Most of the discriminating fangirls love a good scary movie as much as we love a creepy book. Some of us are into straight horror while others dig a good psychological scare. It was tough for me to choose which movie(s) to talk about, because while I’m not a big fan of slasher/gory horror films, I do love a good thriller. Let us know in the comments what your favorite spooky movie is!
Game over, man! Game over!
Amanda: Aliens
Originally, I was going to talk about The Exorcist, but most of what I have to say about the movie, I already said about the book. Another movie that I saw as a kid that I love and that still creeps me out to this day is Aliens. Fifty-seven years after Lt. Ellen Ripley survives an alien attack on her ship, she is brought out of her stasis and learns that the planet where her crew had encountered the alien eggs has been colonized.
Ripley joins a group of Marines on an investigation of the colony after contact is lost. They touchdown on LV-426 only to find that the entire colony, except for a little girl named Newt, has been taken by the aliens and turned into hosts for their young.
There is a tension throughout the film that has you jumping every time one of the aliens uncoils itself from above a character or just appears out of nowhere. Somehow these huge, snarling creatures can be absolutely silent and be on you before you even realize they were right next to you. As a monster, the alien (or xenomorph, if you will) is pretty ingenious – not only are they fast, powerful, deadly and practically undetectable, but even if you manage to kill one – their blood is acidic. If you’re anything like me, this movie will have you checking over your shoulder after the credits roll.
Buy Aliens (Two-Disc Collector’s Edition)
The Bibliomaniac: The Thing
The Thing is arguably the finest monster movie to be made in the 80s. It’s justifiably considered a classic; the groundbreaking special effects ushered in a new era of scarefests, and the tense, precise acting is a textbook lesson on how a small, mostly unknown cast can sometimes be far more effective than a roster of big stars.
And one more thing: with this movie—one some critics consider his magnum opus–John Carpenter is responsible for screwing up my sleep schedule twice in my life now.
I first saw his 1982 remake of the 1951 sci-fi classic The Thing from Another World on cable in 1983. I was 16 at the time, supposedly too old and worldly to be scared by a spooky movie on TV, and yet I can still remember laying in bed that night after the movie was over, legs pulled up tight to my chest, blanket tucked in as tight as I could make it, pulled around my face, staring up at the ceiling. I fought sleep as it tried to sweep me away, afraid that when I opened my eyes again, my dad might not really be my dad any more. My brothers might not be my brothers. Hell, the movie had proved it – my dog might not be my dog. I told myself over and over again that it was just a movie, that what I’d seen was just special effects. I repeated it silently, but I didn’t do a very good job of convincing myself.
This battle played out for a full week before the movie slowly began to lose its grip on me. I’d seen plenty of horror and monster movies before, yet none of them had seemed so grimly paranoid and claustrophobic…so real. Perversely, as much as I was scared by the movie, I loved it; Carpenter and Kurt Russell had set the bar for future scary movies pretty damned high, and it took years before other movies even came close to nearing it.
I bought the movie on VHS when it came out; when I got a DVD player in 2000, The Thing was the very first movie I bought to go with it.
Fast-forward to 2004. Divorced from my first husband and remarried, my two daughters from my first marriage spent every summer with me. One night in late July, the three of us sat down to watch some scary movies, and Carpenter’s The Thing was the first one I hauled out. My 15-year-old took it in stride, loving the special effects, but claiming she’d seen scarier movies before.
However, my 12-year-old (what was I thinking?) watched the movie with big eyes, and later that night crept out of her bed to knock on my bedroom door, shaking and sobbing, afraid that the monster from the movie was already inside her, slowly turning her into it—and that she might not even know it.
What followed was almost a perfect repeat of the nights I went through when I was 16; every night that followed—for the next three weeks, from the night she watched the movie until the last two days before she went back home with her father—she was up less than an hour after bedtime, petrified with fear. No amount of coping mechanisms—long rational talks, hugs, teddy bears to guard her in her sleep, weary and slightly angry arguing—could get her to settle down and go to bed before the sheer terror itself wore her down and left her exhausted and asleep. Only the excitement of getting to see her dad again—and realizing how much she would miss me until it came time for her visit at Christmas—finally overrode that fright.
Is there any greater tribute to the movie than that?
Buy The Thing (Collector’s Edition)
Stacy B: The Descent
I have been a Neil Marshall fan since “Dog Soldiers”. So when I was living in the UK, down the street from a wee movie theatre that did weeknight late-showings of movies they didn’t do on the first run, and I saw there was one by Neil Marshall, I plunked down my £4 without a second thought. Turns out this is about spelunking – and okay, so maybe I’ve always wanted to do that but I am not crazy about really tight spaces that could collapse on me at any moment. If only that was the reason this movie scared me. I also have a weird fear of inbreds/not-quite-human humans which I blame on that episode of “X-Files” (you know which one I’m talking about!) and the movie “Wrong Turn”.
When this group of female cavers starts getting the feeling they aren’t alone in these unmapped caves in the Appalachians, I’m already wired up on that feeling of promised thrill. What begins as a fun, bonding girls’ weekend turns into a revealing terror that explores their collective pasts and proves that when pushed, even the sweetest, best of people can do unspeakable things. Marshall builds the suspense, throws in a hefty dash of thrills, broken bones, and fear-induced hallucinations and you have “The Descent”. I’ll tell you the truth, after watching it in the theatre that first time? I ran the three blocks back home. I can’t even properly describe it to you, but you should watch it…in a dark room.
(Also, with the US version, *always* go with the unrated cut. I saw it in the theatre in the UK and in the US and the original US theatrical release chopped off the ending abruptly, depriving the movie of what I believe to be one of its crowning moments. I may have cussed in the theatre when it ended prematurely. A woman behind me gasped and covered her young son’s ears and gave me a *look* – but you know what, if she’s taking her kid to see that movie, there’s a helluva lot worse things he’s already seen. Bad language does not even appear as a blip on the radar.)
Buy The Descent (Original Unrated Cut) [Widescreen Edition]
TDF Pamela: Poltergiest & Event Horizon
Poltergiest was released in 1982. I obviously didn’t see it then, as I was three years old at the time, but I did see it young. I had to have been about nine or so, and for some reason, my parents thought I would be okay watching it. I spent a lot of time after that afraid that a portal to the evil ghost world would open up in my closet, and if I woke up to find that I had accidentally left the closet light on (so that the light shined through the cracks around the door), I would scream bloody murder until one of them came in to turn it off for me. My parents also showed me Jaws around the same time, so I spent quite a bit of my childhood worrying that a great white shark lived under my bed. What can I say? I was a very imaginative kid.
Today, thanks to this movie, I hate clowns and still won’t count between lightning and thunder. As a kid, I was afraid that the shrub outside my window would come alive and eat me if I counted, the way the evil tree tried to eat the little brother. So many people of my generation are afraid of clowns thanks to It, but not me. I didn’t see It until I was 17, and it didn’t make too much of an impression on me. The evil clown doll in Poltergiest, however…
[shudder]
Despite the fact that it scared the bejesus out of me when I was a kid, I freaking love Poltergiest today. I think it’s one of the finest ghost movies ever made. The special effects are dated now, but they’re still impressive considering that the movie was made in the early 80s, and really, what child of the 80s doesn’t occasionally brush off her hands and say in a high, reedy voice: “This house is clean!”
Just me? Oh. Okay.
When the tv spots for Event Horizon started airing in 1997, I was excited. It looked like a ghost story in space, kind of like a creepier version of 2001: A Space Odyssey, so I went with my high school boyfriend to see it.
After it was over, I had to pull the car over and have a sobbing freakout. I had never been that scared by a movie. I blame most of that freakout on the fact that the movie was basically about punching a hole through the fabric of the universe and into hell, and I was paranoid about that sort of thing at the time. Also, Sam Neill goes evil, and OH MY GOD, it’s Sam Neill! How can Dr. Grant from Jurassic Park be evil?! At the time, the disturbing imagery and subject matter combined with the claustrophobic, trapped feeling of the movie itself (if you read my post about Sphere on Monday, are you sensing a pattern?) left me sleeping with a nightlight for months afterward. Months. Me, a nearly-eighteen-year-old girl. Yeesh.
I finally womaned up and got Event Horizon through Netflix earlier this year, just to see if it would scare me as much now that I’m older, wiser, and less paranoid about that sort of thing. Nope, it definitely wasn’t as scary. There were a few nice startle moments, but with the exception of the video log of the former crew of the ship (if you’ve seen the movie, I’m guessing you’re shuddering right now), it wasn’t all that scary. Ah well. At least this time I got to enjoy watching Jason Isaacs in his underwear.
Follow Us!