Scary movies

[catherine at cator-manor.demon.co.uk]

One of the scariest movies of all time for me was the first making 
of "Invasion of the Bodysnatchers."  It wasn't the concept of aliens 
as such, but the psychological implications of knowing that everyone 
around you has subtley changed in a way that you can't actually 
pinpoint.  It absolutely terrified me that someone could change 
inwardly, though appearing the same on the outside, without knowing 
why, or even being able to explain what was different.  Also, when 
everyone gradually changes and you don't know who is going to be 
affected next - not knowing who your friends are and who you can rely 
on is also a very scary concept.

I heard that the original director of the film (can't remember the 
details) wanted to make the end of the film totally without help, 
with the movie-goer knowing that the alien pods were going to take 
over the whole world:  the first and last scenes when the main 
protagonist actually manages to get away and alert people of what is 
going on were supposed to have been omitted.  I wish they had been.

Not as in-your-face scary as many of the horror films, I admit - 
those which scare me are things such as "The Shining," when again 
Jack Nicholson is taken over/has a complete personality transplant, 
so in a way, it has a similar theme.  I wonder what the psychologists 
would make of this?

Catherine