What is the scariest book or film that you've encountered?

[The Sublime Relianum]

I really like the movie Susperia but I never found that to be scary in any way. Other 'cringing but not exactly scary' movies like Salo and the Audition were good as well.

The movies that I find to be the most 'scary' are good ones with ghosts and demons and such (Ju-On and similar Japanese stuff for a quick example), but not because of the actual movie itself is scary, but rather the impression it leaves on you, such as two days later after seeing it when it's a dark silent night and you hear that faint noise across the hall and see the shadow supposedly flickering. That's when those movies become absolutely horrifying. I remember this one Japanese short that I saw a real long while back with this guy going into this apartment with all this tape on every crack in it. He goes and cleans it up but some kinda ghost or something was being held by it, and once he notices tries to put it back on but fails. I was positively unnerved by every crack in my house after that. My description really doesn't do it any justice but maybe someone else has seen it too and will recognize it.

But really only other movie that I can think of that I sincerely found scary in itself was the Blair Witch Project. While most of the movie is actually build up (similar to Audition but in a very different way) and is not scary per se, I find the release of all that build up at the end to be quite scary, especially with that lingering 'unknown' of what it was. Also has that 2 day effect that ghost and demon movies have (is Blair Witch considered a ghost/demon movie?).

That one movie Splice also deserves a mentioning. While once again, the movie itself was certainly not scary, the extreme uncanny valley effect that the main creature gives you is just massive. I could hardly even look at it solely because of that effect.

Also, anything that relies on heavy jump scares is by default trash. You can make a jump scare with Mickey Mouse and it'd still be scary. Jump scares are nothing more than a cheap and horribly uncreative way of making something of as 'scary' with minimum effort and talent involved. A good horror needs to rely heavily on atmosphere and suspense, not Mickey Mouse flying out of nowhere, right up your face

[Hot Scalding Gayser]

I don't know but I know that it's probably not anything mainstream and hollywood-y.

I remember when I was 15 years old and I read a few chapters of Stephen King's IT. It was way too campy to get under my skin. You don't really troll somebody by making the villains say "Let's grease up some queermeat" and then go physically attack gay men in bars. I don't think a gay man would actually be terrified of that. It's not like when somebody gay bashes they say some stupid 14 year old girl quip. I mean sure yeah it's entertaining, it's shiny and laughable but it's pretty much the opposite of scary. It was too homoerotic and gay and not scary. Same way I feel about all of Stephen King's books. I mean I like the guy, I know what a good person he is but does he really actually think he's being cutting when he talks about uncle farts and what not? And 'grease up some queer meat.'

It's like in Hollywood it has too many gays who glow instead of darken so it's like... another thing with that Six Feet Under episode where David got kidnapped. Okay I admit, it started out really creepy and effectively cutting. "That's just what people like me say to people like you so you feel better about yourself." but then he homoerotically put the gun in david's mouth, asked him for sex, and didn't kill him when he had the chance just wanted to fuck with him. It was dumb. Or like in the Human Centipede movie, that doctor was crazy but come on now- he fucking laughed at himself while looking in the mirror like 'Look at me I'm a narcissist!'

You just can't be campy and creepy at the same time, they oppose each other.

[ashlesha]

the movie candyman and the book IT scared the shit out of me as a preteen. between monsters in the mirror and blood bubbling out of drains, the bathroom was a scary place to be.

the only movie that really terrified me as an adult was saw. i know a lot of people laugh at it or whatever but omg. i couldnt sleep the night i watched it and i ended up waking my ex up at 3am and making him talk to me.

@McBain i need to watch inland empire (i have it on my computer but i havent gotten to it). have you seen rabbits? i think that scene in inland empire is a clip from that show. its great.

[Creepy-male]

[Amber]

not "the scariest", ofc

[PistolShrimp]

I was just thinking today about how it's been a long time since a movie has actually outright -scared- me to the point of leaving the lights on etc. I think "Kairo" is the one that haunts me the most, years after I saw it.



I usually find video games to be scarier than movies/books, even just watching playthroughs of them. I haven't played past the first ten minutes of Outlast since I bought it over a week ago...seriously, fuck that game.

[Creepy-male]

Re: video games.

P.T.

[mu4]

[jessica129]

I don't really get why people like horror movies. To me, most of them are too cheesy to be scary. The ones that really get to me though, are the more reality based ones like human torture and what not. Things like the exorcist are not scary to me.

I really have to be careful abut what I watch because for some reason, movies can really affect me. I was in Disneyland a few weeks ago and went and saw American Sniper and was so emotionally invested in it that when it was over, I just didn't want to do anything the rest of the night And was quite depressed. Does this happen to anyone else?

[Skepsis]

[Amber]

[Pookie]

I had a recurring nightmare where the T2 would chase me around a summer camp.

[Mactheknife]

Shades Children creeped me out pretty good when I read it the first time at like 11yo. Anathem​ was a mind-fuck.

[April]

I recently watched The Babadook (available on Netflix) and I loved it! Seriously made my hair stand up. I was really impressed with the cinematography, acting, and story ending, too.

[Words]

Alice in Wonderland, it's not really a children's story, but a metaphor for the insane - ie I don't think we're in Kansas anymore

[Kim]

Awesome, I just put it on my netflix list the other day.

Yes, it's really well done and very creepy. Great ending, too.

[Huoi66]

7-8 hours a day. Boringly typical.

[Moonbeaux Rainfox]

Not exactly scary, like as in horror. It's some time since I watched it, but I remember it was one of the uneasiest/wtf films I've ever seen.

Seven Beauties. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0tPX9iQKkk

http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/seven-beauties-1976

[may]

This was a good graphic novel.

I also played Uncharted 4 a few months ago. Avery likes to catalog the corpses of those he killed by dismembering the body parts and then grouping them together and labeling them by betrayal. They're hidden in scattered caves under his island so you won't know what you'll see next.

Gore warning for both cuts.

[Theoria]

Very spooky.

[may]

Not a movie, a videogame:

So I played this survival horror videogame and this one character in the game scared me really really really intensely. I've been thinking more about him recently now that horror is on my mind.

To give some context.

In this videogame, you basically wake up alone in a small cryo chamber in an apocalyptic future in the US. The world is populated by human and humanoid people all attempting to reach a small enclave and survive. Unfeeling killing and to a lesser extent cannibalism is matter of course. You have to travel on foot and brave the elements with the remnants of clothing you can patch together. There is the constant possibility of being killed for your clothing or weapons. Disease is firmly rooted in the game as well. You can stave off minor infections through careful management of your wounds, but many injuries will ultimately prove fatal. Then, some occult or mythical elements as well.

The Strangler.

To the north east of the cryo facility where you awoke, 28 hexes east and 19 hexes north there is a small house near a lake. When you come close you begin to feel a malicious presence. The entrance is barricaded. You might have a reason to go inside and you might not. When you enter you see that there is a urn that you can take with you. There is a feeling of being watched. You can also go upstairs or go downstairs. Upstairs you find a number of bodies in various states of decay. Downstairs there is nothing.

If you turn on a light you will be killed.

If you decided to go upstairs you have only the option to run from something in the building, running further inside.

From here forward you have many choices, only one of which* will result in you not being killed.

This is the choice:

You run down the hall and open the door on the right. A rotten body sits on a bed with a burlap sack over its head. You take the sack and put it over your own head.

The house no longer feels evil. There's a sense of peace. You cannot take the sack off. It becomes tighter and tighter (strangling you). You are stronger and now must kill an enemy every five turns or you will die. Unfortunately, there is now a strong feeling of paranoia and anxiety of the world beyond the house by the lake.

Playing this part (Seven Gables Road) made me feel very... it's hard to put into words. On the one hand I definitely feel fear. But also an intense feeling of hopelessness and sadness.

[Chae]

Drive with Ryan Gosling, the level of brutality escalated real quick and that was scary by sheer element of surprise.

[Muddy]

Not sure of if its the scariest film ever as I haven't watched many horror films but I really enjoyed Evil Dead 1 and 2.

Silent Hill 4 The Room was also creepy AF to watch my brother play it.

[Not A Communist Shill]

I am wary of posting in case it somehow encourages people to go and watch the things I suggest. The films that show horrific events that actually happened, or at least recreate a historic event (even if it is a loose inspiration) I would probably consider scarier than absolutely gorefests such as the Peter Jackson movie Braindead (known as Dead Alive in North America, but of course I'm not encouraging people go and watch it. Although there was some merit in it, even if it isn't the sort of film I like).

The Elem Klimov film Come and See especially springs to mind as being horrific, which is a War film. With films like Schindler's List and The Pianist (those two cover the Holocaust), they are deeply moving while being horrific, but perhaps not as visceral as something like Come and See (although if you've seen those movies, they are still very visceral). With a film like Full Metal Jacket, it has scenes I find completely horrible, but perhaps not out-and-out scary (They're unpleasantly visceral and psychologically cruel, but perhaps because it is inside an army unit rather than victims of a state and because it seems more contrived, it feels less scary).

There are many films that seem to delight in cruelty for its own sake, and that is a large part of what makes them "scary". I tend to find such films pointless: films like Videodrome, Sátántangó, There Will Be Blood, No Country for Old Men, Planet Terror, Bronson, Killer Joe, The Raid...Films involving the Mafia also tend to fit into this category, although I think The Godfather films are exceptional (if not to my natural aesthetic)...Once Upon a Time in America is a film I would be able to like if it wasn't for a few moments in it.

[Tonatiuh]

Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma

[xerx]

They show the Blair Witch in this frame. She looks like a run-of-the-mill monster, and it's underwhelming. It would have been scarier, IMO, if they'd kept her as an etheric entity that's observed indirectly.

[aixelsyd]

1984 was a disturbing read and gave me a nightmare.

[Adam Strange]

1984 was a disturbing read and gave me a nightmare.

1984 scared me, too. I heard that the author originally was going to call it 1948, the year it was published.

[ouronis]

goosebumps

Creepiest movie I saw I can't name because it was just late night tv when I was a kid but it was where the entire planet was being turned into ant people and the look of the ants completely freaked me out. Also that episode of simpsons where bart looks at homer and homer's face starts melting and rearranging
I think it was this but I can't be sure
https://youtu.be/jvUaizb1INw

[ContractedCriminalboy]

Scariest movie I've seen so far.

[chriscorey]

Event Horizon scared me the first time I watched it. These days movies don't scare me at all. I watch scary YouTube videos based on real experiences.

When I was a kid I read Eye of Cat, by Roger Zelazny, and it scared me. There was something really scary about being hunted by a telepathic creature.

[Aster]

Hereditary was the last movie that scared the crap out of me. I used to loove to watch horror movies as a young child, and was a bit fascinated with The Exorcist. But yeah, scared me so bad at the same time. Something about the beginning and the dogs fighting and the statues…the music. And the creepy Catholic music in the Omen ugh! Lol

The scariest book I’ve read…maayybe IT. Idk, I don’t usually get scared from books like I do movies. IT and maybe the SHINING scared me. Only Stephen King books so far.

[Aquamarine]

I read this book on wattpad when I was a child called Bedtime (it was a short story). It was basically about this boy who's brother moved out of the house to go to college. They used to sleep in a bunk bed and he took the top bunk when the brother left. After that, every night he would feel someone moving on the bottom bunk of the bed. It scared the crap out of me because my sister and I would sleep on a bunk bed. She wouldn't get home till late and I swear every night after reading that book I could feel somebody moving on the bottom of the bed. I'd be crying every night and relieved when my sister got home. The mind works in mysterious ways...it can really fuck you up if you believe something enough.

Scariest movie...that was Insidious. I also watched that as a child. I still don't have the guts to watch that first movie even though I'm older. It made me stop watching horror movies for years. The ghost in the house were what scared me, I can't even look at pictures of them.

[marooned]

i guess for me it's more about the horror than the fear. but regarding fear, often christian genre things scare me the most, or the exposure of such a cold evil that it seems all light is lost or impossible. it reminds me of when i was a child and with these christian kids who were talking about satan and how he appears, and after i couldn't get him out of my head and i slept with my mom in her bed for protection bc i could feel the evil everywhere and nothing could save me not even their god.

in terms of movies the one i couldn't get over was hannibal, not bc of fear but bc of horror. i couldn't get over that scene at the end when he cut pieces out of the ray liota character's brain. it was so cruel, so heartless, i just couldn't bear it. i closed my eyes but i still saw it in my head so i remember it all even though i never saw it. i couldn't bear the heartlessness. it's the most terrible thing to do to someone, to take their consciousness away bit by bit and mock them all the while. i couldn't understand it.

it reminded me of when i worked with the elderly in assisted living. i couldn't bear what was happening to their minds. my mind was my refuge and they showed me i have no refuge. but it was also just the suffering, the loss of identity, the gradual loss of an entire human being, watching them broken down more and more into pieces of themselves, seeing how they used to be whole and could no longer be. and i thought it was cruel, and i hated reality for it.

ps. i watched hannibal bc i was interested in relationship bt hannibal and clarice lol.

[Hot Scalding Gayser]

scariest book I ever read was as a child... don't laugh... 'the monster at the end of this book' with Grover from Sesasme Street. Yes a children's book with a sesame street character trolled me. I remember being like idk 3 years old and I was so terrified I thought I was going to die. I begged my mom to take me to the hospital cuz I was scared out of my mind and I cried for like 4 hours straight. Everybody just laughed at me like 'aww isn't he's so vulnerable and cute!' but omg I hated it though. It scared me worse than anything I saw in dark grimdark shows etc. I don't know what it was... the anticipation that there was this 'monster' and I couldn't fight or see him and it was coming to get me. That they just played it off as a joke irritated me even more lol. Cuz it was like cruelly laughing at my pain. I didn't understand it was just a book at that age and thought a monster really was going to come and eat me...

ugh muppets are creepy.

as a IEI I realize I often have a 'sweet and naive' baby face that's easily bullied. and I hate it- I just want to be protected and respected usually but it's too easy to just fuck with me cuz I'm so sweet and shy and nice. Ugh. /wants his dual to just beat everybody up. LoL

I'm also scared of shitty and dark government agents from creepy secret socities as to me they are more 'Purer Evil' and more likely to torture an innocent for power than most criminals who follow a code. so I get the 1984 thing. My dual is a mob gangsta my conflictor is Nurse Ratched types lol.

I view them as more cruel and fucked up and hateful than any criminal usually. Due to Te polr probably.. I would call them 'Illuminati' but from what I read on the original Illuminati, the founder was *against* abuses of State power like that... so maybe it's like the Free Masons/Deep State I don't like. I'm probably a member of the Illuminati myself lol cuz I'm so bright and shiny... once I learned about them more logically I think that makes better sense.

I often have nightmares where I encounter these people... it's so dark. I can't even really describe how dark and evil I think they are. Both in real life and in my dreams lol. You know I think they feel the same way about me... they are ironically weak against my baby-faced IEI Victimness. I am just the freaky Beta monster they have to imprison, to make the world a better place in their eyes... I seem slightly better at out-witting them at least, unlike my duals.

I had a dream last night me and my mom encountered a Deep State agent during the night and he was wearing these weird colors like black and orange with sophisticated-looking insigina on it. He had a cape on but still looked menancing even though his outfit was kinda ridiculous and 1950s campy like. Anyways I was in the car with my mom and I yelled 'run him over mom!' when I noticed him and she did. When he got hit by the car, I felt satisfied. As he was going to try and lock us up and capture us for no legitimate reason. Probably try to steal and suck away my power. It didn't seem to slow him down much- we ran away in the car but he followed us. He could run super fast even tho we were in the car but luckily he never got us.

I had that funny dream about Oprah and how she was putting people into Gestapo-like camps. Like everybody was in line for their food rations for the day, and had to wear plain and tattered cloth garbs and only Oprah was allowed to dress in something different lol. It was scary but also funny- because it was Oprah. idk. My sense of humor and wittiness is a defense mechanism against the gritty horrible sadistic grimdark in the world. We all know the grimdark wins in the end- but until it does, Ima gonna make my quips and run over weird controlling freaks in my car with my mom.

I liked when Linda Fairstein got her comeuppance and everything but I mean- there is still more work to be done in that area.

[marooned]

aw @BandD you are not the monster, they are.

[Hot Scalding Gayser]

*hugs* @inumbra.

Yeah I'm not sure what this secet society is called that I am even against lol. I don't feel attacked by all Te institutions or official authority people or anything lol but due to my Te polr I think I confuse the names/overly generalize and my 2D Ti makes it all screw-y or something blah. I would just say I guess 'Deep State' stuff... even though a lot of alt-right Trumpers say that to excuse bigotry sometimes I agree that they are definitely a huge problem lol. But 'Deep State' is kind of a bad name. I think they should be called something else than 'Deep State' but idk what lol. I don't think they are the Illuminati though... Illuminati is more about balancing good/evil. They are more pure black take away all freedoms type thing. I guess I sorta view it like.. the Eye of Providence is supposed to watch over everybody- but they want it where it watches over everybody *but* them... or something.

who watches the watchers and who watches the watchers that watches the watchers and who watches the watchers who watches the watchers that watc-hahahhaa.

[lkdhf qkb]

Horror movies give me frights, but the most scary movies are those paranoid movies where the characters manipulate, lie and betray each other (bc that's something that touches directly to my enneagram 6 need to trust and rely). Like Gone Girl or Funny Games.

I find documentaries like about Hiroshima, Tchernobyl or about incestuous sex offenders pretty scary because it's real. I find BSDM pornography scary too.

I read 1984 when I was 11, I can still the rat torture scene, effed up.