General

last year i stayed at my parents' office to work on a project thats deadline was approaching. their office is midtown located right next to a popular and upscale hotel - lots of noise from morning to night. around 6pm when everybody was packing up to leave, my mom kept asking me if i wanted to come back the next day to continue working. i usually work until 2-3am, so i told her i'd be fine working through the night. she told me the last employee leaves around 8pm, i asked her why she kept asking me, and she poked fun and said "incase you're scared of ghosts or something." weird for her to say, but i ignored it. 8pm comes around and the last employee is packing up to leave and asks me if i want her to wait so we can leave together. reassuring her i'd be fine, she asked me one last time before she locked up her space if i wanted to leave with her.
time passes and i'm still working in the same spot i had been - at around 12am my mom calls to check up on me, to ask if i'm at the office. we chat for a little until i hear piano playing from my free ear. not a song, not chords - notes. single notes are being played while i talk to my mom, and i immediately zone her out and focus on the muffled, unfamiliar piano. i've never heard piano in the building; all the spaces are corporate offices. it sounded like it was coming from upstairs, but i convinced myself it was echoing from the hotel next door (it totally wasn't lol). as soon as i interrupted my mother to ask about it, the playing immediately stopped. i hung up, packed all my stuff up, then jet to the elevator. but as i turned the corner to meet the elevators, i saw the elevator door sliding shut with nobody inside. it didn't move - not up nor down.

i don't believe in "ghosts" - i get a thrill from horror movies, but i certainly have never encountered an apparition or unusual instance. jesus christ i have never been so fucking horrified in my entire life. when i got out the building, i asked and apparently nobody's ever heard a piano annnnd one of the employees sometimes complains about how there are "bad energies" lingering around the office. lol worst experience of my life

@sirkibble I don't think my family would believe I r*aped a girl

@sirkibble: you forgot to mention that in jail, you unknowingly pick up the soap too many times

When I was a kid I was scared of everything, I watched 5 horror movies this one day and well, I hid in random hard to find places for the next 3 weeks.

@thiefy996: holy s nightmare fuel

OT: Umm scariest thing? hallucinations and delusions i used to have pre-therapy and pre-meds

i broke up with a close friend and it drove me over the edge, i felt like she was in my brain, not literally, but like monitoring my thoughts and stalking me, etc. one time i had this hallucination that she literally sent technological monitors to monitor my thoughts, delusions that she would stalk me into my late twenties and early thirties. i had some really terrible hallcinations of falling into a black hole and falling through a tunnel indefinitely with no end in sight, every light at the end of the tunnel was just an illusion leading through more tunnels.

@wontpostmuch: Thanks! No, I haven't seen it but I definitely will...downloading it right now.

I actually have NP with grindhouse. I don't really shy away from things that are nihilistic, gritty, dirty and just generally negative about everything. Life is life and nature is the most ruthless, Machiavellian force around us.

To that end I really enjoy movies about tragedy. It's not that I'm depressed or dark or goth or emo...I just love slow burning character studies. If the movie is done right and is unique...I'll like it regardless of whether its dark or positive. Tho I do seem to enjoy the dark side a bit more than the positive. Dunno why. I love films by Lars Von Trier, Alejandro Jodorowsky (Holy Mountain is epic...it's like Finnegan's Wake for film,) Darren Aronofsky, Gaspar Noe, etc.

Darkest movies I've ever seen would be...Antichrist, Requiem for a Dream, Dancer in the Dark, The Shining, Pi, Apocalypse Now, Taxi Driver, Machinist, One Hour Photo, I Stand Alone and Black Swan.

I would also list the first remake of Texas Chain Saw Massacre (the one with Jessica Biel)...but I'm still conflicted about the movie. On one hand it is very exploitative and over the top bleak, depressing, hopeless and disgustingly violent (it's not a film you're gonna 'enjoy,' per se, unless you're a sadistic person and enjoy snuff films)...Roger Ebert called the film vile and contemptible-->( http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-texas-chainsaw-massacre-2003 )...but then, on the other hand, its exceedingly well done. Plenty of film makers try to make sadistic torture pr0n but they just come across as laughably immature exploitative films. The 2003 Texas Chainsaw Massacre was incredibly well made and paced. Yeah it was a punishment to watch and when done I really needed to go outside in the sun and try to cheer up...but that sort of impact and experience is partially why I LOVE films. They're not just fun to me, they're experiences and art...and as art is a reflection of life...there is a lot that is dark. I may not enjoy the films...but I love the art and craftsmanship, for lack of a better word.

Yeah, I've seen Henry...though it was so long ago that I've forgotten it. That and it kinda got ruined for me when I realized that its pretty much accepted now that the guy was lying and just claiming murder after murder because it got him special attention. But if I suspend disbelief and watch it just as a film...I think its pretty good. I'm prolly gonna watch it again soon now that I think about it.

@fradddd: Me too! Dunno why. I just think they have a bit more impact than films that take the Michael Bay approach to plot and sensationalize things until they're borderline silly. Slow burners have a lot deeper and lasting impact for me because I can consider the most minute things that occur and just have a great time discussing and studying them.

I'm downloading that film you suggested right now, btw. Thanks!

@ifaceplant: Yeah, I can agree to that...tho when done wrong it's also the most common downfall in films. I don't really like heavy handed movies that try to manipulate the viewer over and over...but if a film can earn my trust, my suspension of disbelief and keep me immersed in the story - climactic scenes can make me cry. Unfortunately its all too often that films try their best to manipulate the viewer...but they haven't earned the right to do so. To that end it just becomes a joke and is laughable. I can't remember a truly representative example of this...but it happens all too often. A spin on this is perhaps the movie 'The Cable Guy' with Jim Carrey. The film bills itself and imagines itself as a slapstick comedy. It isn't. It's a film about a guy having a nervous break down and disintegrating into madness. I didn't laugh...I felt horrible for the guy. But the director clearly didn't know what they were doing and still imagined the whole thing as a slapstick comedy. It wasn't.

But yeah, when done right, the reason that motivates me with the greatest force to study and enjoy film is the way it can take me through a story and obliterate my emotions. It's not enjoyable but it's awesome from the standpoint of 'art.' It's definitely better than that idiot girl that drinks paint and then vomits it on the canvas and calls it art. No. Dancer in the Dark is art. The Witch is art. What that girl is doing is called 'vomit.' It's supposed to go into the toilet. Does she provoke a discussion? Yeah. But not the one she thinks she's provoking. Instead she's provoking the world to realize how empty and vapid modern art is and whether or not it even has a legit place in our culture like it once did. (It does - as a cautionary tale about the ridiculous shallow decadence of the first world.)

scariest that happend to me was when my parents almost caught me f2p

@fradddd: Nope but I've been meaning to watch that.
@ifaceplant: The Poltergeist remake was actually pretty terrible in my opinion. I haven't been able to find any good horror movies lately with decent jump scares that live up to the ones directed by James Wan.... I loved the Conjuring and Insidious 1 & 2, but 3 didn't pull me in as much.

I wish paranormal stuff happened to me. Until then I'm staying a filthy nonbeliever.

@ashleyattacked I think I always like slow burners. I really like The House of the Devil, idk if you saw that one. It's almost another period piece, but for the 80s.

got in a car wreck and wasn't wearing a seatbelt. didn't break any bones somehow but i still don't wear a seatbelt cuz they're uncomfortable lmao.

i've also been known to say things and they end up happening very soon after. wouldn't really call it predicting, can't think of a word to describe it.
a few examples: "wow that was a pretty long road trip and we didn't even see 1 car crash and we're almost home" 5 minutes later we roll up to a bad crash
"it's been like 5 years since a house caught on fire in our town" next day neighbors house catches on fire (inb4 'ur a pyro' )
this stuff happens a lot more often than i would say is coincidental. just 2 days ago i was looking up "most recent blue angel crashes." guess what happened 6 hours later? nearly 10 year no crash/death streak broken

i've come to accept the fact that i'm probably the antichrist

@ifaceplant: Dude, if you're gonna to J-Horror films, you really cannot miss watching House. It is one of the most off-the-wall, psychedelic and bizarre viewing experiences conceivable. It's a film that throws conventional directorial and editing choices out the window, in everything from the way sets are designed (going so far as to embrace how fake the sets look at times) to the way the fade outs between scenes are handled. Experimental cinema at it's finest. It's simultaneously goofy, funny and unsettling, almost as if an episode of Scooby Doo was filtered through Argento's visually bombastic sensibilities and strung together in a nightmarish daze that recalls Lynch's more nightmarish non-sequiturs. Don't expect for the film to make sense or take itself too seriously and you'll be in for a really great time.

@AshleyAttacked: Have you tried watching Last House on Dead End Street? Based on what you like, I think you'd legitimately find the film very frightening. A word of warning: it's a grimy, dirty movie with the most nihilistic and cynical view I have ever seen put on screen and it's abysmal production values are what drives that sense home. But if you're really that much into the horror genre, it's definitely worth a watch. It took everything Last house on the Left did for "real crime" horror and took it to a place so decadent that it's legitimately chilling. Or if grindhouse excess is too much for you then maybe Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer is worth a watch.

@ashleyattacked: I read an interesting article on why some people enjoy horror movies, and someone suggested that it was partly due to the fact that we go to the movies for effect, and a horror movie may affect us more than another movie would.

If you guys are brave enough to see this... then go for yourselves...

just type "funkeiros" on google images... This will make your eyes bleed and if you type "mc brinquedo" on Youtube, your ears will bleed. This is the dark side of Brazil...

edit: I don't like to be a brazilian, for sure...

I remember back during middle school an old friend mentioned about the Hanako of the Toilet story to me. My interest with urban stuff like that was rather high at the time, so I decided to try it out. Needless to say it didn't work, and was laughed at for entering the girl's side to begin with. Coming back home I went to the bathroom since I drink too much, was doing my business when someone said "You should really knock the door before entering the bathroom!" Freaked the hell out of me, and since then I get this weird feeling I'm being watched by someone.

I also mention a looong time ago about a notebook that also seemed to be haunted by someone. Much to my dismay said ghost now lives in my desktop.

@ifaceplant: I love horror movies but have genuinely never even once seen one that has scared me. And I watch essentially every single one of them that has decent word surrounding it. I don't say that to brag about anything...I say it because given the fact that horror movies are my favourite type of films...I feel like I'm missing out, lol. I just don't find anything frightening in them.

Honestly...I've only been truly frightened by one film in my entire life...and it wasn't even supernatural/demonic and it didn't feature jump scares. It was the movie 'The Strangers' and for some reason...it friggin TERRIFIED me. Not even just a little...a LOT. Deep down fear that stuck with me. Now I avoid films about breaking/entering. For whatever reason THOSE are the films that scare me. Not Insidious, not the conjuring and definitely not crap like sinister. Sinister was an awful movie done in poor taste. It was too stupid to be offensive...it was just dumb and obviously the product of a person that lacked imagination so he just went overboard trying to be scary, offensive and wrong.

@fradddd @bluemistar

The Conjuring 2 comes out in less than a week, hopefully it's as good as the first one.

I haven't watched recent horror films recently with the exception of some James Wan movies. The Poltergeist remake was one of the worst movies I have ever watched..
I haven't watched many Japanese horror films, and am intending to do so in the summer

What I hate about horror films is that I kinda know when the jump scares happen.. I need to loosen up and let it scare me

@fradddd: As far as a horror movie, it was utter crap. It did serve its purpose to kill time though.

@wontpostmuch: no one should have to experience that i'm sorry

@qtwarriorxx9001: dude I saw a homeless lady take off her shirt, wrap it around her head and start gyrating her hips. Sex has never been the same for me since

@windowlegs: I don't believe in them myself...mostly because I have no evidence to work with. But...its quite a stretch to throw out the entire body of well documented stories and personal reports from millions of people, many of them perfectly responsible with an earned reputation of being honest and truthful, quite a few them even being famous people...whether politicians, scientists, etc...going back at the very least 2,500 years. To not only refute in bulk every last one of them...let alone do all that and go a big step further and insist that anyone who does believe is insane...is a lot of confidence to have in something you have no actual proof about.

Not that I'm offended or think your opinion was even inflammatory...it just seems to me that you're working with far more blind faith to get to that conclusion than the people who see this body of reports dating back millennia and feel like its enough to at least be open to it all. Then there are those who have experiences and...right or wrong, perhaps it really was just wind or another example of the talking oven*...maybe even a prank. Not that it matters in the end. I'm only pointing it out bc it seems to me like 1. if you haven't seen a ghost yourself, and 2. millions of other people have reported them for thousands of years...that's hardly enough to go on to outright refute so much so intensely. Even from a purely scientific point of view...it's one thing to say you don't believe in ghosts...and quite another to say they -can't- exist.
Science can't even approach the notion of what was before the big bang, let alone what about it all caused it to happen in the first place. To that end it seems like there's quite a lot of blank places in our knowledge about the idea of life, the nature and limitations of consciousness, and everything in between.

But again...I don't believe in them myself since I've never witnessed anything remotely supernatural personally...but beyond that I don't feel comfortable ruling out anything I similarly have no evidence for or against. It's just not relevant to me so I stay out of the conversation.

*I don't know where I heard the talking oven story. Apparently there was a German lady who thought her oven was haunted because when she would open it...she would often hear voices talking out from it in English. Turns out it wasn't a ghost and her oven wasn't haunted...instead the wires had been jostled in just such a way that they were able to pick up and play back radiowaves...in this instance picking up a broadcast from England.

gonna lie, this story scared me. even though i believe in god and an afterlife, i think that anyone who believes in ghosts is completely insane

i saw an old lady taking a poo on the street once
edit: this was very scary to me

@fradddd: I have. I loved it. A lot. It's really interesting how far they went to make the movie accurate to the time period, as well...even going so far as to talk in old English.

It's not very fast paced and is definitely a rly slow burner that focuses on tension, dread and drama for its horror tendencies...to such a degree that when compared to most recent horror movies...it's almost not one. It's closer to drama than horror in a lot of ways. In fact I can completely understand why a lot of people, especially the genre fans, might not like the movie at all. Without following the events and what they represent to the people experiencing them in the film...I can imagine people coming away not even sure if there had been a plot...let alone whether anything happened. You really have to pay attention and try to empathize with the characters...which is easier said than done. In a lot of ways you need to need to know the significance of something to a person from that era in order to even know that something happened. Something that occurs by implication off the screen may not even be noticed by a person who isn't aware of its significance not to you, the viewer, but to the characters on screen.

In a lot of ways this is a voyeur film that lets you see a family coming undone. It's less something to scare the viewer and more something to make the viewer feel uncomfortable and voyeuristic from the fact that we're watching a family disintegrate. The film didn't 'scare' me by any stretch...but I did feel the tension, I did feel like I was watching something I shouldn't be seeing and I did feel guilty and sad seeing the family disintegrate in every sense of the word.

But I loved it.

I'd be hard pressed recommending it to a general audience. It's not a film that holds the viewers hand in any sense...it expects you to do your research. Not everyone wants to see something like that...and I don't blame them. I did, tho.

Also, the trailer was a bit misleading. It gave it the feel of a more traditional, if still art-house, independent horror film...when it just isn't.

Another thing I noticed and liked in the film is that even in situations where the director could have played for easy, cheap...but earned...scares from the viewer, it refrained. Rather than sticking to what we tend to expect from demon possession, oppression, haunting, etc...these tropes were steadfastly presented like the rest of the movie - not emphasizing what might scare the viewer, rather emphasizing what it represented and meant to the characters. Scenes that could easily have been climaxes and even benefited from jump scares and demon tropes...were allowed to pass by essentially unnoticed in the hope that the viewer knows enough to have understood what happened and that the horror was not in itself but what this meant to the characters.

I guess the best way to describe this is to say that this is what happens when demonic possession, witchcraft and murder are approached as part and parcel of a character study rather than a 'scary movie.' I found the movie to be a lot more similar to movies like Apocalypse Now, Requiem for a Dream...than the Conjuring or Insidious.

TL;DR --> To sum up the movie in a line or two - The Witch is a movie about what would happen if the Salem Witch trials were based on factual phenomena. Essentially it takes all the rumours and bs claimed to be true about witches and witchcraft...and shows it happen precisely as the people in Puritan New England most feared that it would.

@bluemistar have you seen The Witch yet

@SirKibble mailed me. Jesus I nearly died when I saw its name in my mailbox

I'm so excited for Conjuring 2, too.

There was one time when I was home alone and just browsing on my laptop, I suddenly heard a door open and close, along with static noises coming from my basement but I was too scared to check. It left me feeling paranoid for the whole night.

Yup, I have probably watched most of the decent horror films out there, other than the very old ones cause those aren't scary and can't keep my attention.

I have recently wanted to start doing some urban exploration, and whenever you do that at night it can pretty much turn into ghost hunting, since it's just creepy.
Yeah I would say I'm agnostic about ghosts though.

@fradddd: Me too! Do you love horror films like I do? I am still skeptical of people that claim to see ghosts tho

I was walking home drunk after a party with my friend. Suddenly we hear an extremely loud sound and immediately the lights go out. But there had also been some kind of general hum and that was gone too. We were left with this dead silence. As we sit there processing this, we hear a woman scream and within seconds a cat let out one of the biggest yelps of terror and pain I have ever heard. We ran to our place in terror.

Another instance was when I was over at my girlfriend's house. Her parents were away and so was most of the neighborhood since it was during an eclipse. Suddenly, a radio turns on playing old timey music coming from her garage. Except there is no radio in her garage. That really freaked me out.

Nothing truly scary has ever happened to me. Nothing paranormal or anything. But, this makes me almost SEEK OUT scary stuff, such as walking in the woods at night, and it still never happens.

@dragon11 3spoopy5me
@thiefy996 rabbits make very loud screams, and so do mountain lions

I was sort of hanged with this girl, we went to the mall, and this skincare store caught her eye so we went in. She tried out all sort of products, then she applied some dead-skin removal lotion on my hand. That's when I realized I've been friendzoned. Dum dum dum...