JAWS
Steven Spielberg’s classic blockbuster bore a tagline warning people to stay out of the water. Boy, was that an understatement. While JAWS brought fear of open water to a whole new generation, the movie even managed to make people nervous in swimming pools. There are few films that can make you even more frightened of a wild killing machine like a shark and JAWS is one of them.
ROSEMARY’S BAY
Roman Polanski has made a career out of paranoia. From the films REPULSION and THE TENANT to ROSEMARY’S BABY, Polanski imbued his films with a feeling of stalking dread that could have happened to any of us. With ROSEMARY’S BABY, Polanski kept us guessing right until the last minute as to whether Rosemary was crazy or if her child was actually the spawn of Satan.
THE STRANGERS
I just recently moved into a big house in a quiet neighborhood where no one really locks their doors. But, I still deadbolt each and every motherf*cking entryway because of this movie. Nothing is more disturbing than being tortured in your own home and this movie took that fear to a whole new tier.
CONTAGION
Lots of movies have been made about the spread of disease. Outbreaks are always the stuff of nightmares and Steven Soderbergh’s movie amps up the paranoia thanks to a multi-focus story that shows us everything from the investigators at the Center for Disease Control to the everyday citizens suffering from the death toll surrounding them. It is the gut punch at the end that shows how the spread of the virus began that really makes you want to wash your hands for the next fifty years.
FATAL ATTRACTION
Dating is a scary proposition. An extramarital affair is even more disturbing. Whether you have ever considered cheating, FATAL ATTRACTION will likely put the nail in the coffin of that idea for good. Glenn Close is so damn scary as a spurned lover that she boils a bunny and drove terror into the loins of men across America.
THE CONVERSATION
Long before the Internet even existed, THE CONVERSATION made movie audiences wary of being watched and listened to in much less high tech methods. While the vast majority of us are nowhere near interesting enough to be wiretapped, Gene Hackman manages to make us feel like there could always be someone listening in on another line.
HOSTEL
Graduating college, students all plan big trips with many of them going to strange and exotic places around the world. I toyed with the idea of going to Europe like the characters in HOSTEL. Then I saw HOSTEL and I thought twice. Going to Italy as an adult, I was still wary of talking to anyone who looked friendly lest they hunt me for sport and hang me from a meat hook.
FINAL DESTINATION
Long before the franchise turned into a generic slasher series, FINAL DESTINATION started with a great concept: what if you were doomed to die and everything around you could potentially be your doom? Anything from glass to a car crash or a train wreck could do it. The idea that you would have to exist in a bubble just to escape death is far too scary for general entertainment like this. Well done Glen Morgan and James Wong.
THE TRUMAN SHOW
While you may dismiss this as another attempt of Jim Carrey’s to gain respect as a dramatic actor, THE TRUMAN SHOW is a disturbingly prescient film that foresaw reality TV before it became a real genre. The idea that our world is fake and unreal and purely for the entertainment of others has been a topic for philosopher’s and psychologists for centuries. THE TRUMAN SHOW just modernizes the fear of it and makes it seem too possible.
THE WICKER MAN
A classic of multiple genres, THE WICKER MAN is a masterpiece of horror and paranoid drama. When a police officer visits a small island, he can never quite tell what is real and what is a fever dream of orgies and drug induced psychosis. All we do know is that in the end, the fear is real and we will never look at remote communities the same way ever again.
