I wasn't old enough to see The Silence of the Lambs when it was released in 1991, but I do have a vivid memory of watching it on TV when I was home alone one night as a teenager - around the age of 15 I think. I don't really enjoy scary movies as a rule, but I think at the time I imagined myself as a bit of a budding film buff, and given the film's notoriety and critical acclaim, when it appeared in the TV schedule I thought I should make the effort. Plus the combination of Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster seemed like intrigue enough.
A scene from the movie The Silence of the Lambs.
But even though the film starts off in a relatively less terrifying fashion, it's hard to rid yourself of the image of Dr Hannibal Lecter peeling off another man's face once you've seen it, and the final scene where Clarice Starling is stuck in a silent, pitch black basement with a man who wants to make a suit out of women's skin has stuck with me ever since. Needless to say I didn't sleep that night, and have resisted the urge to ever watch a thriller or horror on my own again.
My task was easy. "Can you review this film?" asked my boss. "Sure," I said. "What is it?" "Just another horror movie." Okay. "No problem," I replied. He flicked me a copy of the screener. I took it home, and during a spare moment, popped the DVD in. Ten minutes later, I was hugging a pillow. After 20, I was writhing on the floor, wishing it would stop. At the halfway mark, I was engulfed in pure terror. By the time the teens were being haunted at a school swimming pool I was doing something, ANYTHING, to get my mind off whatever was going on screen. I did the dishes, I vacuumed the floor, I even cleaned the windows, watching the screen from outside.
A scene from the movie It Follows.
It Follows, a film about a relentless spirit that can take any human form and will never quit its pursuit of its victims, got under my skin like no other horror movie before or since. Did I mention I reviewed it during the middle of the day when the sun was shining and the birds were chirping? I've laughed at the Saw films, grimaced at Hostel, mocked Human Centipede. But It Follows is the most chilling, terrifying piece of cinema I've ever seen. I can't imagine what it would have been like seeing this thing at the movies. And I never, ever want to find out.
- Chris Schulz
The Grudge (2004)
I'm kind of a wimp when it comes to scary movies, especially when they're movies about evil vengeful spirits. Just thinking about them gives me the heebie-jeebies. I'll take a crazy knife-wielding guy in a mask any day. At least he's human. But ghosts could be anywhere and they're going to get you. Like the one behind you right now ... Oh dear lord, don't look! It's getting closer! The Grudge left me covering my eyes in terror.
I just couldn't handle the movie's murderous spirits with their dead black eyes and pale complexions, being creepy and weird every chance they could. Granted the 2004 American remake wasn't exactly the best movie in the world. But it still left me with nightmares of a ghostly woman making horrific croaking noises as she inches towards me menacingly. Don't even get me started on that freaky little boy. JUMP SCARE.
Maybe we judged Michael Woodhouse too quickly. Sure, to the average punter a worm farm doesn't seem that dangerous, but then neither does going to see a movie. So how come I almost DIED on the way to see Superbad in 2007? Check mate, haters.
It was the summer right after I'd finished high school, back when Manners Mall was still a thing (RIP the golden mile) and I was off to see my favourite Bluth, George Michael, on the big screen. But first, a quick stop for a roti chanai at Wellington's finest eatery, Satay Kingdom. Unfortunately my habitual dithering about what to order meant my food came out later than my friends', so I slopped it into a takeaway container to munch on the way to the cinema.
A scene from the movie Superbad.
I was lagging behind, slowed down by my food, when disaster struck. A hurried bite of roti had not properly separated what I was trying to swallow from the rest of the enormous triangle of bread. My body betraying me, I involuntarily kept swallowing while simultaneously becoming unable to breathe. My friends were too far ahead to notice and passersby thought I was drunk and kept walking. I genuinely thought I was going to die. Eventually I managed to sort of mama-bird the roti back up into a bin. It was gross but I was safe.I then spent the entirety of Superbad thinking about how life is a blessing and periodically whispering "I almost died" to my friend Lucy, who ignored me. She might not have recognised it, but no horror film is as scary as almost losing your life outside a TimeZone.
- Tess Nichol
As Above So Below (2014)
I have a group of best friends who I watch horror films with. Us four ladies like to sit around each weekend, judge poor decisions made by stupid characters in scary movies, eat cake and plan our escape route for when (not if) the zombie apocalypse happens.
I don't get scared much - I mean, there was that one time I watched The Woman in Black and stared at my phone the whole time, and I slept with the lights on for days after watching It Follows, but shit really got real when we watched As Above So Below a few months back.
A scene from the movie As Above So Below.
The film is about a team of explorers (read "idiots") who go under the ground to the catacombs in Paris. They dig around some skulls, step on a few rib cages, crawl through some tunnels and are confronted by their most disgusting worst fears because, surprise, there's evil down there.
It's a 'found footage' movie, but it's a good one and the minute I saw the female cultists who are possessed and chanting in a cave, I was out, and very vocal about it. I'm not big on chants or the devil and will run for miles at the sight of an upside down crucifix - you just don't mess with that sort of carry on, I probably shouldn't have even written about it. Typical of someone in a scary movie, I like to look for trouble, and the very next weekend, before our scheduled weekly dose of horror, I booked flights to Paris this December. What's the worst that could happen? I probably won't come back. Okay maybe I do get scared easily...
The most scared I've ever been watching a film was the first time I saw Alfred Hitchock's masterpiece about obsession and love and obsessive love. There are many superlatively freaky moments (like the ending!), but the bit that really chilled me to the bone was the dream/nightmare sequence in which Scottie dwells on his inability to save the possibly-possessed Madeleine (Kim Novak).
A scene from the movie Vertigo.
Visualising Scottie's paranoid, haunted mindset with artful precision, Hitchcock presents a spiraling, tessellating prism of hypnotic fever-dream imagery complemented by grandly imposing, woozily swaying music. It's really scary.
