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Creepiest movie ever?


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But I think thats the brilliance of it; you find yourself becoming complacent with all the violence.

Reminds me of Haneke's Funny Games--Austrian version or American version, take your pick--which is a horror story about the danger of becoming complacent when watching violent entertainment. I wouldn't call it a creepy movie, exactly, but it sure is disturbing and affecting.

 

Other creepy stuff, in no particular order:

Michael Powell's Peeping Tom

Benjamin Christensen's Haxan

Fruit Chan's Dumplings

Pascal Laugier's Martyrs

Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky's Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills

Andrew Jarecki's Capturing the Friedmans

Kirby Dick's Sick: The Life & Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist

Stan Brakhage's Window Water Baby Moving and The Dante Quartet

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's segment in 11'09''01 - September 11

Takashi Miike's Gozu

Henri-Georges Clouzot's Diabolique

Lukas Moodysson's Lilja 4-ever

Hans-Christian Schmid's Requiem

Rolf de Heer's Alexandra's Project

Jan Svankmajer's Lunacy

Pier Paolo Pasolini's The Canterbury Tales

Catherine Breillat's Anatomy of Hell

 

That's off the top of my head. Some are creepy for their atmospherics, some are creepy for their provocation, and some are creepy for their philosophical ideas.

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So many of these movies (at least the ones I've seen) I admire because of the reactions they pull out of me. It's like comedies in some way - I admire a film when it makes me laugh, and I admire a film when makes my skin crawl (Eric - Anatomy of Hell made me think of this).

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This one might be slightly out of left field, but the creepiest movie I think I've ever seen or at least the one that probably made the most uncomfortable is Neal LaBute's In The Company of Men. Hitchcock, Lynch, and Herbie Goes Bananas are all great choices, but none of them seem as a real to me as Company. Even the concept that someone could be as big of a bastard as the Eckhart character in that film shook me up. Anytime I start to beat myself up over feeling like I've screwed up a friendship or done something horrible socially, I pop that one in and twenty minutes later feel better about myself though generally more scared for humanity.

 

--Mike

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This one might be slightly out of left field, but the creepiest movie I think I've ever seen or at least the one that probably made the most uncomfortable is Neal LaBute's In The Company of Men. Hitchcock, Lynch, and Herbie Goes Bananas are all great choices, but none of them seem as a real to me as Company. Even the concept that someone could be as big of a bastard as the Eckhart character in that film shook me up. Anytime I start to beat myself up over feeling like I've screwed up a friendship or done something horrible socially, I pop that one in and twenty minutes later feel better about myself though generally more scared for humanity.

 

--Mike

 

Oh yeah, I forgot about that one. Not sure it was creepy so much as just made me feel like I needed a shower.

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Lots of references to David Lynch but no-one seems to have mentioned 'Inland Empire'. That is one creepy movie. Its not scary but the atmosphere in that movie made me feel a real sense of anxiety and dread. I physcally felt unconfortable watching it. My wife had to leave the room and she wasn't even watching it!! Just the soundtrack and noises made her move. I've seem it a couple of times and I've still not really got a clue as to what is going on. It is a facinating film all the same. Mulholland Drive is also pretty unsettling. Sometimes being confused by a movie like recent Lynch efforts is way more scary that just watching a traditional horror flick.

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Some good ones mentioned already. I'll add:

 

The Tenant (Roman Polanski)

Chuck & Buck (Miguel Arteta)

Don't Look Now (Nicolas Roeg)

Suspiria (Dario Argento)

Spoorloos / The Vanishing (George Sluizer)

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper)

Three Women (Robert Altman)

The Hitcher (Robert Harmon)

Audition (Takashi Miike)

Caché (Michael Haneke)

Picnic at Hanging Rock (Peter Weir)

When a Stranger Calls (Fred Walton)

Carrie (Brian De Palma)

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Breaking the Waves was a dark, bizarre, scary, beautiful and ultimately very moving cinematic experience for me. I am shivering right now thinking of the end. Wow.

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Breaking the Waves was a dark, bizarre, scary, beautiful and ultimately very moving cinematic experience for me. I am shivering right now thinking of the end. Wow.

Yeah, that's a great movie. Pretty much everything by von Trier is creepy (Medea especially qualifies), and it looks like the upcoming Antichrist is no exception. (I'm always eager for new von Trier, even though I'm just as likely to find him maddening as exciting.)

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I pretty much completely lost my shit after seeing Breaking The Waves I loved it so much.

Dancer In The Dark, now that was creepy. People screaming out in horror in the theater, and sobbing. Easily the most raw, visceral reactions I've ever witnessed at the movies.

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Yeah, "creepy" might not really be the best description of Breaking the Waves. But, yeah: oh my god.

 

Same with Dancer in the Dark. Walking out of that movie, the guy I was with said "I just want to call my mom and cry".

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Same with Dancer in the Dark. Walking out of that movie, the guy I was with said "I just want to call my mom and cry".

I actually went to Dancer In the Dark with one of my former high school teachers--the same one who introduced me to Ingmar Bergman while I was still in school--who is now my colleague and close friend. While walking out of the movie, we were both struck silent, and neither one of us said anything until we were six or seven blocks from the theater. Finally, this exchange took place:

 

Him: So what did you think?

Me, after long pause: I think I loved it.

Him, after no pause: I hated it.

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No - the story's about two couples on a double date picnic - they discover an old crusty book (necronomicon), and they end up summoning some claymation monsters, and the park ranger gets all satyr on their asses. I think whatshisnuts from WKRP in Cincinnati is in it.

Didn't see Howard Hessman or Venus Flytrap on there, but there was this:

 

Assistant camera Ed Begley and Jr.
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I didn't find Breaking the Waves or Dancer in the Dark creepy, but damn those are some emotionally devastating films.

 

I remember my girlfriend and I saw Requiem for a Dream then went to see a late showing of Dancer in the Dark. My head was swirling for hours after that doubleheader.

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Some good ones mentioned already. I'll add:

Three Women (Robert Altman)

 

Yeah, this one was particularly creepy, great though. Has Straw Dogs been mentioned yet? I don't know if creepy is the right word to describe it, fascist masterpiece perhaps? But it certainly packed a punch.

 

--Mike

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anyone else ever seen Bad Boy Bubby?

No, but after watching the trailer I've added it to my rental queue.

 

The lead actor sort of looks like a cross between Nick Cave and Clint Howard.

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