scary movie Archives - i luv cinema

For the second part of my Scary Movie series, I decided to poll and troll those who are nearest and dearest to me, with the promise that their individual responses would be protected by anonymity.

I posed the very basic question to them:

Select a scary movie that you “love” and describe in a couple of sentences why this is so.

All in all I would say I was quite entertained, even by the scaredy-cats, who for various reasons, do not indulge in such films. If you will notice, I left the question very vague, because scares and frights mean different things, depending on the person. So without further ado, here are the responses I received:

Sinister – I am not expert, but I liked Ethan Hawke in this and the whole trail of killings and how it turned out they connected was well executed in the film. Paranormal Activity (the first one) – this gave me nightmares and the perspective they filmed were very realistic. (These are) Just my top two, but also like (The) Conjuring and am looking forward to seeing Annabel.

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The Shining: Redrum. Redrum. The scene where the costumed partygoers look at the boy in the bedroom still creeps me out to this day. And oh yeah, talking to an evil spirit in the mirror. Not exactly my idea of a festive scene.

Alien: “10 Little Indians” Meets Outer Space. This dark, brooding film was not only depressing visually, but the main antagonist, a 7-foot, reptile-like alien which doesn’t have eyes, is pretty eerie.

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The scene in The Ring when the girl crawls out of the TV is bananas. I have never seen anything like it. it was surreal, the black and white, the color, cinematography magic.

Idk if this is considered scary, but I cannot get enough of Silence of the Lambs. I loved the creepiness of the Anthony Hopkins character, Hannibal Lecter. How he could skin a man alive and not hurt a tiny hair on Clarice. I esp. loved crazy Buffalo Bill telling the governor’s daughter to put the f#$king lotion in the basket. (I love that this person realizes that my blog is PG-13)

Lastly, I think it was Texas Chainsaw Massacre (no I did not see the movie, just a scene). the girl was in the backseat of the car and they just shot a guy and his brains were all over the seat and they made her sit on it- ewwww

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Poltergeist 1. It was one of the first scary movie I saw as a child. My sister and I forced our parents to lock the closet door for months after watching that movie.

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I don’t really like scary movies so I haven’t watched many of them. If I had to pick one, I would say my favorite scary movie is Aliens. Some people may say it is more suspenseful than scary, but I think all really good scary movies are also really suspenseful. But I love this movie because it has a great opening sequence to set up the movie and then a quiet, slow build up to the aliens. The movie is tense throughout from the dark, wet setting, the eery music and the almost claustrophobic feeling.

So there you have it ladies and gents. And if truth be told, when I was deciding which images to post according to the responses, I was creeping myself out a bit (luckily I had Outlander: The Wedding playing in the background as a distraction). Especially with that scene from The Shining; but I surmised what better time to face my fears :). Well almost anyways, no way would I replicate The Ring or creepy preacher man from Poltergeist (“You’re gonna die…” or something to that effect).

Lovely readers, now is your turn. Post your favorite scary movies/moments in movies in the comments section below.

This post is the first in my two-part Scary Movie(s) series to “honor” the rapidly-approaching Halloween festivities.

Today I will offer for your consideration a frightfully classic Gothic ghost story – The Innocents, a British production from the year 1961. Originally released in the UK release in late November of that year, it got its United States premiere on Christmas Day – just in time for that most jolly of holidays …

An adaptation of Henry James’ Turn of the Screw, The Innocents stars Deborah Kerr as a governess whose charges exhibit increasingly strange behavior, leading to some shocking and mind boggling action.

With a screenplay by Truman Capote and direction courtesy of Jack Clayton, The Innocents is a mind-bending example of how horror/terror can be just as unsettling (in some cases more so) than even a film containing an astronomical level of blood and gore (see stab-squish-splat).

In other words, The Innocents is totally comfortable and effective in creating a menacing atmosphere through things unseen, courtesy of some expert lighting, black and white cinematography, and an accompanying haunting soundtrack composed by Georges Auric*.

There are many other details about the story that I know I am missing – with very good reason. Films like this, that play with me on a deeply psychological level, often cause me to block out some details, big and small. If that is not a ringing endorsement as to the merits of The Innocents as a film that deserves to be considered in the pantheon of “all time scary movies,” I do not know what is. In fact, many contemporary films, notably 2001’s The Others starring Nicole Kidman, owe a great stylistic debt to this film. Fun fact: the a portion of The Innocents’ soundtrack was sampled and placed on the “cursed tape” in the 2002 film The Ring.

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Courtesy of the Criterion Collection website, there is a gallery of some the behind the scenes photos. I imagine these are included in the jam-packed special edition DVD/BD that went on sale last month. Check local and online merchants for pricing information.

Have you seen The Innocents? Let me know what you thought below in the Comments section.

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* Among Auric’s film credits: Dead of Night (1945), Roman Holiday (1953), The Wages of Fear (1953), Beauty and the Beast (1946), The Lavender Hill Mob (1951).

Scary Movie(s), Part 2: Friends and Family Edition

Scary Movie, Part I: The Innocents (1961)