Scariest things in horror films and why?

Hey there. I like horror films. But not the gore/slasher kind ones. More like the less it shows the better, the fear of the unknown and such. Thing is, the scariest things I have ever seen is Sadako from Ju-on films and any kind of long black haired pale woman.Thing is I have no idea why. Why when I hear the sound or see the pictures my imagination goes wild. Films such as The Conjuring, Insidious and Paranormal activity are really god damn great horror films. But the Asian horror cinema for me is far more effective, to a crazy degree. So my question is what pushes your buttons in horror films? And also if anyone has idea for why I am scared of Sadako and such please enlighten me. I would be grateful.

Yup, the early to mid 2000 japanese horror movies were something else. The Eye, Tale of two sisters, Dark Water etc made me piss my pants back then. Don't know if I've seen any "scary" horror movies recently. They can be good, but scary... nah.

Edit: Might be stupid to say but the most recent movie that made me unsettled/scared was Enemy. Some people hate it, I loved it.

Hmmm, I'm not quite sure. All I know is that I've seen a decent amount of horror movies, but the only one to ever get to me and the only one I've ever truly loved was Martyrs.

I haven't seen many Asian horror movies though. A lot of them sound like something that I would "enjoy," so I've been meaning to sit down one day and actually go through some.

Jaws i still refuse to swim in water i cant see the bottom of.

I hate torture room gorefests. They get reactions out of me, but I feel like I was cheated. I appreciate a slow boil, and stuff with good sound work. The more blanks I have to fill in my mind about what might actually be happening, the more scared I'll probably be. There's usually movies that have scenes in places with residual violence, and when we get to the inevitable flashback scene where it all pays off with the explanation of who/what/why, it tends to let me down.

I also tend to prefer Asian stuff. The jerky, backwards way that they would film creepy things was really good until it got overused.

Things in the background that shouldn't be there, and nothing draws attention to it. You could watch thr movie 4 times before you ever notice it.

Things with reverse joints.

Creepy Aliens. Not cool aliens, like "Alien" aliens - those are awesome; no, for me it's the classic bug-eyed Gray type of extraterrestrial or something at least similar to that. Don't know why, but if I had to guess it probably goes way back into my childhood when I happened to stumble upon "Fire In The Sky" one night. The final reveal of what happened to Travis on that spaceship I still refuse to rewatch to this day.

@edgaras1103: I think I like discovery of things that cannot be stopped or killed. The slow creep of discovery in John Carpenter's The Thing when even the audience is confronted with something that may be too infectious to be stopped, or more recently in It Follows, where a character drops the follower with a gunshot...only to have it get up moments later. Anything where there's no conventional confrontation/ending that we can anticipate.

I like more realistic horror, like Jaws. But I also like creepy supernatural stuff like Shining or RIngu (The Ring). I tend not to enjoy the bloody gore stuff unless it funny like Army of Darkness.

I think mostly I like psychological and supernatural stuff that might occasionally have a jump scare but is mostly about the dread of something appearing.

Also I'd like to think not having music in film adds to the horror. Often western horror films rely on sound cues and tension building ( and it is effective) some films with no music at all feels a lot more uneasy and claustrophobic.

There are many sub genres of horror, and these days several of them aren't even traditionally scary. They often rely on things we as humans can't help but react to in a way that is related to horror, but is not really horror. Jump scares, for example, which preys on your "fight or flight" reaction. I've become mostly immune to them, and I really hate when they're abused (which is almost always in every horror film these days that don't actually know how to scare people). There's also gore horror, which can be fun, but these days is often not horror. It's just gross. However, there are many older gore horror films that actually work the way they are intended to- that are actually scary. Any Cronenberg horror film is recommendable. My favorite is Videodrome. The best thing about Cronenberg is he also gives you something to think about as his movies tend to be social commentaries (his non horror films are also good, and yes he still makes movies for those that maybe didn't know that haha).

I personally find psychological horror to be the most effective. There was a time when twists were meaningful, but ever since Sixth Sense everyone relies heavily on a twist now. So much so we've actually gotten to the point where there's a twist on a twist on a twist in movies these days. I find this funny when done, but it's also tedious a lot of the time. It's so weird how if you go back to the mid 90s and back there are very few major twists in films. Sure, there are twists, but it's not often that they are the cruxt of the film like they are now.

Beyond Sixth Sense, some really good psychological horrors (that I like) are films like Seven, Let The Right one In, Black Swan, or Identity. Just some examples. Alfred Hitchcock has many as well, although his tend to be more traditionally thrillers rather than outright horror.

I also like monster films, but not really because I generally find them scary. I guess some I do, but mostly I think they're fun to watch. Beyond the classic ones are movies like Monster Squad, IT (which genuinely was scary at the time, but isn't now), Predator, Terminator, Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, Friday the 13th, any of the Hannibal films really, Alien, Hellraiser, Mirrors, etc. There's tons more. They're a lot of fun and easy to find in comparison to movies that are actually scary. (Just an aside, but I think Mirrors is a criminally under appreciated horror film starring Kiefer Sutherland next to Flatliners).

My all time favorite is horror with social commentary, though. This can be any genre, or even any sub genre of any genre, and again Cronenberg always did the best at it (in my opinion), but there are occasionally still a few here and there. There are many you can name where the content of the film couldn't happen, but the underlying narrative is prescient or meaningful to a concept. Pan's Labyrinth, Videodrome, The Machinist, Old Boy, or even Battle Royale. It's a shame these kinds of films are so difficult to find because, for whatever reason, they're hard to make. I guess that's what makes them so meaningful every time they are found, though.

Oh, and all watch coherence. It's a fun/scary horror/sci fi/whatever. It's fun.

@babychoochoo: I never saw martyrs. Few people recommended but they like gore and torture and stuff. Could you try to sell me on this film?

Body horror, surrealism, and ghost stories tend to be the most effective at getting to me. Body horror because it's such a primal human fear, surrealism because it has no rules and literally anything can happen, and ghosts are just fucking creepy, haha.

@edgaras1103: There is definitely gore and torture in the film, but unlike something like Saw or the Hill Have Eyes, I felt like it all had, for lack of a better word, meaning. It felt like it was the natural byproduct of the story rather than the entire purpose of the movie with a shitty story just wrapped around it. That's just my opinion though.

You might want to look into It Follows. It's quite recent and has received great reviews.

I'm not much of a horror guy myself, but I'm definitely more about ambience and mood rather than just pure shock value and gore.

After playing Bloodborne I got real curious about Lovecraftian stuff and I find the ideas fascinating. The whole concept of cosmic horror, the unknown, the fact that there would be something out there so incomprehensible to the human mind that simply coming in contact with it could drive you insane. It seems like there aren't many movies using that style of the genre, which is understandable since it can be very abstract and difficult to portray properly.

I prefer silent moments of tension-building and the fear of an unknown/unseen danger, but any flick that shows something coming straight at the camera (and, by extension, my face) gives me a hell of a fright and a chill right up my spine.

A couple recent shows that have done that effectively (in one scene, each) were Mama (pretty good film) and Paranormal Activity the Marked Ones (terrible film - avoid it).

@strife777: It follows was quite alright movie and the idea was good. The end was meh. Still not really scary as a film but the idea was good.

@whitegreyblack: I really liked Mama. It was shot really beautifully and the end felt like it was dark fairy tale.

Good horror movies are so few and far between these days. Everything is fucking ghost/haunted house movies. While those CAN be done well, like the first couple of Paranormal activities and The Conjuring to an extent, they all rely on the same lame tricks. The Insidious movies are fucking terrible, both as horror and as films in general, because they are the same thing from beginning to end, not to mention incredibly unintentionally corny. This style of ghost movie needs to go away. Exorcism movies need to go away, too, because they're all complete ass (save the original The Exorcist, obviously). PG-13 horror movies can also fuck off. Drag Me To Hell is literally the only exception to the genre I've seen, and that's mainly because it's Sam Raimi.

Asian horror never did it for me, either. Granted, I've probably only seen mostly the American remakes of Asian horror films, but very little about the imagery in those movies is that effective. The "creepy Asian ghost girl with black hair covering her face" is one of the cheesiest and most overplayed tropes in the genre.

I like horror movies that have a real sense of urgency and panic, when the main characters are fighting tooth and nail to survive. I like when there is some ambiguity as to what the antagonist actually is and what it's capable of. I also like incredibly detailed and creative monster effects. If you are going to show a monster or creature or whatever, it needs to look NASTY and fucked up in unreal ways. Then it adds a psychological element to it because you look at this thing and go "What the FUCK is this? How does this even exist?!". This is why Carpenter's 'The Thing' is one of, if not the best horror movie ever made. It's got the atmosphere, the amazing and creepy synth score, the incredible monster effects, the psychological aspects, and plenty of blood and guts to satisfy the gore-hound in me. It's a perfect horror movie. Similar reasons for Evil Dead 2, though it's really more of a really black comedy. Still, I legitimately think it's one of the most ingenious pieces of filmmaking of all time.

I also love gore fests. I like the Saw films purely to watch people get ripped apart and mutilated in horrific ways. Yes, it's a cheap way to elicit a reaction, but it's still eliciting a reaction, isn't it? It's breezy and disgusting entertainment and doesn't require you to get too involved emotionally or mentally with anything. There's a time and a place for both gore films and psychological horror, and there is definitely room for both of those concepts to exist within the same film. Those tend to be my favorites.

The ghosts of little girls.

As someone who's terrified of bugs in real life, I feel like they should take the top spot, but I've never seen them done well. I get the impression that no one who's ever worked on a horror film about insects or spiders has actually had entomophobia or arachnophobia.

Paranoia, dread and mental stress. The Thing and The Shining are some of my favourite horrors. The Descent is great too, but only because the initial part of that movie could conceivable happen. Monster stuff I enjoy, but it doesn't scare me.

Gibbering squamous eldritch abominations, unreliable narration caused by mental instability, and hot, gleaming zeal.

I like slow burners and found footage for stuff that's supposed to scare me. I enjoy most of Horror subgenres though.

I just remembered. I am not a fan of white sheets coverings furniture or solid objects in films and general. Puts me uneasy. Maybe I am just easily influenced by anything that shows even a hint of being scary.

Bunnies.

Real life.

The first three quarters of Sinister were unbelievably well done in terms of what I find scary. But, like with almost all horror films, the second the "thing" that was behind everything was revealed it lost all of its tension.

Personally, I find devil possession and ghost house stuff the most unsettling. Basically, anything supernatural that plays on all those subconscious fears of hell and stuff that have remained from when I was a wee young'un. Zombie stuff etc. does nothing for me though. Basically, if I feel I could physically fight back against the "thing" then I'm not really going to find it particularly scary.

@sdoots: I love stuff like that! Can anyone suggest me films with these themes?

Would Eraserhead be considered a horror movie? Because that might be the only horror movie I've seen that I liked (though I still don't want to watch it ever again).

For some reason House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects are two of the most disturbing horror flicks for me, just something about the way the characters were written resonated in a really eerie way. Something about films that depict 'realistic' killers in that sort of way makes it all the more unnerving to watch.

This. My favorite scene in The Thing is where they have everyone lined up and are testing the blood to find out who the monster really is, the anticipation that builds up is just about perfect.

Well I did an blog about horror in movies and games, that relates to your questions, and will probably give you a new insights for your discussion. Read the comments as they are very inspired. Here's a link to the blog: http://www.giantbomb.com/profile/jeust/blog/my-experiences-with-horror-movies-and-games/111071/

The movie that scared me the most was some cheesy 80s horror flick about aliens invading. I saw it then when I was 10 years old or something. My older sister loved horror movies at the time, and knew that they scared me, so she would rent them and I'd inevitably end up watching them and being scared shitless. I remember crying because it affected me so much. The only detail I can remember about the movie itself is that I think salt was the aliens' weakness in the end, (it's not Alien Nation) which as far as alien weaknesses go is pretty lame.

I'm not entirely sure what it was about that one that scared me so much. It was very dark, and had a not-happy ending. I can see how those two things might mess with a ten year-old mind.

I really enjoy horror movies these days, but I haven't been legitimately scared by a horror movie since I first saw The Exorcist when I was a teenager. I probably owe the desensitization to my sister. Thanks sis.

Pulse (2001) really got me the first time I watched it. The imagery isn't super grotesque compared to a lot of horror out there, but that's part of the magic for me. It's so effective with so little.

Ventriloquist dolls creep me out so Dead Silence was creepy, that is a good movie that gets no love, good ghost/ventriloquist doll movie.

The lead-up to the first scare. Both in games and movies, I find that I get really skittish watching horror stuff right up until the very first major scare. At which point everything just kind of really relaxes for me.

I've got a very specific "No, absolutely not" two if you count face-hugger fill the whole screen jump scares, but that's more games. Also uh..I guess trigger warning for people who are/have family with dementia or memory/identity lose issues. Cause that's a thing after typing this I realize some people will expect me to offer.

Remember the movie District 9? Spoilers! (which I won't block because its old and its vital to read my point if you don't wanna know don't read further)

Ok, you remember what happens to the main character? How he slowly loses his mind, and body, and entire personality/identity? To me, that is like being slowly tortured to death over the course of a month, knowing you can do nothing, it will only get worse and..so on. The idea of losing my identity, or seeing characters go through this freaks me out in ways that only someone who grew up as an extremely empathetic, intelligent and emotional child seeing someone close to them go through the stages of dementia/Alzheimer could.

Its not a fear any of my friends or most people I see online express, but to me, that is the single scariest thing that can happen to you. Sure you could come up with some mythical "Well what if someone slowly removed your skin one day at a time and you knew no help was coming and.." but see, thats movie fodder-look I can one up you. What I just described happens to millions of people every moment of every day.

To loses one's self, and having no hope of salvation is perhaps the saddest most scary thing in existence, in movies or any other form, because its real.

So..District 9 is the scariest movie I've ever seen, and I didn't know it would be about that going in. So much do I dislike it I am in the 'I would literally physically assault you if you tried to force me to watch a movie with such themes' irrational side of things.

There you go. To me, that beats every single answer you could come up with to this question. Cause its a thing that happens in movies..and its utterly not fiction.

The sense of hopelessness and isolation and the lack of jump scares because fuck you. Also having characters that I dont want to die horribly helps. But I havent found horror movies scary in a long time. (I think that may be to do with found footage films taking over)

It's usually the psychological one's that creep me out.