Woot Watches Wideos: Randall Cleveland’s Top 5 Scary Movies
Monday, October 24, 2011
With Halloween right around the corner we figured some topical content for this SEO-farm-masquerading-as-deal-a-day-store we call a website (by the way: iPad Tea Party Mommy Blogger Acai Cialis) couldn’t hurt. Since it’s the season for scares the Woot Writers will be running down their Top 5 Scary Movies for you to check out, judge, and berate as horribly inadequate. First up is Randall Cleveland…
(and as a word of warning, we did our best to find non-offensive YouTube videos, but these are horror movies so watch out for scary images and/or NSFW language.)
I think everyone’s got their own parameters for what’s scary. Sure, some things go across the board: those lizard brain scares where something jumps out of hiding and startles you, for instance. But for some people a slasher film just doesn’t hold much interest while a ghost story will keep them sleepless for weeks.
For me, aliens and abductions have always been the top scare. I think it’s something to do with being powerless at the hands of a monster, be it creature or psychopath. I can pinpoint exactly the moment that started it, though: I was watching a movie (or maybe a made-for-TV-movie) about alien abductions with my mom. In it there’s a scene when a woman wakes up at 4 am because there is a power company truck making noise outside her window. She angrily calls the power company to complain, but they assure her that there are no trucks out right now. She looks out her window and sees five figures staring up in her window from the street. She flips out, runs to hide in her closet, but the figures come THROUGH HER WALLS to grab her and beam her into a spaceship, where they proceed to do all kinds of horrific alien medical experiments. Setting aside why aliens would bother posing as utility workers, it messed with my head a bit. That’s why most of my scary flicks feature some kind of otherworldly monster, and victims in a position of helplessness.
5. The Descent
A group of friends get together for a girl power weekend of spelunking (as you do), but it turns out the trip planner decided to skip telling everyone this is more of a Black Diamond cave. One cave-in later and it’s a fight to escape being buried alive. And THEN the monsters show up.
Really, as far as monsters go these aren’t all that terrifying. What IS terrifying about The Descent is the absolute skin-crawling, cold-sweating, oh-god-get-me-out-of-here sense of claustrophobia. Even BEFORE things go bad, I can’t help but cringe as these women shuffle along on their elbows through tunnels just barely wide-enough to accommodate their shoulders and half full of water. My skin is crawling before the “scary parts” even start.
4. I Saw the Devil
This is the type of film I normally don’t go for, which is to say it’s “torture porn:” hyper violent and gory to the point of gratuitousness. But if you can stomach the horrific acts of violence (and subtitles, but if you can’t handle subtitles you should just get over yourself) you’ll find a creepy story that points out how bizarre the obsession with revenge is while making you ask yourself just who the monster really is and if avenging an act of evil is really worth it.
If you can stomach gore that ventures way beyond the usual “somebody gets shot” and into “this is pretty much just sadism,” you’ll get your scares. They’ll just be in the “Oh no, what is humanity capable of?” kinda type.
3. Audition
An old man’s son is sick of him moping around the house all the time, so they arrange an audition to find the perfect wife. Naturally, the guy decides on the beautiful woman 30 years younger than him. Turns out it’s not such a great choice.
Okay, I know I just said I don’t usually go for “torture porn” like I Saw the Devil, but if you haven’t seen this and you decide to watch it, just know that it sails past “this is pretty much just sadism” and laughs uncontrollably as it lands in “I weep for the soul of whoever wrote this” land. It is the ultimate “powerless victim” trip, and it’s set up in such a way that you spend the first 90% of the movie wondering just how awful things are going to turn out only to realize at the very end that you had no idea how terrible it could be. You will never want to meet someone from OKCupid again.
2. Event Horizon
A spaceship with a protoype trans-dimensional warp engine disappears and is assumed lost. Until it shows up seven years later, orbiting Neptune. A search party sets out to investigate just what happened, and finds out all hell has broken loose.
Event Horizon has something for just about every kind of horror aficionado out there, depending on how you view it: the horrible void of space, sentient machinery gone wrong, demonic possession, haunting, and the schizophrenic terror of psychosis taking hold. Sure, some of the CGI doesn’t hold up so well, but I still shudder every time Sam Neill’s in that green air duct thing and the lights start flickering.
1. Alien
You know the drill. Ship receives distress signal, ship responds. Ship unwittingly brings aboard unholy monstrosity from the blackest depths of space that proceeds to stalk and devour defenseless crew members one by one while their own fear threatens to tear them apart first.
If you haven’t seen Alien, there’s a good chance you’re still too young to do so. I feel like it’s one of those zeitgeist-spanning cultural events that everyone has to experience once the right time comes. If somehow you managed to reach adulthood and you still haven’t watched it, check it out. You might think since it’s so ingrained in the cultural consciousness that the scariness will be reduced: after all, you already know about facehuggers or chestbursters, right? You’re wrong. It’s still going to freak you the hell out.
Those are my Top 5, but of course you’ve probably got your own. Which would you agree with? Which do you think shouldn’t have made the cut? Hit me up with your own list and be sure to check back tomorrow, when our next Woot Writer will offer up his own five selections for your judgment.
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