Last night I caught Bravo’s “30 Even Scarier Movie Moments” from 2006. I wanted to list them here, then get everone’s thoughts on this, because i had a small problem with a few, but overall was pretty satified in what they had. And I was really impressed with the people they got to talk on it.
30. The Grudge (remake)
29. Cape Fear (remake)
28. Cabin Fever
27. Slither
26. Play Misty for Me
25. Red Eye
24. The Hand That Rocks the Cradle
23. Manhunter
22. American Psycho
21. Dead Alive
20. 2001: A Space Odyssey
19. Fear
18. Army of Darkness
17. Christine
16. Saw II
15. The Exorcism of Emily Rose
14. Scanners
13. Dawn of the Dead (remake
12. Wolf Creek
11. The Stepford Wives (original)
10. Children of the Corn
9. Open Water
8. Land of the Dead
7. Devil’s Rejects
6. Vertigo
5. Oldboy
4. Videodrome
3. Saw
2. A Clockwork Orange
1. Hostel
I would go into describing the scenes they were saying were scary, but honestly, a lot of the scenes they were talking about weren’t really the scariest scene in the movie. An example: “The Grudge” remake scene they use is when Buffy is in the shower, and she is washing her hair, and feels the hand on the back of her head. Scary, sure, but not as creepy as several other scenes in that movie. Besides, even though it is highlighting one scene from each movie, they show several on each movie, so it was kind of hard to figure out exctly which “scarier movie moment” they were talking about.
Now, my only comment, and I know this is going to pull some flack, is I don’t think Hostel should have been so high on this list. Yes, it was a good movie, yes, it was very shocking. It was definitely tense, in my opinion. But the first time I watched “A Clockwork Orange”, I actually had nightmares about it.
Also, I sort of felt like a lot of these older movies were added in just to make sure they were covering the entire span of horror movies.
All in all, though, other than changing up the order a bit, I thought this was a pretty decent list. I have seen every one of these movies (and own a lot of them), and can agree that they aren’t bad.
What do you guys think about this list? Would you change anything on it? What order do you think?
The “torture” horror movies have never really been scary to me. The dinner scene in TCM (original) should be on there. Excorcism of ER I found very boring and not scary in the least. AOD wasn’t meant to be scary and doesn’t belong. I really have to wonder who puts these things together that thinks some of these are even horror movies but if you really want to get a reaction out of people putting together a Top X list is the way to do it.
That is very true, and that is why I brought the list here. I have always seen that top X lists seem to spark a lot of debate and conversation about whatever is on the list.
I think with Emily Rose, if you went into it thinking it was a court room drama, and not a horror movie (which I did), then it wasn’t terrible. Most of the stuff they were talking about on that movie that was so scary, really was more behind the scenes. The director was talking about how the actress who played Emily Rose was able to contort her body in weird positions, and they thought that was creepy, and it also saved them on making dummies of her in weird positions. They also talked about how the one scene where she is in the barn, and having a rage at the priest who is trying to help her, that the director was so impressed by her acting because people were really getting scared of her on set, she was doing such a great job. He even joked about how he thought she must really be possessed because of her raging at the priest. I dunno…again, a girl screaming at an old guy….not all that shocking.
Cape Fear, I think, deserved to be much higher on the list. That is certainly one of my more liked DeNiro films. And I was also happy to see Manhunter on the list, and not Red Dragon. Maybe I am too old school, but I always liked Manhunter better. No offense, Ed Norton, loved you in Fight Club. :-)
I saw it when they first aired it back around Halloween, and I’ll repeat what I said then: they were really reaching. The Hand That Rocks the Cradle? That barely registered as a suspense thriller, let alone scary. It was laughably, almost to the level of Mommie Dearest bad. And while movies like 2001 and Vertigo have some tense moments, I wouldn’t classify them as scary. I will agree with the inclusion of A Clockwork Orange, though it should have ranked above Hostel. There’s a difference between gory and scary.
I agree with those that the list is stupid but this was the episode that they tacked onto the original special “Scariest Movie Moments”. That show was actually prettty good. The “30 Even Scarier Movie Moments” seemed thrown together and they were just trying to fill up air time with current movies. I think that many would agree with the original show’s list.
What a pile of shit list. What were the people thinking who wrote this!?! What in ‘Dead Alive’ is supposed to be scary? When the zombie priest is smurfin the zombie nurse? Or when the claymation rat monkey bites Lionel’s mother’s hand and she stops the shit out of it? Laugh out loud funny, the entire movie. And for that matter, what is supposed to be scary about ‘Oldboy’? I love both of those movies immensely, but absolutely nothing scary about them.
What a pile of shit list. What were the people thinking who wrote this!?! What in ‘Dead Alive’ is supposed to be scary? When the zombie priest is smurfin the zombie nurse? Or when the claymation rat monkey bites Lionel’s mother’s hand and she stops the shit out of it? Laugh out loud funny, the entire movie. And for that matter, what is supposed to be scary about ‘Oldboy’? I love both of those movies immensely, but absolutely nothing scary about them.
Yeah, for some reason, when they are showing the scenes that are the “scarier moments” they are talking about, they seemed to get “scary” mixed up with “gory” or sometimes “disturbing”.
For Dead Alive they showed the scene where the mom was falling apart while they were eating lunch, and her ear falls in her pudding. And she pops the boil in the other guys desert. Then they showed the lawnmower scene. I agree, that movie was not scary, and they even said in the interviews that Peter Jackson was a master of making movies so over the top that they were entertainingly funny. So, obviously they confused scary with gory.
Then in Oldboy, they completely gave away the entire ending of the movie, and showed the teeth pulling and the tongue cutting. Then they talked about how disturbing the ending was, and what a twist it was. I was sort of surprised that they gave away the ending, but then again, they gave away the ending of Hostel as well, and that was their number one. So there they confused twist ending and slight gore with scary.
Man, the more I think about this list, the more I am mad at it. You guys are bringing me around.
And when I searched on the web about this list, I found a lot of people raving about how good of a show it was, and that they have only seen a few of the movies, and want to make it a goal to see all of them. I was shocked, since i have seen every one of them, as I am sure most people on these forums have. My point is, I think if you are not a fan of horror, like we are, then I think the list is perfect, because you are probably going to think that Hostel was a really scary, gross movie, and The Hand That Rocks the Cradle was really creepy and suspenseful. For us jaded horror-philes out here, it was incomplete, misdirected, and slightly off. I have seen all the movies on the list, however, and I did like most of then (yes, even the grudge remake). There, I said it. :-)
Saw 2 was one of the dumbest movies I’ve ever seen. It has no place on this list. I don’t see how anything in it is scary when you can’t care about a single character and barring that the fact that it lacks any originality when it comes to its kills. People always tell me they like this and when I say “Why? What about it did you like?” They never have a real answer. It’s always like, “Well, it had some okay stuff.”
Really? Like what? The crap-ass dialogue? The way the cops can’t respond to each other without screaming at each other and arguing? The horrible acting of everyone in the film? The barely held-together plot? The twist that seemed tacked on just to keep the franchise going? Am I asking too much of a horror movie? And sometimes I get the response, “Well it wasn’t meant to be taken seriously.”
Okay, I can accept that some horror movies are made with the knowledge that it is going to be campy or over the top or whatever but if you don’t want your horror movie taken seriously then the movie itself shouldn’t take itself seriously. Saw 2 was dead serious in its execution. It just blew balls. Now, if you liked Saw 2, that’s cool but please give me something concrete that makes it worth liking. Please. I want to understand why people like it.
I loved the first Saw movie by the way. Well, maybe loved is a bit extreme but I liked it a lot.
What a pile of shit list. What were the people thinking who wrote this!?! What in ‘Dead Alive’ is supposed to be scary? When the zombie priest is smurfin the zombie nurse? Or when the claymation rat monkey bites Lionel’s mother’s hand and she stops the shit out of it? Laugh out loud funny, the entire movie. And for that matter, what is supposed to be scary about ‘Oldboy’? I love both of those movies immensely, but absolutely nothing scary about them.
Then in Oldboy, they completely gave away the entire ending of the movie, and showed the teeth pulling and the tongue cutting. Then they talked about how disturbing the ending was, and what a twist it was. I was sort of surprised that they gave away the ending, but then again, they gave away the ending of Hostel as well, and that was their number one. So there they confused twist ending and slight gore with scary.
I smurfin hate when movie lists/reviews/whatever give away the endings or twists to movies that you want to see or they interest you in seeing. It’s like ‘the movie was great, and here’s the main plot twist and how it ends’. Boo-urns.
Ok Kelly, I’ll tell you why Saw 2 is worth liking. The kills were allright. Pretty intersting stuff. It had me wrapped up in the story. I wanted to know what the plot twist was going to be. I wanted to know what would happen next in the saga. Partialy it was because the first Saw was so good. I was waiting for more mind bending plot twists. There was nothing mind bending. But it was a damn good plot twist I think. 10 times more intersting than the Shamalan Sht. Yet, it was hinted at. The acting wasn’t bad at all. Nothing about the movie seemed too over the top. The acting was just were it needed to be. Was it scary? no. Not really. However, the first two movies don’t have the strength in the gore. They have the strength in the twists and turns in the story, and Saw 2 was no exception.
Okay, well at least you have a concrete reason. The twist was pretty twisty. I still disagree about the acting but at least you gave me a reason why someone would put up with that movie. Thanks for helping me to end the horrifying confusion I felt.
Not true. The following were at least kinda good and on the scary/disturbing side
Saw II
Scanners
Dawn of the Dead (remake
Devil’s Rejects
Videodrome
Saw
A Clockwork Orange
Hostel
