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Horror

Scariest Movie #2 — The Shining

The Shining (1980, Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Scatman Crothers) Heeeeere’s Johnny!!! Quick Plot: A family spends a winter snowbound at an isolated hotel in the Colorado Rockies, where the father is driven insane by the many ghosts who roam the halls. He feels compelled to murder his mousy wife and vaguely psychic son. Scariest scene: Stanley Kubrick gives us plenty of creepy scenes, and Jack Nicholson’s psychopathic pursuit of Shelley Duvall is still — for better or worse — the standard bearer for all psychos-on-the-march portrayals. But for sheer shock value, nothing beats Jack sharing a smooch with a beautiful, […]

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Scariest Scary Movie #3 – The Silence of the Lambs

The Silence of the Lambs (1991, Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Scott Glenn) Hello Clarice. Quick Plot: Novice FBI trainee Clarice Starling must elicit clues to a serial killer’s identity from Dr. Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecter, a brilliant psychopathic murderer incarcerated in the State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. He offers obscure clues to the identity of “Buffalo Bill” in exchange for access to Agent Starling’s vulnerable mind and soul. Scariest Scenes: Dr. Lecter’s manipulation and psychological seduction of Agent Starling is a terrifying battle of wits. He casts a spell and plays dangerous games with her head, something more nightmarish […]

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Scariest Movie #4: John Carpenter’s “Halloween”

Halloween (1978, Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasence, PJ Soles) The Night HE Came Home! Quick Plot: 15 years after murdering his sister and her boyfriend, Michael Myers escapes Smith’s Grove Sanitarium and returns to Haddonfield to terrorize a group of babysitters on Halloween. Scariest Scene: Just as Laurie Strode thinks she has finally killed the bogeyman, the audience sees him slowly sit straight up, in the background. The haunting score and use of lighting on that mask, makes for the most suspenseful end-sequences in horror movie history. Final Say: Halloween erroneously gets lumped into the “slasher” genre. There is virtually […]

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Scariest Scary Movie #5 – Poltergeist

Poltergeist (1982, Craig T. Nelson, JoBeth Williams, Beatrice Straight) They’re here. Quick Plot: A nice suburban family lives in a haunted house. The spirits seem friendly initially, playing harmless pranks to the family’s amusement. But the pranks turn malicious and potentially dangerous, culminating in the abduction of the doll-like youngest child. As the family tries to rescue the little girl, with the help of parapsychologists and a clairvoyant, they realize the terrible truth about the poltergeists. Scariest Scenes: The face-peeling scene. Although the effects appear silly in a CG age, that scene is still freaky!! The scene where the clown […]

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THE FEARFUL FIVE! #19

Continuing our monthlong celebration of Halloween with various scary movie and TV-related lists. Check out our online movie database at staytunedmag.com to see if any of these or other scary titles are on this month. (Note: Videos contain graphic violence, disturbing images and language.) WACKED-OUT WOMEN: TOP 5 FEMALE MOVIE PSYCHOS Our last list looked at the top “mad men” in movies. But psychosis is an equal-opportunity offender, and the ladies can go off the deep end once in a while, too, as these notable films have shown us. “Sugar and spice and everything nice” is not part of the […]

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Scariest Movie #6 — “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre”

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974, Marilyn Burns, Allen Danziger, Gunnar Hansen) Who will survive, and what will be left of them? Quick plot: A group of teenagers having a grand old time road-tripping through Texas pick up a weird hitchhiker, who leads them to an isolated house where his deranged, cannibalistic family awaits. Among the clan is Leatherface, who wears a mask made of his victim’s skin. His preferred method of killing: chain saw. Scariest scene: That would have to involve the meat hook and the girl Leatherface hangs on it. Final say: Director Tobe Hooper, who would go […]

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Scariest Movie #7 — Seven

Seven (1995, Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow) Quick Plot: Jaded, noir-ish, ready-to-retire Det. Somerset is paired up with eager, cocky, newbie-with-a-short-fuse Det. Mills on what’s supposed to be Somerset’s last case with the force: A grotesquely obese man was found dead in his apartment after having been force-fed spaghetti until his stomach burst. But when Somerset finds the word “Gluttony” on the wall behind the man’s fridge and Mills finds the word “Greed” on the wall of a murdered D.A., it becomes apparent that the the killer is making a point and won’t stop until all Seven Deadly Sins […]

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Scariest Scary Movie #8 – Psycho

Psycho (1960, Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles) A boy’s best friend is his mother. Quick Plot: A desperate woman steals money and hides out at a lonely motel. After an off-putting conversation with the shy caretaker, she retires to her room where she is brutally murdered in the shower. A week later, her friends and family show up at the Bates motel, investigating her disappearance. The truth is one of the most shocking reveals in cinematic history. Scariest Scene: OOH!!! How can you pick!? The conversation Marion and Norman have in the room full of taxidermied birds is disturbing. […]

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THE FEARFUL FIVE! #18

Continuing our monthlong celebration of Halloween with various scary movie and TV-related lists. Check out our online movie database at staytunedmag.com to see if any of these or other scary titles are on this month. (Note: Videos contain graphic violence, disturbing images and language.) MAD MEN: TOP 5 MOST PSYCHO MOVIE PSYCHOS They’re intelligent, well-spoken, in some cases highly educated, successful and good-looking. Unfortunately — and sorry to throw scientific jargon at ya — they are wicky in the wacky woo. Therapy is going absolutely nowhere for these guys, so they need to unleash their tensions in some rather unhealthy […]

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Horror

THE FEARFUL FIVE! #17

Continuing our monthlong celebration of Halloween with various scary movie and TV-related lists. Check out our online movie database at staytunedmag.com to see if any of these or other scary titles are on this month. (Note: Videos may contain graphic violence, disturbing images and language.) DESTROYERS OF WORLDS: TOP 5 ATOMIC AGE MONSTERS As scientists in many a 1950s movie were determined to remind us, when we entered the Atomic Age, we created the potential for unknown horror. The world had already gotten a taste of some of that horror with the dropping of the A-bombs on Japan in 1945, […]