The essence of a nightmare

October 30, 2018 2:56 AM

From Rosemary's Baby to Suspiria, five directors on cinema's scariest moments
posted by fearfulsymmetry (28 comments total)

Suspiria wins my vote as the scariest movie title of all time. I have lost the capacity to be scared by movies and my life is a little poorer for it, but the word 'suspiria' still scares me a little.
posted by night_train at 5:26 AM on October 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

It's basically a jump scare, but I went into The Ring completely blind in a preview showing before it was officially released... the opening closet scene told me I was in for... a time. By no means a perfect movie, but also when you thought the movie was over and it wasn't was a thing I'll remember forever.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 7:00 AM on October 30, 2018 [5 favorites]

This was a great article; thanks! Great to hear from so many women directors.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:26 AM on October 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

I've noticed Rosemary's Baby being talked about more frequently in the past few years, which is a good thing, imho. It's too long been a very under-rated, under-appreciated movie.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:49 AM on October 30, 2018 [5 favorites]

I feel like some credit has to be given to the ur-jump scare in Val Lewton and Jacques Tourneur's "Cat People" (1942).

I saw it in the theater about ten years ago and, even decades of audience desensitizing, it still had a punch. Someone actually gave a little shriek.

"Exorcist 3", on the other hand, is pretty crap - even as a teenager, I felt bad for George C. Scott.
posted by ryanshepard at 7:52 AM on October 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

I checked to see if that scene from Exorcist 3 was in there. I watched it again just to see if it still scared me and, yep, still works.
posted by dawkins_7 at 8:19 AM on October 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

But also, context makes such a difference. I'm pretty sure Race with the Devil wouldn't scare me one bit now but when my teenage cousin made the mistake of taking 6-year-old me to it, holy hell. I probably slept with my parents for months after that.
posted by dawkins_7 at 8:21 AM on October 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

...even as a teenager, I felt bad for George C. Scott.

Don't feel too bad; remember what Michael Caine said about being in Jaws, the Revenge:

"I have never seen the film, but by all accounts it was terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific."
posted by TedW at 8:21 AM on October 30, 2018 [10 favorites]

I feel like some credit has to be given to the ur-jump scare in Val Lewton and Jacques Tourneur's "Cat People"

Actually named the Lewton Bus. I appreciate that, where a lesser filmmaker would have their character scared by a cat jumping out, in this one you expect a cat to jump out and instead a bus does.
posted by maxsparber at 8:42 AM on October 30, 2018 [3 favorites]

I just watched the 77 Suspiria to prepare for the new one tomorrow. It's not a movie that rewards paying too close attention, but god the attention-grabbing scenes are so beautiful and so fucked-up. That scene as she's leaving the airport is just amazing.
posted by khaibit at 9:13 AM on October 30, 2018 [3 favorites]

It's not the scariest movie, but early on in "An American Werewolf In London", David Naughton and Griffin Dunne are hiking through Wales in the fog, and become aware that they are being followed by something they can hear but can't see. Sometimes it's behind them, sometimes in front, like it's moving in circles. And getting closer. And they keep talking thoughout, trying to convince each other that nothing's really there. And then Dunne says,"Goddamnit, David what is that?"

When the attack actually comes, it's sort of a relief.
posted by Ipsifendus at 9:35 AM on October 30, 2018 [7 favorites]

"Look at me, Damien! It's all for you!"
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:40 AM on October 30, 2018 [5 favorites]

For me the number one with a bullet is the diner scene in Mulholland Drive. Patrick Fischler's acting is just superb - he makes the whole thing so real.

link, in case you've never seen it
posted by komara at 9:59 AM on October 30, 2018 [8 favorites]

I always say it's when Brett encounters the Alien... the tension is drawn out like a fine wire.

But OnTheLastCastle reminds me of Ring, or in my case the original Japanese version: Ringu... I watched that on a tv in a totally dark room due to a blown bulb and during the notorious scene at the end it was one and only time I genuinely feared having a heart attack whilst watching something. It also gave me proper full-on night terrors afterward. I've watch the sequal and the remake but I've never rewatched the original. I'm not even going to google for the clip.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 10:08 AM on October 30, 2018 [3 favorites]

I'll be vague so as to avoid spoilers, but there's a scene in Hereditary involving a character waking up in a darkened bedroom that is one of the most effectively scary movie moments I've ever experienced in a theater.

It was so good, in fact, that I paid to see it again only a couple days later when some friends were going, just because I wanted to hear how they would react while watching that scene unfold in the theater. I was not disappointed!
posted by Atom Eyes at 10:09 AM on October 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

I've noticed Rosemary's Baby being talked about more frequently in the past few years, which is a good thing, imho.
Maybe once Polanski's dead.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 10:24 AM on October 30, 2018 [6 favorites]

link, in case you've never seen it

That one didn't grab me for some reason - my immediate reaction was wondering if the dumpster witch was supposed to look like late cult actor Timothy Carey.
posted by ryanshepard at 12:17 PM on October 30, 2018

One of the things I love most about Suspiria is that it puts me into a dream state from the minute the music starts. I can even feel myself breathing differently. None of the nightmares I've been able to remember from my actual sleep can beat it. Seeing it on the big screen with an audience of fellow fans was a mind-blowing experience, and I'm not just throwing that term around lightly
posted by The Underpants Monster at 12:25 PM on October 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

I feel like some credit has to be given to the ur-jump scare in Val Lewton and Jacques Tourneur's "Cat People" (1942).

Going back further, the reveal of the Phantom's face in Lon Chaney's Phantom of the Opera was effective on me as a kid. The shock reveal of faces that look wrong tends to really get me. There's a sequence like that in Tobe Hooper's Salem's Lot that got me to literally jump out of my seat when I saw it a few weeks ago.

And speaking of Tobe Hooper, I think the first kill in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is still one of the scariest moments in cinema.
posted by servoret at 12:48 PM on October 30, 2018

The scene in Alien where Dallas is hunting the alien in the airshafts is a masterwork in suspense and tension. I can watch it a hundred times (probably have) but it still gets me.
posted by Kafkaesque at 1:13 PM on October 30, 2018 [3 favorites]

I saw "Suspiria" a number of times in 1977. It was playing at a $1.50 movie theater around the corner from where roomie & I lived at the time. It was during the summer, & we went night after night for the air-conditioning. Roomie was terrified & would pull a hoodie up & attempt to sleep. I started getting interested in the angles. There's one shot from above through a lightbulb that is so subtle in its creepiness I have never forgotten it!
posted by Wylie Kyoto at 2:28 PM on October 30, 2018 [2 favorites]

For me, the best thing about Rosemary's Baby is how it's this perfect little snapshot of NYC at that time. I love it as a film, but I extra love it because of that.

Also Exorcist III is a very under-rated movie. Yes, there's that scene, but the movie as a whole is beautifully filmed and very well-paced.
posted by biscotti at 3:11 PM on October 30, 2018 [3 favorites]

In recent years, the scene in Get Out where the groundskeeper just keeps running up at you out of the dark actually made me jump.

My favorite jump take is the scene in I think Eyes Without a Face where dude comes up out of the tub with his eyes rolled up into the back of his head but it turns out to just be lenses or ping pong balls or something. Shoot is that the movie? Or is it a Hitchcock film?

Dangit heading over to Ask.
posted by aspersioncast at 6:05 PM on October 30, 2018

It was Clouzot's Les Diaboliques - fake death, great cinematography, excellent film.
posted by aspersioncast at 7:21 PM on October 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

The chemistry between Kinderman and Father Dyer in Exorcist III is just delightful.
posted by crush at 8:10 PM on October 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

Exorcist III is a fun movie, and far better than a 'III' deserves to be. I wish the studio hadn't forced them into the pretty mediocre rehash of an ending. This scene, though, is the best thing in the movie.

Please do not do as I did and watch them in order: skip Exorcist II entirely, with its weird dream/shared memory/African tribe/ESP nonsense.
posted by graventy at 7:55 AM on October 31, 2018

I will probably be keel-hauled for this, but I think Excorcist III holds up better than the original. I think the pacing and the genuinely great acting make III eminently watchable, while the original is kind of slow and clunky.

And yeah, please skip II. It's proof positive that late 70's Hollywood was made almost entirely of cocaine.
posted by lumpenprole at 11:35 AM on October 31, 2018 [1 favorite]

I'm now compelled to watch all the Exorcists, which I've somehow never seen. Cocaine-fueled late-seventies Hollywood is hilarious.
posted by aspersioncast at 6:17 AM on November 2, 2018