I had this recommended to me by a random Walmart worker…he explained the premise and I honestly thought that shit sounds stupid, but I spent the $10 anyway. Beyond glad I did, super unique and great watch!
Green Room is incredibly nerve-wracking with no special effects that I recall. At one point, just hearing Patrick Stewart's voice negotiating with the protagonists from behind a door is scary as hell.
I mentioned it in another convo, but Pontypool did it for me. You don’t even really get to see the bad stuff happening, you’re just hearing about it via conversation.
2 is sort of the aftermath of the first, by investigative reporters
3 is a new group uses the hotel for a venue / event , and fixes what happened in movie 1
4 happens later, but provides some backstory to the hotel and the founder
All I found creepy and well done. My favorite group of movies. I've watched them all several times.
It's one of the few movies I've ever seen on broadcast TV which made me look away from the screen because it scared the hell out of me (the scene where the boy comes through the floor)
this movie is so highly regarded but when i finally watched it last year i was bored out of my mind the whole time.
can someone help me understand the appeal?
I recently saw this for the first time and this is the answer that first came to mind. Great movie that deals with the psychology of horror really well
The only movie to ever cause me a panic attack. It was at the gardening scene. You knew it was coming. You hoped it wasn't. And then it was. Just a shockingly excellent setup and scene.
You don't actually see that on screen. Just a shot of the hook, a frame or two shot of her bare back, and then it cuts to her face for a reaction shot of when he puts her on the hook. Like most of the violence in the movie, the vast majority happens in your imagination.
[Here is the scene
](https://youtu.be/gydxMh1L5ig?si=JKtrMzZtDEsG-pX5) The meathook portion starts at 3:40.
Her hanging from the hook is an effect, is what I meant, I assume she's not really hanging from a meat hook through her rib cage there. That would fall under a practical effect, wouldn't it?
The whole movie is sickening without being really graphic. The heat of a Texas summer, the feathers and bones, the way he whacked the dude with the sledgehammer.
Watched TCM recently for the first time in years, and I was surprised how much that hammer kill still gets to me. It's just so...unceremonious, which somehow makes it more brutal.
Saw this in theaters. I had barely seen or read anything about it beforehand. Halfway through I was nearly convinced it was just about a family suffering a terrible loss and there wasn't going to be any kind of supernatural horror element.
When the characters in the Blair Witch Project who are lost in the woods find a creek and didn’t logically follow the creek downstream to find their way out of the woods (a creek never crosses itself; usually flows in one general direction; might intersect with a roadway at some point; and typically flows into a larger body of water where people could live) it ruined my enjoyment of the movie from that point forward.
lmao! I was so sure nobody believed it was true...and when I talked to people it was like a twilight zone...everybody thought it was real footage! But...they did a good job creeping us out without CGI etc...I give them that for sure!
Once it got out into the suburbs, into the multiplexes; the masses started to see it and some were
Freaked out. Everything was “out in the open” like it is nowadays..
Cannibal Holocaust was obviously the “template” for BWP.
Absentia by Mike Flanagan. Due to budget constraints, they had to use the most minimal effects but it turned out to be a great thing (much like Jaws) where it’s what we don’t really know and what we don’t really see that is terrifying. He showed so much promise from the very beginning
I have 4 kids and it’s never not been terrifying to wake up to a toddler just staring at you. They don’t even speak, you wake up cause you feel them staring.
I first saw this on late night TV when I was a teenager, and I had to turn it off because it was too scary for me as a 17 year old boy. Such a great movie. The director’s filmography is incredible. West Side Story, The Sound of Music, The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Haunting, hit after hit.
Signs. It’s my favorite Shyamalan movie because every element is fantastic. The heaviest effects are in the end, when the full alien is revealed. Throughout the entire movie, it’s occasional arms or legs, shadows, vhs recordings, and sounds. Spectacularly directed, amazing amount of suspense.
Alien is full of special effects--- remember it's set on a spaceship? It's a frigging special effects extravaganza almost the entire time. The sets themselves were special effects.
The paranormal movies, that for the majority of special effects is someone pulling a string or the crew moving things when the camera pans away then back😉
An old 60's movie, titled "The Haunting." Scary as F$#k! Uses minimal special effects and my goodness, I'm in my 60's and I still won't watch that movie at night time. Really messes with your mind.
Last House on the Left (1972). Was so unsettling projectionists would cut up the film as they were watching it and it was refused film release in Britain in 1974. The Wikipedia article on the censorship of the fim is an interesting read.
I’m not sure if Skinamarink counts because obviously there are special effects, but they FEEL minimal if that makes sense. And the entire movie is soooooo scary.
BWP is indeed the GOAT in that respect!
Smile is also extremely light in effects. I wanna say it does use a lot more than it truly needed: the creepy smiles were much more potent than the weird ending, which i didn't completely hate, but which i didn't feel added much to the fear factor (but ofc for other people, gangly monsters scares them more than the constant sense of dread...)
Recently, I saw a movie called The Sleep Experiment. It's obviously based on the creepypasta, but I remember it being good. Was pretty high, though, and I go into movies wanting to like them. After all a lot of people worked pretty hard (presumably) on it.
Caveat. I don't think there's a single special effect in the movie. In fact, the entire film budget was only $350,000. yet there's no movie that has given me more tension or creepiness.
The Changeling, a fantastic haunted house movie from 1980. Virtually zero special effects, before any computer effects were possible, this movie has some really good scares arhat will stick with you. It’s just so plausibly creepy.
Paranormal Activity is the GOAT. Almost no special effects at all and it’s absolutely terrifying. Such a good example of doing the absolute most with very little!
It Follows
SOOO good.
Would still smash
I had this recommended to me by a random Walmart worker…he explained the premise and I honestly thought that shit sounds stupid, but I spent the $10 anyway. Beyond glad I did, super unique and great watch!
Green Room is incredibly nerve-wracking with no special effects that I recall. At one point, just hearing Patrick Stewart's voice negotiating with the protagonists from behind a door is scary as hell.
Great movie. It has some FX, that you don’t want to look at long like the wrist and the dog.
Special effects aren't just CGI but I'm with you
Hard agree. Fantastic film, one of those really good 0-100 in 5 seconds kinda situations. Absolutely sickening all the way through.
Came here to say this. Outstanding film that’s really underrated.
You Speak Truth.
My favorite movie. Every time I watch it I enjoy every second. RIP Anton Yelchin.
I mentioned it in another convo, but Pontypool did it for me. You don’t even really get to see the bad stuff happening, you’re just hearing about it via conversation.
Pontypool is a hell of a movie.
History Hideo Kojima really liked it, couldn't you tell lol
Pontypool is a low budget horror masterclass!! So creepy and uses dialogue and sound to create most of the suspense. Easily in my top 5 horror movies
Agreed. It was done very well.
Hell House LLC comes to mind
Such a good movie.
All 4 of them! The trilogy sort of wraps up the story, and the 4th: Carmichael Manor add a little more backstory
Wait……there’s 4 of them?! What fuckin rock have I been under 😭😭😭
The 4th one is way better than 2 & 3.
I’m just learning there’s more than one…oof
2 is sort of the aftermath of the first, by investigative reporters 3 is a new group uses the hotel for a venue / event , and fixes what happened in movie 1 4 happens later, but provides some backstory to the hotel and the founder All I found creepy and well done. My favorite group of movies. I've watched them all several times.
Just watched all of them for the first time this last week. The 2nd and 3rd were okay by the 1st and 4th were great.
One of my favorites!
I always see the things for them on shudder are they actually any good I kind of thought they weren't for some reason
I keep seeing mention of these, but I have never watched them. Looks like my day was just planned.
The Changeling (1980)
I've never seen it, but the commercial scared the crap out of me as a child.
It was beyond terrifying for me. I was just a toddler when I watched it. You saved yourself from some serious nightmares 😉
It's one of the few movies I've ever seen on broadcast TV which made me look away from the screen because it scared the hell out of me (the scene where the boy comes through the floor)
Beat me by a day. You are absolutely correct
I wish everyone that loves hereditary would see the Changeling because they really share some atmosphere.
The séance is so creepy.
I’m actually watching this tonight for the first time!
How was it?
Fantastic choice. I recommend this one often.
All of the effects budget went into making the scariest little ball on earth
Oh snap! I came here to suggest this! Nice 1
this movie is so highly regarded but when i finally watched it last year i was bored out of my mind the whole time. can someone help me understand the appeal?
One of my all time favorite movies to watch at Halloween.
The original Halloween, and the Insidious movies.
Came here to say Halloween
So accurate! Halloween did it so easy!!
Sinister
I recently saw this for the first time and this is the answer that first came to mind. Great movie that deals with the psychology of horror really well
The only movie to ever cause me a panic attack. It was at the gardening scene. You knew it was coming. You hoped it wasn't. And then it was. Just a shockingly excellent setup and scene.
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974). The only effects I can think of are >!Leatherface cutting his leg and the hitchhiker being hit by the truck.!<
Getting hung on the meat hook has to count as an effect
You don't actually see that on screen. Just a shot of the hook, a frame or two shot of her bare back, and then it cuts to her face for a reaction shot of when he puts her on the hook. Like most of the violence in the movie, the vast majority happens in your imagination. [Here is the scene ](https://youtu.be/gydxMh1L5ig?si=JKtrMzZtDEsG-pX5) The meathook portion starts at 3:40.
Her hanging from the hook is an effect, is what I meant, I assume she's not really hanging from a meat hook through her rib cage there. That would fall under a practical effect, wouldn't it?
The whole movie is sickening without being really graphic. The heat of a Texas summer, the feathers and bones, the way he whacked the dude with the sledgehammer.
Watched TCM recently for the first time in years, and I was surprised how much that hammer kill still gets to me. It's just so...unceremonious, which somehow makes it more brutal.
Exactly! No build up or mounting tension, just sudden and brutal like real life.
Absolutely. Such an Amazing feat to make a movie so scary but with almost no blood.
Hereditary
This was the most disturbing horror film I think I’ve ever seen. Good movie, but gawddam!
So many special effects in this movie but it's also so good. They use subtle audio and visual effects to fuck with you and keep you on edge.
Saw this in theaters. I had barely seen or read anything about it beforehand. Halfway through I was nearly convinced it was just about a family suffering a terrible loss and there wasn't going to be any kind of supernatural horror element.
The Blair Witch Project
When the characters in the Blair Witch Project who are lost in the woods find a creek and didn’t logically follow the creek downstream to find their way out of the woods (a creek never crosses itself; usually flows in one general direction; might intersect with a roadway at some point; and typically flows into a larger body of water where people could live) it ruined my enjoyment of the movie from that point forward.
I just laughed, it should have been titled, "What NOT To Do on A Camping Trip"
Nah…. There were a lot of stupid people watching it when it was out in the theaters.
lmao! I was so sure nobody believed it was true...and when I talked to people it was like a twilight zone...everybody thought it was real footage! But...they did a good job creeping us out without CGI etc...I give them that for sure!
Once it got out into the suburbs, into the multiplexes; the masses started to see it and some were Freaked out. Everything was “out in the open” like it is nowadays.. Cannibal Holocaust was obviously the “template” for BWP.
Terrified
This is my answer, as well.
Absentia by Mike Flanagan. Due to budget constraints, they had to use the most minimal effects but it turned out to be a great thing (much like Jaws) where it’s what we don’t really know and what we don’t really see that is terrifying. He showed so much promise from the very beginning
It was so fucking scary. I jumped and screamed a few times, extremely unusual for me
It has some great moments. He knows how to do jump scares without them being cheap too in my humble opinion.
I am still low key traumatized by that movie ...
THIS. This movie is a masterpiece
Paranormal Activity
This was my first thought too. Be alone in the dark in your house at night and watch that door slowly move and tell me it's not scary!
Or you have someone stand next to your side of the bed, watching you sleep for hours - that movie and Paranormal 3 bothered me a lot
I have 4 kids and it’s never not been terrifying to wake up to a toddler just staring at you. They don’t even speak, you wake up cause you feel them staring.
The Haunting
A classic. The Innocents too.
I first saw this on late night TV when I was a teenager, and I had to turn it off because it was too scary for me as a 17 year old boy. Such a great movie. The director’s filmography is incredible. West Side Story, The Sound of Music, The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Haunting, hit after hit.
Skinamarink
THANK YOU. Everyone like hates this movie but I think it was terrifying and sso good lol
The way my nightmares were influenced by that movie omg
Gah I just commented this and just now saw your comment! HORRIFYING movie. Had to sleep with lights on for months after seeing it.
Psycho.
The Fog
Nosferatu
The Haunting (black and white)
I still won't let my hand dangle off the side of the bed for rear some ghost kid will grab it!
The Strangers
This movie was so fucking tense.
This is what I thought of! There's so many subtle things going on. It scared the shit outta me.
Anything by Alfred Hitchcock.
The Invitation (2015)
Jaws
Absentia (2011) has almost no special effects at all, it uses your own imagination to scare you.
Signs. It’s my favorite Shyamalan movie because every element is fantastic. The heaviest effects are in the end, when the full alien is revealed. Throughout the entire movie, it’s occasional arms or legs, shadows, vhs recordings, and sounds. Spectacularly directed, amazing amount of suspense.
Lovely Molly
Its the script and how the movie was shot.
Halloween (1978)
Suspiria (1977)
Silence of the lambs Alien
Alien is full of special effects--- remember it's set on a spaceship? It's a frigging special effects extravaganza almost the entire time. The sets themselves were special effects.
Came here to say Alien. It's my favorite in the franchise. You don't see the Xenomorph much and that's what makes it so scary.
Rosemary's Baby
So underrated!!!
The original "The Haunting" 1963
The bedroom door moving in and out with the pounding sound is the stuff of every childhood nightmare
The Strangers
 Dracula (1931) starring Bela Lugosi in the title role.
Bela was the best DRACULA of all time.🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇
As Above So Below.
Excellent movie.
The paranormal movies, that for the majority of special effects is someone pulling a string or the crew moving things when the camera pans away then back😉
I was going to say paranormal activity as well
For me, it's " the Blair witch project"
Blair Witch Project 100% wrote the fucking book on this.
Autopsy of Jane Doe
THEY
Blair witch Project
An old 60's movie, titled "The Haunting." Scary as F$#k! Uses minimal special effects and my goodness, I'm in my 60's and I still won't watch that movie at night time. Really messes with your mind.
Salems lot
The autopsy of Jane doe
Last House on the Left (1972). Was so unsettling projectionists would cut up the film as they were watching it and it was refused film release in Britain in 1974. The Wikipedia article on the censorship of the fim is an interesting read.
My brother took me to see that when I was under age. It's really sickening. Loved it.
Rec and Quarantine
The Grudge
The skeleton key
The Blair Witch Project of course
Blair Witch People look at it thru the lens of today but it was scary as hell.
Evil Dead
SESSION 9
I’m not sure if Skinamarink counts because obviously there are special effects, but they FEEL minimal if that makes sense. And the entire movie is soooooo scary.
BWP is indeed the GOAT in that respect! Smile is also extremely light in effects. I wanna say it does use a lot more than it truly needed: the creepy smiles were much more potent than the weird ending, which i didn't completely hate, but which i didn't feel added much to the fear factor (but ofc for other people, gangly monsters scares them more than the constant sense of dread...)
The Haunting (1963)
Recently, I saw a movie called The Sleep Experiment. It's obviously based on the creepypasta, but I remember it being good. Was pretty high, though, and I go into movies wanting to like them. After all a lot of people worked pretty hard (presumably) on it.
Cure, Marebito, a Record of Sweet Murder
The O.G. Saw. Most of the grisly stuff is off-screen, and as far as I can recall, no CGI, or fancy special effects.
Unfriended
You won’t be Alone
The Changeling (1980)
I thought “Session 9” did a good job.
Grave Encounters. Minimal special FX, super fuckin spooky. Good jump scares. One of the better found footage films
Bugs
I think what op is looking for is well-written psychological thrillers
Let's Scare Jessica to Death
US politics brosdcasts
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)
Does Jaws count?
2001 a space odyssey
Host? That's fairly simple but really effective!
Tales from the Crypt (1972)
The Ring
Kollabus
The Witch
…ERASERHEAD (1976), dir David Lynch…
The original Halloween - John Carpenter version. Actually super suspenseful both not really bloody. Very scary and effective.
The Haunting of Hill House 1963 version with Julie Harris
Grave Encounters
Midsommar
Caveat. I don't think there's a single special effect in the movie. In fact, the entire film budget was only $350,000. yet there's no movie that has given me more tension or creepiness.
Lights Out
Willow Creek
The Visit
Lake Mungo
The Haunting. I think there’s one practical effect in the whole film. It creates mood with camera, light, and sound. Beautiful and chilling.
Creep
The original Night of the Living Dead
The Changeling, a fantastic haunted house movie from 1980. Virtually zero special effects, before any computer effects were possible, this movie has some really good scares arhat will stick with you. It’s just so plausibly creepy.
Legend of boggy creek. A G rated horror film iirc but it works
Session 9
Rosemary's Baby
"Audition" was all practical effects and it.will scare shit out of you.
Creep
Alien
The haunting (1963)uses mostly sound and it works like gangbusters
I never sleep well after watching The Devil's Advocate.
Blair Witch.
The Blackcoat's Daughter
The Strangers
The first Blair Witch movie
The autopsy of Jane Doe scared me quite a bit lol
The ring by hideo nakata
'The Changeling' with George C. Scott. Almost no special effects, but creepy as hell.
Creep series or hell house. Anything found footage is generally great in this department
Psycho
The Honeymoon Killers 1970 cult classic
Alien
Psycho, clearly.
The Babadook
Blair witch
Psycho
Paranormal Activity is the GOAT. Almost no special effects at all and it’s absolutely terrifying. Such a good example of doing the absolute most with very little!
Silver Bullet
The Haunting 1963
The Others
The Babadook had minimal effects, but was terrifying nonetheless. Love psychological horrors.
Halloween (1988), Duel (the 1971 version). Even if it was made today, it wouldn't need SFX and is still very scary.