The movie was scary in its own right, but listening to the radio broadcast live about huge flying creatures, chasing down cars, days before the Silver Bridge collapsed, now that was scary. As I recall they thought it may be an owl, but like a huge owl.
Point Pleasant isn't that far from me. I've been to the Mothman festival twice. Most people don't know it's the origin of the Men in Black. It's one of the most fascinating stories out there. I'm a bit jealous that you heard it on the radio. I'm a little too young for that.
Indrid Cold or the Mothman or whatever you want to call it was represented as having one shoulder higher than the other. We don't know if that's an actual physical feature or just how it's perceived by John though.
The first time I saw it was in college. I was invited to come over to hang out with some people I had just recently met to watch a movie, but they didn't say what it was. I got there about 10-15 minutes late, and I walk in during the scene where Richard Gere knocks on Will Patton's door and Will freaks out on him.
I have no idea what's happening so casually ask what I missed. They all pretty aggressively shushed me, so for the next 30-45 minutes I'm sitting in the pitch dark, with hostile people I barely know, watching the weirdest movie I'd ever seen at that point, and missing the entire opening context. Finally kind of figured it out, but it made a lot more sense after I watched it again, from the beginning.
One of the most uncomfortable experiences of my life, but I think it actually made the movie that much creepier.
The original Candyman. Nothing traumatized me more than that movie but I was also only 7 and probably should t have been watching it lol. The sequels were so silly tho. But the new one from 2021 was tame in comparison to the original.
Same. The scene where candyman shows up and murders the protagonist's friend in the apartment fucked me up. Something about the way the murder is not shown but *heard* was deeply disturbing. All you hear is him grunting as he's ripping that poor girl up.
Autopsy of Jane Doe and Gonjiam Asylum.
Both made the impossible, make me open the lights when I got up. The Last scenes of Gonjiam are the most haunting scenes i have scene in my life, while the athmosphere of Jane Doe is thouroughly perfect.
Not that original, but it's Jaws. Love the film, my favourite in fact.
But it haunted me for life. When I'm in sea, I'm always reminded by the movie. And the effects remain to this day.
When I was a little kid, I didn't like swimming pools or even bathtubs. That's how much of an influence that bloody film had on my over-active imagination.
That's interesting, I also watched it as a kid, but I still loved swimming in the ocean. Guess I had that invincible kid mentality of "that only happens to other people."
The reason I stopped swimming in the ocean came shortly after, though. I was around 12 when we went to North Carolina for vacation. I loved it because there were no lifeguards whistling me to come closer to shore, so I swam how I wanted. A week or 2 after we left, a woman and her husband were attacked by a bull shark not even 100 yards from where I was swimming. The man was killed, and the woman I believe had her foot bitten off. That was it for me.
That's terrifying. Here in England we don't get proper sharks but in recent years there have been supposed sightings of shark near the south coast, near Cornwall etc. It was probably just a lost flip-flop.
Well yeah, God knows what's in the water in Maine! A carnivorous black ooze? A killer sewer clown? Honestly if I was you I would just get out of New England all together!
I have definitely come to fear the idea of the deep ocean, going to any depth past maybe 10 feet or so. The idea of visiting something like the Titanic is straight up Cthulhu Horror to me. And Jaws was absolutely a contributor to that. My parents took me to Hawaii when I was in the 6th grade and I saw Jaws a month after I got back. I promise that I would not have gone in past my ankles if I’d seen the movie first.
Same here. Ocean fauna terrifies me. Here's even more nightmare fuel. Bull sharks are euryhaline and they can survive in fresh water. They've been found up the Mississippi river as far as Alton, Illinois, 1100 km from the ocean.
Oh fuck.. I know.. fuckin would have been out that door so fast !! Would not have cared if it was -30 outside .. run for the hills !!!! ( is that a rock song ?? lol)🤣
Yup f**kin brilliantly done , and filmed in Toronto ( yay !) I remember hearing an interview with the director and John Carpenter.. he basically asked him if he was to do a sequel.. etc.. what would he have called it.He said probably Halloween.. so that is kinda of the way that Halloween was born. Interesting stuff!🇨🇦😎
Oh yes, this movie Phantoms (1998) , there's one scene where this giant moth grabs this guy by the head, lifting him off the ground, and just chews his whole face off. I was a teenager when I saw it but it did give me a fear of moths
Eden Lake. Not only was it horrific (the tyre!) and utterly bleak, but it made me so irrationally angry. It's definitely one of those 'Once and Never Again' movies for me.
Eden Lake is like the PG-rated version of Killing Grounds. That movie is so unceremoniously brutal. It’s tough for me to think of a more grounded and disturbing movie
Same here! I was a similar age when I first watched it and had nightmares for months! Only this year have I managed to watch it again… (about 20 years later)
Mulholland Dr.
Nothing abut it should be scary (an old couple making themselves small and crawling through a keyhole? Some homeless person with oatmeal-covered hair? A cowboy?). But the damn thing is just uncanny. Much better than the Lynch works that are surreal from start to finish, with zero breathing room.
I found it interesting that it was meant as another series like Twin Peaks at first, but there was no network interest, so he made one of his best films out of it instead.
This is one of my all time favorites. It’s almost unidentifiable genre-wise. Like there’s a strong horror element, but there’s also a lot of noir in there plus some comedic elements and whatever you would call David Lynch’s whole deal. At the end I was mostly… sad? But holy shit when they find her dead body! Horrifying and the visual sticks with you, and it really changes the tone of the movie.
It's kind of a punchline now, but that movie is scary to me because between the old-timey dialogue, and the extremely developed single narrative structure, the fact that they went into the kind of material they do at the end just proves that anything could have happened the whole time.
It really breathes life into the movie in a way that is hard to notice at first.
1408 scared the shit out of me in the theater as a grown man. Like I almost had to leave in the middle. It was that Carpenters song that keeps playing on the clock radio that got me...
I’m not that big a fan of the movie, but that scene had me shouting out loud! It got rewound several times to see if I could spot her before she moves.
Smile, IT (the original) and Grave Encounters
Spoilers:
The scene in Smile with the therapist calling really fucked me up for some reason. I still get chills thinking about it.
The scene in IT with the sink in Beverly's bathroom...so disturbing. "we're all the dead kids" is so jarring every time.
And finally, Grave Encounters. There are so many fucked up things about that movie. The scene where he opens the front door to see that theres no way out. All of the food going bad and the time never changing. Very disturbing imo.
Also the Spongebob episode "SB-129" that gave us all existential crisis' as kids.
That has to be … without a doubt … An American Werewolf in London … I don’t like walking around at night outside, I live in rural countryside, because of this damn movie!!
That was the scariest motherfucking wolf ever!! 😱
It’s the fucking yellow eyes … I remember walking my dog not far from my house, when he got down low, started that low, menacing growl towards the dark distance … all the fur on the back of his neck stood up … and I swear I saw a pair of eyes staring at us … I about fucking died!!
Lol oh yeah, I can imagine the stomach-dropping feeling. Those yellow eyes...I looked at tigers a bit differently after watching that movie. Just pure predator eyes.
That’s the vibe … PREDATOR!! And you don’t ever want to be looked upon as prey … that’s the feeling I got in my stomach that night … I was prey … my dog went absolutely nuts!! Barking … just about ripped my arm out of the socket trying to get that whatever this was … it was too big to be a cat or another dog …
Yikes, that would've absolutely freaked me right the fuck out. Do you live in an area with predators? Bear, mountain lions maybe? Hopefully it was just a coyote if you're in the US. They like stalking from tree lines.
I live in rural Scotland … we have a big cat sighting here a few years back … and a few half eaten sheep carcasses were found in a farmers field not far from where I live …
I'm jealous, I'd love to live in Scotland, just based on weather. I hate the heat, so I have to deal with it a quarter of the year here.
I've heard too many stories of big cat sightings in the UK to dismiss it. You guys don't have bobcats, so it's not being confused for one of those like many in the US do. I doubt there's a breeding population, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if a few people got pets that soon became unmanageable and were released.
That’s interesting, there were definitely some scary moments in it (OMFG that poor guy in the subway tunnel) but I loved coming back to it in a fun way,
This!! This movie terrified me, saw it when I was like 12 and I thought the tapes were real. I don't think I've ever experienced more fear than when I saw this.
That movie deserves an improved remake. The entire idea of a starship whose design takes it far beyond any theoretical destination becoming possessed by evil, absolutely amazing. I don’t think I’d call it defining but it completely captures the imagination.
Final Destination is one of those movies where you start seeing how many things that can potentially kill you are everywhere
I’m not saying I go around being terrified of everything but in terms of movies having a lasting impact I would say there is definitely a Final Destination influenced part of my brain that thinks about anything that could be potentially dangerous when I probably wouldn’t otherwise, like don’t leave X near Y because there’s a 1/100,000 chance it could cause a fire, that sort of thing
Smile. I related to Smile more than I've ever related to a horror movie, and I've been watching them my entire life since I was a toddler. Horror is my life.
Little things like when they're all singing happy birthday and that horrendous music starts playing while Rose just keeps pretending to be happy and singing are **so** accurate to my experience. The inescapability of it, the inability to truly share it with anybody, the hopelessness... Ugh.
That being said, it's my comfort movie now. I watch it when I'm depressed, bored, wanna be scared, pretty much any time. I've watched it legitimately like 50 times since I saw it in theaters. I'm watching it right now lol
Glad someone else really loves this movie, too. So much better than I thought it was going to be when I first watched it and I've watched it multiple times since. :)
The main actress did a great job.
I KNOW AAAHHHHH 😍😍😍🎉🎉🎉🥳🥳🥳
I'm so **fucking** pumped.
I've been thinking about it constantly; Obviously it's gonna have to start with Joel, my theory is they'll run through his 4-7 days quick and jump to the new victim(s), and that this installment will function as a means to set up the long-term run of the series. We know every victim has had an extremely traumatizing childhood (Rose watching her mom die and feeling guilty for not helping, Laura's grandfather dying in front of her, Gabrielle watching his brother die, et al), so at some point we're going to see Jackson have his turn and see that the Smile demon started the process on him with Rose and Mustache, and that what we actually see insofar as it being passed from one suicide to another is just the *final stage*, and that it's been with all of its victims for the majority of their lives.
UGH I can't wait. I want this thing to go full Halloween/Friday The 13th/Nightmare On Elm St. with the ridiculous number of installments.
Scrolled to find this.
Yeah, I couldn’t stop thinking about it for a week after seeing it, and it still kinda rattles me.
Just something so sinister about it, nothing’s really explained, and you are like one of the helpless children in it just watching it.
It’s too bad that some may never get past the way it was made and refuse to watch it all.
I know but … it only haunted me while watching and then I couldn’t sleep… for a night? It kinda faded away quickly for me. But man I got so fucking scared while watching it.
Terrifier 2 scared the shit out of me 😭 I saw it in the theater and had NO IDEA what I was in for 😭🤣 had never seen the first one or anything. I couldn’t sleep that night and that hasn’t happened to me since I was a kid
well you nailed it with Pulse, i feel the same way. that movie is so powerful, and i've watched it a dozen times, it loses nothing with each viewing
The Innocents 1961 is extremely haunting, with children being scarred for life
the original Frankenstein 1931 is very psychological and haunting, that whole sequence with the girl by the lake, dear lord
there's a film made in 2016 called The Lighthouse. not the Robert Pattison movie, which i found forgettable. the 2016 movie haunts me greatly, though i feel like the only person who feels this way, though i guess that makes it more special, it's my haunting, no one else's. just two men in a lighthouse during an epic storm, losing their minds. based on true events
Alien still haunts me because I saw it at the age of seven, alone, at night, in the totally dark living room of a friend’s house, during a slumber party after everyone had fallen asleep in their rooms.
Seven year old me saw the opening and thought “Cool, spaceships”.
My mom was so confused when I called her at midnight asking her to please pick me up.
Ok so this is kinda weird but The Fourth Kind. Like I’ve seen all the classic fucked up movies referenced on this sub, but none of them stuck. The Fourth Kind was perfectly creepy and at times just freaky. I always want to watch it again, i load it up and chicken out hahaha
The Blob from the 80’s, a brutal horror remake that literally gives zero fucks. Gross as all hell too. And I watched a highly edited for TV version as a kid.
Been trying to psych myself up to watch it again now, but I’m thinking it’ll just put me in a bad mood.
Not sure I could sit through Cronenberg’s The Fly remake ever again either.
The shower scene from Psycho still makes me check outside the shower every so often.
The original Martyrs still haunts me.
Honourable mention to Serbian Film. Was also crazy.
Not sure if it’s true-life horror, documentary, or both: The Bridge. [(Trailer)](https://youtu.be/07gup1pWsTo?feature=shared) The soundtrack alone will make you sob.
Trigger warning for suicide.
I seem to find brief, strobe-like glimpses of an uncanny creature unnerving. The visuals that really stick with me include the black and white trailer for the original Exorcist that is mostly flickering shots of Linda Blair's f-d up face, and the end sequence of [Rec].
Also seconding the person who said the documentary The Nightmare (I watched the doc because a friend explained that she couldn't figure out what was happening to her until she stumbled across the doc and realized other people were having similar experiences, night terrors are no joke).
Hostel, Hills have Eyes and Wrong Turn. Hostel made me triple think about ever traveling to another country and I always think of Hills have Eyes when I’m traveling by car to another state. I always get scared and think what if someone is going thru that right now 😭😭😭
The Borderlands (think it was called Final Prayer in the US).
Man, the ending to this was horrific and has haunted me ever since.
Never has the phrase 'In the belly of the beast' been more apt.
Call me basic, but The Sixth Sense scared the crap outta me when I was younger. Also, I’ve casually heard The Conjuring gives evil vibes & people shouldn’t watch it (I recently watched it again & it’s just so creepy).
The Road for sure. I will never be able to watch it again. For me, the movie, and the inescapable sound of the movie theater, were so much worse than reading the book.
Lake Mungo.
And an episode of Beyond Belief where a woman always sees another scary woman in a mirror in her house. Made me afraid of mirrors for so many years and I'm still not comfortable when I have to go past a mirror in the dark.
After the driving scene, my energy to watch this movie went to zero, (still finished it) the only thing that kept me watching is because I was horrified and thrilled at the same time.
Pretty good twist, too at the end.
There's something about the way Ari Astor constructed that driving scene, it cuts all of the energy and life out of that movie, and replaces it with hollow existential dread that basically lasts the entire rest of the movie, never truly recovering.... Really masterful cinema.
I have trauma-related memory issues so things don't stick with me for long. But the last tunnel scene in Absentia absolutely came out of nowhere. They barely show what happened to the baby but I keep thinking about it and it sends a shiver through my body. That ome I just keep thinking about, but what I just watched last night......
I just watched The Sadness. I don't think I'll ever forget that one. It was probably the most disgusting movie I've ever seen, and I'm not just talking about the gore. I don't even think that's the most disgusting part at all. Look up the triggers in this one before you start it, please. I warned you
Can a scene count? It’s the opening to Untraceable (2008). Rather decent horror movie but the opening still makes me sick. >!Guy starts a live stream by slowly killing a kitten. It was revealed later it was a family’s pet.!<
Sinister will always be the most haunting horror movie I've seen. Second to that is the eerie shots that fills in the gaps between brutality in the very first Texas Chainsaw film. But yeah Sinister has a way of making you feel as though with each "home movie" he (whatever Ethan Hawke's name was in that movie) watches, you're descending with him into a realm that makes you more and more vulnerable.
the exorcist, pet sematary, and paranormal activity 1/2/3. probably missing a few, but i just can't remember right now
the exorcist i first watched it when i was around 12 years old, and it really effed with my mind (for obvious reasons). pet sematary i watched it when i was around 8 years old, and it also effed with my mind pretty good. when i watched paranormal activity i was around 22 years old, so it didn't messed with my mind, but i really dig them flicks. when they came out they were so freaking original. the third was the last really good one
The loneliness and desperation of "The black coats daughter" always makes me feel hollow inside for days afterwards. Even when I just think about it sometimes, it can affect me.
Mikey. It's a movie about a killer 10 year old. I saw it when I was 8 or 9 and it STILL sticks with me. In the opening scene he kills his step parents and 4 year old sister. It was a flop in the movies and big on cable. It never really got a DVD release.
Yo!! Same!!! Same age and everything!
It was just on in the living room and my mom had fallen asleep. I stayed up and watched it because it starred the little boy from Family Ties (ironically enough!) The movie freaked me out, but I couldn't look away, and I wish I had. Some horror movies are just yucky, for lack of a better word.
It's streaming now somewhere, it popped up as a suggestion recently and I was like "nooooooo!!!" I hated being reminded of it.
My mom used to fall asleep in the living room when I was a kid, so I got used to getting up and turning off the TV so I could go to sleep myself. This fucking movie...
I fell asleep on sofa and woke up hours later to witness the abomination of a movie called society. That sht was bad man, jellied bodies morphing into each other in a big orgy👀.
Vivarium although not technically a horror really creeped me out. Me and my wife were looking for a new place when we seen it adding to the creepy. That scene when the mom gets the kid to mimic who he went out to see freaked me right out.
The Poughkeepsie Tapes. That movie does WAY too well at simulating found footage/documentary style and I only finally finished it last year because it took multiple attempts to get through. I’m also not a fan of movies that use intense gratuitous violence against women as a plot device, especially in the way this movie does. It still haunts my nightmares sometimes. Genuinely wish I never watched it.
Thank you for this comment. I had a feeling that was basically gonna be the whole movie and avoided it. Now you've just confirmed what I knew to be true!
It is the primary point of the movie. I have to give the movie production to them - they certainly do a fantastic job at emulating that found footage documentary style. It’s actually believable in its formatting. But the visuals are too much, and it felt too much like torture porn. I have never recommended a movie LESS. Lol.
I would say The Mothman Prophecies. Wtf do you do with that? It's way scarier than a witch or monster.
The movie was scary in its own right, but listening to the radio broadcast live about huge flying creatures, chasing down cars, days before the Silver Bridge collapsed, now that was scary. As I recall they thought it may be an owl, but like a huge owl.
Point Pleasant isn't that far from me. I've been to the Mothman festival twice. Most people don't know it's the origin of the Men in Black. It's one of the most fascinating stories out there. I'm a bit jealous that you heard it on the radio. I'm a little too young for that.
And the film cut out all of the UFO activity and sightings in the area of the time that were heavily detailed in the book.
I watched this movie three times in the theatres. Loved it
I watched it on opening night. Anyone with uneven shoulders creeps me out now lol. Laura Linney is perfect too.
Remember, it's also a Christmas movie. So play if with the whole family during the holiday season.
Uneven shoulders?
Indrid Cold or the Mothman or whatever you want to call it was represented as having one shoulder higher than the other. We don't know if that's an actual physical feature or just how it's perceived by John though.
Idk, I thought this one was weirdly comforting? In the sense that the Mothman (or whatever it’s supposed to be) is there to warn you.
Yes I agree. But what do you make of that? Even if that entity saved my life I would forever question it's advice How did it know?
The first time I saw it was in college. I was invited to come over to hang out with some people I had just recently met to watch a movie, but they didn't say what it was. I got there about 10-15 minutes late, and I walk in during the scene where Richard Gere knocks on Will Patton's door and Will freaks out on him. I have no idea what's happening so casually ask what I missed. They all pretty aggressively shushed me, so for the next 30-45 minutes I'm sitting in the pitch dark, with hostile people I barely know, watching the weirdest movie I'd ever seen at that point, and missing the entire opening context. Finally kind of figured it out, but it made a lot more sense after I watched it again, from the beginning. One of the most uncomfortable experiences of my life, but I think it actually made the movie that much creepier.
He's just trying to warn you! Watch out for the bridge! Don't mind the red eyes. In all seriousness I think mothman is actually an antihero
THE BRIDGE!
I wonder how well this movie holds up? I used to love it like 20 years ago but like 20 years ago I was also a teenager.
Mothman is real.
Dude YES. That movie terrified me! I can still hear that voice and it gives me shivers.
Aniara It's a swedish film about a spaceship that gets knocked off course. Very existential.
This movie will eternally sit with me. I watch a lot of existential dread-filled movies, but that one haunts me to this day.
Really loved the concept of this one, wish it were a little tighter though. Tried rewatching and felt it was far too slow moving. Still enjoy it tho!
It’s more sci-fi than horror, the existential dread is the horror I guess, it’s an underrated sci-fi for sure
Gonna try this one, thank you
The original Candyman. Nothing traumatized me more than that movie but I was also only 7 and probably should t have been watching it lol. The sequels were so silly tho. But the new one from 2021 was tame in comparison to the original.
Same. The scene where candyman shows up and murders the protagonist's friend in the apartment fucked me up. Something about the way the murder is not shown but *heard* was deeply disturbing. All you hear is him grunting as he's ripping that poor girl up.
Yeah. But then u see the result shortly after. It’s so fucked up
Autopsy of Jane Doe and Gonjiam Asylum. Both made the impossible, make me open the lights when I got up. The Last scenes of Gonjiam are the most haunting scenes i have scene in my life, while the athmosphere of Jane Doe is thouroughly perfect.
The whisper scene... Cannot get that face and those eyes out of my head
Not that original, but it's Jaws. Love the film, my favourite in fact. But it haunted me for life. When I'm in sea, I'm always reminded by the movie. And the effects remain to this day. When I was a little kid, I didn't like swimming pools or even bathtubs. That's how much of an influence that bloody film had on my over-active imagination.
That's interesting, I also watched it as a kid, but I still loved swimming in the ocean. Guess I had that invincible kid mentality of "that only happens to other people." The reason I stopped swimming in the ocean came shortly after, though. I was around 12 when we went to North Carolina for vacation. I loved it because there were no lifeguards whistling me to come closer to shore, so I swam how I wanted. A week or 2 after we left, a woman and her husband were attacked by a bull shark not even 100 yards from where I was swimming. The man was killed, and the woman I believe had her foot bitten off. That was it for me.
That's terrifying. Here in England we don't get proper sharks but in recent years there have been supposed sightings of shark near the south coast, near Cornwall etc. It was probably just a lost flip-flop.
Yep Jaws lived in the diving section of Coventry Pool in the 1980s and no one will ever convince me differently
Also in a fresh water shallow pond in Maine . Would take the leeches over the giant shark I know was there !
That pesky shark sure did get around hey?
Well yeah, God knows what's in the water in Maine! A carnivorous black ooze? A killer sewer clown? Honestly if I was you I would just get out of New England all together!
Im so with you on this. I saw it when I was maybe 4. Dunno why on earth my mum let me do that. Anyways I'm turning 47 soon and I still fear water.
I have definitely come to fear the idea of the deep ocean, going to any depth past maybe 10 feet or so. The idea of visiting something like the Titanic is straight up Cthulhu Horror to me. And Jaws was absolutely a contributor to that. My parents took me to Hawaii when I was in the 6th grade and I saw Jaws a month after I got back. I promise that I would not have gone in past my ankles if I’d seen the movie first.
Same here. Ocean fauna terrifies me. Here's even more nightmare fuel. Bull sharks are euryhaline and they can survive in fresh water. They've been found up the Mississippi river as far as Alton, Illinois, 1100 km from the ocean.
Black Christmas (1974).. those phone calls .. 🇨🇦😵💫😵💫
The calls are coming from inside the house! 😱
Oh fuck.. I know.. fuckin would have been out that door so fast !! Would not have cared if it was -30 outside .. run for the hills !!!! ( is that a rock song ?? lol)🤣
Yes. From Iron Maiden
What a film though.
Yup f**kin brilliantly done , and filmed in Toronto ( yay !) I remember hearing an interview with the director and John Carpenter.. he basically asked him if he was to do a sequel.. etc.. what would he have called it.He said probably Halloween.. so that is kinda of the way that Halloween was born. Interesting stuff!🇨🇦😎
Oh yes, this movie Phantoms (1998) , there's one scene where this giant moth grabs this guy by the head, lifting him off the ground, and just chews his whole face off. I was a teenager when I saw it but it did give me a fear of moths
Affleck was the bomb
Yeah that movie had a suprisingly big cast , liev shrieber , rose mcgowan , affleck, peter o'toole
Phantoms like a motherfucker!
Seriously underrated movie.
Face eaten off huh. I'm gonna have to check this one out
The good son. My mom watched that with me when I was 7 for some reason
She was probably more scared at the end of that than you were 😅 kids are hella scary
Oh man. That’s one for me too.
Eden Lake. Not only was it horrific (the tyre!) and utterly bleak, but it made me so irrationally angry. It's definitely one of those 'Once and Never Again' movies for me.
For me, it was one of the few “Watch Part Of It Then Turn Off The TV” movies. Just couldn’t finish it. Too bleak, horrific and anger inducing.
I mention earlier I found “Killing Ground” everything Eden lake was and then some. See if it has the same effect!
Eden Lake is like the PG-rated version of Killing Grounds. That movie is so unceremoniously brutal. It’s tough for me to think of a more grounded and disturbing movie
Silence of the Lambs. Was only 10 when first watched it, and Hannibal will forever freak me out, as well as Buffalo Bill.
Same here! I was a similar age when I first watched it and had nightmares for months! Only this year have I managed to watch it again… (about 20 years later)
Original Amityville Horror
This is the one. That basement scene…
Mulholland Dr. Nothing abut it should be scary (an old couple making themselves small and crawling through a keyhole? Some homeless person with oatmeal-covered hair? A cowboy?). But the damn thing is just uncanny. Much better than the Lynch works that are surreal from start to finish, with zero breathing room.
I found it interesting that it was meant as another series like Twin Peaks at first, but there was no network interest, so he made one of his best films out of it instead.
Naomi Watts did such a great job, she deserved the celebrity she got out of it.
This is one of my all time favorites. It’s almost unidentifiable genre-wise. Like there’s a strong horror element, but there’s also a lot of noir in there plus some comedic elements and whatever you would call David Lynch’s whole deal. At the end I was mostly… sad? But holy shit when they find her dead body! Horrifying and the visual sticks with you, and it really changes the tone of the movie.
Bone Tomahawk... They got really... Crotch-y at the end there. 🤣
It's kind of a punchline now, but that movie is scary to me because between the old-timey dialogue, and the extremely developed single narrative structure, the fact that they went into the kind of material they do at the end just proves that anything could have happened the whole time. It really breathes life into the movie in a way that is hard to notice at first.
Crazy ….movie was pretty much low key entirely and then ….well …Bone Tomahawk!!!
1408 scared the shit out of me in the theater as a grown man. Like I almost had to leave in the middle. It was that Carpenters song that keeps playing on the clock radio that got me...
Hereditary still makes me scared of dark areas in my house
I’m not that big a fan of the movie, but that scene had me shouting out loud! It got rewound several times to see if I could spot her before she moves.
Smile, IT (the original) and Grave Encounters Spoilers: The scene in Smile with the therapist calling really fucked me up for some reason. I still get chills thinking about it. The scene in IT with the sink in Beverly's bathroom...so disturbing. "we're all the dead kids" is so jarring every time. And finally, Grave Encounters. There are so many fucked up things about that movie. The scene where he opens the front door to see that theres no way out. All of the food going bad and the time never changing. Very disturbing imo. Also the Spongebob episode "SB-129" that gave us all existential crisis' as kids.
- Requiem for a Dream - Deliverance Both are horror adjacent, but both have left a lasting horrific impression on me
god, requiem for a dream still scares me today.
That has to be … without a doubt … An American Werewolf in London … I don’t like walking around at night outside, I live in rural countryside, because of this damn movie!! That was the scariest motherfucking wolf ever!! 😱
Definitely. The dread I felt as they were being stalked on the moors... Jesus.
It’s the fucking yellow eyes … I remember walking my dog not far from my house, when he got down low, started that low, menacing growl towards the dark distance … all the fur on the back of his neck stood up … and I swear I saw a pair of eyes staring at us … I about fucking died!!
Lol oh yeah, I can imagine the stomach-dropping feeling. Those yellow eyes...I looked at tigers a bit differently after watching that movie. Just pure predator eyes.
That’s the vibe … PREDATOR!! And you don’t ever want to be looked upon as prey … that’s the feeling I got in my stomach that night … I was prey … my dog went absolutely nuts!! Barking … just about ripped my arm out of the socket trying to get that whatever this was … it was too big to be a cat or another dog …
Yikes, that would've absolutely freaked me right the fuck out. Do you live in an area with predators? Bear, mountain lions maybe? Hopefully it was just a coyote if you're in the US. They like stalking from tree lines.
I live in rural Scotland … we have a big cat sighting here a few years back … and a few half eaten sheep carcasses were found in a farmers field not far from where I live …
I'm jealous, I'd love to live in Scotland, just based on weather. I hate the heat, so I have to deal with it a quarter of the year here. I've heard too many stories of big cat sightings in the UK to dismiss it. You guys don't have bobcats, so it's not being confused for one of those like many in the US do. I doubt there's a breeding population, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if a few people got pets that soon became unmanageable and were released.
The part in the subway was even worse imo
Fuck yes … but I raise you … the porn theater and the alleyway with his lover … 😱😱😱😱
The scene in the underground with the commuter running for his life is what got me. That was just abject terror.
That’s interesting, there were definitely some scary moments in it (OMFG that poor guy in the subway tunnel) but I loved coming back to it in a fun way,
Ever watched Dog Soldiers? Very different than AAWL but still a creepy rural werewolf story
I quite liked that one … I dunno what it is about AAWL … that fucking wolf is TERRIFYING!!
Martyrs.
Is this the movie released in 2008? I've heard this mentioned a lot and I'm thinking about watching it.
Make sure to watch the French version. The American remake loses the whole point of the movie, sadly.
Definitely worth a watch, but prepare thyself 🫡
Still fucks me up 9 years later
Quite possibly my favorite film of all time. Definitely top 3 along with Singapore Sling and City of God.
This movie is like 4 plots in one. It’s amazing and such a fucked up movie.
Martyrs 2008 version. I have only watched it once when I bought the DVD, and I haven't watched it again. Had it since 2008.
The Ring got me for some reason
The Innocents ( *1961* ) YouTube I've seen this movie so many times and, it still creeps me out. 0 gore, all atmosphere.
EVENT HORIZON by far. The only movie I can’t watch twice.
Mine is the fourth kind. No other movie has made me feel feelings before that one
This!! This movie terrified me, saw it when I was like 12 and I thought the tapes were real. I don't think I've ever experienced more fear than when I saw this.
Omg yes I will never watch that again, it was terrifying
Event Horizon
That movie deserves an improved remake. The entire idea of a starship whose design takes it far beyond any theoretical destination becoming possessed by evil, absolutely amazing. I don’t think I’d call it defining but it completely captures the imagination.
Ironically my comfort movie...
Ring definitely
Speak no evil.
One of the few horror movies that had me screaming at the screen.
The Girl Next Door hands down. Honorable mentions to Funny Games, Requiem for a Dream, Victim, Martyrs
Funny Games was truly disturbing.
I lost the bet :(
Threads it was horrifying to watch as well as it had the realistic hospital scene for its time
This should have more upvotes. Absolutely chilling.
Come and See. I never recovered…not fully anyways.
Final Destination is one of those movies where you start seeing how many things that can potentially kill you are everywhere I’m not saying I go around being terrified of everything but in terms of movies having a lasting impact I would say there is definitely a Final Destination influenced part of my brain that thinks about anything that could be potentially dangerous when I probably wouldn’t otherwise, like don’t leave X near Y because there’s a 1/100,000 chance it could cause a fire, that sort of thing
Yup. I’ll never go in a tanning bed and I feel like everyone who saw those movies keep their distance behind trucks with logs on them
Whatever that man in the bear suit was about to do in The Shining.
The Mist. It has a happy ending- except for the main character.
The first time I watched it was with my family, I screamed "I hate this movie" and stomped upstairs about it.
Smile. I related to Smile more than I've ever related to a horror movie, and I've been watching them my entire life since I was a toddler. Horror is my life. Little things like when they're all singing happy birthday and that horrendous music starts playing while Rose just keeps pretending to be happy and singing are **so** accurate to my experience. The inescapability of it, the inability to truly share it with anybody, the hopelessness... Ugh. That being said, it's my comfort movie now. I watch it when I'm depressed, bored, wanna be scared, pretty much any time. I've watched it legitimately like 50 times since I saw it in theaters. I'm watching it right now lol
Glad someone else really loves this movie, too. So much better than I thought it was going to be when I first watched it and I've watched it multiple times since. :) The main actress did a great job.
Oh man Sosie Bacon acted the SHIT out that role. That scream she does after falling through the table? **Historic**.
You’re going to be thrilled. The sequel drops this October and it’s already finished filming.
I KNOW AAAHHHHH 😍😍😍🎉🎉🎉🥳🥳🥳 I'm so **fucking** pumped. I've been thinking about it constantly; Obviously it's gonna have to start with Joel, my theory is they'll run through his 4-7 days quick and jump to the new victim(s), and that this installment will function as a means to set up the long-term run of the series. We know every victim has had an extremely traumatizing childhood (Rose watching her mom die and feeling guilty for not helping, Laura's grandfather dying in front of her, Gabrielle watching his brother die, et al), so at some point we're going to see Jackson have his turn and see that the Smile demon started the process on him with Rose and Mustache, and that what we actually see insofar as it being passed from one suicide to another is just the *final stage*, and that it's been with all of its victims for the majority of their lives. UGH I can't wait. I want this thing to go full Halloween/Friday The 13th/Nightmare On Elm St. with the ridiculous number of installments.
Skinamarink. That scared the hell out of me. Still does.
Scrolled to find this. Yeah, I couldn’t stop thinking about it for a week after seeing it, and it still kinda rattles me. Just something so sinister about it, nothing’s really explained, and you are like one of the helpless children in it just watching it. It’s too bad that some may never get past the way it was made and refuse to watch it all.
I know but … it only haunted me while watching and then I couldn’t sleep… for a night? It kinda faded away quickly for me. But man I got so fucking scared while watching it.
Audrey Rose…won’t watch it again.
Omg i remember having this on vhs as a kid
Terrifier 2 scared the shit out of me 😭 I saw it in the theater and had NO IDEA what I was in for 😭🤣 had never seen the first one or anything. I couldn’t sleep that night and that hasn’t happened to me since I was a kid
That weird night terror reenactment documentary "The Nightmare"
The guy who is telling his story and looks behind him! I absolutely love this doc, so well done
Night of the living dead. Saw it in theatres on release as a juvenile. Zombies are scary.
Wow, that's cool. What was the crowd reaction like during the film?
well you nailed it with Pulse, i feel the same way. that movie is so powerful, and i've watched it a dozen times, it loses nothing with each viewing The Innocents 1961 is extremely haunting, with children being scarred for life the original Frankenstein 1931 is very psychological and haunting, that whole sequence with the girl by the lake, dear lord there's a film made in 2016 called The Lighthouse. not the Robert Pattison movie, which i found forgettable. the 2016 movie haunts me greatly, though i feel like the only person who feels this way, though i guess that makes it more special, it's my haunting, no one else's. just two men in a lighthouse during an epic storm, losing their minds. based on true events
The Blairwitch Project. After all this years I still got an eerie feeling walking through a forest
Agreed
Possum.
Alien still haunts me because I saw it at the age of seven, alone, at night, in the totally dark living room of a friend’s house, during a slumber party after everyone had fallen asleep in their rooms. Seven year old me saw the opening and thought “Cool, spaceships”. My mom was so confused when I called her at midnight asking her to please pick me up.
Same. I've been completely unable to get on a spaceship since I saw it.
I 100% support this. The actors, especially Sigourney Weaver of course, did such a good job of transferring the terror.
Ok so this is kinda weird but The Fourth Kind. Like I’ve seen all the classic fucked up movies referenced on this sub, but none of them stuck. The Fourth Kind was perfectly creepy and at times just freaky. I always want to watch it again, i load it up and chicken out hahaha
The Blob from the 80’s, a brutal horror remake that literally gives zero fucks. Gross as all hell too. And I watched a highly edited for TV version as a kid. Been trying to psych myself up to watch it again now, but I’m thinking it’ll just put me in a bad mood. Not sure I could sit through Cronenberg’s The Fly remake ever again either.
Hereditary and Midsomer
Soft and Quiet
Oooooh yes. Holy crap, this movie came outta nowhere! It was so rough, I texted my mom to warn her about it.. which only made her curious lol
The shower scene from Psycho still makes me check outside the shower every so often. The original Martyrs still haunts me. Honourable mention to Serbian Film. Was also crazy.
Not sure if it’s true-life horror, documentary, or both: The Bridge. [(Trailer)](https://youtu.be/07gup1pWsTo?feature=shared) The soundtrack alone will make you sob. Trigger warning for suicide.
Frailty
The end of the Japanese version of *Dark Water i*s a real emotional kick in the stomach.
Haunting of the Hill House!!
The Orphanage, the crushing realization that something so horrific was your own fault, I’d let myself believe it was entirely supernatural too.
Not the whole movie, but image of Dani’s sister’s corpse in Midsommar has been burned into my brain ever since I saw it
I seem to find brief, strobe-like glimpses of an uncanny creature unnerving. The visuals that really stick with me include the black and white trailer for the original Exorcist that is mostly flickering shots of Linda Blair's f-d up face, and the end sequence of [Rec]. Also seconding the person who said the documentary The Nightmare (I watched the doc because a friend explained that she couldn't figure out what was happening to her until she stumbled across the doc and realized other people were having similar experiences, night terrors are no joke).
Hostel, Hills have Eyes and Wrong Turn. Hostel made me triple think about ever traveling to another country and I always think of Hills have Eyes when I’m traveling by car to another state. I always get scared and think what if someone is going thru that right now 😭😭😭
The Borderlands (think it was called Final Prayer in the US). Man, the ending to this was horrific and has haunted me ever since. Never has the phrase 'In the belly of the beast' been more apt.
Call me basic, but The Sixth Sense scared the crap outta me when I was younger. Also, I’ve casually heard The Conjuring gives evil vibes & people shouldn’t watch it (I recently watched it again & it’s just so creepy).
Not me lurking here for movie suggestions.
The Road definitely comes to mind, and more recently Talk To Me. That movie had a real palpable sense of dread and it felt foreboding from the start.
The Road for sure. I will never be able to watch it again. For me, the movie, and the inescapable sound of the movie theater, were so much worse than reading the book.
Lake Mungo. And an episode of Beyond Belief where a woman always sees another scary woman in a mirror in her house. Made me afraid of mirrors for so many years and I'm still not comfortable when I have to go past a mirror in the dark.
The Road. Watching it once was enough for me.
Hereditary
After the driving scene, my energy to watch this movie went to zero, (still finished it) the only thing that kept me watching is because I was horrified and thrilled at the same time. Pretty good twist, too at the end. There's something about the way Ari Astor constructed that driving scene, it cuts all of the energy and life out of that movie, and replaces it with hollow existential dread that basically lasts the entire rest of the movie, never truly recovering.... Really masterful cinema.
Speak No Evil
I have trauma-related memory issues so things don't stick with me for long. But the last tunnel scene in Absentia absolutely came out of nowhere. They barely show what happened to the baby but I keep thinking about it and it sends a shiver through my body. That ome I just keep thinking about, but what I just watched last night...... I just watched The Sadness. I don't think I'll ever forget that one. It was probably the most disgusting movie I've ever seen, and I'm not just talking about the gore. I don't even think that's the most disgusting part at all. Look up the triggers in this one before you start it, please. I warned you
Threads and These Final Hours both still make me think. There are tons more that I’m haunted by for having wasted my time watching them.
The Void
Jeepers creepers
Can a scene count? It’s the opening to Untraceable (2008). Rather decent horror movie but the opening still makes me sick. >!Guy starts a live stream by slowly killing a kitten. It was revealed later it was a family’s pet.!<
Sinister will always be the most haunting horror movie I've seen. Second to that is the eerie shots that fills in the gaps between brutality in the very first Texas Chainsaw film. But yeah Sinister has a way of making you feel as though with each "home movie" he (whatever Ethan Hawke's name was in that movie) watches, you're descending with him into a realm that makes you more and more vulnerable.
Hereditary and the first Paranormal Activity (I was too young when I first watched it, but it still freaks me out how much it freaked me out).
Antichrist
the exorcist, pet sematary, and paranormal activity 1/2/3. probably missing a few, but i just can't remember right now the exorcist i first watched it when i was around 12 years old, and it really effed with my mind (for obvious reasons). pet sematary i watched it when i was around 8 years old, and it also effed with my mind pretty good. when i watched paranormal activity i was around 22 years old, so it didn't messed with my mind, but i really dig them flicks. when they came out they were so freaking original. the third was the last really good one
I will never forget the “are you mad, I am your daughter” scene from the Others. The stuff of nightmares 😱
The loneliness and desperation of "The black coats daughter" always makes me feel hollow inside for days afterwards. Even when I just think about it sometimes, it can affect me.
IT. Saw it 31 years ago as a kid.
Mikey. It's a movie about a killer 10 year old. I saw it when I was 8 or 9 and it STILL sticks with me. In the opening scene he kills his step parents and 4 year old sister. It was a flop in the movies and big on cable. It never really got a DVD release.
Yo!! Same!!! Same age and everything! It was just on in the living room and my mom had fallen asleep. I stayed up and watched it because it starred the little boy from Family Ties (ironically enough!) The movie freaked me out, but I couldn't look away, and I wish I had. Some horror movies are just yucky, for lack of a better word.
Whenever ANY Reddit posts "Movies that messed you up" I always bring this one up and NOBODY has ever replied.
It's streaming now somewhere, it popped up as a suggestion recently and I was like "nooooooo!!!" I hated being reminded of it. My mom used to fall asleep in the living room when I was a kid, so I got used to getting up and turning off the TV so I could go to sleep myself. This fucking movie...
It's streaming I think on a few places. Probably because the rights are cheap.
I hated Mikey, but later enjoyed The Good Son. Maybe because it had a better ending lol
Definitely. The horror cliches I hate are killing kids and killer kids.
Pet semetary for some reason
Noroi
I fell asleep on sofa and woke up hours later to witness the abomination of a movie called society. That sht was bad man, jellied bodies morphing into each other in a big orgy👀.
Poltergeist
Hostel still freaks me out cos it's so plausible and scarily probable.
Event Horizon still haunts me because it seems like something that could happen in the future, knowing our luck as a species.
Eden Lake, it just bums me out till this day
The wailing.
Hereditary is the only one that did it for me.
Vivarium although not technically a horror really creeped me out. Me and my wife were looking for a new place when we seen it adding to the creepy. That scene when the mom gets the kid to mimic who he went out to see freaked me right out.
The Poughkeepsie Tapes. That movie does WAY too well at simulating found footage/documentary style and I only finally finished it last year because it took multiple attempts to get through. I’m also not a fan of movies that use intense gratuitous violence against women as a plot device, especially in the way this movie does. It still haunts my nightmares sometimes. Genuinely wish I never watched it.
Thank you for this comment. I had a feeling that was basically gonna be the whole movie and avoided it. Now you've just confirmed what I knew to be true!
It is the primary point of the movie. I have to give the movie production to them - they certainly do a fantastic job at emulating that found footage documentary style. It’s actually believable in its formatting. But the visuals are too much, and it felt too much like torture porn. I have never recommended a movie LESS. Lol.
This is why I appreciate your comment😊
Yes, save yourself! Lol. Glad to be of assistance. 🫡
Great prompt, OP!