I can understand people in 1973 saying it was the scariest movie they had ever seen at the time, but there are people who are into horror movies and weren't born at the time who say this. There are plenty of scarier movies than this. Most of them aren't very good, but they are scarier.
shareEvery one of these replies avoids the true answer. I have to wonder how many who replied know the real answer but push it aside, and how many really don’t know their own subconscious.
This is the scariest movie ever for many (most?) who see it partly because of the mood, way it’s filmed, slow realistic build, music, and good acting. Yes.
But the MAIN reason it’s so damned scary is that most of us fear, sub- or unconsciously at least, that this could really be true, that Evil, the devil, some form of invisible purely evil force could be all around us. Whether one is not religious, say agnostic, or even atheist, there’s always a doubt that the religion that’s surrounded us in our culture our whole life might be real. Even in people who don’t want to admit it to themselves!
I grew up in the 70’s but never saw this until I was home alone at about 20 years old….. and I couldn’t believe how much this frightened me when it was over! I was not at all religious at this point and I found “horror” movies just fun to laugh at and not scary.
After all it was just a movie, not real, why be scared! I’d laugh at people who got scared by a dumb movie.
So I thought about this one a lot and realized that even though I wasn’t religious there was a part of me that did actually 🤔 think, you know it could be true, after all what do we know about anything after death?
I had to admit to myself as I walked down a dark hallway scared silly that I never thought at 20 years old I’m gonna run into a monster or slasher or ghost…….but I couldn’t completely dismiss that I might run into a demon.
Personally I was more upset by Creepshow.
shareIt's scary to Christians I'd imagine. More of the country was black & white Christian in those days than now with the melting pot of religions we seem to have.
The reason it's scary is that it's the ultimate tangible evil from the Bible visiting that poor girl and her mother being put in a seemingly hopeless position on how to handle it.