The REEL Addict 

Around this time of year you’ll find no end of “Scariest Movies of all Time” lists – and their variations – popping up everywhere in magazines, newspapers or blogs. The thing is, I’ve always felt what’s scary is incredibly subjective, and unique to each person. That’s why instead of purporting to be some expert on scary movies, I thought I’d instead make it a little bit more personal (like the shark in JAWS: THE REVENGE).

Below are the films that throughout my lifetime scared me the most, giving me many a sleepless night, shed a few years off my lifespan, and provided me with a fair share of mental trauma. Needless to say, because I’m looking at lifetime’s worth of emotional scarring, several of these films are children’s films or were watched when I was a child – no surprise, given that’s a time when most people are more susceptible to fear from watching movies.

That should by no means diminish their effect on me (even if I was a little bit of a wuss).

10. WILLY WONKA & THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY
Sure, she was a total “nitwit” who maybe had it coming, but still, seeing a girl puff up like a giant blueberry and being callously rolled around and off by the over-moralizing Oompa Loompas was still tough for me to take. Wilder’s emotionless and apathetic demeanor while talking about the menacing sounding “juicing room” and how she has to be squeezed there before she exploded didn’t help things either. It made me think for the first time that adults aren’t to be trusted, let alone depended upon to actually help kids when they are in trouble.

9. DUMBO
I think for a kid, this psychedelic, Technicolor surrealist booze-inspired fantasy sequence was just far too much for me to process – let alone understand. So to deal with it I think that somehow my overwhelming confusion was turned into utter fear. I mean, pink is supposed to be a friendly, innocent, girly color. Not something that inspires something this messed up.

8. WATERSHIP DOWN
You know how kids think bunnies are adorable (and at one point or another want one as a cuddly pet) and generally associate them with that grand mystical being the Easter Bunny that leaves you chocolate and eggs and other presents once a year? Yeah, the gory and violent WATERSHIP DOWN pretty much ruined that for me. Someone might as well have also made a movie about fairies, puppies, Santa Clauses and Tiny Toons bloodily fighting and slaughtering each other. They could have completely destroyed my childhood innocence in one fell swoop.

7. DON’T LOOK NOW
Though, DON’T LOOK NOW mostly isn’t scary, it’s the ending that so effectively got to me. (SPOILER ALERT) Having to watch Donald Sutherland frantically chasing someone who he thinks is his deceased daughter (but clearly can’t be) through the menacing alleys of Venice, all the while knowing there’s a serial killer on the loose in the city and a psychic vision of his own death hanging over him like a swinging pendulum? There was no way the movie could end well, and the tension from knowing that was unbearably frightening for me as Sutherland chased after his own doom – finally manifesting itself as a terrifying serial killer dwarf dressed like Little Red Riding Hood that slits his throat.

6. DAWN OF THE DEAD (2004)
Watching the stunning opening sequence of Zack Snyder’s re-imagination of Romero’s classic, I was horrified not because of the zombie violence, but because I’d rarely seen a film so effectively capture a world truly going to hell in a hand basket. Watching Sarah Polley drive through a once idyllic suburban neighborhood reduced to chaos and violence so eerily and rapidly, as well as the opening credit sequence (brilliantly edited, and accompanied by Johnny Cash’s “When the Man Comes Around”) left me genuinely shell-shocked and frightened for this world and the people in it.

5. RINGU
I’m not a huge fan of the film, but that final scene where that girl starts crawling out of the television with those eerily rigid movements? I felt just as frighteningly immobile as her victim. It didn’t help that at the time I lived in a small room where the television was literally at the foot of my bed. After struggling for an hour to try and fall asleep and get over my new deeply rooted mistrust of my TV screen, I eventually had to cover it with a blanket.

4. EVENT HORIZON
The whole “space ship mysteriously abandoned” science fiction storyline is essentially a sub-genre of its own at this point, but it nevertheless always has me immediately on edge and usually keeps me there. That’s not what really scared me about EVENT HORIZON though. What really got under my skin were the scenes where (SPOILER ALERT!) we see what happened to the missing crew; scenes of torture, self-mutilation, sodomy and – the worst for me – cannibalism (I swear there’s a scene of someone vomiting up human flesh). Perhaps it was the quick-cuts, or the horrors thrown at me in quick succession, but whatever it was that sequence so affected me that for the first time ever as an adult I actually had horrendous nightmares from watching a movie.

3. SESSION 9
If there’s anything more frightening than an abandoned insane asylum (where the movie takes place) and Satanism (which the film moderately touches upon) I’m not sure what it would be. That’s not the main reason this film scares me though. In SESSION 9 there is a prevalent sense of unease that is highlighted (and paralleled) by one character listening to eerie recordings made in the 80s of a doctor’s interview sessions with a patient suffering from multiple-personalities. The creepiness of the patients’ voices, accentuated by the degraded quality of the tapes, culminate in (SPOILER WARNING) “Session 9” revealing the murderous personality, Simon. If you’re not unsettled by the way he snarls “doc,” and how he recounts the killing, well… you might not have a fright bone. What’s more, having it brilliantly occur during the film’s present-time twist, makes it all the more frightening and effective.

2. PINOCCHIO
Until today, I have refused to watch any part of PINOCCHIO ever again. Whenever I accidently come across it on television, quicker than probably the Flash himself can, I switch channels. I’ve solemnly sworn that when I have my own children, this movie will not be allowed into my house – let alone watched. Most people would guess it would be the Monstro scenes. Wrong. Well, partially right. For me though it’s the kids who after drinking and smoking are – against their will – turned into donkeys and then sold into slavery to work for salt mines. It’s also the kids calling out for their mothers like dying soldiers, having their clothes torn off, and Lampwick’s TERRIFYING transformation on screen. For the sake of this article I watched the scene in question on YouTube (see below), which I not only immediately regretted, but also renewed my vow to never this movie again because it’s so f***ed up. Interestingly enough though I noticed a crucial detail I must have suppressed, but must be a major reason I’m so affected by the scene. One of the donkey kids shares my name: Alexander.

1. THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT
As someone who has long harbored both a fear of getting inescapably lost in the woods, and a fear of what malicious (even supernatural) things might linger in its dark pockets at night, seeing those two fears combined in THE BLAIR WITH PROJECT was like seeing my worst nightmare projected out of my head and onto the big screen. The entire film I felt like I – not the characters – was the one being systematically terrorized, and to this day I sometimes have trouble walking into a dark basement for fear of seeing the movie’s haunting final shot recreated for me. What’s more, THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT still has the same effect on me. Two years ago I rented it for my parents. It had been several years since I saw it in theatres, and I was older and mature now, so surely – I thought - I’d be fine this time around. About an hour into it – despite being in bright day light in sunny Florida – I sat huddled on the couch, blanket up to my chin, a jumbled mess of fears and destroyed nerves.

Honorable Mentions (and quick reasons why):

LABYRINTH – David Bowie’s bulge. Seriously, that will scar you for life. If that’s not enough there’s also creepy child stealing, and really scary muppets.

PSYCHO – That sense you get that something really bad is going to keep happening to the characters, but they don’t know it, and you’re left in agony waiting for when the two will collide.

HALLOWEEN – This movie wouldn’t be half as scary if it weren’t for that unsettling score.

JAWS – The little boy getting attacked off the beach opened my young eyes to onscreen violence, and the dead body popping up in Richard Dreyfuss’ face made me jump like hell.

NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET – In addition to the unsettling sexual suggestions, seeing Freddy’s claws emerge out of the bathtub the girl was bathing in pretty much ensured I’d take showers for the rest of my life (until I saw PSYCHO, and now I bathe myself using sink water).

THE SECRET OF NIMH – I have yet to meet anyone who wasn’t traumatized by this film in some way when they were a kid.