Night of the Living Dead (1968) It’s easy to dismiss as a schlocky B movie, but Romero got a lot right. The fact that all of the main characters die badly, along with the stills used during the closing scene, left me with a deep sense of “ick” when I first watched it as a kid. The claustrophobic feeling of being boarded up inside an old farmhouse was also a major factor in making this my own “scariest movie”. Other films have had much better scary moments, but the overall sense of dread this one created for me takes the cake. That bleak ending scene does it for me, though.
Dressed to Kill (1980) Not really a horror film, but the murder of Angie Dickinson’s character near the start of the movie still leaves me a touch nervous every time the elevator doors open. I can take or leave the rest of it, but I’ll never forget the sudden violence of that scene. Thanks to the WKBD channel 50 (Detroit!) eight o’clock movies of my youth, I watched this one when I was way too young, and way too impressionable.
Originally posted by KSGM: Like 12131, I seem to hold scenes that inspire what I might call "dread" in high regard.
This might qualify, the build up is intense.
"I’m not going to read Time Magazine, I’m not going to read Newsweek, I’m not going to read any of these magazines; I mean, because they have too much to lose by printing the truth"- Bob Dylan, 1965
Posts: 19581 | Location: Texas | Registered: May 13, 2003
^^^^ Thanks for mentioning Karen Black because it just brought me back to 1976 watching Burnt Offerings. Creepy film, but man, the ending scene was oh so scary watching it the first time. Ben (played by Oliver Reed) went back to the old woman’s house to get his wife Marian (Karen Black) to leave for good, only to find out in shock that she had turned to the evil old woman. The shot of her face looking up as she arose to lunge at him, with the intense music playing, scared me shitless at the time.
Q
Posts: 31221 | Location: TEXAS | Registered: September 04, 2008
The scene in Halloween 2 or 3–whichever was the one with the masks that would kill someone when the commercial played. The scene of the kid struggling to pull the mask off, then insects come crawling out of the mask.
"I'm yet another resource-consuming kid in an overpopulated planet raised to an alarming extent by Hollywood and Madison Avenue, poised with my cynical and alienated peers to take over the world when you're old and weak!" - Calvin, "Calvin & Hobbes"
Posts: 18524 | Location: Sonoma County, CA | Registered: April 09, 2004
I was 5 years old when I saw this with my 7 year old brother on tv.
Couple buys old house. Fireplace is bricked up. Handyman warns wife to leave it be. She doesn’t. Little goblin creatures emerge and torment her, whisper her name. Nobody believes her. She ends up being drugged and dragged into the fireplace where she becomes one of them.
Gave me nightmares for a decade a least.
Posts: 642 | Location: Long Island NY | Registered: June 26, 2009
_________________________________________________________________________ “A man’s treatment of a dog is no indication of the man’s nature, but his treatment of a cat is. It is the crucial test. None but the humane treat a cat well.” -- Mark Twain, 1902
Posts: 10505 | Location: Northern Virginia | Registered: November 04, 2005
