5 Movies That Will Scare The Hell Out Of You
For those of you that read my articles consistently (hi mom!!), you know that I’m a pretty big fan of horror movies. They are my favorite genre (followed closely by sci-fi), and I will watch pretty much anything that even RESEMBLES a scary movie.
During the course of my horror movie viewing I have run into some excellent scares (The Exorcist, The Shining), some that stuck with me for a while (The Ring, Se7en), and some that were just truly horrible (which might need to be a topic of discussion all on its own!).
Generally my lists include a lot of the movies I mentioned above with a few more spattered in for good measure. The Ring is always mentioned, and more often then not I’ll try to throw in another Stephen King flick.
So this week, I decided to challenge myself and not use the movies that are generally my “scary movies”. So some obvious films may be omitted from this list, but be sure to mention them in the comments below!
And now, in no particular order – 5 movies that will scare the hell out of you:
[Warning: There might be spoilers for the movies mentioned.]
I normally don’t like to mention movies that are just gore for the sake of gore, mainly because gore being used as a scare is generally subjective. It normally doesn’t scare me (grosses me out, but doesn’t scare me), but there was something about the way Eli Roth used it in HOSTEL that made me cancel any plans (however fleeting) of backpacking through Europe REALLY quickly.
I saw Hostel in the theater with two of my best friends, and I was the only one that didn’t look away from the screen at any point. To this day I consider this one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done… just look away, Kelly! But nope, I stuck with the blood bath until the end, and holy CRAP what a ride.
The premise of Hostel is this: Three friends are backpacking through Europe when they’re kicked out of their Amsterdam hostel. They hear about this great youth hostel in this hole in the wall Slovakian city, and since they’re told that the women are all gorgeous and love American men, decide to head over to check it out.
Well, it’s a five star hostel in a one star town, which should’ve been their first clue. What starts as a nice backpacking trip ends up with the guys being tortured and killed by members of an underground group – Elite Hunting. It turns out that people are PAYING to kill these kids, and Americans get a VERY high price from the buyers… and the killers can play out an sick fantasy that they want with their prey – as long as in the end, they produce a dead body.
I found it REALLY difficult to sleep with those wonderful thoughts running through my head. Mainly because I have an overactive imagination and wouldn’t be surprised to find out that this story was based even somewhat in truth. Ew.
I find that people are generally on the fence with PARANORMAL ACTIVITY. It either scared them to tears, or they were totally fine with it (which leads me to believe that they are missing some sort of gene that allows them to be scared). I saw Paranormal Activity in a crowded theater, at midnight, before it was released nation wide. There wasn’t a seat left in the house, which I’m sure added to the suspense.
The movie has no gore, I can think of only two points where blood is even shown, and the entire movie happens in a nice house to a perfectly normal couple. Katie is effected most by the entity, and shares that she’s felt the presence since she was a little girl.
Micah, her boyfriend, decides to take matters into his own hands and despite warnings, pulls out a ouija board to communicate with the spirit. Needless to say nothing good comes of this (when does it EVER?!) and the spirit just gets more and more ticked off and more and more violent.
There are moments in Paranormal Activity when the 6’3″ guy sitting next to me covered his eyes and leaned away from the screen. There are points where the entire audience screamed as one, and there are parts where my feet seemed to have a mind of their own and flew up off of the ground without my permission.
I didn’t sleep without a light on for literally 2 weeks after Paranormal Activity. I still have problems when I’m in the house alone.
I’m talking about the first SAW, not any of the sequels that came after it. For the most part, the other installments of the franchised were HORRIBLE… but that’s an entirely different rant. The first Saw scared me on a primal level. I was CONVINCED that Jigsaw was lurking around every corner waiting to put me into one of his traps… told you I have an active imagination.
Saw is the story of Jigsaw, a serial killer that kidnaps certain kinds of people. If you’re not living your life in a way that Jigsaw sees fit, you’ll find yourself in one of his contraptions, and um.. they are not by any means good.
They generally involve some sort of self mutilation in a very, VERY poetic way in order for you to save your own life.
Cary Elwes delivers what is probably the scariest line of the movie (and one of the most iconic horror movie lines to date) “He doesn’t want us to saw through the chains. He wants us to saw through our feet.” I remember when I watched Saw, that I needed to take a break every so often, the tension was just THAT high.
While OPEN WATER made me sea sick, it also made me really, REALLY afraid to ever go scuba diving. You may think that you’d seen it all in a shark movie when you saw Jaws, but Open Water puts you IN THE WATER with the sharks, and the main characters have NOWHERe to go.
Susan and Daniel take a scuba diving trip on their vacation and are accidentally left out in the open shark infested water with NO way back to shore. Initially they think that help is coming back (because who gets left out in the water like that?!), but slowly realize that they’re stuck in the middle of the ocean for the long haul.
The sharks start bumping up against them to check to see if they’re food, a freaking thunderstorm rolls in, and to top if all off, Daniel is now bleeding in shark infested water.
The scariest part of this? Open Water is based on a true story.
The subject matter in PULSE was so scary to me because it hits so close to home. Based on a Japanese movie of the same title, the premise of Pulse is pretty much this: there is entirely too much technology in the world and it is going to be the death of the human race.
Why did it scare me? Well, as I sit here with my laptop, cell phone, and gaming system that allows me to chat with people all over the globe, we ARE living in a world where we are very connected to each other… but do we really communicate?
How often do we text someone that’s in the next room of the house and don’t even give it a second thought. Well, you will once you see how that worked out of the characters in Pulse.
So that’s that! 5 movies that will scare the hell out of you, all for different reasons. What movies to you think need to be on this list? Let me know in the comments below!
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Ok, here comes the person who says she never watches horror movies (which I kind of try to tell myself whenever I see a trailer and think “oh that might be a good one” before I realize that it is going to scare the shizz out of me) but really has watched a ton of them. I must be a masochist for all the nights I haven’t slept or went through my house switchign every light on and of again and for locking and relocking the doors. Though I do have the golden rule of never watching them at a theater.
I haven’t watched Paranormal Activity (due to the fact that I do not have a safe feeling in American houses anyways, so I don’t want to add to that paranoia) so I can’T say anything about that one. Same goes for Pulse though It sounds intriguing and I guess I’ll end up watching it (thanks kelly xD).
As for the others. I literally don’t like open water. I do swim in the ocean but only as long as I can see or touch the ocean floor. I would never ever jumo off any kind of boat to swim in the open ocean. For exactly something like what happens in the movie. It scares me to death not to know what is out there with me.
Saw is just Saw. Because though itdoes scare it gives you some kind of moral guideline. He doesn’t choose is victims randomly but with an agenda which kind of takes some of the fright away for me. I quite enjoyed watching it (which I guess should make me think about my mental health).
ANd I still vividly remember watching hostel for the first time. In a classroom in school during our free time between classes with a beamer and sound system that was supposed to be used for learning and a bunch of stupid people ^^ Not really scary. THe most scary part that day actually was that our principal could have walked in at any moment which would have gotten us suspended. But if I think about watchign that movie in a cinema or at home. No go. I live in Europe and I know some true stories that might not be exactly like that one but that resemble it close enough to not want to think about it too much.
As to what you should add? I am one of the people who are pretty sure that all our nice little genetical experiments might one day lead to the Zombiepocalypse….So everything with halfways smart and/or fast zombies init will give me a heart attack.
Really nice article 🙂 I enjoyed it ^^
Hi C T! I agree with you 100% about the zombie apocalypse! I love zombie movies, and while they scare the heck out of me, I have what I like to refer to as “Buffy Syndrome” (yeah, I know she was a vampire slayer, sue me.) and feel that I could kick zombie butt if I needed to.
Hostel scared me for the reasons that I said above and because I’m IGNORANT (if I could underline and bold that, I would) about that part of Europe. For all I know this place DOES exist… not saying that it couldn’t in America, but the move took place in Europe, so you catch my drift.
Open Water is terrifying because it IS a true story and I can’t even describe the fear that it puts in the pit of my stomach at the thought of being stranded in the middle of the ocean with NO idea where land is.
Pulse is GREAT. While it’s a horror movie, it’s not a horror movie in the sense that the other films are horror movies. It’s totally one that will make you think. And unplug your computer for a while.
Thank you so much for commenting!
I just remembered Texas Chainsaw Massacre….THat one is the reason why I will never ever leave a highway in the middle of nowhere in America and why I think that small Americ towns are creepy (sorry Americans)…..Just thinking that someone like that might be out there (and I a more than sure that there IS more than one person like that out there) makes me loose sleep for days.
About the zombies. Have you watched “the walking Dead” yet? I watched the pilot and while I really really liked it I have not yet been able to watch the second episode because it freaked me out beyond what I thought is possible. I think without the sometimes funny bits in it I wouldn’t even have made it through the first 30 minutes of the pilot.
I’ve only seen Paranormal Activity and Pulse from your list, and they absolutely scared the hell out of me. The others–well, frankly, I have a hard enough time with the descriptions of Saw and Hostel. As for Open Water–there would have to be a full-on blizzard and ice storm in hell before I even try watching that. I’m not sure I’d ever go back in the water if I did. 😉
My tolerance is low, so my list would be way too long, but one that is at the top is Pet Sematary. “Come play with me daddy! First I played with Jud, and then I played with mommy. We had an awful good time. Now I want to play with you.” Such a well-done movie.
LOL! Yeah, Open Water MESSED me up. And I live in Wisconsin, no where NEAR an ocean, but now even looking at lake michigan is scary for me. I don’t think it helped that it’s based on a true story. Yikes.
Saw and Hostel were great movies – if you like to be scared. If you don’t like to be terrified and grossed out (which I’m not really a fan of, but unfortunately it comes with the horror movie territory) then they are NOT movies that you’d want to partake in…lol.
Pet Sematary is an AMAZING movie. The quote that you posted gave me the chills… I think it’s scary because I can completely understand WHY he buries his son in that place. And well, killer children are always creepy. Throw in a scalpel and them hiding under a bed? FORGET IT.
The Ring…that scene with the girl coming up out of the well…still gives me goosebumps. That and the oldie but goodie Nightmare on Elm Street movies in the 80’s when i was a young kid…Sleeping was scary for a while after watching the first couple of Nightmare movies.
Hi JKay! The Ring is one that is ALWAYS on my lists of scary movies, moments, etc. That scene when Samara crawls out of the TV is terrifying.
I just… I can’t even handle this list.
I wept like a tiny child at Open Water. It was LITERALLY (I do not use this word if I do not mean it) my worst fear come to the big screen. I’ve been terrified of sharks ever since I can remember but this movie brought something new to the table (something no shark movie ever did after JAWS) – it added an element of suspense that wasn’t JUST because of the sharks. Losing all hope of rescue and wondering if you’ll die by drowning or by shark bite or starvation or dehydration or exposure… I have goose bumps just writing this.
I’ve said it a million times so once more won’t hurt: I didn’t sleep soundly for 6 weeks after seeing Paranormal Activity. I’ve rewatched it several times since (Why do I do it to myself, you ask? I answer: I HAVE NO IDEA!) and it STILL scares the bejeebers out of me.
Pulse scared me because I saw a lot of myself in the main characters. They were doing things I do on a daily basis and dying because of it.