The most terrifying thing you've ever watched (or read)?

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This is only seven minutes long, but I think it qualifies:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntT-OYaZFo0[/youtube]

I remember when I first started watching R rated horror films. And the first one I saw the first few minutes of and walked the heck out. I know the scene wasn't very realistic, but seeing the girl in the opening of Scream scared and disturbed the crap out of me. That's nothing to me now. Still a little disturbing, but nothing really scares me much anymore.

Another time years ago, and I don't know if this still exists on the net or even if i'm getting the name right, but I think it was called the four surgeons or doctors of the apocalypse. VERY DISTURBING!

Anymore now, I'm only scared by (go ahead and laugh) realism horror flicks like Blair Witch or Paranormal Activity. Movies where you don't see the thing that's after them and just show signs of things that just should not exist. That's what frightens me. AND I love it!

Also the first time I saw the original "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" scared me a little bit. Creepy. I'm just sort of drawn to old obscure movies, too. H G Lewis gore flicks. There's one movie I saw that was freaky and wasn't released till the early 70s and that was called "I Drink Your Blood." Actually, I think the trailer was the worst part. The voice narrating everything.

28 Days Later
A low-budget British horror flim from 2002. The idea is about a virus (referred to as the "Rage virus"), which when contracted, causes the person to go absolutely insane and constantly vomit blood. Most infected tend to recklessly attack and infect other people by biting. And the virus spreads so easily. It's basically a super-mega-ultra version of rabies. And it gets out in Britain, and spreads uncontrollably among the British population. The whole country turns to crap, as most people die.

The idea of that was, for me, a lot scarier than the film. I had a nightmare about it 5 months before I ever actually saw the film. It scared me mostly because of how realistic that idea is.

Stephen King's N. I could not finish it. For you aspiring head shrinkers out there, it perfectly captures the feelings of a severe episode of OCD. Way too familiar.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0O8ravhAdrE[/youtube]
I remember watching this and not being able to sleep for 3 nights.

Difficult to say. I haven't been properly terrified in quite some time. I don't go to see gory horror movies any more. I find the gore disgusting. There are scenes in Schindler's List that are terrifying to me regarding the Nazi death camps.

I used to purposefully scare the bejesus out of myself for as long as i could by watching scary movies as a kid. Thriller was scary as crap at five. I remember getting really scared after watching an american werewolf in london when i was about 7. I watched anything scary i could get my hands on with the eventual result that i cant actually be scared by movies any more. They occasionally make me jump but scared, never.

Possibly George Orwell's "1984." That book is just so horrifying, I can't imagine being in that world and losing so much that we take for granted now.

I think horror can be very effective in short story form. The scariest short stories I've read are:

Jerome Bixby: "It’s a Good Life"
Joseph Payne Brennan: "Canavan’s Back Yard"
Robert A. Heinlein: "The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag"
Anthony Gilbert: "Sleep Is the Enemy"
Stephen King: "The Jaunt"
H.P. Lovecraft: "The Thing on the Doorstep"
H.G. Wells: "The Story of the Late Mr. Elvesham"

I don't like to read fiction books but I am partial to the occasional film. I don't think that I can pick out something that has truly terrified me as things stand presently. My idea of being terrified is experiencing a deep sense of inner torment for sometime after the event. More often than not, I'll watch a film with horrific content, go to bed, wake up and recall that I dreamt that I was parading on horseback through the London Stock Exchange dressed as the KFC Colonel or something entirely unrelated. Also, I find that with films of sustained and unrelenting graphic content I seem to desensitise from the notion-in-reality of the displayed content. For example I might initially be shocked by a casual early-film knifing only to find the observable removal of a victims spinal cord later on in the film about as horrifying as being pitched against a hoofless buffalo in a plug wiring contest.

If I were to give a recent example of a film that I watched which contained some rather graphic scenes I would have to say 'Martyrs'. I watched this on Saturday. It is a rather controversial French mystery horror film which lasts for about an hour and a half. It is about a girl (Girl 1) who escapes from an old abbatoir as a child where she has been suffering horrendous physical abuse for some time, on her escape she comes across another girl shackled and chained with a metal helmet nailed into her head. She apologises to this girl and makes a hasty exit. She then ends up at an orphanage where she meets and befriends a young female (Girl 2). 15 years later Girl 1 turns up at a house and interrupts a family enjoying a cheerful breakfast meal by blasting the entire family with a shotgun (the parents she believes as her abusers all those years ago). Girl 2 as Girl 1's friend goes to the house to help her dispose of the bodies. Girl 2 discovers one of the bodies is still alive. Believing that Girl 1 is truly insane she tries to help. Girl 1 sees that this lady is still alive and mercilessly bludgeons her head into the ground with a hammer. Girl 1 continues to be haunted by a bloodied, naked and emaciated figure which eventually becomes too much for her to handle so after smashing her own head against the wall she slits her throat. Upon Girl 1's suicide, Girl 2 discovers a basement where she is amazed to find the emaciated figure chained up. This figure being the embodiment of the figment of Girl 1's imagination (the girl who she left there all those years ago). She tries to help her but is then visited at the house by a group of fanatics who are followers of a martydom cult and subsequently collaborators in their related activities. They kill the emaciated girl and capture Girl 2. The clan leader (a sinister old French woman named 'Madamoiselle' shows girl 2 pictures of torture scenes throughout world history and explain to her that the people in the pictures are rare examples of martyrs who have been able to endure unimaginable stages of torture to the point of a transcendental and euphoric state. This is what they are looking for in their prisoners. Girl 2 is then tied up, force-fed and beaten for a sustained period leading to the onset of a delerious state. This then leads to an auditory hallucination where Girl 1 tells her not to be scared anymore. Girl 2 passes to the last stage of torture where she is told that suffering will stop and that she will enter this life-surpassing transcendental state. She is locked to a metal device and surgically skinned alive. Madamoiselle visits Girl 2, heeds her magical facial expression and sits beside her flayed muscle-exposed body and asks about Girl 2's experience. Girl 2 whispers into her ear. Madamoiselle is amazed that Girl 2 has been martyred. Madamoiselle calls a meeting with all other votaries of the cult. She explains that someone has been martyred. An enquiring follower asks more about Girl 2's account of her experience. Madamoiselle asks if he can imagine what is beyond death before placing a pistol in her throat and shooting herself.

Ah, guess that's a bit of a spoiler there really . . .

Megan Is Missing. It's a Fictional drama based on actual events, about 2 teen-age girls who encounter an internet predator. A powerful, important film that deserves both attention and discussion. It should serve as a wake-up call for parents everywhere." ...It made me cry, I was shocked but mostly terrified.

Love, Love, Love horror movies!! The Ring is one of the newest ones. The girl in the closet is very creepy.

One that I still have trouble watching is Karen Black's "Trilogy of Terror" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073820/) and the devil doll. I still can't watch it without my heart pounding in my head. Most people laugh at it.

"Don't Be Afraid of the Dark" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069992/) was another one. I guess I have a fear of very little people coming to get me. LOL