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What's Your Favorite Scary Movie? Part Three
By
Jen Carlson
Published Oct 15, 2012
Modified Oct 15, 2012
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By
Jen Carlson
Published Oct 15, 2012
Modified Oct 15, 2012
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What's your favorite scary movie? We've been asking a variety of people this question—last week we heard from Ted Leo, Eugene Mirman, the folks at Nitehawk Cinemas, and more. Today: Chris Eigeman, Julie Klausner and Marshall Curry are here to tell you what movies have made them sleep with the lights on.
CHRIS EIGEMAN (actor, writer, director): The scariest film in the world is Rosemary's Baby. It will scare the piss out of you at every stage of your life; when you're young and clearly willing to make a deal with Satan for a role on Broadway (or whatever your career is) and then your wife wakes up with claw marks on her back. When you're older and having a kid, I promise—you won't even whisper the fucking title to yourself. And then when you're older still, you realize that most probably we are all Ruth Gordon and Sidney Blackmer; we seem so dear, so helpful, but have long been recruitment agents for the devil.
JULIE KLAUSNER (author, podcaster, comedian): I am generally a huge pussy when it comes to scary movies, but I've seen The Shining, Rosemary's Baby and the original Stepford Wives (though it could be argued that the remake was much scarier), and they're all incredible. Those three films freaked me out like nobody's beezwax, in part because they all tap into a really legitimate fear that all women have of being treated horribly. I'm not saying that one day I expect to be traded in for a robot or impregnated by the devil or chased after with an axe, but I certainly know what it's like to feel like the world wishes women would stay in our respective places. And those movies really tap into that first wave feminist anxiety. Which I still have.
MARSHALL CURRY (documentarian): I was eleven when The Shining came out, so I couldn't see it in a theater, but when it began airing on HBO, kids on the playground began talking about this thrilling, forbidden film. My friend Rob and I arranged a sleep-over at his house (he had cable—my house was rabbit-ears only), and after his parents went to bed, we snuck downstairs, opened a bag of chips, poured huge sodas, and turned on the TV. We began squirming uncomfortably as soon as the music got scary, and when the twins appear in the hall and say, "Come play with us Danny"—probably fifteen minutes in—Rob jumped up and turned off the TV. We decided to play with Legos for the rest of the night, and I never made it to the end of the film until ten years later. Even now, I have a tough time with scary movies, and I sometimes blame it on The Shining for scarring me when I was young.
Tagged
chris eigeman
halloween
horror movies
julie klausner
marshall curry
scary movies
whats your favorite scary movie
original
Jen Carlson
Jen Carlson is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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