In your opinion, scariest horror movie?

[C C]

In terms of serial killer series and films, Netflix seems to be obsessed with this genre. The plots tend to circle around the criminal investigations of various serial killers who have either died, or are incarcerated now, and they can be somewhat interesting. But, there are also those that feel the need to go into excruciating details about how they torture their victims. To me, these series/movies aren’t as much horrific as they are nauseating and grotesque. Thankfully, there are audience/critic reviews that help those of us who dislike that kind of thing, stay far away.

Who finds this entertaining? -_-

Disgustingly graphic content can ruin an otherwise exciting storyline, in my opinion.

Due to the more realistic FX and relaxing of standards, though, almost any horror movie made since the 1980s (or even late '70s) is explicitly graphic and violent, in terms of how they are well, well beyond what audiences were protected from in earlier decades.

I actually found TV's "Killing Eve" to be more initially unsettling (arguably sans the excessive blood/gore), simply due to the lackadaisical way the chipper villain co-protagonist was causally killing "average" people -- along with how the reviewers and part of the audience just set that aside to be fascinated over the "complicated" relationship between Sandra Oh's and Jodie Comer's characters. (It took the combination of both to tilt a quizzical eyebrow.)

But those kinds of brutal antiheroes pervade modern television and cinema, with respect to even dark comedies. We seem to just selectively (or even randomly?) choose certain things to be disgusted by while being immunized to the horde of similar circumstances routinely transpiring in even non-horror dramas.

It seems to be the psychologically evil nature of serial killer movies & shows -- the fact of their monsters not being supernatural (usually), that they're real or potentially real possibilities -- that makes them disturbing to people. Though, again, in that subgenre the veneer of their "scariness" and the plot scenarios for them have been exhausted. They've become as boring or ineffective as anything else in horror -- if one was literally beforehand only watching out of a desire to be frightened.

That's why the clever, unorthodox ones or those riddled with soap-opera elements, or action-adventure, etc are about all I can [voluntarily] sample these days. (Apart from the "historical" ones I get accused of being out of the loop on: "I don't care, woman, we're going to finally watch those Italian cannibal films tonight. It's time to crawl out from underneath the rock.").

Speaking of "soap-opera horror", though, I remember it becoming a late ordeal to trudge through a binge-watching of True Blood (I couldn't stand irritating Sookie Stackhouse or probably any other character by the end). And in terms of "horror westerns", I never could get past the first couple of episodes of the second season of "Wynonna Earp". Admittedly, though, that was probably due to all the political preaching in the subtext (which can be nauseating in its own way).

 

[DaveC426913]

I'd like to suggest, moving forward, that the titles of any films in the body of one's text be bolded.

C C: You've mentioned Killing Eve and Wynonna Earp (and prolly some others) that are lost in the body of the text.

 

[C C]

I'd like to suggest, moving forward, that the titles of any films in the body of one's text be bolded.

C C: You've mentioned Killing Eve and Wynonna Earp (and prolly some others) that are lost in the body of the text.

I'm wandering off too much into television, too. A handful of A24 films are probably the only horror movies I've even seen this year, and those belatedly -- months or years after they were released (Maude, The Witch, The Hole in the Ground, etc).

_

 

[wegs]

Due to the more realistic FX and relaxing of standards, though, almost any horror movie made since the 1980s (or even late '70s) is explicitly graphic and violent, in terms of how they are well, well beyond what audiences were protected from in earlier decades.

I actually found TV's "Killing Eve" to be more initially unsettling (arguably sans the excessive blood/gore), simply due to the lackadaisical way the chipper villain co-protagonist was causally killing "average" people -- along with how the reviewers and part of the audience just set that aside to be fascinated over the "complicated" relationship between Sandra Oh's and Jodie Comer's characters. (It took the combination of both to tilt a quizzical eyebrow.)

But those kinds of brutal antiheroes pervade modern television and cinema, with respect to even dark comedies. We seem to just selectively (or even randomly?) choose certain things to be disgusted by while being immunized to the horde of similar circumstances routinely transpiring in even non-horror dramas.

That's a great assessment of Killing Eve. Interesting too that you found it ''unsettling'' in the beginning. I didn't watch the last season, because it just became too...comedic? Predictable? That said, we struggle in society in my opinion, to imagine attractive people as serial killers, and ''Villanelle'' looks like a wholesome, kind soul until you get to know her. Same with the Netflix series, You, in that ''Joe,'' the main character, is somewhat attractive and awkwardly charming. It was entertaining, but I wasn't afraid. The book (I haven't yet read it) by the same name isn't anything like the series; Joe is dark and sinister, like you'd imagine a serial killer to be. In both You, and Killing Eve, I found myself cheering on the villains, or justifying their behaviors, as the viewer. Maybe that is more of the point, to see if an audience is able to empathize with a serial killer. But, it's only because they create these characters to be likeable.

Spoiler

My problem with Killing Eve is that there was so much more to Villanelle, than they wanted to get into. If the writers had fleshed out her backstory a bit more (like the writers of Dexter), it would have been more realistic. She almost came across cartoonish after a while, like she never dies. Even Dexter died eventually, and that’s important to the believability of the story, for writers to take that risk, imo.

It seems to be the psychologically evil nature of serial killer movies & shows -- the fact of their monsters not being supernatural (usually), that they're real or potentially real possibilities -- that makes them disturbing to people. Though, again, in that subgenre the veneer of their "scariness" and the plot scenarios for them have been exhausted. They've become as boring or ineffective as anything else in horror -- if one was literally beforehand only watching out of a desire to be frightened.

Agree, and in a sense, the writers of these series seem to be ''glamorizing'' psychotic behaviors and serial killers. But, what You and Killing Eve do well, is show us who these serial killers are when they're not ...killing. Many horror movies fail in that they create these wooden characters that have no other purpose in life than jump scaring and killing their victims, so it's not all that realistic.

That's why the clever, unorthodox ones or those riddled with soap-opera elements, or action-adventure, etc are about all I can sample these days. (Apart from the "historical" ones I get accused of being out of the loop on: "I don't care, woman, we're going to finally watch those Italian cannibal films tonight. It's time to crawl out from underneath the rock.").

Speaking of "soap-opera horror", though, I remember it becoming a late ordeal to trudge through a binge-watching of True Blood (I couldn't stand irritating Sookie Stackhouse or probably any other character by the end). And in terms of "horror westerns", I never could get past the first couple of episodes of the second season of "Wynonna Earp". Admittedly, though, that was probably due to all the political preaching in the subtext (which can be nauseating in its own way).

I haven't seen True Blood - not sure why, but most vampire storylines are soap-opera-ish. Vampire Diaries is also this way, although I did find myself begrudgingly ''shipping'' Elena and Damon.

 

[wegs]

I'd like to suggest, moving forward, that the titles of any films in the body of one's text be bolded.

C C: You've mentioned Killing Eve and Wynonna Earp (and prolly some others) that are lost in the body of the text.

Good idea!

 

[Seattle]

You might like "Inheritance", it's on Netflix at the moment.

 

[wegs]

I'll have to check it out. ^

A few years ago, I watched the movie, Ratter, which falls under the horror/thriller genre. The plot is about a graduate student who unbeknownst to her, is being stalked by a guy who has figured out how to hack into her computer, and spy on her. It was frightening in the sense that this could actually happen, but the movie itself, the pacing of it, was kind of slow in parts.

Why is the movie called ratter?

The title is a derivation of the acronym for a type of malware known as a Remote Access Trojan, an unwittingly downloaded program that provides a hacker with undetected access to a user's Internet-enabled device.

 

[C C]

That's a great assessment of Killing Eve. Interesting too that you found it ''unsettling'' in the beginning. I didn't watch the last season, because it just became too...comedic? Predictable? [...]

I didn't, either. After almost two years, I couldn't remember enough of what happened in season three to even care how the series concluded.

[...] in a sense, the writers of these series seem to be ''glamorizing'' psychotic behaviors and serial killers. But, what You and Killing Eve do well, is show us who these serial killers are when they're not ...killing. Many horror movies fail in that they create these wooden characters that have no other purpose in life than jump scaring and killing their victims, so it's not all that realistic.

It's what "The Sopranos" started, that has spilled into the rest of the television genres, like horror. And maybe some of the earlier characters and narratives of "Oz" laid the groundwork for Tony Soprano to be possible.

But soap opera is the ancestor of it all. Daytime programming was the only place on television of the 1960s where one would find characters that were allowed to have multiple sides to themselves, grow or change in personality, and not rewind to the same old setting every week.

People laugh at some of the ridiculous aspects and mishaps of "Dark Shadows", but Barnabas Collins was the most complex supernatural villain that horror had ever had on television up until then, and maybe even cinema. He actually became likeable and honorable as time went on, sought redemption for what he'd done in the past. But also had plenty of backsliding.

If Barnabas had instead debuted on nighttime television of that era, he would have been stuck in his original template, never evolving. What's more, the code of primetime would have demanded that he be punished in either a lengthy or fatal manner for his past misdeeds, especially before any reform of personality could be official. In effect, Barnabas in the 1960s was allowed to get away with the retrospective equivalent of what Tony Soprano did in the late '90s and 2000s on HBO (sans the rehabilitation). Which was unheard of back then.

Even Angelique, his repeated nemesis, the witch who originally cursed Barnabas to be a vampire in the late 18th-century, changed toward the end of the series.

The soaps in general were campy as all get out, but If one compared the predictable, rigid monotony of what was transpiring on evening programming with the flexible storylines of the afternoon programming, the difference was striking -- and a precursor to today.

 

[Beer w/Straw]

In mention about horror movies being inspired by real events, I'm not going to assume Jeffrey Dahmer didn't exist but, for Texas Chainsaw Massacre, I stumbled upon this:

The Youtube could be scarier than the movie itself.



Now, if ALIENS was inspired by some real events...

 

[Michael 345]

Now, if ALIENS was inspired by some real events...

Aliens by real events ??? Na they just messing with Magical Realist

 

[Watcher]

I'm not really into horror movies but the only one that I've seen that was actually "scary" at the time was "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre".

This was a long time day when I was in college and a friend and I went to see that in the theater and the consensus that it was scary. It was so scary that when we went back to the dorm and told our friends about it they all wanted to go so much that they wanted us to go back with them and they paid for our ticket price. They agreed that it was scary as well.

Otherwise, I generally can anticipate what is going to happen and it's just not that scary and that's not the genre of movies that I enjoy anyway. This seemed "different" IMO.

Agree that Texas Chainsaw was a truly frightening movie. It wasn't because of the violence or gore. It was the shock of seeing how deviant, cruel and depraved human beings can become.

For a supernatural horror movie, I'd pick The Shining. Watching Jack Nicholson descend into madness is unforgettable.

For a strange/eerie film, have a look at Herk Harvey's Carnival of Souls. It might make you think twice about your beliefs about existence.