October is here, and it implies Halloween and therefore: horror movies.
I asked a few friends born and raised in the USA which was the scariest movie they saw. And to begin with, this is my answer…
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This article was first published in French.
I grew up being super freaked out about the most awful movie ever: Boogadi. I remember watching it when I was 6 or 7, there was a ghost haunted a house, leaving neon green steps on the floor. The family ended vacuuming it and it was over, except for me and my sister: she slept for months with a blanket on top of her, making a mess of her hair. We just had to whisper Boogadi and we would be scared.
I looked for this movie to write the article, and the title is actually Mr Boogedy, it’s a Disney movie that looks pretty lame.
Years passed, I had my own room, and the terror had two new names:
1) Tomniknockers, from a Stephen Kin novel adaptation
I vaguely remember a guy digging in his yard a spaceship that made everyone’s eyes in his town neon green (again, that devil color) even his dog’s (just writing it like that sounds too much). He wasn’t contaminated because of some sort of brain surgery he had. If it doesn’t make any sense now, it’s probably because it didn’t make sense to me at that time either. My sister, the one with the messy hair, tried to dig a small trap that was buried in my parents’ yard. No one had green eyes after that.
2) the X-Files
I was grossed out by worms running under the eye lids and the skin of some man, and I’ll probably never go inside a submarine trapped in the sea ice. That’s basically all that I remember from this show. After each episode, my sisters and I would gather in the bathroom, trying to play it cool, but still scaring the youngest one of us, Paquie, by telling her she’s been abducted by aliens, proof be the 3 small red dots on her lower back.
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When I was a bit older, I pretended that Scream and Remember last Summer were cool, but I was scared! I stop watching horror movies after Urban Legend, in which “Pacey” from Dawson’t Creek died pretty quickly. I was done with basic slashers. Later, I watched ultra violent Korean movies which were far worst that “boo” movies, and I was also very chocked by Spiders by David Cronenberg. It was more psychological than just basic fears, so it made a huge impression on me.
It’s much later , when I moved to the US that I started to watch horror movies again, because of Halloween a holiday that doesn’t exist in France, where I’m from. In Boston, we met some friends from California who are obsessed with it. They convinced us to watch more horror movies. We complied, trying to conform.
I finally dare to watch a classic – The Shining, which I loved. I also enjoyed The Witch, It Follows and The Babadook, and beyond the mere horror, Get Out by Jordan Peele from whom I already liked the creepiest skits was one of my favorite. More recently, I fell asleep on a plane while watching It. Could it be that horror movies didn’t have the same effect?
While in Oregon, I slept in the Shining hotel! Read more
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Natalie : I absolutely hate scary movies. They freak me out – and I end up having nightmares. :D. Probably the movie that scared me the most, and made me say “I will never watch these kinds of movies again” is Candyman when I was 13. After seeing that, I didn’t even like to go into the bathroom by myself at night. Whenever I would have sleep overs with my neighbors, my friend Denise thought it was funny to say Candy man 3 times in the mirror – and that always freaked me out. Another movie that scared me was A Tale of Two Sisters. I ended up liking it at the end, but during the movie I was very uncomfortable. If I must watch scary or overly suspenseful movies, I need a blanket around to cover my face when I need to. I have also never been in a Haunted House either for that same reason. I’m such a chicken!!!
My favorite costume of all time (besides my unicorn outfit from last year) was a scarecrow costume I made while in college. It was super cheap and I pulled it together rather nicely. This was before digital cameras so I would have to dig the photo up to take a picture of it.
Mikio :
This is a hard one because the movie that honestly scared me the most was Gremlins, but I was like 6 years old, so that’s not saying much. I was also really freaked out by the Blair Witch Project. One thing that you have to understand about the Blair Witch Project was that it was the first horror movie to use the “found footage” style and the early marketing for the movie actually sold it as real. I went to see it thinking that was real! I was so stupid.- mini-question: what was your favorite halloween costume of all time?
I don’t have pictures but one year (probably some time in high school) I was a little person carrying a bag. I walked around on my hands all night with my real arms sticking down through a pair of shorts and a fake pair of arms holding a bag over my shoulders where my body was
Patricia
Hmmmm movie that scared me the most… I think Scream (the first one) because I was only 10 years old when it came out, probably not old enough to be watching stuff like that but I did anyway. Super impressionable age and of course I was afraid to ever go into a movie theater after that.
Favorite Halloween costume… I have such a horrible memory, I don’t even remember what I dressed up as when I was a kid…. probably a hippie or something- fringe jacket, tie-dye, bell bottems, round tinted glasses 😛
Christina
Saw! I guess I like scary movies but it freaked me out more than other ones bc of how smart it was. like it had a good story line compared to regular slasher or ghost ones.
Paranormal Activity freaked me out too bc that is exactly the type of thing I’m scared of when I’m alone in the house.
- And what about you, what’s your favorite horror movie, the one that scared you the most?
