It still scares the shit out of me too but I love it, I’ve seen it so many times and each time it works for me. It’s excellent

davyK wrote:

My top tier are:

Exorcist
The Shining
Rosemary's Baby
Babadook
original Omen
Devil Rides Out
Poltergeist
The Others
The Changeling

I love this list, pretty similar to mine but the original Blair Witch would make it.  Will have to watch Devil Rides Out as I've never seen it.  The Changeling is superb.  

Edit: Actually, I'd probably put The Shining, Blair Witch and The Omen '76 in an all-genre top ten.

God I loved that film when I was a kid. Amazing to think it's never had a modern re-make.

Kow wrote:

There was great series of made for tv Hammer films in the early 80s. They were actually probably terrible but they scared me witless at the time.

Was that different to Hammer House of Horror?

Which was a horror anthology series with hour long episodes, because I used to love watching those, the Silent Scream episode with Peter Cushing and Brian Cox was awesome.

Oh and a werewolf one that nearly made me jump out of my skin.

Davy asked how Candyman has aged earlier, I'd say pretty well. The score definitely helps, it's one of the better 90s horror films for me.

If this discussion is now broadening out to encompass scary TV shows that deserved to be re-watched over Halloween, who among us remembers Sapphire and Steel?

There was an episode that featured our supernatural duo battling foes with no faces from a parallel universe. Freaked me out as a kid.

The series also broke with tradition by having its two lead characters falling foul of the other-dimensional beings they'd be battling throughout the series. There was no 'happy ending'

As much as I love todays Stranger Things and the like, they simply don't have the balls to tread where S&S went.

The man with no face and the animal blob in the wall of the house secured a few nightmares for little me back in the day. I have them all on DVD and went through them last year. Can confirm Kow is absolutely right. They make next to no sense.

cockbeard wrote:

I recall Chimera scaring the crap out of me as a kid. Hmm, wonder if it's available anywhere, Charles Dance shagged a monkey and the creature wore Krueger's jumper

I thought that was First Born.

Or does Charles Dance have a thing for shagging monkeys?

There was a thing on in the 70s called Children of the Stones, set in a village near a stone circle. It was exceptionally creepy. Think it's all on YouTube.

The Witch

Went in completely cold, and I wish I'd taken a blanket with me. Firstly for warmth as the on-screen winter was as pervading as it was bleak, secondly for comfort because this isn't a film that throws in a jump scare to relieve you from the tension. It's less a wire being pulled to breaking point than a cello string being played so the tensions ebb and flow leaving you both longing and fearing for the next time the bow is pulled across it

A family in exile already scraping a meagre living from the woods, with winter a very unwelcome and unprepared for guest knocking at the door. Exiled by the Puritans for being too religious and you have a clue what to expect. The eldest child a daughter already bored of helping to run a household under a mother who seems jealous of her youth, the next a boy trying to learn how to be a man from a father who doesn't seem to know, then the twins being carefree children who surprisingly haven't learned to be seen and not heard

What follows is symbolism on top of myth on top of ritual. The film is packed full of references to satanism and I guess a lot of that might be lost on a modern audience, especially now that religion is less of a part of peoples lives than a generation or two ago. The film is in an almost TV ratio which makes the woods imposing and tall, and whilst much is shot indoors you can see many scenes laid out with that extra height in mind, detail is something the director definitely a fan of

It's a shame there was no witch, but bleak is a synonym for absence, and the film aims for and hits bleak very very well. Reminds me of a lot of Eastern European films in it's starkness, and that's something I can get behind. Performances were fantastic, would be very easy to overact a little and turn it into a pastiche, or worse a sods opera, and considering 2/3rds of the cast must be below 20 that's really quite amazing. I'm really glad I watched that, and will dig it out again in the future at some point [8]

I don’t know if I missed something with The Witch but I found it trite, obvious and ultimately dull.

Kara_Jane_Adams wrote:

I don’t know if I missed something with The Witch but I found it trite, obvious and ultimately dull.

Might that be a pacing thing? I find I can sometimes be really sensitive to that, and sometimes not. I think one of the things that annoyed me about Taxidermia is that it didn't move quite right for me. The trite and obvious part is easier and I think intentional, I'm sure that if I'd liked the film less I might well have said the same, but a few things about it drew me in, so instead I talk of how it's ritual and myth, all of which we've heard/seen before, bu they are to evoke that atmosphere

edit: not telling you what to think, just exploring what you said, and how I say those things sometimes

I really liked the Witch - moody, strange and open to interpretation.

I enjoyed The Witch. Thought the bleak setting was spot on.