Your Favorite Fears (journal #2)
You've just finished studying two Edgar Allan Poe horror stories. Poe was a master of the genre, even though his characters, his plots, his diction, and his themes seemed eerily similar to some other Poe story that you read. For instance, his madmen never admitted to be, well, "mad," though it only took an evil eye, an insult, or a black cat to set them to killing.You know, "sopoe," as your English teacher would say.
Nevertheless, Poe, like few others, could elevate the soul to chilly heights, and lower it to somber depths. He did so WITHOUT using elements of the supernatural. Too easy. Poe explored the psychology of fear. Maybe it was the imaginary fear of the madmen, but it was a fear minus the easy props and stimuli of ghosts and goblins.
Your next journal assignment is to tell me what gets your blood boiling, your veins pulsing, your heart thumping (notice how all of these are heart metaphors?).
In plain English, your assignment is to write about one of the following:
1. your favorite writer of horror or mystery fiction
2. your favorite horror or mystery novel or story
3. your favorite horror or mystery movie
4. You don't like the genre at all, you say? Tell me why, and cite specific experiences with these genres to make your response specific and interesting.
By the way, I used to be a huge Stephen King fan. I think his novel The Stand is a masterpiece.
posted by JTF @ 9:55 PM
51 comments
51 Comments:
For this blog entry I chose number 4 because I personally do not like the scary topics. I don’t like horror because it is often hard to find something that is scary but also nonfiction. For example movies that talk about aliens attacking the earth, like Alien vs. Predator, do not scare me whatsoever because I know in my head that it is impossible for that scenario to occur. Most horror movies now a day are unrealistic and or fictional. However there are books that are scary, but I do not believe that someone can get the full horror experience when they are reading and they can’t see a visual of what is going on. Horror genres are much scarier when they are based on a true story. A perfect movie to prove this theory is the Blair Witch Project. This movie is especially scary because the setting is in Maryland and the movie was supposedly based on a true story. The director told everyone that the movie was truly based on a true story, however a few months after the movie was released the director confessed and admitted that the movie is not based on a true story. He said he lied because he knew more people would be scared if they thought it was true. Thus proving that movies and stories are scarier when they are true. One of the scariest movies of all time is the Exorcism of Emily Rose. This movie is very scary because it is, one, based on a true story, and two, is a about a very young girl being possessed by the devil. That is why I do not like horror genres that much.
I am also a huge Stephen King fan. I have read a couple of his books, but I enjoy the films the most. My favorite horror movie is Stephen King's IT. IT was never actually in theaters. It was originally made to be a TV movie. IT is about an evil clown named Pennywise, who makes a living terrorizing seven children. The children thought they had gotten rid of the clown at the age of twelve. After the kids had become adults, stories of clown-related murderers start circulating. The leader of the former group of friends, Mike Hanlon, suspects that Pennywise has returned. Hanlon gathers up the entire group, and reminds them that they swore to kill Pennywise if he had returned. The "Lucky Seven", as they were formally known, ventured into the clowns lair. IT is not always in the form of a clown. IT just takes the form of a clown named Pennywise, so IT is appealing to small children. Every 30 years, IT feasts on the children of the town of Derry. While making their way through the bewildering cave, The Lucky Seven come across IT in the form of a giant spider. They finally defeat the spider after an arduous battle, killing IT for good. Stephen King's IT is my favorite horror movie because every time I watch it or read it, I get the chills and IT makes my blood boil.
For this blog entry I chose to do number 3. I would say one of my favorite horrow/mystery movies would have to be The Number 23 starring Jim Carrey. I enjoy this movie so much for many different reasons. For one, I love Jim Carrey as an actor because he is in most of my favorite comedy movies. After I heard he was going to act in a horror/mystery movie, I was not expecting Jim Carrey, of all actors, to play this role. After watching this film, I was blown away. Jim Carrey did a magnificent job playing Walter Sparrow. Walter Sparrow, receives a book titled The Number 23 from his wife. While he reads the book, he cannot stop thinking about the number 23. It starts to take over his mind by the number being linked to events, names, places, etc. He starts to turn insane by writing things that add up to 23 all over his body and on the walls. He starts to look at things a whole new way and cannot get the number out of his head. He feels as if everything in the book is depicting his life. At the end of the movie, he figures out that he is really the writer of the book and as an attempt to commit suicide, he jumps out of a window after writing the book, but lives. He loses all of his memory and did not remember any enigma of the number 23. After watching this film, I thought the movie was a masterpiece. I, myself, even noticed things started to add up to 23, for example, my birthday which was a week before I watched the movie (June 17th, 6+17=23).
My favorite horror movie of all time is Hide and Seek starring Dakota Fanning and Robert De Niro. The movie is about a father named David Callaway and his daughter named Emily, who are living their lives together after the mysterious suicide of David’s wife and the Emily’s mother. Throughout the movie, strange things keep happening such as injuries and evil writings on the bathroom walls. The real mystery of the story however is who is behind these horrid acts. Emily’s father continuously yells at her thinking she is the one behind it all. Meanwhile, Emily keeps telling her father that she isn’t doing it at all, the man responsible it, is her friend Charlie. As the story unravels, the movie forces you to think that the villain is so many different people from the David’s daughter to the family’s next-door neighbor. Finally, at the very end of the movie, the most suspenseful scene of all, you find out that David, a psychologist who has been trying to reach his daughter and help her with her problem is the real person with a problem. David has a split personality, and he is the Charlie Emily kept talking about. He has been the one responsible for all of the mayhem and the death of his wife. I enjoyed this movie, not because it was scary, but because it kept me on toes and kept my heart racing the whole time. You never knew who the killer was, how they were doing it, or what was going to happen next. It was a great movie because it kept my mind-boggling and my heart pounding.
For this blog entry I selected choice #3: one of my favorite horror or mystery movies. My favorite horror/mystery movie is What Lies Beneath. This is an amazing mystery movie starring Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer. The story begins when Pfeiffer’s daughter is leaving for college, therefore husband and wife, Ford and Pfeiffer, become ‘empty-nesters.’ While Ford is at work, stay-at-home mom, Pfeiffer, notices strange things happening in the house. First, the front door would spontaneously open even when Pfeiffer would continuously close the door. Then every time Pfeiffer would walk by a table in their office, a picture of her and her husband would fall onto the floor. When the framed picture dropped to the floor the third time, it broke into pieces. Pfeiffer picked up the pieces of the photo and noticed there was a newspaper clipping behind the photograph. The newspaper article was about a girl who had died; Pfeiffer recognized the necklace which the girl was wearing. She recalled finding a mysterious receipt from a jewelry store her husband had in a coat pocket. Pfeiffer decided to investigate this situation and go to the store indicated on the receipt. Looking into the store window, she discovered the same necklace the girl had on in the picture. Although she does not understand why, Pfeiffer believes all of the strange things happening in her home is due to this girl trying to communicate with her. This begins the adventure of a murder mystery for Pfeiffer, and a recall of events from her past which was almost erased from her memory.
For this entry I chose optin number 3. My favorite mystery and horror movie is White Noise, starring Michael Keaton as Jonathan Rivers and Deborah Kara Unger as Sarah Tate. Jonathan Rivers was a successful architect who was happily married to Anna Rivers(Chandra West). One evening Anna went out to visit her friend, but she never returned. Jonathan found himself a widowed with his son Mike Rivers(Nicholas Elia). Throughout the story Jonathan comes in contact with a man, Raymond Price(Ian McNeice), who claims that through EVP he has heard the voice of Anna. As the movie continues Jonathan and Sarah work together to hear Annas voice through the EVP, and eventually they do. When they hear her voice, they find something very strange, and that whoever they see on the screen dies. The ending of this movie is extremely good and I love watching it. It really does keep you guessing as to what might happen next.
For this blog, I chose the first assignment. One of my favorite authors of all time is Mary Higgins Clark. She wrote a series of murder mysteries that are each unique in their own way, and she is still writing more, with the help of her daughter, who has also started her own series. What I like about her novels so much is that they are very hard to solve. It takes a lot of thinking to get all the pieces of the puzzle to fit. It's very challenging and it makes each of her books hard to put down. Reading one of her books gets your heart racing just as much as any horror movie. There is always the temptation to flip to the back, but I have managed to avoid that. She is my favorite murder mystery author because she has written so many books that knock you off of your chair and that just keep getting better and better.
I absolutely love the horror/scary movie genre. I just love the thrills, screams, and unforgetable goosebumps that you get when you watch these movies. If i had to pick my one all-time favorite scary movie, it would probably be the Sixth Sense which is a film written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. I can't really give you an explanation of this movie, because its a rather complex film that is hard to grasp. Well, it centers around this boy name Cole, played by the adorable Haley Joel Osment, who can see and talk to dead people. (the well-known line "I see dead people.") Bruce Willis is also in the movie, and plays Dr. Crowe, a child psychologist. Dr. Crowe is treating Cole as a patient. Soon he realizes that Cole really does have an ability to talk to dead people. He enrages the little boy to use his gift to help the "dead" people with their unfinished business. After overcoming his fear, Cole is able to help a young dead girl give her father evidence that her mother murdered her. Cole is then able to help dead people. The twist ending really surprised me. You learn at the end that Dr. Crowe was one of the dead individuals that Cole was seeing. I had to watch the movie around three times before I actually understood the plot. After watching it enough, I grew to love the movie and appreciate the ingenuity of it. I would recommend this movie to anyone who enjoys to feel "the hairs on their neck stand up."
Drew Mink
For this blog entry i chose to write about my favorite horror writer. He is actually one of the only writers that I am really interested with. He is more of a classical author and his name is H.P. Lovecraft. He is the author of many science fiction and supernatural novels such as "Call Of The Cthulu" and "The Haunter in the Dark." Much like Edgar Allan Poe, Lovecraft considered himself to mainly be a poet, although he wrote many great novels as well. "The Call of the Cthulu" tells the story of a cult that worships an Octopus-like creature that actually lives on land. Although I do not believe in Cthulu, I still find it to be highly interesting.
My favorite horror film was the Chainsaw Massacre. This movie was about a boy who was born into a small town. He did not look like normal children and got made fun of many times. He was so hurt by peoples comments about his looks that he started to kill people and take off their faces and wear them as his own. But it never looked quiet right. When a couple of kids were driving around in Texas they ended up in the town that the messed up guy lived in. His whole town was against the kids so they would set them up to get killed one by one. In the end one of the girls that traveled to the town ran free, but not before she injured the messed up guy who lived in the town. I think the reason why this movie is so scary is because it was based on a true story. Also, they never found the guy who killed all those inoccent people. The fact that I know he still could be out there, even though it happened many years ago, really creeps me out.
For this blog I decided to write about my favorite scarry movie. I love horror movies, the anticipation, the thrills and the way i get goose bumbs when i watch a scary movies are some of the reasons why i love it so much. My favorite movie would be The Exorcism of Emily Rose. It had to be one of the scarriest movies I have ever seen in my life. Because the movie was suposibly based off a true story it gave me the creeps even more. The movie was about an average girl who's life changed when deamons entered her body. She tried to fight them off but in the end she died immedietly after the priest performed the exorcism. The movie was disturbing in what happened to the girl and it all looked so real. Of course what added to the suspence was the setting, either her alone at her college or going mad alone in her room. Also the music, when a scary part of the movie came about an erie noise would come out of the silence and make you jump. I love the suspence of scary movies and love the thrill of getting the chills.
Mystery and horror movies are my particular favorite type of movie. This is because of the suspense and thrill the movie gives you. My favorite horror movie is Saw Three. The reason I like the third out of all of them is because it is the most suspenseful. In this one unlike the other one’s you find out who Jigsaw (the killer) is, but he is dying. The suspenseful part of this is that he has hooked a monitor to a brace that a doctor has to wear. If she does not attend to him every second of the day, and he dies, the brace will close and she will be killed. Throughout the movie Jigsaw is at his last thread of life. This is very suspenseful because the doctor tries to keep herself alive by keeping Jigsaw alive. Also, it is harder for her to keep him alive when the doctor is informed he has held her husband and daughter captive, she wants him to die because of all the hatred she has for him, but she cannot. Another reason I like this movie is because it ends as a mystery. In the end the husband of the doctor escapes and has to find his daughter. The only person who knows where she is, is Jigsaw. Jigsaw dies and he will have to find her alone. This movie brings suspense and mystery.
I'm not much of a horror fan. I know this might sound stupid to people who are, but it all started when I saw The Mummy on TV. I was only nine, and easily scared so don't make fun of me! After I saw that, I had nightmares and was terrified of being alone in the dark for a month. I've never given horror a chance after that, but I'm willing to try now. It's mostly horror movies that I don't like, but I do like Edgar Allen Poe's stories. Ironically, it's because of the horror that I like them so much. I guess I'm just better at handling scary writing than scary scenes because I can picture the images in my head, and might not get the image right. Plus, I don't actually have to see it. I haven't seen a scary movie since The Mummy (I'm a total wuss, I know), but I'm willing to try it again, now that I'm older and might handle it better.
I usually don't watch horror movies or read "scary" books because I personally like to view action movies such as Gladiator or Saving Private Ryan. I'd much rather watch a thrilling movie with suspense than being scared for fun, if it is fun at all. I'm also not saying that I hate horror films because I do enjoy watching them at parties or when there's nothing else worthwhile to watch. There is one scary movie though that fits the description of what I think is an enjoyable, yet adrenaline-pumping movie. That movie is Shaun of the Dead which is a horror movie that contains alot of comical content. That's the main reason why I like this exhilerating film which sends a message of responsibility and courage. Shaun, an ordinary guy from England, and his hilarious friend, Ed, find themselves suddenly trapped in a chaotic, zombie-infested world. My favorite part of the movie was when Shaun and Ed finally realize there dangerous situation and make a plan to save their only friends who ironically hadn't changed either. It was almost like a funny action video when the two friends race off in the pursuit of saving Shaun's girlfriend Liz, David, Racheal, and Shaun's "mum." Once the plot begins, I love how it took the rest of the movie for the exciting and emotional climax to finally occur. When it does, the friends are trapped in a local bar were Racheal, David, and Ed are bitten and transform into zombies as well. Shaun's mom dies at the hands of the irritated zombies, and all hope is lost until there is only Shaun and Liz left standing. I feel that this movie was the best funny and scary movie ever produced mostly because it had an intriguing plot which made you wonder what was going to happen to these comical characters. It also had both a creative and ironic ending because Shaun was an irresponsible coward at the beggining of the movie and and miraculously became a brave leader to survive against the terrifying zombie surge. Furthermore, he was also having relationship problems with Liz because she thought he was a carefree loser. Then, in a time of great turmoil, they both came together as the strongest couple and lived to tell the horrible tale treacherous zombies. Shaun of the Dead is one of my top favorite movies, eventhough it's in horror genre, and I strongly recommend it as a good scary movie to watch for a laugh and a scare.
I personally don’t like scary movies. But I do like the mystery genre. My favorite mystery movie would have to be The Da Vinci Code. The Da Vinci Code is about a murder that leads two people on a hunt to uncover a secret that was protected by a clandestine society for many years. If the secret was to be uncovered, it would destroy the Roman Catholic religion. The two people on the case are symbolist Robert Langdon and cryptologist Sophie Neveu. Langdon is called to inspect a murder that took place in the Louvre. He is joined by Sophie, whose estranged grandfather was the murder victim. Near the body, police found a baffling cipher. Langdon decodes the cipher and discovers it leads to a trail of clues hidden in the works of Da Vinci. Langdon and Sophie soon find out that the murder victim was involved in a secret society called the Priory of Sion. The society’s job was to keep the secret of the Holy Grail. The Holy Grail is believed to be a chalice but in actuality it refers to a living descendant to Jesus Christ himself. But this would not be possible unless Jesus was married. Clues in Da Vinci’s masterpiece The Last Supper expose that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and they produced a daughter named Sara. If this was to be revealed, the Catholic Church would be ruined. As Langdon and Sophie are off on a quest across Europe to find Jesus’ living descendant, they are being pursued by a monk from the order of Opus Dei—a Catholic organization believed to have tried to confiscate the Priory’s secret—who was hired by the church to kill Langdon and Sophie so the secret would never be revealed. The police detectives originally assigned to the murder case were also after Langdon and Sophie. In the end it is discovered that Sophie is the actual descendant of Jesus Christ and the man murdered was not actually her grandfather but in fact assigned to protect and prepare Sophie to discover her secret on her own. Sophie decides to keep the secret to herself instead of ruining the Catholic Church. This movie is filled with action and mystery and keeps you on edge throughout the whole movie. Even though this movie is fiction is was fun to try to see if you could figure out the answer to the clues before they were revealed in the movie.
My favorite horror movie is Halloween. Its a 1978 American independent horror film set in the fictional midwestern town of Haddonfield, Illinois on Halloween. The original draft of the screenplay was titled The Babysitter Murders. John Carpenter directed the film, which stars Donald Pleasence as Dr. Sam Loomis, Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode, and Nick Castle as Michael Myers (listed in the credits as "The Shape"). The film centers on Myers' escape from a psychiatric hospital, his murdering of teenagers, and Dr. Loomis's attempts to track and stop him. Halloween is widely regarded as a classic among horror films, and as one of the most influential horror films of its era, thus causing, in 2006, to have this film selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". I really enjoyed this movie because it was one of the first scary movies I saw when I was younger and it really scared me. This movie is good because it shows that even though most horror movies have monsters or ghosts this is just some ordinary kid who becomes a killer as a child.
For this blog entry I decided to choose topic number three. I used to hate horror films they gave me nightmares but now I can enjoy them and they usually don’t scare me. My favorite horror movie is Dead Silence. This movie is scary, suspenseful, and has a twisted end. This movie is about this guy who receives a doll with no return address. The doll is pretty creepy looking but him and his wife find it cute. They decided to keep it, which starts the action in the movie. The husband goes out to get dinner and is horrified when he finds his wife dead and the doll sitting in the corner of the room. The man takes the doll back to his hometown where he knows the doll came from. He learns of how his family killed Mary Shaw. She was the owner of all the dolls she made and was working on the ‘perfect’ doll when she was killed. There was the saying, “Beware the stare of Mary Shaw, she had no children only dolls and if you see her in your dreams remember never ever scream.” For if you screamed she would kill you if not you would live. She then put a curse on the family and said she would kill every last member of the family. The guy decides to put an end to this and kills all the dolls. When he gets back to his father’s house he receives the biggest shock of all. His father was in a wheel chair and his new, younger, wife was caring for him, and she never left his side for a reason. His father was actually dead and the wife was using him like a dummy, causing him to talk and seem alive. The twisted trick was that the wife was the ‘perfect’ doll Mary had been working on. She then killed the son and is still alive.
ar red's blog post is above
For this entry I chose number 4, I do not really remember any movies that could scare me but the shining. I guess my favorite horror movie would be Shaun of the Dead although I would say that its more of a comedy than horror. But the scariest movie I have ever seen is the Shining, throughout the entire movie it seemed really creepy but wasn't scary. One of the characters is running through the house, near the end, and she runs up a flight of stairs. At the top of the stairs she sees a man in a pig costume who turns to look at her. I don't know why but thats the scariest part in any movie i have ever seen.
For Your Favorite fears (journal 2) I am writing about my favorite horror movie which is choice #3. My favorite horror movie is called See No Evil. It is about this man whose mother abused him as a child. She convinced him that most of the people in the world sin, and that he is the hand of God to punish them. He gouges out people’s eyes with his finger, and then puts them in a glass jar with water. His mother constantly says “The eyes are the window to the soul”. At the start of the movie he gouges out this one girl’s eyes, but doesn’t kill her because she has religious tattoos, and then he gets shot by a police and he runs. Later the mother poses as someone from a historical renovation committee to try to get an old hotel renovated by criminals (her goal is to get the person who shot her son). Then throughout the movie the criminals start to get picked off one by one in gruesome ways by her son, and eventually the two police officers (the two people that came with the criminals). Then in the end of the movie the last three criminals stab the man (who was killing them off and gouging out their eyes) in the head with a pipe, and then he gets thrown out of a window (from high up in the hotel) and dies. The three criminals that survived then walk out of the hotel, and that is the end. I love this movie because of the suspense and then the jump that you do in your seat when something unexpected happens.
I chose topic # 3, the horror movie. My favorite horror movie is "Halloween". It is set in 1978, in a small Illinois town during Halloween. It starts out when a man named Michael Myers escapes form a psychiatric prison and starts murdering teenagers that get in his way for no apparent reason. The police get involved after the body count starts to pile up and the try to track down Michael Myers and find out why he is doing this. Then, a man named Dr. Loomis attempts to track and find him. That man and the method prove successful and they stop him from killing. This is movie is my favorite horror movie because it is not an animal or a ghost that kills people, but a psychiatric patient who does the killing.
For this journal I chose number two. Even though i rarely ever read i used to read the Goosebumps series when i was younger. I loved them. Although its not the greatest series ever written it always seemed to captivate my attention. They were also extremely easy to read which suited my fancy. Whether it was the cover of the book or not, I still own about thirty of the books from the the beginning of the series. My favorite one was The Haunted Car. It was predictable but I still loved it. I liked the fear of getting in a car that might kill you. I stopped reading them when I got older because they're meant for fourth graders. But then i started to watch the short movies based on the books. They weren't as good but i liked them anyway. From time to time I'll see one around the house, pick it up, and remember reading it in my room when i was grounded. No none ever agrees with the quality of the books with me, but I don't care, I loved those books and no one will change my mind.
For this blog I chose number 4. I don't really enjoy scary movies or books. I find this genre not very interesting. I do not understand why people enjoy getting scared. I hate movies that have scenes with blood and bodies being chopped up. I feel I don't like these stories because they are unrealistic. I would much rather watch a true story about someone. If I had to pick one movie that I thought was scary it would be "The Number 23" with Jim Carey. It was about a guy who had recieved a book and the book became his life. Everything was linked to the number 23. After I watched this movie I found myself noticing the number 23 places I would go and everything would add up to 23. Numbers adding up to 23 in my life made it a scary movie because it was real. I think that horror movies are only entertaining if they are true.
For this journal entry I chose to write about number 3, my favorite horror or mystery movie. I actually like a series of movies, not just a specific one. My favorite is the Saw series. These movies are extremely gruesome and display some very graphic images, but that is not the part that sparks my interest. I like the clever puzzles the main character “Jigsaw” comes up with. He makes the people in the movie play a “game” that he makes up. He quotes, “I want to play a game. The rules of the game are simple. The consequences of breaking them are great. Death...”
These people that he makes play these games are put through different tests to see how far they will go to save their life. If they do not follow the rules of the game, they die in one of Jigsaws traps. These movies can be very gruesome at times, but also very entertaining. This is why my favorite series of horror movies is the Saw series.
My favorite horror thriller movie has to be the Japanese hit, “The Ring”. The storyline is extremely intuitive and original. I think half the reason I remember it being as scary as it had been was because I had been around 11 years old when I first saw it on the big screen. There hadn’t been a lot of hype behind this movie, so I went in the movie theatre unexpected and not ready to be scared to death. The movie is about a woman, her son, and her ex-boyfriend. In the beginning of the screen play they show you the history of a so called, “evil movie” that if you watch it seven days later you end up being killed by some sort of creature. Of course the tales get around and soon enough stupid teenagers get their hands on it and start passing it around as a dare. Later in the movie the woman ends up watching it and they’re gruesome pictures of this woman trying to escape the death in seven days. She tries discovering the root of the evil from the tape. In the end she escapes the creature but only by a hair. The movie keeps you on the edge of your seat the entire way through.
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For this journal entry I chose number 3. My favorite scary movie is “The Ring.” This is the first horror movie I watched so I perceived it as the scariest. The movie described an urban legend that is so told to be true. A video tape full of terrifying, awkward images when seen you will die in 7 days. The journalist Rachel Keller (Naomi Watts) wanted to investigate the sudden death of her niece. She found out they had watched a video in a cabin with her friends, that might caused her death. She investigated more about this story. Rachel went to the cabin and watched the video and moments later she received a call that said she would die in 7 days. Rachel tried to find ways to stop this curse, and to stop what was happening to her. As the days went she saw the same images in her life that were playing on that video clip. Rachel unearthed information about the long-dead haunting girl Samara Morgan who is the girl that cursed this tape (Daveigh Chase). Her co-worker Noah Clay (Martin Henderson) and Aidan Keller (David Dorfman) also watched the cursed tape. Now Rachel Keller must figure out a way to save her loved ones and herself from this defying curse. When I first watched this movie, I honestly couldn’t sleep for days. It scared me so much that I couldn’t eat right and think straight. I am more scared off the psychological fear than the gooey blood related type of scare. This movie scared me more than Saw 3.
For this journal entry I chose number 3. My favorite scary movie is “Saw” This is my favorite horror/mystery movie I watched. The movie starts off when two men wake up at opposite sides of a dirty, disused bathroom, chained by their ankles to pipes. Between them lies a dead man holding a hand-held tape player and a handgun. Each finds a tape in their pocket. They play the tapes. One is threatened, the other isn't. But they have to kill each other in six hours, or one of the men’s wife and daughter will die. They find hacksaws in a toilet, and try to cut the chains, but it doesn't work. It turns out they have to cut their leg off if they want to escape without killing each other. They are the two newest victims of the Jigsaw Killer. He sets traps on people that have wasted their lives and have done bad things. Through a series of flashbacks, it shows more victims, and the nearly-successful capture of the Jigsaw, who doesn't actually kill his victims. Instead, he finds ways to make them kill either themselves, or each other, and he thinks the entire “game” out perfectly, with no other ways out. That’s the way it seems at least. The traps are very gruesome, but if the people make it out they learn a lesson to enjoy life and not to ruin it. When I first watched this movie, I couldn’t stop thinking about, what would I do if I was in those terrible situations. It left me in suspense, not knowing if the people would live or die. This is why “Saw” is the scariest horror/mystery movie I have ever watched.
I chose to write about topic four because I am not a fan of horror movies. A person being killed or tortured does not interest me, and neither do the frightening after effects of watching a horror film. I dwell on a horror movie for a long time. When my imagination runs wild, I wait for a stranger to call my house and kill me on my back porch, just like in the beginning of the movie Scream. I sometimes wonder how the writers think of these gruesome ways of killing people. I cannot imagine how the writers of the Saw or Final Destination movies make up that kind of gruesome murder or suicide. Seeing people be tortured in movies, such as The Hills Have Eyes Two, is not entertainment to me. The torturing and killing sickens me. Even listening to my friends describe these horrible movies gives me goose bumps. Watching it would be out of the question. Worse than the actual viewing of horror movies are its after effects. For some reason, even if I know that the movie is completely fictitious, I still stay scared for a couple of weeks. Then, sometimes when I am in a vaguely similar situation, such as staying home alone, I fear that someone may kidnap or kill me. Although I do not like horror movies, I do like the suspense that most all of them have. Suspense/Thriller movies like The Sixth Sense and V for Vendetta are movies that I enjoy watching, compared to gruesome horror movies. Call me a coward, but I will take a happily-ever-after over a slasher film any day.
I love mystery and horror movies. They are exciting and suspenseful. Of course when I watch them I have to be with other people, and I usually end up covering my eyes. The second they are over I usually turn something happy and corny on t.v. One of my favorite mystery or horror movies would have to be Final Destination. This movie might not be as scary as some of the others, but I find it to be just as good. The writers of this movie are brillant. You have to be brillant to come up with the the plot of the movie. Which is a bunch of people just escaping death in some type of freak accident because of a kid who pictures it all happening before it really does. After the incident happens and these people do not die, death comes after them. They all, besides the two main characters in the first movie, end up dying some type of freak death. Alex, one of the main characters, uses the clues he sees and the weird stuff he notices around him to try and save their lives. There is two sequels to the movie, and they are just as great.
I do not really like watching horror movies, because i do not like being scared. However, if I am with other people, I will watch them. Some of my favorites are The Ring, Hide and Seek, Halloween, and It. My favorite horror movie is Saw. The Saw movies are a series of movies in which a killer kidnaps people and sets up "games" for them to play. The killer is called the jigsaw killer since it is like a puzzle trying to put things together to figure out the games. First the "killer" comes on a television screen or his voice comes, explaining how to play the game he designed for that particular person. The person on the screen is really a scary looking doll. In the games designed by jigsaw, the kidnapped people are set up to do gruesome things to themselves, such as cut out their eyes, saw off their legs, cut themselves open to find a key inside themselves, or even kill another kidnapped person they are with. If the people don't succeed in time, they are killed by the machine they are in, location they are at, etc. Either way, they suffer and die a terrible death. Only a few people have survived these games. Police are frantically trying to figure out who jigsaw is, but they can't seem to stop him. Finally it is said in the movie that jigsaw has cancer, and he spies on people, kidnaps them, and then sets up the games for them in order to teach them the lesson not to waste their life. I picked Saw as my favorite horror movie because it is intense, suspenseful, and has a good plot.
Well for this Blog i decided to write about my favorite horror movie. It is a very recent that just came out in theaters. But it became an instant favorite of mine. The title of the movie is One Missed Call. It was extremely bizare and crazy movies. For a scary movie, it also involved alot of thiking. It was very interesting because unlike most horror movies, there some some elemnts of psychology involved. They had to solve who the killer was, but at the same time wondering if they were the next to die. It definately kept my attention, and i couldnt really help myself from feeling freaked out after it. The killer would call the phone. and it had the same ringer for each phone it called. If they didnt answer the killer would leave a voice mail, and the person would hear exactly how they would die, or their last words. It was extremely freaky when it came down to that because even if they took the batteries out. The call would still come through. But you are just going to have to see it for yourself and decided if you think its scary enough for you.
To be completely honest, im not a big fan of anything scary. I don't know why, but i just can't get into them. When the first SAW movie came out i was really eager to see it. When i finally got the movie home and started watching it with my cousin, i couldn't stand it. I had to turn it off, and my cousin thought i was a big softy. I think it was because im not a fan of the blood and guts kind of stuff that most people like. However, movies like Jaws, and the Deep Blue Sea didn't bother me at all. I think its because i realized that sharks like that were unrealistic and that situation could never happen. Therefore, when it comes to scary movies, most have a bad affect on me while others i really enjoy.
My favorite scary movie is "I am Legend." It stars one of my favorite actors Will Smith. He believes he is the only person left alive in the world other than animals and I guess you could call them zombies. These "zombies" can only come out at night. Will Smith's character Dr. Robert Nevil watches his family die in a helocopter crash, and his dog die while trying to save the doctor as he was trapped by a trap the "zombies" laid. They are fast and cunning. Actually they are humans brutally mutated by a rare form of the German measels, mutated by a doctor as a cure for cancer. Dr. Nevil dies at the end of the movie after finding out that there are other people in the world, and the cure for the disease. It is a great story of mankinds survival and provides many thrilling moments. It is a great movie and I would recommend it heartily.
Unlike many teenagers who enjoy the thrill of horror films, I, for one, dislike the genre. My dislike of horror films was determined the day I went to see the movie Sixth Sense. Although my mom thought it was not a good idea for me, a second grader at the time, to see Sixth Sense, my dad felt very strongly about me seeing it, only because his cousin had a role in the film. I was very excited when my dad finally convinced my mom I should be able to see my second cousin “on the big screen.” The night my dad and I went to see the film is a night I will never forget. At the start of the film, I thought to myself, “This is not scary at all!” About ten minutes later, I was curled up in my seat with my hands shielding my eyes. As the movie ended, my dad said to me, “You missed my cousin! Your eyes were shut!” At that moment, I really didn’t care one way or the other if I saw my second cousin in the movie or not. I just wanted to go home. When I got home, I was extremely scared. I couldn’t go upstairs without one of my parents by my side! I know this sounds crazy, but my “going upstairs alone” fear did not subside until I was in fourth grade! Now, I make sure I know exactly what the genre and plot of the film are, even if my second cousin has a part in it!
I would have to say that my favorite mystery writer is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, more commonly known as the writer of the Sherlock Holmes series of books. I had to do a research paper on an author in eigth grade and picked Doyle because I was always curious as to how some mystery writers thought of such good content and storyline. Doyle was probably one of the best mystery writers of our time, because he was the creator of probably the best and most well known detective, Sherlock Holmes. Doyle was a bit of a weird guy, he believed in very strange and obscure religions, fairies, and supernatural things. He was a genius mystery writer though, he wrote countless short stories, and also a few novels that were all best sellers. He is not into horror though, not many of his stories give you a sense of fear, there are some parts that may scare you occasionally, but that is not the general mood of his writings. This still does not diminish from the fact that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is one of the best mystery writers of all time.
I enjoy horror movies to some extent, but I often find myself disappointed after watching a cheesy scary movie without a plot. However, I do enjoy the suspense in some of the better horror movies out there. Take The Sixth Sense, for example. That was a thriller that I really enjoyed. It had an interesting plot, and it was not stuffed with all of the cliché happenings that are usually found in today’s average horror film. It involved character development and an interesting relationship between the two main characters. It held my attention and at the same time provided some suspense. As for the Saw movies, I think that they are not great but okay. The opening part of the first one caught my attention and even gave me a feeling of dread, as if I were feeling as the captive characters felt. I prefer the strange events rather than the gore. I think that for me, watching scary movies is more of a fun thing to do when I’m with friends simply for the thrill of getting scared. Although, sometimes horror movies are so cheesy in some parts that I just have to laugh. Overall, I guess I have mixed feelings about this topic, depending on the actual movie at hand.
Horror movies are made to get the person that is watching them to go home and feel a little insecure. For that very reason they are my favorite to go and see or watch at my house I get spooked very easily, unless I know its coming. Horror movies always make me wonder if there are people that do those terrible things or if there are demons in the world? Most people enjoy going to see scary movies with a group of people or a date but I think u can only actually understand how hard the people that made the movie worked if one watches it by themselves. I think that the great Horror writers/producers have all had some deeply unfair or terrible thing happen to them that makes them see life in different way. Many of they greatest Horrors stories that have ever been told come from one man Stephen King. During my eighth grade year I learned that the room Mr. King does most of his work in is very dark with skeletons and gruesome pictures taking up the majority of the room. Many people believe they can make a movie but it takes more to make a horror movie.
I absolutely hate scary movies. Iwell try explain certain intsances that have created this loathing for them, but the truth is that there arent very many because i try to stay away from them as much as possible. It all started back when I was a little boy about the age of 4 trying to be cool by watching movies with my older brother and his friends. We all decided to watch a movie called Jaws which now seems like nothing compared to the bloody, gory, sick, twisted things that are in horror movies now. Although we all understand that Jaws may not be the scariest movie of all time, at the age of four being terribly vunerable to television images, this movie was definatley not right for me. I did not scream or cry throuought the entire movie either because I did not want my brothers friends making fun of me, or because i was even too terrified to move at all. Ever since that horrific experience i have never been able to watch a scary movie and not regret it. Normally during the movie i will be perfectley fine, but after the movie is over and i lie down to go to sleep, i think the movie over and over in my head. I imagine how all of these things could happen to me even tho i know most of these stories are completely ridiculous. Movies such as the Grudge and The Hills Have Eyes basically keep me from sleeping for about a week or two. Maybe someday i will concur my fear of scary movies, but for now, i am okay with watching a nice comedy or a drama.
For this blog entry I choose number three. My favorite scary/mystery movie is flight plan. The movie stars Jodie Foster as the widowed mother traveling back to the United States to burry her husband. While she is on the plane she falls asleep, and when she wakes up her daughter is missing. She asks the crew and some passengers but none of them remember seeing the little girl. The crew believes she is crazy and that she does not have a daughter. She gets frantic and starts searching the plane. She finally figures out what was going on and realized the cop on the plane was hiding her. He was going to use her as a hostage when he hijacked the plane. Jodie Foster figures out his plan and stops him before he could carry through with it. They all apologize to her and her daughter. I like this movie because it is very intense trying to figure out what happened to the little girl and if Jodie Foster would ever find her. I found it to be a very thrilling film and would recomend it to anyone who wants to watch a mystery film.
My favorite scary movie would have to be the recently released, "I am legend." It starrs Will Smith, who is one of my favorite actors, and is about a doctor in New York that is one of the last suviving people on the planet. Almost all the world has been affected with this disease that turns people into "zombie" like creatures who can't show their skins into the light, so they only come out at night. Will Smith's name in the movie is Dr. Nevil, and everyday he gathers and hunts for food, excercises, and lives his like almost like everybody else, and at night he has to hide in his house so that the zombies will not be able to get him. His only companion, who is dog, finally dies, he has nothing left and almost kills himself trying to kill the zombies at night. A lady and her child saved him, and he finds out there are some people left on earth. In the end, Dr. Nevil gives his life to save those 2 people, and they make it up to a camp of remaining survivors up in New England. I like this movie becuase it is thrilling and scary, and those are the kind of movies that I enjoy.
My favorite horror movie is called "Stay Alive." It is about a video game that kills the people who play it. This movie scared me becasue it is about something that I can relate to. I play video games a lot and die in the games very often. The eeriest part of the movie was that if you did not play the game, it would play for you and try to kill you in the real world. Also, if you died in the game, you would die the same way you did in the game. This scared me because even if you stopped playing the game, it would play you. As I was watching the movie with my brothers, I was pretending not to be terrified of watching people suffer gruesome deaths, but that night was horrible for me. I laid in bed for at least three hours and could not get to sleep. The next morning I woke up and was not afraid because it was daytime and I was around people, but I could not play video games for several weeks. I am over this movie now because I have not seen it in a long time, but it was definitely the scariest movie I have ever seen.
A horror movie that really gets my blood boiling and my heart pumping is the movie The Vacancy. This movie is about a couple who check into a hotel room but the hotel manager is trying to kill them and a bunch of very horrifying events happen to them. In the movie the TV turns on and shows them how everyone else gets murdered and they’re video cameras in the room that film them and these men come and try and kill them. This movie really gets me shaking because I hate hotel rooms. I don’t like how anyone that works at the hotel can get into your room whenever they want to and many people have been in that room before you. For all you know someone could have died in the bed that you’re now sleeping. While I was watching that movie I was just thinking of how scared I would be if I was the actors. Whenever I stay in a hotel I can never sleep and I always stay up all night just thinking about all the bad stuff that could’ve happened in this same bed as I am sleeping in now. And now after watching the vacancy I always think that people are watching me and I refuse to take showers while staying in them. So, my biggest fear is getting murdered in a hotel room.
For this journal i chose to write about my favorite horror movie, The Devils Rejects. This is my favorite horror movie cause it was a very easy movie to get into. The movie is about a brother and sister that are on the run from the police and they are reeking havoc in there last killing spree.It takes place in a very rural desert area so feel a sense of helplessness of the victims. Some of the scenes are hard to watch but i think this is what makes it a good movie. Director, Rob Zombie did not hold back at all making this movie. My favorite part of the movie is when they are cut off by a road block but they didn't stop. They went straight at the road block and went out fighting. This part really makes you feel the desperateness of the characters.. Also in this scene Freebird by Lynyrd Skynyrd which is a very good song.
My all-time favorite scary movie, although not truly a horror film, would have to be Scary Movie 4.
With a misnomer for a title, this movie is really just a paradox on many very popular scary movies, including Saw, the Grudge, the Village, and War of the Worlds. The film contains actors Leslie Nielsen, Shaquille O'Neil, Dr. phil, and Carmen Electra. The writers of the movie are genious, and I can just imagine what the reactions are of the makers of films this movie mocks. a Perfectly laid out plot makes smooth transitions between a number of several movies, still adding the "jumpy" effect you get when you wacth a real scary movie.
This twist of scary fashion with a comical script is a masterpiece, and I look forward to the ten, fifteen, maybe twenty more of these kinds of films that come out in my prime.
For the blog Your Favorite Fears I am choosing to write about option number 3, my favorite horror or mystery movie. I am a huge fan of mystery stories. I love movies that can keep me guessing all the way to the very end. By far my all time favorite movie is Mr. Brooks staring Kevin Costner, Demi Moore, William Hunt and Dane Cook. It's about a man named Mr. Brooks, a buisness owner, and a family man. Only he has one big problem. Killing people is like an addiction to him, he can't help but do it. He even has a man named "Marshall" that lives inside his head that tells him to kill. He had quit killing for two years though, when all the sudden the urge to kill came back to him. So he finally picked a couple, and murdered them at their home, except he forgot to shut the blinds, and little did he know someone was watching, and taking pictures. The next day Mr. Brooks is at work, when he gets a surprise visit from his daughter, who left college because she is pregnant. Mr. Brooks also thinks there is another reason why she left college though. Later a man named "Mr. Smith" comes to visit him at work also. He was the one that saw him kill the couple, and he said he knows that Mr. Brooks is a well known killer, and he asks to accompany him on his next killing. As the story goes on Mr. Brooks has to deal with his addiction. He also finds out his daughter has the same problem and he even fixes her mistake. The story ends with a very suprising twist, and deffinetly not the way I expected it to. That is probably why I liked it so much, because it was not what I thought was going to happen.
My favorite horror writer and or storyteller is, believe it or not, Edgar Allan Poe. I love all of his stories. they all interest me a great deal and i enjoy reading them a great amount. It all started in Fifth grade when i saw a slideshow storytelling of "The Tell-Tale Heart." I thought it was such a great story and had a great plot to it that I wanted to read all of his stories. Since then I would have to say that I have indeed read just about all of them. My favorite one of all though is "The Cask Of Amontillado." It's a great revenge story that keeps the reader on the edge of their seat. My cousin goes to the University of Virginia. I went to visit her and while she was showing me around her campus, she took me to the room where Edgar Allan Poe stayed while he attended the school. It was very bleak and there was a statue of a raven next to the bed. It was a very cool experience for me.
MR Yellow
1/7/08
My favorite horror movie is Halloween (the new one). From start to finish the movie tries to scare you. Even in the beginning as a child Michael Myers is a killer. It starts out with when he kills a bully from school and most of his family. It tries to use psychology to scare you since Mike is messed up in the head. In the movie for the most part he is in a psyco ward trying to figure out what is wrong with him but he doesn’t ever talk to anyone. This adds to the horror of the movie since he doesn’t talk and you never know what he is thinking. A Lot of the movie takes place in the dark and is somewhat gory.
MR Yellow
1/7/08
My favorite horror movie is Halloween (the new one). From start to finish the movie tries to scare you. Even in the beginning as a child Michael Myers is a killer. It starts out with when he kills a bully from school and most of his family. It tries to use psychology to scare you since Mike is messed up in the head. In the movie for the most part he is in a psyco ward trying to figure out what is wrong with him but he doesn’t ever talk to anyone. This adds to the horror of the movie since he doesn’t talk and you never know what he is thinking. A Lot of the movie takes place in the dark and is somewhat gory. The whole time while Michael is about to kill someone they play the traditional Mike Myers horror music. There is never a part though out the entire movie where the director is not trying to scare the viewer. That is why the new Halloween is my favorite horror movie.
as a huge horror movie fan, im up for any type of horror, whether it be blood and guts, thriller, suspense, mystery, any kind. out of all horror movies ever, i would say my favorite horror movie would have to be high tension. this is a very unpopular movie, and is actually a foreign film. it is from france, but is languaged over to be spoken in english. it is a very scary movie, about a killer, and her alter ego. the background on the movie is very detailed and long, and interesting and suspensful. this movie is a great movie to watch with friends or family for a good scare. ive shown many people this as theyve come to my house, and always love the reaction. just the memories i have of those times, and the plot itself, are what makes this my favorite movie.
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