Going through these October days, I decided I wanted to watch as many horror movies as possible. I'm not talking about the Freeform movies of 31 Days of Halloween, even though I adore those. The movies I'm talking about are the truly bloody ones; movies that leave you scared and chilled to the bone, wondering if you'll ever see sun light again, or if you'll even be able to sleep!
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| Credits to Ridge. |
Therefore, I decided to focus on the movies I haven't seen yet. So far, I've watched a couple of some very good horror movies I had never experienced, such as "Gretel and Hansel", "Mary Shelly's Frankenstein", and "The Omen" trilogy. Watching them, I reflected upon the horror movies that have scared me the most, and why they're so scary to me. I am a fan of the horror genre, and I usually don't get scared that easily. But still... the ten movies I will be talking about shook me to the core for various reasons. Some of them don't even have a fantastic rating; nonetheless, the effect on me was pretty real.
Without further due, let's get started!
1- "The Blair Witch Project"
This might not be the movie you were expecting to see here, but hear me out. What scared me of this movie was how realistic it was. At one point, I considered the possibility that the tapes presented in the film were real, because they just seemed to be. The terror was palpable and blood chilling, the storyline flowed naturally, and the things that just appeared out of nowhere were terrifying.
The horror of this movie for me is how natural everything seemed to be. It gives you the impression that it could happen to anyone. Also, the fact that the effects were so simple made it even more realistic, as it wasn't packed with over-the-top CGI (looking at you "The Conjuring"). There is of course the paralyzing ending. We have Heather, the protagonist, asking for forgiveness as she was the one with the idea to investigate the Blair Witch in the first place. She's crying, visibly terrified of what might be with her in the room, recording herself saying goodbye to her family. And then, all of a sudden, she screams while being killed by an unseen horror.
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| The fact that we never see what kills Heather in the end, makes it even more terrifying. |
2- "Halloween"
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| The original version. |
This will always be for me the best version of "Halloween", hands down. Part of what makes this movie so brutal and shocking is the soundtrack, at least in my opinion. It's iconic, it's creepy and it really sets the mood for what happens in the story. There's also of course the villain himself: Michael Myers. He has become the embodiment of pure evil, and even though all the (terrible) sequels have tried to give him a reason for being so vicious, I believe he has no real reason. He's just evil, pure and simple. And that is what makes him such a scary villain.
He was forever silent. His eyes were completely dark, devoid of feeling and humanity. He came out of nowhere, stalking the characters, making chilling appearances in the screen. He killed viciously, without a certain pattern, without a motive, only because he wanted to. He was the boogeyman for protagonist Laurie Strode; for me, Michael Meyers was hell made into flesh.
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| Even as a little kid, you could see in his eyes the truth: Michael Myers was empty inside. |
3- "Child's Play"
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| I curse the day I saw this movie. |
Yes, I am a twenty-something adult who's still afraid of Chucky. Deal with it.
Chucky was for me the main source of most of my nightmares, and I'm sure that for many other children he was too. Everything about this bastard terrified me to the bones: his voice (both the innocent and violent version of it), how he creepily moved from place to place, his thirst for murder, his black magic rituals, and how he just appeared out of thin air- or so it seemed at the time.
I still remember the part when little Andy was in the mental institution and he saw this goddamn doll climbing the stairs outside. Seeing him climbing those stairs, so naturally, still scares me. I know, compared to other scenes that one wasn't particularly frightening, but seeing that thing walk towards Andy was like a dark promise of the things that were to come.
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| F*** you. |
4- "As Above So Below"
This movie was recommended to me by one of my best friends, because she knows how much I love these movies. I thought I was going to enjoy it. I though it was going to be fun, considering the premise. Boy, was I wrong. I almost did it in my pants!
I left this movie with one major headache and the promise that I would never watch it again for the rest of my life. HELL TO THE NO! The fact that it was filmed similar to "The Blair Witch Project" didn't help- that only made it more scary for me. Most of the movie takes place in underground caves, and a lot of them were quite small, making me feel very claustrophobic. The things that were seen, the horrors that were found, the chilling sounds that were heard- it was too much for me. Then I investigated about the movie, and found out that the story was meant to represent the Nine Circles of Hell.
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| Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Anger, Heresy, Violence, Fraud and Treachery. |
Let's just say this whole Hell thingy didn't help. At all.
5- "Stephen King's It"
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| Maldita sea la hora en que vi esta película. Pardon my Spanish. |
If Chucky still haunts me to this day, you don't want to know about Pennywise, the dancing clown. Yes, I've gotten over this fear for the most part. I read the book, which I admit took me a whole year to do so. I saw the new movies and I actually enjoyed them a lot. But this 90's version... nope. I can't watch it.
The new Pennywise is creepy, but the original one was traumatizing. Period.
I can still hear him, clearly as if he were beside me right now. I remember how scared I was for years to walk over sewers and spending too much time in the shower- I could only see this thing coming out of the shower's drain.
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| You goddamn bastard. |
I don't think I will ever be over this movie. Which is kind of ironic, considering I was able to handle the source material. But there's just something so disturbing about this adaptation, something so creepy about this particular Pennywise, that I still have nightmares. I'm talking about the nightmares that make you wake up in the middle of the night, all sweaty and deadly afraid- those kind of nightmares.
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| I mean... who needs sleep anyway? |
The fact that I live alone doesn't exactly help either.
6- "Carrie"
Granted, it's not the scariest horror movie. But "Carrie" does gives me the creeps. For me, this movie is a combination of mixed feelings and terror. The mixed feelings come with Carrie White of course: a victim and monster at the same time, Carrie's revenge is understandable but never justified. I also have mixed feelings about her classmates and teachers; yes, they could be extremely cruel, but did they really deserve to be murdered?
The terror comes with three things. First of all, Carrie's house. It was creepy beyond reason. It was ornamented with candles, all sorts of religious things, and it always looked so dark and devoid of live.
Second, Carrie's mother Margaret White. She was a religious fanatic, which alone made her dangerous. When she took her faith to the next level (attempting to murder her own daughter) she became quite scary.
Then of course, there's Carrie herself. The way she opened her eyes in such a creepy way when she was killing people, the eerie music that accompanied her doing so, and seeing her drenched in blood made her one the scariest female villains for me. The thing is, even though she did something horrible, and she looked way too creepy, you can't help but feel sorry for Carrie.
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| Hell to the no. Bye. |
7- "The Shining"
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| Oh look, it's the third Stephen King's adaptation on this list. |
This movie had everything to give me a bad juju from the start: creepy (iconic) music, a suspicious setting (I got really bad vibes from that hotel from the start), great characters who all seemed in the border of insanity, and a creepy kid.
The plot moved slowly but surely, making you grow attached to the characters, and getting to really know them. Also, you get to see the hotel and all of its nice inhabitants.
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| The two of you can go to hell. |
When you get to the point in the story where you understand what the hell is going on, you feel as trapped as the characters. Everything seems hopeless, as if the whole hotel was going after you (which isn't very far from reality). And by the point where Jack Torrance finally loses what little sanity he had left and goes on a murder rampage, well... let's just say you feel what Wendy Torrance is going through.
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| This poor woman deserved better. |
And for me that's what's so scary about "The Shining": you get so immersed in the story that you empathize with the characters a lot, and feel some of the terror they are going through.
8- "The Witch
According to master of horror Stephen King himself, this movie terrified him. I think that says quite a lot about it.
The movie has a lot of strengths, including: the pace, the setting and its atmosphere, the collective hysteria present during the Witch Trials, the color palette, the subtle terror growing stronger by the minute, and all the devilish implications in the plot and characters. The movie creeped me out from the start. You don't know what the hell is going on, and you get as suspicious as the family in the story, looking for the source of evil and all that is going wrong: the witch.
The conclusion of the story is violent, gruesome, dark and full of many twists. The real witch is revealed in the end in my favorite scene in the movie: the Devil himself comes to her, and offers her His book, where if she signed her name, she would have witch powers in return. After doing so, she joins a coven of witches and starts to fly in an eerie sequence with ghastly music. It's scary, it's pure horror, and absolutely perfect.
The movie is also full of creepy Easter eggs such as the goat's name Black Phillip, which is another name for the Devil. Also, many believes that the Pilgrims had about witches are shown in the movie, and it's quite disturbing that people really believed in this stuff and even worse: that they murdered women for these believes.
I must admit though: I wanted to sign that damn book too. Sorry not sorry.
9- "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre"
Never in my life did I ever feel so desperate to finish a movie before, until I saw this one. I didn't want to stop because I'm not a quitter, but damn... The impression it left on me was too great. The violence in this movie was not over the top like in other works, such as with "Saw". But it came so unexpected and all of a sudden, while being so brutal, sadistic and cruel that I couldn't help feeling scared out of my bones.
This movie made me learn a hard but important lesson: human beings are the ones you need to be afraid of. Not the supernatural, not the monsters under your bed, not the cool breeze in a lonely night, or the villains in the movies. It's the ordinary people you see every day, because you never know what they might be hiding, or what they might be capable of.
That thing using the chainsaw is one of the most horrifying monsters I've ever seen. Including his cannibal family. His face though... that's something you don't forget easily.
10- "The Exorcist"
Cliché, yes. But like all clichés, it's the truth.
I first saw this movie when I was in seventh grade. After watching it, I was fine; I wasn't that afraid. I just had to wait till night though. That's when the fun began.
I saw Pazuzu's face all over the house. I remind you that Pazuzu is the demon who possessed Regan in the movie. I kept seeing his eyes everywhere, hearing his voice, expecting him to come out of the shadows for me.
Up to this day, I haven't gotten over most of the things in this movie. From the backwards catwalk in the stairs scene, to the cruel things the demon did to his host and others.
I won't post any more pictures of this movie because they are too disturbing for me. I can barely talk sometimes about the horrible things that demon does to poor little Regan.
BONUS MOVIE!!!
* "Trick 'r Treat"
This one doesn't really scare me, but it is my favorite Halloween movie of all time. It has many things I love: a mass killer, a mysterious villain, werewolves, zombies, tragic backstories, Anna Paquin and some 'True Blood" vibes, evil bastards getting a taste of their own medicine, and Sam.
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| Sam is short for Samhain, the real name of Halloween. |
Christmas has Santa Claus. Valentine's Day has Cupid. Easter has the Bunny. Thanksgiving has a Turkey. Saint Patrick's Day has a Leprechaun.
Halloween has Sam.
He is Halloween made flesh, and he makes sure that all Halloween traditions are taken accordingly. He looks like a sweet little boy in disguise, but he's actually a demon with a taste for murder and candy.
I expect this beautiful work of art will have a sequel sooner than later.
You can see the cartoon that inspired the movie here: Season's Greetings
It was created by the same man who created the movie; it's short but so fun!
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That's all for today folks! I hope you enjoyed this post and I'll see you guys next week. Take care.
P.S. F*** you Pennywise.
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