Films: top 10 good eerie ghost films & five scariest films (for Keishon)

I wrote a list as a response to Keishon’s post “Scariest Movies of All Time” and thought I should save it to here in case I want to use the list again. Crappy memory and all that.

Note: these films on the list feature no gore, all are in English language and the list is in no particular order of preferences.

1. The Changeling – a haunted house + George C. Scott? Fantastic.
2. Dead of Night (1945) – one of my favourite horror/ghost anthology films
3. The Watcher in the Woods – cheesy, but it had my attention good when I was a kid. The downside is the blonde skater actress. She was utterly crap. Thankfully the story and Bette Davis are the film’s saving grace.
4. Whistle, And I’ll Come To You – BBC’s 1968 one-off drama adaptation of M. R. James’s short story. There’s a remake, broadcast on BBC last Christmas, with John Hurt, but I haven’t seen it yet.
5. The Signalman – another BBC adaptation, but based on Charles Dickens’s story, featuring Denholm Elliott this time. Train tracks + dark tunnel + signalman + ghost? Behind a sofa is the best place.
6. The Stone Tape (1972) – it won’t work for some, but it worked for me.
7. The Uninvited (1944) – Ray Millard and Ruth Hussey are meh, but it’s still worth seeing because it’s widely regarded as the first haunted-house film.
8. Night of the Demon (1957) – I expected a cheesy monster film, but it turned out to be a honestly creepy supernatural thriller. An exceptional film.
9. Carnival of Souls (1962) – a classic. No more, no less.
10. Session 9 – I’m still not sure whether to include this as it’s basically a psychological horror film, but I think it should go on the list anyway. Slow, but still–don’t watch this alone in the dark.

I still have to do a list of 5 scariest films of all time. Quite difficult because I can think of five scariest films per country and each 5 horror type per country (supernatural, psychological, mockumentary, etc.). Each country has its own classic scary films – Germany, France, Britain, the US, Denmark, South Korea, Hong Kong, Portugal, Japan, Spain, Thailand, etc. How could I choose five scariest films when there are that many?  Being a film geek really isn’t a good thing, I’m thinking.

OK, I’ll go for the ones that really had me huddling behind a sofa. The “please don’t turn out the lights” kind.

Five Scariest Films:

1. Noroi: the Curse (Japan) – I’m not a fan of mockumentary films, but this worked for me. No gore, but quite an amount of disturbing imagery. I think what completely unnerved me is that a house in this film resembles our family home in Japan.
2. The Eye (Hong Kong) – somewhat flawed, but the lift scene is a masterpiece. It’s packed with some cool scenes (the ‘changing rooms’ scene is probably my all-time favourite) and a couple of marvellous scares, though.
3. Session 9 (US), Nightwatch (Germany) and similar films – I’m a nervous wreck when a film sets in an abandoned hospital. Perhaps it’s seeing something familiar so empty and eerily silent that unnerves me. Actually, abandoned towns, roads (like 28 Days Later) and buildings – like houses, factories and such – also unnerve me. I couldn’t even handle it when a friend told me a story about the Mary Celeste, an abandoned ship with all its passengers and crew disappeared without trace. You know, a place where people are, then it’s empty and silent; no trace of people and no explanation. I find that so unnerving. Actually, I think this may be linked to Morag’s disappearance. Huh. That makes sense. I didn’t realise until now. Heh.
4. Alien (UK) - In space, no one can hear you scream. Heheh. I really wanted to claw a wall when the team climbed down into that nightmarish mothership. “You don’t know what’s in there! Get out! Get out!” Same with The Thing.
5. Unknown – I still haven’t the luck to discover the name of this – perhaps Danish? – film. Basically, it’s Wings of Desire meets Kairo. A young woman, walking through town during daylight, notices a lone dark figure watching her from distance. She dismisses the oddity. She’s more concerned about her pupils, who don’t seem to be doing well with exam revisions. Each day, the lone figure appears. Wherever she goes, he’s there. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t say anything. Just stare. She can’t see his face as it’s slightly blurred. Each time she notices him, he seems to be a step closer to her. When she gets close to him, he disappears. She begins to fall apart because all he does is watch her from different places while she attempts to carry on with her life. She begins to fail her job, her pupils, her boyfriend, her employer, everybody. No one could see this stalker she’s been on about. It seems as if she’s the only one who could see him. She discovers that he doesn’t show up inside her flat so she spends more and more time in the flat which is on 17th floor. Then one evening, she eats a meal alone at table in her tiny kitchen. Half way, she casually glances at a kitchen window next to her table. The lone figure is at the window, staring expressionlessly at her. Everything goes to the dogs from that point.

I do find it interesting that quite a few classic American films – Halloween, The Shining, The Exorcist, The Omen, The Silence of the Lambs, The Haunting, Psycho, A Nightmare on Elm Street  - didn’t scare me at all.

To be fair, I was on the edge during Poltergeist, but that was until the psychic opened her mouth. Her voice broke the spell, and I couldn’t take it seriously after that. Especially “Wheerrr urn the chree-drun?” and “The chhiiil-d..,” and “Gae tooo the liiight!”

Still, I don’t know why these films didn’t scare me as much as they did for the others. Religious horror films don’t do a thing for me either. I enjoy watching them, but they generally don’t scare me. Religion never played a big role in my life, so that may be why.

I mean, I believe what makes a film scary for some but not the others is when it focuses on one of hidden fears. It’s all about tropes, really. Isn’t it? Hm. It can’t be that simple, surely?