Eighteen Film Buffs Talk About The Scariest Movies They’ve Ever Seen
Even film critics watch these movies with the lights on.
Halloween
Elmo Keep, The Lifted Brow
I used to be extremely afraid of being afraid. Ergo, I could not watch horror films of any denomination. I lived for many years in this willful, wussy bliss. Until last Halloween, when I read a Cracked list about John Carpenter’s Halloween that forever changed my attitude towards horror films. Many horror films, of which Halloween is the urtext, are masterpieces of psychological suspense. I finally was able to understand why people enjoyed them, which is because they are thrilling. I get it! I’ll tell you how, but you won’t be able to unsee what I learned about Halloween…
OK! Halloween was shot for so little money the props department had barely anything to work with. Mike Myer’s iconic mask is actually a William Shatner Star Trek costume mask painted white with the eyes cut out and the hair messed up. The result is uncanny as hell, but it gave me in with horror that let me cognitively grasp that it was as pretend as any other kind of film; it let me enjoy it on a technical, not visceral terror level.
I could see William Shatner’s goofy face in the mask, which dropped the fear factor enough for me to enjoy the brilliant pacing of this film. Which is how I started watching all the classic horror movies I’d studiously avoided for my whole life. I am a total horror buff now, I’ve seen the error of my ways! I’ve watched, I’d say, close to 50 in the last year.
Which doesn’t mean I should ever have watched Sinister, because fuck that movie. Even thinking about it now riddles me with unholy, sweaty, tearful anxiety. If I think about it at night I can’t get to sleep. It is a truly terrifying monster movie, much more frightening than anything to come out the Saw franchise and all its knock-offs, the entire ’80s or even John Carpenter’s genius mind. It will never, ever leave your memory. I’m warning you now. Don’t say that I didn’t.