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Editor’s Picks: Five Movies That Scared Me

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I love horror movies. Hell, I edit a monster magazine; it’s kind of a prerequisite. But I’ve been leaning more towards Sci-Fi films lately, and I think it’s because mainstream horror movies have kind of sucked.

I’m not saying that to be an indignant old curmudgeon. I just think that the best of utter creepiness is not going to waltz into your local multiplex. All the horror films with media fanfare are mostly predictable sequels. The PARANORMAL ACTIVITY train won’t stop running; there seem to be more copycats of INSIDIOUS these days than there are Nightmare on Elm Street films—which is fine; whatever, except that INSIDIOUS, while creepy, flubbed its ending and fell far from the masterpiece tree. Copycats have ranged from decent (THE CONJURING) to downright terrible (SINISTER), and they’re all full of jump-shocks, hysterical wives, and last-minute twist (read: predictably bad) endings. Few have stuck with me. Few have scared me.

Here are five movies that scared me.

I’ve found that the less I know about it, the better a horror film will be. Find something obscure and unmarked, something foreign, something you’ve never heard of. Dig through the back of a stack of used VHS tapes. Find something on Netflix (if you must) with an unsettling image that may not scream “SCARY!!” but disturbs you all the same. Because gems tend to show up in a dusty corner without much hype or overexplanation.

In that tradition, I would like to offer five cinematic experiences I had wherein I knew next to nothing going in and yet came away from more petrified than a Devonian plant. These are my favorite go-to fright flicks, from five to one—and not a “classic” in the bunch, I’m afraid.

 

5. FRAILTY (2001)

I don’t remember what prompted me to pick this up, but it was back when Blockbuster and Tower Records (sob) still existed, and I was taking a year off in between college, working—amusingly enough—at a movie theater box office and spending the majority of my free time writing and, well, watching movies. (Wow, my life has not gotten much more exciting since then.)

All I knew was that it involved crazy Bill Paxton.

frailty2001dvd

Yes, it does involve crazy Bill Paxton. And some crazy religious murders, and a totally creepy confession delivered by Matthew McConaughey when he was still in his “heartthrob” phase and nobody  realized he could actually act. What might have exacerbated my disturbitude was that I already hold an inherent distrust of institutionalized religion, and having a creepy Bill Paxton describe to his kids in their isolated farmhouse that he had seen “visions” of demons that he must kill made me want to run and hide in the closet.

Talk about a movie that holds up. The performances are all-around fantastic, the atmosphere is suffocating, and although the first of the two “twist” endings is slightly predictable, it doesn’t lessen the impact of the second. Rewatches have only further established its quality. Who knew Bill “Game over, man!” Paxton could direct a jewel like this? I certainly did not.


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