Happy Monday, my horror homies! We only have five more weekdays to spend as regular people, once the clock strikes twelve on Friday we will be Horrorthonners! Rraarr!Today I want you to think of at least one moment in a movie that scared the bejesus out of you so much it's still kind of creeping you out today. By this point in our Horrorthon careers I know we've accumulated a couple of those, but what I'm really hoping for is a story from your childhood -- one of those formative scares, the kind that echo in your skull and shape your taste in movies for years to come (or so I assume, since you're sitting here reading this).
Having said that, Countdown to Horrorthon contest rules still apply: you enter, you win. I'm not here to slap down restrictions; I'm here to encourage participation. It need not be kid's stuff, let's hear what you got!
16 comments:
The creepy thing about the movie I'm about to mention is I don't know what it's called or how to find it again. I can only hope for a weird coincidence or a lucky break in my research (or one of you sick basterds finding it).
One afternoon watching Creature Double Feature my sister and I watched the story we would call "The Gritted Teeth Lady." It was a short tale, so it was probably part of an anthology movie, and it was possibly a Hammer title. From what I can piece together from memory it looked like it was made in the 60's.
The story involved a houseful of respectable Brits who find the body of a dead woman, her face contorted into a hideous rictus of anger: eyes open, lips pulled back and teeth furiously clenched. One member of the house steals a ring from the corpse's finger and also shuts the dead woman's eyes -- only to see moments later that they've snapped back open when she wasn't looking.
As the night wears on the ring-stealer is continually frightened by the Gritted Teeth Lady in various subtle ways that I can't remember, but I recall the climax vividly. Ring-stealer moves aside a curtain and there's The Gritted Teeth Lady standing upright, arms outstretched, moving towards the bitch who took her ring, but -- and this is the kicker -- she's not walking but rather steadily rolling on some unseen wheeled platform. Eeek!
I don't know why that particular detail is so awful; probably because it preserves the immobility of the corpse even as she's clearly up and about. (I can think of two other times that effect's been used, but in case either moment shows up in today's comments I'll keep them to myself for now.)
Do you remember the Gritted Teeth Lady, DCD? For a while afterwards we would confide in each other if we'd accidentally thought about her. Even though we were usually bickering siblings, hearing "I was thinking about the Gritted Teeth Lady!" would elicit nothing but sympathy. Scary dead bitch.
Gotta go with Zelda from Pet Sematary.
i saw it in theaters with my mom and dad, both of whom complained about what i felt were niggling details, like the lack of a fence around the property. i read a review, i think Leonard Maltin, that panned the flick for having "contempt for its audience."
i'm still not totally sure what that means, and i still don't think that logic needs to get in the way of something being scary.
Zelda appears three times in the film. once in a flashback, as Rachel is telling Louis about being alone with her sister the night Zelda died. she shows up in a dream rachel has after gage gets hit by the truck. then later as Rachel is stepping into Judd's bedroom.
Zelda is hunched grotesquely in the far corner of the bedroom, she rises and floats across the room right up in Rachel's face screaming at her that she'll twist Rachel's back so she'll "never get out of bed again."
i did a blog post about it a while back, one which i don't feel like excavating from the archives, but here's all three scenes in digital vintage scratch effect and sepia tone.
i'd forgotten all about the dream, which now strikes me as the worst of the three.
alluring as i found horror movies, i also had a sick, sad dread of death as a small child. and there's so much death going on in Pet Sematary, particularly familial death.
that dream sequence packs a wallop for many reasons. it's right after gage is dead, when sleep brings no kind of relief from the pain of a dead child. also, it brings back an old tear in the fabric of rachel's psyche, and rolls it together with the thing that replaced it as the worst moment of rachel's life.
typing this up, i've just watched the vid three times, and it's making my skin crawl.
I would have to go with Salem’s Lot (1979). I remember that I was watching TV with my babysitter Salem’s Lot was starting. It was the second night of this mini-series (I hadn’t seen it the first night) and as they were recapping the previous night’s events there was a shot of the dead brother hovering outside of his living brother’s window, telling him to let him in. That’s all I needed to see. I promptly went to bed but for weeks thereafter I refused to go into my bedroom at night unless the shade was drawn shut.
The only other time I was this freaked out by a movie image was when I watched The Ring. For the entire film the audience is left wondering how Samara is murdering her victims after they watch the dreaded videotape. During the climax we finally learn how and it’s a chiller. Watching Sumara crawl out of the well with those jerky movements still bothers me. Even as I type this the hair is standing on my arms.
As I am flipping through the horror memories of my mind, I can see little spurts of things that freaked me out as a kid. The Zuni doll in Trilogy of Terror, the zombies in Night of the Living Dead, the Ghost in The Legend of Hell House, that damn hand popping out of the ground in Carrie to name a few. However, the one scene that still gets my hackles up isn't from a movie at all, it's from an episode of The Night Stalker. Carl Kolchak is contending with a nasty zombie, not your average Romeroesque zombie, but a big nasty voodoo zombie. It's the climax of the show when Carl has researched what he has to do. He must go to the zombies grave, in the middle of the night of course, fill it's mouth with salt and sew the lips shut, ever so gently as to not wake the creature who would kill him instantly. Yikes! This was such a tense moment, I think I was actually sweating.
Octo, I clearly remember your gritted teeth lady, I just don't remember what the film was.
i didn't watch horror films as a kid, in fact i avoided them (yes, even as a child i was a biddy).
2 favorite (and still chilling) scares: when clarice starling sees the moth in jame gumb's house, and the samara/tv screen visual.
I watched "The Thing" when I was 11 or 12. I don't know if it was because they would always play it at midnight or not, but when it was in the middle of taking over the husky's body, it freaked me the fuck out. Though today, I love movies that freaked me out as a kid, I still won't go swimming in the ocean because of Jaws! I saw that when I was 6. I also "accidentally" saw Fulci's Zombie at a drive-in when I was being babysat when I was 6...hmmm.
The original Nightmare on Elm St. terrified me, particularly the scene when Freddy's arms were stretched out and his claws scraped against the pipes.
The original Texas Chainsaw Massacre got to me too. The guy twitching on the ground after getting hit with a mallet scared and disturbed me.
As a teenager the scene from Twin Peaks when Bob climbs over the couch scarred me for life. I remember having to walk the dog after the episode ended and looking over my shoulder the entire time.
The only movie scene that comes to mind, that damn Zuni doll in Trilogy of Terror. Is there a kid that wasn't scared by that thing?
The fire hydrant scene from Irreversible.
Spiderkev, I'd love to know how they did that, it looks so friggin' real.
I hate to admit that I do not remember The Gritted Teeth Lady, Octo. Damn my memory! *shaking fist*
A movie that stayed with me from being a kid is one that I revisited in 2009 - Let's Scare Jessica to Death. As was mentioned then, I watched that movie originally when I was in about 4th grade - with my best friend at the time - Jessica Neal. The scene where the red-head comes out of the lake in a long white gown freaked the HELL out of me!! I have remembered that scene vividly for years.
I realized while thinking about this that I must not have watched too much horror as a kid or teenager - or it's just my crappy memory again. I remember more adult scares: The Ring scene where she comes out of the TV (as has been mentioned already). The scene in Paranormal Activity where she stands next to the bed for hours still makes me shudder.
And, although not a movie I've seen - another death I thought of while pondering this task today was from the book, The Legacy, which I read as a teenager. It was made into a movie in the 70's and both Octo and JSP reviewed it in the past. It's the pool death. That scene freaked me out so badly as a kid that I used to fear that it would happen to me as I was swimming in our pool. As far as memorable deaths, it made a deep impression on me. Yikes.
As an adult, Ju-on and Ju-on2 both crawl under my skin, they have such a freakish aire about them. I dread when Tony puts one of those on to go to sleep to, he did it with the second one a few nights ago.I ended up having a nightmare.
What? Sputter! Who puts Ju-on on the TV so they can go to sleep to it? What the hell goes on in that house?
I'm pleased to see the dreaded Zuni warrior come up so often. That little bastard. I also have strong personal memories of being freaked by The Thing, The Ring, the original Elm Street, and Bob crawling over the couch.
I saw the scene JPX describes in Salem's Lot in a commercial and it was enough to freak me out.
How about Regan crab walking on the stairs in the Exorcist. There is something so unnerving about seeing the human body bending abnormally. Like the aliens in the Arrival.
dear lord, Danny let me in...Salem's Lot hands down
Post a Comment