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Scare me, rllmuk

Scribblor

By Scribblor
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Camel

Camel

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Rosemary's Baby is brilliantly creepy but you've probably seen that. Audition is a good shout, as is Tale of Two Sisters. The Orphanage and The Devil's Backbone also. Doesn't sound like anything will scare you though.

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Rowan Morrison

Rowan Morrison

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This is a really interesting request, especially with Hanging Rock as an example. I'd make straight for the original of The Wicker Man, for starters. There's also a wealth of British horror to tap into with a similar approach...

I'd definitely recommend checking out the BFI's releases of the BBC MR James adaptations - Whistle and I'll Come to You, Lost Hearts, A Warning to the Curious, The Treasure of Abbot Thomas... again, the originals are the ones to go for. There are several DVD collections. Their Christmas adaptation of Charles Dickens' The Signalman is also well worth your time. Whistle... is the best and captures a sense of dread perfectly. Some info on the various stories here.

Another BFI release, and one I intend to drone on about it a separate post sometimes soon, is Robin Redbreast. This was a Play for Today back in 1970 and serves a kind of Wicker Man prototype. A great evocation of isolation and incessant, mounting terror that, like the best James stories, finds horror in the everyday.

I'd also consider various Nigel Kneale creations - certainly all the Quatermass serials (and the Hammer film versions) and The Stone Tape. There's a DVD of Beasts, which was his 70s TV series of supernatural animal stories. Beasts itself is a mixed bag in terms of effective horror (though it's always entertaining) but the DVD includes his one-off play Murrain, which is another awesome British folk horror and highly recommended.

And you can't have Kneale recommendations without mentioning the 80s adaptation of The Woman in Black, which is substantially better and more restrained and more terrifying than the recent Daniel Radcliffe version. You might have to poke around a bit to find a copy of that (let me know if you can't), but it's a masterpiece.

Yet another recent BFI release is the Dead of Night set - again, a 1970s BBC series. The highlight here is The Exorcism, which is a brilliant Marxist ghost story and worth the price of the full DVD easily.

And moving away from TV briefly, Ealing's classic Dead of Night (the other Dead of Night) is now available on Blu ray (and DVD) and is often cited as a genuinely frightening horror, chiefly on account of the ventriloquist segment. I love the whole thing, which includes more traditional ghost stories and some typically enjoyable Ealing humour - but the dummy story means business.

I think all these are in the spirit of the sense of horror that Picnic at Hanging Rock possesses. Away from that a little bit - but not too much - consider The Changeling from 1980, the original version of The Haunting and no doubt a load more than will come to me over lunch.

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Scribblor

Scribblor

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Awesome, thanks for all those. I've seen The Wicker Man and The Haunting. Both are great. You're right in that I find that sort of thing way more effective than the modern sort of horror film.

Will definitely try to track down the TV stuff you mentioned. I've been watching Remember Me on the BBC, which had a great first episode and then a not very good second episode. I'm going to watch the last part when my son goes for his nap in quarter of an hour or so.

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Scribblor

Scribblor

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I think The Conjuring is one of the best modern horrors I've seen. That and The Orphanage.

Yeah, I agree. But that's not saying much to be honest. I thought The Conjuring was pretty good until half way through or so, and then it all went to shit.

I guess we have to define 'modern' for that though. Are Ringu or Dark Water still modern? They're both getting on a bit now. They're both miles better than The Conjuring.

I've just watched those shorts that George Clooney posted. Afraid they did nothing for me. They both build no atmosphere and go straight for the "ooh, look! Some strange person that's heavily CGI'd" modern horror trope. They'd both be way more effective if they were longer and spent more time creating tension, to my mind.

Now to be disappointed in Michael Palin!

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DirkCrisis

DirkCrisis

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A lot of things like Session 9, Black Christmas and Shutter have already been mentioned. I did quite like the remake of Strangers although I haven't seen the original.

It's quite divisive, but I found the sense of hopelessness portrayed in the first Wolf Creek to be really quite effective but I guess that's not scary as such.

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Scribblor

Scribblor

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I watched it when I was about ten, I think. At my friend Ossie's house.

I watched the third part of Remember Me and thought it was pretty good. Then I read some reviews of it. The TV critics say it was beautifully shot, acted and atmospheric, but confusing and not scary.

I really am out of step with horror tastes. I'd much rather watch stuff like that than the apparently scary stuff I've watched lately.

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Rowan Morrison

Rowan Morrison

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And something else I should have mentioned is The Owl Service, the 1969 ITV adaptation of Alan Garner's fantastic novel. That's out on DVD from the good people at Network, and it's amazing to sit and watch it and think that it was made and broadcast for children. It's a radical production, nuanced and self-assured in its air of myth and ancient mystery bleeding into the modern day.

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Scribblor

Scribblor

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I had no idea they'd ever filmed that! I love Alan Garner: The Moon Of Gomrath and The Weirdstone of Brisingamen were two of my absolute favourite books growing up. I thought his new one - Boneland - was excellent too. Thanks for the recommendation. And thanks for finding Whistle And I'll Come To You.

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Rowan Morrison

Rowan Morrison

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Oh, great - I predict you'll love the TV series, in that case. The DVD has a booklet and some archive PDFs and an interview with Garner. It shows great respect to the source novel and never patronises the audience. Despite appearances I try hard not to come across as a 'things were better in the olden days' stereotype, but I do find it impossible to imagine something like TOS being commissioned for kids nowadays (or adults, really).

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Charliemouse

Charliemouse

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I watched it when I was about ten, I think. At my friend Ossie's house.

I watched the third part of Remember Me and thought it was pretty good. Then I read some reviews of it. The TV critics say it was beautifully shot, acted and atmospheric, but confusing and not scary.

I really am out of step with horror tastes. I'd much rather watch stuff like that than the apparently scary stuff I've watched lately.

I quite enjoyed it as well, the first episode was easily the best as there were a few moments in it I was genuinely a little scared, but overall it was just nice to see a ghost story on television again. Hopefully it did quite well and the BBC make some more.

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ZOK

ZOK

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And something else I should have mentioned is The Owl Service, the 1969 ITV adaptation of Alan Garner's fantastic novel. That's out on DVD from the good people at Network, and it's amazing to sit and watch it and think that it was made and broadcast for children. It's a radical production, nuanced and self-assured in its air of myth and ancient mystery bleeding into the modern day.

The advert for that scared me so much as a kid that as an adult, I daren't watch it.

The Entity is worth a watch by the way, for a horror film.

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Rowan Morrison

Rowan Morrison

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If you enjoyed The Wicker Man you should probably check out Blood on Satan's Claw, another of our folk horror classics. It's more of a traditional Hammer-type horror than The Wicker Man in a lot of ways, but it remains a high moment of rural weirdness and has amazing music to boot.

Complete the folk horror triumvirate with Witchfinder General, which is legitimately terrifying in all kinds of ways, and would surely make an excellent rejoinder to UKIP's various successes of late. We should start a campaign for it to be shown in schools ASAP.

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dataDave

dataDave

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I used to love supernatural stuff as a kid, however I remember this as being one of the few things that I just had to turn my head away from whenever the scene was approaching...

Poltergeist II, the worm scene. Even watching it now is quite disturbing, so I went to see who worked on this back in the day... and, holy shit! H.R.Giger! No wonder it's so fucking wrong.

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