Truly scary stuff

"Peeping Tom" (1960)

Before Tony Soprano, "Halloween's" Mike Meyers or even "Psycho's" Norman Bates, there was Mark Lewis -- a deeply disturbed camera operator who kills on film. Lewis was one of the first movie murderers to be portrayed with empathy. Yet he never earned the campy, iconic status of Norman Bates. One reason may be Powell's creepily smart camera work, which manages to implicate us in the voyeurism of filmmaking. Powell also integrates sequences of a documentary made by Mark's father, a scientist who used his son in his experiments. I'm not sure which is harder to sit through: scenes of Mark as a child whimpering in his bed as his father's shadow looms over him, or the coldly clinical sequences of a grown-up Mark calmly photographing the glazed expression of victims forced to witness their own deaths in a mirror affixed to the killer's camera. What makes this film so frightening is that you experience the achingly lonely and cold heart of a killer. When I saw this film for the first time as a cynical 15-year-old, I finally learned that there are limits to perversity.

-- Adrienne Crew

"A Nightmare on Elm Street" (1984)

The scariest parts of the original "A Nightmare on Elm Street" have nothing to do with Freddy Krueger's gruesome appearance, director Wes Craven's love affair with projectile blood and gore or even the idea of a villain who haunts teenagers' dreams. It's the unclear distinction between sleep and wakefulness that really set me on edge -- the scenes in which neither the viewer nor the character knows whether they're awake or asleep. Nancy dozes off in class, for example, then she seems to come to just in the nick of time. Or does she? Is she only dreaming she's awake? No one can be sure until Freddy appears. And nearly every time, Krueger does just that, leading us through a nightmarish chase scene followed by wakefulness that we've already learned to distrust. Each Freddy episode leads the characters to more exhaustion, which leads to an even greater desire to fall asleep, which means more Freddy, more running, more blood, more trying to figure out what's real, what's a dream, who's alive, who's dead. Yikes. Not even the movie's asinine sequel-ready ending -- nor Craven's juvenile slasher style -- can keep "Nightmare on Elm Street" from giving me chills.

-- Damien Cave

"Hush," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (1999)

There are plenty of movies and TV shows that can give you nightmares after the fact. The creepiest thing about the Gentlemen, who take over Sunnydale in "Hush," is that they seem like figures we've already met before, on the far side of the wall of sleep. These mute, grinning, dapperly dressed skeleton-like figures glide on air like wheeled mannequins; they've come to Sunnydale to first steal the voices of the townspeople, and then to extract a few hearts from their victims. Written and directed by series creator Joss Whedon, "Hush" -- which is without dialogue for almost the entire hour -- scans just like one of those listless dreams in which you try to scream, and can't. Everybody's had 'em -- and yet the way the eerie quiet of "Hush" sucks you in, you feel as if the experience is privately, and unequivocally, your own.

-- Stephanie Zacharek

"Rosemary's Baby" (1968)

There are witches and herbal spells and a hairy, red-eyed monster in "Rosemary's Baby," but those things really have nothing to do with why Roman Polanski's classic makes you itch with uneasiness and dread. This story of a newly pregnant young woman (Mia Farrow) and a coven of Upper West Side witches unfolds with such steadily increasing terror that even when Rosemary's wretched husband, Guy (John Cassavetes), criticizes her new haircut, his words seem to drip with corrosive evil and pending doom. Yet it's what's unseen -- or the mere thought of it -- that chilled me most. The film is mostly set in an apartment as bright and sun-drenched as Rosemary herself; instead, it's what's growing inside her, beneath those pastel frocks, where darkness and evil lives. We never get a look at the thing but when Rosemary peers into the black-sheathed cradle for the first time, the look on her face tells us more than we need to know.

-- Suzy Hansen

"One Step Beyond" (1959-61)

As with most children, I'd imagine, I was scared to death of clowns. So I was a sucker for an episode of the old horror TV series "One Step Beyond" about a jealous lout who strangles his girlfriend one night at a carnival with a mute clown as the only witness. Fleeing the scene of the crime, the killer keeps running into mirrors -- in shop windows, barrooms, his car. And in each he sees the reflection of the clown, his face contorted in rage as it reaches forward to strangle him. Of course, when he turns around there's nothing there. After fraying your nerves for a half-hour, the show ends on a quiet note that turned my young blood to ice water. I remember going out for ice cream with my family immediately after it aired and spending the entire car ride turned around talking to my mother and aunt in the back seat. No way was I not going to know what was coming up behind me.

-- Charles Taylor

"Black Sunday" ("La Maschera de demonio") (1960)

It's natural to flinch at the thought of a sharp object headed for an eye. Luis Buñuel's "Un Chien Andalou" featured a razor slicing an eyeball, and dozens of directors have exploited the image. Italian horror maestro Mario Bava tapped for his films a similar fear and delivered cinematic concerts of anticipated pain. His best film, "Black Sunday," starring Barbara Steele, makes the most of aichmophobia. The movie opens with one of the goriest scenes in film: 18th-century jailers hammer a metal mask with long, sharp spikes coating its interior onto the beautiful face of a witch named Asa. (The DVD version of the film features a longer shot of the poor woman, with blood spurting out from behind the mask.) Centuries later, the reanimated corpse of the witch takes her revenge on the ancestors of her foes. Unfortunately, the rest of the film doesn't live up to its killer opening, but still delivers short, sharp shocks. I still can't bear to look at photographs of the film.

-- Adrienne Crew

Episode 30, "Twin Peaks" (1991)

Whether David Lynch's "Twin Peaks" is the best serial to ever air on network television is up for debate. That its final episode is the weirdest hour is not. Seen by some as a giant fuck you to the network that had canceled the show after two seasons, the Lynch-directed 30th installment killed off beloved characters, ventured to alternate planes of reality and brought back two of the show's signature characters: the dancing midget and the bellhop giant. In the worst moment of all, the show's hero, Agent Dale Cooper, ends up possessed by the leering, greasy-haired transmigrating spirit killer BOB.

To me, the most horrifying things are always slightly incomprehensible -- and there are lots of mysteries here. How come Laura's eyes are blank? Does Coop get lost in the Red Room because he finally succumbs to fear? How frightening -- how horrible -- is that? If we believe the network, "Twin Peaks" fans were the only people watching the show at the end. But I imagine that at least a few people stumbled across the last episode. The only thing that displaces my own dread is imagining someone for the first time coming across the disorienting plot and all those unsettling Lynchian tricks -- strobe lights, backward talking, humming sound design and the haunting voice of blues singer Jimmy Scott. How confusing. How scary.

-- Jeff Stark

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