Common Ground: Horror Movies/Books/Games/Music/Conventions/Etc.

188 Replies

i love all things horror :)

Nicole said

Any favorites? :)

when i was younger i loved the nightmare on elm street and friday 13th movies, these days zombies and things like walking dead

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BoxerMama said

As a child I LOVED horror! Nightmare on Elm and Childsplay being my favourite. As I’ve gotten older, I get creeped out super easy. I haven’t watched a real horror movie since the ring. I slept with the light on for 4 days.
I love House of a 1000 Corpses and Devil’s Rejects though.

Nicole said

First time I saw Nightmare was in junior high. Three of us piled onto one cushion of the couch. My mom peers in through the plate glass window to see if it was safe for her to come in – she’d gone out the backdoor – and we all 3 screamed like crazy. :)

BoxerMama said

HAHAHA!

Uniquity said

In general I don’t do well with horror (traumatic childhood experiences) but I LOVE House of 1000 Corpses and Devil’s Rejects!

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Sare said

I LOVE horror Although i love it best at the theater when you surrounded by people you dont know its more creepy but alas my husband dues not like to go cues i grab on him and my best Friend dues not like them lol, So i sit at home alone in a Quite room with my tea and the lights off and star at the tv And then when something scarey happens my animals seam to know and they scare me even more then they nock something or come running threw the room!

Best one in theater for me was I know what you did last summer 2 And when the hook comes threw that confessional box in the first 2 mins of the Movie i Scream and the WHOLE place Jumped! we were in the back last row and this was in like 1998 before stadium seating and it was like the wave people going up and down as they jumped And then broke into laughter! guess i got them that day :) sadly im no longer a screamer but a Gasper! Not good in that situation lol

Im still getting caught up on a lot of old ones But i hear that the cabin in the Woods Which just came out on demand is Good!

Nicole said

Cabin in the Woods is thoroughly enjoyable. I’m not sure how creepy it is, but there are a couple of jump-at-a-body scares. :)

Sare said

Cant wait just got it and the haunting of weilying house or somthing lol tonight is going to be Good!!!

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A Tale of Two Sisters freaked me out! I watched it in a film studies class and WAHHHH! Done so amazing!
I’ve been mostly exposed to cheesy horror movies, like Evil Dead and Army of Darkness, Night of the living dead.

I do place horror video games though, Resident Evil series is pretty fun. Uggg, I jump at the dogs that bust out of the windows every time!

Yay, another person that has seen A Tale of Two Sisters. That’s surprising that you watched that in a film class. I really need to check out other stuff that director has done. That was just so well done and creepy. I saw that alone and I did not want to go to sleep after that one. The bag was soooo scary.

BoxerMama said

Army of Darkness is AMAZING!

ToiToi select said

I love tales of two sisters! Resident evil was good only first two…got progressively worse for me.

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I think for me reading horror is scarier than watching it. For example King…he can have me up at 2am reading away with every light in the house on. I find his books much scarier than the film versions. However, The Shining and The Stand were pretty damn scary movie-wise.

I do love movies like The Silence of the Lambs and all the others in that series. Def. like the horror that makes you think.

Nik select said

Agreed. Unless the creators make the film properly, the world created in my head whilst reading the book is much scarier. The Shining is a great example of them getting it right, in spite of its deviation from the book.

Ohh The Stand! Probably my most favourite book in the entire world. King really creates such realism in his books that it terrifying – (I’m thinking IT!) – definitely had me sleeping with the lights on.

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Since it’s getting close to Halloween, does anyone have any good costume ideas or have you done any good costumes in the past?

I’ve really only done 3 horror related costumes in the past but I would like to do more. My best friend had her bridal shower on Halloween and did a zombie theme bride shower so I was a generic zombie one year. Another year I was Carry after the blood bath of course. I love getting into a role while wearing a costume so I would just stare at people until they would get freaked out and say something. I considered it a great success when I freaked out a few friends that have known me a long time. Also, I was the raven from Poe’s poem. I would perch on things, knock on doors, and walk up to people and say ‘nevermore’. Dorky? Yes, but lots of fun.

Two other awesome costumes that friends had done was one guy was Ash with chainsaw hand and all. Another friend was a nurse from the Eye Of The Beholder episode of Twilight Zone. I convinced her to do that. It looked so good but only like 2 other people were able to figure out what she was.

I’m completely out of ideas. I’ve always wanted to be a cenobite but that is kind of elaborate and expensive.

Nicole said

I have a hunk of fake leather that I bought about 10 years ago to make a cenobite coat. Yeah, elaborate and expensive are the words for that, alright. Never got it done. :)

I have done Lady Macbeth with bloody hands, Masque of the Red Death (which everyone thought was a dead pirate)… my favorite to date was Baron Samedi. I did the skull face paint with a ratty tux tail coat, top hat and skull headed cane. No one at work got that, either. :) Raven costume sounds like fun.

Nik select said

You make me literally lol! First with the book at the airport (I could totally picture that) and then with the raven. That’s freaking hilarious (and also awesome).

I was all proud of myself as I was getting ready to suggest cenobite to you and then I got to the last sentence of your post. Hmph. =)

Oh wow, great costume choices Nicole! Haha, I’ve totally started costumes too only to abandon them after I realize how much work something will be.

Sorry Nik. The raven was so much fun! The only costume I did that was more fun was Axl Rose. I think I wore a Noseferatu shirt for that but acting like Axl Rose was fun. I have really funny photos from that Halloween.

I rocked a pretty nifty zombie outfit one year for a friends front yard fright fest. I used an old prom dress, lots of fake blood and all sorts of fake skin to really get into it. This guy went all out (fog machines, things swinging out from the trees, you name it he did it) and it was amazing!

Nice, that sounds like your costume came out great and like a fun party too!

It was a party/scare the neighborhood kids silly. :) Good times. This year it happens to be at our house. So we’ll need to get cracking soon!

Ohhh awesome question! Can we share some halloween costume pictures too? :D
I wish i could still go trick or treating just for the costume aspect haha. My favourite ever was a homemade Mrs. Lovett from Sweeney Todd – I’m not sure if we’ll dress up this year – but I want to! It’s tough being in an apartment and still being new in town, not really sure where we’ll go on Halloween!

Daxenobis said

No plans for dressing up. I haven’t done it since I was a kid.

Do you have pictures of the raven costume? It sounds awesome!

As for ideas. If you like Twilight Zone, I remember one episode where there was this one girl that was having surgery to make her look beautiful and basically people are so deformed now because of surgery and what not that they are disfigured and they think that is beauty and not what normal people look like. Maybe you could do some make up effects and be one of the disfigured nurses?

The Purrfect Cup-Sounds like you need to start thinking about what to do now.

Daisy-Yes! I would love to see a pic of your Mrs. Lovett costume.

Andrew-Dressing up is so much fun. Not sure if I have any. The costume wasn’t really elaborate. A friend did some amazing make up for me, I wore all black, and added black raven wings and vinyl gloves. That was the exact costume that I coerced my friend to wear. She found an old time nurse costume, one with one of those hats and all and put on a pig snout. It looked awesome. That’s my favorite episode. From the episode I don’t know that people are disfigured from surgery but just look that way and the women was what our time period/dimension would consider attractive.

I have been a pretty awesome zombie on two occasions. I usually go all out with the decorating of my house. Not so much last year, it was our first year in our new apartment and we don’t have quite enough room for me to do as much as I want.

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Okay let’s share Halloween costume pics for inspiration then – I loooove costumes – heck, any reason to dress up! That’s where Halloween is best, of course ;)

So, yeah – show me your pics ;)

Mrs. Lovett – http://flic.kr/p/ddvXee
Pebbles & Bam Bam – http://flic.kr/p/ddvXd6
Jack Sparrow – http://flic.kr/p/ddvYau and
http://flic.kr/p/ddvXhg
Worst Lady Gaga ever – http://flic.kr/p/ddvXfe
Generic Zombie – http://flic.kr/p/ddvXc6
Alice in Wonderland – http://flic.kr/p/ddvXiv

Okay I want to see your costumes! We have NO idea what to be this year so .. inspire away :D

Wow, your Jack Sparrow is brilliant! Fantastic Mrs. Lovett too!

Thank you! I make all my costumes with thrift store finds – if anyone wants some help (albiet over the internet) with a handmade costume, send me a PM!

Oh I hope others have pics to post too ^^ Otherwise I feel a little like an exhibitionist haha

Nicole said

Those are great! I’ll have to get mine from my work computer. I only have one of them here at home.

ee awesome Nicole I can’t wait!

As to not make DaisyChubb an exhibitionist, I will post the only 2 Halloween photos I could find. The Axyl Rose one was 2 years ago and dead cheerleader one was over a decade ago when I was in my 20s. I’m kind of sad that those were the only 2 I could find. My coworker dared me to dress as a cheerleader but I couldn’t just be a regular cheerleader. Kind of miss the black hair. http://s1094.photobucket.com/albums/i446/butikiteas/Halloween/

Ah you look GREAT! I’m pretty jealous of your hair – is it still that long? did you grow it longer? Like you said, it’s an older picture, but I love it – so gorgeous! Yes undead things can still be gorgeous ;)

Thanks for sharing, you made my night :D

Once, going to a Halloween party, I wore black clothing that I’d attached little stars to all over. Everyone kept asking me what I was.

“The scariest thing you can think of.”

“…Okay, I have no idea, I give up. What are you?”

“The hole in the ozone layer.”

Daisy-Thank you! :) I did grow it longer, down to my knees actually but then donated it to Locks of Love. I change it constantly. Recently, I had it long but just donated to Locks of Love again maybe a month ago and now it reaches maybe 1/4- 1/2 way down my back. I’m looking to grow out again but not down to my knees and also I’m dying it fire engine red for the Fall season.

Daniel-That’s awesome!

Nicole said

Okay, here we go:
http://s1165.photobucket.com/albums/q589/dagony/

And yeah, looking back at it, I think I would probably have said dead pirate rather than Red Death. :P

Ahhh amazing! I love them! 2003’s is my favourite, but that Red Death is kick ass too. What are your plans for this year?
Thanks for sharing – I love eet!

Nicole-The Masque of Red Death/dead pirate costume was really well done. Love it!

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Lynxiebrat said

Love this thread! Growing up I liked alot of the slasher films, Friday the 13th, Halloween, (Well I liked 1 and 2. 3 got on my nerves.) and so did Jason after the 1st 2, come to think of it. I loved and still love Nightmare on Elm Street 1-6. I saw New Nightmare twice, while I thought it was cool that Heather Langenkamp was in it, (From the 1st movie.) I thought there was no real point to it. I refused to watch any ones made after that. I like Nightmare not because of slashing aspect, but because of Psychological aspect, stalking people in their dreams? Pretty freaky. The 1st scary movie I saw, (Still manages to scare me even now.) was Poltergeist. I had identified with Carol Anne, because she was about my age when she was in the movie.

Hitchcock Films: Vertigo is my favorite of the Hitchcock films, though The Birds would be the 2nd favorite.
Another movie, which was not (as far as I know.) written by Hitchcock called What Lies Beneath with Michelle Pfieffer and Harrison Ford. I liked the storyline. When I had 1st seen it, I compared it to Hitchcock films and thought it seemed to be on the same wavelength

I like some campy horror films, Pumpkinhead was mildly amusing. Witchboard 1 & 2 was the ones I watched as a kid, though not sure if I could sit thru them now.

13th Ghost was pretty scary the the first couple of times, and in the right mood it can still manage to get to me.

Generally speaking I love Paranormal Romance stories, though I am tired of both Vampires and Werewolves. Being a Pagan I am more into witchcraft and magickal stories. Even though I like Horror flicks and some books, I prefer fantasy.

Dean Koontz, I love his early stuff, Lightning, Cold Fire, Watchers, Servants of Twilight. The Key To Midnight and the Door to December are my 2 favorites aside from the 1st 4 I mentioned. lol. I know, alot of favorites. But like someone else mentioned he got way to repative , though I have been thinking of checking out his newer stuff.

Stephen King, oh Gods, speaking of repetative! Again, I liked alot of the early stuff, like Christine, Different Seasons (novellas, containing Shawshank Redemption and Stand by Me (Known as ‘The Body’ in the book.) I have to say I enjoyed King’s short story and novella’s more then the books. I tried reading The Stand, but truthfully I liked the mini series better. Bag of Bones was the last ‘new’ book I read from him. The word new in quotes because it has been several years since it came out. The story line was pretty good, but it seemed obvious that the book was outrageously padded to make it thicker, (maybe to charge more?) I mean padded as in page after page pretty much the same thing over and over. It is possible that SK didn’t intend that, but I don’t know.
Oh can’t forget the collaboration he did with Peter Straub in The Talisman. Wonderful story, I plan on reading it again soon. Have not read the sequel to Talisman, called the Black House, though it is on my long list of books I would like to read.

Nicole said

Straub is one of my favorites. Black House is well worth the read. I am not a fan of King’s Dark Tower stuff so there were references I didn’t get, but I still loved The Talisman. I read Koko over a summer break while listening non stop to The Doors & CCR. Really helped set the mood. :)

Pumpkinhead is a repeat watcher around here. Not a good movie, but I enjoy it. :) Not many people ever mention What Lies Beneath but I thought it was pretty well done.

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Lynxiebrat said

LOL. almost forgot I was going to mention The Ring. Only seen the 1st, and have no urge to see the 2nd. Now, generally speaking I do not watch or read anything scary at night because I have an overactive imagination and just get to jumpy. The last time I did watch a scary movie at night, was The Ring. (American version that is.) It rattled me so much that I could not fall asleep that night. Hell I had even a hell of a time getting off the couch and going to bed. I read for hours, (can’t remember what but it wasn’t anything scary, in fact it was probably a romance.) So after that made a strict rule for myself to not watch or read anything scary at night.

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I really, really hated horror for a really, really long time.

Part of this is that I was a really imaginative and sensitive kid, so my mother (wisely or not, I’m still not sure) went out of her way to shelter me from any media that was particularly disturbing or scary, as she felt I’d never be able to handle it. So I guess I didn’t get desensitized to a lot of horror tropes like other kids did.

Also, I don’t want to go all sob-story, but I will echo Uniquity’s, “I don’t do well with horror (traumatic childhood experiences),” and say that most of my early experiences with being scared were genuinely terrible. Those have long been my associations with “fear,” and the few times I watched a horror movie when I was younger, it was almost like having a sustained panic attack, like two hours of feeling like I was dying/going to die. The entire concept of a “good scare” eluded me then. So I ended up developing a very negative view of the genre, and thinking that horror enthusiasts must be very emotionally disturbed people. Also, my limited exposure meant that my view of horror was one-dimensional, e.g. “It’s just a bunch of shit about supernatural creatures pointlessly killing people.” In retrospect I am surprised at myself, because I am a HUGE sci-fi fan, and sci-fi is often dismissed in similar ways as not being Serious Enough to handle Big Ideas.

A few years ago though, I did get turned on, rather against my will(!) to the Silent Hill games via Spoony. (http://spoonyexperiment.com) I have pretty much been obsessed with Silent Hill ever since; I guess that was the first time I really saw horror as a genre that has something to say about the human condition. Then I got into watching The Cinema Snob (http://thecinemasnob.com) and became more curious about horror as well as movies which might just be classified as “disturbing” or “sick” or even just outright exploitative in a disturbing/horrifying way. (See: A Serbian Film, which is the film I started with in an attempt to sand-blast my brain and “work up” quickly. I’ll admit that I don’t know if that actually worked.)

So this year I started watching horror and disturbing movies! I’m still an absolute newbie to them, so I have so little idea yet what my “faves” are, or what my taste even is…although I’m not intrigued much by standard Hollywood horror right now, so I haven’t watched any Freddies or Jasons or whatever their names are yet. Here is some stuff I’ve liked so far, though:

- The Cell – Always loved this one, but I don’t think it’s actually scary, just pretty.
- A Serbian Film – Okay, I can’t actually say I “liked” this (immediately after viewing, I severely regretted it), but it’s really, really…something. Nice cinematography, anyway, and surprisingly good performances for a film like this.
- The Shining – Genuinely think this is a film to be studied by film students along with Citizen Kane and I Am Cuba. Has to be one of the greatest horror films of all time, and very instructive regarding film making in general. LOVE this one.
- Saw – No, actually, I just really like the premise. The movie itself is so ineptly executed that it deserves some sort of award for suck.
- Who Can Kill A Child? – A 1970s Spanish flick, also goes by the name Island of the Damned. I love killer kid stories, and this is a great one. There’s an obvious “moral,” but the movie doesn’t try to explain exactly how anything is happening. I think this is intended as an homage to “The Birds” in some respects.
- Singapore Sling – The Greek film from 1990, not that American-made thing from 1999. I read a review of this that called it a perfect marriage of 1940s noir and 1970s grindhouse. Some really raw content, but beautifully filmed.
- The Omen – Yay, more freaky kids. The original, naturally, which did everything right, unlike the remake (where it is obvious from the trailer that they fucked everything up).
- Village of the DamnedMORE freaky kids! The original is demonstrably better in most ways, but the remake has a few strong points (most notably the music).
- I’m in the middle of watching Session 9 so far. It owes a little too much to The Shining, but I like it at the half-way point.

There is a movie coming out in January called “Mama” that I want to see. It appears to be a ghost story, so that will be a real test for me because I have a ghost phobia…so I want to see if I can finally handle something like that.

Any suggestions are welcome.

Nicole said

The Cell was visually gorgeous.

Looking at what you’ve listed if you want to test your ghost phobia before January, you might try some of Guillermo Del Toro’s movies – The Orphanage, Julia’s Eyes, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark – not necessarily straight up horror, but well done and Del Toro is always visually interesting. Another that is freaky kids is an old one called The Other. Not The Others with Nicole Kidman, just The Other, though the Kidman flick isn’t a bad ghost story, either.

Daxenobis said

Silent Hill is a very interesting game series. Each character that visits the town gets a different perspective. Because the town manifests your fears and makes demons and what not accordingly. Why I hate how pyramid head is in the movie. Pyramid Head is a monster of sexual lust and rape, he rapes all the other monsters. Why is he in a story about a mother trying to first d her daughter? Makes no sense. Same with the nurses, they are “sexy”. Each person that visits the town has different monsters, I would love to visit Silent Hill as a way to face my deepest fears, and to learn something about myself. Of course I would want a guarantee way out XD Also Silent t Hill is a Japanese take on Western horror, which makes it even more unique.

Saw 1-3 I think are great films because of their message. After that it just becomes a franchise for money.

@Nicole – Thank you, great suggestions!

@Andrew – I haven’t seen the movie, but everything I heard about it made me angry. Pyramid Head is/was a monster so specific to James, and his existence as “the scariest Silent Hill monster” has been hopelessly exploited at this point. Oh, and I saw the trailer for the next SH movie, and it looks like utter garbage. Vincent is apparently a love interest? The costume designer – who probably had a budget of thousands – couldn’t create half as authentic an outfit for Heather as teenage cosplayers with 20 bucks? Puke!

ToiToi select said

Love SH games! Although it is sad that it got progressively worse :/ I loved SH 1-4 maybe, but after than it was just downhill for me.

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