mother was thinking letting me see that film.

I also somehow saw Alien in the theater. I must've been 8 at the time and went with my uncle who was only 4 years older than me. We were in one theater and my mother was in another watching The Main Event with Barbara Streisand and Ryan O'Neal. In retrospect, I was probably better off in Alien.

Halloween is just perfect. Also my favorite horror movie. Suspiria comes very close.
My list would *almost* be similar to yours. I might just throw The Haunting (Robert Wise version obviously) and Hellraiser somewhere.

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