It’s Friday the 13th for the 2nd of 3 times this year. The day is steeped in lore of bad luck and superstitions. A highly successful horror film series has ran for years with Friday The Thirteenth as its title. So, let’s concentrate on horror films today.
In my early teens I read the book “The Amityville Horror” and then went to see the movie. Believing the whispers around this being a true story, that movie scared me out of my seat on several occasions… I mainly remember a cat jumping on a windowsill unexpectedly and me shooting straight up off of my seat from being startled.
Are you a horror film fan? What movie did its job and scared the shhhhhtuff out of you?
Jaws. I was around 6 when it came on HBO and my parents let me watch it. We live about 2 hours from the ocean but I was scared shitless a shark was gonna come eat me.
The 1987 film The Prince of Darkness was pretty creepy based on it being based in the occult, and somewhat plausible story. Stories about satan always creep me out. The one cool thing about it was Alice Cooper leading the possessed homeless people in the monastery.
The Exorcist.
I was just about to say the same thing. Nothing else has ever really come close.
To be honest I find most ‘horror’ films more comical than scary. Doesn’t I don’t enjoy them at all, but when someone is home alone and they hear a noise in the basement why do they just walk in the basement without so much as a flashlight? In a Darwin Award sort of way, that’s funny. JAWS was great fun, but as much from Robert Shaw’s character as anything. The mayor was typical – who cares if people die? We need summer business at the beach!
The Exorcist was an exception. If you’re a believer it seems too real. Even with what passed for special effects at the time.
Yeah, I have the same sort of reaction to movies like “Fear”. If those people had a gun in the house, that movie would have been over in 30 minutes or less.
Amityville Horror is the only movie that’s ever given me nightmares. Even today, if I drive by a house with that same design, I get the willies.
Poltergeist was a close 2nd.
Both very good movies. We went to the movies last summer to see Poltergeist on the big screen again. It was still very enjoyable after all these years.
Kinda like watching an old favorite Georgia game. You know how it ends it’s just fun remembering the moments.
I went to see The Amityville Horror with a bunch of friends. A few nights later, I happened to wake up in the middle of the night and looked at the alarm clock. 3:15 am. It scared the living shit out of me.
I was 4 when I saw the skeleton army pop out of the ground in the movie Jason and the Argonauts. Still can’t look at a skeleton without having flashbacks of that scene.
I loved that movie. I was older but the skeletons were very creepy kool. The music in that scene was great too.
As a Semi-Professional Vampire Hunter and Freelance Prophet, not much rattles me, but the first Freddy Kruger movie had me doubting my abilities to save the victims. Especially the young woman getting dragged all up along the ceiling.
And while not a horror movie per se, I didn’t sleep for at least 60 hours after reading the Red Wedding in Storm of Swords – Game of Thrones book 3. My employees were literally taking bets on if I was going to have a breakdown, lol. Spoiler Alert: Knob Creek with a rock and Caddyshack got me back right in the head.
Jaws came out the summer I turned 18. Was in WPB visiting my mother spent the day surfing. Took my date to see the movie. I had just finished reading the book which in places is very different. I thought I knew what was coming. I was very wrong.
I almost jumped out of my chair when the head popped out of the hole in the boat in front of the diver. THAT was NOT in the book. Only time I remember a movie really getting me. Lucky my date was so scared she was quickly in my lap hugging me. I still get the creeps watching that scene.
I’m almost embarrassed to admit this, but the first “Scream”– I was in college and there was a late night running at the Tate theatre. It was absolutely packed, so much edge of your seat gotcha screaming. I guess it was a new kind of return to that style of “gotcha” movies and no one seemed ready.
The beneficial side was that I had just started dating a girl and took her. It definitely helped at getting us a little closer by the end of the night, so thanks Tate theater movie lineup, circa 1997-ish!
Not a big horror or sci fi fan Just give me 007, Charles Bronson or Clint Eastwood! I’m good to go!!
Material Girls
Movies that I could have done without seeing as a kid:
The Exorcist
The Exorcist 3 (George C Scott was awesome, tho)
Mulholland Drive (saw this as an adult and did not enjoy how it made me feel. At. All. )
The Day After (screwed me up for about a year and a half after watching as a sixth grader)
Tourist Trap (a really bad B-movie that made it tough to be in department stores around mannequins)
Saw Jaws when it came out and it certainly made an impression on teenage me. Saw it a few years ago for the 50th anniversary on the big screen and I had forgotten how suspense-filled it was. Apparently so did a lot of other parents and grandparents, to the chagrin of their traumatized little tots.
But to me, the scariest movie of all was “The Shining” because of the dread and fear that you knew was coming. Most other horror movies relied on jump-scares to startle the audience. “The Shining” was just good old-fashioned horror that you knew was coming. Still one of my top movies. I love Kubrick movies.
Poltergeist is one I saw once as a kid and will never watch again. Haunted my nights for years wondering if a tree was going to come through my window and eat me. I also hated puppets so that one coming out from under the bed hi me in a weird way.
Also, The Twilight Zone movie that came out in the 80s really creeped me out. Odd stories, the gremlin on the plane, and Dan Aykroyd saying “you wanna see something really scary?” and that face. Yeesh.
John Lithgow was the guy on the plane who could see the goblin. That one got me too.
Carrie.
Absolutely. Kind of because it felt like it could happen…people being incredibly ugly and rude to someone until they up and will the place to die. Blood everywhere. Shining was similar because it’s so plausible.
When a stranger calls. I was a still in high school and my parents were out of town. Couldn’t sleep that night when I went to bed.
Children of The Corn scared me to death!
I’m gonna say The Silence of the Lambs. Anthony Hopkins looked so unassuming but was so diabolical. It freaks me out because there are real people like that out there.
Ring
Duel. Early if not first Steven King with Dennis Weaver and a menacing fuel truck. Scared of semis to this very day.
Yeah, that was a good one. But the first movie that literally kept me up at night was “Night Stalker”.