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Suspense/Horror movie recommendations!
Godfather
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So a couple of weeks ago I watched The Shining for the first time, and just about fell in love with the flick. I loved it so much i've wanted to see a lot more movies similar to it! I like psychological thrillers more than the straight-up gore-fests that seem to oversaturate the genre. Movies like Saw or Hostel can kindly fuck right off; those are just gross, not scary.
I just have two problems though:
1) There's nowhere to rent these things! Ever since places like Blockbuster went out of business, the only way to get a DVD is through Redbox (which only carries recent stuff) or Netflix. I could get a Netflix subscription, but we don't have a way to hook it up to our TV (no game systems/etc) and i'd rather watch the movie on my TV screen than my laptop.
2) Some of these movies are hard to find! Quite a few stores i've looked over didn't have such classics like Psycho or Rosemary's Baby; either that or they're bundled/prepacked with unwanted merchandise or sequels that jacks up the price substantially. No thanks, i'd rather not drop twenty just to watch something once!
I could go the route of Quickster, but it takes a few days for that to come in the mail, and i'd rather go out and grab something today.
Aside from those problems, what are some recommendations anyone could make? Cheap hollywood "pop-out" scares tend to annoy me more than terrify, as well as the buckets-of-blood slasher flicks.
I just have two problems though:
1) There's nowhere to rent these things! Ever since places like Blockbuster went out of business, the only way to get a DVD is through Redbox (which only carries recent stuff) or Netflix. I could get a Netflix subscription, but we don't have a way to hook it up to our TV (no game systems/etc) and i'd rather watch the movie on my TV screen than my laptop.
2) Some of these movies are hard to find! Quite a few stores i've looked over didn't have such classics like Psycho or Rosemary's Baby; either that or they're bundled/prepacked with unwanted merchandise or sequels that jacks up the price substantially. No thanks, i'd rather not drop twenty just to watch something once!
I could go the route of Quickster, but it takes a few days for that to come in the mail, and i'd rather go out and grab something today.
Aside from those problems, what are some recommendations anyone could make? Cheap hollywood "pop-out" scares tend to annoy me more than terrify, as well as the buckets-of-blood slasher flicks.
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Very well done, and it has some good suspense.
Anyway
The Exorcist
The Omen
Alien
Poltergeist
Paranormal Activity
Jaws
The Haunting In Connecticut
An American Haunting
The Others
Silence of the Lambs
It
Pet Cemetery
Seven
While gore-porn like Saw and Hostel might gross you out, have you considered earlier over the top/campy slashers/horror such as
Friday the 13th (originals)
Nightmare on Elm Street (originals)
Pumpkin Head
Hellraiser
Trick 'r' Treat
Halloween (originals)
Scream
Let The Right One In is a great recent vampire film that is suspenseful and entertaining without beating you over the head with horror movie cliches. Definitely try it if you can enjoy a movie with subtitles. I wouldn't recommend the American remake, Let Me In, based on your criteria because it has considerably more gore.
The Machinist is less horror and more psychological thriller. The film does an excellent job building tension and is one of those movies that improves with repeated viewings (much like The Shining) in that there are lot of small details here and there to catch.
American Psycho is a little gory in places, and more than a little strange in some sections (I often don't know whether to laugh or be horrified) but it's thoroughly enjoyable.
Also, just about every movie mentioned by EWom are very awesome and worth your time. Definitely make room for Alien, Silence of the Lambs and Seven.
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Other than that, Ewom and Riale have hit my personal suggestions. The only thing I would add is 1408.
High Tension is exactly that, but there is some gore involved if I remember correctly. These are both foreign films BTW.
Wife and I did that for Hulu.
Moon is amazing. The soundtrack is worth picking up too.
I'll toss in "Into The Mouth Of Madness" and "The Mist".
Shutter Island is the latter, for example.
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I guess more Horror then. Whenever I think of the term "horror" I think of buckets of blood, grotesque scenes and heavy on the supernatural elements.
I'm more of a low-key horror guy; stuff like Paranormal Activity appeals to me much more than Nightmare on Elm Street.
28 Days Later
Alien/Aliens
The Thing
The original Hellraiser film (Most of the sequels are garbage.)
Tetsuo The Bulletman
Tetsuo The Ironman
Pitch Black
The Midnight Meat Train
Trick or Treat
Cargo
The Evil Dead series (campy and funny.)
Dead Snow (Also Campy)
In the suspense/horror category:
Sunshine (this one especially)
The Mothman Prophecies
Signs
Fire in The Sky
Oldboy
Oldboy, then Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance, and finally Sympathy For Lady Vengeance. Trilogy.
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Also, the Silent Hill movie.
Also, One Hour Photo was a crazy awesome thriller.
- Zombi 2
- Suspiria
- The Beyond
- From Beyond
- Re-animator
As someone who prefers atmospheric horror as opposed to slasher or torture horror, it really worked for me.
Pulse, the Japanese version, is also very eerie. Again it's not so much scary as eerie. I think its ultimate goal is to make a statement about the isolating nature of technology. The atmosphere gives off a good feeling of helplessness. I believe it also is on Netflix instant. Unless it was pulled, which I suppose is always a possibility.
Seconding this. It's my favourite horror film. It does have some gore but the main theme of the film is the claustrophobic feeling caused by the underground setting of the film.
I'd also recommend REC and its sequel. Once again, some gore but nothing like Saw or Hostel.
Seconding Lake Mungo. It's a great entry in the fictional documentary genre and has a number of very creepy moments.
It was recommended to me by Netflix. I know the OP doesn't have it but for anyone else who may happen into this thread, we've found some real gems via Netflix recommendation that we never would have known about otherwise. Make sure and always rate the films you watch and their recommendations will be more likely to be on-target.
One of those was The Burrowers, which is an unusual joining of an old Western and monster-horror.
Maybe folks here will disagree but I'm not sure Descent is for you if you're not into gory violence. I agree that the claustrophobic feeling of the film is intense and very well done, but the violence is exceptionally graphic in this one.
Paranormal Activity - Very creepy and unsettling. I was generally surprised because the hype for this thing was off the charts a few years back, but I feel that it's well deserved here. Had trouble sleeping for the next few nights.
The Last Exorcism - Got kind of a "meh" reaction from me. Granted, I had the ending spoiled a bit for me before I saw it, so that could be a substantial factor. It was okay, but didn't deliver on its Blair Witch-style promise. There are a few good tense parts though.
The Ring - I was looking forward to this one, but it didn't really do much for me in the sense of horror and dread. If anything it felt like a better mystery movie than anything. Consider me disappointed!
The Grudge - This movie is nightmare fuel, Jesus Christ.
I actually know a lot about The Descent, and I don't think it's for me to be honest. The gore is too much in a lot of scenes.
Anyone know about a movie called Yellow Brick Road? I am very curious about it!
I agree with you on the ring, but I also felt that way about the grudge.
Also, how many of these horror movies on Netflix streaming? I love me some horror.
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That would be great to know. Finding all of these movies can be a colossal pain in the ass.
Funny, I actually had the opposite feelings in comparing The Ring and The Grudge -- the first I think is the scariest movie I've seen in my life, and my wife feels the same way. We got freaked out enough that we joked about getting other people to watch the film because... she would be mad if we didn't.
The Grudge was just sort of meh for us though overall. Certainly a few scary bits here and there but the overall story I think is weaker.
Funny story about The Ring which I may have told here before, spoiler if you haven't seen it:
Okay, I just watched the first four or five of these and it's creeping me the hell out. Isn't helping that I'm alone in a large office late at night.
Thanks for posting, I had no idea this existed.
Netflix' horror selection seems to be primarily made of low budget horror clones. Like instead of Paranormal Activity they have Paranormal Entity (just noticed, they now have PA on streaming), instead of Friday the 13th, they have Sleepaway Camp, instead of Jaws, they have Shark Attack etc. The most maddening thing I think is they love to have sequels but not originals. So they have Cabin Fever II, but not Cavin Fever, tons of Hellraiser sequels, but not Hellraiser.
They do have the Exorcist, Poltergeist, A Haunting in Connecticut on streaming.
You may also want to check out Fallen, it's on streaming also. Pretty good flick, not really horror, more suspense/mystery, but good.
Edit(on second thought, I think I'll watch Fallen right now, it's been a few years)
The Strangers is also incredibly, incredibly good, and there's no gore at all that I remember. I straight-up slept with the lights on after that one, and screamed like a four-year-old girl when my cat jumped into the bed.
Trailers in the spoiler:
1408 (Ghost story, mostly, also based on one of King's stories; stars Jon Cusak and Samuel L. Jackson
The Mist (Cthulhu-esque, stars Thomas Jane)
Darkness (Cthulhu-esque, stars Anna Paquin. The very end is pretty shit, though.)
I mentioned The Mist. Going to check out The Darkness though now.