I am a huge horror movie buff and my favourite type of horrors are ghost/haunted house films.So my question is - I can not recall seeing this movie and would like to know if this one is scary at all?It sure is scary for children (what movie isn`t) and maybe even teens but me being 26 and after watching hundreds and hundreds of horrors - is it worth seeing ???
shareIt's worth seeing, but no it isn't scary for an adult. It scares the hell out of little children.
The movie is honestly about an older sister protecting the younger sister and bringing another girl home to her mother. Being a girl and an older sister I loved this movie.
I remember watching this when i was a kid and was scared out of my mind after seeing it.
sharethis flick made my brother so scared of mirrors that he would not put one in his room. even to this day (almost 20 years later) he still puts a blanket over his mirror in his apartment at night. haha!
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Yeah, this movie and "Poltergeist III" ruined mirrors for me for a while. lol
"If we're going to die, let's die looking like a Peruvian folk band."
I remember seeing it when i was around 4 or 5 and couldn't sleep for a week. Haven't seen it since.
shareThanks ...
shareI used to watch it as a child (about 7 years old), and absolutely loved it, but could only watch it during the day or I would get scared. I'm 18 now and I STILL can't watch it alone!
shareI watched this movie allthe time as a kid, and I remember being scared crapless. I haven't seen it in years, but thinking about I still get shivers (and I'm 20). For kids, scary; for adults, not so much; for adults who saw this movie as kids...yeah, still pretty damn scary.
shareAfter seeing this film as a six year old I needed all mirrors removed from my bedroom and slept with the light on for FOUR YEARS!!
I was unsure if the movie was truly scary or if I was just a big 'pee pee pants'.
So I tracked it down and saw it again for the first time in 24 years. The apparition of Karen is still very chilling but the acting is just so forced it destroys any dramatic tension.
Excepting Bette Davis of course, everyone smells distinctly of ham.
I would recommend it though. It is certainly an oddity, a horror movie made for childeren by Disney.
My brother is21 and got scared...
Ever notice at the end of the very first Smallville Lana looks dead?
Superrmann38
I remember when I watched it the first time on TV when I was about 12 years old and I honestly was not scared, of course the whole time I muttered "It's not real....It's not real" and after I saw the ending I wasn't scared at all and anxiously waited for it to come on again.
Hits high on my list of favorite movies.
"We often fear the thing we want most"
I saw this movie at a slumber party when I was a little girl and it scared the hell out of me. I don't remember too much about it, but I distinctly recall the scene where the girl wrote the name of the dog in the frosted window, and whoever was outside saw that although she wrote Narek, the dogs name, it spelled Karen when viewing from the outside! Now THAT is enough to give a girl nightmares.
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I saw this movie many times as a kid and now 20 years later , thinking about it it still scares the living hell out of me. When the disappeared girl appears in mirrors and stuff. creepy as hell.
shareIt isa film I remember vividly 18 years later or so. Not the finer details but the fact that I couldn't sleep for mnths, couldn't look in a mirror without lights being on etc. I also couldn't remember the title and found it by typing 'Girl, Nerak, bell, mirror film' in google. It's amazing what an effect this has/ has had on people. I don't know one person who saw it as a kid who wasn't scared s***less by it. I have not watched it as an adult because I still find my heart pounding thinking about it now and don't want to spoil the bit of my 'youthful fear' I have left. But on the other hand I'm so curious. Besides, i read murder/ thriller books and find it hard at 26 to walk into a room without thinking there's a murderer in the corner so maybe I would be a 'pee pee pants' about it now!!
If at first you don't succeed then Bungie Jumping isn't for you...
LMAO! You can't look at mirrors in the dark anymore either? Damn, this was by far the scariest movie ever as far as after-effects for me. Worse than What Lies Beneath! Any movie that features mirrors (the upcoming Skeleton Key) I refuse to watch.
shareI'm 21 And I Still Get Chill Bumps From Some Of The Scenes In This Movie! I've Always Loved "Scary" Movies And This One Is At The Top Of My List! I Guess It Really Depends On What You Consider To Be "Scary", Killers In Masks Chopping People Up And Tons Of Blood Does Absolutly Nothing For Me, It's The Unexplained Supernatural Phenomenon That Peaks My Interest And Gives Me The Creeps! But To Each His(Or Her)Own!
shareok, i can see how children would get the bejesus scared out of them after seeing this, but it's so weird to me that adults would find this movie scary. it's just laughable.
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lol, speak for yourself. My sister and a few friends and I rented this movie a few years ago because we thought it would be a hoot to watch a silly movie that scared us as kids. To our surprise, it still gave us the major creeps! (Although it certainly didn't terrify us.) Maybe part of that was the memories, though.
That part with Karen in the funhouse mirrors seriously *beep* with me...
"If we're going to die, let's die looking like a Peruvian folk band."
So this is the movie that got me afraid of mirrors? I loved this movie when I was little and it scared the life out of me. I'm 18 now and I hate looking in mirrors at night. I don't even have a mirror in my room anymore. Well, no now I know where my fear comes from. It's funny how many people this affected.
Satan is in the house. He killed my mom... and turned her into a bull.
The sisters had adjoining rooms and the scene that's freaking my out right now remembering it is when they're sleeping and Jan wakes up to Ellie talking in her sleep, but...NO -- Ellie says Jan was talking in her sleep. OH CRAP!!!
And the scene at the end during the eclipse when Ellie starts talking in that deep man's voice! SQUEAL! Great...there'll be no sleeping tonight.
Haha! That part when Ellie starts talking in the "watcher" voice scared the piss out of my sister too.
"If we're going to die, let's die looking like a Peruvian folk band."
definitely: NO
i bought it because of all the high ratings in the reviews, and was expecting a creepy little ghost movie or something like that.
let me tell you: THIS IS A CHILDREN'S MOVIE!
i really don't understand how adults can seriously consider this a creepy movie,
all the acting, the dialogues and the spooky scenes are made FOR KIDS...
very disappointing...
As someone of 22 I haven't a clue what you are talking about. This movie is not all that scary to me, true (but then I have seen so many horror films and whatnot that no movie has scared me since I was 12 years old, and I have seen A LOT of horror films) but it isn't for kids. I guess this is the kind of movie that'd appeal to anyone in their beginning teens, any younger and I'd say prepare for the nightmares they'd have. (I first saw it when I was 8 and it scared the CRAP outta me, I only just saw it again, and there are moments that caused me to jump, not necesarilly spooked me out, but there are a bunch of times I DID get a little jump in my heart. The drowning sequance for one)
This movie is VERY classically made. Which is why I like it. If you consider this a "kids" film than I guess you find all the really old spooky ghost movies "for kids" as it is made in that sorta vein.
I tempt you to show this to a bunch of "kids" as you say it is for, I hope you are fully prepared for them clinging to you for weeks as I did to my mother when I was 8.
Will it really scare someone over the age of 12? No. But then, what the heck DOES at that point to a lot of people? Esspecially horror fans or spooky movie fans? You've seen so many it takes soooo much to do that. I have one friend of the same age as me who gets REALLY whigged over the Harry Potter movies (she's... odd and takes some things WAY to heart) and I would NEVER let her watch this movie, it'd scare the pants off of her.
And I don't know what you mean about the dialauge and the acting, Bette Davis is FABULOUS and, yeah, the main girl is a little wierd acting-wise, but weren't A LOT of actresses like that in those movies in the late 70's/early 80's? And the dialauge didn't seem to "kiddish" esspecially by Disney standards. I mean, see some of the crap Disney shills out nowadays? It makes this stuff sound like SHAKESPEARE.
And the reason we take it seriously is because it really IS well-made. The cinematography, the direction, and the spooks really ARE there is a very classical way.
I think you have been spoiled on the films of the now, where everything is super quick and self-reflecting.
"I regret that I have but one life to give to rock and roll!"
- Rock and Roll High School
I wasn't alive yet in 1981, I was born nearly six years after the film came out and never even heard of it until after my parents divorced in 1999. I think I was either 13 or 14 when I first saw in (2000/2001) and I almost watched in the dark, but was too chicken. Even in the daylight, this movie was scary to me (but then again, you're talking to the girl who got nightmares from Eureeka's Castle Halloween Special at the age of five and the Clueless Scream Murray Scream miniseries at the age of 13/14.) I'm 18 now (almost 19) and I've made it a tradition to borrow this from the library because the cover they had was WAY creepier than the one from Total Entertainment Center. But now some stupid idiot lost that copy and now I have to rent it from TEC (or miraculously find it on a P2P site or in the store or something like that.)
So, I'm ready to watch it in the dark this year (can't remember if I did last year.) If you watch it, enjoy!
Hey reeknydra, i didnt know someone besides me rembered Eureekas castle!
yea, this movie's good and Bette is fab but not for kids under 9.
Or me..who's way over 9 and cant watch it in the day either lol
what sort of animal is the watcher supposed to be? yeas its an alien but is it a batlike alien or what? i don't get it, frankly.
I hated seeing the deleted scenes on the dvd. Seeing that creature ruined a little bit of the nostalgia for me -- or tainted it a tiny bit. I liked not having any idea what in the world The Watcher was.
shareno - most likely will not scare you if its 1st time seeing it.. but for those - like me - who remember seeing it when they were young, yes - we remember being scared witless by this film... i remember watching it with my neighbors oldest daughter , when i was 12ysh and her maybe 16ish and after the movie we were both frightened.. also remember watching it when i was older with mom and grandparents at grandparens house which was sort of situate like the house in the movie- woodsy area out back in very small neighboorhood and mom and i saying something to grandpa about it. he got a little scared next morning getting newspaper with the wind blowing
shareIt loses its punch because of the pacing & seeing all the alternate endings. It's best at spooks, thrills, & chills if you watch it the first time with the ending on it that hit the theaters, not chessy alien or spacecraft of the other 2. I'd make the pacing of the movie be a just bit quicker & the movie'd improve by leaps & bounds. The movie is mainly meant for teens, as it's not a blood & gore fest, but still atmospheric enough to be scary for teens.
If I had not have watched this as a child, I think I would still find it creepy. It has an eerie feel to it.
shareThis scared the living crap out of me when I was a child watching it. I haven't watched it since I was in my early teens but I plan on watching it this week or weekend coming up. Looking very foward to it.
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