The Creeps

[Uncle Meat]

Re: Re: For me books

The all time champ like that for me was "The Exorcist", book & movie (that's rare). It redefined the idea of Evil, and showed us how it would look if it were set down right in the middle of our nice suburban homes. And think of it: at no time were you expecting someone to be slashed or splattered. The sense of evil was more subtle and pervasive than that. A lot of fully adult males I knew had second thoughts about going out at night because of that movie.

---dr.M.

I think that's probably the most effective scenario, in effect showing the viewer, "It could happen to you." As much as that stalking scene from The Shining sticks with me as a prime example of creepiness, overall there's too much about the movie that allows me to dissociate myself from it. I'm drawn in while the movie's running, but not left with a creepy, uneasy feeling after it's over. That doesn't lessen my opinion that it's a masterpiece, but it does lessen the gut-level scare for me.

I can't dissocate from The Exorcist, though.

 

[Jenny _S]

Re: Re: Re: For me books

Dr M,

Looking at horror there are different kinds. For instance, the Ridley Scott brand of horror and fright is based on building a situation then slamming the viewer with a shock from off-camera as he did over and over in "Alien".

Another type that I find even more effective comes from a world war II film I saw some years ago. The German interigator is chopping veggies while speaking rather conversationally with his subject. At each wrong answer, without missing a stroke, the German chops a finger off his subject. It is so effective. I've never been able to watch the entire scene.

In both types the horror comes in that you, as the viewer, know what's going to happen. The tension builds as the scene develops never knowing when. Then finally when it does, the built-up tension releases all at once in a great shock, often resulting in people across the theater jumping in their seats.

Just a few thoughts

 

[Uncle Meat]

Re: Re: Re: Re: For me books

In both types the horror comes in that you, as the viewer, know what's going to happen. The tension builds as the scene develops never knowing when. Then finally when it does, the built-up tension releases all at once in a great shock, often resulting in people across the theater jumping in their seats.

Just a few thoughts

I recall an interview in which Alfred Hitchcock was talking about the nature of suspense. It went something like this, as well as I can remember: He said you could have two guys sitting at a table, and then a bomb under the table blows up. That gives the audience a two-second shock.

Or you could show a guy plant the bomb under the table, then the two guys come into the room and sit down. Now you've got two minutes of suspense.

 

[Guest]

I saw "The House of WaX" when it came out, I'm guessing I was 8 or so. The whole thing scared me silly but in one scene the heroine is running from an unknown dread and when she gets home she fumbles with her keys (so common) and the suspense and fear of whether she would get to enter the safety of her home entered my psyche. To this day I often recall that fear when I go to put the key in my own door's lock.

Later in early adolescence I watched Lugosi's Dracula on TV and was stunned by the beauty and erotica of horror (though I could not articulate it at the time).

I read Levin's "Rosemary's Baby" when it came out, it's the last "horror" book I read. Letting horrific images into my head and having them develop exponentially was more frightening than seeing them on TV or a big screen.

I do not at all enjoy being frightened.

Perdita

 

[MathGirl]

Yikes!

For me, nothing beats movies like "Alien" for "creep factor." There's something about slimy things with lots of teeth erupting from someone's tummy that does it.
Urggghhlll,
MG

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Re: Yikes!

For me, nothing beats movies like "Alien" for "creep factor." There's something about slimy things with lots of teeth erupting from someone's tummy that does it.
Urggghhlll,
MG

I heard that Ridley Scott consciously and constantly hammered away at the sexual symbolism when he made Alien. So you had that nightmare scene of a man giving birth. (And isn't that how kids think of birth? As a baby 'popping' out of Mom's tummy) And tell me that the monster didn't look just like an erect penis when it came bursting out of John Hurt, all glistening and evil, an eyeless snake.

And remember the Alien getting that mouth erection? That girl was standing in the hold of the ship, with all these chains hanging around (chains, get it?), and she's transfixed in horror watching that mouth stretch towards her just dripping with goo...

---dr.M.

 

[Quasimodem]

Prior to the release of "Alien," Omni dedicated an issue to the sexual and organic symbolism salted away in the film's visual art. Of particular mention were both the sets, and the screenplay's references to the concept of "the bowels of the ship."

Other than Ridley Scott, one of the most interesting talents who worked on the original "Alien" is H. R. Geiger.

I have always found it a peculiar coincidence that H. R. Geiger created both the original creature in "Alien," as well as directed the title character in a short documentary entitled, "A New Face of Debbie Harry."

That is either a comment on the breadth of Geiger's range, or a nasty comment about Harry's beauty.

 

[Guest]

Thank you, Quasi, for crediting Geiger. The entry to the alien mothership was brilliant - big vulva openings. Vagina dentata in the extreme is what the Alien creatures are.

Perdita

 

[A7inchPhildo]

Movies are just that a movie! Give me a real life story and the hair stands up on the nape of my neck. Edgar Allen Poe could write in a way that consumed me to think I was capable of being insane, that is scary.
I have been on several ghost walks and some chill more than others, but I thrive on true witness stories of real belief in what they experienced.
St. Augustine being the Nations oldest city is great for the multiple tales of the dead and of whom the bell tolls, originated from.
Creepy is to be in the perspective areas at night with the camera, and not be sure what you think you thought you caught. Too many people have a witness to this today, and there are even scripture references old/new to the ability of physical world communicating with the spiritual world.
I am aware of documented town records of emergency situations that have no explanation but to have been a spirit. There are entire buildings, rooms, and even land that are left vacant because of certain unexplaind occurances. Some of these families even today refuse to ever visit this area again or even talk about the situation.
I may be psychotic but I have seen too much to dismiss the validity of it. Thus I am always looking for others to embrace my thoughts and fears with facts of the spirit world.
Dead people are creepy on a foggy night or even a clear night if they...

 

[champagne1982]

Re: Re: The Creeps

When I was six, it was those damn flying monkeys!

I'm with Angeline on that one, too. LOL!

In sci-fi horror, television is the best. The cheesier special effects are best viewed on the smaller screen.

For incredible, larger than life, gothic horror, take me to the movies. All that ritual, the blood and the bigger budgets make seeing believing in this genre.

The book The Silence of the Lambs was one of the scariest things I've ever experienced. But that's psych/suspense, there's nothing supernatural about it and that's what makes it horrific. As has already been mentioned, the idea of "it could happen to you" is a very powerful technique to absorb your audience.

What about True Crime? Most people when confronted with a murderer/cannibal like Jeffery Dahlmer or men like Gary Coleman and Ted Bundy who have committed savage, seemingly senseless slaughter, will say how 'sick' these people are. Our minds are not equipped to handle the truly evil and in order to make their actions more socially acceptable to us, people will call the cruel and evil, ill, rather than what they really are.

In the last two instances, it's not what you see that makes it horrible, it's the story that's told. That's why a book is the best medium when dealing with psych/suspense, your imagination is free to mess with you.

 

[Seattle Zack]

Re: Re: Re: For me books

As much as that stalking scene from The Shining sticks with me as a prime example of creepiness, overall there's too much about the movie that allows me to dissociate myself from it. I'm drawn in while the movie's running, but not left with a creepy, uneasy feeling after it's over. That doesn't lessen my opinion that it's a masterpiece, but it does lessen the gut-level scare for me.

I'm a big Kubrick fan, but I tend to agree about the movie. Stephen King himself called it "more eerie than scary." That scene where she finds the stacks of typewritten "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" sheets is pretty chilling, though.

The scene in The Birds where they're sitting on the park bench and the birds slowly gather on the jungle gym bars behind them ... what masterful pacing that scene has. Still creeps me out, even though I've seen it dozens of times.

The scenes in Dario Argento's movies, especially Susperia are so extremely visual and slightly off-kilter, it makes me uneasy just to watch them.

 

[Angeline]

Oh god, I forgot about The Birds. That is a scary movie and a really creepy scene.

I also thought The Shining was pretty frightening, book and film both, but for me the most frightening scene was in the book when Danny gets lost in the topiary garden and the snow-covered "animals" start moving (although rationally I *do* know that being chased by topiaries is silliness of Monty Python-like amplitude).

And does anyone remember the old film The Bad Seed? It's not out-and-out frightening in an Exorcist sort of way, but it is a deeply unsettling film.

Well, Doc, we'll all rest easy tonight thanks to you and this thread.

 

[destinie21]

Oh god, I forgot about The Birds. That is a scary movie and a really creepy scene.

I also thought The Shining was pretty frightening, book and film both, but for me the most frightening scene was in the book when Danny gets lost in the topiary garden and the snow-covered "animals" start moving (although rationally I *do* know that being chased by topiaries is silliness of Monty Python-like amplitude).

And does anyone remember the old film The Bad Seed? It's not out and out frightening in an Exorcist sort of way, but it is a deeply unsettling film.

Well, Doc, we'll all rest easy tonight thanks to you and this thread.

Evil children are always scary
The bad seed and the old village of the damned are definitly chill you to the bone scary, rather than heart racing cold sweat scary.

edited to add rosemary's baby and whatever happened to Rosemary's baby

 

[Angeline]

village of the damned

Those eyes!

 

[Guest]

Re: Re: Re: The Creeps

 

[raphy]

Re: Yikes!

For me, nothing beats movies like "Alien" for "creep factor." There's something about slimy things with lots of teeth erupting from someone's tummy that does it.
Urggghhlll,
MG

Ah, you see for me the scariness in Aliens comes from the fact that they're such damned no-frills badass deadly creatures. They're designed to be the ultimate one-on-one killing machines.

I find it very hard to get scared by a human 'bad guy' in a movie such as Jack Nicholson in The Shining (although it was a great movie). I think it's probably because I've been involved in a lot of violence during my life, both officiated (I'm an ex-full contact tournament martial artist) and non-officiated (I have led a less than salubrious life) and mano a mano, I'll give anyone a run for their money.

Mano a, err.. alien, however.. That scares the living shit out of me. How do you fight something that's that fast, that tough, that strong, and even when you damage it, its blood burns you...

Raph, thinking the answer is 'From a long way away'

 

[Seattle Zack]

Or The Terminator? "It absolutely will not stop." I still remember watching that in the theater twenty years ago ... what a great ride that film was.

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Angeline
I also thought The Shining was pretty frightening, book and film both, but for me the most frightening scene was in the book when Danny gets lost in the topiary garden and the snow-covered "animals" start moving
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That was a damn scary scene in the book, the animals that only moved when you didn't look at them. Seems kind of silly, but King really pulled it off.

Kubrick was apparently fascinated with that scene, and spent a good deal of the studio's money trying to make it work for the film (back then, there was no CGI so it was all puppets and stuff). It never worked to his satisfaction, so he substituted the hedge maze instead.

 

[soupwarsproject]

My dad and stepmom used to live in a cabin by a sugarcane field. That place was creepy as hell.

 

[raphy]

Or The Terminator? "It absolutely will not stop." I still remember watching that in the theater twenty years ago ... what a great ride that film was.

Absolutely, Zack .. An unfeeling, unflinching robot that just comes after you, doesn't sleep, doesn't eat, doesn't rest. Implacable and inevitable.

 

[Sabledrake]

One of the creepiest movie scenes I've beheld in recent memory was in the film version of Titus Andronicus, with Anthony Hopkins. It's the bit where the post-ravishment Lavinia is first shown with her tongue cut out and hands chopped off ... and the stumps of her wrists are bristling with dozens of long twigs that have been jammed into the raw, spongy-red flesh. I cannot get that image out of my head and it makes me shudder just to imagine it. Brrrr.

Sabledrake

 

[LadyJane]

I can't remember a specific scene, but I remember when I was a teenager living with my parents I finished reading The Exorcist at 2:00 AM. I put the book down, turned out my light, and lay there staring into the darkness scared as hell. The movie wasn't as scary as the book.

In The Shining when Shelly Duvall discovers Jack has been typing sheets and sheets of paper with "All work and no play make Jack a dull boy" gave me the chills.

Most of the Twilight Zone episodes were excellent for the chill factor, and anything with a ventriloquist and a dummy absolutely freaks me out.

 

[Uncle Meat]

Or The Terminator? "It absolutely will not stop." I still remember watching that in the theater twenty years ago ... what a great ride that film was.

No doubt about it. It's essentially an action film, but I think it taps into something deep down inside us, just because it won't stop.

Kubrick was apparently fascinated with that scene, and spent a good deal of the studio's money trying to make it work for the film (back then, there was no CGI so it was all puppets and stuff). It never worked to his satisfaction, so he substituted the hedge maze instead.

I think the hedge maze is better, though. It works as a metaphor on a number of different levels.

 

[Guest]

"The Exorcist"

or, Memories of a Catholic schoolgirl

When I was in 7th grade, probably 11 or 12, we had a 'lay' (not-a-nun) teacher named Mr. Schnabel. Tall thin guy who looked like an Ichobod Crane. He used to take a period everyday to read to us, ususally lives of the saints, the really gory ones, e.g., Maria Goretti (will never forget her) who was raped and multiply stabbed to death at 13 or so and then forgave the guy. We were taught that it was better that she defended herself and died than, whatever.

One week, daily, Mr. S. read a book about real exorcisms - very specifically gory and horrific scenes. What we learned was that Satan can enter anyone, no matter how good or pure you are. I walked about for months in fear this would happen to me.

When, as an adult, The Exorcist came out I could not see it. I did not want to see the stuff Mr. S. had planted in my mind, even though I was no longer a practicing Catholic, believed in Satan, etc. I think I finally watched it on TV in my 40s and really appreciated it as a film.

All in all, it was a terrifying experience going to Catholic schools through the 12th grade.

Perdita

 

[destinie21]

Re: "The Exorcist"

or, Memories of a Catholic schoolgirl


All in all, it was a terrifying experience going to Catholic schools through the 12th grade.

Perdita

Imagine doing it when you're an abomination before the lord

 

[Colleen Thomas]

While on the subject of creepy has anyone noticed that creepy seems to change over time?

When I was very young I saw a movie called empire of the ants. I was so terrified I went from a normal child back to needing a nightlight and having daddy check the room before I went to bed for a few months. Not too long ago on our super duper satellite telly with 900 chanels of nothing's on I flipped to a movie and was laughing at the cheesey special effects with my roomate when I realized it was the self same movie that had freaked me out so badly as a child.

I first started reading Lovecraft in college and it was terrifying. Now I read it with a kind of detached amusement at how nebulous he keeps the evil. The prose is still awesome to read, but it dosen't chill me anymore.

I wonder if it's a case of familiarity breeding contempt or if you can inundate yourself with a certain brand of scary until nothing in that stripe bother's you anymore?

-Colly