Horror Films

Chestnut

BBC4 is showing a long and detailed programme about The Exorcist tomorrow night (Thurs) followed by the movie (2nd time this week). So lock up your daughters if you don't want to be freaked out yet again. I have never been able to watch that movie since I last saw it 50 years ago because it's still inside my head unfortunately.

I’d like to listen to the programme if I didn’t have to watch it. I think I’ll try to do that using my iPad and using catchup. I’ve actually got the book somewhere ( it was my son’s) and I keep moving it round the house. I should burn it…

Well I keep well clear of The Exorcist since several people died during the filming of it. And the same with The Omen and Poltergeist. I wouldn't watch any of them again and I'm not sure how anyone can find them funny or amusing.

Details here (but beware a picture of Linda Blair in full possession):
www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/11727024/cursed-films-cast-crew-murder-freak-accident/

I think that the Exorcist came out in 1973 .
I watched it and was really scared - we all were .

One of my friends went to see it with her husband . He was unusually quiet during the film and afterwards completely frozen to the seat .
At first , my friend thought that he was pretending .
The cinema emptied and the manager was called .
He sat unable to move and sat with staring eyes .
They had to call an ambulance .
He had to be sedated in order to get him onto a stretcher and out of the cinema .
In A and E the Doctor said that he'd gone into shock , but would be alright .
At home , he was on huge doses of sedatives and was unable to go to work and she couldn't work either as he was too frightened to be left .

It took a very long time for him to get over it .

That's a very scary story, Esmay. I had heard that St John's Ambulance were in cinemas and now we can see why.

Well, this morning Talking Pictures was showing Straight Jacket featuring Joan Crawford, an axe and lots of blood. Although being 1964 it was in black and white, but even now it's still pretty scary. Must be one of the first slasher movies. I think it was the first horror movie I saw at the cinema.

It really is frightening .
When my friend told us about her husband - we thought that she was joking , but she wasn't .
Her husband was an intelligent , well educated healthy guy in his twenties .

Aaargh! I’ve got me days mixed up. I’ve just put BBC4 on by mistake…!

Hope you've recovered MayBee70. 👿

This should make you laugh. It was at the end of Straight Jacket (Joan Crawford 1964).

I only caught a split second and thankfully it wasn’t the walking up the stairs bit…

Like many I did jump at the end of Carry.
I’ve just remembered a found disturbing: Rosemarys Baby.

We've watched Night of the Demon, The Gorgon and Psycho over the last few days. We've recorded The Exorcist to watch later. Thank you to those who mentioned it was on. I think we'll leave it till last as I doubt I will want to watch any more horror films after that.

Has anyone else seen the old B&W French film Les Diaboliques?

Clever, and some of it seriously scary!

I agree Rosemary's Baby was very disturbing and still is. I had been wanting to see The Gorgon for many years but it's never on TV, then found it was on Plex and free to watch! So I had a little trip down memory lane watching that. When I last saw it I was scared to look at the gorgon on the screen in case I turned to stone!

Witzend

Has anyone else seen the old B&W French film Les Diaboliques?

Clever, and some of it seriously scary!

I saw that film quite a few years ago, it's one of the very few that has made me jump!
For current horror fans, I'd highly recommend anything by Mike Flanagan and quite a few Japanese horror films i.e Ring, The Grudge, Dark Water etc, extremely well made and very, very creepy.

My days of watching horror films are well and truly over, and I would never watch any of the modern ones. They would mess with my head and give me nightmares. I'll stick with the older ones, some of them are bad enough.

The film, Don't Look Now' is on BBC 2 tonight at 11.15pm - for anyone who is interested.

Bella23 - there used to be a custom in Ireland of posing the dead and then taking pictures of them. I was never sure if she was pulling my leg.

This used to be a thing in Victorian times.

Photographs of loved ones taken after they died may seem morbid to modern sensibilities. But in Victorian England, they became a way of commemorating the dead and blunting the sharpness of grief.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-36389581

Chestnut

^I’d been petrified of the mere thought of vampires ever since seeing a B&W film poster (in a railway station!) when I was only about 7. It showed a particularly horrific vampire with fangs bared, about to pounce on a petrified looking woman in her nightie.^
I think that might have been Nosferatu if the fangs were at the front (not canines). A really horrible image and just awful to have it on a poster where children can see it. Little ones shouldn't see such scary stuff but you can't always prevent it. There are people who decorate their front gardens for Halloween with the most horrendous things which are really frightening for young children walking down the street. Why would they be so unkind?

Another time we went to a movie wax museum with a 'horror' section. There was a woman with two pre-schoolers (one in a pushchair) showing them the Texas Chain Saw Massacre tableau. WHY?

I think it was actually an early Dracula, with Vincent Price? playing the lead.

A grandmother had a very old hardback copy of Dracula - even the Gothic lettering on the front was scary, so I have no idea why I wanted it. But she gave it to me, but at that age, 14 or so, and having seen the first Christopher Lee version, I couldn’t sleep with it in the room, in case it somehow summoned him. 😂
And I had to keep my bedroom window closed, in case he crawled in that way, as a bat!

I think people were scared by the Exorcist because of the hype surrounding it. It was fairly scary, but not excessively so.

I used to love the old Hammer movies when I was a kid - my parents would let me stay up late to watch them. I used to love Christopher Lee as Dracula.

I think one of the scariest movies I saw was The Thing - but again it was the hype that invoked the fear - the radio adverts at the time just played this spine-chilling wail. I just had to see the film

But Carrie was always a favourite - it was the first horror film I ever saw at the cinema (under age, too - the cinema staff just weren't bothered).

Ooh, far too many 'justs' in that post - must remember to proofread before posting.

Should have mentioned re. the above, the article has actual Victorian photographs of dead people so don't click on the link if you think it will bother you.

Cabowich

I think people were scared by the Exorcist because of the hype surrounding it. It was fairly scary, but not excessively so.

I used to love the old Hammer movies when I was a kid - my parents would let me stay up late to watch them. I used to love Christopher Lee as Dracula.

I think one of the scariest movies I saw was The Thing - but again it was the hype that invoked the fear - the radio adverts at the time just played this spine-chilling wail. I just had to see the film

But Carrie was always a favourite - it was the first horror film I ever saw at the cinema (under age, too - the cinema staff just weren't bothered).

I don't agree it was the hype that made them scary. They really were scary. People were literally having mental breakdowns watching The Exorcist. Read Esmay's post, that was a very disturbing story. I knew absolutely nothing about The Thing before I saw it on TV yet found it terrifying. No hype there.

It wasn't hype with me. I found the images terrified me and have stayed in my head. There was an evilness about the film that went beyond any film I've ever seen before or since. I wish I could clear away the images. If someone offered me a million pounds to watch it again I wouldn't.

I agree there was something incredibly evil about The Exorcist which is why it seriously disturbed so many people. I posted a link about all the people who died making the movie.

I am not happy that the BBC showed it (twice in one week!) and I might write and complain. I don't feel it should be shown on TV at all to be honest, but especially not by the BBC. Does it really come under their remit of 'inform, educate and entertain'. Something that disturbs so many people does not do any of those things.

I agree. I think I'll write to them as well.

Witzend I think it was actually an early Dracula, with Vincent Price? playing the lead.

I don't think Vincent Price has ever played Dracula. If it's not Nosferatu (fangs at the front) then it must be Bela Lugosi. Like Dracula he was a genuine Romanian so even had the accent. He lived and breathed the part for many years, both on the stage and in movies. When he died he was buried in the Count's cloak and dress suit. Really weird.