Scary Films that aren't Horror

[Max J Power]

I find a lot of David Lynch stuff to be kind of creepy.

I was playing bar trivia last night and one of the guys on my team said he had to stop watching Twin Peaks right before bed because it creeped him out too much to sleep.

 

[Thundarr]

The Day After scared the hell out of me as a kid. I still remember seeing that and my mom having to convince me that a nuclear holocaust wasn't go to happen.

I was the same way. And after watching Red Dawn, I was convinced I would see Russian paratroopers outside my window one day.


The thing about those movies that makes them so frightening is, it could actually happen.

 

[cherokeesam]

Okay...theres a difference between a genre and sub-genre. A horror film is any film whose main intentions are to "horrify" the audience. Seven, Psycho, and Hannibal definitely qualify in this respect. Psychological thriller is not a genre, its a sub-genre of horror. Horror is a very broad genre and many sub-genres fall into them such as: supernatural (The Ring, The Excorcist), Slasher (Halloween, A nightmare on Elm Street), Monsters (Alien, Predator), Psychological (Seven, Silence of the Lambs), and more.All of these aim for the same (primary) goal...they try to get underneath the audience's skin and creep them out.

^This.

The difference between a murder mystery, psychological thriller, and slasher horror flick is that the latter *shows* the dirty deeds in lovingly gruesome detail (even when it doesn't really "show" it, a la the shower scene in Psycho), and is more concerned with generating fear in the audience than solving a puzzle. In other words, horror works on your raw emotions (fear and shock), while mysteries/thrillers work on your rational thoughts.

 

[ttotheusher]

Night of The Hunter Spring to my mind.

That was the first film I thought of when I saw the thread title. I've always considered it an especially scary film-noir.