Is this movie at all scary?

It could be because Tobys dad died and left her mortgage payments. So she

had to take Evelyn as a housemate.

I seen "Play Misty For Me" way back in 1971 or 1972 when I was about 17 or 18 years old and I remember I was on the edge of my seat thru out nearly the entire movie.

This movie and "Last House On The Left" are like the original slasher/stalker type movies, or among the first, that were just so graphic and intense and in color and different from all the other movies that were out at the time. If memory serves, both movies came
out about the same time.

I bet if I seen both movies today as a 60 year old man, they would seem tame compared to when I seen them as a innocent and naive 17 or 18 year old kid in Muncie, Indiana.
I don't remember any other movies that had me on the edge of my seat and more difficult to watch than "Play Misty For Me" and "Last House on the Left.

It had me going when I saw it on TV in 1973.

Lots of filler and really dated, but I still watch it once a year.

It's obviously a YMMV situation, but I'm going to say yes.

I think it works in several ways, sometimes simultaneously. For one thing, the performance of Jessica Walter is a brilliantly deft combination of alluring, pathetic and terrifying. The clues about her mental disturbance pile up, and you find yourself wanting to shout Eastwood's Garver, "Stay the hell away from her!"

But you kind of like her. Even the reveal of the fact that she was "waiting for you" at the local restaurant seems endearingly earnest.

To be honest, I'd forgotten just how far it goes from there. I remembered the film being a sort of chauvinist cautionary tale with a shocking ending; in fact, the second half of the film is pretty relentless. A remarkable directorial debut.

Eastwood deserves credit as an actor here too -- he doesn't overplay his character's sense of powerlessness or paranoia. He does play frustration and bewilderment though, and quite well.

Of course it's Walter's show. It gets to a point in the movie where the very sight of her is actively distressing. And there are several jump scares for the ages peppered throughout.

I've never understood complaints about it being egregiously dated or slow -- but then I rarely understand such complaints.