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What, in your opinion, is the scariest film ever made?

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KharBevNor:
My vote, hands down, goes to Suspiria.



For the uninitiated, Suspiria is probably italian director Dario Argentos masterpiece (though he's made other excellent films: Tenebrae, Profondo Rosso and Phenomena are my personal favourites). Though some of its effects have dated by now (I'm mainly thinking of the bat), it still looks, sounds and feels like no other film on earth. Literally from the first seconds of the credits the soundtrack, by italian prog rock band Goblin, has you on edge. There are a few seconds of normality as the heroin walks throught the airport, and then, as the doors slide open (with a masterful shot that makes it look like a knife thrust) there is absolutely no doubt until the very end of the film that horrible, horrible things are going to happen and that there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop them. Everything about it, the soundtrack, the old-fashioned technicolour, the cinematography, the sets, every single element is perfectly calculated to instill dread, discomfort and all that jazz. As with all the great horror films, it's the tension that really makes it good, rather than the 'shock' reveals that most horror films nowadays seem to rely on, though it also has some of the most shocking moments in film when that tension breaks (two words: RAZOR WIRE). I can't say anymore without ruining it for those who haven't seen it, but man, watch this film.

What are your scariest horror films? Not best, I want to add: I don't think Suspiria is the best horror film ever made, mainly because of its weak ending. That honour goes to Alien (which is also, in my opinion, the third scariest film ever made, right behind Wes Craven's The Last House on the Left, a film which makes modern entries like Hostel look like a teddy bears picnic.) We can also, maybe, talk about why most horror movies nowadays suck balls on both scales of rating horror films (they are neither scary, nor do they work as insane schlockfests, partly I think because they try to be both and fail abysmally). I also think it has something to do, wierdly enough, with the film literacy of film-makers nowadays. There's too many homages and references (not counting the seemingly endless torrent of remakes). People aren't so much looking into the roots of what really makes good horror: Argentos main sources, for example, were his childhood nightmares (In one interview I saw with him he recalls having to walk down a long corridor with many doors to get to his room as a young child, which scared him shitless, and how that eventually resurfaced in, for example, Suspiria) and research into mutants, insects and other disqueting things.

Anyway, I just wanted to babble. Shoot away people.

rasufelle:
My top three scariest horror films would probably be, umm...

-Night of the Living Dead
-House
-The Fly

Night of the Living Dead wins out, in my opinion, for several reasons, but the most pressing has to be that George Romero did back in the day something that hasn't been done since: he scared the bejeezus out of everyone who saw the original B&W film with almost no special effects, and for the type of movie an almost inconceivably minimal amount of blood.  I had nightmares for WEEKS after seeing the movie the first time, and I still can't watch it alone.

House, admittedly, gets such a high ranking mostly on the basis that it was the first scary movie I ever sat down and watched, and it really freaked me out.  Then again, I was eight.

TheBoredOne:
My personal picks are The Haunting (the old version, not the catherine zeta jones version) and the Grudge, when it was in theaters.

I saw the Grudge in theaters twice and it scared the crap out of my twice.
DVD, not so much.

Oh man, I love a good ghost story. To hell with the special effects. I like to be spooked.

Emaline:
I liked Ju-on better than The Grudge. The first night I watched it, it scared the shit out of me, which could have been because I had not slept, and it was roughly around 4am when I was watching it, and at one point, we inexplicably lost electricity. Scared me shitless.


I watched again later that we and it wasn't to scary.

Jimmy the Squid:
I think it's Nightmare on Elm Street 3. Simply because I have an ear thing due to the complications in surgeries I've had on my ear. That scene where freddy kills the deaf kid still makes me shudder. I'm not really into horror movies though and I am aware that most people don't consider any of the Nightmare on Elm Street films as part of the horror genre past the first movie. Still, I now have a fear of Freddy Krugar.

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