[I meant to post this earlier, during Halloween weekend, but I didn't get back to it before leaving for WFC, so here it is now]
I’d heard of the Bravo miniseries The 100 Scariest Movie Moments, but I missed it when it came out the first time around.
Luckily for me, they aired it again a couple of times during Halloween weekend, and I made myself a DVD of it, sans commercials. A 5-hr miniseries boils down to about 3:35 without commercials… sad.
Anyway, what do you think of the movies on the list? I’m amazed as all hell that Near Dark made it into the list, because I’ve always thought that movie was underrated and underappreciated.
And I am pleasantly surprised that Jaws still tops the list. And to think, I saw that movie on the big screen when I was only 10 years old. Think that might have had an influence on my liking of monster movies? And yes, the shark counts as a monster.
Update Clarification: Remember folks, this list is NOT the 100 Scariest Movies of All Time, but the 100 Scariest Movie Scenes of All Time. So, a movie that is not known as a horror movie can have a scene in it that scares the pants off of you. There were several moments in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? that, in my opinion, should have made the list but didn’t.
Not dead. Resting? I’ve...
I saw Jaws when I was 12… yes, when it was first released! The scariest part of that movie wasn’t when the head floated out of the sunken boat. For me, it’s the scene where Roy Scheider is shoveling offal into the water to attract the shark, and he’s muttering profanities under his breath, and then suddenly – no music, no sound effects, no nothing – the shark’s enourmous head breaches the water. (“We’re gonna need a bigger boat…”)
Overall, though, I’m not a horror movie buff. Loved “Alien”, thought “Aliens” was okay but not great. The most of the rest of the movies on the list I never saw.
I noticed that Suspiria was at number 24. This is one of the worst horror movies I’ve ever seen… BUT the it does have a main title to rival Halloween or the Exorcist. The plot was boring and incomprehencable, but everytime the main title played, the hair on the back of my neck would stand up on end.
Here’s a link to give you an idea of the Susperia title:
http://www.emusic.com/m3u/song/10594767/11151275.m3u
John, I noticed a number of subpar movies on the list, but what they did isn’t a ranking of best horror movies, just of particular scariest moments from various movies. I’m not so sure that one clip they showed was all that scary, but I guess to see it in context would be necessary.
Oh – toss in the scene in “The Exorcist” where the words HELP ME appear on Linda Blair’s tummy – as though someone were writing them FROM THE INSIDE…
I’m looking at that list and half of the movies they have on there aren’t even scary. Seven wasn’t scary, it was dramatic. 28 Days later was just plain bad and had a couple of moments where the sound got so LOUD it was obnoxious. Willy Wonka? Did I miss something or weren’t these supposed to be scary movies. Argh
Now there are some really good ones on the list, but I don’t see Jaws as having the scariest moment but that’s all a matter of opinion. I had thought the Omen was the scariest movie I’d ever seen until Alien came out. I was all excited to see that movie as I was big into Sci-Fi.
I guess I’ll have to re-watch most of these movies (or the show) becasue I don’t recall many of these as scary. Then of course my mom had me watching Dracula and Frankenstien and the Wolfman when I was only 3 or 4 years old so I kinda grew up watching scary movies.
Alien was, without a doubt, one of the best horror movies ever made. Cramped spaces, dark corners, a creature of unknown abilities and extraordinary malevolence combined with great cinematography to really, really give you the heebie jeebies (that’s a technical term, y’all.) The second movie left this behind somewhat, although the third got back to it a bit, but overall the first one stands as the only one that scared the heck out of me.