Quote Originally Posted by TheGreatCthulhu View Post
Hm... Didn't watch that one. But that shall be corrected! Anyway, if I had to pick the scariest movie, I really wouldn't know what to say. Maybe because I feel that games like Silent Hill are scarier than most horror movies (well, restrict that to SH1, SH2, SH3 and SH4). As a kid, I really loved Alien (the first one), although I was **** terrified of it... I had this fear of otherworldly creatures with teeth. But today, I find the terrible aspects of the human nature that can emerge from time to time far more terrifying... There are probably unthinkable things happening right now in some mad war somewhere in the world, all because of some power-hungry politicians and their damned propaganda.

I don't know... That's why I found V for Vendetta to be a beautiful movie. As well as Equilibrium, or The Matrix trilogy, or movies like Hotel Rwanda. They all tell a part of the "Who we are?"-story, in their own way.
BTW, I realize that movies based on real events may not entirely portray those events in a way they ought to - for one reason or another (political factors can make the most recent history appear murky), so I like when a movie concentrates on the story of it's characters instead.
What really scared me a long time ago was I as in Icarus (I... comme Icare). When the movie was released in Germany I was 16, but I saw it on TV so I was certainly yet a bit older. But though I was aware that the movie was fictious (telling a real story in disguise, however), later in my memory I somehow mixed up the movie's reference to the Milgram experiment in a way that I thought what the "teacher" in the experiment has been told was real... Now that was scary...

BTW, what did not scare me really that much was The Fly (the original, of course ) that I saw when I was somewhat around 11.

One movie that comes to my mind right now, a movie that should have received more attention is The Road, a really oppressive postapocalyptic tale "of a man and his son trying to survive" in a barren world in which society as we know it no longer exists, and where trust has become a luxury that could cost you your life.
The title of that movie didn't ring something but your description did. But it hasn't been released in Germany before october last year and I'm sure I haven't seen it at the movie theatre. So I must have mixed that up with some other movie, probably Children of Men. The Road is definitely on a relatively high position on my to-watch-list now.

[About Equilibrium:] Awesome movie, seen it a while ago - not perfect, but really good nevertheless. Actually, I believe that, when you are able to look past some minor flaws because u feel that there's something positively substantial in the movie, some deep philosophy and/or statement coming from it's creators and giving essence to the audio-visual presentation on the surface - than it has to be a good one. This underlying structure doesn't even have to be the main point of the film, it can be expressed through many subtle details (that come from the director, the actors, from the other artists involved), and provide certain richness to the experience.
IMO this movie is basically made up of stylylistic and story elements from both 1984 and Fahrenheit 451, plus lots of stylistic aspects taken from The Matrix. ... and of course a good bit of extra spice added by Wimmer himself. But in the end it's the mixture that makes the movie so immersive. A good cook doesn't really create his ingredients himself either...

I guess that it's like that for a great deal of people, if not for most. Statistics are good for giving you the average, but other than that they tell you nothing... Movies aside, most people are too quick to just accept statistical results without ever questioning what they actually mean. It's dangerous to generalize them.
Now that reminds me to one of my (at least formerly) favorite quotes: I only believe in statistics that I doctored myself. I always thought that one was from some German polititian of the 60s or 70s, but I just found out that it actually has been long time misattributed to Winston Churchill and recent research make it look really likely that it's actually from Joseph Goebbels. (See http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Winston...#Misattributed.)

Back to IMDb, nice thing about their statistics is that u can click on the "XYZ votes" link and get a demographic breakdown (by age, by sex, by a rather coarse criterion of US/Non-US), so u can have some more insight. But again, this is nothing but a hint, and until you actually see the movie, you won't really know.
Wow, another nice feacture of IMDb that I didn't know yet! (Now I know why they disabled rating posts in Chit Chat. You otherwise would certainly have got one now... ) Also, I had been using IMDb for years until I realized that they have a message board...

BTW, since your wife loves musicals, and you love to laugh at her horror movie skills, then Sweeney Todd is perfect for you.
(Well, for us horror veterans, it's not really a horror movie (I mean, pick a horror movie and make everyone sing... Would it still be the same?)
I recently watched Jersey Girl and found the reference to Sweeny Todd (the musical, not the movie) quite funny (in particular the reaction of the headmistress...).

I have become a fan of Kevin Smith not too long ago and Jersey Girl really surprised me. Though it's even considered part of what is called New Jersey Filme in Germany (in the USA this seems to have a different meaning, but what I mean can be found under http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/View_Askewniverse) it is completely different from anything I have seen from this director before. However, it's just as good as the others I know.