The scariest movie I have ever seen that was not meant to be a horror movie was THE MAGDALENE SISTERS. I am sure most of you are familiar with the plot. Girls in Ireland, labeled as troublesome by their family, school or neighbors, are put into "schools" to effect a change in behavior.
Some of them for life. Treatment was no different from that at a prison, but at the hands of nuns and priests. It scared me to death.
What about you? What movie, not found in the horror section, scared you most?
15 comments:
"The Conversation" is the scariest non-horror movie I've ever seen. I think part of it is the sound effects--all the sounds are sort of blurry and low, so you have to lean forward and almost tense yourself in order to hear what's being said. But the scene where (SPOILER) Gene Hackman flushes a hotel room toilet and a murdered man's blood--and head!--start gushing up is one of the scariest ever.
BTW, many years ago I heard an interview with a woman who wrote a book about the Magdalene laundries (most of the institutions--not the women themselves--earned money by putting "inmates" to work doing neighborhood laundry) and she said it was amazing how fewer and fewer women were deemed "sinful" as more and more homes got their own washing machines.
Oh, that is sickening but funny, Deb. Although I think the last laundry went out of business only a few years ago. Also it was really about power and punishment more than laundries in the end.
The Conversation was a great movie.
Agora scared me. I'm sure in a previous life I was a witch because religious mobs really do freak me out.
THE MAGADALENE SISTERS is pretty grim and THE CONVERSATION is just a masterpiece...I scare easily, so it doesn't take much. Sinking ships, for example. I couldn't be dragged to see TITANIC. One that had me breathless as a teenager was THE LAST VOYAGE (1960), with Robert Stack and Dorothy Malone. She gets trapped in the wreckage of their cabin while he spends the entire movie trying to free her before the ship goes down. Yikes.
That would make me claustrophobic for sure. Yes, the ticking clock is a real heart stopper.
First - Geraldine McEwan. Amazing actress. Quite a different side to her in The Magdalene Sisters than her quirky impersonation of Jane Marple, eh?
My most horrifying non-horror movie? I think MIDNIGHT EXPRESS wins that honor. Prison movies are the stuff of my nightmares. MIDNIGHT EXPRESS is a true horror of a prison movie.
Oh, yes anytime someone is imprisoned wrongly or the prison is of the variety found there )was it Turkey?) I am undone by it.
I still have nightmares about THE SNAKE PIT.
There's CHINATOWN...and how one wonders if Polanski thought the finale was purely comedy or not.
And so many suspense films, ranging from PSYCHO and PEEPING TOM to ODD MAN OUT and D.O.A....very much including THE CONVERSATION...
Disturbing surrealist films ranging from UN CHIEN ANDALOU through THE TRIAL...and STRANGELOVE...
But on first view, I'll opt for MISSING, even though it didn't hold up quite as well on second viewing. Like THE MAGDELENE SISTERS (or THE KILLING FIELDS...or, to some extent, BATTLE OF ALGIERS), a huge injustice (to say the least) for which no one's paid much price, except the initial victims, who got to keep paying.
MIDNIGHT EXPRESS was largely in Turkish prison, yess. BROKEDOWN PALACE not dissimilar (not Turkey).
THE DEERHUNTER'S Russian roulette scene. And Sophie's choice in SOPHIE's CHOICE
There was a film in the 60's called "The Servant" with Dirk Bogard, James Fox and Sarah Miles that I found very frightening. No violence that I remember, but Bogard was such a threatening character as the servant who takes control of his master's life.
Like James Mason, he could hold horror in his voice.
You may find this article interesting, particularly the section on The World According to Garp.
http://blogs.publishersweekly.com/blogs/genreville/?p=79
Don't know how it's characterized, but as mentioned previously, Polanski's REPULSION scared the crap out of me. Spooky!
I loved THE CONVERSATION too. I wouldn't put it on this list, however. THE SNAKE PIT, yes.
Jeff M. (back from London)
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