posted on September 15, 2000 05:26:23 PM new
They are going to release "The Exorcist" again soon with footage that hasn't been seen before.
The first time I saw this movie it scared the
life out of me. I was in the house alone when the music started to play on a downstairs radio and I was afraid to go downstairs. I called a friend to come over.
Well, we rented it last October because my husband had never seen it. It was so unscary I couldn't believe it.
So anyone else had this reaction to any old movies? I was sure this was the scariest movie ever. Maybe I have just become jaded.
posted on September 15, 2000 05:54:03 PM new
Tegan,
The scariest movie I ever saw was The Tingler starring Vincent Price, released in 1959. I saw the movie when it was released, I was 8 years old.
Here is a review of the movie, courtesy of TV Guide online movie database;
Perhaps the most noted film for the imaginative gimmicks that producer-director Castle used to give people a thrill. In this one, he hooked up Army surplus vibrating motors to the backs of some theater seats to send tingles up the audience's spines while they were watching the show. If that did not produce shrieks, then a "plant" in the theater would faint and would be carried out to the lobby by ushers. But this thriller is frightening enough in its own right not to have to resort to antics like those. Price is a scientist who believes screaming releases tensions that would otherwise kill people. A deaf mute theater operator dies, and Price discovers that the cause of her death was an insect that attaches itself to a person's spinal cord and can be killed only if the victim screams. The insect gets loose in a theater, and the rigged-up motors go into action. On the whole, this effectively paced and conceived project provides more proof of Castle's talent as a master of entertainment.
I have the movie on VHS and when I sit down and watch it now it is no where near as scary as it was then.
Barry (it was in black and white except for the blood scenes, they were in color) Barris
posted on September 15, 2000 07:51:51 PM new
The Exorcist scared the be-jeezus out of me when I was, like, 11. I wouldn't get off my bed to turn the TV off. Saw it again in college and couldn't believe how scared I was. I'll probably go see the re-release only because I never saw it on the big screen.
Jules - Hubby actually bought The Changeling for us to watch recently because we couldn't find the silly thing in a video store around here. Scary in a 70s scary movie kind of way. Better then the Friday the 13th genre of flics.
posted on September 15, 2000 07:56:08 PM new
I saw the Omen when I was a teenager. I lived alone at the time and slept with all of the lights on for at least a week. Totally scared to death.
Saw it again a few years ago and I thought it was a sleeper. Go figure?
posted on September 15, 2000 09:35:28 PM new
The Omen was really scary. I watched it at a friends house and right when the scene with the dogs in the graveyard was on his wiener dog jumped in my lap and scared the breath out of me. That may have been Omen II maybe.
I have never seen the Changling I will have to rent it.
I love watching scary movies in the fall.
posted on September 16, 2000 12:33:35 AM newTegan: I had that reaction to "The Exorcist" when it was originally released. There is nothing remotely frightening about a little girl who uses foul language, vomits split pea soup & pees on the carpet.
posted on September 16, 2000 08:08:33 AM newLet's Scare Jessica To Death
This one's got it all. Zohra Lampert is Jessica, just out of a mental institution after a nervous background. She, her neo-hippy husband and his pal move into an old Victorian house in Connecticut, complete with spooky tower (and this house can still be seen today off of I-95 near Exit 67, in Old Saybrook). They buy the house to get away from the city and to revitalize the old apple orchards on the land. Little do they know that the house is haunted by hundred-year-old vampire Abigail Bishop whose family once owned the house (incidentally, there is a Bishop's Orchards in Old Saybrook, probably where the filmmakers got their inspiration). The villagers are all weird and go around with giant bandaids on their necks, grinning (it's dreadfully apparent that these parts were played by local yokels which gives the film a queer realism). It was made in 1971, so it has that gritty, grainy seventies B-film quality that Ilove so much. Lots of old country graveyards (Jessica makes gravestone rubbings which sort of come alive at night and whisper to her -- or is it her madness returning?) Jessica is reluctant to share her misgivings about the house (and the mysterious but attractive young female squatter they find living in the house when they arrive) with her husband, for fear that he'll think she's having a relapse and send her back to the loony bin.
Another great thing about this movie is that it stars unknowns (they were actually soap opera players of the seventies) so it makes it that much easier to suspend your disbelief.
It's also a fact that there were suspected cases of vampirism in Connecticut and Rhode Island during the 1890s. More than one corpse was dug up over the years, its heart cut out and burned to ashes in the name of routing a vampire. In fact, newspaper clippings about the Rhode Island cases of vampirism were found among Bram Stoker's papers. (Broker, of course, wrote Dracula).
The ending of Let's Scare Jessica To Death is a perfect moment of quiet horror. Rent it tonight.
posted on September 18, 2000 09:10:57 AM new
Julesy:
Rented the Changling this weekend. That is one scary movie.
Great movie!Thanks.(After viewing it I had my first movie related nightmare in years. )
Now I think I'll try "Lets Scare Jessica to Death"
posted on September 18, 2000 03:23:56 PM new
Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark - with all of those tiny monsters hiding behind the drapes and in the plants. Next up for me: Rabid.
