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Today:
Scary movie moments
Posted: Jan 11, 2008 in Movies
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Since "One Missed Call" failed to scare me for this week's review, I thought I'd make mention of a few moments that left me laying in the fetal position sucking my thumb with wet pants. Not literally, of course. Except for that once.
The Shining: The Twins: Young Danny is wheeling around the Overlook on his big wheel minding his own business, when he turns a corner to see these creepy little girls in their little dresses standing there. So creepy I don't even like looking at the picture.
Alien: Searching for the creature: Dallas (Tom Skerritt) decides to go searching the bowels of the ship with a flamethrower in hopes of exterminating the little pest. Forget the chestburster scene, this is the film's scariest, most tense moment, as the rest of the crew tells him the Alien is right there as Dallas turns and turns in the dark looking for the creature, until it finally finds him.
The Ring: Samara comes out of the TV: You thought everything was nice and tied up now that they rescued the nice little girl from her watery grave, until they turned on the TV. A terrific and decidedly scary plot twist.
Halloween: Mike emerges from the shadows: Poor Laurie is menaced by The Shape, and doesn't even know he's lurking right behind her. We see nothing but darkness behind her, then gradually that ominous white mask. Then Mike gets bad aim and only gets Laurie in the arm.
Legion: Exorcist III: The ghost gets the nurse: Exorcist III is an underrated film that fell victim to some studio tampering that made script changes to make William Peter Blatty's otherwise unconnected book "Legion" into an Exorcist sequel. There is one long scene that still creeps me out. It seems to be just run-of-the-mill doctoring work, done in long shot, until the scene's ending, where a freaky ghost-figure in a sheet stalks a nurse. Creepy, scary stuff.
The Exorcist
I can't tell you what part scared me the most. After seeing it in the 6th grade I spent the next many months talking myself to sleep telling myself that exorcisms aren't real. I was a mess. Somewhere between the levitation, projectile vomiting and the 'You're going to die up there' followed by the wetting of the nightgown, Linda Blair became the devil to me.
The Exorcist I can't tell you what part scared me the most. After seeing it ...
For me "The Exorcist" is kind of like "Rosemary's Baby," a great movie that didn't really scare me all that much. I was older when I saw each movie (High school for "The Exorcist" and I just saw "Rosemary's Baby" a couple of years ago), but they didn't really scare me. I actually laughed out loud during Rosemary's climactic scene.
And for "The Exorcist, I was only creeped out by that freaky white devil face that kept randomly flashing on the screen. That was eerie. But the rest of it I didn't find that scary. Maybe because I saw a lot of the scary parts on so many clip shows, etc., before I actually saw the movie.
Exorcist III...now that actually had a part that really scared me. I need to amend my post!
For me "The Exorcist" is kind of like "Rosemary's Baby," a great movie that didn't ...
Confession: The original Exorcist scared me so much that I didn't even consider any of the sequels. If I can man-up enough, I'll take your advice and complete the series.
While thinking about the scariest movie moments I came up with another one. Take this w/a grain of salt and keep in mind what my age must've been when I saw this but Pee Wee's Big Adventure: the Large Marge scene scared the crap out of me.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHO3wuNHFFc
Confession: The original Exorcist scared me so much that I didn't even consider any of ...
The Large Marge scene WAS scary! My niece and nephew always fight about Pee Wee when they come to my house, because my niece, who is 7, wants to see it, but my nephew, who is 9, is scared by that part!
Also, I wouldn't say I recommend "completing" the Exorcist films. The second one is AWFUL, and widely considered one of the worst movies ever made. "Exorcist: the Beginning" and "Dominion: A Prequel to the Exorcist" are interesting to watch just because of the back story (Paul Schrader, writer of "Taxi Driver" among others, made a version of it that the studio didn't like, so they fired him, hired Renny Harlin to make a more straight horror movie, and reshot most of the film with largely the same cast. The Shrader version is better, though neither are what I'd consider really good movies).
But the third one, if you ignore the obviously misplaced scenes involving Father Karras, is a pretty decent thriller. I'd recommend looking up the backstory first (unless you have time to watch it, then look up the backstory, then watch it again).
Great list Joe. I think I jumped over the couch when Samara came out of the tv in The Ring.
And while Exorcist III was a disappointment, the hallway scene with the nurse was definitely a classic.