Friday Night Double Feature: The Scariest Movies I've Seen

Growing up I didn’t have cable and barely had a few network channels. A lot of my early exposure to movies came from local channels’ “Late Night Movie” on weekends – a trend that sadly seems to have gone the way of the dodo as even the most rural areas can have satellite or cable TV for a reasonable rate. Often the movies were classic comedies with the Marx Brothers or W.C. Fields, but sometimes I’d get lucky and find a good horror movie on.

Frequently I would join the movie as it was already in progress, which means I didn’t have the full context of what was going on. Sometimes this resulted in things that would normally be serious coming across as almost comedic, but a few times I would be quite struck by what I saw. Eventually I would see the whole movie and realize that not only what I saw was frightening, but the whole damn movie was scary too.

This week’s offerings come from that latter category: movies whose scenes out of context scared me, and became even more terrifying once I saw the whole picture. Both are excellent, classic horror movies that still give me the creeps whenever I see them and sometimes those childhood memories of being terrified by these on late night TV is enough to make me change the channel. Oddly enough, both movies have had poor remakes, sequels, or talks of remakes and sequels, but none of it has come close to the original.

Presenting, the scariest movies I’ve ever seen:

Carrie (1976)

My first experience with Carrie skipped all the slow building hints at the title character’s powers and jumped straight to the notorious prom scene. I’m not even sure I knew who John Travolta was when I saw the sequence, but I knew enough to know he had gotten what he deserved (especially since I didn’t know what the deal was with the blood that was dumped on Carrie without the rest of the film). That’s not the sequence that gives me chills, however, but the horror of Carrie crucifying her mother with kitchen knives and the ambiguous ending with Sue. The ending is even better once you have the chance to see Carrie’s character build and all the drama of the first part of the movie makes the pivotal prom scene all that much more satisfying. The movie has received both a remake and a needless sequel, neither of which live up to the tone of the classic original. On the other side, I honestly can’t see Sissy Spacek in much of anything without expecting her to kill everyone around her with telekinetic skill.

The Exorcist

I don’t care how you compare it – there really is no scarier a movie than The Exorcist. If the effects don’t get you (and let’s be honest, they still look pretty good almost thirty-five years later), just the simple concept of a demon taking over the body of a little girl is pretty darn terrifying. I’m not sure a movie like this could even be made today thanks to all the family groups and guild rules on using children in movies anymore (despite talk of remaking the story). There’s really no need to remake it though. Linda Blair is terrifying as the possessed little girl and there’s just no comparison to Max von Sydow or Jason Miller. I know I’m not alone in my fear of The Exorcist either, as several adults I know can’t even bear to watch the movie, and the only successful showing I’ve had at movie marathons had to include an MSTK style running commentary in order to get people to stick around. Despite my friends’ quips that may forever follow the movie, it just doesn’t get any scarier than William Friedcan’s picture, and most of the follow-up pictures have been bad in comparison, sometimes laughably so.

Other flicks to scare: Night of the Living Dead (1968 – Black & White only please!), The Omen, Amityville II: The Possession

Enjoy our Double Feature suggestions? and maybe we’ll use them in a future column.