Poltergeist, that clown, the tree outside the window, fuzz on the TV was a portal to the other side as far as I knew.

I think the scariest movie I’ve ever seen (if not necessarily favorite scary movie) hands down has to The Changeling. Oddly, I have yet to find almost anyone else on the planet who agrees with me.

The Shining has got to run a close second, though, and it might actually be more of a favorite film than the other. Two main reasons: the twins, and the psychic dude. *shiver*

OMG, Julia you really are my sister. I read The Shining at about the same age and I’d say to my brother (who is five years older), “You’re not going out tonight are you? Can’t you stay home?” Scariest movie? Hard to say. It could be Alien. I had to shut my eyes a lot. But then, I still can’t take a shower if the curtain isn’t see through, so that’s me.

I’ll second Poltergiest. I still can’t sleep with a hand or foot hanging off the edge of the bed. Can’t sleep, clown’ll eat me.

“I made the mistake of watching “Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte” with Bette Davis and Olivia DeHaviland in a dark room at night when I was something like eight years old. It won’t make many “scariest movie ever” lists but it gave me my first real middle o’ the night frightmares so it will always hold a special place in the cold dark cellar of my heart.

“Alien” is definitely up there. “Jaws,” too. Being a crazy fan of Stephen King when “The Shining” came out I hated it loooong time for how much it differed from the book, but I’ve come around to appreciate its awesomeness. I’d definitely have to include John Carpenter’s “The Thing” and the original “Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” alongside “The Exorcist” and “Seven,” and “Silence of the Lambs.”

On the book tip, a good scary read made into a mediocre movie in the early-mid ’80s is “The Keep” by F. Paul Wilson. It’s set in WWII in which the nazis have occupied this old castle and accidentally unleash previously eternally trapped vampiric hell upon themselves. It’s hard to hate the supernatural evil when they’re killing Hitler’s finest.

IT. Brought to life every childhood bad dream.

Movie: Silence of the Lambs and Iraq for Sale

Book: Helter Skelter (that shit happened yo!)

OH! And I forgot: Mindhunters.

It’s actually pretty stupid and it stars LL Cool J, but Christ if I didn’t have to share a bed with two friends that night as we replayed the “puppet scene” in our heads.

It was never released stateside (tells you how good it is. . .)

I had spent about a month away from civilization in the woods camping. I had seen no commercials nor knew what was going on in the world. On the day I got back, me and a friend decided to hit the movies. We hadn’t seen any commercials so we didn’t recognize any of the movies. We randomly picked a movie called “The Blair Witch Project”. The two strongest emotions was the initial fear and then confusion with the film having credits.

Black Sunday, Repulsion and The Birds are at the top of my scary list. And anything with Jennifer Aniston.

I saw Blair Witch at a time when I was doing more camping than normal and yeah, I let it in my head and found it truly scary.

Most disturbing film I saw – slightly different from scary – was Seven, for sure.

Just watched 28 Days Later last night (for the first time, I’m a bit behind schedule) and will admit that since Deadly Virus is the A-Bomb of our generation, it did make me a bit spooked.

As for books: Communion, The Stand, Pet Semamtary (why did he spell it that way?) and a ton of UFO books I read as a kid.

Raphael, I agree with you! I saw The Changeling for the first time a few years ago when a friend of mine told me to watch it. At first I was all, “yeah, right, this is scary” but by the end of the movie…oooh, chills!

Seeing The Exorcist as a kid back when there was nothing else quite like it totally freaked me out. After that Jaws and Alien (much scarier than Aliens which is just popcorn scary) messed me up too but not as long as the head spinning, pea soup spewing devil possessed Linda Blair! AHH! My other childhood movie nightmare came when I somehow saw the original Manchurian Candidate as a 6 year old. Didn’t understand it at the time but I’ve had a lifelong fear of Angela Lansbury ever since.

Good movies!
I saw Blair Witch after the hype was at full force and found it not that scary…oh well. And regarding Poltergeist, at the time I was reading all about ghosts and poltergeists and wanted to see the movie because I *knew* all about poltergeists. So imagine my disappointment when it turned out to be some kind of “horror” movie. Pish tosh. The scariest moment in that movie for me was the scene when the mom is in the kitchen looking toward the dining table, she turns away, then turns back and all the chairs are on the table. That was great. The rest was silly. Silly to my “poltergeist expert” 15 year old self.

Alien was the scariest thing I saw before the age of 20. I remember only parts of it because I was crouched down in the seat, covering my face in my hands and my brother was laughing at me! Jaws was a close second for that period. There was no swimming for a long time after I saw that — and I lived in Hawaii, so do the math. Then in my 20′s it was Silence of the Lambs — I couldn’t watch it at night, or alone — and there was a time it was on cable around the clock. I haven’t seen a scary movie in a long time, so that’s all I know!

The Thing scared me. the john carpenter version.
i actually thought aliens, the sequel was better than the original.

Movie: Night of the Living Dead. It didn’t scare me necessarily while watching it, but the scenario stuck with me.
Book: Pet Sematary, definitely.

Movie: Fire in the Sky, just for the scene with the needle going into the guy’s eye. Otherwise…I don’t know, Halloween? Army of Darkness? What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

Book: Dracula. Something about reading about everything from the POV of the characters, but knowing what’s really going on, was really creepy to me.