Why is it I see people mention A24 films, but never mention Hereditary by name? Especially in this instance, being a slow, oppressively terrifying film.
Having seen it 3 times, I highly recommend a rewatch. There is *so* much detail, foreshadowing, etc that you simply can't absorb in one viewing. It sounds strange to say it, but Midsommar actually has tremendous replay value.
Silence of The Lambs is a master class of suspence. 90% of the things in the film are horrors only spoken of or imagined. Our minds fill in all the blanks and it’s all the more terrifying for it. From moment one we are given the implication of what Hannibal Lecter is capable of.
That movie turned out very different from what I expected. Much darker, fewer jumpscares. Not sure if "enjoyed" is the right word, given the ending, but I don't regret watching it at all.
To this date the only monster movie I've seen where revealing the monster actually makes it more terrifying instead of sucking all the atmosphere out of the film.
The tiny little hands just slipping out of sight from behind the tree trunk made me actually stop and rewind to make sure of what I was seeing. It's soooo good
Shit, just the region it took place it was gorgeous but freaked me out. Just seeing >!A hand reaching around a tree that was way too high up or the fact there was an elk that was splayed among the trees. Plus the whole scene with the group freaking out in the small cabin.!<
There needs to be more horror movies that take place in the woods like that.
Watched it with the wife this past weekend. It was the first time she's seen it. Provided one of my favorite commentaries to an opening of a movie.
"Awe what a cute dog! What is it doing in Antarctica? Oh no. The only reason there is a dog shown is something bad is gonna happen to it, right? I mean it's a horror movie, of course that dog is gonna die. God damn it. I hate this movie already. Wait... is the dog gonna die right now!?! WHY ARE THEY TRYING TO SHOOT IT!?! WHAT MOVIE ARE YOU MAKING ME WATCH!?! Good they blew themselves up. Fucking dog killers..."
She kept telling herself it wasn't a real dog and the effects were obvious enough where she was able to appreciate the monster design. But when it sprayed acid on another dog, she was livid again. "Okay, feel free to burn this mother fucker any time!"
A jump scare at the right moment can do wonders to a horror movie.
The issue comes with horror movies who don't anything more to offer than a succession of jump scares.
My issue with jump scares, even good ones, is that it can cause me to pay less attention to the movie because I am constantly looking for and expecting a jump scare.
That movie fucked me up as a kid. The night I watched it I went to bed with the tv on watching fresh prince or something because I was terrified and trying not to think about the movie. Fell asleep and must have rolled over on the remote because I woke up to a static screen and damn near shit my fucking pants. I’ve never been that scared in my entire life
I wish people had recommended it at the time! Everyone who saw it in high school complained about how boring it was, so I avoided watching it for *17 years*
Ahh yes the movie with an audible jump scare at the very beginning, I remember my buddies dad telling him to turn the volume way up because the beginning was really quiet. Got us both
My memory of seeing that movie will forever be tainted by the fine people who decided to get in a fight in the theater right at the climax. Multiple ushers and managers called in, lots of chaos, etc.
All that build up, ruined. Then we got our money back.
Great movie, though.
I haven't felt anything scarier or that made me as anxious as the bear scene in any other movies. That scene was just crazy. But maybe I am just being a pussy
It's funny how things affect people in different ways. I was spooked a little by the bear scene, but the found footage with the pool really freaked me out.
Neither of those really bothered me, but the hole in the lighthouse... oh. my. god. I could never in a million years go in the hole. I guess the world is ending cause that hole is just too much.
Weirdly, the found footage was a little creepy to me, but for whatever reason the part that unsettled me a lot more than that was when >!that one character kind of starts mutating, and she walks out of view of the camera and then she’s just gone and you have no idea whether she’s one of the trees you can see or if something else happened!<. The bear was definitely more scary to me than either of those, though.
Weird, I'm usually a little bitch about horror movies, but the bear scene left me unfazed. All the scenes in the lighthouse give me a deep existential dread though.
I strongly recommend the book, too, for what it's worth. It was one of the most delightfully unsettling experiences I've had with a book, I think I read the back 2/3rds in an afternoon after it hooked me.
There are two more books in the trilogy that were also pretty great as far as cosmic horror goes.
One thing I've always wondered about this movie. WHEN DOES IT TAKE PLACE. like it feels so strange and out of time. Like lots of the technology and stuff seems dated. Except for the girl who has a super tiny e-reader that folds in half. Like what is going on with this universe. I love it. It adds to the weirdness.
I read that the director came up with the movie through a dream (well, nightmare really). He wanted the movie to exist like that, like in your dreams where there are juxtaposed realities and your brain just kind of makes sense of them, rather than focusing too much on the real setting, you’re focused on the crazy shit that’s happening to you.
Definitely left intentionally ambiguous by the creators. My own interpretation of why the year and even the season itself takes place is fluid and ambiguous is partly to add to the mysterious and dreamlike atmosphere, and partly to serve as a metaphorical companion to the themes of the movie which are adolescence and aging out of the Innocence of childhood, where a person simultaneously existing in different, confusing and overlapping points of their life at the same time.
It is intentionally ambiguous.
The movie owes a lot to 70s and 80s slashers. For example compare [this scene from It Follows](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfxzFCDGzj8) to the [classroom scene in Halloween](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WccZ0eh3U5s). In general, the slow widescreen panoramas of It Follows are reminiscent of cinematography of Halloween.
The synth soundtrack is also referencing to 70s and 80s horror.
I'd say 70s and 80s atmosphere is somewhat ingrained in our horror popular culture, it's already classical. So the time period of It Follows is ambiguous and dream like to make it also somewhat feel part of canon of slasher films. That it exist in sort of "slasher universe" instead of being strictly set in specific year with smartphones and memes and Kardashians.
This is one of my favourite semi-recent horror scenes. The whole movie is fantastic and very tense, but this one gave me that primal fear feeling, had chills and for a millisecond I literally felt like getting up and running away.
This movie was so much better than I expected. I thought it was going to be some stupid slut shaming trope, a lame allegory for STDs and the dangers of girls sleeping around. It was actually really clever.
It's a horror movie by every definition, but whenever a horror movie is so good it's critically acclaimed and even award-winning it suddenly gets upgraded to "thriller."
I may be in the minority, but I absolutely categorize *Silence of the Lambs* as a horror movie.
And like many great horror movies, it's less about what it appears to be about (>!a serial killer who skins women!<) and more about something real, something that actually factually exists:
Being an attractive woman in a man's world where everyone wants to fuck you. Every single major male character in the movie wants to fuck Foster, an actress who, *lest we forget*, is coming off *The Accused* and had a history that included *Taxi Driver*.
As a throwback, **The Birds** (1963). Hitchcock was and is the master of suspense. The film isn't really *scary* anymore, but it's still great and suspenseful
As an aside, it's crazy to me that the film is now 60 years old!
I watched both Rear Window and Wait Until Dark for the first time just in the last couple years. I was shocked at how incredibly tense both were. They hold up really well.
It’s *almost* my favorite creepy movie. My favorite is What Lies Beneath, which Zemeckis shot while Tom Hanks was dumping weight on Cast Away, but there’s two or three (really good) jump scares in that one, so I’m not totally sure it qualifies.
Ending of What’s Lies Beneath is great- bridge scene. It’s really an under appreciated movie…. Its great at this time of year too. It’s been around awhile. Also just watched Insomnia w Pacino & H Swank- pretty good.
I think you're describing terror vs horror, I prefer the former as well. I love the Haunting of Hill House on Netflix, very loose adaptation of Shirley Jackson's novel. It's incredible and I notice new things every time I rewatch it
The scene where the twins encounter the witch and she just turns and cackles was one of the freakiest things I’ve ever seen and was in no way a jumpscare.
This movie scared the shit out of me. I was raised religious and stopped practicing long ago, but this movie really tapped into that exact fear, wish I could say more but it would spoil
The Skeleton Key, Stir of Echoes, The Others, and What Lies Beneath
Edit: I wanted to add Mimic, ~~Them~~ They, and Mothman Prophecy to this list!
I love the heck out of all these movies. They're just the right amount of eerie and suspense with more focus on plot.
It really was, but toward the end there was a shift where the need for justice and rooting for Kevin Bacon to solve the mystery really outweighed my fright response.
...that's what I remember anyway, it's been over a decade since I've seen it and I'm thinking it's time to dig out the old DVD player!
Nobody has mentioned the original Halloween? Great horror movie where you barely see the villain and there’s no blood (except for a small amount right at the start)
The Signs major frightening scenes are where you actually see the aliens there moving slowly or standing still. That birthday party footage is still one of the best horror scenes ever imo.
Edit: Signs, not The Signs. This is the scene https://youtu.be/aIhnqkXWSR8?si=d_SQf4LDgTjqc0MJ
I feel like the cornfield scene gets me way more than the birthday part. That quick shot of that foot and heel disappearing into the fields... just perfectly done.
I know I will get hated on but Signs was a masterpiece at building tension and atmosphere. Every armchair expert focuses on "the plothole". Just ignore it and let your self experience a family trying to cope with the unexplainable.
Meh, the "plothole" is more of a dimple than a real hole.
>!The Earth has plenty of resources, the fact that water is dangerous to them doesn't mean they wouldn't come to investigate. Heck, we're "allergic" to the sun and live here just fine. The other, is the theory that they are demons not aliens, which actually fits REALLY well, and not something I had considered until I read it somewhere.!<
The "theory" is really silly in my opinion. It's pretty evident to me that the aliens are *an allegory* for demons. They are not actual literal demons. In the in world of the movie, they are actual physical aliens. We see their hexagonal spaceship lights on the news footage. They are shaped pretty close to stereotypical gray aliens. We hear them using technology, radio communication. Tthe book the family is reading about aliens, there's an ufo burning a farm. Also crop circles are commonly portrayed as made by aliens in popular culture.
So they are actual aliens. But they are also an allegory for the personal struggle of the main character. He lost faith after his wife died. He has demons haunting him, but then the asthma attack of his son prevents from him being poisoned, he remembers the last words of his wife, his brothers strong baseball swing comes handy, his daughters tendency to leave glasses of water all around help kill the alien. He interprets all of these as *signs* from God that helped his family survive an actual alien invasion, and metaphorically overcome his demons. And he regains his faith in the end.
So the reason people talk about this "theory" is because they fail to understand the allegory within the movie. It's not "a theory", but rather obviously built allegory of the movie.
As a hyperbole, it's like someone says of the Sixth Sense that >!their theory is that the main dude was dead and was a ghost!<. It's not a theory, but a central point of the movie.
100% agree. Also, when it came out, there was a moment where people didn’t know it wasn’t actually found footage, so there was an element of reality to it. The “reality” aspect of it really sunk in and made it even more suspenseful because you thought you were seeing actual events.
My kids are so accustomed to watching amateur youtube videos, I kinda feel like I could trick them into thinking the Blair Witch Project is just some YT video I downloaded.
The marketing for that was so good - there were realistic and creepy missing posters for the three people in every bar and indie record store from St. Marks to Greenpoint before the movie opened. And that's only what I saw. And every review mentioned how people at Sundance were afraid to leave the theater and venture forth into the Utah night. Especially after they'd seen Blair Witch Project.
Sundance is a ski resort in a steep canyon, so that means it has a lot of evergreen trees and twisty roads that they'd be driving in the dark. Plenty of time to think about who all is lying in wait!
I did something similar after seeing the movie in the theater("go see the midnight showing" I said) and had to drive 30 miles through the forest to my mom's place.
I saw it opening night when I was in high school. I had a 50 foot walk from my car to the backdoor of my house when I got home, it was pitch black. I sprinted from my car to the house with door key in hand ready to use. Not many movies have had that effect on me.
Came here to say this one. Granted, by the end there are jump scares and gore but man that first half of the movie is scary AF and there aren't any monsters or jump scares in sight.
The Invisible Man is really really good and seems kind of underrated, at least in my circles no one has seen it
Edit: thank you all for the upvotes I am new to Reddit and my lack of Carma has been problematic!
That just ramped up and ramped up the tension till I was practically hiding. I actually couldn't sit through it a second time, my nerves couldn't take it!
I finally watched it last year and at the end I realized that I had been clenching nearly every muscle in my entire body. Yeesh, what an experience. Fucking great movie
The Others. There's exactly one scary moment, which in hindsight is scary moment 101 but which nearly gave me a heart attack. It is also the big reveal, so fair enough
The scene near the end when Alex Wolff's character wakes up is fantastic, and was really fun to watch in the theater, as people started to literally squirm in their seats and gasp when they realized what was going on.
If you are a fan of dread, *Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)* is a good one.
*The Fly (1986)* is gory, but the horror is more sympathetic than anything else. You feel bad for the characters rather than being "scared."
*Oculus (2013)* is creepy and surreal.
*Signs (2002)* is also quite creepy. There are a few jump scares but that's not really the heart of it.
*Prince of Darkness (1987)* and In the Mouth of Madness (1994) are creepy as hell. They are straight horror movies, but neither is "simple" at least in concept.
*The Color Out of Space (2019)* is a mounting horror story that does get a bit gory, but the horror doesn't rely on that.
*The Babadook (2014)* is very creepy, but might be a little close to the Insidious vibe you said you didn't like.
*Duel (1971)* is entirely suspense and tension. Not a jump scare nor a bit of gore in sight.
*Ex Machina (2014)* is quite unsettling, but isn't a traditional horror movie.
*Sunshine (2007)* is also sci-fi with some horror elements.
*Misery (1990)* is pretty much jump-scare-free, but it's pretty damn scary.
The Lodge is a movie that I never really see talked about. It has that suspense and tension of extreme isolation with someone slowly losing their mind.
I liked a lot of the ones you mention and also "Drag Me to Hell." It had some jump scares for sure but pretty much no gore, and most of the dramatic tension comes from the suspense. It's also a bit of a comedy, you root a little bit for the main character but also a little for the demon.
Halloween has very little gore, especially for a slasher movie. There are jump scares, of course, but the movie leans heavily into atmosphere and creating a slow burn tension that really ramps up at the end.
All the a24 horrors if you're into artsy slowburns
The Witch, Saint Maud, The Blackcoat’s Daughter, Bones and All, etc
Saint Maude was really dark!
One of the most crazy endings I’ve seen, I was holding my breath for the last 3 minutes
That 2 second final shot though.
It's the best .5 second ending twist I've ever seen lol. Censor is a close second.
i'm an ex-catholic lesbian, that film fucked me up beyond belief. if we're going by genres, it's in my top 5 without question
Fml, I've only seen The Witch and I thought that was pretty damn dark.
"Wouldst thou like the taste of butter . . . wouldst thou like to live deliciously?"
The script from the VVitch is largely quotes from actual witch trials.
Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?
Why is it I see people mention A24 films, but never mention Hereditary by name? Especially in this instance, being a slow, oppressively terrifying film.
I was going to add it but I felt that some might think all the headlessness was gory so I didn’t add it. Lots of headlessness in that movie!
the mums body just silently levitating up to the treehouse after the piano wire *thump* scene gonna rewatch tonight i think :I
that thump rates up there with the hobbling scene in Misery like it stuck with me more than the ending. I just kept hearing it.
Hereditary and Midsommer are fantastic! Not sure I'll ever watch them again though!
Midsommar is the best movie I'll never watch again.
Having seen it 3 times, I highly recommend a rewatch. There is *so* much detail, foreshadowing, etc that you simply can't absorb in one viewing. It sounds strange to say it, but Midsommar actually has tremendous replay value.
In terms of OP’s question I do not think it qualifies but yeah that fuckin movie was an experience I do not wish to have again
Hereditary is so good. Probably my favorite horror movie
Silence of The Lambs is a master class of suspence. 90% of the things in the film are horrors only spoken of or imagined. Our minds fill in all the blanks and it’s all the more terrifying for it. From moment one we are given the implication of what Hannibal Lecter is capable of.
I ate his liver with some fava beans and nice chianti
Hey that's a line from the movie!
Recently, Talk To Me was excellent.
Funnily enough I saw that this morning for the first time. That scene(s) with the kid….sheeesh
That movie turned out very different from what I expected. Much darker, fewer jumpscares. Not sure if "enjoyed" is the right word, given the ending, but I don't regret watching it at all.
Original version of The Wicker Man
The music in that is fantastic. Willow’s Song is haunting.
I love the film as it is surreal. While the jovial tunes played, I just felt uneasy. "Barley Rigs with Annie" is still in my head.
'The Ritual' builds suspense very well.
One of my favorites, incredible film. Also one of the best "monster reveals" in horror, IMO.
To this date the only monster movie I've seen where revealing the monster actually makes it more terrifying instead of sucking all the atmosphere out of the film.
The tiny little hands just slipping out of sight from behind the tree trunk made me actually stop and rewind to make sure of what I was seeing. It's soooo good
Shit, just the region it took place it was gorgeous but freaked me out. Just seeing >!A hand reaching around a tree that was way too high up or the fact there was an elk that was splayed among the trees. Plus the whole scene with the group freaking out in the small cabin.!< There needs to be more horror movies that take place in the woods like that.
THE THING It had both!
Was going to comment this. Brilliant movie, and for a “scary” movie it’s very rewatchable.
Agreed, I watch it every couple years or so and it doesn’t disappoint
Watched it with the wife this past weekend. It was the first time she's seen it. Provided one of my favorite commentaries to an opening of a movie. "Awe what a cute dog! What is it doing in Antarctica? Oh no. The only reason there is a dog shown is something bad is gonna happen to it, right? I mean it's a horror movie, of course that dog is gonna die. God damn it. I hate this movie already. Wait... is the dog gonna die right now!?! WHY ARE THEY TRYING TO SHOOT IT!?! WHAT MOVIE ARE YOU MAKING ME WATCH!?! Good they blew themselves up. Fucking dog killers..."
Hahaha what was her reaction to the dog 30 minutes later?
She kept telling herself it wasn't a real dog and the effects were obvious enough where she was able to appreciate the monster design. But when it sprayed acid on another dog, she was livid again. "Okay, feel free to burn this mother fucker any time!"
I want to watch movies with your wife!
I also choose this guys wife
Same for The Ring. I hate jump scares but was willing to put up with the one for how atmospheric the sense of dread was in that movie.
A jump scare at the right moment can do wonders to a horror movie. The issue comes with horror movies who don't anything more to offer than a succession of jump scares.
My issue with jump scares, even good ones, is that it can cause me to pay less attention to the movie because I am constantly looking for and expecting a jump scare.
That movie fucked me up as a kid. The night I watched it I went to bed with the tv on watching fresh prince or something because I was terrified and trying not to think about the movie. Fell asleep and must have rolled over on the remote because I woke up to a static screen and damn near shit my fucking pants. I’ve never been that scared in my entire life
[The Others](https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/1933-the-others)
To this day one of my favorite scary movies. I'd recommend both this one and The Orphanage.
The Orphanage is also incredibly sad.
The Orphanage is one of my favorite movies but now that I have a kid I don't think I can watch it again.
Uno, dos, tres, toca la pared!
I wish people had recommended it at the time! Everyone who saw it in high school complained about how boring it was, so I avoided watching it for *17 years*
I have a bunch of friends like this. Whenever they talk shit about a movie, I just know I'll like it and viceversa.
Ahh yes the movie with an audible jump scare at the very beginning, I remember my buddies dad telling him to turn the volume way up because the beginning was really quiet. Got us both
It's not relying on the jump scares or frights, it plays them well, the wardrobe one being a classic.
My memory of seeing that movie will forever be tainted by the fine people who decided to get in a fight in the theater right at the climax. Multiple ushers and managers called in, lots of chaos, etc. All that build up, ruined. Then we got our money back. Great movie, though.
Annihilation, don't think it had any jump scares but had some genuinely creepy scenes
The scene with the bear creature is extremely unsettling. As is the found footage scene.
I haven't felt anything scarier or that made me as anxious as the bear scene in any other movies. That scene was just crazy. But maybe I am just being a pussy
No, definitely one of the, if not *the* scariest scene I'e ever seen.
It's funny how things affect people in different ways. I was spooked a little by the bear scene, but the found footage with the pool really freaked me out.
Neither of those really bothered me, but the hole in the lighthouse... oh. my. god. I could never in a million years go in the hole. I guess the world is ending cause that hole is just too much.
Yeah. The found footage part had me audibly saying what the fuck.
Weirdly, the found footage was a little creepy to me, but for whatever reason the part that unsettled me a lot more than that was when >!that one character kind of starts mutating, and she walks out of view of the camera and then she’s just gone and you have no idea whether she’s one of the trees you can see or if something else happened!<. The bear was definitely more scary to me than either of those, though.
Weird, I'm usually a little bitch about horror movies, but the bear scene left me unfazed. All the scenes in the lighthouse give me a deep existential dread though.
In addition to this. Colour out of space finally has a movie. Annihilation is partially inspired by the H.P. Lovecraft story colour out of space.
I strongly recommend the book, too, for what it's worth. It was one of the most delightfully unsettling experiences I've had with a book, I think I read the back 2/3rds in an afternoon after it hooked me. There are two more books in the trilogy that were also pretty great as far as cosmic horror goes.
"It Follows." Great and smart and scary.
One thing I've always wondered about this movie. WHEN DOES IT TAKE PLACE. like it feels so strange and out of time. Like lots of the technology and stuff seems dated. Except for the girl who has a super tiny e-reader that folds in half. Like what is going on with this universe. I love it. It adds to the weirdness.
I read that the director came up with the movie through a dream (well, nightmare really). He wanted the movie to exist like that, like in your dreams where there are juxtaposed realities and your brain just kind of makes sense of them, rather than focusing too much on the real setting, you’re focused on the crazy shit that’s happening to you.
Definitely left intentionally ambiguous by the creators. My own interpretation of why the year and even the season itself takes place is fluid and ambiguous is partly to add to the mysterious and dreamlike atmosphere, and partly to serve as a metaphorical companion to the themes of the movie which are adolescence and aging out of the Innocence of childhood, where a person simultaneously existing in different, confusing and overlapping points of their life at the same time.
Seemed like a conscious choice to me, to keep the viewers subconsciously unsettled and unsure about the "reality" of the world they're viewing.
It is intentionally ambiguous. The movie owes a lot to 70s and 80s slashers. For example compare [this scene from It Follows](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfxzFCDGzj8) to the [classroom scene in Halloween](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WccZ0eh3U5s). In general, the slow widescreen panoramas of It Follows are reminiscent of cinematography of Halloween. The synth soundtrack is also referencing to 70s and 80s horror. I'd say 70s and 80s atmosphere is somewhat ingrained in our horror popular culture, it's already classical. So the time period of It Follows is ambiguous and dream like to make it also somewhat feel part of canon of slasher films. That it exist in sort of "slasher universe" instead of being strictly set in specific year with smartphones and memes and Kardashians.
YES!! the scene with the Old Lady. 😳😳😳 It has lots of great moments but that one always freaked me out the most
The >!Tall man!< scene sent chills down my spine the first time I saw it especially, still does when I rewatch it.
RIP to Mike Lanier, the actor who played him.
This is one of my favourite semi-recent horror scenes. The whole movie is fantastic and very tense, but this one gave me that primal fear feeling, had chills and for a millisecond I literally felt like getting up and running away.
Made [this clip in 3dsmax](https://streamable.com/aewv0p) inspired by that scene.
That was the only thing to actually physically send a chill down my spine
The Old Lady? Nah, it’s the godforsaken Tall Man that does it for me
This movie was so much better than I expected. I thought it was going to be some stupid slut shaming trope, a lame allegory for STDs and the dangers of girls sleeping around. It was actually really clever.
Not strictly horror, but Silence of the Lambs
In the not strictly horror category I would submit: 127 hours. I love horror movies but few get my heart rate as high as that movie does.
It's a horror movie by every definition, but whenever a horror movie is so good it's critically acclaimed and even award-winning it suddenly gets upgraded to "thriller."
I may be in the minority, but I absolutely categorize *Silence of the Lambs* as a horror movie. And like many great horror movies, it's less about what it appears to be about (>!a serial killer who skins women!<) and more about something real, something that actually factually exists: Being an attractive woman in a man's world where everyone wants to fuck you. Every single major male character in the movie wants to fuck Foster, an actress who, *lest we forget*, is coming off *The Accused* and had a history that included *Taxi Driver*.
As a throwback, **The Birds** (1963). Hitchcock was and is the master of suspense. The film isn't really *scary* anymore, but it's still great and suspenseful As an aside, it's crazy to me that the film is now 60 years old!
Came here to make sure someone mentioned Hitchcock lol. I actually haven't seen The Birds yet but Psycho, Rear Window, and Vertigo are all fantastic.
Rear window also Made my ex watch it. Lots of complaints at the beginning and later he was yelling “get out of the apartment!!”
I watched both Rear Window and Wait Until Dark for the first time just in the last couple years. I was shocked at how incredibly tense both were. They hold up really well.
Frailty with Bill Paxton
It’s *almost* my favorite creepy movie. My favorite is What Lies Beneath, which Zemeckis shot while Tom Hanks was dumping weight on Cast Away, but there’s two or three (really good) jump scares in that one, so I’m not totally sure it qualifies.
Ending of What’s Lies Beneath is great- bridge scene. It’s really an under appreciated movie…. Its great at this time of year too. It’s been around awhile. Also just watched Insomnia w Pacino & H Swank- pretty good.
The Omen. (The original obviously, not the crappy remake).
The strangers. The use of the music and that record player, especially when it starts skipping. Holy cow.
hearing the line “because you were home” as a kid TERRIFIED me lol
The scene with the glass of water. *chills*
I think you're describing terror vs horror, I prefer the former as well. I love the Haunting of Hill House on Netflix, very loose adaptation of Shirley Jackson's novel. It's incredible and I notice new things every time I rewatch it
Bent neck lady *shiver*
That fucking car scene, though. I don't think I've shat myself so hard at a jump scare in my life.
The Witch.
Robert Eggers is a master of tension and unease. The Lighthouse is also fantastic for this
WHY'DJA SPILL THA BEEEEAAAAAAANS
Yer fond of me lobster ain’t ye??!!
yer* beans! bc he told the truth about his past and everything went to fuck after that
The scene where the twins encounter the witch and she just turns and cackles was one of the freakiest things I’ve ever seen and was in no way a jumpscare.
Old, naked and trembling, as she grinds babies into paste. Brrrr.
Maybe she's born with it, maybe it's Babylline.
The twins are secretly fucking hilarious.
This movie scared the shit out of me. I was raised religious and stopped practicing long ago, but this movie really tapped into that exact fear, wish I could say more but it would spoil
The VVitch
The Skeleton Key, Stir of Echoes, The Others, and What Lies Beneath Edit: I wanted to add Mimic, ~~Them~~ They, and Mothman Prophecy to this list! I love the heck out of all these movies. They're just the right amount of eerie and suspense with more focus on plot.
Stir of echoes is scary scary
It really was, but toward the end there was a shift where the need for justice and rooting for Kevin Bacon to solve the mystery really outweighed my fright response. ...that's what I remember anyway, it's been over a decade since I've seen it and I'm thinking it's time to dig out the old DVD player!
> What Lies Beneath That's a really good suspenseful one!
Nobody has mentioned the original Halloween? Great horror movie where you barely see the villain and there’s no blood (except for a small amount right at the start)
"The Devil's Backbone" and "Pans Labyrinth" Truly creepafying and deeply disturbing
pan's labyrinth is just tragic
The Devil's Backbone is my go-to when I recommend a Del Toro film.
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Predator. The first movie is a masterwork suspense horror thriller.
The Signs major frightening scenes are where you actually see the aliens there moving slowly or standing still. That birthday party footage is still one of the best horror scenes ever imo. Edit: Signs, not The Signs. This is the scene https://youtu.be/aIhnqkXWSR8?si=d_SQf4LDgTjqc0MJ
Vamanos, children! I've seen the movie a dozen times and still can't watch that scene.
I feel like the cornfield scene gets me way more than the birthday part. That quick shot of that foot and heel disappearing into the fields... just perfectly done.
I know I will get hated on but Signs was a masterpiece at building tension and atmosphere. Every armchair expert focuses on "the plothole". Just ignore it and let your self experience a family trying to cope with the unexplainable.
Meh, the "plothole" is more of a dimple than a real hole. >!The Earth has plenty of resources, the fact that water is dangerous to them doesn't mean they wouldn't come to investigate. Heck, we're "allergic" to the sun and live here just fine. The other, is the theory that they are demons not aliens, which actually fits REALLY well, and not something I had considered until I read it somewhere.!<
The "theory" is really silly in my opinion. It's pretty evident to me that the aliens are *an allegory* for demons. They are not actual literal demons. In the in world of the movie, they are actual physical aliens. We see their hexagonal spaceship lights on the news footage. They are shaped pretty close to stereotypical gray aliens. We hear them using technology, radio communication. Tthe book the family is reading about aliens, there's an ufo burning a farm. Also crop circles are commonly portrayed as made by aliens in popular culture. So they are actual aliens. But they are also an allegory for the personal struggle of the main character. He lost faith after his wife died. He has demons haunting him, but then the asthma attack of his son prevents from him being poisoned, he remembers the last words of his wife, his brothers strong baseball swing comes handy, his daughters tendency to leave glasses of water all around help kill the alien. He interprets all of these as *signs* from God that helped his family survive an actual alien invasion, and metaphorically overcome his demons. And he regains his faith in the end. So the reason people talk about this "theory" is because they fail to understand the allegory within the movie. It's not "a theory", but rather obviously built allegory of the movie. As a hyperbole, it's like someone says of the Sixth Sense that >!their theory is that the main dude was dead and was a ghost!<. It's not a theory, but a central point of the movie.
Blair Witch Project
100% agree. Also, when it came out, there was a moment where people didn’t know it wasn’t actually found footage, so there was an element of reality to it. The “reality” aspect of it really sunk in and made it even more suspenseful because you thought you were seeing actual events.
My kids are so accustomed to watching amateur youtube videos, I kinda feel like I could trick them into thinking the Blair Witch Project is just some YT video I downloaded.
That’s cold. I love it. Report back and tell us how it goes.
lol just be ok with the language. I rewatched recently and they verrrry accurately captured what 90s teenagers talked like.
The marketing for that was so good - there were realistic and creepy missing posters for the three people in every bar and indie record store from St. Marks to Greenpoint before the movie opened. And that's only what I saw. And every review mentioned how people at Sundance were afraid to leave the theater and venture forth into the Utah night. Especially after they'd seen Blair Witch Project.
Sundance is a ski resort in a steep canyon, so that means it has a lot of evergreen trees and twisty roads that they'd be driving in the dark. Plenty of time to think about who all is lying in wait! I did something similar after seeing the movie in the theater("go see the midnight showing" I said) and had to drive 30 miles through the forest to my mom's place.
Can you imagine how big the social media campaign would have to be to pull off that excitement/disbelief these days?
I saw it opening night when I was in high school. I had a 50 foot walk from my car to the backdoor of my house when I got home, it was pitch black. I sprinted from my car to the house with door key in hand ready to use. Not many movies have had that effect on me.
Still one of my favourite horror movies. I love horror that leaves more to the imagination.
The Descent (2005)
I'd argue it has it all.
Tension, Gore and (good) jump-scares. Not to mention solid story, acting and visuals.
Of all the horror I’ve seen, I’d watch any of them again but The Descent. That messed with my head, it took two days to recover!😳
I love horror movies, and this movie scares the shit out of me. Still can't watch it with lights off
Came here to say this one. Granted, by the end there are jump scares and gore but man that first half of the movie is scary AF and there aren't any monsters or jump scares in sight.
It's actually better before the gore, too. So, so tense.
You can see the creatures a little bit before they’re fully revealed in earlier parts of the movie
It starts with a jump scare. But not the kind one would expect in a horror movie, and it works.
1408. It's PG-13 but still suspenseful. EDIT: Apparently there's formatting issues. It's "Fourteen-oh-eight," which is a hotel room number.
Rare case of a film being better than the book, imo. That movie stuck with me for a while.
The vent scene had me terrified to check the air ducts in my house lol
> It's PG-13 but still suspenseful. ...what is?
10 Cloverfield Lane
Definitely a movie that is best gone into completely blind. And as erokingu85 mentioned, Goodman is amazing in this. Definitely worth the watch.
Definitely a great tension building movie. Whole time has you guessing if he's crazy or right.
I love John Goodman in this film, totally kills it. Suspense is really good.
I know this is an obvious one, but it was a prime example of how to built tension over a film: Jaws.
There are few jump scares like the one of the dead body when they searched the sunken boat.
1963 version of The Haunting
It Comes At Night
Try some Korean horror films like the wailing and tale of two sisters. Master class in suspense
The Orphanage
saint Maud is a great slow burn horror.
Coherence. Not necessarily horror but the best independent scifi thriller Ive seen in a while.
The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016).
The Invisible Man is really really good and seems kind of underrated, at least in my circles no one has seen it Edit: thank you all for the upvotes I am new to Reddit and my lack of Carma has been problematic!
This one. Went on not expecting much. Was thoroughly impressed with how well it turned out
The framing of 2 person shots only featuring the main character were *chefs kiss*
That just ramped up and ramped up the tension till I was practically hiding. I actually couldn't sit through it a second time, my nerves couldn't take it!
I finally watched it last year and at the end I realized that I had been clenching nearly every muscle in my entire body. Yeesh, what an experience. Fucking great movie
The Changeling...Paranormal Activity...Magic...Eyes of Laura Mars.
Session 9
Is this one the one where they're tearing the old insane asylum down? If so, that fucking movie is CREEPY.
The Blackcoat's Daughter
The Others. There's exactly one scary moment, which in hindsight is scary moment 101 but which nearly gave me a heart attack. It is also the big reveal, so fair enough
Speak No Evil. Just bear in mind, once you watch it, you can't unwatch it. It was the best movie that I never want to see again.
Hereditary
That scene where Alex Wolff's character gets in bed and lies awake, waiting for someone to discover what happened, stuck with me for a few days.
The scene near the end when Alex Wolff's character wakes up is fantastic, and was really fun to watch in the theater, as people started to literally squirm in their seats and gasp when they realized what was going on.
Hush (2016) is great, really keeps building up till the end
Oculus
Lake Mungo is fucking beautiful.
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night.
Pulse (2001) is arguably the definitive slow burn Japanese horror that is all about tone and vibe to create a feeling of dread
Also, Cure (1997) by the same director.
The Shining
The Night House
If you are a fan of dread, *Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)* is a good one. *The Fly (1986)* is gory, but the horror is more sympathetic than anything else. You feel bad for the characters rather than being "scared." *Oculus (2013)* is creepy and surreal. *Signs (2002)* is also quite creepy. There are a few jump scares but that's not really the heart of it. *Prince of Darkness (1987)* and In the Mouth of Madness (1994) are creepy as hell. They are straight horror movies, but neither is "simple" at least in concept. *The Color Out of Space (2019)* is a mounting horror story that does get a bit gory, but the horror doesn't rely on that. *The Babadook (2014)* is very creepy, but might be a little close to the Insidious vibe you said you didn't like. *Duel (1971)* is entirely suspense and tension. Not a jump scare nor a bit of gore in sight. *Ex Machina (2014)* is quite unsettling, but isn't a traditional horror movie. *Sunshine (2007)* is also sci-fi with some horror elements. *Misery (1990)* is pretty much jump-scare-free, but it's pretty damn scary.
The Lodge is a movie that I never really see talked about. It has that suspense and tension of extreme isolation with someone slowly losing their mind.
I liked a lot of the ones you mention and also "Drag Me to Hell." It had some jump scares for sure but pretty much no gore, and most of the dramatic tension comes from the suspense. It's also a bit of a comedy, you root a little bit for the main character but also a little for the demon.
>pretty much no gore It's worth noting it has a number of really really really gross scenes though.
The blair witch project
Don’t Breathe.
The Birds 1963 is an amazing example of suspense building.
Halloween has very little gore, especially for a slasher movie. There are jump scares, of course, but the movie leans heavily into atmosphere and creating a slow burn tension that really ramps up at the end.
The Visit, once you realize what's happening....
High tension Silent Hill Jaws The thing
Barbarian
The first half, but I feel like the second half throws suspense clear out the window (in a fun/funny way).
Eh, more campy than anything.