Scary movies are something I’ve come to enjoy relatively late compared with others. Many (most?) of the modern horror movies are rated “R,” and thus, I wasn’t really allowed to see any of them until late-high school. Therefore, I’ve probably seen more “scary thrillers” (e.g. “Se7en“) than I’ve seen “horror” (e.g. “A Nightmare on Elm Street“) movies. I did, however, make it a point to see many of the “classics” of the 30s and 40s, including “Frankenstein,” “Dracula,” “The Wolf Man,” etc. Alternatively, Brooke had something of a problem with nightmares when growing up, so her Mom (amusingly…) subjected her to quite a few in a (failed) effort to desensitize her. While I’ve seen many of the oldies, Brooke saw more of the 70s and 80s classics.
Since we got married, though, we’ve tried watching more scary movies when October rolls around. We do our best to watch “Hocus Pocus” every year if possible, but since we don’t have cable (and, therefore, don’t have ABC Family…which shows it every year without fail…), we may not get to see it unless we get that far in our Netflix Queue. This year, I decided to put a few of them up here that we will be watching in the coming weeks.
We watched this one Saturday night. Quite honestly, I’ve never found “The Exorcist” to be all that appealing, and certainly not scary. I know people have said in the past that part of the “scariness” is that “it actually happened”…which it kinda didn’t, but whatever… Regardless, I’d seen it before and Brooke hadn’t, and I noticed awhile back that it was on Netflix streaming so we added it to the queue. Once we hit October, it was time to start watching scary movies. After finishing it, I wanted to play some games, but Brooke said we had to watch an episode of “30 Rock” so she’d be able to sleep… 😛
I’ve never seen the original “Night of the Living Dead,” but it’s on Netflix Streaming, so now’s the time. Brooke wanted to watch it last year, as it was one of those her Mom made her watch years ago, so I went out of my way to “find a copy” (cough…), however when I started showing the movie to her, she said “this isn’t ‘Night of the Living Dead’!” After going to great lengths to prove to her that this was the movie she had instructed me to find, she then decided that, apparently, her Mom made her watch “some other zombie” movie and she, in fact, had never seen it. Therefore, we’re going to watch it for realz this time.
“Scream” is one of the first “modern horror” movies I saw and set off a trend of newer slasher movies in the mid-to-late 90s. I saw all three of them (a fourth’s on the way) and, by far, the first one is the best. Brooke’s never seen it but I think she’ll enjoy it. It’ll probably scare her a bit, though. 🙂
“Poltergeist” is another one that I never got around to seeing, but Brooke remembers vividly from growing up. Brooke actually bought it on sale last October but we never got around to watching it. I guess this year’s the time.
I would bet that most people haven’t heard of “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein,” but it’s one of my “old school” favorites. It certainly isn’t scary, but it does involve the Wolf Man, Frankenstein’s monster, and Dracula. Lon Chaney, Jr. and Bela Legosi were both in it, but unfortunately Boris Karloff wasn’t playing the Monster. Regardless, it’s one of my old favorites and it’s up on Netflix Streaming. I’m sure Brooke will love it. And won’t be scared. 🙂
I’m going to go ahead and add this one to the list, although Brooke probably doesn’t realize that we’ll be watching this one, too. This is probably my favorite “horror movie” for a variety of reasons. For one thing, it does an excellent job keeping you in suspense for the majority of the movie, where you don’t necessarily who’s going to go at any given time (in most modern ones, you can see it coming a mile away, at least in the mainstream flicks). Also, the movie involved no blood – you saw all kinds of deaths, but they weren’t particularly “gory.” Of course, the movies that followed in the series all got progressively worse in that regard, but this one did a good job of making do with very little in the way of special effects. The original “Halloween” is the movie that spawned the “Friday the 13ths” and “Nightmares on Elm Street” that would follow in the 80s, so in many ways, most modern horror movies have to pay homage to this first one.
Oh yeah, and the mask Michael Meyers wears is a William Shatner mask painted white. How cool is that?!
A few “runners up” that we may or may not get to during the course of the month. “Alien” is a classic that we own, but Brooke probably won’t watch with me. We’ve got “Evil Dead” and “Evil Dead 2” – I need to keep my eye out for a good copy of “Army of Darkness” in order to complete the set. “I Know What You Did Last Summer” is one I’ve never seen, but is available on Netflix Streaming. Finally, I’ve added the new Rob Zombie remakes of “Halloween” and “Halloween II” to our DVD queue, as I’ve never seen them and the original is one of my all time favorites. I may be watching all of these last ones alone. And I’ll love them all. 🙂
Funny different people’s memories…I truly don’t remember encouraging Brooke to watch any scary movies unless I thought they were “classics” like the original Halloween. I would like to watch “Nightmare Before Christmas” now but we only have it on VHS. Maybe I should look around for a cheap DVD.
Well have fun with this! I, of course, totally hate scary movies – which is probably most of the reason why I didn’t let you and your sister watch them. The interesting thing is that both you and Brooke turned out pretty OK! So what does that say about different parenting styles?? 🙂 btw Hocus Pocus is a good movie-and NOT scary.
Yeah, Hocus Pocus is just one of those like “A Christmas Carol” for Christmas and “Jesus Christ Superstar” for Easter – you just watch it around the holiday(s).
And sadly, I don’t think I’ve ever seen “The Nightmare Before Christmas.” I’ll have to add that to the Netflix Queue!
I also dont remember having to watch scary movies to “desensitize” us when we were younger. All three of us were always such big chickens growing up. Brooke was scared of the basement, I really dont think that she would go along with watching all of those scary movies!
I only really remember watching Poltergeist and Halloween because Mom thought it would help me not to be afraid of “Unsolved Mysteries” anymore. Obviously it didn’t work very well :). I think I watched my first zombie movie at a sleepover. Usually, when we watched scary movies at sleepovers, I pretended to be alseep, but zombies are just funny, so I decided I can watch those without weeks of nightmares to follow!
I love these “sibling remembrances”
Thought I’d chime in too, despite all the family action. First, Hocus Pocus is pretty lame 😛 It’s silly and shouldn’t be considered a scary movie in any way. i know you discounted it as a “holiday” movie, but still… Alien. That is a great movie and not very scary. There’s just 1 Alien, hence the title. I think Brooke could handle that one. Now Aliens, that one is even better and contains some of the most classic 1-liners in movie history. I recommend that one if not seen yet. Many character comments in SC2 come from Aliens. Anything Wes Craven is awesome. That new one coming out, My Soul to Take, looks pretty damn scary if you ask me. An interesting one is Signs by M. Night. Not scary in the classic sense, but more like in the Hitchcock suspenseful way. Anything about hauntings or demonic possession will creep you out big time; e.g. Exorcist or Paranormal Activity. With movies like Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street, once you get past the original, they’re pretty lame. They are then in the “slasher” flick category at that point, like the 90s resurgence of movies like Scream and I Know What you Did Last Summer. Favorite line from Scream “But wait, dere’s more”.
Anyway, I think the cool thing about scary movies is that it makes you think about what could be real. I think those thoughts are what really make most of them scary. And the ones like Last House on the Left. Those types are probably even more scary because stuff like that does happen in real life…
Tina and I tend to watch more scary movies as we get closer to Halloween. Many times on Halloween night we just do a horror movie binge while we entertain the trick’or,treaters.
First of all, I own “Alien” and not “Aliens” (though the latter is on Netflix Streaming, I think?). To me, “Alien” is the scary movie and “Aliens” is the action movie – I just never found “Aliens” to be all that scary, aside from a few jumpy moments. But, “Aliens” is still an excellent movie with terrific one-liners. I just need to get Brooke to watch them with me. 🙂
On the other hand, “Signs” is just stupid. “The Sixth Sense” is waaaaaaaaay better, and creepier.
But yeah, this is the only time of year we really hit up the scary flicks. There are a few like “Red Dragon” and “Silence of the Lambs” that are also great thrillers, if not particularly scary. Those are the kinds of movies I watch year-round. But most scary flicks are reserved for October.
To me, I think “Final Destination” is probably the “scariest” movie I’ve ever seen, mostly for the reason you outline: “you think about what could be real.” The kills in that movie are all conceivable, even without thinking that Death is behind them. I saw that one in theaters and refuse to watch it again, or any others in the series.